#gita jackson

[corvidinthewoods]

really like these two excerpts from the article Gita Jackson just published. i find myself worrying about what’ll happen going forward both on the likely harassment of Somerton (dont do it, did you even watch the video? Hbomberguy literally said not to do it). They’re right, the social repercussions are and likely will be plenty enough punishment. getting mad at that dude forever wont be truly productive, much fun as it may be in this moment. the bigger issue is the environment that let him and others thrive.

[elrondsscribe]

One other thing!

Gita Jackson, one of the MANY talented and insightful writers ripped off by Him Whose Name We Speak No More, has this to say:

Agreed 100%! I’ll be damned if I let you hoes run around with impostor syndrome after this.

Write the thing. Make the video. Do the thing. Whatever. Be honest, credit your inspiration, try and add a little something. That’s the bar.

[yusuke-of-valla]

Oh shit before I forget. Gita Jackson (who wrote one the articles plagiarized in the Attack on Titan video mentioend by Hbomberguy) has a worker-owned gaming (and also other things) news site with a couple other former Kotaku journalists called Aftermath

If you want to support ad-free independent games journalism, it's $7 a month for unlimited access to articles so like. Check it out! Throw some money their way if you want.

She recently interviewed developers on making a game set in Palestine too if you want to try a couple of articles and see them

[dipstick-university]

Gita Jackson at XOXO Festival

[brahm0051]

गीता सार

यान्ति, देवव्रताः, देवान्, पितृन्यान्ति, पितृव्रताः। भूतानि, यान्ति, भूतेज्याः, यान्ति, मद्याजिनः, अपि, माम् ।।

अ. 9 श्लोक 25

पवित्र गीता जी अध्याय 9 श्लोक 25 में साफ लिखा है कि भूतों को पूजोगे तो भूतों की योनियों में जाओगे और पितर पूजोगे तो पितर योनि में जाओगे । फिर क्यों आप श्राद्ध कर्म, पिंड दान आदि करते हो? ये मोक्ष मार्ग के विपरीत क्रियाएं हैं।

अधिक जानकारी के लिए पढ़ें पवित्र पुस्तक

"हिन्दू साहेबान ! नहीं समझे गीता, वेद, पुराण"

[bestmothertournament]

[grandmagbignaturals]

challengers whipped

also

Movie About Perfect Bodies imo not trying to write an essay but putting a cut in just in case. spoilers follow.

So the movie opens on Sweat. before the fucking warner brothers logo even, is shots of Art ant Patrick sweating, high def and up close. water basically hitting the camera.

When the boys see Tashi for the first time she is Perfect. Not a hair out of place. Her dress fits perfectly, all white, not a stain or spot. You think, yeah that's tennis. But there's contrast all around her. Nobody else in the whole movie is as put together as her.

And the movie puts forward, slowly, that that's deliberate. The first time the audience sees Tashi she is putting herself together so that she looks good before Art wakes up, at 5:30 (we don't know until the end of the film she didn't sleep).

And yes, part of this is the fact that she's Zendaya and nobody else on the cast is Zendaya but the whole movie is so Not Hollywood in the way it depicts bodies. We expect to see Zendaya exercising without sweat, arching one perfect eyebrow, because we expect that from movies in general.

When we see the boys dripping with sweat in the opening shot, then the logo plays, and then we see Tashi rubbing ointment into her scarred knee, we're told "bodies aren't hollywood perfect"

Then Art does physio. And at this stage it's easy to think "okay we're doing a recovery from injury thing, sure. the scars make sense."

But the whole thing, Art and Patrick have these really awkward, human bodies (and I think they leaned into the casting on this. Both actors are beautiful, but they're not conventional exactly. Sorry boys.)

Tashi has a body that exists to be photographed. Even in that trailer shot, where she sits on the bed and they leap to make out with her neck, she is arching her back and sitting primly in exactly the way she wants to. She knows what she looks like and she's using it as a tool.

and it'd be easy to leave the reading there. Tashi is image obsessed. Sure. That's sure the spin that Patrick puts on it when he's taunting her about her relationship.

But when she says to him in the back seat of his car "what else am I supposed to want" I think that's real vulnerability. When she says to him in her dorm room (which is nowhere near as put together as she normally is. That room is a private part of her that she doesn't show off, the side that's human and messy), "what do you want me to be for you" that's a real question, that's vulnerability. It's both "I only know how to play roles, I don't know how to be myself" and "Here and now I'm showing you myself and you're rejecting me and I knew I was right to never show that to anyone".

The one thing that let her be both herself and perfect was tennis. When she screamed COME ON at the end of her match at the beginning of the movie, she was devastated because her moment of perfect communication with her opponent was broken.

When she screams it at the end it's like vindication. The guys communicated a whole thing using tennis. And it was imperfect. They were making mistakes left and right figuring out that communication.

But the key thing is, during that communication, that tie breaker, Tashi has let go of her careful posturing. She's actively looking between them, like the rest of the crowd. She's uncomfortably bouncing her knees, she's visibly tense. In public. Except for her injury, that doesn't happen.

I think Tashi's a character who has this ideal self that she's constantly trying to fill, and she can never really be that person because she doesn't live in a perfect world and she's a human being with needs and a human body. And her whole schtick is that those things are possible to overcome. Patrick's whole thing is that you don't need to overcome them. if you lean into the demands of your body you'll enjoy yourself and also win.

And they're both wrong. And tearing Art apart to prove their points. Art, for the record, wants to indulge his body but feels shame about doing so, and about not knowing how to, so he follows instructions from whoever is giving them.

And all of this is taught to us in the conversation about the time Patrick taught him to jerk off.

Anyway. I thought the smudges on Patrick's windshield when he's driving Tashi around were a cinematic genius stroke if you're wondering how normal i was about watching that movie.

[shamelessislamreligionhorse]

Geeta chapter 15 verses 1-4 clearly mention that a true guru is able to explain all the parts of an inversely hanging world🌏 tree

[potatoesandsunshine]

gotta say tho i do not remember solas as a particularly thoughtful guy

[tacticalhimbo]

fave comments from hbomberguy's newest video

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2024 EDIT: SIGHHHH...

since this is my most popular post here. regrettably. i'm amending the original and making it worth something.

that is why i am reminding you all:

don't watch this. don't watch his comeback don't give this asshole the attention he craves. he's a racist. he's a transphobe. he's a misogynist.

he is not worth the time, nor the effort. nothing he says is genuine. he lost all credibility, has stolen so much from so many people, and i doubt he would ever genuinely put the work in to rebuild it.

instead, check out the work of queer video essayists who actually care about their craft and/or have been ripped off by somerton:

or check out the work of jes tom, one of several prominent individuals that somerton has stolen work from:

and the work of gita jackson, who has made an atricle about what little options the creators somerton profited off of had (and likely continue to have):

also just... remember that while we have the privilege to have our laughs about something like this, many don't.

make sure that you aren't writing off this, or the ongoing predstrogen situation here on tumblr, or any similar situations, as something light-hearted. as something entertaining. respect the spaces of those involved in any "social media controversy", especially if they are part of a marginalized group.

their safety is more important than our entertainment ♡

[ilovecharts]

Friends, hello. Perhaps you've been wondering what your old pals from I Love Charts have been up to for the past ... decade or so.

Well, would it interest you to hear that one of the things we got up to was making an audio-first production company, Charts & Leisure?

Yeah, I agree — that's only marginally interesting. But one of the podcasts we are making, in fact launching, this very week might be interesting to you.

It's called Never Post, and it's a member-supported, employee-owned podcast about and for the internet. We want to talk about how we love this place and are frustrated by it and want to be good community members within it.

Never Post's host is the internet's own Mike Rugnetta. You know him!

It's produced by deeply brilliant people (with experience at The New York Times, Spotify and other such places), one mysterious anonymous producer and me, Jason Oberholtzer, for whatever that is worth.

We have two episodes up! Please consider giving a listen.

Episode Zero is a special table-setting roundtable conversation about creating independent media with Gita Jackson (Aftermath), Alex Sujong Laughlin (Defector Media), and Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs). You know these people!

Episode One is a proper episode format, covering the disappearance of tween-specific fashion trends, and the epidemic of Posting Disease plaguing social media. Bijan Stephen is on that one and you know him too!

I hope you all have been well. It's nice to be here with you. I hope this show helps.

[wendynerdwrites]

If I didn't think Somerton was a scumbag before...

According to Gita Jackson, one of his biggest plaguarism targets, he's done exactly nothing to reach out to them or other victims. According to Kat, Hbomb's editor/researcher, he has not reached out to them about contributing to the fund. You'd think if fixing his mess was his main priority, he'd have done THAT before making a video.

This twit spent years stealing, launching harassment campaigns against his critics, dolling out misinformation that targetted women, lesbians, transmascs, NB's, WWII soldiers, Bisexuals, Asexuals and SURVIVORS OF THE GODDAMN AIDS EPIDEMIC while fetishizing Nazis and blowing smoke up the ass of a CEO scumbag. Oh, and setting himself up as a representative of the queer community despite going out of his way to shit all over about 85% of it.

How do we think the victims of his plagairism and harassment felt? Their mental health probably suffered severely when they got trashed and labeled as bigots when they tried to defend themselves and their work.

There is no way Somerton did not know he hurt people when he took active measures to do so.

He did not take active measures to actually fix things. He couldn't even be assed to provide a link to HBomb's fund for his victims in his video description.

He should not hurt himself. No one ever should. And I dont want to see harm come to him. Just earned comeuppence. DEATH or self harm doesn't fall into that category. I wish him a full recovery.

But aside from that, I also wish for all of his ill gotten gains to go to all he has hurt. I wish for him to leave the internet permanently. I wish for him to never be allowed into the fields of media study or entertainment again and be laughed out of the room if he ever tries again. I wish for an investigation into his "film studio."

The fact that he opened his so called apology talking about his self-harm/su*cide is sheer manipulation. He minimized his actions throughout his so called apology, blamed his misinformation and bigotry on his partner, and put his patreon up again. and anyone who buys that "It's so you can unsubscribe!" line is a moron. All he has to do to make sure people who hate him now arent charged is to shut it down completely. But instead, he makes his ex-fans do the work for him. And we know why.

The man's first priorities in his so called quest to make it right isn't to reach out to his victims, help with their funding, or even raise awareness of the funds for them. It was to film himself downplaying and making excuses for his actions and to reactivate his Patreon.

If that doesn't tell you who he is, I don't know what to tell you.

[companion-showdown]

Family Feud Nominations, Who is the Best Doctor Who Family

If I've missed a character out of one of the families let me know (within reason, I imagine all these families are massive in the EU, so prioritise tv or significant characters)

Currently, the only rule is no families may inculde anyone who is even ambiguously The Doctor, it'll get super complicated super fast imo

Any characters, eg River, who can link up multiple different families to create a single massive family unit will be treated on a case by case basis. If it is possible to pick one of the smaller family units that they are a part of to include them in while not including them in any of the others (in a way everyone will agree at least makes sense) they will be included in that family only, otherwise they will not be included

Please bare in mind when you are nominating that I am hoping to keep the number of nominations under 64 to run this as a mini-tournament. This is not a hard rule so if nominations do exceed 64 its not a big deal, just something I'd like everyone to bare in mind

Nominees

Foreman-Campbell (Susan, David, Alex)

Chesterton-Wright (Ian, Barbara, implied to be married after they leave)

McCrimmon (Jamie, Heather, V.M.McCrimmon, various others)

Waterfield (Victoria, Edward (father))

Lethbridge-Stewart (Kate, The Brigadier, Doris (Brig's wife in Battlefield), Archibald Hamish (TUAT), Gordon (Kate's son in Downtime), Kadiatu, The Great Intelligence, Lucy Wilson)

Grant/Jones (Jo, Cliff, Santiago (Jo's grandson in Death of the Doctor))

Smith (Sarah-Jane, Lavinia (aunt), Brendan Richards, Luke, Sky, Mr Smith, K9 (they are her family and I will not be hearing otherwise), Barbara, Eddie (parents in Temptation of Sarah-Jane Smith))

Leela, Andred, Veega, Rayo

Adric and Varsh (brothers)

Nyssa, Tremas, and Kassia (daughter, father, step-mother)

Jovanka (Tegan, Vanessa (aunt in Logopolis), Colin (cousin in Arc of Infinity))

Turlough (Vislor, Malkon (brother in Planet of Fire))

McShane (Ace, Audrey (mother), Kathleen (grandmother), Liam (brother))

Tyler (Rose, Jackie, Pete, Tony (baby mentioned in Journey's End), no I will not be adding the metacrisis to this list)

Another Smith (Mickey, Rita (grandmother))

Slitheen

Harkness (Jack, Grey, parents, Alice Carter (daughter), Steven Carter(grandson))

Isolas (Fear Her)

Jones (Martha, Francine, Clive, Tish, Leo, Leo has a baby as well, Adeola Oshodi)

The Family of Blood

Redfern-Smith (Joan, John (various), possible dream children and grandchildren)

Shafe Kanes (from Utopia, Kristane, Beltone)

Mott-Noble-Temple (Donna, Sylvia, Wilf, Shaun, Rose)

The Adipose

Pond-Williams (Amy, Rory, River, Brian, Anthony, Amy's aunt and parents)

Owens: (Craig, Sophie, Stormageddon Dark Lord of All)

Gillyflower (Mrs Gillyflower, Ada)

Paternoster (Jenny, Vastra, Strax)

Oswald (Clara, Ellie, Dave (parents), grandmother, and I'm going to say Danny makes the cut, Orson)

Potts (Bill, Mother, Moira (foster mother))

O'Brien-Sinclair (Graham, Ryan, Grace, Aaron (Ryan's father))

Khan (Yaz, Najia (mother), Hakim (father), Sonya (sister), Umbreen (grandmother))

Lewis (Dan, Eileen (mother), Neville (father))

Swarm and Azure

Bel, Vinder and their as yet unborn child

Sunday (Ruby, Carla, Cherry, many many foster siblings)

The TARDIS and Lolita

Little House of Cwej

The House of Lungbarrow (Grandfater Paradox, Qenceus, Inocet, various cousins, Irving Braxiatel, Maggie Matsumoto, Ulysses, Penelope GAte, Anna Joyce)

The House of Dvora (Morbius, The War King, Thessalia, Romana, various others)

Langer (Clyde, Carla (mother), Paul (father))

Jackson (Maria, Alan, Chrissie)

Chandra (Rani, Haresh, Gita)

The Wu Diaspora (Cindy Wu and her clones)

Munmeth and Mutmunna (Medicine Man)

Ada and Alice Obiefune

Who (Susan, Barbara, Louise)

Jones-Davies (Ianto, Rhiannon, Johnny, David, Mica)

Summerfield (Bernice, Issac, Claire, Jason Kane, Peter, Wolsey, Keith, Rebecca, Cousin Eliza, Benedict I-IV, Christine)

Miller (Lucie, Pat (aunt))

Schofield (Hex, Cassie, Hilda)

House of Witforge (Narvin, Lenaris, Helico, Narvin's father, Rexin)

Faction Paradox

Pollard (Charley, Louisa, Richard, Margaret, Edward Grove, The Sound Creature)

Mesh Cos, Lon Shel, Julian White Mammoth Tusk

Cooper-Williams (Gwen, Rhys, Anwen, Geraint, Mary (Gwen's parents))

Chenka (Liv, Tula, Kal, Garlon Rosh)

Sinclair (Helen, Albie, Trev Bailey)

Forrester

Proctor (Cleo, Jordan, parents)

Nominations will be open until Midday Friday (03/05, 12:00 BST (GMT/UTC +1)), I will try and give a more specific time then

[sixseasonsofodestawithatardis]

Literally saw someone on Twitter call Maria unbearable this morning, and this, on top of my anger at Chrissie Jackson, has reignited the annoyance I felt towards Sja/dwtwt as I was writing those tags. Lmao! Anyway, sorry, OP, you're about to get 3 huge paragraphs about Maria Jackson + Rani Chandra being awesome and why Chrissie sucks! AKA stuff I couldn't elaborate on in the tags!

Maria is a brilliant character, and her arc for s1/2 is well-written. Maria is 13/14, going through her parent's divorce, settling into somewhere new, and struggling with a strained relationship with her mum!

She's the first member of the gang we meet and is our entryway into Sja; in a way, our care towards the rest of the show for the pilot relies on her and her narrative for the most part (Luke and SJ are still important). On top of that, she is the first person Luke meets and the first person she helps rescue alongside Sarah Jane. If it weren't for Maria, we wouldn't care for any of this as much, nor would Sarah Jane become a friendlier and warmer person ready to adopt Luke.

Ultimately, Maria becomes Sarah Jane's daughter figure, as does Sarah Jane become Maria's mother figure, and the attic becomes a safe space away from her Mum, like when she slams the attic door in Eye of the Gorgon. Hence why Sarah Jane and Luke take Maria moving to America so hard.

This is also why Rani feels very excluded in parts of season 3 and why we get the mad woman in the attic timeline: She can't get as close as Maria could to Sarah Jane or be included as well as she could at times.

In contrast, Rani has a typical family dynamic with a mum and dad, unlike the rest of the characters and is driven, with a lot of pressure to be ahead. She knows what she wants and will get there- but unlike the others, she's more trusting and less cynical. (Not sure if thats the right word- we're rolling with it!) , i.e. trusting Peter Dalton and the Blathereen. She's also the newest one of the group and so gels with Clyde more easily in that respect as you don't expect them two to be able to handle it ( technically, Maria can't either, but she's away from the narrative by this point)

Rani and Maria have huge shoes to fill in their introductions and narratives for different reasons. Maria + her actress is the first entryway into the narrative, and we have to enjoy her story and her dynamic on top of this being a pilot and eventually a first series... Its a lot and if this went wrong in any way we wouldn't of got to series 2 let alone five!

Rani's (well, Anjili) is now replacing a fan favourite character on top of establishing a whole new dynamic, and if this fails, again, no series 3 or Big Finish continuation.

Rani and Maria are well-written women who are important in different ways to the show, and comparing them and bringing either down feels wrong to me. Also, these are 13/14 y/o kids, and they aren't going to act rationally in some situations; sorry, this whole Twitter trend reeks of grown-ups trying to pull children down a peg and misogyny (maybe I'm being a bit harsh!). Anyway, put me in the writer's room! Rani and Maria need to maximise their joint slay!

Also, if any character deserves the hate Maria is getting, it is Chrissie because she may have taken out a Sontaran once, but my god, is she horrible! Not only does she come over unannounced, but she literally attempts to move in during an argument with Ivan taking over Alan and Maria's space, and then when Maria talks about Sarah Jane in that same episode, she goes off on one! It is NOT Sarah Jane's fault YOU have no relationship with your daughter anymore, Chrissie! Plus, whenever she does visit, it's only when she needs money or furniture or to rub the fact Alan's single in his face! Also, the time she spoke to Statue! Alan nicely for once- could you not have said that before the divorce?! Or thought about that before you went for the Salsa teacher?!

Okay I really don't get the evil Maria Jackson memes on twitter rn, because how anyone watching Maria in S1-2 of SJA and saying she's evil, even jokingly???

[fellatitledthemf]

Rating Pjo character because I can and I'm bored

If you gonna hate, ok. If you gonna agree with me, cheers. If you gonna kill me, ok.

I'll be rating by personality, how are they written, and my personal opinion

Percy Jackson: 6/10

-Harry Potter premium

- He's that type of overpowered mc that's dumb as shit and only gets serious 3 times in entier serie to defeat villain

- When we're already talking bout Harry, really like how Percy didn't let bullyinh and shi slide unlike Harry, very nice

Annabeth Chase: 8/10

- I ABSOLUTELY love how hor traumas are written, perfect.

- Very realisticly crush. Went from brother figure to romantic feelings, heeps thinking there's good in him. She was just a kid, you can't blame her.

- her demidog power: smart

Thalia grace: 6/10

- didn't got much if her character

- I didn't like how at first she was "I know Luke he would never" and then throw him of cliff in the end

-like how she joined hunters, nothing much to add

- DAM

Stolls: 7/10

- mischievous twins who do pranks 24/7 gita be my favourite gender

-were actually kind of funny in last olympian

- Fred and George if happy end

Clarisse la Rue: 8/10

-proud to say I never hated her for "bullying" Percy after how Ares treats her

-were nice written character in general

-had all rights to be jelous at Percy, her relationships with Chris and Silena are top tier

Luke Castellan: 9/10

-Had all right to turn evil. Amazing antagonist

- I'm ace..BUT

-I LOVE when character actually try fixing things instead of continuing being puppets

-would really wanna give 10/10 but no because of his crimes

Grover: 10/10

-THAT ONE IS THE GOAT. THE GOAAT

-friend everyone needs

- nah bro everything 10/10 for this bro

Bianca di Angelo: 2/10

-died in most dumbass way

-brother's figure more important than life

- 2 because it adds to Nico's character

Ethan Nakamura: 8/10

- joined Kronos to fix unjustice, had rights to

- realized it was wrong, tried fighting against Kronos

- died a hero

Silena Beauregard: 5/10

- betrayed camp, tried fixing it, dead

- stayed loyal to Charles, that deserves some credit ig

- I'd too, join Luke if I had a chance

[earth-64]

My Journey in Understanding Comics - Part 2

--

Part 1 is not required reading. In fact, I will refrain from even linking it here. Every blog post is someone’s first.

--

It shouldn’t be embarrassing to admit that I needed to have “comic books” explained to me. Yet I feel ashamed that I allowed the entire medium to exist within a hair’s breadth of my cultural understanding for so long. I’ve already gone over my select few childhood run-ins with comics, as well as the false-start that nearly was my first paper-comic obsession* (*See “My Journey in Understanding Comics” #1! - Ed.), so my story this time will start in November of 2023. 

I was working a mundane job at a manufacturing facility. Full-time hours of applying stickers to pieces of foam, or punching out holes in paper, or assembling little devices of god-knows-what, praying that for every life-saving defibrillator adhesive pad I quality-checked that the insulation padding I was shape-forming wasn’t destined for a war machine. It was a place of room-sized printing presses, massive machines that shaped and cut materials with the power of water-jets, and dark laboratory backrooms with more nausea-inducing chemicals filling the air than oxygen. While I didn’t end up falling into vats of any of the horrifically powerful bleaches we used to clean the printing screens (although I did retire home early on a number of occasions from dizziness caused by breathing in acetone), it was here that I had way too much time on my hands and binged podcasts. 

I was devouring 10 hours of audio content a day, from audio dramas to history lessons to comedy sketches. The hardest part of the job became satiating my hunger for endless content. After exhausting “Midnight Burger” and Penumbra’s “Juno Steel”, I listened through all of Tim Roger’s “Action Button” reviews in audio-form. On recommendation from my girlfriend, that made a natural transition into gulping down hundreds of episodes of “Insert Credit”. Among other branching paths (I recommend “They Create Worlds” and “Video Game History Hour”), I was led through Alex Jaffe to “52 Pick Up”.

“52 Pick Up”, hosted by Alex Jaffe and Gita Jackson, discusses DC’s 2006-2007 weekly comic book “52” issue by issue. I dipped my toe into it with hardly any context: it had been many years since I read comics, very little of that had been DC. Certainly none from around the time “52” was published, and certainly not any that would provide any helpful context to “52”. I cannonballed into the the deep end, albeit without risk of drowning: if the podcast hosts helped me stick the landing then I would be opened to a whole new world of possibilities, if I was just utterly lost by the interwoven plot threads and greater context of the comic then I would just shrug it off and go back to the comforting familiarity of learning about unreleased Nintendo knitting machines* (* “VGHH” #117! - Frank ( - not Frank)). This isn’t the iTunes review section so I’ll spare you from me simply pasting in the glowing review I left for them, but rest assured that “52 Pick Up” does its job of introducing someone to the context of comic books tremendously well. I was hooked, and have not missed a bi-weekly wednesday since. 

However, it wasn’t enough to break the floodwall I had erected after the comic-related disaster I had beared the full brunt of so many years ago. I followed “52” and kept saying to myself “I think I’ll subscribe to that DC mobile app, and read some of the surrounding context”, but I never pulled the trigger on that purchase. My interest was piqued, I was given the on-ramps, taught all the techniques from a master of comics knowledge, and yet I could not begin the simple act of reading. 

I hold the act of consumption on a higher pedestal than it deserves. I regularly find myself hesitating to consume. Is this the right time? How will this work affect me? “Are you ready?” I ask myself, fighting back my natural instinct to presume anything unknown to me is not “for me”. 

In February of 2024 I finally made a concession: I would start with something I felt I was closer to. Something that wouldn’t be “out of character” for me to consume. I had already been into “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” for some years, so I turned to manga, and read “Dragon Ball”. This isn’t the place for me to put all my thoughts on “Dragon Ball”. Know simply that it was a prime example of works of fiction finding me at exactly the right moment in my life, affecting me tremendously, with Toriyama’s passing happening right in the nearly exact middle of my readthrough. My dad had treated “Dragon Ball” with the same disdain as Wrestling or Football as I was growing up, something that wasn’t “for me”, something dumber, barbaric. 

Comic books were his thing, and manga was not my thing. Before I moved out I had to find ways to justify things as being “my thing”. Webcomics were a natural extension of an interest in video games, manga was an eventual gap bridged by years of anime expos and the absurdity of “Jojo’s”, but “Dragon Ball”, among many other things, remained unreachable. 

Now that I live on my own there are no gaps between works of fiction that need filling. My brain still often tricks me into thinking I cannot leap over the vast chasms that separate genres and mediums, but it is only the residual fear of being perceived as not being myself. There is no longer anyone in my daily life that has known me for a great amount of time, no one to police me to stay true to my platonic self. I have to remind myself that I can choose to wake up and be a whole new person if I so wish. Any day could be the day I decide to start being a person who reads comic books.

In late July 2024 I found the catalyst: a copy of Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art”.  It was a book always on my radar as being something that I would get a kick out of, but I never wanted to just read a scan of it. I knew it deserved to be read physically, but I never had the drive to order a copy. In the end it needed to appear before me, on the shelf of the thrift store I regular, as a spur of the moment purchase. I’ll again spare you from a full overzealous review, but it was exactly what I needed. “This is what a comic book is. This is why it’s important. This is why it’s for everyone.” That’s what I needed to hear. I needed someone to lay it all out, label all the pieces, explain the history, and tell me that comics can be for me. 

In August my friends decided to marathon some of the X-Men movies. All the stars aligned: I had the knowledge, the motivation, the relief from social permission. No, not a relief. A triumph. I had triumphed over a lifetime of social pressure, of expectations and preconceived notions. I didn’t need to hide my mood-swing dips into unfamiliar media. I didn’t need to be ashamed of stepping outside my comfort zone. The version of myself in others’ heads are their own flawed snapshots of pieces of my true self, not a script they write for me to follow and fear. I could be anything I wanted.

I could be someone subscribed to Marvel Unlimited. 

The conclusion to our thrilling three-part epic is up next in our amazing tale of self-reflection and ceaseless inner-discovery awaits! You don’t wanna miss it true believers!