Mushswig the Mushi-est Swig

As an on again off again alcoholic who has tried and tried again at recovery, I find myself in a space now where I'm starting to lose my liver function, and I'm now therefore chronically ill. And it sucks, I've tried medication that just exacerbated my mental health issues and I'm signing up for my fourth AOD service. It will always be my fault that I'm chronically ill, but the idea that there are good disabled people and bad disabled people kicks people like me out in the cold.

Homelessness looms large in the American consciousness. Like, not that it's irrelevant elsewhere, but it's got a particular cultural place in the US that's reflected in Hollywood, and therefore relevant because what makes it into film and TV sets the terms of so many conversations.

We don't acknowledge it if we can help it, but I think most people know they're never more than a few very bad months from winding up there.

Even people who are sure it only happens to people who deserve it, who fuck up and put one foot in the morass of their own foolish volition. Even they know the quicksand is there, waiting to be walked into, and that the odds are stacked against ever climbing out on your own once you have. And that they, too, are capable of fucking up. Of trusting the wrong person. Of getting cancer incorrectly.

And those of us who know damn well we can't be sure we're safe even if we do everything right, we know it even better.

And in that sense it doesn't matter what the world would realistically look like after X kind of apocalypse, what people would do, how society would adapt. Because the anxiety that's being processed is about the reality that's in existence now.

About what if my world ends. And I lose access to the fruits of developed society, to clean clothes and new glasses and running water, to a safe place to sleep where I don't expect to be killed or robbed, or driven out by men with guns and dogs. To my home and work and family and everything I usually use to tell me who I am.

What if every man's hand is against me, and every meal is a small victory, and there's only my own dwindling strength between me and the long night?

Will I make it? Will I hold up under the strain? Will I retain my dignity? Will I be lucky? Will I be able to protect the people I love, in that world, the world where no one is protecting us anymore?

Is there a way to continue to live as a human person, when you're denied the prerogatives of one, and don't know if you'll ever get them back?

Putting this anxiety into the context of a massive apocalypse divorces this scenario from the burden of shame tied up in the idea of winding up in that sort of situation in the normal course of events, by having society vanish rather than expel you, personally, as a washout, and continue on around you.

It also allows you to rule out a priori the question of what resources might be offered but can't in an anticipatory context be counted on; shelters and programs and housed friends and family who may or may not help. And narrow the narrative to only the question of what you can survive, and often a fairy tale about surviving all of it and starting over.

If the love interest picks the hero, the villain is resentful, hate filled, and it makes the grudge so much more personal. The villain wants to CRUSH the hero and take the love interest back.

BUT if the love interest picks the villain, the hero now has this heart break, this feeling of sorrow. Oh yes they are angry at the villain, maybe even becoming vengeful. But the moral code is what keeps them from crossing the line over such selfish emotions. But there are glimpses, there are moments when the hero wants to be more vicious, more cruel, more villainous.

It adds a layer of complexity and drama. I love the tension.

Another trope is that the Hero and Villain ARE in love and want the other to join them. The hero wants to bring the villain to the side of light, save them. While the villain wants the hero to be by their side, rule with them. Maybe even having tender moments when alone.

"There are no mountains in Saskatoon."

The Minnesota Democrat is taking aim at a $320 million package of bomb equipment that the Biden administration wants to provide to Israel's military.

this is funny