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The “X-Men: Apocalypse” Villains Get Frisky

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Wolverine

Denis Poroy / Invision / AP

Set in 1983, 10 years after the events of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse tracks the resurrection of the world’s first mutant, the ominously named Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), an ancient being who is so enormously powerful that he basically cannot be killed. In the comics, Apocalypse employs four horsemen to do his bidding, and — as revealed in the X-Men: Apocalypse panel at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend — in the movie, those horsemen include a young Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Angel (Ben Hardy), the mutably villainous Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and a brand-new character to the film franchise, Psylocke (Olivia Munn).

Before their panel at Comic-Con, BuzzFeed News sat down with Isaac, Fassbender, and Munn to talk about managing the massive fan expectations that come with taking on such an enormous storyline — and the importance of making sure their characters translate onto the screen as recognizable people, and not over-the-top gods.

Olivia, just before Comic-Con, you posted a video to Instagram of you practicing your swordplay for Apocalypse with your boyfriend Aaron Rodgers in the background…

Michael Fassbender: (To Munn) Are you promoting yourself on Instagram separately? Aaron — I don't think he's in the movie.

Olivia Munn: Well, I hashtagged Michael Fassbender, Oscar Isaac. Hashtag, my two dads.

MF: No, that's OK. I'll start doing that too.

OM: Yeah, I didn't know how to do sword work before…

Oscar Isaac: She really didn't.

OM: All the guys just kind of knew how to use a sword in some way, and then they threw me into training because of the obvious. I had to do, like, six hours of training every day.

OI: And now it's insane.

instagram.com

MF: I want to see this! I haven't seen it. (To Munn) Do you feel empowered?

OM: Yeah. That's the thing. I was saying to my boyfriend, that it's interesting — [usually], you're training to look a certain way. But this time, I've just been training so much that it's just about becoming capable. And the coolest thing is seeing my body change and how I feel so empowered because the goal is just get good at this. It has nothing to do with what I look like. If something happened to us right now, you guys, I'd break off this chair leg…

MF: I love that! We're so safe in here!

OM: …and I would turn it into a sword.

OI: We're totally protected.

MF: We just need a broom or something. (laughs)

OM: "Wait! Burglars! I just need…"

MF: "I just need a broom! Fuck! If I had a broom…"

OM: “Sorry, guys. Can't help you here.”

So, you all are playing characters that have been portrayed in comic books and other media for decades. And the fans of them often have very strong opinions about how those characters should be represented — that's part of what Comic-Con is all about. How do you navigate those expectations?

MF: Ignore it. Basically, what can you do with it? Do you know what I mean?

OI: Other than making you self-conscious about what you're doing.

MF: Yeah.

OI: For me, I'm a huge fan. I was a huge fan, particularly of Apocalypse, since I was a kid. So I feel like since I'm getting the shot to do it, then I can just follow my own discretion because of that. And sometimes, what's fun to do is play against what people would expect, or what people would want you to do, because it is a different medium. To a certain extent, we are embodying certain things that are kind of mythical. If you look at Apocalypse, if you actually were to do or speak in the way that it seems like he should, it would probably be laughable. It doesn't work, I don't think, in this medium.

OM: Is that why you're doing a Jamaican accent? (Laughter)

OI: Yeah! You go against what's expected!

OM: I mean, that's completely against what's expected.

Michael, you had another actor, Ian McKellan, who played the older version of the character before you.

MF: Yeah. I ignore him too. Until I had to fucking pay attention to him in the last one, because he was going to be in it with me.

OM: He actually ignores everyone on set.

MF: It's one of my characteristics. I ignore things.

OI: He doesn't even know we're shooting.

Ian McKellan and Fassbender at the London premiere of X-Men: Days of Future Past on May 12, 2014.

Carl Court / Getty Images

MF: I just don't like to face up to reality or anything. No, no, to answer your question properly, I commit to it. Obviously, I respect that people are very passionate about it. [Comic-Con] is a prime example. People, they save up their money all year to come here, from Australia, Asia, wherever. But everything's in the script. And I did reference some stuff from the comic books, definitely at the beginning when I was introduced to this world, because I was not a comic book fan. I did take lots of images of Magneto and have them around my trailer, just to get an idea about how I would commit to that once I'm in the cape and the full outfit.

OI: The spirit of it.

MF: Yeah, exactly. And with Ian McKellan, you know, I was a big fan of his work. He's a legend. But when we did First Class, [director] Matthew [Vaughn] was saying to me, “I don't want you to do his accent. I want you to do your own accent.” So we did that. But in the second one, Ian McKellan was going to be in it, so then I went off and studied Ian McKellan's accent. And then, this one, I've just decided to do a kind of hybrid of both of them. (laughs) So you could say, my delivery of Magneto is pretty inconsistent.

Olivia, how do you feel about fan expectations, especially considering you used to cover Comic-Con when you worked on Attack of the Show?

OM: I think people put this weird thing on the fanbase of what they want. Like, the fans want…

MF: …to be surprised as well.

OM: Yeah. They're like, Look, we want to see this character come to life. He has these powers. Just respect the storyline. But they want to see what Michael Fassbender or Oscar Isaac — what you're going to bring to it. The fans aren't going, like, All right, my little puppets! Dance dance dance!

OI: Some of them are. Some of them are!

FM: I think it's exactly as you said. There are certain things that are cool, number one, and should be respected. And then the other thing is I think they want to be sort of surprised and sort of provoked. You know, even if some of them come out and they go, "I hate it when he did that." And the other goes, "I liked that!" It causes a discussion. They leave the movie theater, and the conversation continues.

Beast and Mystique

Denis Poroy / AP

Oscar, given how massive and extreme Apocalypse looks in the comics, how radically different is your appearance in the movie from how you look now?

OM: Very similar.

OI: It's pretty close if I had been drowned. He's blue, and it's a full prosthetic getup. It's pretty different. Although, I think some of my face comes through. But if it's terrible, I'll just deny I was in it!

MF: "That's not me!"

OI: "That's not fucking me! I'm suing them right now for using my name.”

OM: I was telling him, we spend so much time with him in character, and when we cut, we just hang out and talk. So I think of Oscar as Apocalypse. So when I first saw him [without the makeup], it threw me off a little bit.

OI: You were grossed out.

OM: I was grossed out! I was like, I don't want to see that face!

OI: "Who is this guy that keeps talking to me?"

Marvel Comics / Via en.wikipedia.org

On the other side of the fandom coin, in your own personal lives, do you have people who are themselves comic book fans?

OM: My family, you know, we're Asian, and we've got to fulfill all Asian [stereotypes]. Like, we're really good at math, my brother's a master physicist, my sister's a lawyer, and we love comic books. And so, getting ready for this, I would just talk with my sister and my brother about Psylocke. Oscar and I talked a lot about it too, and that's where Bryan [Singer, Apocalypse director] was so open about hearing about how I really felt about the character. She was drawn in a very sexual way. I mean, Psylocke is [an] extremely, sexually dressed character. But, she's always had…

MF: She's promiscuous. Let's face it.

OM: No! That's what…

MF: (Laughs) She likes to have a good time.

OM: NO!

MF: I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

OM: She has a sword. She doesn't need anyone else. She has her own sword!

OI: Ouch.

OM: She always had substantive plot lines. I was able to tell [Bryan], “Psylocke went to university and had a great family. She has this really sexual outfit on, but she was always a badass.”

OI: They're like Greek statues, you know? The idea of comic books, it's definitely magnified and overdone to a certain extent, but it's the human form, and it's kind of celebrated, whether it's masculine or female. But they tend to be kind of…

MF: Greek-type gods, yeah.

OM: So when I wanted to talk to Bryan about making sure that even though she dresses in a very provocative suit…

MF: She's not easy. (laughs)

OM: That she's not easy. You make her strong and smart and a badass, and give her all those qualities that she has. So [with] my sister, we would talk it out.

Apocalypse, aka En Sabah Nur, during his loincloth period.

Marvel Comics / Via marvel.com

MF: You know, the guys, we're in tights, too.

OI: I'm starving myself right now for my loincloth scene. So I know how it feels.

OM: You guys aren't lubed up every day by two middle-aged women, are you?

OI: I get some lube.

MF: "I get some lube!"

OM: Well, I'm sorry!

MF: (Laughs. To Munn) Only when he found out that you had it.

OM: He was like, "Olivia's getting lubed?!"

OI: "I'm talking to my agent."

MF: "Why am I getting dry-docked every time?!"

OI: Getting dry-docked! (laughs) Powdered. I get powdered.

OM: Like a baby.

MF: Different strokes for different folks.

OM: I want to be powdered. You just sit with your legs [up]?

OI: (Nods) And they just go… (Mimes patting powder onto his leg) pat pat pat pat.

OM: And they roll you into Apocalypse.


How A Show About A Depressed Horse Became Incredibly Human

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The Netflix show’s creator and production designer talked to BuzzFeed News about their series’ sensibility, their wacky mutual trust, and whether characters have to be good to be likable.

BoJack Horseman

Netflix

A week and a half before the second season of Raphael Bob-Waksberg's Netflix series BoJack Horseman was set to premiere, the writer-creator was full of hedged satisfaction. "I'm glad I'm going on the record so much being like, 'I am proud of this season,'" he said. "Because I know as soon as it comes out, I'm gonna be like, 'What the fuck did I do? Oh my god, it's a disaster.'"

In BoJack's first 12 episodes, the profoundly sad animated sitcom saw the alienated, sweater-wearing horse at its center (voiced by Will Arnett) floundering and realizing he had to change; Season 2, out July 17, asks, Can we change, or are we doomed to be the people we have always been? "I don't think it's spoiling the end of the season at all to say the answer is 'kind of both?'" Bob-Waksberg said, a reminder that this is not a show for the anti-ambiguity set. The series debuted in August 2014 to both obsessive fans and somewhat mixed reviews — at least two critics suggested the show seemed designed to watch while stoned.

"BoJack is a very Raphael thing," the creator said. "It makes it really hard when people don't like the show, because I can't stand behind and be like, 'Well, the network watered it down,' or 'Well, it's not really me.' No, that's me. If you don't like it, you are saying that I am bad."

He was beginning to understand the famously reclusive J.D. Salinger, who figures prominently in Season 2 and who, after the unqualified success of The Catcher in the Rye, mostly wrote with no intent to publish. "The best thing I ever wrote was a script that never got made," Bob-Waksberg said. "Because it's perfect to me. Because I'll never get to see an actor struggle with saying those lines. I'll never get to screen it for an audience and see how they're not really laughing at it." Success, in other words, is double-edged — much like it is for BoJack's titular horse-man, whose life and career stagnated after, and because of, his '90s sitcom stardom.

Mr. Peanutbutter and BoJack.

Netflix

Unlike his horse protagonist, Bob-Waksberg isn't incapacitated by his insecurity. "I wouldn't want to make something and lock it in a box where nobody can ever see it" — which is, in fact, what has inadvertently happened to much of his work. He and BoJack's production designer, Lisa Hanawalt, work for a platform at the forefront of the on-demand marketplace, yet they both like the idea of ephemeral art. The high school friends made a web comic together from 2006 to 2008, and were happy to report that their website's domain name recently expired: The comic has all but vanished.

Hanawalt brings a bright aesthetic to their anthropomorphic-animal version of Los Angeles, scanning watercolors into a computer to give BoJack a handmade charm — and capturing an imperfect look in a digital medium. "Even when the animators are taking my sketches and rigging them for animation, they'll purposefully leave in a lot of my wonkiness from my own drawings," Hanawalt said, mentioning the off-kilter diamond mark on BoJack's forehead. "Sometimes eyes are not the same size, or the legs are a different length."

Her own weird humor is key to what Bob-Waksberg called the "air of lunacy" that makes the show watchable: Hanawalt and supervising director Mike Hollingsworth are responsible for the bulk of the strange background jokes in the show, many of which are too detailed to notice without pausing at the exact right moment. It's an exercise in faith, sending a joke out into the void. "The whole time you're doing it, you're like, 'Ahhh, is anyone gonna notice this thing that I'm at the office at 9 p.m. doing?'" Hanawalt said, before explaining that she'll write a whole article for a half-second shot of a computer screen ("I love doing that," she added). She's also a former "crazy horse girl" who sees poetry in drawing a horse as an occupation.

Hanawalt and Bob-Waksberg's working relationship requires a wacky mutual trust. She recalled that he once said to her, "Oh, do you remember that girl who was in our English class senior year of high school? Draw her, but as a dolphin." Hanawalt understood — "bubbly and sexual in a way that's precocious for how young she is" — and drew Sextina Aquafina.


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Laverne Cox And Caitlyn Jenner Finally Met In Person And It Was Beautiful

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Queens.

Orange Is The New Black star Laverne Cox posted an Instagram picture with former Olympian and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner on Sunday night.

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"Caitlyn Jenner and I finally met in person at a special private advance screening of #IAmCait," Cox wrote, adding the hashtags #TransIsBeautiful and #girlslikeus.

I Am Cait, Jenner's upcoming E! docuseries about her transition, will premiere on July 26.

Cox posted a flawless group shot with some other prominent transgender women at the screening, including actresses Candis Cayne and Trace Lysett.

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Lysett wrote that Caitlyn Jenner was "brave" on Facebook, posting a selfie with the star.

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This Photo Of A Shark Attack Survivor Hugging His Biggest Rival Will Give You Chills

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“Now I’ve seen it all.”

The touching moment surfer Mick Fanning thanked his mate Julian Wilson for helping him escape a shark has been caught on camera in South Africa.

The touching moment surfer Mick Fanning thanked his mate Julian Wilson for helping him escape a shark has been caught on camera in South Africa.

Kirstin Scholtz/WSL

Until the insane shark incident at Jeffreys Bay on Sunday, Fanning and Wilson were fighting for the world title and ranked number two and three in the world.

Kirstin Scholtz/WSL


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19 Hilarious Things People Actually Do To Fall Asleep

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From head-butting to pimple popping to… chainsaws?

doseoffunny.com

Watching videos on youtube of people cooking miniature food on a little stove with mini utensils. It makes me so zen.

Submitted by Destiny McCoy on Facebook.

sometimes i envision that i've body-swapped with Kylie Jenner and she keeps trying to get her body back while i'm spending all her money. usually puts me to sleep pretty fast. it helps if you have a kind of back story. like, why do you want to be her? can you convince your family that you're her? and have some kind of idea where you want it to go. idk how many times ive just been wasted with Khloe making fun of Kim. its so entertaining.

Submitted by clarac4c67746e6.


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Daniel Radcliffe And His Girlfriend Performing Eminem At Karaoke Is Perfect

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And it was glorious.

Last year, Daniel Radcliffe unveiled a very impressive talent: He is amazing at rapping. He performed “Alphabet Aerobics” on The Tonight Show and didn't miss a beat.

vine.co / Via vine.co

And he's also admitted in the past that he's pretty obsessed with Eminem as well.

NBC / Via vine.co


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What Is The Best Prank You Have Ever Pulled?

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Do you fancy yourself for a bit of a Jim Halpert?

As childish as they may be, there is little more satisfying than pulling off a perfectly executed prank.

As childish as they may be, there is little more satisfying than pulling off a perfectly executed prank.

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From the simple.

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To the terrifying.

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And just the downright disgusting.

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Ed Sheeran Helped Little Mix's Jesy Nelson Get Engaged

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And was rewarded with a KFC.

Ed Sheeran has done a lot of cute things for his fans lately, from surprising them in shopping centres to perform duets, to giving advice to kids who struggle with stuttering.

Ed Sheeran has done a lot of cute things for his fans lately, from surprising them in shopping centres to perform duets, to giving advice to kids who struggle with stuttering.

Ian Gavan / Getty Images

But now he's helped out two of his celebrity fans, in the form of Rixton's Jake Roche, and Little Mix's Jesy Nelson.

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Jesy posted the same image onto Instagram after accepting the proposal, telling fans she felt like the "luckiest girl in the world".

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This Arsenal Trivia Question Is A Tough Test Of Gunners Knowledge

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Once you see this, you can’t un-see it, so prepare yourself for a day of frustration.

This Arsenal trivia question could have you tearing your hair out all day, here's how it goes...

This Arsenal trivia question could have you tearing your hair out all day, here's how it goes...

BuzzFeed

Do you think you can solve it? Have a go...

If you're struggling, you can reveal a clue:

If you're struggling, you can reveal a clue:

BuzzFeed


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Man Behind Minions Says They're Too "Dumb And Stupid" To Be Female

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“Minions” co-director Pierre Coffin has explained why there are no females.

You've probably noticed that Minions are everywhere right now, much to the dismay of basically everyone.

You've probably noticed that Minions are everywhere right now, much to the dismay of basically everyone.

Universal Pictures


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This YouTuber Wants To Know Why It's Only Plus-Size Women That Are Shamed For Eating Junk Food

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“If I were 120 pounds eating a pizza in my underwear on Tumblr I would be ‘quirky,’ and ‘cute,’ and ‘real.’”

Last week, YouTuber Meghan Tonjes posted a video response to Ariana Grande's doughnut-licking video called "Hate the Donut, Not the Fatty."

Last week, YouTuber Meghan Tonjes posted a video response to Ariana Grande's doughnut-licking video called "Hate the Donut, Not the Fatty."

Meghan Tonjes / Via youtube.com

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youtube.com


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3 Adorable Emails That Will Always Brighten Your Day

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Get your cute fix with a BuzzFeed Animals newsletter!

If nothing puts a smile on your face like a delightful dog, you need our “Dog a Day” newsletter in your life!

If nothing puts a smile on your face like a delightful dog, you need our “Dog a Day” newsletter in your life!

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We’ll send you a picture of a precious pup every single day, right when you need it most. How's THAT for a special delivery?

We’ll send you a picture of a precious pup every single day, right when you need it most. How's THAT for a special delivery?

imgur.com / Via reddit.com

Enter your email address to sign up for "Dog a Day"!


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Fascinating, Frightening Photos Of The Modern KKK

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A series of intimate, sad, and revealing images by photographer Johnny Milano of America’s most notorious hate group.

Female members of the Virgil Griffin White Knights, which claims affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, pose for a photograph in their robes ahead of a cross lighting ceremony at a private farmhouse in Carter County, Tennessee, July 4, 2015. Female members of the KKK are often referred to as "Ladies of the Invisible Empire" or "LOTIES." The Ku Klux Klan, which had about 6 million members in the 1920s, now has some 2,000 to 3,000 members nationally in about 72 chapters, or klaverns, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors extremist groups.

Johnny Milano / Reuters

A female and male member of the Virgil Griffin White Knights, a group that claims affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, pose for a photograph in their robes ahead of a cross lighting ceremony at a private farm house in Carter County, Tennessee July 4, 2015.

Johnny Milano / Reuters

A member of the Nordic Order Knights, a group that claims affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, tries on his hood a day before a cross lighting ceremony in Henry County, Virginia, August 8, 2014.

Johnny Milano / Reuters

A confederate flag hangs in the bedroom of a Ku Klux Klan member in Henry County, Virginia, August 9, 2014.

Johnny Milano / Reuters


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26 Very Real Struggles Of Growing Up With Siblings

What's Going On Around The World Today?

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HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES

Greek banks reopened after a three-week closure, but limits on cash withdrawals remain in place and consumers are facing higher prices.

Last week’s parliamentary vote to start negotiations for a third bailout worth 86 billion euro allowed the European Central Bank to give Greece more funds to open the banks. The reopening is “aimed at restoring trust inside and outside Greece after an aid-for-reforms deal last week averted bankruptcy,” Reuters reports. Many restrictions remain though, including withdrawals capped at 420 euro weekly (about $455) and sales tax increases, which were in the package of reforms demanded by Greece’s creditors.

A National Bank official opens the door of a bank branch as people enter after Greek banks reopened on Monday morning after three weeks of closure on Monday in Athens.

Milos Bicanski / Getty Images

And a little extra.

A debt payment to the ECB was due today. Using the 7-billion-euro loan from the European Union secured last week, Greece has begun to repay the 6.25 billion euro it owes to the ECB and the International Monetary Fund after a missed payment at the end of June.

“As Greece blew past multiple political and financial supposed end-dates over the past five months, July 20 always remained make-or-break,” according to Bloomberg News. “European Union law bans the ECB from financing governments, meaning a default would probably require it to pull support from Greek lenders, leaving an exit from the single currency all but assured.”

The U.S. and Cuba officially restored diplomatic relations and quietly reopened embassies in each other’s countries after half a century.

After 54 years, Cuba and the United States have re-established diplomatic relations as an agreement from earlier this summer went into effect after midnight. The Cuban flag was hung in the U.S. State Department alongside flags of other U.S. allies. Later today, Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, and Cuban officials will formally inaugurate their embassy in Washington, D.C.

“Despite the diplomatic thawing, the two nations still have an array of issues — including human rights and property conflicts — to address as they normalize relations,” BuzzFeed News’ Jim Dalrymple II and Evan McMorris-Santoro write.

An employee at the U.S. Department of State adds the Cuban flag between the flags of Croatia and Cyprus in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images

WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON

Federal investigators are combing through the Chattanooga gunman’s texts and travels for clues to the motive.

The FBI is reviewing a text message that Mohammad Abdulazeez, identified as the gunman, sent to a friend before the attack on the two military facilities last week. The text included a link to an Islamic verse saying “Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him,” according to the New York Times. Investigators are also looking into a trip Abdulazeez, who was an American citizen born in Kuwait, made to Jordan in 2014.

His family issued a statement on Saturday saying Abdulazeez suffered from depression for many years and “was not the son we knew and loved.” The attack killed four Marines and a Navy sailor.

What’s next?

States are on high alert to secure other military facilities. “The governors of Florida, Texas and Indiana on Saturday followed the lead of other governors and moved to protect National Guard personnel at military bases, and in some cases at recruiting offices,” the Times writes.

A group of women bow their heads in prayer during an interfaith memorial service on Friday in Chattanooga. “The word I’ve heard the most since yesterday is ‘heartbroken,’” Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam told mourners at a vigil.

John Bazemore / AP Photo

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?

Bill Cosby detailed his sexual liaisons with women in a 10-year-old deposition.

Cosby admitted to using his fame, money, and mentorship to seduce young women and then hide it all from his wife, according to a deposition uncovered by the New York Times. “The deposition includes comments from Cosby in which he describes his sexual encounters with women, and explains how he would systematically go about trying to seduce them,” BuzzFeed News’ Salvador Hernandez writes.

Cosby has been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting more than two dozen women, but has not been charged in any of the cases. Earlier this month, an unsealed document from 2005 revealed Cosby procured quaaludes, a sedative which was banned in the U.S. in the 1980s, with the intent of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with.

Bill Cosby at a Veterans Day ceremony on Nov. 11, 2014.

Matt Rourke / AP Photo

Quick things to know:

  • An explosion in Turkey near the Syrian border has killed at least 27 people, according to the Turkish Interior Ministry. (BuzzFeed News) This story is developing. You can follow the latest updates on the BuzzFeed News app for iOS.

  • More than 100 people were killed in an Iraq car bombing over the weekend, which was reportedly one of the deadliest attacks to take place in Iraq in a decade. ISIS claimed responsibility. (BuzzFeed News)

  • The United Nations Security Council will vote on the Iran nuclear deal today as the U.S. congressional review formally begins. (New York Times)

  • Ku Klux Klan supporters and anti-racism protesters in South Carolina’s capital, Columbia, on Saturday, clashed during rival demonstrations for and against the Confederate flag. (BuzzFeed News) Take a look at these fascinating and frightening photos of the modern KKK.

  • Why the deaths of Latinos at the hands of police haven't drawn as much attention. (Los Angeles Times)

  • In a Vanity Fair interview, Rachel Dolezal insists she is black and says she’s running out of money after losing her job as a local NAACP president. (BuzzFeed News)

  • Buckingham Palace has said it is “misleading and dishonest” of The Sun to publish images of the Queen appearing to give a Nazi salute as a child. (BuzzFeed News)

  • The online cheating site AshleyMadison.com was hacked and the hackers are threatening to release user data. (Gizmodo)

  • The U.S. won the International Mathematical Olympiad for the first time in 21 years. (NPR)

Ant-Man’s estimated $58 million debut is Marvel Studios’ lowest opening weekend since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. (BuzzFeed News)

But it’s the best opening weekend ever for Ant-Man’s star, Paul Rudd.

Via Giphy / Via giphy.com

Happy Monday

At a surfing competition in South Africa yesterday, surfer Mick Fanning was caught on camera fending off a shark attack. Fanning and another surfer, Julian Wilson, were competing for the world title until the shark incident when Wilson paddled towards Fanning to help him get away and escape the attack. Fanning thanked and hugged his biggest rival in a touching moment from a horrifying day.

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For the latest updates, download the BuzzFeed News app for iOS now!

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Android is coming soon, we promise. If you’d like, we’ll let you know when we launch.



24 Things That No One Tells You About Moving Out Of London

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It’s not all walking into the sunset with a belly full of afternoon tea and local cider just FYI.

You get really smug about your new home pretty damn quickly.

When friends from London come to visit, you find it really hard to not squeal with evil joy as you give them the guided tour of your new abode: "BUT LOOK HOW MANY MORE SQUARE FEET OF SPACE I HAVE COMPARED TO YOU, PEASANT."

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And because you're saving so much money, you soon realise you could legit live in a mansion.

And because you're saving so much money, you soon realise you could legit live in a mansion.

You spend hours pouring over Rightmove because, get this, for the same price as a decent one-bed in London you can have the dream Sim house that you spent an entire week making in 2002 — complete with hot tub, fancy fireplace, and maybe a butler* in the suburbs.

*You probably can't afford a butler.

EA Games

Sometimes you actually get 10 hours of sleep a night.

Sometimes you actually get 10 hours of sleep a night.

Seriously. It's like you're a newborn baby or something.

Universal Pictures

And because you're so well rested, you stop having breakdowns in public.

And because you're so well rested, you stop having breakdowns in public.

Regularly hitting your weekly sleep quota means you don't lose it and sob in front of strangers in the bank/on the bus/in the office toilets anymore. Seriously, it's the dream.

reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com


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After Years Of Violent Bullying For Being Gay I Nearly Destroyed Myself To Make People Like Me

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Rebecca Hendin for BuzzFeed

It was at the Christmas party in my first year at sixth-form college that everything changed. The other kids were standing around in Kangol caps, baggy jeans, and Palladium shoes – it was the early '90s – as the KLF blasted from the soundsystem. But no one was listening to the music. For the first time in my life they were listening to me.

Leaning against the bar, a pint of Diamond White cider in one hand and a Silk Cut in the other, I was regaling my new friends with some funny story or other. I can't remember what; what matters is that I was the butt of my own joke. All around me people listened intently, their eyes wide, their smiles wider. I delivered the punchline and they roared with laughter. I felt a rush of joy stronger than anything I'd ever experienced. This is it, I thought, now you've got them.

In that instant I understood that this was how I could become popular: by drinking, smoking, and, most importantly, by making fun of myself. There was a way to make people like me, and it meant becoming a performing seal.

I was desperate to reinvent myself. I needed to discard the person I had been. For more than 10 years at school I was subjected to horrific bullying for being gay. This was not merely name-calling or being excluded by the other pupils. This was hearing their disgust directed at me several times a day, physically as well as verbally. This meant not being able to walk down a corridor without hearing the kids lined up on each side spitting their insults at me or shoving me away. This meant eating my lunch in a toilet cubicle every day – I was too frightened to show my face in the playground. It meant sitting on the school bus home desperately trying not to cry while the entire bus pointed at me and chanted a single word filled with hate: queer.

Rebecca Hendin for BuzzFeed

It started almost as far back as I can remember. Before I knew I was gay they said I was queer because I was effeminate, because I hated team sports, and because I liked playing with the girls.

Perhaps worst of all, in the northern, working-class towns where I grew up – Bolton, Bury, and Manchester – adults and even teachers thought it was OK to ignore the bullying, or, sometimes, to join in. There was no one I could talk to. The experience left me feeling brutalised. I hated myself almost as much as everyone else did.

So when, around the age of 16, I began drinking and suddenly people started to like me, I felt overwhelmed, as if someone had flicked a switch and my camp voice was suddenly considered acceptable, even celebrated. I didn't stop to think that maybe my peers were starting to mature and society was becoming a little less homophobic. All I noticed was that alcohol made me loud, bold, and confident, that the new me was welcomed into the party, no longer excluded. I did not realise the dangerous associations that were being established in my mind. I did not know that this wasn't the answer but something that would make everything a lot worse.

Within a few months the performing-seal act was complete. I was ready to do anything to get the party going and the first person everyone wanted at any drink-fuelled celebration. I went from being the most unpopular person in school to the most popular person at sixth-form college, and, later, university.

When I officially came out of the closet at 17 and began sleeping with men, I realised I could crank this performance up a notch by treating everyone to stories drawn from my growing repertoire of outrageous one-night stands. "So who've you shagged lately?" people would ask the moment I walked into a room, their faces aglow with expectation.

Rebecca Hendin for BuzzFeed

Yes, I was having fun – of sorts – but it continued right through my twenties, and as I approached 30 my life was revolving around an endless cycle of drinking, casual sex, and unhealthy relationships with unsuitable men. I was constantly having to up the ante by getting drunker and dirtier just to maintain the momentum. On more than one occasion I found myself going home with a man with an unusual profession just because I thought it would make a good anecdote. My debts were spiralling out of control. I was robbed several times by men I'd taken home and my health began to suffer. The risks I'd taken sexually meant I had to undergo several HIV tests, although luckily they came back negative.

I was desperately unhappy and heading towards rock bottom. I vomited on a plane. I woke up in a hotel room in Beijing with a man I could not remember meeting. I collapsed at work.

But I could not see how to break out of the behavioural patterns I'd so willingly jumped into. Being an entertaining drunk had become part of my identity. It was what people wanted of me.

Just after I turned 30, however, a survival instinct kicked in. I knew that if I did not change I would end up killing myself. I decided to give up alcohol.

In the end it wasn't hard – I was sick of it. But it meant overcoming an ingrained fear, that the popularity I'd built up would be demolished, that I needed drink to be liked, that without booze I would be alone again.

That was not what happened. I lost the odd drinking partner, but most friends stuck by me. Many said they liked me more. I quickly began to feel more balanced. The highs from a wild night out went, but thankfully, the crashing lows did, too.

I started seeing a psychotherapist once a week and he taught me that the way I drank was a form of self-harm: I was trying to annihilate my real self because there was something about that person that I still hated. Through the work we did together, I began to realise that even though I'd come to feel happy being gay, having grown up in a world where I was constantly told that my sexuality was disgusting and therefore I was disgusting had cast a long shadow of self-loathing.

You don't have to look far among gay men, particularly those brought up before attitudes began to change, to see this self-destructive pattern repeated and repeated.

But you also, of course, don't have to be gay to press the self-destruct button. The more I've talked to others about my experiences of self-loathing, the more others have revealed theirs to me – particularly women. My own story of self-harm, and those of so many I have known over the years, became the inspiration for my novel Nothing But Trouble. The title has personal resonance – it was what people used to say about me. The book, a comedy thriller, focuses on a group of characters each convinced they're not good enough. The low self-worth leads them to take it out on themselves or the people around them, through drug abuse, drinking to oblivion, or sleeping with bad men. It's a story I know too well.

But self-sabotage, for me, is finally over. A couple of years ago, after five years being sober, I started drinking again. It wasn't that I missed it particularly, rather that it can make social events easier – in moderation. I wanted to see if now, after therapy, after learning not to hate and destroy myself, I could do it.

So I started drinking very slowly and carefully, and only surrounding myself with people who wouldn't tip me over the edge. I wrote myself a set of rules, the foremost of which is never to drink when unhappy. Also, to not sacrifice my dignity for the sake of entertaining others. And to ensure I go home before I'm tempted to jump into bed with an unsuitable man.

I've had the occasional mishap. But on the whole, armed with more self-awareness and a desire to take care of myself, I'm doing well. The angry edge that used to accompany my nights out is gone. The objective, to punish myself, has disappeared.

I like to think I can still make people laugh with my repertoire of filthy stories. But I don't need to keep finding new ones, I don't need to be drunk to tell them, and now, at last, I've found a new outlet: I can channel all the stories I need to tell into my novels.

Nothing But Trouble is out now, published by Pan Macmillan. For more information visit mattcainwriter.com.

30 Celebrity Reactions That Are Way Too Real For All Women

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“I don’t like guys who brag. If you really had it, you wouldn’t need to talk about it. Just shut up, please, sit down.”

When you have one of those days where everything is too much, and you want to just hibernate under a duvet.

When you have one of those days where everything is too much, and you want to just hibernate under a duvet.

With chocolate, of course.

E! / Via lobekardashians.tumblr.com

And there are moments when all you seem able to do is just stress out about every damn thing.

And there are moments when all you seem able to do is just stress out about every damn thing.

E! / Via freakyeahkyliejenner.tumblr.com

When you know that there is literally no better feeling than getting undressed, putting on a tracksuit, removing your makeup and tying your hair back.

Seriously. No. Better. Feeling.

And days when you can just watch TV and eat junk food are the best days.


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People Are Congratulating This Diner Owner After She Screamed At A Crying 2-Year-Old

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WARNING: This post contains some pretty graphic language.

Marcy's Diner's Facebook commented on Carson's post, writing that the whole incident started when the Carsons ordered too many pancakes.

Marcy's Diner's Facebook commented on Carson's post, writing that the whole incident started when the Carsons ordered too many pancakes.

Facebook: marcysdiner

The next day, the diner's page addressed the incident again, writing that the screaming child didn't stop for over half an hour and that the Carsons should have taken her outside.

The next day, the diner's page addressed the incident again, writing that the screaming child didn't stop for over half an hour and that the Carsons should have taken her outside.

Facebook: marcysdiner


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What Surviving Sexual Assault Has Taught Me About Masculinity

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Tom Humberstone for BuzzFeed

I was never very good at being a boy: I found boyhood full of things I didn’t like. I would cry at other children’s parties – a problem with my ears meant that loud noises hurt – and I spent as much time as possible trying to get out of doing sport. When, as older sisters are wont to do, my sister put make-up on me, I’d sneak back later to put it on again, trying to work out what she’d done. By all standards, I was terrible at being a boy.

The next step for the boy, as movies will often tell you, is to become a man. This will usually happen on a fishing trip with a father figure – someone will explain how “a man needs to provide” or “feelings are for sissies”. I guess my family weren’t big fishers.

No, the night I stopped being a boy was the night I got into a car with two strangers. I was 13 years old and I was sexually assaulted.

My rush into the “responsible” world started on a night where all control was taken away from me. It was a night that told me I was worthless and meaningless, and for years I continued to live by those ideas, chanted and repeated like a mantra.

I told only one friend that night – she came to pick me up and take me home. Her cheeks were covered in freckles, and her tears made them shine the whole way back. I went to her house the next day, but we didn’t talk much about anything. I didn’t say another word about it until I was 19.

For those six years I taught myself that I could never be wanted. I obviously wasn’t a man, I was something less than, and at the age of discovering girls, my conclusion was that no girl could ever want me. It’s an insecurity that has affected all my relationships: Subconsciously, I could never get over the fact that someone liked me. Even now, that voice still arises. When relationships end and girlfriends move on, there’s a fire in one part of my head – a fire I try to douse with rationality and logic – that tells me it makes sense they found someone else. They must have found themselves a real man.

I don’t believe in real men, but my reactionary head – my amygdala – does. It doesn’t really know what a real man is, it just knows I’m not one. I’m a victim, out of control; men are not.

When I was 18, I decided I was going to be a real man. After Christmas dinner with my mum and an old friend, I found a photo of myself taken earlier in the day that I liked. In a red check shirt, one I still wear, sitting in a restaurant, I looked calm, handsome, and somehow masculine. That, I decided, was who I was going to be.

Tom Humberstone for BuzzFeed

To that end, I lied to people and drank a lot. I hopped on and off buses between cities, trying to find parties. I didn’t treat women kindly. I was hepped up on my own fake idea of manhood and I hated myself desperately. I couldn’t be the retiring boy I had been because that person was worthless and meaningless; I couldn’t be the boisterous brute because that wasn’t who I was.

The summer I turned 19, I started a relationship with my best friend, and it was instantly important. My struggles with my identity were a strain, and then after the first month of being together, I had to move back from England to Abu Dhabi, where my mum was living. It was a perfect set-up for a tough relationship. We talked constantly and fought a lot. One evening, after she hung up on a Skype call, something in me broke and I typed out what had happened to me – and pressed "send".

I wish I could say that telling someone was a freeing feeling, that I soared out of the apartment window high on honesty and never hit the ground. What it really started was years of forced introspection, of looking back at my life. At my girlfriend’s urging, I started therapy at Survivors UK – the only counselling service in London dedicated to male survivors. Week after week I talked to a counsellor, and each session became a weekly moment of respite. I was trying to learn who I was, cutting away years of what to me felt like failure.

After about a year, I decided to try group therapy. There, I got to talk to other men who were just as confused about what it meant to be a man. I got to better understand myself through the experiences of others, and discuss how we’d all been affected by our pasts. I got to look around and think, Well, these are real men, aren’t they, brain? These are real men with real pain but who I like and enjoy my time with, so I must be one too.

I went on a spree of telling my closest friends and in the process created a support network that has saved my life and made me whole countless times. So when an old friend came to visit, I resolved to tell him too.

A few nights into his stay, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant on Old Kent Road. He ordered 15 Budweisers for the four of us: me and my friend, my girlfriend at the time and her friend. As the conversation waned he pushed us to get more drinks in. At some point, unable to handle it, I snapped and ran out of the restaurant. I was halfway down the road when he came outside. In the street, confused by the booze and the purple neon lighting of the restaurant sign, I told him what had happened to me and what I was dealing with. He told me to get over it. He told me to stop seeing the therapist because that was bringing this up. He told me to forget. Later that night, in bed with my girlfriend, I lay on my back and told her I’d never wanted to die more than I did right then. It was one of the hardest nights of my life, but my therapy group was there to support me.

I don’t blame that old friend for his reaction. I think he’d been told his whole life that men don’t talk– they do. They don’t discuss problems; they fight them out.

I’m not clear on exactly when I made a choice to be the person I am right now, to try my hardest to ignore the deafening insecurities that follow me, the ones that can still often chant "worthless, meaningless" over and over, only now and then taking breaks to explain why no woman will ever want me, that I’ll never be a real man. It was gradual, but always based on a determination to not be defined by the worst points in my life. And more than that, a decision to not be defined by things I never chose. I never know how much to pin on one event, whether my other mental struggles are environmental or genetic, what kind of person I would be now if I didn’t have this experience with the worst of what humans can do.

Tom Humberstone for BuzzFeed

I like to think that understanding struggle rounds off a human life in a way little else can. In the end – or at least, the end of this essay – I don't have a conclusion. I know that the world still has this ridiculous idea of masculinity. An idea that harms all of us, from the men it pressures and coerces to the partners and friends who suffer with its results. It's an idea of power that no doubt informed my attackers and pushed me away from the support I could have received earlier. The lesson, not that there needs to be one, is that silence is never powerful. Talking, softly, often is.


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