Bruce isn’t expressionless because of the trauma and years of mastering his emotions.
He’s expressionless because he’s had 509 units of botox injected into his face. His default responses (a grunt, a snort, hnn) are because he can barely move his eyebrows anymore.
Is he amused? Angry? Who knows!
Clark, to himself: wow, Bruce is really good at keeping his face blank without the cowl on.
Bruce, who can’t visibly react to whatever ridiculous thing Hal Jordan just presented to the League even if he wanted to:
Out of a whopping 12,867 votes on the final poll, Mads Mikkelsen (59) beat Michael Sheen (56) with 65.5% of the vote.
Thank you everyone who participated!
Old Man Bracket Wrapped:
This bracket started on February 12th and ran for 56 days.
The submission form was open for just 4 days and received a total of 398 responses.
Our first round had 65 contenders, ranging in age from 52 to 85.
Our bracket included 18 men in their 50s, 26 men in their 60s, 17 men in their 70s, and 5 men in their 80s.
Our youngest ‘old man’ was Idris Elba at 52, and our oldest man was Ian McKellen at 85.
The poll with the most notes (4,931) AND the most votes (22,107) was our quarterfinal Mads Mikkelsen vs David Tennant matchup.
The poll with the closest outcome was our round 1 Paul McCartney vs Stephen Fry matchup, which closed at a 50/50 percentage split, with Stephen Fry winning by exactly one vote out of 3,327 total.
At the time of this post we have 2,387 followers. (Holy cow!!!)
This has been so much fun, and you haven’t seen the last of this blog! I’ll be taking a break for a while, but I will reopen submissions later tonight. Stay tuned! Our next bracket(s) will likely be smaller, possibly themed, tournaments.
I am BEGGING American atheists and agnostics to understand that American evangelicalism is NOT the vast majority of Christianity and, in fact, they disagree with some of the core tenets of what Christianity is understood to be throughout the world.
Enough of the trope where memory loss undoes the damage or the corruption or whatever. More content where removing memories just removes the context.
The tragedy of needing to grieve and not knowing what or who you lost or why. The angst of having trauma and being denied the awareness that it’s trauma. The suspense of being different somehow and left to wonder how and when. The tension of knowing that something is off and you can’t find where it hurts. The Adventure Zone gets it. Kingdom Hearts gets it.
There is an aching inside you and you don’t know how it got there.
People talk about how they want a wife like Ruth, yet they aren’t willing to be a husband like Boaz….
The problem is that everyone who reads Paul focuses on the “women submit to your husbands” part but conveniently ignore the “husbands die for your wives” part.
Fun note: Christian husbands are not supposed to “just” die for their wives!
Christian husbands have some serious standards they’re held up to – I’ll go into this below – and some even more serious weight of responsibility. Christian wives? All they’re really asked to do is respect their husbands (something men tend to regard as a kind of “love” language in itself and women tend to neglect in favor of affection and “mushier” feelings) and *willingly* submit to ONLY their husbands (not any man). Even better; the English word “submit” with its own language’s ugly connotations so famously used here is, I believe, better translated in the original language as something different – as something specifically and ONLY an action and attitude that is given voluntarily. If it’s forced in any way, it’s not that word anymore. Like you can’t force respect, you can’t force this kind of trust, or it becomes something else entirely.
With that in mind, Christian husbands are:
1. Supposed to be willing to die in excruciating fashion (the word itself literally derived from the famous torture and execution of Roman crucifixion) and/or live for them, which takes a lot longer (and may be only slightly less painful!).
2. Supposed to love their wives as they love their own selves – unthinkingly, instinctively, unhesitatingly, unconditionally, no matter what.
3. Supposed to be responsible for their family and all the things that happen in it and to it. They are meant to provide for their household in all ways (Proverbs 31 shows a wonderful wife being a partner and the commander of all things domestic, economic and otherwise, with her husband in this regard – so before anyone opens their mouth too fast here to cry sexism, the Bible’s vision of marriage is so far from confining a woman to the kitchen or whatever that I have to laugh). Ultimately, all blame and accountability is at the husband’s feet. And if they fail in this in any respect – if they neglect their families, betray their promises, abuse their wives, abandon their responsibilities and their vows – if they don’t turn around and repent, they are considered worse than an unbeliever. The promises have failed, then; the vow is broken, the trust is gone, and the husband is not walking with Christ. It’s no longer a Christian marriage. And I don’t see any other conclusion to draw from that and other verses (1 Corinthians 7:14-16, for example) but that abuse of any kind – abuse of that trust and respect and voluntary submission that the Christian wife freely gives her husband – renders that marriage null and void, where the wife has no obligation or duty to stay.
(So far from encouraging abuse or coercing women to stay in abusive situations, the Christian marriage protects women more than any other relationship out there. In what other prescription of marriage or religious view is the husband commanded to do this for his wife? To sacrifice himself daily, to die for her in excruciating pain, to love her in such a way, as he loves his very own self, that it precludes all possible willing harm? I can’t think of any.)
This is what marriage is supposed to look like. Mutual devotion, consent, trust, respect, obedience freely given, unconditional love and self-sacrifice and consideration; understanding the other spouse is a sinner just like you and will fail but that God, who is neither a sinner nor fails, is here in this marriage with you, if you invite Him, and if you trust and obey Him, He will work it out for the best.
No one can replicate how Dick felt when Bruce looked at him when he was 10, those special moments when it was just them and no one else. Hes constantly chasing that high. The closest he can get that feeling is from chasing after men who he shouldnt be anywhere close to...
bruce didn’t know which moments changed dick’s life forever, but dick knew right away, as soon as he noticed bruce looking at him, that he loved...