So, I got my first HRT prescription and you know, for funsies, I read the clinical studies paperwork that came with it. And honestly, I was surprised that so much came out of this study, and that the numbers were so small to have caused such an uproar and have left women without hormonal support for so long.
I am no researcher, but I do like research, so this may be off as statistics class was a long time ago (if you see an error here, please let me know).
So let’s take a look at the study that kicked this off, Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: submitted to The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2002
It was a randomized controlled primary prevention trial:
Original Plan:

• · 16,608 women over 8.5 years
• · Ages: 50-79
• · Mean age: 63
• · 83.9% white
• · 6.5% black
• · 5.5% Hispanic
• · Prior hormone use: 73.9% never
• · 89.9% pregnant at least once

However, the research ended early, 4 years later with 15,576 women still participating.
Outcomes:
Cardiovascular Disease:
Cardiovascular disease: 164 on protocol vs. 122 placebo out of 15,576 women. The total percentage of women who experienced cardiovascular disease in the study was approximately 1.84%
So, approximately 1.05% of women on the protocol (HRT) experienced cardiovascular disease, while approximately 0.78% of women on placebo experienced cardiovascular disease.
The percentage difference between the percentage of women who experienced cardiovascular disease on the protocol (HRT) and placebo is 0.27%.
…
Stroke:
Stroke 127 vs 85 out of 15,576 women
The overall percentage of women who experienced stroke in the study was approximately 1.36%. Approximately 0.815% of women on the protocol (HRT) experienced stroke, while approximately 0.546% of women on placebo experienced stroke.
The difference in percentage between the protocol (HRT) and placebo groups was approximately 0.269%. Approximately 0.23% of women had strokes during the study period.
The baseline risk of stroke for women who do not use HRT is 1%, using HRT might increase that risk to somewhere between 1.2% and 1.5%.
To give you a sense of perspective, compare these numbers to the study, Cigarette Smoking and Risk of Stroke in Middle-Aged Women which examined the incidence of stroke in relation to cigarette smoking in a prospective cohort study of 118,539 women 30 to 55 years of age and free from coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
Compared to non-smokers, women who smoked 1 to 14 cigarettes per day had their risk of stroke increased by approximately 120%, and women who smoked 25 or more cigarettes per day had their risk increased by approximately 270%.
The baseline risk of stroke for women who do not smoke is 1%, but smoking 1 to 14 cigarettes per day might increase that risk to approximately 2.2%, and smoking 25 or more cigarettes per day might increase it to around 3.7%
Yet we can buy a pack of cigarettes over the counter, no questions asked, and totally legal!
…
I ran out of time today to make comparative research analysis on risks, so the rest are just a comparison within the same 2002 study.
...
Venous thromboembolic disease:
151 vs. 67 out of 15,576 women
The overall percentage of women who experienced venous thromboembolic disease (VTE) in the study was approximately 1.40%.
Approximately 0.970% of women on the protocol (HRT) experienced VTE, while approximately 0.430% of women on placebo experienced VTE.
The difference in percentage between the protocol (HRT) and placebo groups was approximately 0.540%.
...
Invasive Breast Cancer:
166 on protocol vs. 124 placebo out of 15,576 women
The overall percentage of women who experienced stroke in the study was approximately 1.86%.
Approximately 1.07% of women on the protocol (HRT) experienced stroke, while approximately 0.80% of women on placebo experienced stroke.
The difference in percentage between the protocol (HRT) and placebo groups was approximately 0.27%.
…
You may have a different opinion on this, but these numbers are EXCEEDINGLY low to have caused such an impact. And, the study has some real issues that need to be considered:

• · Lack of diversity
• · Did not test for under 50 or perimenopausal
• · One 1 protocol
• · One oral route of transmission
• · Two meds at one time meaning unable to determine which was doing what
• · Study ended 4 years early
• · High rate of drop outs during study

...
And, in my research today, I stumbled across this interesting anecdote:
The Women’s Health Initiative; HRT and Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Data
Submitted to the journal Cancer in 2020

SEER*stat 8.3.6 is a statistical tool used to analyze cancer data. In this study, researchers looked at the rates of invasive breast cancer from 1992 to 2014, focusing on different groups of women.
They found that for White women under 80 years old who have Medicare insurance, the rates of breast cancer started to decrease before the year 2000, possibly even as early as 1992. This suggests that something other than a particular medical finding in 2001 (called the WHI publication) might have influenced the decline in breast cancer rates among these women.
The study also talks about how changes in population demographics, like people living longer, can affect how we interpret cancer rates. The researchers mention that adjusting for age over a long period of time might make it seem like cancer rates have increased among Black women over 40 years. However, their analysis shows that this isn't true, and in fact, breast cancer rates among Black women have been rapidly declining since 2012.
Another point discussed is hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a treatment used to relieve symptoms of menopause. A separate study found that there were significant decreases in the number of HRT prescriptions for women over 50 years old during certain time periods. Despite this decrease, there wasn't a clear link between HRT and breast cancer rates.
In summary, the findings suggest that factors other than hormone replacement therapy may be influencing breast cancer rates, and there may be more to understand about the trends in breast cancer among different groups of women.
I wrote this out and tried to put it in layman’s terms because I see still a persistent concern about whether HRT is right for us based on earlier research. I sought to put this out in this way with actual numbers that might help others have a truly informed opinion, and hey, perhaps you can show this to your health provider because it does make you wonder-do actually read the research forming the basis of their opinions?
Again, I do not work in a lab, or do science for work or anything like that, so if you see a mistake, or have something to add, I would love to hear it!

I (20m) am Indian American and have a friend (20f) who is also Indian American. She is quite good looking, but she complains that she can’t get a “hot white guy” to date her. Her white friends are similar to her in terms of “level” of looks, but they find it easy to find these athletic white guys to date.
The thing is, that she has openly said she refuses to date Indian guys and only wants a white guy. She was complaining to me recently and honestly I’ve gotten a bit tired of it, so I just told her “maybe they don’t want you”. This caused her to get very upset and call me AH
Now I’m not one of those Indian guys who hates on Indian girls QTE wants her to only date Indians… but it strikes me as weird that she is just completely not willing to date any other non white ethnicity. She has no interest in East Asian, Hispanic or black guys (many of whom have shown interest in her). She just wants white.
Her friends also called me AH but honestly I’m just calling it how it is. AITAH?

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”

Ruby groaned as the alarm went off signaling that one of her charges had arrived back from their mission. While troublesome in its own right, what really got under her skin was that she only had one charge at the moment, and that edge lord piece of shit wasn’t supposed to complete his task for AT LEAST another 4 deca-cycles according to the prediction algorithm. Grumbling to herself, she rolled out of bed and poured herself a glass of water to offset the hangover she was trying to recover from.

A few moments later she was gliding down the hall to the meeting room. She knew Jason was going to pitch a fit that she had left him waiting, the self-entitled brat always did think the world revolved around him; but perhaps he should have thought about that before freaking dying so early. If he wanted her to be there to meet him upon death, he could at least have the decency to not die the morning after one of her binges.

Other staff members gave her a wide berth, even if it was a hollow title, she was still technically far above basically anyone else in the pecking order, at least those who had a physical presence within the Agency. She knew they all mocked her behind her back, even divine beings were sadly prone towards gossip. She put the anger at her subordinates/coworkers out of her mind for now; even if she didn’t particularly LIKE Jason, he still didn’t deserve her coming in with baggage.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that she’d arrived in front of the conference room door. She had been mulling over her thoughts, just staring into nothingness, for several minutes before she finally snapped back to the present. With a soft rap on the door, she opened it and floated inside. Jason was lounging, sprawled out on the regally padded chair throne he so fancied.

They exchanged pleasantries before she sat down to go over the mission summary. Upon seeing the cause of death, she had regrettably lost her composure and started to laugh uncontrollably. Her mighty subordinate had been felled by a goblin?! The mighty Jason Alexander Coyle, “mercenary extraordinaire”, had gotten his shit kicked in by a lowly goblin using what looked like a shiny butter knife. Oh, it was just too rich to not laugh at the absurdity.

It took her much longer than she would like to admit, to stop laughing. Jason of course wore a sour look through the entire endeavor. She shrugged it off, she had little doubt that if the same thing had happened to someone else, he would have been right beside her doubled over in laughter. Hell, once he was in a less pissy mood, she might even be able to get him to laugh about it later.

As luck would have it, it appeared that Jason’s actions had been enough to alter the tides of the war. The kingdom, and its divinity, would still lose many to the battles ahead, but Jason had done enough that the Agency could still bill the client for services rendered. As she spoke, she could see the disdain the man had for her, he always complained that she was drunk and reeked of liquor. Sure, that was often true, but he didn’t need to be such a stick in the mud about it all.

She went ahead and authorized the transfer of credits to Jason’s account. As soon as she did so, he opened up the store page and tuned her out. She watched him open up the back-channel site and purchase something, a small part of her wondered who was going to get roasted over the coals this time for allowing their admin privileges to be hacked. She toyed with the idea of bringing up his illegal actions, but truth be told she didn’t really give a shit. The other divinities were far too lax with their security, it had been child's play for one of her previous wards to hack into the Agency’s system and build the black site.

She’d ask him once about the whole thing, didn’t really grasp as much as she would have liked, but basically it functioned by spoofing a handler's credentials. This allowed the user to gain access to encrypted parts of the network, specifically access to certain privileged services that handlers enjoyed and most importantly, access to the mission assignment database. Users could buy and sell restricted or banned goods, and a part of the profits would be siphoned off to her ward’s personal account.

With Jason’s attention otherwise occupied, Ruby went ahead and reviewed the logs for his previous mission. Something about it was nagging at her. She couldn’t put it into words; however, the whole series of events just didn’t feel like ‘bad luck’. Using her divine authority, she rewound events, watching Jason’s lungs unfill with blood and refill with air.

The goblin skulked back to its den of corpses, resheathing the dagger at its hips, and reburied itself underneath the bodies. She let it rewind another few moments before stopping the feed and letting it run at normal time. She watched the goblin, slowly shifting the bodies out of the way, making sure they made no noise when it moved them. Slowly, carefully, it began to creep towards Jason’s exposed back. It drew the blade, again slowly and quietly. It closed the distance making sure to never let Jason see it or to give him any reason to think someone was behind him. Then in a flash of movement it leapt, burying the dagger right into a joint in Jason’s armor. The placement was perfect, no resistance, so the blade sank to the hilt. Allowing it to puncture Jason’s right lung.

Ruby rewound the log once more. This was wrong, very wrong. The goblin was way too good to just be some random grunt. Its movements were too smooth, its aim too precise. No, she was sure of it now, this was not a normal goblin. She focused her attention on the thing, aiming to scan the goblin for abnormalities, the dust covering it offering a surprising level of resistance to her scan. Not enough to stop her from doing what she wanted, but more resistance than she felt was reasonable for the anti-magic powder.

When she finally gained access to the monster’s stat block, her suspicions were proven correct. That was no normal goblin, that was a Redcap, a Redcap assassin no less. What in the dozen hells was a Redcap assassin doing in the middle of a freaking battlefield?! Such a valuable unit wouldn’t be used on the front lines, their skill set was terribly suited for the chaos that was an active battle. No, something was very wrong here and Ruby was going to figure out what.

As her mind raced trying to puzzle out what the actual fuck was going on, something else about the goblin flagged in her mind. It had come out of the corpse pile with the dagger already in its possession. She highlighted the various bodies that had made up the goblin's hidey hole, and then rewound the scene back. Every time one of the highlighted bodies met their fate, she froze the moment and pulled the scene into a separate window. It took a few minutes, but she eventually had all of the corpses frozen in the heartbeat before their deaths. She went through and scanned every single individual. Not a single one had been equipped with a magic disruptor blade. “So, where the fuck did the Redcap get a kingdom issued disruptor?”

Looking up, she saw that Jason was still fiddling with whatever it was that he bought. She tried to make idle conversation with the man, but he had gone full auto pilot, giving curt one-to-two word answers when asked a question or having to respond to a comment. She rolled her eyes, as much as she and him butted heads, she did have to admit that she did kind of like the guy. He had been going a little too hard into the whole dark and brooding edge lord thing recently, but that was hardly his fault. The human soul was ill suited to withstand the trauma of death, much less multiple deaths. The Agency usually did a memory scrub every couple missions, to prevent that kind of issue, but Jason had been dodging the screenings. For a moment she considered just letting sleeping dogs lie. Jason was dead and the mission was over regardless of what she might find, but the whole thing just rubbed her the wrong way.

Taking a little nip from her pocket flask, she once more focuses her attention on the Redcap. After scrubbing through the last several months of the creature’s life, she finally finds what she was looking for. The blade had come from one of Jason’s personal guards.

Ruby did a deep dive on the guard, and what came back made her blood run cold. The man had recently lost his lover. Jason had ordered a company to mop up a fleeing enemy force, before it could regroup and cause more issues. The entire thing had been a ruse and the company had been slaughtered to the last. The guard's lover had been part of that company. The loss had hit the man hard, driving him to the only rock left in his life. His deep belief in the kingdom’s divinity.

And wouldn’t you know it, apparently the kingdom’s divinity had some issues with Jason that it couldn’t be bothered to address through the proper channels. So instead of letting Ruby handle the trainwreck that was Jason’s social skills, this little scum lord of a God, had taken upon themself to deal with the issue. Several months of holy visions were enough to convince the grieving widow to betray everyone and everything he had ever known.

Once the guard had been properly brainwashed into turning his coat, it had been a simple matter to worm his way on to all of Jason’s post-fight surveys of the battlefield. The magic scanners that were exclusive to Jason’s retinue, had allowed him to see that Jason’s inhuman ability to avoid taking damage was really just a creative use of high-level magic. High-level magic that could have easily been used to save many of the kingdom’s soldiers. But of course, Jason believed himself too good to give the common man a means to protect themselves and those they loved. All this knowledge was of course worthless to the guard, he was nowhere near skilled enough to actually challenge Jason. But wouldn’t you know it, the divinity had thought of that too.

The podunk worm had brokered a secret deal with the enemy he’d contracted the Agency to deal with. In exchange for getting rid of a thorn in the God’s side, it would use its powers to scale back the war. Instead of facing a war of eradication, the enemy would be allowed to keep some of the land it had conquered.

At the urging of his God, the guard held a series of clandestine meetings with the Redcap. Imparting all the information he had learned in the months of shadowing Jason. He also gave the beast two gifts, the first was a Disruptor blade the guard had swiped from a fellow honor guard; when Jason’s corpse was found the blade would be traced back to the unfortunate guard instead of the traitor. The second was a satchel of Grarothian powder that had been blessed by the divinity, to ensure that Jason wouldn’t see the attack coming. It had worked of course; Jason hadn’t even known he was in danger till the blade was already buried in his lung. Oh, she was going to have the wannabe God’s head on a pike after this.

It pained her to admit it, but Jason deserved the final say in how this was all going to go down. She attempted to grab his attention, but the man was lost in his own little world. She tried waving her hands, ignored. She tried snapping her fingers in his ears, ignored. She even went so far as to beat her wings, blasting his face with the wind force of just under a category 1 hurricane; again ignored. Her rage was starting to reach fever pitch. So, she defaulted to the most tried and true method of stress reduction she had in her arsenal. She decided the only way for herself and Jason, once he knew the truth, to calm down would be to relax with a drink of the finest Earth treats.

With a heavy heart she opened up her most beloved extra planer storage space. This place was used for the only two things Ruby really cared about anymore. It was where she kept her most prized and coveted liquor, and where she kept the last few mementos, she possessed of her fallen wards. Her eyes scanned the room, she needed to pick the right apology gift. As she carefully made her way towards the back, she saw it. Tucked in about two thirds of the way to the back wall, stood a single hogshead of ancient scotch whiskey. The second to last gift she had received from one of her dearest friends, all those years ago.

Yes, this was the correct one. She felt it deep within her chest, a proper atonement requires a proper level of sacrifice. With a heavy heart she lifted the barrel over her head and began to stride out of the extra dimensional space. As she neared the opening, the soft clink of something falling and a flash of gold caught her eye. Sitting on a tiny end table was a small pouch of coins, one of which had somehow gotten loose and tumbled face up onto the polished table face.

For a moment she hesitated, she knew exactly what those coins were; and knew how much trouble she would get into if upper management found out she had them. That said, she also knew a sign when she saw one. The artifacts that she held within this place were the last remnants of those she had failed most of all. She pondered the meaning behind the fact that two of her previous charges seemed to have taken a shine to Jason, offering up to him their most precious of gifts. With a heavy heart and a plea to those long lost, she grabbed the coin before closing the pocket dimension.

With a loud *CLUNK* She set the hogshead down. Apparently, the sound of the barrel had finally made enough noise to draw Jason’s attention away from his screen. From a much smaller storage pocket she produced two crystal glasses. Pouring a hefty serving into each glass, she set one down in front of herself and the other in front of Jason. Locking eyes with the man, she said a single word.

“Drink”

The man twisted his face up in disgust at the sight of the liquor.

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’m not inclined to degr...”

“I said, DRINK!” Ruby growl bellows, casting the Command spell on the last word. Jason, despite his best efforts to ignore the compulsion, is forced to do as he is told, and takes a hearty swig of his hundred-year-old Scotch. With a smile on her lips, Ruby takes the opportunity to sip the illustrious gift. The hours melt away as they both sip and savor the deep complex flavors of this legendary brew.

As the drink flows her recollection of events becomes just a tad bit hazy. She can’t really remember how long it takes, but she does eventually come clean about the reason for this impromptu bout of drinking. It comes as little shock that Jason is... less than pleased to learn about the events that led to his death. He downs the rest of his drink in a single gulp, a waste of grand booze in Ruby’s opinion, and demands she fill his next one to the brim. For the first time in FAR too long, Ruby gets to see the Jason she had known all those years ago was still in there.

As the festivities carried on, she would occasionally catch him fiddling with the token he had bought. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she decided to ask him about it, deciding to NOT mention that she knew it was illicitly purchased. He was cagey about it at first, but eventually loosened up and told her the truth.

He had grown bored with the usual missions that he had been assigned. He was sick of always having to play support, always cleaning up someone else’s messes, always laying the groundwork for someone else’s story. So, he had decided to cash in his points, and finally make use of the vacation time he had accrued. He had picked out what looked to be a pretty basic Isekai mission. Ruby suggested not mentioning his luck to anyone else, even she was aware how rare and coveted those missions were.

As the night wound to a close, they said their goodbyes. Before taking her leave, Ruby remembered the other present she had for Jason. A sharp whistle was the only warning she gave him before flicking the coin at his head. Even drunk, the man’s senses were still a thing to marvel at as he caught it in midair .

“The fuck is this?”

“Think of it as a gift.” She snorts.

“Oh, how generous of you. A whole gold coin, whatever will I spend it on.” Jason responds as he jangles the large coin pouch at his hip.

“Oh, fuck off. I’ll take it back if you’re going to be a brat about it.”

Jason drops the coin into his wallet and shakes it again for good measure. “Oops, too late now. Guess you’ll just have to let me keep it.” He gives her a smug grin.

She scoffed before turning around and making for the door. She could hear him activate the token as she closed the door behind her. As she wandered down the hallways back to her room, she pondered the events of the day. The rogue client would need to be dealt with, but she still wasn’t sure if burying him in legal paperwork for the next millennia or two, or just giving him a good old fashion human curb stomping, was the better punishment for his actions.

The choices bounced around in her head till she finally reached her residence. Having made no real progress in deciding her actions, she elected to just table the decision till she woke up next. The God was small time, so it wasn’t like it was going anywhere.

She took her time getting ready to sleep. Being a divine being herself, she didn’t actually NEED to sleep, but she did so enjoy the human customs surrounding the whole process. She took a long hot bath to unwind, before summoning a pair of adorable pajamas. Her body clean, and her mind at peace she laid down in her oversized excessively fluffy bed.

She had barely closed her eyes and began to drift off to blissful sleep, before she was awoken once again by the sound of her alarm going off.

“You have got to be shitting me. HOW?!?!”

With the EA Sports College Football 25 cover being released this Thursday, I thought it would be interesting to look back at all covers — and not just the EA covers, but the athletes featured on covers of rival games by Sony, Sega, and other competitors.
Competition is a good thing. Putting these in chronological order takes me back to the era where there were options (I bought my first game in the '90s, and played a lot of 2k2).
If you count the 2 players that are identifiable off of "College Football USA 96" there have been 36 cover athletes across 34 editions of college football games (plus an active coach, mascot, two band members, and an unidentified player)
This post is going to look cleaner in "old" view. You can swap the "www" with "old" in the URL or just click here.

Year	Publisher	Game Title (image)	Cover Athlete (wiki)	Heisman?	Formats	Notes
1993	EA Sports	Bill Walsh College Football	STAN Coach Bill Walsh	N/A	Sega Genesis, SNES, Sega CD	No licenses so generic names/logos
1994	EA Sports	Bill Walsh College Football '95	STAN Coach Bill Walsh	N/A	Sega Genesis	Schools licensed now
1994	Mindscape	NCAA Football	NCAA Logo over generic players	N/A	Sega Genesis, SNES
1994	Sega Sports	College Football's National Championship	ND Notre Dame Stadium	N/A	Sega Genesis
1995	EA Sports	College Football USA 96	KSU¦MICH¦FSU¦WIS¦USC "Generic" photos*	No	Sega Genesis	see below*
1995	Sega Sports	College Football's National Championship II	COL Folsom Field	No	Sega Genesis
1996	EA Sports	College Football USA 97	NEB QB Tommie Frazier	No	Sega Genesis, SNES	1st true cover athlete
1996	Sony	NCAA Football Gamebreaker	OSU RB Eddie George	HEISMAN!	PS1	1st Heisman winner on cover
1997	EA Sports	NCAA Football 98	FLA QB Danny Wuerffel	HEISMAN!	PS1, PC
1997	Sony	NCAA Gamebreaker 98	FSU RB Warrick Dunn	No	PS1
1998	EA Sports	NCAA Football 99	MICH CB Charles Woodson	HEISMAN!	PS1, PC	1st of 2 defensive players ever
1998	Sony	NCAA GameBreaker 99	NEB QB Scott Frost	No	PS1	1st future head coach
1999	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2000	TEX RB Ricky Williams	HEISMAN!	PS1
1999	Sony	NCAA GameBreaker 2000	UCLA QB Cade McNown	No	PS1
2000	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2001	ALA RB Shaun Alexander	No	PS1
2000	Sony	NCAA GameBreaker 2001	WIS RB Ron Dayne	HEISMAN!	PS1, PS2	1st 6th generation console game
2001	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2002	FSU QB Chris Weinke	HEISMAN!	PS2
2001	Sega Sports	NCAA College Football 2K2	PUR QB Drew Brees	No	DC
2002	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2003	ORE QB Joey Harrington	No	PS2, GC, Xbox
2002	Sony	NCAA GameBreaker 2003	MIA RB Clinton Portis	No	PS2	[Sony skipped 2002]
2002	Sega Sports	NCAA College Football 2K3	NEB QB Eric Crouch	HEISMAN!	PS2, GC, Xbox
2003	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2004	USC QB Carson Palmer	HEISMAN!	PS2, GC, Xbox, N-Gage	1st handheld on Nokia's disastrous system
2003	Sony	NCAA GameBreaker 2004	PSU RB Larry Johnson	No	PS2
2004	EA Sports	NCAA Football 2005	PITT WR Larry Fitzgerald	No	PS2, GC, Xbox
2005	EA Sports	NCAA Football 06	MICH WR Desmond Howard		PS2, Xbox	1991's Heisman
2006	EA Sports	NCAA Football 07	USC RB Reggie Bush	HEISMAN!	PS2, Xbox, 360, PSP
2007	EA Sports	NCAA Football 08	BOISE QB Jared Zabransky	No	360, PS3, PS2, Xbox
2007	Aspyr	Black College Football: BCFX: The Xperience	Generic player, cheerleader, drum major	No	PC, 360 (2009)	HBCU teams
2008	EA Sports	NCAA Football 09	CAL WR DeSean Jackson	No	PS2	Multi-cover
2008	EA Sports	NCAA Football 09	BC QB Matt Ryan	No	PS3	Multi-cover
2008	EA Sports	NCAA Football 09	WVU FB Owen Schmitt	No	PSP	Multi-cover
2008	EA Sports	NCAA Football 09	MSU mascot Sparty	No	Wii	Multi-cover
2008	EA Sports	NCAA Football 09	ARK RB Darren McFadden	No	360	Multi-cover
2009	EA Sports	NCAA Football 10	TEX LB Brian Orakpo	No	PS2	Multi-cover; 2 of 2 defenders
2009	EA Sports	NCAA Football 10	UTAH QB Brian Johnson	No	PS3	Multi-cover
2009	EA Sports	NCAA Football 10	USC QB Mark Sanchez	No	PSP	Multi-cover
2009	EA Sports	NCAA Football 10	TTU WR Michael Crabtree	No	360	Multi-cover
2010	EA Sports	NCAA Football 11	FLA QB Tim Tebow	HEISMAN!	PS3, 360, PS2, iOS
2011	EA Sports	NCAA Football 12	ALA RB Mark Ingram II	HEISMAN!	PS3, 360	Fan-vote cover athlete
2012	EA Sports	NCAA Football 13	BAY QB Robert Griffin III & OKST RB Barry Sanders	YES!	PS3, 360	Fan-vote for older athlete
2013	EA Sports	NCAA Football 14	MICH Denard Robinson	No	PS3, 360	Fan-vote cover athlete
2024	EA Sports	EA Sports College Football 25	TBD	TBD	PS5, Xbox Series X/S

*Photos on College Football USA 96 cover are USC Trojan drum major, a Wisconsin band member, unidentified Florida State player (zoomed in on helmet), but also easily identified K-State WR Kevin Lockett & Michigan RB Tim Biakabutuk (both played in '95 season after this came out)

Various developers:

EA Sports's developers:

• High Score Productions (1993: Genesis, Sega CD; 1994-96)
• Visual Concepts (1993: SNES)
• Tiburon Entertainment (1997-98), bought/renamed EA Tiburon (1999-2013), renamed EA Orlando (2024)
• Exient Entertainment (2003: N-Gage)

Sega Sports's developers:

• BlueSky Software (1994-95) [developers of Joe Montana series]
• Visual Concepts & Avalanche Software (2001-02) [NFL 2K & NFL Blitz, respectively]

Sony Computer Entertainment America's developers:

• Sony Interactive Studios America (1996-97), renamed Red Zone Interactive (1998-99), renamed 989 Studios (2000)

Aspyr Media's developer:

• Nerjyzed Entertainment (2007: Windows; 2009: 360)

Further notes:

Bill Walsh was picked because there was an early-theme of having big names on sports video games.

• EA actually started this back when they were the cool, bad boy of games in the 1980s (I'm that old, they packaged their games like records and put photos of their programmers that made them look like musicians on the back) with the pioneering PC game One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird (1983), later updated to Jordan vs. Bird: One on One (1988).
• Nintendo got into it by localizing Punch-Out! as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987) for NES. EA brought out John Madden Football (1988) for PC.
• Sega was wild about this when they launched the Genesis with Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf (1989), Tommy Lasorda Baseball (1989), Pat Riley Basketball (1990), Joe Montana Football (1991).
• 1993: Bill Walsh! There even was an EA Coach K college hoops game.

Bill Walsh may have got the cover curse:

• While he had retired from the San Francisco 49ers on top, after winning his 3rd Super Bowl, he had only returned to the Farm for a year when he was picked (he had a good first tenure in the 70s before jumping to the 49ers).
• In 1992 he took the Cardinal to a Blockbuster Bowl win and a #9 rank. Signed this deal for EA.
• After the first game came out he had two bad seasons and re-retired for good.

The progression of teams is fun to see.

• 1993: the top 24 college football teams from 1992 + 24 of the all-time greatest teams since 1978. The teams were unlicensed so they used city and state names, especially where similar to their real names (e.g. Michigan). But you got some fun results like a spirited game of "South Bend, IN" vs "Raleigh, NC"
• 1994: 36 Division I-A teams, but the bowls were still not included: Instead we get Maple Bowl, Palm Bowl, Pecan Bowl, and Redwood Bowl
• 1995: first version to feature all (108 at the time) Division l-A teams, the real bowl games like Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, and Rose. Includes older names but also the Pacific Tigers, which actually dropped football before the game was released.

The rights to the title "NCAA" license wasn't obtained by EA until 1998 (as you can see there was an earlier one-off by Mindscape). Its ability to use the NCAA's brands in the the football game was actually the secondary result of a licensing deal intended primarily for an EA "March Madness" basketball game.

WOH Month 4 Week 6
We open the show at the studio for the second episode of Tenille Dashwood's Time with Dash!! Tenille greets us, and begins to talk about her two guests this evening…
Suddenly the screen goes dark and A computerized voice is heard. The following message is heard a few times:
We Already Know… You will never see us coming.. We are The Best… We are The Standard And you don't measure up!!
…..
The Sky Pirates come out with the tag titles and the cheers of the crowd. They grab a pair of microphones and say that they don't plan on sitting at home for Revolution and have decided to issue an open challenge to any pair of women on the roster for a title shot at the PPV!!
…..
Women's International Championship Tournament Semi-final match 1
Zoey Stark vs Sol Ruca
The two close friends and tag team partners are the opening match tonight. They hug before the bell rings and then begin to feel each other out. Zoey’s power game meshes well with Sol’s agility. The crowd cheers for both of them as a very good match rolls on.
Knowing each other as well as they do, both know how to tell what's coming next. Commentary mentions that there is no time limit in these matches.
Sol realizes it's time to go for broke and attempts a Sol Snatcher. Zoey pops up and spikes Sol with a spinning piledriver! Then to the shock of everyone, she rolls out of the ring and heads backstage.
The referee has no choice but to count her out and award the match to the unconscious Ruca!
…..
Tony Schiavone and Ian Riccaboni are as dumbfounded as everyone as to what they all just witnessed.. they are trying to get someone to the back trying to get an interview with Zoey.
…..
Shotzi Blackheart vs Xia Brookside
Interesting matchup Here. Shotzi has seen some recent losses and young Xia Brookside looking to make a statement in her first match in WOH.
Quick back and forth but the much more experienced Blackheart takes control. Xia gets a few chances to get back into the match, but Shotzi shuts them all down and takes the win following a spinning DDT at the 9 minute mark.
…..
Back from the break, we see a furious Salina de la Renta!!
“Zoey Stark!! I know you haven't left the arena yet.. come out here now and explain yourself!! I can understand the heat of the moment, I can even understand competing against a close friend.. but I don't understand leaving the match when you have it WON and getting counted out… “
Salina and the crowd wait for Zoey, but she doesn't show. After a few moments, Salina shakes her head and stalks backstage muttering about getting to the bottom of this one way or another.
…..
Women's International Championship Tournament Semi-final match 2
Mariah May vs Tegan Nox
Mariah May was caught off guard by Tegan Nox's ferocity in this one!! From the moment the bell rang, Nox unleashed a relentless assault on her opponent, showing a never before seen aggression! Despite May's valiant efforts to match her intensity, she found herself overwhelmed by the sheer force of Nox's onslaught.
Throughout the match, Nox's vicious streak was on full display, as she ruthlessly targeted May's weaknesses and exploited every opportunity to gain the upper hand. Despite the resilience shown by May, she ultimately succumbed to Nox's relentless onslaught, unable to withstand a pair of nightmarish Shiniest Wizard kneestrikes!! As the final bell tolled, it was clear that Tegan Nox had displayed a new attitude that makes her a favorite for the International Championship and possibly much more in Women of Honor!!
…..
Many questions remain as We head into Revolution next week.
Tegan’s new attitude? What is going on with Zoey? Who will answer the Sky Pirates Open Challenge? Will Asuka be the one to dethrone Jamie Hayter?
…..
Revolution PPV Card
ROH World Title Champ: Jay White vs Malakai Black
WOH World Title Champ: Jamie Hayter vs Asuka
ROH International Title Damian Priest vs Marcel Barthel
WOH International Title Sol Ruca vs Tegan Nox
ROH Tag Titles Champs: Breakker and Alexander w/ Robert Stone vs New Catch Republic
WOH Tag Titles Open Challenge Champs: Sky Pirates vs ????
Austin Theory vs Jimmy Uso
Pentagon Jr vs Nic Nemeth w/ Robert Stone

This is my first time attending a quinceanera, so I am looking for advice about what is expected so I can show up appropriately and respectfully.
The event will begin with church mass in the morning, and then a formal evening dinner with dancing all night. I know the theme color to avoid.
My questions:

• Do people wear one outfit to church, and then change for the evening event? Or do people find one dress that can be both church appropriate and fit formal evening wear?
  
• Is a black dress an appropriate color for both church and the party?
  
• If we are not close to the family, should we skip the morning church mass and just attend the evening party?
  

I am neither religious nor hispanic, so any advice would be much appreciated

https://nymag.com/intelligencearticle/jamaal-bowman-george-latimer-primary-israel.html
The Most Endangered Democrat in America Jamaal Bowman might lose his job over Israel.
By Ross Barkan
Jamaal Bowman, the two-term congressman from Westchester County and the would-be future of the progressive left, is tired of the questions about George Latimer. "Yeah, I mean, I think it says something about his character, his integrity, and his actual leadership for the district. But enough of him. When are we going to talk about me?"
We're at Salsa Picante, a Mexican restaurant in Port Chester, the heavily Latino village on the eastern reaches of the 16th congressional district. It's late April, and Bowman, munching on chicken empanadas, is in a cheery mood, despite my prodding on Latimer. The night before, Summer Lee, a fellow progressive in Congress, had survived a furious primary challenge, and Bowman senses a pattern. "Salut!" he calls out. "I'm excited, hopefully, for the whole progressive movement to zero in on NY-16. Let's get to work."
The work is daunting. Bowman, less than two months from the June 25 primary, is one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents in America. This is in spite of — or because of — his charisma and budding celebrity, his ability to slash through the noise of 435 House members and command attention on a scale only one or two levels removed from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A former public-school principal and self-described hip-hop head, Bowman marries her online savvy with a deft working-class touch. Burly and boisterous, with a knack for whipping up crowds, it is not hard to imagine him as a future presidential candidate, storming through South Carolina with a pack of reporters hanging on his every word.
But first he needs to win. And Latimer, the sitting Westchester County executive, has outraised him in the primary, thanks in part to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — the conservative, ardently pro-Israel political powerhouse that is seeking to crush the pro-Palestinian movement and the left itself. "They do not want any critique, they do not want any accountability, and so what it looks like to people in my district and around the country is that Israel can do whatever it wants even though, to people on the outside looking in, it looks completely wrong and horrible," Bowman says of AIPAC. "One, it doesn't represent all the Jews. It doesn't represent all the Jews in Israel!"
"If Israel represents all the Jews," Bowman continues, revving up now, "and if Israel is doing bad things without accountability, some idiot in the street just makes the connection that, Oh, Jews must be bad because Israel is bad. That's fucking — excuse my language — that's effing scary, man, and dangerous. And as we fight antisemitism, that has to include accountability for Israel."
There was a time, not very long ago, when no member of Congress would speak this way. The Israeli government's response that has starved out Gaza and killed thousands of civilians has catalyzed a new era though. Mass protests have flooded the streets and rocked college campuses, including two, Columbia and City College, that are only a short drive from Westchester. Bowman has been an AIPAC target for his support of conditioning military aid to Israel and his willingness to label the military campaign in Gaza a "genocide," among other criticism lodged at the Jewish state. "AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbies in America. Well you know what we have got to say to AIPAC? Bring it on," he said at his campaign kickoff earlier this year. "AIPAC, bring it on. We are not scared of none of that. I'm from the streets of New York."
In this deeply polarized moment, with Israel hawks reasserting themselves and the pro-Palestinian movement booming, few primaries in America offer a starker contrast between two candidates.
In one corner is Bowman, 48, the first Black congressman from Westchester who, just four years ago, unseated one of the staunchest Israel defenders in Congress, Eliot Engel. He immediately joined Ocaso-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib as one of the nation's leading progressives. Latimer, meanwhile, is a 70-year-old county executive, ex-state senator, ex-assemblyman, and ex-Rye councilman. (He also had a career, as he likes to remind voters, in marketing and sales.) After October 7, AIPAC asked Latimer to run against Bowman. "I was a reluctant bride," he told me in May, less than 24 hours after the NYPD had raided Columbia's campus to arrest the protesters who had occupied Hamilton Hall.
I met Latimer at the Mount Vernon Metro North station, where he dutifully passed out palm cards ("Good morning, I'm George Latimer, I'm on the ballot") to the few dreary commuters who ambled through. A couple lit up when they recognized him and one man, who was white, seemed to lament "identity politics" while promising his vote to Latimer. And it's easy to make this race, as much as it's become about Israel, about race: Latimer is the white ethnic, Irish and Italian, trying to depose a congressman who told me racism is the number-one issue facing the district and that he views himself, as the first Black man to hold this congressional seat, as a role model to Black youth throughout the area.
The district, which also ropes in a sliver of the northern Bronx including the sprawling and Bowman-friendly Co-op City, is both diverse and plenty segregated, with towns of immense wealth like Scarsdale lying within half-hour drives from working-class Yonkers. It's about 40 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic, and 21 percent Black. Bowman's trouble is that the white, well-heeled vote has soured on him, and Jews are expected to flock to Latimer. Jerry Skurnik, a Democratic consultant and data analyst, estimates that as much as 15 percent of the Democratic electorate who turn out in the primary might be Jewish. A conservative group, Westchester Unites, undertook an effort to register Jewish Republicans as Democrats to impact the primary, in an implicit effort to boost Latimer and undercut Bowman.
Both campaigns agree that Israel alone is not what motivates voters in Westchester and the Bronx, who are mostly consumed with the cost of living. Bowman, as a national figure, may be vulnerable to the very attacks that he once leveled against Engel: He's too high-flown to care adequately about quotidian Westchester concerns. "He has a different brand of politics which appeals more so to getting clicks and likes and retweets and making headlines versus someone who has delivered," said Tyrae Woodson-Samuels, the majority leader of the Westchester County Board of Legislators and a Latimer supporter.
Latimer is the rare insurgent who also profiles as an incumbent and can theoretically neutralize some of the attacks he's taking from the left. If, on Israel, Latimer has held to the rightward fringe of his own party — he refused, in his conversation with me, to support Chuck Schumer's call for Netanyahu to step aside — he is, on almost every other issue, a conventional, center-left Democrat. Until challenging Bowman, he regularly took the Working Families Party ballot line and earned plaudits from progressives for ousting Rob Astorino, his right-wing Republican predecessor as county executive.
"There are lots of people who really like both candidates," says Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic pollster. "For many voters, the most loyal Democratic voters who do turn out in these kinds of primaries, it's sort of like picking between mom and dad."
Latimer, in that sense, was the dream recruit for AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, another influential PAC that is spending heavily in Democratic primaries to bludgeon progressives. His knowledge of the district is encyclopedic and he shows up at every town board meeting, chicken dinner, and parade imaginable; he tells me he's at train stations five days a week and bagel shops on weekends. He has the ability to cut into Bowman's Black support, with endorsements from the Democratic committees in Yonkers and Mount Vernon. Bowman has won the backing of the influential health-care workers' union 1199 SEIU, but Latimer has racked up his own support from civil-service, transit, and firefighters' unions. In his Facebook musings on classic rock and the Knicks, he comes off as earnest and homespun, a Mr. Fix-It paterfamilias.
The cash, though, is anything but homespun. Latimer, never a prolific fundraiser before, banked $3 million at the end of March, double Bowman's haul, and there are top donors who are either AIPAC-affiliated or cut checks to Donald Trump, including Alex Campos, Alex Dubitsky, and Stephen and Carolyn Lauro, who once hosted a Long Island fundraiser for Trump. Another donor is Daniel Loeb, the hedge-fund billionaire who accused Latimer's old ally, the Black State Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, of doing "more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood" because she wasn't a supporter of charter schools, is another donor.
"You're the reason why these guys are donating to me — because of what you said and done," Latimer says of Bowman at the New Rochelle Diner after finishing at the Mount Vernon train stop. "I'm not even soliciting them. I have an event, they send checks. It's not going to change what I do in Congress, Ross, I'm going to be a very progressive congressman on most policy issues."
"It's deeply disturbing that the Latimer campaign is being financed by many of the same people trying to elect Trump," says Jasmine Gripper, the co-director of the Working Families Party's New York chapter. "He's accepting financing from people actively working against the Democratic Party."
The real threat for Bowman is the super-PAC spending. AIPAC and DMFI together can blow past $20 million, if they choose, in attack ads and mail. (AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.) And he offers them enough fodder, like a House censure for pulling a false fire alarm when Democrats were trying to stall a vote, which Bowman told me was an accident and Latimer believes was intentional. Blog posts Bowman wrote more than a decade ago appeared to give credence to 9/11 conspiracy theories and last week his YouTube page following conspiracy accounts became news. More recently, he was forced to apologize after lavishing praise on Norman Finkelstein, the acerbic anti-Israel scholar, at a panel discussion.
"Bowman has been one of the most anti-Israel members of the entire United States Congress," charges Mark Mellman, the president of DMFI. "If he is defeated, it will send a strong message to the rest of the country." Justice Democrats, the group that helped launch politicians like Bowman into orbit and is fighting desperately now to save him, would not disagree with that last part. "It's absolutely a threat to the progressive movement and I think we have to be clear-eyed about what's at stake here," Usamah Andrabi, the group's communications director, tells me. "The same people spending millions to try to elect Donald Trump and prevent Hakeem Jeffries from being speaker of the House are also spending millions to try to send George Latimer to Congress."
Latimer, who once falsely accused Bowman of taking money "from Hamas," argues the AIPAC cash has only arrived because he was already, long before the primary, genuinely pro-Israel. He also believes Bowman invited their wrath. "If Mike Tyson was in the room and I decided to go over to Mike Tyson and say, 'Hey Mike Tyson, bring it on, yo,' what do I think Mike Tyson might do to me? Whatever I used to be, I wouldn't be the same person after he finished with me."
Latimer has a fondness for analogies. He's sitting with me and his campaign spokeswoman, and there are three paunchy, middle-aged men at a table near us, sipping coffee. "You shouldn't return hostages as part of a negotiation. You should just return them. If someone came into this room, for the sake of argument — terrible analogy, I'm about to make — somebody came into this room and killed those three guys and me, wounded you, and kidnapped her, what right do they have to hold onto her? What right? This is not, 'Let's negotiate now.' Four dead bodies, you're wounded, and she's kidnapped, and God only knows what they did to the people they kidnapped. Now let's ceasefire and have a negotiation? That's ridiculous."
Latimer refuses to critique the Israeli military strategy in Gaza or declare he would, as a congressman, ask the U.S. government to condition military aid to Israel, as Biden has done in opposition to a potential Israel attack on Rafah. Unlike Bowman, he's supportive of the police crackdowns on pro-Palestinian college protests and gladly associates himself with Israel hawks Ritchie Torres, John Fetterman, and Hakeem Jeffries, the AIPAC ally and House Democratic leader who has tempered his own outward pugilism since ascending to the top of his party. Jeffries has endorsed Bowman, a courtesy to an incumbent, but he has not tried to restrain AIPAC.
One irony of the primary is that Bowman, in 2021, broke with the Democratic Socialists of America over his support for funding the Iron Dome, an Israeli missile-defense system, and visiting Israel with J Street, the liberal (and much smaller) counter to AIPAC. J Street, still proudly Zionist, rescinded their endorsement earlier this year after Bowman began, like many activists, to speak of the Gaza death toll in terms of genocide.
Bowman tells me he is for, like almost every American politician, a two-state solution: a nation for the Jews and a nation for the Palestinians. Many of the most prominent activist groups in the nation today, like Within Our Lifetime and Jewish Voice for Peace, call for a single, multinational democratic state that wouldn't necessarily guarantee a Jewish numerical majority — something that even most leftists in elected office shy away from.
I ask Bowman if Israel should always have a Jewish majority. Strikingly, unlike a vast majority of American politicians, he doesn't answer immediately in the affirmative. "It might have been the day after or definitely the weekend after we won against Congressman Engel — who's my guy, Peter Beinart, wrote a one-state piece that I thought was brilliant, I thought it was phenomenal," he says. "Some of this stuff is, like, I'm not Jewish, man, you know? So I don't want to be talking out of turn about Jewish issues. I'm also not Palestinian, right? It's the same kind of deal but because my values are rooted in human rights and I know my district well, I have to comment on these things. And I do."
"I want Palestinians to be free from occupation and apartheid and I want Jews to be safe — and Palestinians to be safe, of course. How do we do that?" he adds. "Jews should have a safe place to exist. What that looks like, the details of that, let's figure that out. That is not Jews are safe, Palestinians are under occupation — those two things can't co-exist anymore."
It would be an exaggeration to say that the future of the progressive movement hinges on the outcome of this one primary. With or without Bowman, the Squad will be larger than it was four years ago, and the activists in the streets won't be deterred if Latimer is sworn into Congress. Unconditional support for Israel is no longer a guarantee within the Democratic Party — look no further than Schumer applying the sort of pressure on the Netanyahu government that AIPAC loathes.
But a Bowman defeat would deprive the left of one of its most prominent voices at a moment when Establishment forces have regrouped from some of their losses over the last decade. The prospect of this not only makes AIPAC giddy but thrills moderate Democrats who are weary of the media attention and influence the Squad perpetually commands. The fear, for progressives, is that this primary could offer an obvious roadmap for the future: hunt out popular — or possibly venal — local politicians who are willing to target leftists and promise them a bounty of campaign cash and super-PAC spending if they take the plunge. Some more just might.

Hear me out I know the thread title seems like its punching down a bit, but hang on allow me to explain myself
Generation after generation black and Hispanic men had to endure endless racial abuse and cycles of poverty, nobody was really coming to cape for them, at least on an individual level, legislation aside.
Black and hispanic men have to also deal with tremendous peer pressure to overachieve as a way out of their situation, the ''thug it out'' attitude is sold to them as the recipe and embarkment of success and accomplishment
So what ends up happening is that given that men in general already have to deal with a lot of hyper-agency in society, black and Hispanic men, with the racial component added to the situation, are sold into social programs of ''rugged individualism'', ''hypermasculinity'' ''overachieving''' and thus creating an even bigger mental health stigma for black and Hispanic men, the reason white men aren't as affected by this issue is because white people tend to have a stronger in-group tendency for hospitality and charitability, black and Hispanic men on the other hand have to deal with more of a ''crab in the buckets'' attitude and collateral marginalization for not fitting the cliche mold of stereotypical gangster black/Hispanic man, Hispanic men got the cholo subculture and black men are groomed into being the stereotypical hip-hop/street gangster
This is why I feel a lot of men of color overdo their masculinity, is the way to cope with trauma, racial barriers and identity issues
But of course society as usual decides to ignore the message and focus on more un-urgent problems
Here's the revised version:
Let me explain the intention behind the thread title. Despite its potentially divisive appearance, I want to delve into a nuanced discussion.
Across generations, black and Hispanic men have endured relentless racial abuse and cycles of poverty, often without substantial individual support, regardless of legislative efforts.
Additionally, these men face immense peer pressure to excel as a means of escaping their circumstances. The 'thug it out' mentality is frequently touted as the path to success and fulfillment.
What often occurs is that, amidst society's already high expectations of male agency, black and Hispanic men, compounded by racial factors, are pushed towards ideologies of 'rugged individualism,' 'hypermasculinity,' and 'overachievement.' Consequently, this exacerbates the mental health stigma surrounding them.
White men are less affected by this phenomenon due to their tendency towards stronger in-group hospitality and charitability. Conversely, black and Hispanic men often encounter a 'crab in the bucket' mentality, facing marginalization for not conforming to stereotypical molds of gangster culture. Hispanic men grapple with the cholo subculture, while black men are often steered towards the stereotypical roles of hip-hop or street gangsters.
I believe many men of color amplify their masculinity as a coping mechanism for trauma, racial barriers, and identity struggles.
Yet again, society chooses to disregard the message and divert attention to less pressing issues.

Hear me out I know the thread title seems like its punching down a bit, but hang on allow me to explain myself
Generation after generation black and Hispanic men had to endure endless racial abuse and cycles of poverty, nobody was really coming to cape for them, at least on an individual level, legislation aside.
Black and hispanic men have to also deal with tremendous peer pressure to overachieve as a way out of their situation, the ''thug it out'' attitude is sold to them as the recipe and embarkment of success and accomplishment
So what ends up happening is that given that men in general already have to deal with a lot of hyper-agency in society, black and Hispanic men, with the racial component added to the situation, are sold into social programs of ''rugged individualism'', ''hypermasculinity'' ''overachieving''' and thus creating an even bigger mental health stigma for black and Hispanic men, the reason white men aren't as affected by this issue is because white people tend to have a stronger in-group tendency for hospitality and charitability, black and Hispanic men on the other hand have to deal with more of a ''crab in the buckets'' attitude and collateral marginalization for not fitting the cliche mold of stereotypical gangster black/Hispanic man, Hispanic men got the cholo subculture and black men are groomed into being the stereotypical hip-hop/street gangster
This is why I feel a lot of men of color overdo their masculinity, is the way to cope with trauma, racial barriers and identity issues
But of course society as usual decides to ignore the message and focus on more un-urgent problems
revised version:
Let me explain the intention behind the thread title. Despite its potentially divisive appearance, I want to delve into a nuanced discussion.
Across generations, black and Hispanic men have endured relentless racial abuse and cycles of poverty, often without substantial individual support, regardless of legislative efforts.
Additionally, these men face immense peer pressure to excel as a means of escaping their circumstances. The 'thug it out' mentality is frequently touted as the path to success and fulfillment.
What often occurs is that, amidst society's already high expectations of male agency, black and Hispanic men, compounded by racial factors, are pushed towards ideologies of 'rugged individualism,' 'hypermasculinity,' and 'overachievement.' Consequently, this exacerbates the mental health stigma surrounding them.
White men are less affected by this phenomenon due to their tendency towards stronger in-group hospitality and charitability. Conversely, black and Hispanic men often encounter a 'crab in the bucket' mentality, facing marginalization for not conforming to stereotypical molds of gangster culture. Hispanic men grapple with the cholo subculture, while black men are often steered towards the stereotypical roles of hip-hop or street gangsters.
I believe many men of color amplify their masculinity as a coping mechanism for trauma, racial barriers, and identity struggles.
Yet again, society chooses to disregard the message and divert attention to less pressing issues.

OK so recently, my friend has gotten a boyfriend and I was so happy for her because that’s exactly what she wanted. But not soon after I realized her boyfriend was crazy abusive. Like I mean, he calls his own girlfriend a bitch, slut, ugly, fat. I’ve tried to tell her she deserves better but I couldn’t convince her. I tried to just avoid him but since she’s my best friend, he’s always around. Basically long story short whenever we’re all hanging out together he thinks it’s so funny to call me all types of names( we are not even close to be on joking terms.) And all of these “jokes” are just him calling me black or dark.
I’m really self-confident and have learned to love my beautiful skin so that doesn’t bother me. But what really hurts is my friend does nothing but act confused and laugh awkwardly , but when I retaliate, I’m the villain. All of a sudden she can find her voice to tell me “hey stop”, but can’t say anything when her boyfriend starts the picking on me every single time. It’s giving weaponized incompetence. Basically I confronted her and she just tells me to suck it up because he talks to her that way too.
It’s sad really. But just because she takes disrespect, doesn’t mean I have to. I just figured as long as he’s not around then I can hang out with her, but I was soon proven wrong. I told her some things that should been kept private and when we all ended up playing a game together somehow(we all know how😒)her boyfriend repeated to me verbatim what I told her….. and I understand you want to tell your partner everything but there’s some things I feel like should stay between us girls.
So I just really started getting tired of her bullshit and I already knew she was boy crazy, but it just felt like ever since she got her boyfriend she changed and not in a good way so I just distanced myself .
My last straw was when she said the N-word keep in mind this girl is Hispanic and her boyfriend is black encouraging her to say the N-word because he thinks it’s so funny. I was so surprised when I was on the phone with her and the N-word “slipped” from her mouth, how can a word you’ve never said before just slip out so naturally ? When I confronted her about that, she just said “I hang around my boyfriend too much.” I’m also black so it just felt like a slap in the face, especially since she’s always the one preaching about how she never understands how non-black people can just not say the word. I just got tired of being the bud the joke and expected to just take it, she also just crossed the line with saying the n-word. So I just ghosted her(cause I didn’t see her changing anytime soon, i’ve confronted her many times.)
I know i’m not in the wrong but sometimes I feel a little bad by the way I ended things. I mean we were friends for years. But also I know that if she really cared about me she would’ve never repeatedly crossed my boundaries/ disrespected me, especially for a boy you just met???? And I’m really tried of giving people chances. I just really couldn’t even look at her the same after that. AITA?

I was born and raised in South Texas. My mom and dad were born in Texas and so were both grandparents. Their parents were probably born in Mexico (according to ancestry.com). When I was a kid my grandma would tell me stories about her Apache family. I'm glad she talked about her indegineity to me. I heard stories and saw pictures of them on fields they worked on as migrants. All the kids(my mom and her siblings) worked and they would eat whatever fruits or vegetables they were picking. So sometimes breakfast lunch and dinner could be nothing but tomatoes or potatoes or cabbage. My mom said they never thought about it in a bad way. It just was the way of life.
My mom moved back into our grandparents home after my dad died. My grandpa built a little bitty house in Corpus Christi Texas and that's were I grew up. They had a bee hive, chickens, fruit trees, and a veggie garden. I had my friend spend the night, when I was a kid, and she told everyone I lived in a shack. (She lived in low-income apts with her mom). We were poor but I would go back and live that simple life rn if I could. Now that I look back they had knowledge and experience that was valuable.
My grandma made tortillas every day and she sent me out to collect eggs every morning. She made salsas and mixed seasonings on her molcajete. I spent a lot of my time with her. I once even saw some of what she did when she killed, plucked, and cooked one of our chickens. I got to see her prepare tripas with a waterhose. ( I don't like tripas).
My grandmother would tell of how her mother and father had a large ranch and had a good life until her father died of a heart attack. Her mother was (my great grandmother) was alone and without income. She says at some point she was tricked into selling the mineral rights to her ranch to a white man for $20. It turned out their ranch was full of oil. The man became a millionaire. When I became a teen, after my grand parents both died, my aunt showed me some documents with the mans name and a lawsuit filed by some of my grandmother's siblings. From what I understood some of them received money from a settlement. My aunt passed away and I have no proof other than my memory.
I suspect my story is probably similar to a lot of Mexican Americans in similar towns. I'm close to the border in a mostly "Hispanic" town. It's like a cultural bubble here. In my late teens I traveled out of Corpus with the church and I was a little shocked when I experienced out right racism from white people. I had experienced racism but in a more covert way and also in weird ways by other Mexicans. We happened to be driving through a mostly white city in Louisiana. We were on the way to Florida and then flying out to Puerto Rico. We went into a gas station/truck stop. To be fair there was a van full of us. My pastor and his family are Puerto Rican and Mexican. They either look black or dark Mexican. The rest of us were all of Mexican descent and dark. So I think we overwhelmed the people in there. They immediately started following us through the store. There was even someone following the kids. I think they said something to the pastor's wife because she rounded us all up and we quickly left. I heard them discussing it a little before we found some where else to stop. We stopped at Disney and Epcot in Florida and then Puerto Rico was amazing.
I still live here in this little town with my husband and our kids. Most of my extended family has moved away to Houston or San Antonio because job opportunities here suck.
As a Chicano/Mexican-American/indigenous person how has your experience been? What type of city do you live in?

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Competitive_Cat_4999. She posted in AmItheAsshole.

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7.

Mood Spoiler: Happy ending
Original Post: May 3, 2024
I (27F) have a friend (25F) that just got married last Saturday. My friend is South Asian (not Indian) and she decided to wear a red traditional dress for her wedding. I asked what the dress code were, and she said that she genuinely just wanted her guests to look at their best. She also said that there isn’t a forbidden/frowned upon colour to wear as in Christian wedding in Europe. So I decided to go with a white cream dress (see in the link).
Anyways, I went to her wedding and had a good time. My friend said she really liked my dress. But while I was there, her other friends that are not south Asian, i.e. they are white, black and Hispanic and all Christian. They went up to me and started with small talk and one of the girls spilled pop all over me. I asked her what she just did and she said that I shouldn’t have come to a wedding with a white dress. AITA?
My dress (similar)
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/15/7e/db157e4c605b2baf3912dbe4632caa89.jpg
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: The diagonal slash across the chest is a fashion staple. It's why saris will always be in style. But agreed the dress is lovely. Easy to dress up or down too.

OOP: That was actually the look I was going for. I have worn the dress before to my friend’s sister’s baby shower (and they asked for formal dresses) and my friend said that it reminded her of a saari. So I thought that I should wear it to her wedding as it’s a mix of south Asian and western but still within my comfort zone.

Commenter: NTA because you had checked with the bride, but it’s still a poor choice for a wedding where a lot of the guests are used to “no white” being a hard rule. It’s going to cause a stir, get you judged and risk exactly the kind of drama you got. The friends are definitely a-holes because they didn’t check with the bride if she was upset and went vigilante instead, but you still made an unwise dress choice. You’re not at fault in any way though, they are the ones who started drama and ruined your dress

OOP: I wanted to point out that the only non south Asians were me, the ones that spilled the drink on me and the grooms friends. We were a total of 10 non-south Asians and the total number of guests were 270.

OOP answers some clarifying questions:
Information needed

Where was the wedding?

- The wedding was held in Newark, NJ

Was anyone else wearing white? Did anyone else get stuff on them?

- No white western dresses, but people wore white south Asian dresses like lehengas, saaris etc. They didn’t get anything spilled on.

When you talked to the bride was anyone else present?? And did the bride clarify colors to anyone else or just you?

- The bride and I are from Norway and her husband is from the US (he's south asian too). While she and I were getting ready for the wedding and the plane ride, I asked her those questions, and she answered them. It was just me and her plus her sister. She didn’t clarify the colours to anyone else because everyone else is south Asian and according to her sister at the time, you didn’t need clarification for the colour as nobody cares for the colour you wear in South asian weddings.

Did you let those ladies know that you did talk to the bride?? And ask for them to pay for getting it cleaned

- The girls didn’t know, however they are pretty aware that me and the bride are extremely close.
OOP is voted NTA
Update Post: May 6, 2024 (3 days later)
Hi everyone!
So, time for an update. I told my friend about the situation after I posted because I didn’t want her to be angry right afteduring her special day. But first let me explain what happened after she spilled soda on my dress. I went to the bride’s sister and explained everything and told her not to tell the bride. The sister and I went to the home of the bride and groom (she has the bride’s key and they live near the reception building) because my luggage was there and I changed. Luckly I had a dress, unfortunately it wasn’t a long gown but a short knee length dress. The bride noticed when I went back, and I lied and told her that the other dress wasn’t comfortable, and we went on with the party.
Then I sat down with the bride. I told her and she became so pissed and told me she never wanted to see those people again. We messaged the girl and the bride told her to pay up for the cleaning and the girl surprisingly paid the full amount. She had thought the bride wanted to stay friends but after she sent the money to the bride via venmo my friend blocked her and the others. She apologized and I told her it wasn’t her fault. I’m staying another week here and it feels a lot better with having told her everything. Thank you all for the replies on my other story.

This is my first time attending a quinceanera. It will be a formal event. I know the theme color to avoid. The event will begin with church mass in the morning, and then a formal evening dinner and dancing all night.
My biggest question is do people wear one outfit to church, and then change for the evening event? Or do people find one dress that can be both church appropriate and fit formal evening wear?
Is a black dress appropriate for both?
If we are not close to the family, should we skip the morning church mass and just attend the evening party?
I am neither religious nor hispanic, so any advice would be much appreciated!

Tamas Meszaros… A serial adulterer, abuser and alcoholic, convicted of three counts battery, on trial for assault with a deadly weapon, currently on bail. He was found on the Blielor sidewalk with a gunshot wound to his chest… and his throat slit. One witness maybe saw someone wearing a black scarf on a nearby street.
Alexander Pataki… A bootlegger and gangster allegedly affiliated with the Family. He has never been successfully convicted of anything, not from lack of trying. Found in a ditch just outside Blielor, his throat slit. There were no witnesses.
Barta Máté… A former railroad worker, convicted of rape among other things, out after serving his long sentence. He was shot twice in the back, with his throat slit, in front of his home in Blielor. Neighbours a couple of doors down, saw a woman walk down the street afterwards, her face was covered.
The killer didn’t take credit for any of them, but they fit the modus operandi of the killer.
Jakab Pal… a young gentleman in a suit, he hoped it would give him an air of respectability. In the past it did, as a con man extraordinaire, he swindled a great many people out of their money, including but not limited to, retirement funds from several elderly individuals and the Trealon Teacher’s Pension fund. A hung jury kept him free and now he walked the streets like he was a king, or better yet a predator, his eyes like a hawk, looking for opportunity. Others stayed home out of fear, but not him. Scared people didn’t think straight, something he could take advantage of.
He heard footsteps right behind him. He turned around in a flash, drawing a knife from his walking stick, pointing it at the woman who was the source of the footsteps.
“What do you think you’re going?”
“Nothing…”
“Get your hand out of your jacket right now!”
A gunshot rang out, she shot her pistol through her coat pocket at him, as Jakab lunched with his knife. In the scuffle he cut her arm, she shot him again, before running off, trying to lose the eyes that were on her now. The police would soon arrive, with Jakab able to give a detailed description of the killer, a woman with brown hair, about 25. She wore a chapel veil and carried a snub nose revolver. She however was nowhere to be seen.
That evening, a tip was given to the Blielor police, revealing where the killer was hiding out, in a decrepit hotel in the outskirts of Blielor. A contingent of the Royal Vuldavian Federal Police was dispatched, surrounding the building, before sending a half dozen men to the room she was allegedly staying in, under the name Lili Lukas.
Upon opening the door, they saw a woman kneeling at the foot of her bed in prayer, she did not resist as they put her in handcuffs. She seemed not of the right temperament to be a killer, but the cuts on her arm made it certain she was who they thought she was.
As soon as she arrived at the station, she was interrogated, she freely gave away her name, she had booked the hotel room under it.
The officer asked, “Do you deny killing Drago Lakatos, Borek Janku, Tamas Meszaros, Alexander Pataki, Barta Máté and trying to kill Jakab Pal?
“No. I did it.” She said nonchalantly, her hands clasped gently on the table.
“You understand what you’re saying… you are confessing to five murders?”
“I did it, I killed them all.” She stated just as calmly.
“Why?”
“Didn’t you read my letters? I told you why.” She smiled, “This city is wretched, full of sin and evil. It needed to be cleansed of the wicked.”
“The only wicked person here is you.”
“Am I? Or am I just doing what you fail to do every day? I am doing the work of our lord. The punishment for sin is death is it not? The righteous have nothing to fear.”
The interrogator walked out, she was clearly mad.
Another officer came up to him, “One thing I don’t understand is how she knew where Lakatos was… he was in hiding, he wasn’t in his club like before. No way she just found him.”
“It’s highly unlikely…”
Upon returning to the room and asking her, she merely answered, that God had told her. They found that also highly unlikely but assumed she did in fact have help, it was the most likely conclusion. Someone must have tipped her off.
The Night of the Shooting at The Whisper.
Fuck her and fuck him! Georgina declared in her mind, as she stormed out of the club. Once outside, she felt the cold New Year’s wind up against her face, but she had been drinking, she still felt awfully warm.
It was there outside the club, she came upon a woman in the alley, wearing a chapel veil, Lili Lukas. She seemed just as angry.
“What’s your problem?” Gina asked.
The woman looked up, “That man in there… he killed my husband.”
“Lakatos?” Gina replied.
“You know him?”
“He’s an evil man. I could help you.”
“With what?” The woman asked.
“Justice.” Georgina put her arm around her and began to walk with her. It seems she could have Lakatos out of the way without having to do it herself.
As soon as Eva reconciled with Georgina, she inadvertently revealed the location of Lakatos’ safe house to her, when she told Gina about the last couple of days. Gina made sure to mention it to Lili, who went to pay ‘the Barber’ a visit…

Looking for someone to date or just be friends with, don't care about gender. If partner, I prefer them slightly chubby and someone between 18 and 25 and in the United States preferably in Kansas but anywhere in the United States works. Not really interested in sexual stuff very much. I prefer white, alternative or goth people but I am ok with any other appearance.
I'm a AMAB Genderfluid, Demipanromantic masculine looking and sounding individual and go by Nyx, Icarus, or Styx. Im slightly chubby, 5'7, have long curly ish hair that is a really dark brown and faded blue. Ive been told I look Hispanic but am mixed between native American, white, and African American. I have a decent length beard about 1 to 2 inches long. I have very dark brown eyes almost black looking and enjoy having my nails painted black. I'm very possibly AuDHD (autistic with ADHD for those who don't know). I have never been in a relationship with someone who is masculine presenting but am willing to be in a relationship with someone who is. I tend to be very introverted till someone gets to know me. I have been told I can be very inconsistent in showing affection (results from trauma from past relationships). I like showing affection by either lots of physical contact or wanting to be in your presence generally involves wanting to text a lot or just be on the phone when not around each other. I'm a very indoors kind of person who likes making things that includes either building cars, painting, drawing, or making props. I enjoy listening to different kinds of rock and metal but occasionally listen to rap. I have a difficult time being expressive but when I do I tend to go a bit overboard. I will most likely vent about some probably stupid things please just bear with it.
I have a Snapchat, messenger, and other social media just can't really think of them at the moment. If you would like any other information just let me know and I'm ok with giving it that includes photos I just don't normally take any of myself.

Hello!
Identity: 24F, asexual, sex repulsed, demiromantic biromantic.
Location: Dominican Republic, I will be pursuing a master's degree in Europe starting this year.
Interests:
Getting lost in music is my favorite way of spending my free time. I like cooking/baking special things when I feel inspired to. Sometimes I get caught up on random rabbit holes of information, I bing read web comics knowing they're incomplete. I like taking pictures, watching the sky and stars; sometimes just standing there, breathing the fresh air at the countryside makes me feel fulfilled. Oh and I write poetry. I also like outdoonature activities such as swimming, running, hiking. It's been years since I had a bike but I want to get back to it.
I don't really play video games anymore. Maybe in the future I'll get back to it. Same with tv shows, I have a long list of things I watched/played in the past, so maybe we could talk about both of these things. And I'd be open to recommendations.
Shows/cartoons I've liked:
Live action: Orphan Black, Teen Wolf, the OA, Sense8, New Girl, Skins, Fleabag, Warrior Nun, Anne with an E, Super Girl;
Animated: Kipo, She-Ra, Inside Job, Arcane, Dragon Prince, Hilda, Violet Evergarden, Edén, The Owl House, Teen Titans, Young Justice, Disenchantment, Harley Quinn, ATLA, LOK, Bocchi the Rock!, Ergo Proxy, Cowboy Bebop, etc.
Games: Life is Strange, The Walking Dead Series, Kirby and Super Mario games, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, GTA, The Sims, Unpacking and Need for speed.
About me:
I'm an ambivert, a private person but I can open up easily, sometimes it happens fast, sometimes it takes time, it depends on the person. I've dealt with anxiety and depression in the past, but nowadays, it's mostly social anxiety that lingers. Still I can function in society and be a good add-on in others lives.
I'm open to talk about things like that and I can be pretty understanding of other's struggles. I don't like being bombed with heavy information without warnings first though.
I don't have my life 100% together, so I don't expect you to be at your "prime" either, but someone with a drive to get and be better would be nice, so we could support and motivate each other to keep thriving. So I can understand if you're struggling or have had in the past. I'm striving for my independence, personal and career growth, and living a peaceful life.
Right now I'm unemployed, I get by trying to be as useful as possible (I live with my family); getting gigs here and there while I find a steady job; I also have various business ideas that I honestly don't know what I'm waiting for to try bring them to life lol; apart from that, I spend time doing things that I like, and every once in a while I enroll in virtual classes, short courses of different things. I live in a sub urban area, and honestly, there's not much to do here besides clubbing (not my thing), eating out, going to the beach or parks. Or maybe there is more and I'm not aware yet lol.
I express my feelings through acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation, compliments and flirts, cuddling and open/honest/healthy communication. I like to communicate and I hate when people leave me hanging on/waiting for answers that never arrive, I like being honest and talking things out, even if it won't work out.
Physically: I'm hispanic, 1.73m tall, average weight. My hair is short but my sense of fashion isn't really masc, nor too femme either lol. I just prefer to dress comfortably, but if things have to get fancy I can get fancy, you'll never see me wearing dresses though. Comfort > looks.
Happy to send pictures and expecting to get them in return, like to put a face to whom I'm talking with, so I would like to exchange pics early on, so if you're too big on anonymity, I don't think we'd be a match. For friends this isn't necessary though but if you want to, I'm fine with it.
Looking for:
you + me 😏🤭 /JK... perhaps?👉🏼👈🏼
I've never been in a relationship but I feel ready to explore that part of myself that I've been neglecting haha. I kind of crave emotional connection and I enjoy cuddling. I put that pink flair but friends are welcomed too.
Friends: anyone between 22-28, sharing things in common or anything at all, I can talk about anything honestly lol.
More than friends: 22-28, who's also looking for something similar; we don't need to have a lot in common, but if we share some interests it would be great; someone who can hold a conversation and communicate openly and with honesty; can get serious or be a silly goose when necessary :v, likes to constantly text/voice chat/video calls. I haven't had any luck finding aces here so I'm open to a LDR, even online for a while, though I would like to close the gap some day, I wouldn't be comfortable with an online relationship forever. Also I will come back to my country for a bit to do some things but I'm open to moving elsewhere depending on a lot of factors, feel free to ask me about this..
I like to communicate and I dislike when people leave me hanging on or waiting for answers that never arrive, specially in the online world. I like being honest and talking things out, even if they don't work out. But I don't chase people who gets hard to reach out to.
Deal-breakers include:

• age range
• toxic positivity
• toxic masculinity
• hate towards lgbt+
• passive aggressiveness
• unhealthy levels of clingyness
• hard drugs , heavily drinking, somking
• Ignoring the age range I have stated above

I'm sorry for the length, I always start writing short bits but I'm the type to give as much information as possible lol. I don't leave anything up for imagination XD
Happy to provide more (more !!!? XD) details privately.
If I caught your attention don't hesitate to dm, comment, pm, send me a pigeon or a smoke signal.
See ya!

Last Thursday, the 88th issue of The End’s weekly newsletter went to thousands of inboxes around the world, letting subscribers know what audio fiction shows—full-cast audiodramas and more—recently reached the conclusion of the series, a season finale, or have a new season starting soon.
Here’s a rundown of just the dramatized audio fiction stories that were a part of that, with more details behind each link:

Featured Recommendations

I've listened to every episode of these shows, and proudly recommend them to you. As with all things in life, YMMV.
Spire • 🦋♾️🔼 dramatized scifi series from Matt Wilson. If you need your reality questioned, try this! Exceptional atmosphere and sound design, and a story that keeps your attention. It's great! Finale episode of Season 1 posted on 7 Apr 2023. Listen to the 13 current episodes in 9h 16m. Next season: Unknown.

Featured Collections

Check out these collections to find your next finished audio fiction fix!
BIPOC Creators/Talent Showcase ****Current title count in this collection: 40
A collection of audio fiction shows made by creators who happen to be BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, and people of color—and are representative of the global majority, yet are under-represented in audio fiction. Enjoy these shows that feature BIPOC creatives—showrunners, writers, actors, and more.
Super Meta People ****Current title count in this collection: 17
Whether bitten by a radioactive spider or being the living embodiment of a Norse god, we've a thing for the Supes. Here's a collection of superhero—or supervillain—themed shows that you should try.

Completed This Week

We’re Alive: Scout’s Honor • 🏕️🧟‍♂️🌵 Dramatic horror adventure series from Kc Wayland, Elisa Eliot, Wayland Productions, and Rusty Quill. Featuring kids, like real child actors, and a lot of them. All 11 episodes of this limited series available as of 7 May 2024 for a listening time of 8h 09m.
Camlann • 🔥⚔️🏳️‍🌈 Dramatized post-apocalyptic urban fantasy series from Ella Watts, Amber Devereux, and Tin Can Audio. Produced by a majority trans and queer team of creators from across Wales, Scotland and England. The series is all about identity, living on the margins, and finding a place for yourself in your culture. All 9 episodes of this limited series are available as of 7 May 2024 for a listening time of 4h 46m.
253 Mathilde • 🪐🚀👾 Dramatized scifi series from QuietPlease.org. All episodes available as of 3 May 2024. Listen to all 31 episodes in 13h 02m.

This Week's Season Finales

Celeritas • 👩‍🚀🪐👼 Dramatized scifi action thriller series from Alexander Adell, Realm, and Magnesium Film. Winner of the Austin Film Festival, recipient of seven Signal Awards, and a Chartable global top ten sci-fi. Strap into your seats before listening because this man-vs-the-universe story is intense! The production value is cinematic, and the storyline is fantastic. Finale episode of Season 1 posted on 3 May 2024. Listen to the 12 current episodes in 4h 31m. Next season: Slated for Mar 2025.

Returning With New Seasons Next Week

Season 2 of Project Audion, a dramatized classic radio anthology from Larry Groebe and Project Audion, starts on 10 May 2024. Catch up with the current 13 episodes in 8h 26m. 📻🎭🎙

Just Added

Keeping the Bones • 😱😳🤯 Dramatized/narrated weird tales and horror anthology from Jesse Keller & Folk Process. Finale episode of Season 1 posted on 30 Apr 2024. Listen to the 10 current episodes in 5h 23m. Next season: Slated for Feb 2025.
The Tower • ⛰️👻🌧️ Dramatized fantasy horror series from Amber Devereux & Tin Can Audio. 'A concept album masquerading as an audio drama'. With a full original score, the music is as much as character in the series as its protagonist, Kiri. Finale episode of Season 3 posted on 24 Feb 2023. Listen to the 19 current episodes in 4h 07m. Next season: Slated for Oct 2025.
Check out the 88th issue for links to listen, descriptions, artwork, and more at https://www.theend.fyi/newslettesimplifying-your-quest-for-finished-audio-fiction
That’s it from The End for this week. See you next Sunday!

Jason Alexander Coyle was dead… Again. Gods’ above this was such an inconvenience. And he hadn’t even managed to go out in some cool display of power and glory. Nooooo, he had died to a MOTHER… F***ING… DEMI-HUMAN. A GODS’ DAMNED GOBLIN of all things. The sheer audacity of it caused him to wallow in shame and seethe in rage. He closed his eyes and once more replayed the events leading up to his downfall. The disgusting little thing hadn’t even had the decency to best him in combat. No, that vile puss skinned whelp had played dead, then stabbed Jason in the back once the battle was over.

Grarothian Powder. Clever little shit. Cover yourself in that stuff and all Jason’s magically enhanced senses meant nothing. He should have known better. I mean, if no one could sense your vitals, what difference was there really between you and just another corpse littering the battlefield? How hadn’t he thought of something so simple? How had he been outsmarted by a goblin?!

The powder was a common enough anti magical tool in that world. A light layer was often applied to armor and weapons as a means to disperse the effects of magic. Strong enough to save you from an otherwise lethal direct hit of a lesser spell, it was more often more useful as a protection from splash effects of a fireball or other large area of effect spells. A nasty sunburn or a few bruised ribs tends to be more acceptable than third-degree burns or being impaled when your mate got turned into a dystopian bit of shrubbery or an ice sculpture. The problem is that once it does its job, the stuff crumbles away. So, most soldiers had taken to carrying around pouches of the stuff, reapplying it before making any mad dashes towards enemy spell casters.

It had been a work of absolute genius, or more likely dumb luck, that the creature had been coated in the stuff. Jason was hard pressed to believe that a sub sapient mongrel was smart enough to come up with such an elaborate plan. He further suspected luck, given that even wild animals knew to avoid heavy direct contact with the stuff, much less to risk ingesting it. Doing so caused a fast-acting cancer to take hold. He’d once had the unfortunate experience of seeing a street mutt be pelted with a full pouch of the stuff. Covered the dog in a heavy bit of powder, but also coated the food the pup had been feasting on. Poor bastard had been found dead the next morning. Apparently, it had developed multiple melon sized tumors in the twelve or so hours between when Jason had last seen it, and its body being found.

Then there was the matter of how the goblin had somehow managed to get its grubby little mitts on a Dathon Disrupter blade. Jason had little doubt the weapon was looted from one of the fallen kingdom soldiers. The maggot’s simplistic animal-like brain must have been captivated by how sparkly the blade was. If he understood goblins even half as well as he thought, the stupid little thing was probably straining its brain to understand that the thing it had picked up was both shiny, AND sharp. “Shiny made it valuable, and anything sharp was good for stabbing.” That was the extent of how deep the goblin's thinking went, Jason was sure.

Sure, if he had noticed the creature, the blade would have been useless against his omnidirectional invincibility. He’d seen much finer weapons shatter when they came into contact with his protective abilities. BUT, despite what people might think, all those superhuman protections had a stifling cost. And what kind of insane fool bothered to keep invincibility turned on when everyone who was anyone of importance in the area was deader than a doornail.

He could still remember the metallic iron taste in the back of his throat as his lungs had filled with blood. He’d of course tried to heal himself, but the disruptor had done its job. Jason’s ability to cast magic had been rendered entirely useless, the arcane energies coming apart as he tried to weave them into even the simplest of spells. The only small justice he could find in the situation was that the assailant had botched their landing. He could only assume the beast had thought the surprise would paralyze him, while he drowned in his own fluids. If that had been the first or even fifth time he’d died, the little monster would have been correct. The realization that you are dying, and there’s nothing you can do about it, was a hell of a thing to cope with. Lucky for Jason, you kind of got ‘better’ at handling the whole impending demise thing, after you’d faced death a dozen times.

The time bought from NOT having your life flash before your eyes, had given him just enough of an opportunity to land a heavy haymaker against the goblin. It wasn’t the cleanest of blows, but it still brought a smile to his face remembering the feeling of the creature’s bones breaking under his empowered fist. He wasn’t sure if it had been enough to kill the thing, but he did know that if it didn’t kill the goblin, it had at least permanently crippled the right side of the beast. Watching the goblin crumple, then begin to twitch, had been the best sight he could imagine as his world faded to blackness.

When he next opened his eyes, he was sitting in his usual seat within the Agency. The room was sparsely decorated, he’d never really seen the point in investing in decorations for a place that held such... complex, emotional significance. Much less a place that he did his best to spend as little time in as possible. Jason was a bit annoyed that his handler wasn’t present to greet him, but then she was never good at doing her job. Sighing, he leaned back in the chair and waited, he knew that she had been paged when he arrived, and he also knew the door wouldn’t open until he had submitted his mission summary.

Ruby had of course lost her metaphorical shit when Jason arrived back at the Agency. The bloody lush had laughed herself into a mini coma when she learned that a lowly goblin, using a glorified butter knife, had been the thing to bring Jason down. Gods, he hated her, no matter when he ran into her, she always reeked like she’d just gotten done bathing in a pool of liquor. He was still not really sure WHERE or HOW she got her hands on Earth booze. Plucking a soul from Earth was troublesome enough, but trying to get physical objects from the place? That was far beyond even Ruby’s power. He did know for a fact that it was Earth liquor, and not some kind of divine proximity, since he’d yet to find a single bar in the entirety of the Agency. Hell, he’d yet to find another being that even understood what alcohol was.

After recovering enough that she could breathe without wheezing, Ruby had gone ahead and made sure that the contract hadn’t been refunded due to Jason’s untimely demise. As luck would have it, it did appear that he had fulfilled just enough of the order so that the client could still be charged for services rendered. Which meant that Jason got his commission, a fair bit smaller than he would have liked after all the fees, but that was the cost one paid to subvert the usual limitations of a mortal body. Not that it mattered, that last job had finally put him over the top. After dozens upon dozens of quests, Jason had finally managed to scrape together enough to buy what he’d been lusting after since he first woke up in this shithole.

A mad smile curled on his lips, as he opened up the shop screen. Navigating through dozens of pages of bog-standard contracts, an asinine level of ads for luxury services, and more high-class cuisine than he could eat in a thousand thousand lifetimes, he finally found the loose thread he had been looking for. Dragging his finger along the lower left-hand side of the screen, he made a series of increasingly complex designs. With a click the screen faded away to a new darker overlay. Moving quickly, he bought the token he was looking for and slipped out of the system.

He’d stumbled across the dark site ages ago, while killing time between missions. The prices were exorbitant if not outright extortive in nature. But it did give one access to certain... choices that would not have otherwise been accessible via the normal shop. It was why Jason had bought the system admin privileges, he needed to access the real good shit. Sure, the base shop allowed agents to pick their own assignments, but the good missions, well those could only be accessed by the admin staff AKA handlers.

The biggest issue was that management did not take too kindly to their staff’s access codes being used by unauthorized individuals. This meant that Jason only had a limited amount of time to peruse the catalog before the system would kick him out and block that access code from being used again. He’d had to burn through three different sets of privileges before he found what he was looking for. A modifiable mission token for an honest to goodness Isekai.

The fact that Isekai were even a real thing, had thrown Jason for a bit of a loop. Well, perhaps more the fact that he had died in a tragic way that even the gods couldn’t seem to explain, and all he’d gotten for his trouble was a small “sign on bonus''. Not that he was complaining too much, the limited New Game+ skill had proven useful in more than one mission. But apparently, some people got a date with Truck-kun and suddenly they are given an entire freaking wish fulfillment fantasy. He would have pissed and moaned to upper management but thought better of it when he remembered that he only knew what he knew by using exploits within the system. There had been rumors about what happened to those who had their access codes stolen, it was not pleasant, and he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if people found out who had been using those stolen codes.

As Ruby droned on and on about whatever it was that drunk was talking about. Jason began calibrating the token to his specifications. The basic token itself had drained an exceedingly large amount of his credits, Isekai missions were... difficult to get a hold of, even for handlers, but it was the add-ons that were really going to strain his budget. He tapped through the various options. It wouldn’t be a proper Isekai without the deluxe harem package.

[click]

After the cluster fuck that was his last mission, he decided to take things on easy mode for his wish fulfillment. It was insanely costly, but the entire Divine Protection suite made him resistant if not straight up immune to every offensive ability that could reasonably be thrown at him.

[click]

Can’t live out your hero fantasy dreams without having to crush a Demon Lord.

[click]

He had deeply enjoyed the incarnations where he had had access to magic. But he couldn’t for the life of him seem to decide what to specialize in. Hemming and hawing for a bit, he finally decided to just splurge and get a little bit of everything. It would give him maximum versatility without over committing one way or another.

[click]

It stands to reason that a proper Demon Lord should be able to bypass divine protections, and might be resistant to magic, so it is probably best to fortify one’s body and boost the crap out of one’s stats.

[click] [click]

Not really looking forward to having to do the whole baby with the mind of an adult trope. He decides to just spawn in with his body already at its apex. He never really understood why the grown ass adults in the shows and manga always seemed to end up as some kid. Like yeah, wish fulfillment for young readers/watchers, but a guy in his twenties is going to wipe the floor with some punk ass sixteen-year-old. Whatever, it didn’t really matter; to each their own he guessed.

[click]

Jason looked at his credit balance; it was painfully low, but he shrugged it off. All he needed to do was complete the mission to get it back to a respectable level. He looked at the payout for completing the mission. It wasn’t impressive, Isekai almost never paid more than a pittance, but it should be enough to tide him over once he’d had his fun and squeezed every drop of wish fulfillment out of whatever backwater world, he ended up in.

Jason’s attention was pulled from the status screen by the sound of a large *CLUNK*. Looking over he saw that Ruby had apparently finally grown bored with her one-sided conversation. To combat this boredom, she had pulled out an entire mothering fucking hogshead of whiskey. From her pocket dimension, she pulls out two crystal glasses and fills both glasses with a hefty amount of liquor. She sets one down in front of herself and puts the other one in front of Jason.

“Drink”

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’m not inclined to degr....”

“I said, DRINK!” Ruby says again, her eyes filled with rage. Her words reinforced with magical power, compel Jason to take a large gulp of the auburn liquid. He’s amazed at the rich flavor of the whiskey. The rich honey notes give the drink a sublime sweetness, without overshadowing the subtle dried red fruit. The decades of barrel aging have left the drink smoother than silk. The vague hints of oak and cinnamon leave him wanting more. Time seems to melt away as he is compelled to have ‘just another sip’... ‘Maybe just a finger’s worth more’... ‘What’s one more drink for the road?’. The world around him seeps away, as he is lost in the complex rich flavors of Ruby’s private stash.

When he next wakes, he’s once more found himself in the Void.