#Death jr 2 root of evil

[silkekruse]

Ya'll who was gonna tell me other people remember the Death Jr games and comics?! I literally have all 3 games and all comics AND a homemade DJ cosplay!!? How did i NOT know there where other fans?!? 😭🙈💀😳🤣 holy moly am i really that stupid...? If anyone still cares about DJ and his friends, please please PLEASE intereact, i need people to ramble with lol X3

Have a picture of my DJ cosplay

Hope ya'll have a awesome day/night! Stay spooky ya'll ✌️👻💀

[muninn--huginn]

Thank you RTVS gang for signing my singular PSP UMD, Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil.

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

The Case of the Greater Gatsby Episode 24: "CLOSING TIME"

Well gang, we have laughed. We have gasped, we have cheered, we have sleuthed and made guesses both fabulously on-point and woefully ill-informed. We have spent way too much time thinking about Citizen Jasper Fox. And now we are here, at the end of all things.*

(*”All things,” in this case, simply being this podcast)

Full thoughts under the cut. Spoilers abound!

So Leery was our murderer after all! It turns out he was Sheilah’s troublesome stalker vaguely alluded to in the tapes, and he killed Fitzgerald in a fit of rage after poor ole’ Scott refused to leave his, erm, “lover.” But he was not our anonymous writer of threatening letters; that honor, as predicted, belongs to dear ole’ Mel. (Side note: Mel’s “oh, that was so smart of me” made me guffaw. Mel may be evil, but God I love a Lesli Margherita line delivery). I was also right about Mel intentionally sabotaging The Grapes of Wrath at every turn, but I hadn’t quite figured out her full connection to the murder—that she paid Mo Beats to cover up the crime in order to protect her number one star. So, shout out to Mel for being even more corrupt than I guessed! Though I must admit that I kinda’ feel her on the whole anti-adaption thing. While I have absolutely no issue with Hollywood’s lifelong addiction to adapting anything they can get their mitts on, sometimes it feels like we lean too far into one particular thing, such as Marvel comics. I am also tired of sequels that the original work simply didn’t ask for, and as an aspiring screenwriter I know all too well how depressingly hard it is to get anyone to listen to an idea that doesn’t boast the sacred letters “I.P.” (intellectual property. It’s an adaption term). Still, I don’t see myself writing death threats to Robert Downey Jr. anytime soon.

I do have a confession, though. I got so caught up in the joy of solving mysteries that I forgot that Greater Gatsby, despite Dash, the bunny suits, and general abiding silliness, is technically a noir. I did not for a second predict that Fig and Ford would be forced to let the murderer slip through their fingers with nary a helpless peep. But at least the epilogue offered some glimmer of hope as it nicely expanded on the fates of so many of the characters we’ve come to love, hate, or suspect. Mel may have escaped justice, but Bixby is back in his bar and former cop Mo Beats is now out in the LAPD cold. Though judging by his ominous goodbye, our favorite detective duo have yet to see the last of him…

But I suppose the real question is, have we seen the last of our favorite detective duo? While this certainly wouldn’t be the first time Shipwrecked has set up for a non-existent season two (Headless season 2, how I dream of you at night…), you cannot deny that there is, in fact, a good amount of set-up. Barnaby’s potential freedom is on the line. Mo Beats is perfectly placed to return as a dangerous rival PI or something worse. And Claudette’s life might be hanging in the balance…

Who do we think this mysterious voice is? First instinct suggests someone related to Mo Beats and his vows of revenge, but that’s a little too easy and straightforward, especially so soon after his threats. Judging by what the Fig and Ford cases are usually about, I’d say our intruder is more likely related to Ford’s and Claudette’s starry past. Could this be someone at the center of whatever final storm led them to quit Hollywood for good? Could he be related to Ford’s “big secret” (yeah, Shipwrecked, that’s right. I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN)? A Hollywood connection could even lead Fig and Ford back to Mel and Leery, giving them a second chance to get things right (ssh, don’t tell me it’s a noir, thematically rooted in the unconquerable force of corruption and power. Let me live with my delusions). But whatever secrets lay behind Claudette’s attacker and his shadowy motivations, I very much hope we get to spend a whole season unravelling them one by one.

So let’s be optimistic and say not goodbye, but rather “see you later.” Until our next long December, Bixby’s Brigadeers. Remember to eat your cookies, and don’t let the smoke get in your eyes…

[rynnthefangirl]

My Top 10 Favorite Breaking Bad Universe Episodes (+ explanations/analyses because I can't not gush about these shows dammit)

"Face Off" (BrBa, S4E13)- this episode had me on the edge of my seat like no other one in the entire BrBa universe. It's not my favorite in terms of themes or character development-- which are my usual priorities in a show-- but good god, it was an EXPERIENCE. And it held up SO GOOD on rewatch, even knowing how it ends the pacing and buildup is done so phenomenally that it almost feels like watching it for the first time. It's just epic. And that final scene... coming off the thrill of watching an evil villain like Gus Fring be defeated... relishing in Walt's victory and relief... then the camera slowly tracking inward to reveal the Lily of the Valley.... that sudden shift as you realize the guy you were just aggressively rooting for is a monster as well... Oh my god. Perfection.

"Ozymandias" (BrBa, S5E14)- do I even need to explain why I love this episode? It's often regarded as the best episode in this universe, and for good reason. It is Walter White's downfall, the epic culmination of 4 1/2 seasons of steady moral degradation, the consequences of Walter's greed and ego finally brought to horrific fruition. This is one of only two episodes in the BrBa universe to actually make me cry (the other being "Granite State", when Walt Jr. tells his father he should just go and die). Hank's death is abrupt and horrible. "I watched Jane die" makes ME want to go die. Walt's fight with Skyler is both devastating and somehow cathartic. The acting is some of the best I have seen in my entire life. It truly is the peak of Breaking Bad, and there will never be anything else quite like it (although my #3 comes close).

"Plan and Execution" (BCS, S6E7)- this episode is so effective, that I could barely even stand to rewatch it. And not just Howard's death, but everything building up to it. Watching Howard suffer and be humiliated, knowing all the while that this is his last day on Earth. That this is how he is spending his final hours. And the fact that the whole thing has the fun and whacky tone of the other McWexler scams makes me want to throw up. Watching an oblivious Jimmy and Kim dig both Howard's and their own graves with joy and gusto. The inevitability of it all too, how every little detail conspires to put Howard and Lalo in that room together. I never thought a cockroach scampering across a screen could make me want to scream, but here we are. It's honestly unbearable. And then of course the final scene is breathtakingly brilliant. Howard's amazing speech, the sudden tonal shift, the horror of his death. The candle. And this all barely even touches on what it means for Jimmy and Kim's characters, but this is getting long enough, so lets just leave it at P&E is their very own Ozymandias.

"Chicanery" (BCS, S3E5)- I love how perfectly rated Chicanery is in the fandom. I feel like an episode like this would be prone to being totally overshadowed by the more action-packed ones, and I'm so glad that it isn't. Because it is brilliant. To me, Chuck and Jimmy's relationship is the single most compelling dynamic in the BrBa universe. And this is their ultimate showdown, both giving their all to take the other down, Chuck with righteous glee and Jimmy with bitter reluctance. Chuck's final breakdown/monologue is incredible both in terms of writing and acting-- this is the moment we see Chuck McGill for who he really is. Years of bitterness, and jealousy, and frustration, and desperation, finally let loose. And while Jimmy won, it's not a triumphant victory. It's a somber one. Because like Kim said, all they did was tear down a mentally ill man. A man who needed help, beneath all the hatred and envy. Aghh. Chuck.

"Felina" (BrBa, S5E16)- I love the vibe of Felina. There's just this palpaple tiredness and resigned acceptance from Walter. He destroyed his family, they will never forgive him, he is going to die alone. He has realized his ego and selfishness, but it's too late. Everyone is just sitting in the ashes of the world they once knew. And yet, with that acceptance, there also comes a sense of peace. Nothing left to do but make things right in whatever way he still can. Finding a way to get his money to his family, admitting to Skyler that "I did it for me", seeing Holly and Jr. one last time, avenging Hank's death. Then there's Jesse and his resolution, "do it yourself", him crying and screaming and laughing as he drives away, a well earned freedom. The final shot of Walt is bittersweet in the best possible way. A conclusion worthy of the phenomenal series that came before it (rip GOT but BrBa is different).

"Waterworks" (BCS, S6E12)- where Saul Gone is the resolution of Jimmy's arc, Waterworks is the resolution of Kim's. And I think Kim's ending hits me harder, because while we always knew that Jimmy would break bad, Kim's corruption felt like such a betrayal. And it made it all the more sweeter when she redeems herself and begins to come back from that dark place she was in. The Florida scenes were utterly unnerving in how empty Kim was, but then it was so cathartic to see her finally let all that emotion out (and Rhea Seehorn absolutely KILLED IT, she was ROBBED at the Emmy's). Her scene with Jesse was beautiful too, and a perfect example of how to do fan-service in a meaningful way. Also, as a devoted Howard Hamlin stan, I loved seeing him haunt the narrative and watching Cheryl stand up for him again.

"Saul Gone" (BCS, S6E13)- another excellent and worthy conclusion to an amazing show! Jimmy is one of my favorite characters, and like with Kim, it was so beautiful to see him find himself again. I'm very fascinated by Jimmy's coping mechanisms for his grief & guilt, and this episode is where we see them finally be torn down. The whole confession scene is wonderful, A+ writing and acting. Particularly him finally saying out loud that his actions led to Chuck's suicide -- that knowledge has controlled Jimmy for the past three seasons, and him facing it at last is the final nail in the coffin for Saul Goodman. Saul is Gone, and Jimmy McGill remains. I love it.

"Lantern" (BCS S3E10)- this one killed me on rewatch. Watching Chuck completely unravel and destroy his home after he was finally on the road to recovery from his mental illness. Howard and Chuck's falling out, with Howard's pain in having to force Chuck out of HHM and Chuck's pain in losing the last good relationship that he still had in his life. "You've never mattered all that much to me."🫠💔 Chuck's suicide, and knowing how it will haunt the narrative, how it will lead to Howard's destruction in P&E and Jimmy's transformation into Saul Goodman. Daggers. The whole episode - Daggers.

"Fly" (BrBa S3E10)- I am so so glad this episode exists. It wasn't necessary towards the plot at all, but it's such a wonderful little character study. The first half is comedic gold, some of my favorite whacky Walt + Jesse banter. Then the slow shift to the more somber and pensive tone as the sleeping pills set in. Everything is just dripping with importance and symbolism. Especially "it's all contaminated" -- one of my favorite lines in the whole show. And Walt’s speech about the perfect moment for him to have died... I don't even know the word for what that evokes in me. "Beautiful" doesn't cut it. It's ethereal.

"Peekaboo" (BrBa S2E6)- if I wanted to show someone why I love Jesse Pinkman and could only pick one episode to do it, Peekaboo would be that episode. It so perfectly encapsulates his character. Jesse goes to a house to threaten and get money from two junkies, and spends the entire episode trying to look after their neglected child. His conscience and decency at constant odds with the necessity of appearing strong and dangerous. And this is reinforced by the episode's bookends - Jesse delights in a small bug before Skinny P comes along and squishes it, foreshadowing the horror of Spooge getting his head squashed. Jesse is a sensitive soul scrambling for control in a world of the blackest violence. I'm so glad it never was able to fully consume him.

Honorable mentions:

"Point and Shoot" (BCS S6E8) and "Fun and Games" (BCS S6E9)- I feel so bad leaving both of these out of the top 10, because they are such phenomenal episodes. But I feel like my favorite moments are scattered across them and "Plan and Execution", and it's really the triad of episodes that makes up one of my favorite arcs in either show. So as individual episodes they don't quite outrank the others I have, but in spirit they are definitely up there sharing the #3 spot with P&E.

"Better Call Saul" (BrBa S2E8) and "4 Days Out" (BrBa S2E9)- I have to give a shoutout to two of my favorite chaotic and hilarious Breaking Bad episodes. Walt and Jesse's dynamic is so perfect in 4 Days Out, and Saul absolutely killed his introduction to this universe (+ the additional heartbreak of rewatching knowing why he was so freaked out about Lalo).

[cornwithhorn]

Welcome to my Tumblr page!

Hello, hello, hello, the name is Corn or Cornelious. I'm Non-Binary going by They/Them. And I'm also Bisexual. I'm 18yrs old, and I generally prefer if minors don't interact with my blog considering I sometimes post drawings that lean more on the NSFW side of things, and I sometimes reblog stuff that's not meant for kids. So if you're a minor, I kindly ask you leave. For your safety and my own. On my Tumblr page, I post art, my hyperfixations, sleep deprived rambles, and all as such. I love these Movies/TV Shows: Doctor Who (9-12 fucking hate 13) Invader Zim, Trollhunters, Good Omens, Ghost Adventures, Darkwing Duck, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, The Dark Crystal, The Labyrinth, Star Trek DS9, Beetlejuice, Gargoyles, Rocky Horror Picture Show, The X-Files, The Addams Family, DBZ, MIB 1-3, Gremlins 1-2, and TMNT (2010 because it's the best version and you can fight me on that). I like these Movies/TV Shows: Star Trek Voyage, Edward Scissor Hands, Beetlejuice, The Lost Boys, The Neverending Story, Willow, Goonies, Critters 1-4, It old and new, Duck Tales, Astro Boy (The original), Inspector Gadget, Sweet Tooth, Angel, The Matrix, Back to the Future, Sailor Moon, The Witches (I fucking hate the newer one), The Pagemaster, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Casper (Live Action), Hook (Live Action), Jumanji (Old, I think the newer ones were alright), Hercules, Anastasia, Bartok the Magnificent, Matilda, Hocus Pocus (The old one, the new one was alright I guess), Ferngully, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Brave Little Toaster, Wild Wild West, The Iron Giant, A Goofy Movie, Aladdin (Original one), The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Cats Don't Dance (Watch it if you can, it's so underrated), and I love these music artists: Forrest Day, Sub Urban, Will Wood and the Tapeworms, Imagine Dragons, Lemon Demon, The Correspondents, Venga Boys, Lady Gaga, Queen, Twenty One Pilots, David Bowie, Elton John, Neoni, Cg5, Missio, Layto, Unlike Pluto, Glass Animals, SAFIA, ck9c, AViVA, Aurelio Voltaire, Adam Jensen, updog, Jake Daniels, The Chainsmokers, Jagwar Twin, Des Rocs, YOHIO, NIVIRO, Depeche Mode, grandson, Weathers, Halsey, Icarus Dive, Dagames, FAKE TYPE., Cosmo Sheldrake, Lorde, Lewis Blisset, They Might Be Giants, Mia Rodriguez, UPSAHL, The Ready Set, Timmy Trumpet, Bronze Radio Return, Napolean XIV, and Conor Maynar. I love these video games: The Last of Us, PVZ, Psychonauts, Batman Arkham Asylum, Destroy All Humans, Little Big Planet, Infamous, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning, Medievil, Dragons Crown, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Stray, Skylanders Spyros Adventure, Alice Madness Returns, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, Astroneer, Minecraft, Terraria, Forager, Cookie Clicker, Grounded, Roblox SCP: 3008 Infinite Ikea, Roblox Bee Swarm Simulator, Ark: Survival Evolved, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pacman, Alex Kidd, Bonanza Bros, Death Jr. Root of Evil Wii, Coralina Wii game, Rabbids Rayman TV Wii, and Mario Kart Wii. DNI: P*dophile/MAP

Minor N*crophilia

Foot Fetish

Scat or piss fetish

Conservative/Republican/Far Righter/Libertarian

Transphobic, Homophobic, racist, sexist, and or misogynistic

[gwimgamer]

Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil - A Darkly Humorous Sequel on PSP

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. PlatformPlayStation Portable (PSP)GenreAction-AdventureRelease Date North America: October 31, 2006Europe: April 27, 2007Australia: May 4, 2007DeveloperBackbone EntertainmentPublisherKonamiMODESingle player / Multi player Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil brings DJ and his eccentric gang back for another chaotic, supernatural adventure on the PSP. Released in 2006, this sequel…

[0clu]

slipknot x splatoon because i feel the need to combine my interests all the time

originally i was gonna have all 12 here but i decided to keep it as the original 9 we all know and love since i hardly even know the new members.. i would have loved to have them under here tho

so basically these guys arent really an actual team (yet) but they do have scrimages with eachother. like all the time. everyone has basically the same traits and personalities as their irl human counterparts.

i went off of vibes i get from them btw

------

#0 Sid Wilson

Inkling

• he has the rat/ray tail

• most annoying skirmisher..

• inkbrush main all day

• sucks at zipcaster and corey berates him for it

• A rank isnt treating him well but he doesnt care. hes just having fun (joyful little guy he is)

• loves qr ssu and ninja squid

• you know he has the record player in his locker

• dj

#1 Joey Jordison

Octoling

• reliable frontline slayer

• if the dapple dualies has only 1 fan on earth its him.

• also plays jr and sploosh 7

• could get top 500 if he wanted to but he doesnt care much abt it

• prefers nouveau to vanilla despite its special

• still pops reefslider like its splashdown

• plays in a band

#2 Paul Gray

Inkling

• midline

• average mini splat/nautilus main

• misses the zink variant from years ago (the old bubbler)

• just your basic S ranker, good but not the best

• comes up with the wackiest comp ideas

• "what if we all used weapons with splash wall as the sub... or quad big bubbler on tc"

#4 Jim/James Root

Inkling

• anchor

• heavy splatling, ballpoint

• came from greater inkopolis (is that what they call it?)

• him moving made his rank reset from S back down to B- so now hes scared to touch ranked

• "im a backline, man... what if my teammates are fucking braindead?" ion know

• new to the group so doesnt really know these guys

• got in from a tryout session

#3 Chris Fehn

Octoling

• midline slayer

• used to be insane with the sting ray special before it got banned

• shotpro main and jet dick rider for life

• never thought abt gear building until like a year ago, its amazing how he even got to X rank running opening gambit on jet.

• pinocchio mask in his locker he sometimes wears to turf war

#5 Craig "133" Jones

???

• slayer

• wiper. lives and dies by the sword

• he just kinda popped up one day

• ...

• him talking is like a big foot sighting

• really good. like... super good... almost mick level

• everyone wonders what the hell he mained before splatanas were a thing

• well decorated locker. nice color theory

#6 Shawn Crahan

Octoling

• anchor but can be mid for faster comps

• explo is his babby. slosher is nice too

• 'they dont know i served in the octarian army'

• was basically the groups leader 24/7 until corey came

• his strongest feat is making strategic decisions and pop up plans for the team

• has been S+/X rank for yearsss

• probably responsible for some of the map callouts you hear today (ex. skipper pavilion, blackbelly skatepark)

• his locker has a dried squid corpse playing a miniature drum set inside

#7 Mick Thomson

Inkling

• as anchor as it gets

• "do you ever play anything other than 5k??" "...5k scope"

• frequent top 500 in tc and rm

• wants the original eliter 4k to make a comeback

• evil charger main #666

• will talk you to death about chargers and their history

• his locker just has a singular eliter in it

• "come into MY house, suck MY dick, call ME gay?!?" incarnate

#8 Corey Motherfuckibg Taylor

Inkling

• the most "splatlands born and raised 💀" guy ever

• aggro midline

• 💞flingza💞, stamper

• hates big swig it feels like a knock off flingza to him

• S rank isnt treating him well and he does care. bro is suffering

• some know him as "the great big mouth"

• no ass unfortunately

• shawn saw him in turf war once and immediately went and got him to join his team afterwards

• was found as a soggy flingza main but gradually learned to have great team spirit and become a good leader :D

• just kinda puts shit in his locker.

• joey says he has frontman energy

[wrestlezon]

liveblog containment post for aew dynamite 5/4/22

i wanted jeff hardy to win but was so sure bobby was going to win anyway. glad at the results and lmao @ cole's face

once again i love yuta's street fighter theme REGAL EXCUSE ME LMFAO??? ok hes definitely trying to get excalibur to crack on purpose. scrummy scrummy scrumptious regal was making that horny bcc video ive been trying to avoid because i wont be respectful about it not enough 4 u "regal: whats the point of being a professional wrestler if you cant get the shit kicked outta you" yea ok the worst part is that with that one bit with yuta on evil uno's vlog im reasonable sure theyre aware of what theyre doing with this behavior. ???: "[moxleys] making someone's heart sing [with this violence]" regal: "mine" lmao damn moxley going all out hes throwing him at every out-of-the-ring surface he possibly can i seriously love the triple beatdown at the end of BCC matches and so does the crowd. yes! yes! yes! yes! love these violence perverts

people are rooting for evil christian. i dunno anythin bout him but want to see it. i love it when people go evil jungle boy gettin spicy himself. good love to see it

keith lee: dubious

wardlow time!! i say hes wearing full black now because hes ready for mjf's funeral lemme see this tall guy lmfao mjf and the mid five. mjf is such a clown hes great wardlow moonsault... love 2 see it wow just one powerbomb? restraint YEAH WARDLOW!!! ooooo we're moving on with the plot??? LMFAO "wardlow's gonna kiiiiill you ♫" mjf you cant fool me twice youre not gonna fight wardlow straight up e_e contract signing... long island... hm

whoa hangman is here. i thought he had covid. is he done with that? that was fast omg dissin on punk? toughguy over here whoaaaaa hangman!!!

damn dont be puttin two bad bitches up against each other. every international wrestler can be a cool

santana time!!! i love hearing 2.0 matt talk for the JAS intro hes such a goof my friend's comment here covers my reaction LMAO

stealing the camera-- lol what a good bit oh man that was a cool backroll from santana these 2.99 counts are taking days off my lifespan nooooo!! not the distracted ref lowblow!!!!! people chanting for eddie while hes still recovering from that devastating fireball attack they keep on bringing up the NUMBERS. who is going to join pnp+eddie to even it out? who could possibly?????

oh my god billy LMFAO i love the gunn club and the acclaimed

OH IS IT EVIL JULIA HART TIME??? IS IT TIME????? FINALLY????? EVIL JULIA HART YES????? PLEASE??????????? -_- promo is long theyre killing me. give me the payoff DO IT. KILL HIM DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT RRRRRRRRRRRRGHGHHGHGHAAAAGHGHGHGHH!!!!!

oh shes still in the ring with death triangle... that was a weird break to put two promos then, even if jade's outfit placated some of our immediate rage while obviously i want to see evil julia hart i can also stand behind a "i dont want to be evil julia hart. not like this" thing too. its the kind of self indulgent story i can imagine myself writing as a teen, but it ultimately depends on what else they do with it. it can still end up going in a lame direction. i too am impatient, however. i do think its funny how im seeing a 50/50 mix of "damn wish that were me" and "i do Not like this treatment of julia" opinions tho

the heights in this dante martin vs rey fenix match. 20 foot vertical leaps "couldve gone for the cover. just saying 😒" shush jr. i want to see the flips

oh shit samoa joe is gonna fight the jonker

thunder rosa :)c :o serena deeb... this back and forth is a little bit corny but like. mid corny? it either needed to be more corny or less corny whoa... double or nothin showdown

OMG JOHN SILVER VS PUNK??? YES

im watching this match but boy is this crowd dead quiet. lmao @ jr's russian leg sweep comment getting shut down :o roh title...

[phantomofthepairofdice]

Double Features 2: Splatter, Splicer, Slander, Slasher

Considering the fact that we’re locked down and most folks aren’t going out much, why not settle in on a weekend with double feature. As part of a series of articles, I’ve decided to suggest some titles that would make for an interesting pair. It’s a time commitment like binging a few episodes of a TV show, and hopefully these double features are linked in interesting enough ways that it has a similar sense of cohesion. They also can be watched on separate occasions, but the lesser the distance between them, the more the similarities show. Do it however you want, really. I’m merely a guy on the internet, and that qualifies me for absolutely nothing! Enjoy at your own risk.

This template is back! I wanted to suggest a few more double features, but this time keep them in a specific genre: horror. I love horror movies, and I realized that I hadn’t really given them their due on this here blog, so I wanted to remedy that by showing a lot of love across a lot of different movies. I’ve put together some international movies, some classics, some that are silly, some that are serious, and even a bonus suggestion hidden in one of these blurbs. So without any more ramble in the preamble, here are four new suggested double features.

Note: The pairs are listed in the order I think best serves them being seen.

Hausu & Evil Dead II:

Hausu aka House (not to be confused with 1985 American horror film of the same name) has sort of transcended cult movie status to become a staple of off-center horror-comedy. Directed by recently deceased Nobuhiko Obayashi, the film shows his roots in advertisements with every shot designed for maximum effect, a (still) cutting edge approach in the edit, and a joyous, playful approach to special effects. It’s a gauzy and dreamy romp about a group of schoolgirls who head to the countryside on vacation. While staying at one of their aunts’ house, the supernatural hauntings begin, and heads start to roll (as well as bite people on the butt). It’s the type of movie where the main cast of characters are named Gorgeous, Kung Fu, Melody, Prof, Mac, Sweet, and Fantasy and they each have corresponding character traits. I was lucky enough to catch this at a rep screening at the Museum of Fine Arts a few years ago (further proof that this has gone beyond the cult curio status), and this is absolutely a movie that benefits from having a crowd cheer and laugh along - but it’s fairly easy to find and still has lots of pleasures to be enjoyed on solo watch. I’m pretty much willing to guarantee that if you enjoy it on first watch, you’ll want to share it with others. Now, where does one start when talking about Evil Dead II? Sam Raimi is rightfully as well known for his start in the hair-brained splatter genre fare as he is for his genre-defining Spider-man films. The influence of the Evil Dead movies is nearly unquantifiable, apparent in the work of directors like Edgar Wright, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and the Korean New Wave filmmakers like Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook. There’s a reason that the second film of his Evil Dead odyssey is the one that people hold in highest esteem, though. There is an overwhelming gleeful creativity, anything goes, Looney Tunes approach to it that makes the blood geysers, laughing moose heads, and chainsaw hands extend beyond gore and shock into pleasure. It’s been noted over and over by critics and Raimi himself that the Three Stooges are probably the biggest influence on the film, and by golly, it shows. Evil Dead II and Hausu are pure in a way that few other movies can be. Both of these movies are an absolute delight of knowing camp, innovative special effects, and a general attitude of excitement from the filmmakers permeating through every frame. They’re a total blast and, in my mind, stand as the standard-bearers for horror-comedy and haunted house movies.

Total Runtime: 88 minutes + 84 minutes = 172 minutes aka 2 hours and 52 minutes

The Thing (1982) & The Fly (1986):

Feel free to roll your eyes as I explain the plots of two very famous movies. The Thing is John Carpenter’s body horror reimagining of Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World and the story that was adapted from, “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. The film is centered around a group of men in an arctic outpost who welcome in a cosmic force of shape-shifting annihilation. What ensues is a terrifically scary, nihilistic, paranoid attempt to find who isn’t who they say they are before everyone is replaced with the alien’s version of them. The film is a masterpiece of tone in no small part due to Dean Cundey’s photography and Ennio Morricone’s uncharacteristically restrained score. The real showstopper here, though, is the creature effects designed by Rob Bottin with an assist from Stan Winston – two titans of their industry. There may not be a more mind-blowing practical effects sequence in all of movies than Norris’ defibrillation – which I won’t dare spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it. The story is so much about human nature and behaviors, that it’s good news that the cast is all top-notch – anchored by Kurt Russell, Keith David, and Wilford Brimley. While The Thing is shocking and certainly not for anyone opposed to viscera, David Cronenberg’s The Fly is the best example of a movie not to watch while eating. Quite frankly, it’s got some of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen on film. Chris Walas and Stephen Dupuis’ makeup effects are shocking, but the terror is amplified because this builds such a strong foundation of romance in its opening stretch between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in what might be their career-best work. The story is simple: a scientist creates a teleportation device that he tries out himself, but unknowingly does so with a fly in the chamber with him. When he reatomizes on the other end, his DNA has been integrated with the fly. Slowly his body begins to deteriorate, and he transforms into a human-fly hybrid. While this is first and foremost a science-fiction horror film, it’s truly one of the most potent love stories at its center. The tragedy is that the love, like the flesh, is mutated and disintegrated by the hubris of Goldblum’s Seth Brundle. Here are two remakes that – clutch your pearls – outdo the original. They both serve as great examples of what a great artist can bring by reinterpreting the source material to tell their version of that story. The critical respect for Carpenter and Cronenberg is undeniable now, but both of these movies make the case that there are real artists working with allegory and stunning craft in less respected genre fare. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to transpose the thematic weight of the then-new AIDS crisis onto both films, but they both have a hefty anti-authority streak running through them in a time where American Exceptionalism was at an all-time high. If you want to get a real roll going, fire up the ’78 Invasion of the Body Snatchers first to get a triple dose of auteur remakes that reflect the social anxieties of the time and chart from generalized anxiety to individualistic dread to romantic fatalism.

Total Runtime: 109 minutes + 96 minutes = 205 minutes aka 3 hours and 25 minutes

Theatre of Blood & The Abominable Dr. Phibes

That old Klingon proverb that Khan tells Kirk about revenge being a dish best served cold is challenged by these two Vincent Price tales of the macabre. They posit that revenge is best served in extremely convoluted and thematically appropriate predecessors to the Saw franchise. Where Saw trades in shock and extremity, though, these classic horror tales offer an air of panache and self-satisfied literacy. In Theatre of Blood, Price plays a disgraced and thought-dead stage actor who gets revenge on the critics who gave him negative reviews with Shakespeare-themed murder. There’s good fun in seeing how inventive the vengeful killings are (and in some cases how far the writers bend over backwards to explain and make sense of them). It’s a little rumpled and ragged in moments, but Price is, of course, a tremendous pleasure to see in action as he chews through the Shakespeare monologues. Imagine the Queen’s corgis with a chainsaw and you’re on track. Phibes came first and, frankly, is the better of the two. The story is about a musician who seeks to kill the doctors who he believes were responsible for his wife’s death during a botched surgery. The elaborate angle he takes here is to inflict the ten plagues from the Old Testament. I hesitate to use a word that will probably make me come across as an over-eager schmuck, but it really feels best described as phantasmagorical. It’s got this bright, art deco, pop art sensibility to it that’s intoxicating. It also has a terrifically dark sense of drollery - it knows that you can see the strings on the bat as it flies toward the camera. Aesthetically, it feels adjacent to the ’66 Batman show. The music is great and the indelible image of his tinker toy robot band, The Clockwork Wizards, is a personal obsession of mine. Both Theatre of Blood and The Abominable Dr. Phibes feature great supporting turns from Diana Rigg and Joseph Cotton, respectively. Settle in for a devilishly good time and enjoy one of cinema’s greatest vicarious pleasures: getting back at those of criticized or hurt you.

Total Runtime: 104 minutes + 94 minutes = 198 minutes aka 3 hours and 18 minutes

Blood and Black Lace  & The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

The final pairing comes from beyond American borders and, to some, beyond the borders of good taste. Mario Bava and Dario Argento are likely the two biggest names in Italian horror, and that’s for very good reason. Bava, who started as a cinematographer, has made loads of movies (even the film which gave Ozzy Osbourne and crew the name their band name) that have tremendous visuals and terrific sense of mood. Argento, probably most famous now for Suspiria, emerged onto the Italian film scene a handful of years later and picked up that baton from Bava to crystallize the dreamy logic puzzles cloaked in hyper-saturated colors. These two films are regarded as quintessential in the giallo genre – named for the yellow covers of the pulp crime fictions that inspired them. As someone who loves the flair that can be applied to make a slasher film stand out amongst their formulaic brethren, I found that the giallo made for a smooth transition into international horror. Blood and Black Lace is a murder mystery that’s as tawdry and titillating as its title suggests. Set in an insular world of a fashion house in Rome, models are being murdered. The plot feels like a necessity in order to create a delivery system for the stunning set pieces that revolve around a secret diary. Bava puts sex right next to violence and cranks up the saturation to create something thrillingly lurid. Six years later, Argento made his first film which has often been credited for popularizing the giallo genre and already is playing around with some of his pet themes like voyeurism and reinterpretation. Built around an early set piece (that stacks up as one of the best in thrillers) in which a man is trapped but witnesses a murder, the film sees said man trying to find the piece of evidence that will make the traumatic killing make sense. Like Bava, it blends sex and violence with tons of flair, including a score by the aforementioned Ennio Morricone. The film is absolutely on a continuum between Hitchcock and De Palma. If you’re looking for a pair of exciting horror/thrillers, or even an entry point to foreign genre cinema, this is an accessible and enjoyable place to start.

88 minutes + 96 minutes = 184 minutes aka 3 hours and 4 minutes

Well, there you have it. Eight movies, and hours of entertainment curated by some guy with no real qualifications. If you’re interested in some more suggestions (in horror and other genres), stay tuned for the next entry in this Double Features series. And if you’re looking for a way to watch these movies, I highly recommend the app/website JustWatch where you can search a title and see where it’s available for streaming or rental. Happy viewing.

Thanks for reading.

[atlantatorchnews]

Dr. King and the KING of Kings

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1 Timothy 6:13-16: “I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” Revelation 19:16: “And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.” This message is important to me because I came to faith in Jesus Christ through the efforts of a white, independent Baptist church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that for many years did not accept black members, but in the late ‘70s was led to start a black church while I was in the Air Force and stationed at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, at the age of nineteen. As I interacted with the leaders and members of that church, and even the pastor of the black church plant, I heard some negative things about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that I had never heard before. Some people tried to discredit him by suggesting that he was not a true minister of the Gospel, and even that he did not have a genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They viewed him as just a mere social worker, with some even claiming that he was a Communist. Even some of the blacks in that young church did not think too highly of Dr. King. I must admit that I did have concerns and questions about this matter because I was raised in the black Baptist church and the black Pentecostal Holiness church, with my dad being a Baptist preacher and my mother being a Pentecostal preacher, and yet I had never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on how to be saved until I was nineteen-years-old, and a young man named Michael Lewis, who had gotten saved through this church plant that an all-white independent Baptist church had started, came to my dorm room and showed me what was commonly called the Romans Road to salvation from the book of Romans in the Bible. Up until that point, no one had asked me the question, if I were to die today, where would I go, heaven or hell? Thankfully, the Lord allowed me to keep an independent mind about the matter through all of that, and I came to see Dr. King as God’s man for that particular time in this nation’s history to help deliver both blacks and whites in this country from the ignorance of racism and prejudice. I even learned later that Dr. King tried to get into a white conservative Christian seminary, but he was rejected because of his race. However, based on his words and his life, it seems as though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did know the King of Kings — the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, but the faith, courage, and fortitude that he showed (and that he inspired others to have) as he led the very dangerous Civil Rights movement speaks of a man who knew Jesus Christ as his Savior and had an abiding faith in God.

According to the book, 

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

, by historian Taylor Branch: In 1934, when a guest minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta made a strong pitch for the salvation of young souls, Martin Luther King Jr. watched his sister rise to make the first profession of faith in Christ. Impulsively, as he later confessed, “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me, so I was the next.” Also in his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King wrote: “Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Saviour (Jesus Christ). Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God.” We see here that, contrary to what some thought of King, he did not believe that man could get to Heaven by doing good works. He believed that he and everyone needed a Savior — Jesus Christ. He also said, “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight victoriously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” That sounds like what Jesus Christ called being “born again” when He told Nicodemus in John 3:3 & 7, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” As a teenager, King wrote these words in a paper called “The Negro and the Constitution”: “We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule.” In a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1967, King said, “I’ve learned that to be a follower of Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear.” And, in his famous sermon, “A Knock at Midnight”, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems.” Dr. King certainly spoke as a man who knew Jesus Christ. His core philosophy of love and nonviolence was rooted in the teachings of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Dr. King is dead now, and based on his own words and testimony, we can only say that he is in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ having served his generation as a Moses in modern times. It is not enough to honor Dr. King alone because evidently it was the power of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, in his life that caused Dr. King to lead and help both blacks and whites in this nation overcome the ignorance of racism and prejudice. If you truly want to honor Dr. King during this time of remembrance regarding his life, you need to make the decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior so that you can do great things in your generation as King did in his, for the Bible says, we ‘can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us.’ If you want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, please listen closely, and take the following steps before it is eternally too late: First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Fourth, accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2:8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Fifth, accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jesus Christ, John 3:16). Sixth, with these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9,13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Finally, if you are willing to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour, please pray with me the following prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and I want to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I want to trust Jesus as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen. If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your new-found faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Believe by faith. Share the faith. And keep the faith! God Bless You!

[itsanerdlife]

Everything You Want 12/18

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warning: Lies. Fuck ton of lies. So many lies. Lots of secrets. So many fucking secrets. Language. Violence. Slow Burn. Lots of fighting. Heartbreak. Death threats. Kidnapping. Murder.

Someone is coming for you and your son, Anthony. Too many secrets and too many enemies for you to count. You got out, for reasons. Secret reasons, only Clint Barton knows. Or so you think? Clint takes you back to the safest place there is, Avengers Tower. But how are you supposed to face Peter? Keep your secrets in check? Keep your feelings under wraps? It’s been almost two years, can you really keep it together? You just need to put an end to whoever wants you. Than walk away, like everything is the same, right? Or will you be the one surprised? Everything blows up, leaving you holding the shreds of your secrets and fear.

Tag List Is Open!!

“What I don’t get, if it is.” Bucky rubs a hand through his black hair. “If it’s Harry, why is he coming for Y/N. Peter I get, but Y/N and Anthony?” He shakes his head. The team was drinking coffee and gathered around the table in the kitchen.

“Yeah, see about that.” You step into the kitchen with Anthony on your hip. You wander over and sit down, placing Anthony in your lap. Nat picks up a spoon and scoops some of her scrambled eggs on to it, before leaning over and feeding it to Anthony.

“We sort of had this thing.” Peter smirks, dropping into the seat next to you.

“Thing?” Sam’s brow lifts.

“Yes.” You nod, taking the cup of coffee Clint is offering you.

“Like you two were,” Tony waves his hand as if for you to continue.

“Sleeping together, old man.” Peter snorts, putting peanut butter on his toast.

“Really? The two of you?” Buck’s brow connects as his head tips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asks with a mouthful of toast.

“I just mean, she’s, yeah.” Bucky grins, winking at you. “And you’re, well,” Buck shrugs not finishing what he was saying. Peter looks over at you, as you sip your coffee trying to not laugh. He shrugs, shoving more toast into his mouth.

“Come to Uncle Sam, you should try the world of pancakes.” Sam stands up, hands out. Nat takes Anthony, handing him over.

“Sam, none covered in syrup, he’ll never go down for a nap.” You warn.

“Don’t forget to get a dress.” Tony doesn’t even look up from his phone as he sips his coffee.

“Um, for what?” You look up, confused.

“How long have you been gone?” Bucky looks at you confused.

“Almost two years.” You admit. He nods, looking from you to Peter who was busy doing something on his phone, and eating his toast.

“Charity Event tomorrow.” Tony replies glancing up at you.

“Right. I forgot, the one for the kids.” You nod, sipping your coffee.

It was Tony’s annual Children’s Charity Event. He raised money for foster homes, in need families and school systems. Six years ago, it was the first time, Peter had bashfully asked you to dance. Two years later it was the first time you’d slept together. The start of the year and a half secret fling you two had, that led to you getting pregnant with Anthony.

“You need shopping.” Nat nods, putting down her cup. “Let’s get that shoulder fixed up and head out.” She smiles at you.

“Yeah. Sure.” You nod.

“Jr. will stay with us.” Tony waves his hand at you.

“Oh, no. It’s fine.” You swallow.

“He’s my Godson do you think I would let anything happen to him?” Clint snorts biting into his piece of bacon. He dabs his finger in the grease on the plate, before he reaches over, letting Anthony taste it.

“You know it’ll be easier for him to stay with us. I’ll take him for a run, or maybe we can work on the walking thing.” Peter chuckles, setting his phone down.

“FRIDAY better record everything if you do the walking.” You point a finger at him.

“I know, I know. First steps and he’s getting so big.” Peter nods, repeating your own words. You sip your coffee, feeling eyes on you. When you glance up, Buck is watching you intently, you swallow hard.

“I’m um, going to shower. Clint you know where all his stuff is in my room?” You avoid looking at Peter.

“What am I chop liver?” Peter takes your coffee cup, from your hands, taking a drink from it. The whole while Buck’s eyes are on you with laser precision.

“Right. Well still.” You slip from your chair and hurry down the hall to shower. 

---------------

“Clint Barton, you will not let either of those, evil genius ones take your Godson into that lab.” You point a finger at him.

“Whoa.” 

“Harsh.”

Tony and Peter look at you offended. You squint at them, Clint adjusts Anthony on his hip. Buck is leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, and a look you couldn’t figure out on his face. 

“Go. Don’t worry. We’ll text.” Clint chuckles, waving you off.

“Fine. But,” you attempt to stop, Peter’s hands come down on your shoulders, nudging you along towards the elevator.

“We know. Clint’s got three of his own. I’ve only spent about every night and day with you and Ton since you’ve been back. I know. We know.” He chuckles leaning around you he presses the button for the elevator as you come to a stop.

“Text me.” You finally give in and let Wanda pull you into the elevator.

“Do I really want you to kick my ass?” He chuckles, smirking at you.

“I seriously will Parker.” You point your finger at him, the door slips closed as Peter laughs.

“So,” Wanda smiles at you. Nat leans against the wall.

“What?” You adjust the strap on your purse.

“You and Peter.” Wanda smirks. You and Nat exchange a quick look.

“Before.” You nod.

“So do you plan to tell him about Anthony or are you two keeping that a secret as well.” She asks, you and Nat blink at her. Shocked and stunned. “Oh, don’t think you are the only one that figures things out. That child looks just like Peter.” The elevator dings, the doors slid open, but you’re rooted to the spot.

“How?” You swallow.

“Anthony looks like Peter. The people who came for you, they said you and him were involved, and they only want you and Anthony. You left almost two years ago, and Anthony is turning one this month. I put it all together.” She shrugs, stepping out of the elevator. Your mouth flounders, nothing coming out.

“Come on.” Nat whispers, leading you out of the elevator.

“My question is,” Wanda pushes out the main doors. “How the hell hasn’t Parker put it together.” She snorts. Your stomach turns, and your chest tightens, you couldn’t think about Peter figuring it out. No, cause that meant you risked everything once again.

-------------------------------

Everything Peaches 2/6/19: @xmtd5 @mo320 @all1e23 @courtmr @avxgers @eliza-kat @izzy--lee @irepeldirt @dumblani @crist1216 @a--1--1--3 @alyssaj23 @allyp1023 @joannie95 @nishanki1 @bugalouie @kolakube9 @rileyloves5 @sarahp879 @sea040561 @sexyvixen7 @pcterpvrker @pigwidgexn @doctoranon @tomhardy41 @abschaffer2 @justrae9903 @tony-stank3 @bookluver01 @teller258316 @callie-bear15 @nickimarie94 @wandressfox @amandab-ftw @carostar2020 @henrietteoaks @nea90sweetie @amberkay284 @circusofchaos @itsagalaxystar @bettercallsabs @miraclesoflove @lucifersnipnips @queenkrissy11 @this-is-mycrisis @sadyoungadult @destiel-artemis @xrosegoldwolfx @paintballkid711 @isabelcrichards @iwillbeinmynest @sweet-honey15 @chanelmadrid13 @mellxander1993 @killerbumblebee @spookygrantaire @geeksareunique @supernatural508 @sammysgirl1997 @itzmegaaaaaaan @booksbeforebois @optimistic-babes @childishhoebinoo @elizabethaellison @aspiringtranslator @mariekoukie6661 @pure-princess-97 @capsheadquaters @samanthasmileys @nerdypinupcrystal @atlas-of-the-world @youclickedthislink @futuremrsb-r-main @lovemarvelousfics @notyourtypicalrose @petersunderoos96 @loving-life-my-way @buckystolemyheart @booktvmoviefangirl @supernatural-girl97 @thefridgeismybestie @dumbbitchenergytm @abbypalmer14-blog @fanfictionjunkie1112 @meganlikesfandoms @awkwardfangirl2014 @supernaturaldean67 @xqueenofthecraziesx   @queenoftheunderdark @writingaworldofmyown @supernaturallover2002 @daughterofthenight117 @mustbeaweasleyginger @mcuwillbethedeathofme @sprinklesandsugarcubes @whothehellisbucky-1930 @verymuchclosetedfangirl @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @ocaptain-mycaptainmorgan @wonderlandfandomkingdom @crazy-little-thing-called-buck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @stupendoussciencenaturepanda @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @supernatural-strangerthings-1980

Marvel Tag List 2/6/19: @lumelgy   @dottirose   @jcc04220 @rockagurl @mizzzpink   @jade-taillia @coley0823 @widowsfics @bookluver01 @thelostallycat @shield-agent78 @dtftheavengers   @ilovetvshowsblog @capsheadquaters   @iamwarrenspeace @thefridgeismybestie @whenallsaidanddone @deanwinchestersrifle @fandomsstolemylife00   @daughterofthenight117 @lilmissperfectlyimperfect  

Peter ‘Fuck Me I’m Weak’ Parker: @ml7010 @ariminiria @dkpink123 @boltsgirl919 @quokkatrash   @everthenerd @ms-rogers06 @crayonwriting @baebeepeach @bellamouse16 @honey-bee-holly @messofamasterpiece @britkane-shsl-librarian @kiss-the-stars-goodbye

Everything You Want:

@gabile18 @kriswu46 @bellewithbooks @princessizzy36 @little-dr-cranberry @tom-hollands-blog @simply-sams-things @misswritingintherain @hitoshi-s-stupid-bitch @verymuchclosetedfangirl

[silkekruse]

Heyo everyone! I recently started playing Death Jr 2 root of evil again on my old Wii, and also have the comics (bought them at my local comic store!) And recently also bought the first game for my psp!! Anyways, i always wanted to cosplay a grim reaper themed character, but as i'm pretty short for my age ( 22 years old, yet 5'1 ft lmao X"D ), i actually never did it sadly, well? No more! I have officially decided to start on a cosplay of DJ! As he's basically a childhood favorite of mine and i think more people should start to know about him, as the character is very fun :D i'll keep ya'll updateed when i have progress, as of now i'm still trying to decide how to actually make him, luckily i have support from my parents! My mom actually wants to help me look for a proper skull mask, that i'll hopefully be able to edit to look a tad more like DJ! i also have drawn a badge for the cosplay, because i realized with fursuiting that i really enjoy making those (sadly not doing commissions yet tho) and i thought since DJ's pretty obscure, i'd make a badge XD i'll reblog this with the badge soon, it's only drawn digital so far, hoping to print it at my work when i go, i'll also reblog it whenever i have updates to show!

Stay awesome everyone, and i hope to have some updates soon! :3

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Suicide and the Homestuck Epilogues

I don’t really want to make a super long post at this time. Turns out, I did so anyway! I don’t have too much to express on this topic that you might not have already figured out for yourself. But I feel like what there is to discuss about suicide in the epilogue is important, so it’ll do well to get this off my chest.   

One of the most serious themes in the epilogue, explored THOROUGHLY in Candy, is about the Will to Live. The will to move on with your life and see the next day.    This is disguised as a metaphysical battle with non-canonicity and irrelevance, but multiple characters in the epilogue have metaphorical and literal battles with their own hopelessness. Characters on the cliff-edge of suicide.   

These depictions of the characters caused an extreme reaction in the fans reading the story. It can be incredibly distressing to read something from perspective of a suicidal character, especially if you’ve been fighting that battle yourself. However it can be therapeutic if you read a story about someone actually discovering a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim.  A fictional depiction that hits so hard, ending with a candle of hope, can flip a switch in your mind.  

Let’s get into the nitty gritty of how Homestuck both failed and succeeded at giving a light at the end of the tunnel.   

Skip to the end if you don’t want to read the whole thing - I’ve done a TL;DR.  

So there are five characters I would like to touch upon:

Dirk Tavros (jr) John Terezi Dave

All of these characters warrant discussion in the context of hopefulness and hopelessness.  

Dirk:

Dirk is the first character I want to get over with. Dirk’s an example of homestuck giving a hopeless ending to a character.

Despite Canon!Dirk’s struggles with his self worth, with the ideas that he’ll become a bad person, getting a nice enough resolution when he met Dave, epilogue!Dirk has lost that battle against himself due to means entirely out of his control. Because of how close the square root of Dirk is with “bad”, in the form of his prescratch self’s carelessnes and his offshoot connections to Doc Scratch, Dirk’s cursed with the inevitability of becoming that evil ultimate self no matter how hard he tries to be a good person.  

Dirk is not entirely evil. He’s lost his humanity but still clings to some memory. I’m pretty sure he kills John??? But he wouldn’t kill Dave, and I don’t think - no matter what he does to him - that Dirk would ever kill jake. 

Now, CANDY!Dirk. Candy!Dirk sees no point existing in a world where he cannot maintain canon relevance and seize the narrative. It would also be dangerous for him to continue existing in the world. 

But the way Dirk’s friends see his suicide, the way this is played out in Candy if you’re isolated from his shenanigans in Meat, is a very significant depiction of people struggling with a friend who killed themselves. 

There’s the critical failure from Meat in retroactively making this look like one of the best things Dirk could’ve done. Even if his friends led shitty lives, they led their own lives. But his friends in Candy don’t see it that way, and it wouldn’t be that way if Dirk didn’t become his ultself. As far as they believe. he maybe saw himself as a hopeless case and died.   

Because of Dirk’s death Dave in particular is dealing with a lot of feelings. He’d known Dirk as a better version of his really nasty bro-dad. Because of Dirk’s death, Dave feels deprived of his friend and family member, he feels like if Dirk had been alive he’d have taught him about love.  

I found this touching. Knowing how suicide impacts others can greatly affect a decision. Even Dirk, who was distant from all his friends and whose suicide protected them from his influence, ended up being missed for all the good things he could’ve given the world.  

So, all in all: Dirk’s relationship with suicide is depressing. It was better depicted in the comic, which had a hopeful resolution. This epilogue shits all over that. There’s still some important messages however, in that Dirk being alive would’ve given everyone very different lives, some ways for the better, some ways for the worse. Dirk’s existence is not meaningless.   

Talking of meaningless existence, let’s move on to....

Tavros:   

Nope, not John yet.  John’s going to take a lot of thinking. Let’s deal with baby Tavros.  

Tavros is not a depiction of a suicidal character. He is however a key player in the “hopelessness” of the Candy timeline. John sees Tavros, and his father Jake, as in a hopeless situation. Tavros and Jake’s changing situation influence’s Johns thoughts on his timeline at the end.   

Tavros is born into a world that is not canon, into one of the worst households imaginable where all the cards were held against him from the start. His name is fucking Tavros. That’s immediately dooming him to a life of being treaded on. Tavros lives with his mother, the domineering Jane Crocker, and her fuckclown, and while the other kids - Harry Anderson, Vriska - live spoilt happy childhoods, Tavros is never allowed to be a child expressing his individuality. What is his personality? It’s pretty much being a bit smart and doing exactly what he’s told.  

Tavros reminds me of a more muted Gohan in the Dragonball Z universe, if Goku was a fragile human dweeb instead of a saiyan and ChiChi became Space Hitler. If Gohan never got those tastes of freedom when fighting against the Saiyans, then he’d have no capacity to stand up to his mother. 

John fantasizes about helping him, and Tavros catches onto that fleeting fantasy, but it ends in disaster as Jade tries to reason with John that there’s no way he can keep Tavros safe, then John gets into a fit of rage and nearly injures him as well as all the other kids in the room. Tavros becomes scared of John.  

There’s something here about John seeing himself in little Tavvy. They’re nothing alike personality wise, but Tavros is John’s full blooded brother, and what he might have become like had he been brought up in a dysfunctional home.

At the end of the story, after years of this treatment has led to Tavros becoming a very passive boy who has an obsession with faygo, Jake finally makes the decision to leave his wife and go live with John. Even though Tavros is 15 and his personality or lack thereof is mostly realised, he’s given this spark of hope that maybe he will develop a bit of individuality. After all, John sees him as one of the most important, devastating consequences of the timeline, and somebody that he must help out.   

It is fitting that Tavros finds a record player at the end and put on some fun music, a self-expression of sorts.   

Right okay, time to get into the meaty part.   

 John and Terezi

There are some parts of these characters that I want to write about in isolation, but their relationship is the major distinguisher between their internal battles and, say, Dirk’s internal battle. John and Terezi are examples of two suicidal characters who interact with each other. The interactions between them cannot be isolated from their suicidal subtext, because they influence each other’s outlook on the world and their futures.    

I’m having difficulty, however, figuring out how to structure this part. There’s too much beef to get into if I’m going to discuss their histories.  So let’s try to make it brief:  

Terezi’s Context: Terezi has history as a character with suicidal subtext, especially in the Pre-Retcon universe.  She was overwrought with guilt and grief, became alienated from her all friends, spent all of her time either in the dreambubbles looking for vriska or unhealthily warrowing in her orrows in her abusive relationship with Gamzee. She then goes on what appears to be a suicide attack against Gamzee, wanting him to fight back.... until he does, at which point she tries to break free, indicating a will to live in there somewhere. In the pre-retcon Terezi finds herself having both a “hopeless” and a “hopeful” resolution. She dies by her own knife, under Aranea’s influence - yes, Terezi stabbing herself with the other half of the cane sword is ironic on like 12 levels - but in watching everybody else die, ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to fade away. Terezi is filled with determination, and will not rest until she sees to it that John’s on his way to fix everything. After this though she backs into her depression again. One of these Terezis tries to use her powers and does not see the effect. Even though she must’ve known there’d be a timeline where the effect hasnt happened yet she loses all self esteem and tells John to go leave her to die. The other Terezi, in seeing John return, is filled with a glimmer of faith and sends John off to follow her instructions.  I’m pretty sure the depressed didn’t die. The one who died in the chalk outline however walks sadly in paradox space, seemingly hopeless now her story’s ended, before reuniting with Vriska.    POST retcon Terezi has a plethora of self esteem issues, many of which were exposed by the knowledge of the pre retcon existing. In the body of A6A6I5 she’s chasing the idea that the other her had “figured out” all those self esteem issues, which we know to be false, and Terezi cannot connect with others properly despite being so good at reading them.  This lack of strong connections and lack of self esteem makes her feel a bit empty inside.   After remembering the pre retcon then seeing the vision of herself and Vriska reunite, Terezi decides to chase after Vriska, refusing to let her die against Lord English. But because of Furthest Ring shenanigans, she can’t find her.  

So Terezi ends Homestuck as a character with... not a whole lot of light in the tunnel, but there’s something there. That something takes the form of 

1. The hope that she’ll find Vriska some day 2. Her friendship with John, a growing connection with somebody other than Vriska.  

John Context:   

You know what? There isn’t a fucking lot! John throughout the majority of homestuck, completely opposite to Terezi and pretty much every other character, has NO SUICIDAL SUBTEXT WHATSOEVER. Hooray, no 500 word expository essay! It’s not until the CREDITS where John looks miserable.  

...John in the credits, now living on a peaceful new planet after focusing for 3 years on his sburb adventure, feels completely lost. Where his family and friends have met with the alternate versions of their parents, Dad Crocker isn’t actually John’s family, so that relationship doesn’t work as a surrogate for his lost dad.   John doesn’t know why he feels so empty inside and depressed, when his friends are trying to make him so happy. But as soon as he starts recieving messages from Caliborn you get an indication that John WANTS conflict. He wants to serve a purpose.  And the prologue of the epilogue (ha!) supports this.  

He’s captivated by Rose’s discussion of “canon”. Since he’s tied to canon, he feels some responsibility for preserving it. But Rose and Roxy’s reactions imply that John is about to go on a suicide mission. John laments that he’s spent so much time being depressed when he could’ve been enjoying life instead. This implies here that John wasn’t suicidally depressed at this stage, and he starts to lament how he hasn’t put his life back on track. 

So John, at this stage in the prologue, is a depiction of a hopeful AND hopeless character. However the hopelessness does not derive, yet, from any lack of will to live. It’s lamenting how he has so little time left.    This lament is still related to the discussion of suicide. John thinking of how much he’d miss out on if he left the world and died. So, altogether, John in the prologue is someone who has a light in the tunnel that someone else might sniff out. But that light might still shine on some readers who relate.  

CANDY: 

This is Terezi’s chronological start, and the “meat” of John’s suicidal subtext. 

As soon as John splits the world into Candy and decides to enjoy his life on Earth C, he begins trying to appreciate the world and get a taste of all the things that he thought he was going to lose out on had the suicide mission started.  However, things seem “off” to him.  He thinks Roxy is not in-character, Jade’s fucked up Davekat, Jane’s becoming a nazi, GAMZEE’S HERE which is an IMMEDIATE red flag, and everything is starting to go off the rails.   John wonders if this is all his fault. He sees everyone on earth C as not being themselves, as being almost like “NPCs”. They don’t have the same reactions to stuff as him. They don’t have the same feelings. Except for ONE person - Terezi, who is isolated from all these shenanigans and is the perfect venting post, giving John grounded feedback that he agrees with based on his previous knowledge of the kids.   This is not yet an interaction between two obviously suicidally depressed characters, but the idea of the world being “fabricated” and people acting “fake” is already here, and THIS is something a lot of people who have struggled with depression may be troubled by. The fuel to John’s theory is his position in an actual fictional world where the events are not canon, but even so, it’s still something real people go through.   

I think it’s worth pointing out that John and TZ are going off completely different time scales, emphasizing the disassociation they have with the timeline. John only feels grounded while talking to Terezi, who is stuck in the past. Terezi is seeing her friends grow up into crazy-ass adults without her.  

John’s depression escalates dramatically when he has a go at everyone on his son’s birthday party and nearly hurts the kids, then he felt like everybody hated him. This scene was powerful, but was also just like something out of a DBZ fic I read where everyone forgot Gohan’s birthday, he upset baby Goten (the only person who he felt unconditionally loved by), and then he goes to blow himself up somewhere. Yes, THAT scale of melodrama.   And John wants to float up into space, to leave the earth, maybe freeze up there. He is now suicidally depressed. He feels awful. It’s only going to get worse for the time being.  

After that point John turns to Terezi again and we find out she’s the same fucking way. Her journey to find Vriska, which looked to us at first to be cautiously optimistic. is a bit of a suicide mission itself. She does not intend to come back if she can’t complete the mission, even to pick up new supplies. Terezi is starving to death but she refused to return because she sees Earth C as a false paradise, a fake recreation of Alterna where everything is a bit too perfect and the people are too happy and she feels lost when she left the only route to happiness she can see behind in Sburb.  Turns out Remem8er didn’t so much give her a new perspective as it doubled the dependency she had on Vriska.  

John and Terezi connect with each other because of how they both see themselves as empty, and Earth C as empty, and John tries to appeal to Terezi’s need for friendship. He tries to get her to see the light side of living. But because he has hard time seeing it, he can’t express it.     He tries to help her get over vriska, by saying she deserves better companionship. This DOES plant a seed in Terezi’s mind, the idea that she’s wasted her life looking for someone who has been a shitlord to her.   

To an extent, they have been enabling each other’s depression. Seeing each other as the only “real” characters and discussing that idea, John going into how he thinks “everybody is already dead”, Terezi confirming other characters are acting strange and expressing how she hates the new world so much she’d rather die than return empty-handed, they’re lighting the fire to their own negativity. John’s in panic mode about losing the one outlet he has. And if anything’s made Terezi feel alienated from Earth it’s seeing how it is turning out.... But there’s not a lot John can do about this, because yknow, she feels the same way in Meat.    

This interaction between two suicidal characters has a positive and negative representation of dealing with those thoughts.  John’s begging Terezi to come back and forget about Vriska, which is a good thing, but Terezi’s too stubborn. She won’t budge. John has to traumatically read what may as well be her suicide message to him, further cementing his own issues. Bear in mind - because of her predicament, he has has been sidetracked from talking to her about his argument, and probably thinks he’s been a moron for venting to her about all of this while she’s been slowly dying in space.  Altogether I’d say this conversation veers towards absolute hopelessness, at least for those who have read Candy first and haven’t been spoiled on what happens to Terezi next. 

The next scene’s also retroactively hilarious, but that doesn’t stop it from being powerfully depressive.  John find the car with her “”””””blood”””””” and freaks out. 

In losing Terezi, who he saw as his one outlet to canon, John loses all of his composure. He is completely incapable of holding himself together any more.

Remember that DBZ fic I mentioned earlier where Gohan runs off and blows himself up with a suicidal tantrum? Yeah. It was a lot like this, but with rocks flying everywhere.   

John at this stage is at rock fucking bottom. He’s completely hopeless. 

Then 10 years pass. He’s been so depressed his wife and kid have left him. But... he’s still around.  Dave at one point thinks John’s going to kill himself, directly addressing this subtext, but John was actually talking to Karkat. Karkat’s position as a revolutionary leader, Dave’s caring for him, and John’s presence at Jade’s wedding to Dave despite having thrown a mega-tantrum that made him think they’d hate him forever, all of these things are........ starting to contradict John’s idea that the world is full of empty heartless people who don’t feel things. John has not been rejected by everybody.   

He accepts Terezi’s gone, and rips her picture into tiny pieces, letting them drift in the wind. This is the start of John’s progress away from his suicidal depression. 

He bumps into Vriska, has a go at her about Terezi, then Vriska does.. THAT with Gamzee. Gamzee’s death does restore some peace in the hearts of the viewers, at least. Not entirely relevant but I felt it was positive.  John’s been calling Vriska Jr shitty for all this time too, but she and Harry are alright characters who feel real enough to us as the reader. It’s now that we may be starting to question whether he was correct in writing off the world as his own bad fanfic. We’re questioning whether John is justified in hating Candyland as much as he does. If people care for him, if Karkat’s going to become Jesus, and if it birthed these two losers, then... is it so terrible? Maybe there’s hope?   

He bumps into Rose  who thanks him for everything he’s done. Rose is SO IMPORTANT here because she was the one who planted the idea he was in a fake world to begin with, and now she’s telling him even though it’s not canon, she feels happier than ever COULD in the canon world. John’s wishy washy on this. When he talks to Rose he feels optimistic, but when he gets back to his house, he’s thinking about how she just confirmed nothing matters at all.

At his house, he has a couple of surprise intruders. Turns out Jake discovered free will. John has some real talk with him. And while he’s at first negative, Jake’s infectious mood and the opportunity to give Tavros the life he deserves gives John that little push of motivation he needs to go speak to Roxy.   

His chat with Roxy is the climax of Candy!John’s arc. She gives us, for the first time, a third-person perspective of depressed John. We see him how she sees him, a sad little man who appears to be blaming outside forces for problems that he isn’t willing to confront himself.

She TEARS DOWN his perception that the world is fake. She explains why she may have seemed fake and why he was a fucking fool for thinking so. She says she doesn’t CARE whether it’s canon or not, because she knows a bit of how it would’ve gone down, and it would not have been good for John or Rose.  Roxy throws a great big surprise on us as the reader - she’s been dealing with gender dysphoria the whole time and overcompensating for it! Holy fuck!!! Our minds have just been blown!!!!

So the audience, and John, who have for this whole time been feeding into this depressing idea that the world is fake and it’s probably better for John to be dead than in this fake life, that everything is terrible.... Roxy’s rant makes us do one of the most amazing double-takes I’ve seen a story throw. 

John..... sees light for the first time in years.   He decides to take the step to work on his relationship with his family. 

And then it ends.  

All of this - Rose, the wedding, the kids, Jake and Tavros, Roxy - The way these make us revise our perspective on John’s depression is one of the most hopeful representations I have ever seen in media.  An AMAZING turnaround for a suicidal character. They made us hyper-invested in all the bad things John’s feeling, taking advantage of our awareness he’s correct in thinking it’s fake.  Taking advantage of all the nasty thought that may have crossed in our minds about the world not being real, about people acting not real, the little cells we build ourselves into...... and opening the door to a wide world with people who have had a lot going on that we’ve been blinding ourselves to.   

Roxy going into how we have our whole lives ahead of us and countless years to fuck up, to discover new things, breaking down how John and Terezi think that because they hadn’t figured things out as young people they were never going to be happy....  

Candy!John is an overwhelming success. Fucking KUDOS to the writers for this representation.  But to get there, you have to slog through the entire thing. And there is a risk that maybe you relate to his depression, but not to how he saw through his depression. That would be for yourself to confront.  For me personally, I honestly feel that this has given me a refreshing outlook.  It makes me so happy to be writing about John’s turnaround after all of this analysis of his depression.    

...Okay, fun’s over. Now to the depressing ending. The point where the epilogue kind of fucked up.   

MEAT: 

It’d be unfair for me to make you read through this with the bias that Meat is an entirely depressing resolution for two characters struggling with suicidal depression. There’s much that Meat gets right with John and Terezi. I think, however, it trips at the finish line.  But how badly it tripped depends on whether you think the comic falls into the trap of suicidal depression, or just about subverts it

Let’s get into it!  

John for the start of Meat is contemplating how he’s just launched himself into a bit of a suicide mission. Roxy and Calliope walk away without giving him a hug, which is... upsetting. Not sure why, if they knew he was going to die??? Legitimately makes me angry that this happened. But going back to the point - John is isolated in his fate. He does not have any friends he knows to back him up. He’s leaving the fake fake Earth C for good.   John leaves notes behind for his friends. These will never be read.  

Ouch. Off to a rough start already. This has the makings of an angst fic by itself.  

When he’s fighting Lord English with all these other versions of his friends, he’s actually having a bit of fun. But all his friends die and you get the impression he’s very very doomed. And he gets bitten by the tooth, etc. Oh and Davepeta performs a suicide attack! Holy fuck, forgot about that! But there’s no suicidal subtext, Davepeta’s just being a martyr, so nothing interesting to dissect here.  

AFTER the fight with Lord English:   John just floats in space. He’s seemingly hopeless. He does not take any action to help himself, having sensed he’s got nothing to back to. But PART of this is the influence of Dirk Strider, planting thoughts in his head. Dirk wants John to stay there, until he finds Terezi.  But John does challenge the depressing thoughts Dirk’s putting into his head:

Dirk’s relationship with John and Terezi’s depression has increased importance in the end chapters, but for now, it looks like he’s trying to get them to reunite. Is Dirk actually feeding their emotional dependence on each other? Even though we know they still have that dependence isolated from his influence, I get the impression he’s trying to make things unhealthy.  

 Either way, John has no willpower to go ANYWHERE until he finds her. John for these two chapters is drifting aimlessly, hopelessly. He’s signing himself off for martyr death.    

Terezi finding John has equal meaning - she was willing to die until she bumped into him. 

A mixed interpretation so far of the suicidal depression. They were both waiting to die, but the way John was going to die was so abstract that it doesn’t feel as impactful as when he was depressed in Candyland. I think this would’ve had a weaker impact on the viewership. But the moment he finds Terezi, it becomes a hopeful interpretation, and remains that way for the next few chapters. 

On Meat 28 and Meat 31, they spend these chapters dealing with their suicidal depression, in particularly Terezi’s. She’s directly confronting all of those emotions, with a person she cares about that she thought she’d never see again. Terezi is still incapable of letting go. She’s still starving to death out here and refuses to return, but... she doesn’t want John to leave either. She wants him to stay.  Terezi is being very foolish here, and it’s unknown how much the decision to stay escalated John’s death. It’s notable that John would rather stay here with her than go back to Earth for backup or healing, or drag her back kicking and screaming.   

They’re still on the edge. They’re at what we assume to be their low point and don’t think anything matters, and they have little self preservation... but because they care about each other, John gets motivation to go back to Earth with Terezi, and she becomes concerned about his failing health.  

John continues trying to get through to Terezi and convince her to go back. The below conversations takes place:   

John sees hope in Terezi, because she gave him hope when he thought nothing could get worse. He values the hardass attitude she brings to the table, kicking everybody else back into gear. John thinks several times through the epilogue that if Terezi was on Earth, she would’ve stopped everyone from falling apart.  

I think this is relevant because the scene in GAME OVER itself is an example of the characters finding shining hope and determination even when the narrative forces have taken a hard dump on them. It’s an important reminder here when John and Terezi are deciding whether they want to live or not.   

And here’s my favourite part of the entire conversation: 

John has now given TWO examples of Terezi fighting on when she just wanted to give up. And the relationship this has with the reader is Terezi’s acts of self preservation are indicators that maybe she does want to live? If she wanted to die, why would she eat fucking shaving cream--- okay maybe yes most people who want to die would try that, but in this situation she’s crazy and thinks it tastes like cream.   

Because John’s giving Terezi reasons to live, she gives him an opportunity to live by performing some haphazard surgery and removing the tooth embedded in his body.  

Following this, they realise their connection to each other, and consummate their relationship... in the back of his dads car.   

Hooray, you cry! Terezi and John have found reasons to live - they care about each other, and as each wants the other to live, they want to survive so as not to disappoint. They’re able to connect with each other in ways they can’t connect with other characters.  

AT THIS STAGE, this has an... optimistic outlook. Terezi letting go of Vriska is very very important. But you might be noticing she’s latching onto John. If it was left like this, and they went back to earth and fell in love or whatever, it might have been a happy enough resolution for two depressed characters. Not as RAW as Candy!John, but Terezi’s been through enough already that it might have been as impactful. And John’s finally getting what he wanted all throughout Candy. Cliche... but happy days. If they could’ve overcome their depression it, would’ve been fine.    

.....

And then Meat 35 happens. 

Soon as Dirk takes the narrative back he decides to start killing John with LE poison inside his body.  John fucking dies in the middle of a love confession.  

Oof!!!  Well there goes any hope for John’s depression arc. But at least he was happy and canon when he died. It wasn’t as deep as Candy’s anyway, and we were expecting it. John’s death does NOT feel like a suicide, because he wants to live. So Meat!John is a mixed result for a suicidally depressed character; someone who was suicidal, but then found the will to live, and then had his life tragically taken from him.    

Terezi though, Terezi who I wrote a 500 word paragraph INTRODUCING the context of her suicidal depression story, is now left with absolutely nothing. Because she had done a rebound away from dependency on Vriska, and now latched onto John, Terezi doesn’t know what she’s doing on earth. Her perspective hasn’t changed and she still thinks it’s very fake. She feels like all of her friends are embroiled in social dynamics and petty fights that exclude her. She feels like she can’t confide in anyone about the traumatic shit that she’s been through, including John’s death.   

At least, that is how Dirk wants her to feel.  

Terezi has a history of challenging the narrative. She rewrote the timeline with the retcons, but before then, Terezi’s spoken to people who have tried to write narrative prompts in her head. In this act of defiance, Terezi calls out Dirk for being full of shit when he tries to go into how depressed she’s feeling. 

This challenge, though weak because we know Dirk’s right on the money, ends up turning this confrontation from a fully depressing one into dark comedy, not ENTIRELY unlike the scene in Candy where John’s crying over her... stains. Because Homestuck is dealing with a hopeless case, it can’t just END it like that. Terezi, despite feeling that way, refuses to allow herself to be seen as completely hopeless and gets mad at the author for reading into her like that. This is getting metatextual but the self-awareness in this conversation is an important reminder to the reader that this ultimately a story, and maybe Terezi isn’t as hopeless as Dirk’s making her out to be.  

Of course, Dirk tells her that she can put an act on her whole life, and never be happy. Terezi... agrees with him, insofar as we know. Despite her challenge, she gives up on living with the Earth kids, joining the villain to create a new sburb session. 

Terezi’s conversation with Roxy was dysmally depressing. However, Roxy was thinking about her and trying to get through to her. Roxy seeing through Terezi’s feelings makes me think if she’d stayed on Earth, they would’ve become friends of some kind?  That would’ve been a light at the end of the tunnel. If Terezi had showed Roxy that John had died, that’d have been a massive step. But Terezi chooses isolation, leaving the planet for a new, more canonically relevant adventure.   

This scene does make it seem utterly hopeless for Terezi, especially when Callie says later that while John may theoretically be revived, he will never be relevant again. So while Terezi continues to be relevant, she’ll be isolated from the TWO people she cares about most.   

...There’s a flicker of hope there though. If you read Candy, there’s a scene where Vriska tries to send Terezi a sort of apology love confession. And we see Terezi recieving the messages for this!!!! But, she doesn’t read them onscreen. We don’t SEE her become aware that Vriska’s alive. And “seeing” is important.  Terezi in the Epilogue is also doing some goofy shit. While life on the Dirkship is probably depressing as fuck, she’s trying to eat Metal Candy for shits and giggle despite Rose challenging her.  Terezi’s personality defiantly shines through, when John dies, when Dirk wants to make her grovel, and when she’s on a ship with Robot Rose. The comic can take everything from her, but it can’t take away her goofiness. Terezi continues to live in defiance of the comic.   

BACK TO HOW THIS RELATES TO DEPRESSIVE SUICIDE, How do I rate Terezi’s arc? Both in the epilogue, and across homestuck?   

I get the impression the reason other characters have been able to move on from this stuff while Terezi gets dragged back into hopelessness is because of meta reasons. She’s the dark comedy, and one of the most continuously relevant characters. If things calmed down for her maybe she would be a less interesting or funny character. She’s cursed by her own relevance. Like Vriska, and John! Except instead of dying or being sucked into a new world she just continues being a bitter protagonist.       But.... what Terezi’s story brings to the discussion on suicidal depression is hopelessness. The sparks of hope and self awareness presented at the end are good to remind the reader this is just a silly story, but there’s not too much light for her at any stage. Getting continuously trodden down, throwing away her own chances of happiness. Not being able to get over anything. Therefore, Homestuck fails to bring a light at the end of the tunnel for Terezi Pyrope, even after all of these years of going into this theme.  Even if she has hope from Vriska, there’s the issue that she’s chasing after John like she was chasing after Vriska. Terezi’s fallen into the trap of being a character who goes around in circles with her depression arc. If you were personally invested in her getting better, you might be hurt by her presentation. The story tries to mitigate this by giving Terezi enough self awareness to poke fun at her own situation, and stop it from feeling too much like a melodramatic dragonball z angstfic like John’s. After all, Terezi would rather be tragicomic than plain tragic.    

Holy fuck, this is long!!!!!! Thanks Terezi!    

DAVE: 

To cap off this post I wanted to do a character that did not have a direct depiction of depressive suicide, but still related back to suicidal themes and did, ultimately, kind of kill himself. Dave in the Candy timeline. 

Dave goes through a lot of shit in his timeline. He’s in a terribad  relationship with Jade at the start, and all of his attempts to seek advice on his own sexuality are met with opposition by... fate itself. John’s not very useful. Dirk KILLS himself.   

Things go from bad to worse for Dave. He loses Karkat for good, when Karkat gets outraged at everyone for letting Jane’s bullshit slide. 

Dave... does not appear suicidally depressed following this. But he is a very repressed man. And years in the future when Obama comes to offer him the choice of accepting his ultimate self form, leaving EVERYTHING behind? He takes it without a second thought. Dave is so miserable that he doesn’t give a fuck if he does, because he gets to become an awesome robot with awesome powers and memories.  In the Meat! postscript, he abandons the Candy!planet to go fight the relevant fight in the new session Dirks’ overtaking.   

Because of how detached this suicide is from the suicidal depictions of Dirk, John, and Terezi, it’s not easy to analyse. But I think that this would count as a mixed representation.  JUST like Terezi, Dave has given up on his new world and decided to go run away for adventures elsewhere. JUST like Dirk, Dave’s let go of his individuality.   UNLIKE both of them, he’s with the good guys, he has enough individuality to still be himself, he has ALLLLLLLL of the self confidence... for now, and he is already making new friends. 

Unfortunately because most people IRL can’t merge their minds with epic robots, things for regular ol Candy Dave appear to have been so awful he gave it all up just like that for Obama.  If it wasn’t so absurd, it would probably be depressing, and I think a lot of Dave fans who read a more depressed interpretation of his character might see this as a failure on the part of Hussie to depict light at the end of the tunnel.   

Now we’re at the end of this stupidly long essay, let’s do a TL;DR:  

DIRK: Hopeless depiction of character dealing with suicidal depression, when their depiction was previously more hopeful

CANDY!JOHN: Excellent representation of character overcoming suicidal depression, best in the comic by far

MEAT!JOHNL: Weak representation of character dealing with suicidal depression

TEREZI: Semi hopeless representation of character dealing with suicidal depression

CANDY!DAVE: WH4T  

TAVROS: Not depressed, but symbolic of Candy’s hopeful outlook

EPILOGUE

Oh, sorry,  I mean “Conclusion”. Except we can’t really call it that either. Oh you meant the ESSAY?  Okay!!! Right.  

The epilogue’s depiction of sucidial depression is mostly upsetting. It’s negative, with a not very hopeful outlook.  

But what bits of there ARE end up being very powerful, in particular Candy!John who is the focus of this theme.  

However, Terezi - the COMIC’s focus character for sucidal depression -  does not get a good enough deal at the end to be seen as having much hope. The story tries to mitigate this with self awareness that it is, in fact, a story. 

It does this MORE with Dirk, and Dave too.  Dirk is hyper aware of his status as a fictional character. Although he kills himself, it’s not much of a suicide when he’s doing it to consolidate his influence elsewhere.  

But Dirk’s depiction as a supervillain shits on a previous arc he had, where he thought he’d be better off dead than alive because he might become bad one day.  Dirk was getting over this. Then the epilogue makes it look like Dirk would’ve been better off dead!!! He lost all of his individuality.   

So, Dirk is the most critical failure of this theme. Terezi is a big failure but as always she’d be salvagable if there was more content.  Candy!John is an overwhelming success.  Tavros is a part of John’s success.  Dave is in a weird place. I’d call him a failure though.    

The lesson to be learnt here is that.... even though the end did some GREAT things, like Candy!John, it’s advisable to distance yourself from relating too hard to characters going through suicidal depression. If they are like Dirk or Terezi you might be feeling depressed yourself at the end. 

It’s not up to the author to live up to the reader’s vision of how something should end. In this case Hussie gave hopeless endings to characters. But if you’re consuming media responsibly, you make sure you are not too sensitive to negative depictions like this, which while relatable are still the fictional musings of some dude.  

It’s not fair to ask Hussie to give everyone a happy ending, if that’s not his artistic vision.  We can criticise it artistically all we want, but we can’t call it unethical, not unless he’s deliberately aiming to hurt people. And despite everything, I don’t think he ever has been.   

What do you think? Do you believe the epilogue team wrote a good representation of characters coming to terms with depressive suicide, or suicidal tendencies?  

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1303

Monday, March 2, 2020

 This is a public service announcement. You will be ticketed for parking on the street during a parking ban even though the snow has already been cleared from the roads. We got a ticket parked in front of our house last week because we couldn't get into our driveway after the grader left a big snow bank at the end of it. I hope to spare anyone from being dinged with what I think is an unfair fine.

 Amazing Spider-Man: Daily Bugle #2 - Mat Johnson (writer) Mack Chater (art pages 1-12) Francesco Mobili (art pages 13-20) Dono Sanchez-Almara, Protobunker & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I can't read the rest of this 5-issue mini. The art really bothered me this issue. It was hard to tell what was going on the first few pages and then seeing Peter Parker in civvies looking almost exactly like the bad guy confused me further. There are interesting mysteries about Spidey's webbing and a Wilson Fisk involvement with an explosion, but this story probably won't matter in the grand scheme of things, so I don't think I'll miss anything if I bail out here.

 Punisher Soviet #4 - Garth Ennis (writer) Jacen Burrows (pencils) Guillermo Ortego (inks) Nolan Woodard (colours) Rob Steen (letters). Frank and Valery go after Konstantin by kidnapping his trophy wife. She's amenable to divorce by Punisher. Thank Garth for improving my mood.

 Basketful of Heads #5 - Joe Hill (writer) Leomacs (art) Riccardo La Bella (additional pencils) Dave Stewart (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). Everything leading up to this issue has been circumstantial. Now the villain tells the complete story. I'm rooting for June to survive this mess.

 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 - James Tynion IV (writer) Steve Epting & Javier Fernandez (art) Nick Filardi (colours) Travis Lanham (letters). Heh, it's the Joker who helps Lex beat the Batman Who Laughs. It looks like next issue's pulse pounding conclusion will be Lex and his super villains versus the Batman Who Laughs and his infected super heroes. It's been a while since the Main Man has been in a comic that I've read.

 Avengers #31 - Jason Aaron (writer) Gerardo Zaffino, Geraldo Borges, Szymon Kudranski, Oscar Bazaldua, Robert Gill & Mattia De Iulis (art) Rachelle Rosenberg & Mattia De Iulis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I haven't seen Tony Stark in a while so I assumed he was dead. Nope. He was zapped a million years into the past by the master manipulator Mephisto. The devil tries to get Tony's soul. This is a wonderful full issue of Iron Man and if Jason wrote an Iron Man book, I'd read it.

 Amethyst #1 - Amy Reeder (story & art) Gabriela Downie (letters). I remember reading the original Amethyst book when it hit the racks in 1983 with the Ernie Colon art. It was fun and weird with a plucky heroine. This new Wonder Comics book has the appeal of having art by Amy Reeder who wowed me with her work on Madame Xanadu and Rocket Girl. Here she is writing as well and the art and story is tight and concise. This is a nice substitute for the dearly departed Naomi book.

 Avengers of the Wastelands #2 - Ed Brisson (writer) Jonas Scharf (art) Neeraj Menon (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). It's the origin of Captain America of the Wastelands. His name is Grant. I think this is a great way to change tried and true Marvel characters to make them fresh and new. Having them fight an evil Doctor Doom is nice and simple. Four Avengers may become five but they have to contend with a super villain first.

 Suicide Squad #3 - Tom Taylor (writer) Bruno Redondo (art) Adriano Lucas (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). The new Squad's first mission under Lok's leadership does not go according to plan. Neither are these super villains what they seem. This is why I read Tom Taylor books. Forget about any new Crises and DCeased and pick up this most excellent comic book for some straight up action and skulduggery.

 Kill Lock #3 - Livio Ramondelli (story & art) Tom B. Long (letters). I get why the calligraphy font is used in the Wraith's word balloons but man, is it hard to read. This issue explains why The Kid is innocent and shouldn't be branded. The four droids find the one who can lead them to the Kill Lock's off switch but she betrays them. This universe of sentient robots is pretty cool.

 Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #4 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Each issue has started off with Jessica held captive by the bad guy. The end of this issue reveals who that is and how she was killed and resurrected. I am looking forward to the conclusion to see how she defeats the villain.

 Batman Superman #7 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Nick Derington (art) Dave McCaig (colours) John J. Hill (letters). A new story starts here. Part 1 of "The Kandor Compromise" pits the World's Finest duo against Ra's Al Ghul and General Zod. One of the bad guys is working with the good guys. I got bored of the fight between Superman and Rogol Zaar so what happened to the city of Kandor was a surprise to me. I'm interested to see the final fate of the shrunken city.

 Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey and Emma Frost #1 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Russell Dauterman (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This mostly wordless $4.99 US one-shot will be a quick read but I read it twice just to soak in the beautiful art. The story starts with the discovery Storm's body and ends with a problem after Ororo is resurrected. This leads into a story where Jean, Emma, Logan and Scott will have to save Storm again.

 Leviathan Dawn #1- Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art) Josh Reed (letters). Leviathan succeeded in shutting down every spy agency and the leader has been revealed to be an ex-spy named Mark Shaw. The good guys are still trying to fight back but they're going to need help. Time for Kingsley Jacobs to start up Check Mate again. I like the players he's gathered. I'm looking forward to watching this game unfold.

 Finger Guns #1 - Justin Richards (writer) Val Halvorson (art) Rebecca Nalty (colours) Taylor Esposito (letters). And now for something completely different. This new urban fantasy introduces two teenagers with a weird power. Wes discovers that when he shoots people with his left hand he can make them angry. Sadie can calm people down when she uses her right finger gun. They meet by accident at the mall and try to get a handle on their newfound powers. It's a cool concept and I wonder where these kids are going to end up.

 Fantastic Four: Grimm Noir #1 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Ron Garney (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This one's all about Ben's bad dreams. I thought the bad guy was Nightmare but it's another one of those mystical villains that generally mess with Doctor Strange. I expected some sort of Mickey Spillane type story but there's no murder, just a pretty dame needing rescue. It's a nice character study of the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

 Detective Comics #1020 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Brad Walker (pencils) Andrew Hennessy (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Two-Face is back and he's more bipolar than ever. This is what I like to see, an old villain presented in a slightly new way. We still have the scarred coin dictating how Harvey acts but there's a new twist with a cult of fanatics and the Church of the Two Strikes. I love how the first page hints at the return of the Court of Owls too.

 Falcon & Winter Soldier #1 - Derek Landy (writer) Federico Vicentini (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This 5-issue team-up starts off with a heavily armed and armoured hit squad attacking Bucky Barnes in his home. The Winter Soldier emerges unscathed and hops his motorcycle to find out who sent the killers. Meanwhile Sam Wilson is searching for a missing vet. The two meet at a government agency office where all the staff are dead. Wanting to know who's doing all the killing has got me interested in reading the rest but when a preppy killer shows up and kicks both of the heroes asses I decided to put this mini on my "must read" list. The kid's name is the Natural. Picture a blonde Damian Wayne in a pair of Chuck Taylors.

 The Amazing Spider-Man #40 - Nick Spencer (writer) Iban Coello & Ze Carlos (art) Brian Reber & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The fight between Spider-Man and Chance had to do with a bet that Chance could get one of Spidey's web shooters. What bothered me was how easily that was done and Spider-Man's lack of urgency to get it back. There's a couple of foreshadowing scenes that will keep me reading however. One involves the Clairvoyant device and the other is who Norah Winters is working with.

 X-Men #7 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Leinil Francis Yu (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This issue is dedicated to a new Mutant Ritual called the Crucible. It's a lot shorter than calling it the Arena of Death and Rebirth. It shows how mutants who have lost their powers can get them back. But first we have to endure a deep philosophical discussion between Cyclops and Nightcrawler. It's a real snoozer if you're an action fan.

 Action Comics #1020 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Romita Jr. (pencils) Klaus Janson (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). I wish they would stop with the deceiving covers. It looks like Superman is trying to come between Lex Luthor and Leviathan but what actually happens inside is Superman fighting Lex and the Legion of Doom. If it weren't for Young Justice helping out I would have found this issue boring.

 X-Men/Fantastic Four #2 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Terry Dodson (pencils) Rachel Dodson, Karl Story & Ransom Getty (inks) Laura Martin (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). There's a lot of heroes accusing heroes of shenanigans concerning the disappearance of Franklin and Valeria. They are actually guests of Doctor Doom. Victor wants to reverse what Reed did to his son and I want to know why. With the X-Men converging on Doom Island, good old Doc Doom is prepared for an attack.

 X-Force #8 - Benjamin Percy (writer) Bazaldua (art) Guru-eFX (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Why did Oscar Bazaldua stop using his first name in the credits? Domino and Colossus attack the flesh factory making assassins using Neena's DNA. The organisation funding the flesh factory has a mysterious benefactor and I'm hanging around to find out who that is. I wish they would change either Sage or Jubilee's costume. I keep getting them confused.

[lily-junoarcher]

Notes from ‘Medusa and the Female Gaze’: Condensed

Susan R. Bowers, 'Medusa and the Female Gaze', NWSA Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring, 1990)

 "This symbol of horror is worn upon her dress by the virgin goddess Athena. And rightly so, for thus she becomes a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. Since the Greeks were in the main strongly homosexual, it was inevitable that we should find among them a representation of woman as a being who frightens and repels because she is castrated. "

- Sigmund Freud, "Medusa's Head", vol. 5 of Collected Papers, ed. James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 105-6

 Freud and Sandor Ferenczi's psychoanalytic theory conceives of female genitals as terrifying images of male castration because it is rooted in the male perspective. - Susan R. Bowers

 'by transforming Medusa' s head into the image of profound lack, Freud and Ferenczi deflect attention from the compelling, frightening presence of Medusa's eyes that are watching with all the force of a powerful subjectivity.

 Hazel Barnes "it was not the horror of the object looked at which destroyed the victim, but the fact that his eyes met those of Medusa looking at him."  - Hazel Barnes, 'The Meddling Gods' pg. 13

She agrees with Jean-Paul Sartre: "... When another person looks at me, his look may make me feel that I am an object, a thing in the midst of a world of things. If I feel that my free subjectivity has been paralysed, this is as if I had been turned to stone." Barnes, 'The Meddling Gods', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1974) pg. 22, as paraphrased from Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Being and Nothingness' (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956)

 The 'Look' is so disturbing, because it constitutes judgement of the self from outside the self; judgement which can neither be controlled nor even known precisely.

 " The Look of the Other, which reveals to me my object side, judges me, categorises me; it identifies me with my external acts and appearances, with my self-for-others. It threatens, by ignoring my free subjectivity, to reduce me to the status of a thing in the world. In short, it reveals my physical and my psychic vulnerability, my fragility. " - Barnes, 'The Meddling Gods', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1974) pg. 23

 The Medusa Complex, then, ”represents my extreme fear that by denying my own freely organised world with all of its connections and internal colorations, the Other’s look might reduce me permanently to a hard stone-like object.“ – Barnes, ‘The Meddling Gods’ pg, 23

Patriarchal males have had to make Medusa – and by extension, all other women – the object of the male gaze as a protection against being objectified themselves by Medusa’s female gaze. The defence against having their own free subjectivity ignored, their vulnerability and fragility revealed, and their world shared was the destruction of female subjectivity.

Why was it necessary to destroy female subjectivity?

The answer lies in Medusa’s powerful pre-Olympian history. What we now know is that Medusa was a powerful goddess at a time when female authority was dominant and the power to be feared was feminine. - (Thalia Feldman, “Gorgo and thr Origins of Fear”, Arion 4 (Autumn 1965): 484-93

As the serpent-goddess of the Libyan Amazons, for example, Medusa represented women’s wisdom. A female face surrounded by serpent-hair was an ancient, widely-recognised symbol of divine, female wisdom.

Some feminists suspect that the Gorgons were a Black Amazon tribe. – Emily Erwin Culpepper, ‘Ancient Gorgons: A Face for Contemporary Women’s Rage, “ Woman of Power 3 (Winter/Spring 1986): 22

 As Neith of Egypt and Athene in North Africa, Medusa represented the Destroyer component of the Triple Goddess (*). Her inscription at Sais named her “mother of all the gods, whom she bore before childbirth existed”. She was “All that has been, that is, and that will be”. – Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1968), pg 37

The snakes on her head are strong mythological symbols associated with wisdom and power, healing, immortality and rebirth. Why the prohibition against gazing directly at her? One explanation suggests that her blood was magic because it represented menstrual blood: primitive people believed a menstruating woman’s look could turn a man to stone. – Sir James Frazer, ‘The Golden Bough’ (New York: Macmillan, 1922), 696, 699

 But others remind us simply that mortals must never look a deity in the face. – Edward Phinney, Jr., “Perseus’ Battle with the Gorgons, “ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Phiologocal Association, 102 (1971): 446-47

“It is never wise in myths and fairy tales to look certain women, death or gods in the face because their unmediated power is too great – like the sun in eclipse”. To be ‘seen’ a woman must be dulled-down, to be accepted in a way that is manageable. Viewed with sunglasses on. – Nor Hall, ‘The Mook and the Virgin’ (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 65

 Because of Medusa’s powerful image, she was represented on the Temple of Artemis on Corfu, apparently to protect the temple from evil:

“Medusa is intact and unmolested. Oerseus does not figure here because this scene does not exist to glorify any hero. Medusa, and her children, and her lion companions, function here in an apotropaic aspect – to turn evil away from the temple and the goddess within... The entire scene on the pediment is one of teeth, fury and dark power”. – Tamsey Andrews as quoted in Culpepper, “Notes on Gorgons”, unpublished paper, n.d., 5

 When invading Hellenes arrived, they “wrecked the goddesses’ shrines and tore off the masks from the priest-women, an episode in that crucial moment of western civilisation when female powers were replaced by gods and heroes”. – Joan Coldwell, “The Beauty of the Medusa: Twentieth Century”, English Studies in Canada 1 (December 1985): 423

** the rise of monotheistic religion

 The Olympian Medusa lacks sacred power. The male, Poseidon, is divine, not the female. Nor is Medusa’s petrifying look mentioned in Hesiod’s ‘Theogony’ (8th Century B.C.).

However, by the second century A.D., the legend told by Apollodorus states of the Gorgons that “they turned to stone those who beheld them.” – Apollodorus,  The Library, trans. Sir James George Frazer, vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 161.

 “Myths in which heroes conquer dragons and gorgons and snakes and other monstrous figures are essentially stories of “riddance” in which the beautiful and powerful women of the pre-Hellenic religions are made to seem horrific and then raped, decapitated or destroyed”. – Annis Pratt, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”, 168

 In Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ (1st Century B.C), Medusa is a young girl whose “beauty was far famed.” Because she was raped by Poseidon, the god of the sea, in Athena’s shrine, Athena, “for fitting punishment transformed / The Gorgon’s lovely hair to loathsome snakes”. – Ovid, “”, pg. 4.800-801

 The grotesque paradox of the Olympian Medusa is the juxtaposition of her extraordinary beauty and her horror, which is represented by the writhing serpents on her head and her power to petrify. She is paradoxical in more than one sense: blood which flowed from her right side created a life-giving drug which permitted Asclepius to bring six mythical beings back to life, whereas the blood from left side produced poisonous snakes. – Philip Mayerson, ‘Classical Mythology in Literature, Art and Music’ (Lexington, Mass.: Xerox Corporation, 1971), 131-32.

The Olympian Medusa has become a “myth of origin for amulets” because her head “literally combines and contains evil mixtures and confuses the sacred and profane, law and taboo, pure and impure... Contagion and cure”, and the purpose of the amulet is to baffle, to create confusion. – Tobin Siebers, ‘The Mirror of Medusa (Berkely: University of California Press, 1983), 8-9

The paradox in part can reflect the coexistence of her pre-Olympian and Olympian history.

 The two most famous artworks inspired by this Medusa are Benvenuto Cellini’s sculpture ‘Perseo’ and the painting ‘Head of Medusa’ in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Cellini’s work captures magnificently the ambivalence of the Olympian Medusa.

The body of Cellini’s Medusa is feminine and fragile, while her murderer is Janus-headed. – Siebers, ‘The Mirror’, 12-13 Both the painting and sculpture are tense with ambivalence: neither completely horrible, because of the beautiful face, nor thoroughly lovely, because of the morbidity and snakes.

 The bewitching mixture of female beauty and horror echoes the interpretations of Perseus and Medusa during the Middle Ages. In the ‘Romance of the Rose’, Perseus arms himself “with a mirror of reason to resist the dangerously feminine, to neutralise the erotic power that threatens to immobilise him”. – Sylia Huot, “The Medusa Interpolation, “874.

 The Dantean Medusa is believed to represent “a sensual fascination and potential entrapment, precluding all further progress” for the pilgrim. – John Freccero, “Dante’s ‘Medusa’: Allegory and Autobiography”, in ‘By Things Seen: Reference and Recognition in Medieval Thought (Ottowa: University of Ottowa Press, 1979), 39.

 Art historian Margaret Miles points out that in the 14th Century, women’s sexuality and biological experience were pointedly rejected in favour of an idealised female image. But Miles and others have found strong evidence that some women at this time had considerable power in business, politics an the church. “The spiritual autonomy of such women may have been deeply frightening to patrician men. The device of simultaneously distancing women and informing them of the role within the community that men preferred them to play made images of women attractive to men. For men, the totally visualised and spiritualized – silent and bodiless – woman was manageable”. – Miles, ‘Image’, 83-84

 The ethereal women of 14th Century paintings do not represent actual women but “the qualities men woul have liked women to emulate [as] ‘a way of mastering’  what was otherwise too immediate, too threatening, too intense”. – Miles, ‘Image’, 85

By the Romantic period however, male artists had discovered a new way to combat female power and subjectivity that Medusa could not help but project from her pre-Olympian days. Medusa’s victimisation by Poseidon and Perseus, but especially by Athena, who punished the victim instead of the rapist, contributed to her becoming a “key romantic iconograph”. “Although Romantic artists were all aware that she was, in some sense, a focus of evil, they generally agreed that she was innocent of the horror she generated and that their own fascination was with her betrayed power and innocence”. – Jerome J. McGann, “The Beauty of the Medusa: A Study in Romantic Literary Iconography”, Studies in Romanticism 11 (Winter 1972)

 In William Morris’ version of Medusa, she longs to die but “no one will release her from her death-in life because all men are... Themselves afraid of dying”. By transforming Medusa into a victim, Morris domesticates her and her terrible power dissipates. But in making her the necessary victim for a hero, demonstrating his victory over the fear of death, his desire for “love, integrity, civilisation”, Morris inscribes a prominent aspect of the original myth: Medusa’s role as a Sacrificial victim.

As Rene Girard, who focuses on the function of ritual sacrifice for a community, explains: “Society is seeking to deflect upon a relatively indifferent victim, a ‘sacrificeable’ victim, the violence that would otherwise be vented on its own members, the people it most desires to protect” Girard argues that sacrificial victims, whether human or animal, can be distinguished by their lack of a crucial social link with the community that enables them to be sacrificed without fear of reprisal. While he declares that women are rarely sacrificial victims, I contend that Medusa represents the paradigm of the woman as eminently “sacrificeable”. By being marginal to the patriarchal community, she meets Girard’s criterion of sacrificial suitability.

Medusa and women like her – not owned by the patriarchy – are ideal victims. Destroying them does not challenge male property rights and does not damage those women who serve a patriarchal society. Sacrifice of Medusa-women enables the male communal expression of anger and violence that female eros and power provoke.

** See witch-burning (Salem witch trials etc.)

[wrestlingisfake]

Power Struggle preview

Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto - This is White’s first defense of the IWGP intercontinental championship since he won the title from Tetsuya Naito.  Goto has a win over White from August and demanded a title match within minutes of White’s victory.

Goto spent some time earlier this year training with Katsuyori Shibata’s Los Angeles Dojo, and ever since they’ve been trying to put over that he’s reinvented himself and he’s better than ever.  I don’t really buy it.  In order to get me to buy it, they have to put Goto over guys like White in high-stakes matches like this one.  And I don’t believe that’s going to happen--it’s far more likely that White will keep the intercontinental title until White vs. Naito on January 4, with the winner advancing to a double-title match on January 5.  But they can’t just tell us that and have White sit on his thumbs for two months.  So we all have to pretend Goto has a chance in hell here.

I don’t expect this to get very interesting until after the match, at which point we may see Tetsuya Naito come to the ring to challenge White for January 4.  The match itself should be fine, but to me the “G” in “Goto” stands for “giving us a midcard match in the main event.”

Will Ospreay vs. BUSHI - Ospreay is defending the IWGP junior heavyweight championship.  Ospreay and his tag team partner Robbie Eagles were doing well in the Super Jr. Tag League tournament until Bushi interfered in their last match, spraying his black poison mist into Ospreay’s face.  Bushi was unable to enter the tournament because he didn’t have a partner; his stable, Los Ingobernables de Japon, doesn’t have any other junior heavyweights since Shingo Takagi moved to heavyweight and Hiromu Takahashi isn’t back yet from his neck injury.  Ospreay decided Bushi wanted to go after the singles title, and demanded to do the match here, on little notice.

I bring this up a lot (like, a lot), so I hate to beat a dead horse, but one of these days Hiromu Takahashi has to come back to announce that he’s medically cleared to wrestle again, and this match would provide a logical context for doing that.  Takahashi is Bushi’s stable-mate and Ospreay’s nemesis (in the Kate Beaton sense of the term)  It would not be hard to use this match to segue into Takahashi challenging for the title.  An Ospreay/Takahashi title match at Wrestle Kingdom would be a big deal.  But I’ve been expecting stuff like that for months, so I feel bad if I’m getting anyone’s hopes up.

Anyway, I think Ospreay will retain.

KENTA vs. Tomohiro Ishii - Kenta betrayed Ishii to join Bullet Club on August 12, and then defeated him to win the NEVER openweight championship on August 31; this is the rematch.  Kenta is high on my shit list for doing away with the really awesome entrance music he had before the turn, so I gotta root for Ishii to murder his ass.  I sort of don’t expect Ishii to successfully murder that ass, though.

The big issue here, I think, is whether we get the next step in the angle from August 12, where Kenta’s former friend Katsuyori Shibata ran in to stop him and got his ass kicked.  After that, everyone wanted Shibata to come out of retirement to wrestle Kenta at the Tokyo Dome.  If that’s going to happen, now is probably the time to have Shibata issue the challenge, and to decide if Kenta is going to be NEVER champion going into that match.  Otherwise, we need to decide who’s supposed to fight on Shibata’s behalf.  There’s zero chance Ishii is going to be that guy, though, so he should lose and step back for the bigger story.

El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. SHO & YOH - This is the final match of the Super Jr. Tag League tournament.  The tournament had a single block that ended with three teams tied for the lead with 10 points.  Despy and Kanemaru technically took first place because they were 2-0 against the other teams, while Roppongi 3K was 1-1 and came in second.  That leaves the third team, the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori to wait and see who wins this match.  The winning team earns a junior tag title match, which is typically booked for Wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo Dome on January 4.

It feels like these teams have fought approximately a zillion times in the past two years, including three-way matches with LIJ.  We got a respite when Despy suffered a broken jaw, but he’s back so we have to go right back to this.  Roppongi 3K have won this tournament two years in a row, and they’re in a position to make it three, so it’s hard not to pick them.  Not that it matters; I could very easily see the winners and losers of this match being put in a three-way for the title.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Taichi - There are three things that are certain in life: Death, taxes, and New Japan Pro Wrestling rehashing the Naito vs. Taichi feud.  Ever since Taichi moved to heavyweight, they’ve been trying to push him as a contender for the intercontinental title, or at least a credible threat to the real stars.  For their 2018 feud Taichi pulled every heel trick in the book and still got beat, and then in 2019 he went even further and lost again.  But he finally scored a win over Naito in the G1 Climax, while Naito was intercontinental champion.  And now Naito doesn’t have the belt anymore so I suppose the idea is that the winner of this match will be the logical next contender. 

I don’t believe for a second Taichi is going to win this match, no matter what smoke and mirrors they try to use to make it seem plausible.  Naito wins, and Taichi goes back to feuding with Hirooki Goto for a few months, and then we can do Naito-Taichi Part 11...

Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi - Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion, and Ibushi is his designated challenger for Wrestle Kingdom on January 4.  Yoshi and Tana are just kinda there for the ride. 

The biggest question in this match is whether they’ll start setting up Tana’s Wrestle Kingdom match.  I’m very certain his opponent will be Chris Jericho, which would suggest a Jericho run-in very soon.  But if they officially make the match now, that would probably mean Tanahashi can’t participate in the World Tag League tournament (since we would “know” he can’t win and challenge for the tag title at Wrestle Kingdom, because he’d already be booked for that show).  So they may not do anything with that.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Yoshi-Hashi is so getting pinned here.

Lance Archer & Zack Sabre, Jr. & Minoru Suzuki vs. Shingo Takagi & EVIL & SANADA - Archer recently won the IWGP United States championship, so the most interesting thing here is the possibility that one of the LIJ guys could pin him to move into contention for that title.  Of course, one of them could challenge Sabre for the RPW British heavyweight title as well.  Another issue to keep an eye on is which two of the Suzuki-gun trio is being set up to enter the World Tag League; I assume that’ll be Suzuki and Sabre, but you never know.  This one’s tough to call but if we get a Shingo vs. Archer title match out of this I will be a happy camper.

El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori vs. Rocky Romero & Robbie Eagles - ELP and Ishimori are the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions, but are not defending the title here.  During the Super Jr. Tag League, they were victorious over Romero and Ryusuke Taguchi as well as Eagles and Will Ospreay.  I don’t expect them to have much more trouble against this combination.

Jushin Thunder Liger & Ryusuke Taguchi & Tiger Mask & Yuya Uemura vs. TJP & Clark Connors & Volador, Jr. & Titan - Tiger/Uemura, TJP/Connors, and Volador/Titan were all teams that came up short in the Super Jr. Tag League.  Taguchi was in the tournament as well.  Liger, of course, is continuing his retirement tour.  This should be a basic opener, with either Uemura or Connors taking a loss...most likely Connors, so Liger’s team can celebrate.