#and i suppose that assholishness is a human trait

[rmbunnie]

I know Morrison's Batman tends to be considered one of the greats, and I am definitely warming up to it more than I did on my initial read, but there are still some elements of it I found really didn't mesh with me. I feel like I can say this a lot more concisely than I did during my initial readthrough of Batman and Robin 2009, plus I've had more time to reflect and actually form a coherent opinion that wasn't a gut reaction, and keep in mind that I've read Batman and Robin in a vacuum Morrison-wise and can't speak on it in the larger context of their Batman run, but aside from just. very odd writing of certain characters, I feel like one of the more significant things that rubbed me the wrong way with this storyline was that a lot of the "weirdness" I'd seen hyped up felt either inconsistent enough that it didn't have a significant presence for me, especially towards the end of the run, or very surface-level.

One of the runs I see hyped up as some of Morrison's greatest work is Animal Man, especially for its metafictional ending. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I expect that I'll enjoy it, or find it very interesting at the least (although author-inserts can come across a bit arrogant sometimes imo.) The point is I've heard good things, that it comes down to a very interesting and one-of-a-kind conflict in the end, which made me in some part hopeful for similar with Batman and Robin, (although I do have to admit I was reading it in part to see how off his Jason really could be.) I didn't really find that, tbh. There definitely were genuinely weird plot points with impact on the story which I feel were really successful, unfortunately it seems like a lot of them were at the cost of any prior characterization for the characters involved. Damian has steel implanted into his spine which allowed Deathstroke to control his movements and set off his emotional connection with Dick, Talia just had to be written horribly for it to happen. Sasha is a really interesting parallel to Damian/Robin-in-general. The conflict around her grotesque mask permanently fused onto her face and the fear that it'll kill her completely to take it off, the scene in which she gets said mask in the first place/the dollotrons, and the concept of a villain getting their own Robin in someone completely unrelated to Batman and the impact their legacy has had is all really original and cool, it's just that it's all dependent on a bewildering version of Jason that directly contradicts all previous characterization save BftC. To me the tradeoff doesn't feel necessary, but the events are inventive and have weight in the larger story.

In other areas though, especially as the run wrapped up, the zaniness that I see hyped up a lot, while providing a unique atmosphere, felt a lot like set dressing more than anything. In retrospect, the first time I really noticed this was the Professor Pyg dance page back in issue 2 or 3, I believe? But it became much more frequent towards the end of the series. The entire city becomes infected with a viral drug by Professor Pyg which isn't a major threat and doesn't serve anything in the story much besides being wacky, letting Professor Pyg say odd things about his mother sometimes and putting Commissioner Gordon... in a dress! Zany! (Professor Pyg is eventually... presumably?... torn apart by a parade of dollotrons and his narrative importance dies with him.) Alongside the Morrison-original villains like Dr. Hurt and Professor Pyg, there's a mysterious new player in town who's been orchestrating everything, and after a dozen issues of mystery it's the Joker, but wearing a mask and making edgy "differently-abled" jokes!

Dr. Hurt is interesting, and I liked his part of the story if I ignored the panels of auxiliary weirdness thrown on to add to the vibe, and I think there's something fun and interesting there about the legacy of Batman vs. artistic interpretations with his motive of ruining the Wayne's legacy (made more apparent with his talk about the Batcave being "the way it was meant to be in his head," the manor and Batcave "his to ruin," but Dr. Hurt kind of fades out of the story as Batman returns and is defeated by Joker, laying a banana peel on the ground. In the context of the theme of artistic interpretation and Morrison's commentary that they never cared to pretend the story was going to end with anything but a return to the classic Batman, I actually find this really interesting. A character heavily defined and reinvented by Morrison's writing being defeated by one of the most iconic Batman characters with a classic comedy trick from the 19th century feels like the conclusion to the contrast between Batman's legacy and the artistic license of the authors writing the comics: you can have your personalized elements, but the legacy of Batman is elastic and unlikely to be molded by them: certainly it won't be destroyed. Despite this, it didn't change the exhaustion of seeing the Gravedigger's mask come off and settling in for another comic where the Joker is gonna be doing classic zany Joker stuff.

As much as I'm frustrated with the way Talia and Jason are written during this run, I didn't entirely hate it, and the more I think about it, the more I find things I like. Some of my frustrations come down to taste, and are an unavoidable product of my personal taste differing from a pro comic author who had an established writing career while I was going to elementary school. I feel like some previous Batman comics were referenced in really exciting ways, for example the combination of Bruce's absence, a drug being used to gain control over citizens, an odd demonic presence, an imposter cult leader (If you can call Dr. Hurt that) prolonging his life through magical rituals, the background detail of complete chaos in the city, and one of the main villains being torn apart by a crowd of his followers, from the limited number of straight-up-Batman storylines I've read, felt pretty strongly like a nod to The Cult. But even considering the commentary on creative license vs. the consistency of Batman as a pop culture icon, the feeling of reading the comic was frequently that I was being convinced of a weirdness that didn't extend through the story down to the actual structure or plot points of the issue I was reading (with exceptions, such as the Sasha + Professor Pyg thing,) and although I appreciate the message of the return to status quo in the ending, with the hype of the story's inventiveness and uniqueness on my mind, it was kinda disappointing to realize halfway through that for all the weird window dressing, the story would be commiting to a much more traditional turn than what I was expecting.

[istherewifiinhell]

hand on rbing prev post as circling back around on sts thought apparently gave me enough to say it needed to escape the tags and be its own post. um! the emh from voy: my wife is a bitch and i love her so much

i think the emh is like. the exact definition of "the soul first shows itself by a gnashing of teeth" as its all well add good to appreciate the aliveness of nice and polite data who follows all the rules and is like. even MORE real than a flesh and blood person.

(in sense of his tangibility... his mechanical complexity and physical and mental competencies. are MORE than that of a traditionally recognized person. you know? not that that is an accurate summation of how the show acts about him. the only person who thinks that is julian bashir lmao. more often its like the. oh you disrespect him? well disrespect THIS! [he does a feat unmatched by any of the biological life forms around him] which... isnt exactly useful as principled, ideological and philosophic statement, about who gains the right of person-hood. OR RATHER! it is literally and precisely that, its conclusions sucks shit)

[Cam K podcast voice] when someone reaches for abstractions to doubt data's existent, the show throws materialist egg on their face.

The lynchpin in the proof of Data artificiality. Is that he has a PHYSICAL SWITCH, that can turn him OFF. This counters his otherwise uninterrupted verisimilitude of humanity. He looks like a toy. A thing. (Teenage wifi would like to point out if i had a big enough rock i could also turn riker off, but alas)

BUT the thing about the Doc, is that this guy ISNT "REAL". Getting shut down is not grand solemn act to the doc. It happens to him. ALOT. "Computer: End Program"... Hes so much more dependent on those around him. He isnt nearly the same as them. AND HES AN ANNOYING LITTLE BITCH about it. please turn him off when you done! please turn him ON to tell him things, and u could visit sometime... Turn your emergency holographic medical channel! cause this is a SENIOR STAFF MEETING. and hes the God Damn CMO.

AND. its not just mistreatment he gets (RIGHTFULLY!) angry about. Its that (as joelle correctly pointed out, ofc) when confused, or when things are wrong, when he has no control, he default right to agression! He is not a sad kicked puppy that goes 'oh' and 'i do not understand the meaning of ur behaviour' like data does. (again that sounds like data slander its NOT! i love data and wish ppl would stop laughing at him for having questions)

Whereas the biggest actual impediment of data's full recognition of personhood is his feelings, and suppose lack there of. He doesn't react to social stimulus the way people expect him too. If you try to goad him into a response he might say he 'is not capable of experiencing emotions such as you do' cause hes lacking the magic part in his brain that will do that. (to which... every neurodivergent person ever said: data, bestie, baby girl, they say that about a lot of people. you have clearly expressed internal experiences that are just... you baselines for emotion)

But to compare. When people say the doc isnt acting socially normal, which is an assholish thing to do, btw. HES READY TO BE AN ASSHOLE RIGHT BACK. His is INFACT, gnashing those holographic teeth! I don't think anyone has ever accused the doc of a LACK OF FEELING. Like, he has horrible beside manner, he "isn't programed for small talk"... but thats cause he's RUDE! He's too obviously prideful, snide, needling and just general, self involved for it to not seem like a DELIBERATE CHOICE that he is making.

And even when these traits are regarded to simple programing (which makes them... less real? 🤨) Examine the moments that are definitively about him claiming autonomy, engaging in recreation and becoming more self actualized. And find that a lot of them are angled to make him LESS likable. His hobbies, which he WILL speak about, AT LENGTH, include being a tropy writer, a photographer who makes hour long presentations, and a uncompromising operatic tenor diva.

(love when opera singer is used as insult, media wise, oh noooo ur TOO good at singing. your voice is TOO powerful, ur vocal control and ability to perform complex pieces in multiple languages is TOO impressive. lol. mr picardo ur so cool and u looked good doing it. frankly)

In the moments that serve to mark specific advancement in control he gains over himself, he gets to make himself MORE OBNOXIOUS! You do not, infact, get to recognize a someones full personhood without running the risk that you, specifically, might not like them! As a person!

And in dramtic turns. His true psyche breaking, foundation shaking experiences are acted to hell! It's uncomfortable to behold someone so emotional. Confusion and denial not expressed quietly, but belligerently. Meeting of sadness fear that can only be expressed as anger. Unlike the picturesq Adam and Eve figures from the end of R.U.R. (spoilers? i suppose). His awareness of the true personal impact and price of mortality is not signaled by a noble self-sacrifice, gentle weeping and pleading to not have someone taken away. It's a choice he made to save a close friend, instead of a distant coworker, when forced to choose between the two.

And then, his complete and total inability to comprehend, internalized and accept that fact. A person would be dead, truly and utterly gone from this world. Cause he wanted to save his friend instead. And the only way to ingrate this horrible fact of reality, the capital A, Absurd, was to do it as any human might.

Have a very public and loud mental breakdown, spend prolonged period of in which you cannot be left alone because your darkest thoughts will loop forever into themselves as you become more and more upset, and yet, neither can you simply avoid thinking about it, has the only way to come to terms with it is though a mire subjects that cause revulsion. The desert of thought the mind shrink from, and the truth that lies in it. Which. Is very inconvenient for all your friends who would really just rather be having a normal one.

In conclusion? The doc shows autonomy and sentience by being loud, opinionated and embarrassing. Rude, precocious, and easily offended. Self obsessed, high-mined, and anguished. Dependent, vulnerable and inconvenient. Which is to say he possible the most real anyone could ever be. That he has a much of a soul as any of us. That he is a bitch and i love him SO MUCH.

[mewatchingstuff]

When it first came out, I never got past the pilot episode but last week I decided to finally sit down and watch Syfy’s Van Helsing.

I basically loved everyone. Except for John and that Catherine chick from the resistance. 

And Sheema and Dimitri.

The weakest parts of the show, imo, were the main villains Dimitri and Rebekah. They were supposed to be menacing and dangerous but honestly, they were both just cumbersome half the time they were on. Julius and his random assortment of vampires were a better vampire antagonist than the other two. 

 I also felt Vanessa was halfway useless for a lot of the season. I know she’s supposed to be a “normal” human but she spent so much time getting taken out or bit every time there was a fight I wanted her to change her name to Kate Austin. There’s also this weird sense of moral hypocrisy that she displays with a lot of the characters that kinda irks me. The show wants to set her up as “right” in certain situations but they also show her doing the same things she’s scolding others for doing. It’s unappealing and unfortunately, I think it’s going to be an even bigger problem in season 2. But other than that I genuinely enjoyed her as the lead character and I think Kelly Overton was the perfect person to play Vanessa. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Vanessa will do next after that shocker at the end of season 1. 

The supporting characters definitely made up for Vanessa’s weak points in the beginning. Axel, the marine sent to guard Vanessa, was my favorite throughout the season. He’s a selfish asshole, honestly but he was never really wrong in his judgment calls, I felt. He provided unexpected comic relief with his assholishness and it really helped to elevate the tense atmosphere of the show at times. I have no idea what they’ll do with him now after *that* happened and then *that other thing* happened.

Sam & Mohamad, were my next two favorite characters. The dynamic duo who were the MVP’s of the entire season, imo. Mohamad especially because he’s a kid/teen and a black one at that. By now, we all know the pitfalls of POC, especially black ppl in horror/sci-fi stories. But Mohamad was actually allowed to be a fleshed out character with an individual story arc and goal that leads him to further character development.Sure, he stepped in it towards the end but I think he’ll continue to be one of the show’s best characters. Sam is played by Christopher heyerdahl which should honestly tell you everything if you’re already familiar with his work & characters.

Flesh/Phil deserves so much more love & respect than he gets. This dude is really trying his best to be better and to learn how to live with himself again but therapists are a little sparse in the show so he’s dealing with his shit alone. I have a feeling things are going to ultimately end terribly for him but for now, he just keeps getting better and more rootable.

Doc. What do I say about Doc. I have no idea other than she’s certainly the most frustratingly “human” character of the bunch. Which is pretty rare in the post-apocalyptic genre. Sure, we get characters that seem to share her traits but they’re always portrayed as the “villain” of the group or some rando who’ll die by the episode’s end. Yet, here she remains.It’s not even the vampire uprising to blame, because this was an inherent personality trait of hers. So what do you do with a character who’s a horrible coward at the very center of their being? I don’t think they’ll make her character sink any lower but building her up is no small task either. I guess it just depends on which direction the writers will have her immense guilt take her. 

All in all, I would definitely recommend this series to anymore who’s interested in horror/action-adventure genre