#i will produce an emotional tm post later
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heresiae · 25 days ago
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this.
this is long btw but I do think, as tumblers we do have a duty to discuss deeply about him. or did you forgot he was one of us?
I went through all the stages in like one hour and half.
till two months ago it was just th two allegations reported only from a New Zealand paper, no major outlets where covering and Tortoise Media was the only source. denial mode activated hard and I checked another couple of times till September.
then this Sunday evening I checked to see when the second season of Sandman was coming out and 100 tons bricks fell onto me.
GO only one 90mins last episode? everything else on hold? wait, it looks like the allegations were not just those two and TM is not the only one reporting it: there were two more? this one says it's FIVE?? probably more to follow??? he was doing and saying what to them????????
you fucking shit. you damn bastard. you despicable excuse for a human.
I went though all the emotions.
I mourned GO and Sandman and I remered Dead Boys Detective too. but it passed fast because using this hell site and the other one (Reddit) I read posts on the tone on this one (thanks btw). my brain started processing and anger kicked in. I despise him so much now, probably as much as JKR*.
because he was also one of us. he was our tumblr celebrity. he was on this fucking site faking being a nice human being, even a feminist. endorsing his fellow female authors. expressing his support for LGBTQA+. being nice, friendly and sarcastic. he was the "wait and see" guy. while raping women.
yes, AG was his first tv show but he became big thanks to GO, which was not only his. remember this: Good Omens was Terry Pratchett legacy too and you can see it very well. just go read his old works, especially Sandman (of course every fan of his immediately remembered Calliope and immediately realized he was describing himself as the main character).
another bad part of this shit? he is a gifted story teller, way more than the *witch. he has very good, original and compelling ideas and can write them. but we have to rember the latest productions are not just his work. lots of people got together and made Dead Boy Detective and Sandman way more enjoyable. don't believe me? go read it (no, you don't have to buy, fucking google it). read how crude it is. then do a search on his tumblr and find the posts in which he answer to a question why the tv Sandman is less cruel and more compassionate (long story short: he said he was a different man from those years and now has different opinions and pov). then reread the later allegations. yeah, right.
fucking hypocrite.
(also, start digging better on his portrayal of non white mythologies and characters from the POV of people actually belonging to those cultures. we do have another witch... and here I was thinking he was good at research and being fair to others cultures).
this productions were not just his. it was the crew and cast effort. they brought them to life and they made them very good.
I hope nobody forgot the latest struggles of media production people to have a decent livelihood from streaming platforms so I think you should be mad for them too. they were good projects, with a good possibility to go on. no only that, they were also quality projects.
how many of them are we having right now? and even if they're good, how many of them are allowed to have the necessary developing time to stay that way? (Umbrella Academy did not lose quality because they writers are not good, but because you can't write and produce a good season in less than a year).
this jerk ruined so much.
he physically and mentally hurt women forever. he made people to think he was a decent human being, giving us a false sense of "finally a good fantasy author" (this is the third fantasy author I had to revaluate; I'm so tired of this). he tarnished Terry Pratchett legacy too, because we will all remember how we didn't get a full season final of GO because of his inability to not be a jerk. I'm pretty sure that if Sir Terry Pratchett was alive today he would have gone full Granny Weatherwax on him.
I'm sad and angry and disgusted and it's my right to be. because his works were a place to escape for me and he made me trust him as a human being.
luckily I also came to the conclusion that I liked the show versions more than his original work and that's saying something about my perception, despite my autism (Sandman did make me feel uncomfortable... I didn't finish it. It's also frigging long).
it's our duty though, to recognize that hour loss can't be compare to the one of the people he hurt.
we can mourn our loss. we're allowed. just don't forget to despise him for this. it's his fault only.
(don't hate him. he's not worth it).
also, be happy, because as someone wrote on the many threads I read, we're finally seeing a famous white man being hold accountable of his shit quite fast.
and to the ones preaching death of the author think that: how many good authors with less charisma of NG are overlooked regularly because the bullies and jerks are able to push forward better?
times are changing. we want decent humans as authors, especially in fantasy.
because fantasy is supposed to portray the battle of good vs evil and the good is supposed to win. but you can't trust a bad person for a honest portrayal of which is which, especially if they have lots of charisma.
be aware of the wolf that writes little red riding hood thinking he's the hunter and not the wolf.
I'm just saying that if I was sexually assaulted by someone famous and all that their fans reacted with was "BUT MY BLORBOS' HAPPILY EVER AFTER :(((" I would start killing
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moonrock · 4 years ago
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THEY WON I'M SO HAPPY RN 😭😭😭😭
I KNOOOW I'M STILL SHAKING!!! I'M SO HAPPY I CAN'T CALM DOWN
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primaryc0l0urs · 6 years ago
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STEVE ROGERS IN ENDGAME: A FAN’S JOURNEY
Reason for meta: I have seen Steve bashing peaking everyday post Endgame release. Funnily, I saw more Toeknee fans appreciating Steve than Steve fans. Steve rogers has been my emotional centre for the entirety of MCU, and I loved him in endgame, endings and all included! So I could not understand the Stve hate. I get where the disappointed Steve fans are coming from, but I write this meta in the hope that maybe just one of you will feel better about Steve reading this. If not, I don’t mind.
That is not to say I liked everything or everyone’s story in Endgame, but that is for a different meta. This is just Steve Rogers. 
It is really REALLY HUGE, so putting under the cut.
I am a superhero movie fan. I have been excited for Endgame for a long time, though the over the top secrecy by the higher ups did make me lose interest somewhat. I spoiled myself thoroughly before watching IW, so this time I thought I’ll practice restraint. I only peeked in the spoilers to see what happened to Steve, cause anyone who knows me, here or IRL, knows I’m a Steve Rogers fan. And I was severely disappointed. I couldn’t conceive Steve going to the past and being happy. I posted a few times on Tumblr as well, that I’ll prefer Steve to die than go to the past. I’m not a St*ggy shipper, neither am I a shipper of any canon or fanon Steve ships. I read them all, and appreciate them all, but for me the foremost had always been Steve. The spoilers actually made me depressed and I thought that the producers couldn’t even give me my OTP? Steve/happiness? Cause in my mind, Steve had moved on, and he didn’t need to go back to the past to be happy. And what about Nat and Sam? I saw Endgame the day it released in my country. I was prepared to hate it. I was prepared to be severely disappointed by the ending. And as a Natasha fan and to a lesser extent Thor fan, I was. I was ready to be extremely upset as a Steve fan as well. But something happened during the first few minutes of the movie. Toeknee St@rk returned to earth. And put the entire blame of trillions of lives lost on Steve. Literally berating him in front of friends and strangers. Steve Rogers, who had never been allowed to defend himself, again did not get a chance. His friends stood and watched. I understood their reactions, I understood Steve’s reaction. T0ny was sick, emaciated and full of misplaced rage. It was, to quote the Stans [TM], human and understandable. But what about Steve? Is he not supposed to be human and understandable as well? Sorry to compare trauma, but Steve lost much more than Toeknee. His best friends, his sister figure, his found family, his allies, all gone to dust. For a man who had already lost his entire world once, imagine the tragedy. He was already blaming himself, and that blame was compounded and validated by Toeknee’s and other’s behaviour. It was at that moment I decided to let go of my feeling of rage and disappointment for Steve’s ending. I decided, whatever happens, if Steve is happy, I will give him a benefit of doubt; cause no-one on screen will. (Except Nat and Sam. But Nat was reeling from shock herself and Sam, dear Sam was not even there!)
Then came the rest of the movie, and I didn’t even have to give him a benefit of doubt. As a Steve fan, it was exhilarating! He chose to continue Sam Wilson’s legacy by helping people cope. He continued being Natasha’s support while she was supporting the entire world. His friendship with Natasha in the MCU was a gift. His restraint while being verbally attacked, mocked and blamed unfairly by St@rk, cause he knew St@rk is hurting, was beautifully played. His disdain and dignity in the face of refusal of acknowledgement by a grudge holding St@rk, even five years later, was marvelously portrayed. And still his empathy shone through; he understood where T0ny is coming from when he said he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. His perplexed face when Scott asked him about Quantum physics was priceless! Lol. His inspiring nature being appreciated by Rocket, who is brazen, to say the least, felt fulfilling at last. That proud look that Scott gave Steve at that moment, as if to say, “Yes, THIS is the man I Stan.” I felt you at that moment, Scott, cause during that movie, I was you, and so were most of the people watching with me. Finally, we saw some of that strategy he is famous for. Strategy is not just how you fight, it is how you manage your surroundings to win in the most convenient way to fulfill your objectives, even in a seemingly impossible situation. And Steve proved to be a master at that. The elevator scene was one of the best scenes in the movie. Everyone was expecting the iconic fight from TWS version 2. But Steve couldn’t afford that. He was not only on time constraints, he also was in Stark tower. Any hint of foul play and his chance was lost. So, he did the most amazing thing. He attained the stone without a single hand thrown. (Though I would love to know what happened in THAT particular reality, lol!) He made it very clear to the comic fans as well, that Steve Rogers is never going to hail Hydra unless it is to trick the enemy. It was a slap on that Hydra cap storyline from the comics. At least for me. The gobsmacked look on the faces of Sitwell and Rumlow made my day. Lol. The entire exchange between the two caps, including “I can do this all day.” And “Yeah, I know!” Was a Steve Rogers fan’s dream come true. How irritating, to have your own catchphrase used aginst you! Half the viewers at my theatre laughed. And when Steve threw Bucky’s name for shock value, it shows how important Bucky was for him. And well, even he has to agree about his own… ahem, ‘ass’ets. Lol Then came the seventies. His entire plan to get the Pym particles was made on the fly, yet it succeeded beautifully. And the “Captain Stevens” was there just to clarify to the audience that it was Steve who planned it like that. He was not just taking advantage of Pym moving out of the lab. He created his own opportunity. His brief one sided encounter with Peggy and his realisation that she might also not have moved on from him, was heart touching. I wished for him to encounter Sarah, just once during the entire MCU, but yeah, I had no expectations. His crying at Natasha’s death, him telling the others that he and they were her family had me crying in the hall. I always liked that this seemingly extraordinarily macho man cries with tears and is never shy about showing it. Then the climax, the entire battle with Thanos, was one adrenaline pumping ride. 
I was jumping in my seat the whole time. The biggest cheer in the hall came when he catches Mjolnir. The entire hall was Thor at that time, with half of us actually shouting “We knew it!” I’m still unable to control my smile just typing it. There were multiple things and people I enjoyed during that fight, including Wanda, Carol and Tony and Pepper team up. But ultimately, till the others returned, it was a Steve show. This man, with a hammer and a broken shield would’ve faced the entire army and Thanos, and I’ve no doubts about it. This was My Captain America.
The ‘on your left” was also a lovely callback.
He respected Tony for his ultimate sacrifice, however Tony might have treated him earlier, and that was My Captain America. The end, when he returns the gems, has the fandom divided, but to me, it was a surprisingly poignant moment. I mentioned before, I was sure I will hate it. I never thought this while reading the spoilers, but I LOVED It. HE DID NOT ABANDON HIS FRIENDS. To the people saying that I have one question, “Whom, how, where and when?” Bucky? Bucky had been leaving Steve behind despite all of Steve’s efforts to help him since TWS. He finally had found peace with who he was and had a support system, including Sam and Wakandans. He did not need Steve. Sure, he’d miss Steve, but he realised that Steve has been doing everything for everyone else. It was time Steve did something for himself too. And despite clearly missing Bucky, Steve never tried to stop Bucky from doing what he wanted for himself. It was time for Bucky to reciprocate. It was clearly discussed with him in advance and he was ok with it. Sam? Sam had been a fully functioning adult even before he met Steve. He was the one who was always shown to have a moral centre closest to Steve. They were portrayed as equals, albeit a bit slower. He also had developed a very close friendship with Bucky. He had his own support system. It was his legacy Steve chose to continue when he had been snapped. It was time Sam became his own superhero independent of Steve Rogers. Captain America is not a person, he/she is a set of morals, a drive to do what is right, whatever the personal cost. The person closest to Steve in that respect was Sam. Steve came back just to give Sam closure. He did not abandon him. Natasha? Natasha was arguably the best friend Steve had in the 21st century. They both had been each other’s emotional and physical support for at least 9-10 years by the end. Had Natasha been alive, I don’t think Steve would’ve returned to the past. Not because they’re romantically involved, but because she was the one who might not have coped well with his leaving, after losing everyone all the time. Moreover, what is to say he did not plead at Vormir to get Natasha back? He would’ve been ready to exchange his soul for her, if possible, and I have absolutely no doubts about that. He actually may have succeeded in getting her back, who knows? Certainly not us.  Finally Peggy? It has been very clearly pointed out in the movie that everytime you go back in time and change something you don’t change the future, you produce a new timeline. Steve did not erase anything about Peggy. our Peggy of TWS still achieved everything in canon. And do you think Steve who was HAPPY to see a cadet being brought down a peg by her would stop her from achieving the greatness he knows she is capable of? if you do, I don”t think you get Steve’s character. He saw that Peggy was still not over him even in the seventies. He saw an opportunity to help the woman who loved him even when he was a nobody. People who are criticising it are forgetting, that till the time that Steve alters the timeline, She is his Peggy. Timeline diverges from there. Moreover we don’t know what he did back then. Did he continue with Peggy? Or did he just gave her closure with that dance and kiss, so that she can move on? Was it him helping another friend like he has supported all his friends in the present? We don’t know. 
As for Sharon, we don’t know what happened (and if there was one canon ship I liked, it was St*ron), but the Sharon Steve kissed in this timeline was not his niece. He never married her aunt. Sharon did not kiss her own Grand UUnvle, knowing or otherwise. There was no timeloop which was given out in the spoilers. He married a Peggy whose life is going to be entirely different and whose Sharon is also going to be someone else. That is, if he married Peggy at all. Steve saw an opportunity, to help Peggy, to help Bucky and Wanda and Pietro, by saving them from Hydra’s clutches, to help Natasha by saving her from the Red Room clutches, to write over all the pain and regrets in those lives. Maybe not in his own timeline! But when he has a method to save some other versions of them, do you think this man, who can’t ignore a situation going south, will let it be? I think not. Steve declines to mention whom he married. He doesn’t mention which time period he is from. He doesn’t elaborate what he did there. Why? May be he is from a long time in the future, cause serum is definitely supposed to slow his aging? Maybe he is from the parallel timeline where Captain America righted all the wrongs in the world before they happened. We don’t know. This has been kept intentionally vague. We, the fans, have been given an incredible chance to imagine our own ending. Did he marry Peggy or Bucky or Sam or Natasha or Sharon? Or maybe he had a polyamorous relationship with most of them? Yes or yes! Did he save Nat from Vormir and went to live in past with her, righting all the wrongs, together? I hope! Did he save himself and Bucky in the forties? Why not! Did he save a baby Natasha from the Soviets? Of course! Did he save Wanda and Pietro from the destruction of their family? You bet! Did he prevent the death of Stark family, saving Tony from self destruction? Sure! Could Steve’s ending have been written differently? Yes, of course! I might have still loved it, maybe more than I like the present ending. BUT..
The only thing we KNOW about Steve in that scene, is that he looks content. He had led a satisfactory life. One where he has as few regrets as possible. And as a Steve Rogers fan, that was all I could’ve hoped for.
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thebibliomancer · 6 years ago
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Essential Avengers: Avengers #200: The Child is Father To...?
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October, 1980
I kept dreading getting to this moment.
As the numbers ticked higher, I thought ‘well 200 is still a ways off’ but I knew it was coming.
Its not just that issue #200 is bad. Everybody knows its bad. Its the fact that everyone knows its bad.
As far as this series is about anything its about exposing how bonkers the Avengers comic could be for people less familiar with it.
But issue #200 is so infamous that I think a lot of people know about it, by reputation at least.
But I’ve been pitching pennies into the void so long, whats another 2 cents? This is just a speed bump on the way to more interesting things anyway.
She-Hulk will be joining the team soon. Tigra’s first stint on the team before that. There’s the fall of Yellowjacket and the albatross that Hank Pym will be wearing around his neck forever upcoming too. Moondragon returns to finally pay off the point of the Korvac Saga.
There’s a lot upcoming to get excited about.
So lets get through this... dear lord, its a double sized issue.
Right in the cover we can see the cracks underlying the story. Not just on the big 200, looking all weathered and damaged. Odd choice for a celebratory anniversary issue.
Also odd choice to have Iron Man and Hawkeye in a combat ready pose when the rest of the Avengers (except Vision. Always except Vision) are smiling and posing around the big cracked, damaged, rotten 200 like a publicity still.
Beast is even hanging out of it. Seductively.
Not right now, Beast. Read the room.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is a dissonance with this cover mood. Why are Iron Man and Hawkeye ready for action when everyone else is in a party mood?
The mood is just as confused in the book itself because it is a confused mess, designed out of committee, compromise, and with a stunning disregard for character. But I’ll get to that.
Also, perfect symmetry wasn’t really attainable here what with Thor and Captain America having significantly different profiles, but I’m annoyed that Yellowjacket wasn’t placed next to Vision so he’d mirror Wasp. You ruin everything, Yellowjacket.
Bit of a trivia: this cover was used as one of the covers for the Essential Avengers volumes. They cut out the big 200 to make it more general which honestly makes the cover look bland. Avengers posing around a big void for no reason.
Now lets get on with it.
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“For generations the symbolic root values of the American people have been embodied in the phrase: ‘Mom, apple pie and the girl next door.’ Wars have been fought for these ideals; presidents have been elected over them. Obviously motherhood means a great deal to most Americans. So why, then, do these five heroes, these Avengers, seem upset that one of their own  -- is about to give birth? Why is there excitement tinged with a subtle, subconscious shadow -- of fear?”
I think they would seem upset because Carol seems afraid and upset by the situation, became nine months pregnant in a matter of days, and has insisted that there is no possible father.
The real question is why there’s excitement at all? Finally showing some upset and fear is reading the mood but nothing explains this weird mood dissonance where the Avengers react to a mysterious accelerated pregnancy with ‘omg baby!!’
And the last issue ended with Dr. Donald Notthor Blake shouting in panic that Carol had gone into labor and its like nothing he’s ever seen. A good reason for the Avengers to be anxious and yet not really followed up on.
Unless. Oh god. Dr. Donald Notthor Blake really doesn’t have any obstetric experience and has no idea how to deliver a baby.
Thankfully, Jocasta is assisting him. She has cold hands and the precision of a computer so obviously she has excellent bedside manner.
Also, that first part of the narration sounds fake. I’m pretty sure the symbolic root values of the American people are ‘fuck you I don’t like taxes’ and ‘fuck you I want to own people.’
You think other countries don’t like motherhood and pie and geographically adjacent girls? Newsflash, a lot of people like those things. America is not special.
And why is this narration even playing over a scene where a woman is giving birth after being impregnated against her will or knowledge? Shooter, Perez, Layton and Micheline, what part of that sounds like the ideal of motherhood??
We are still on page one.
ALSO. Why does the medical examination laboratory have a big window the Avengers can look through to see their teammate giving birth?
And why are the Avengers pacing outside the door like anxious fathers-to-be?
Hawkeye even snarks about it when Captain America expresses worry.
This comic does not know what its mood should be. Will be a recurring complaint.
Captain America: “Sorry, Hawkeye, but I can’t help being a little nervous. I never thought I’d see the day a child would be born in Avengers Mansion.”
Iron Man: “I hate to put a damper on things, Cap, but it hasn’t been born yet -- and we’ve no assurance that it will even be a ‘child.’”
Mood dissonance. Cap: ‘omg baby!’ Iron Man: ‘More likely an alien’
Inside the medical room, Jocasta detects weirdness with her cybernetic senses. Maybe Ultron gave her an ultrasound when he built her.
Either way, despite my fully deserved mocking before, the real weird thing that made Dr. Donald Notthor Blake panic is that the birth is seemingly occurring without any trauma at all. No trauma and no pain? That ain’t right, per Dr. Donald Blake.
Second round of mocking aside, here’s a weird thing. Carol isn’t pushing at all. The whateveritis baby is just coming out all on its own.
But the baby boy is born and the peanut gallering Avengers all rush into the room to coo over him.
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And while they gush about how tiny and cute the baby is and how he’ll be a quarterback when he grows up (???), Captain America asks Dr. Donald Blake to examine him thoroughly. Him the baby. Because Cap is finally realizing that something here isn’t natural. Like the fact that he was born after a three day gestation. For example.
Meanwhile, Jocasta has a weird epiphany about why Humans Are Special TM. A weird, almost Rose Quartzian epiphany.
Jocasta: “Look at them, Vision. Even under these bizarre circumstances, birth seems so... so natural to them. How incredible it must be to be born, to be small, to grow. Even with all their frailties, their weaknesses, I can’t help feeling that in this universe, humans are something very, very special.”
Vision: “It is life that is special, Jocasta -- in whatever form it takes.”
Do... do you think only humans give birth and grow up, Jocasta? Where do you think baby Inhumans, Skrulls, and Atlanteans come from? The Kree are supposedly test tube grown for maximum perfectness but they can still get pregnant. Bug on Star-Lord’s proto-Guardians of the Galaxy team was actually in jail for impregnating a Kree. Consensually. But the Kree have this weird thing about genetic purity. But also this weird thing about not evolving anymore. So maybe they should try crossbreeding with other alien races and see if that does anything for them.
I am getting off track.
Jocasta, you’re dumb. Humans Are Special posts tend to annoy me but this is the stupidest one yet, Jocasta. I still like you but stop.
Wasp realizes that Carol Danvers isn’t around also talking about how great the baby is and goes looking for her after being told that Wonder Man is taking her up to her room to rest.
And no surprise from Wasp who has been on the ‘baby yay!’ train the whole time but she is incredibly insensitive to Carol.
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Wasp: “I just wanted to congratulate the proud parent. It’s really a beautiful baby, Carol. You’re so lucky to --”
Carol: “‘Lucky?!’ Wasp, think about what you just said! I’ve been used! That isn’t my baby! I don’t even know who the father is! So if you want to help me, please... just leave me alone.”
Sometimes this comic shows flashes of what may be self-awareness and I wonder if it knows how awful it is. But since Carol later apologizes for snapping at Wasp, no. No it does not.
Its red herring self-awareness. The worst kind.
Also, flashes of modern day Carol. That is the face of a woman who wishes there was something at hand to throw. Like a building.
Meanwhile, in the garden or courtyard of the mansion, Vision and Scarlet Witch do some relationship discussion.
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Vision: “You seem calm, my wife, at ease with yourself.”
Scarlet Witch: “That’s because I am, darling. Ever since I reconciled my conflicting emotions concerning parenthood, I’ve not only felt more peaceful, but stronger as well.”
Vision: “Then you feel no regrets that we have produced no offspring?”
Scarlet Witch: “None that matter. A child’s a thing of fragile beauty, something that must be nurtured and protected. Like this rose... and the love we feel for each other. Which is, I’ve realized, the most important thing in my world.”
Vision: “And, my love, in mine.”
Aw. That’s nice.
Also nice is that the rose Scarlet Witch picks during this garden speech is a yellow matching Vision’s cape.
Even in the midst of this thisness, I like that we get a good character moment between Vision and Scarlet Witch. The good ol’ best ol’ Seeing Red ship.
Looking forward five years to the Vision and Scarlet Witch miniseries, these two actually do get to have kids. Granted, it happens after the two ragequit the Avengers because the government is suspicious of Vision after he tried to take over the world under the influence of an alien supercomputer. And magic is involved. And it gets undone by having the children be secretly parts of Mephisto but then it turns out that the kids are retroactively real kinda and are the Young Avengers Billy Kaplan and Speed.
Comics are complicated.
My point being. I like that when they didn’t have Avengers work to worry about, these two somehow immediately found a way to have the children they wanted. And I like that they had an mature, adult conversation about their expectations of their relationship before then.
Scarlet Witch and Vision are so good and a large part of me really hopes they get their own movie in the MCU that’s just. Weird stuff they deal with while trying to sort out their relationship.
Moving on.
During this conversation, Jocasta has been creepin’ like a creep from a second floor window.
Wasp spots her and asks if anything is wrong and Jocasta tells her that there’s just so much about human emotions that she doesn’t understand despite being based on Jan’s personality.
And Jan “Can’t Read The Mood” Van Dyne says something insightful.
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Wasp: “Don’t worry, lady, you’re not alone. There’s still a lot about human emotions that we humans don’t understand.”
Also, I think this is the first interaction that Wasp and Jocasta have had.
I know things are probably awkward between them. But Vision and Wonder Man hashed their shit out to function socially around each other. I want more Jocasta and Wasp interaction.
I want more interaction between Jocasta and Scarlet Witch.
So far, Jocasta has mainly been about the dudes, minus an abortive attempt to make friends with Ms Marvel. She’s been trying to make friends or more with Vision a lot. And I get the logic behind that. If anyone gets where she’s at its him but also he’s too wrapped up in him to get where she’s at. But here’s the thing. It just comes across as another Vision-Wanda-Other Woman love triangle.
Give Jocasta girl friends. Or a girlfriend. But definitely girl friends.
Also, Wasp got another new outfit and this one isn’t terrible. I think she got it a couple issues ago but I was preoccupied. Good job, Wasp. You remembered that pants should have both legs.
Meanwhile, Beast and Hawkeye play pool in the rec room.
This is another very good character moment.
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Hawkeye has won two games, making two malteds that Beast owes him. Hawkeye is very good at pool because you just pick up on these tricks when you’re a carny. Obviously.
He suggests a third game, double or nothing. And loser gets to shoot first.
But first, Beast pulls out a calculator. A TI-59, in fact. And does a little trigonometry.
And while Hawkeye is protesting that pool isn’t something you learn in math class, its a game of skill and instincts, Beast takes a single shot and sinks every ball.
Because, yup, this whole time Beast was hustling the hustler.
In fairness, you have to be pretty good at pool in the x-mansion. Cyclops is just super good at it and is probably a real sore winner.
Beast tries to get Hawkeye to play again, this time for a year’s salary but Hawkeye says “I only need to get burnt once to know a fire is hot!”
Anyway, I’m glad that some of this issue’s bloated page count went towards this nice little moment.
But with no forthcoming pool game, Beast decides to check in on the main plot with the vidcom intercom.
Apparently in the last hour, the baby has grown to the size and maturity of a two year old child.
So the accelerated growth is accelerating. He was aging three months a day and now he aged two years in an hour. Maybe he’ll age to skeleton bones like he drank out of the wrong grail and this story will end.
Anyway, the creepy Satan child stares right into the camera and thus our souls and demands someone change his diaper.
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Uncanny.
Of course, its kind of a thing that most comic artists just don’t know how to draw babies without making them seem like cursed gremlins. So maybe this isn’t supposed to be exactly as creepy as it is.
Its just hard to tell because of the tone thing. This is a weird, unnatural baby. But also 'ZOMGBABY!!!’ So who knows.
And then an interlude. To build up the subplot which is needed to add some action scenes.
Completely normal civilian Raoul Kramer gets off the subway train, monologue complaining about how day in and day out everything is the same ol’ same ol’ same.
But when he leaves the station he finds everything has gone all old timey horse and buggy. Oh god, everything is so same ol’ it went back in time to be different same ol’!
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What a perplexment.
But back in the mansion, Wonder Man goes to Ms Marvel’s room to see how she’s holding up.
And apparently she’s feeling well enough to get back in her bathing suit costume.
I guess it makes sense. Its the clothes she uses to punch people and maybe throw buildings at friends. So now that the ordeal is over she can get back to where she left off and love feeling strong and not have to think about cursed child at all.
Of course, people just keep trying to harsh her mood. By insisting that she interact with the baby she wants nothing to do with.
Wonder Man: “So how about coming down to take a look at your son? He’s really an extraordinary little --”
Ms Marvel: “No! He’s not my son! I don’t want to have anything to do with that... that thing!”
Wonder Man: “Come on, Carol, my eyes may look strange, but they see perfectly well. And right now they can see that you’re frightened -- just plain old run-of-the-mill scared. And you’ve every right to be. We don’t know what’s happened to you any more than you do, but ignoring it won’t help anything. Though maybe facing up to it will. What do you say?”
Amazing how a story where a woman is impregnated against her will also has the men in her life insisting they know what’s best for her more than she does. Its really the full package.
Meanwhile, more tone whiplash. After a scene where Ms Marvel calls the baby a thing and insists she wants nothing to do with him, we get a scene of Beast carrying an armful of sports equipment to the impromptu nursery.
I don’t know why Beast is going all sports dad on this mystery baby. I know he played football in school but he’s just behaving very oddly.
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Unfortunately for Beast’s dream of having a superbowl winning son-by-proxy, as a now five-year-old with a smart mouth Marcus (because he names himself here) is not really interested in the sportsball. Rather, he’d like a laser torch and some electronic components.
As fast as his physical development, his intellectual capacity has developed far more. And he promises to answer the questions the Avengers have about that once he gets the materials he asked for.
But Cap insists on some answers now and Marcus agrees. He won’t have the manual dexterity necessary for another twenty minutes anyway.
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Marcus: “What would you like to know?”
Captain America: “For starters, where did you come from?”
Marcus: “My mother.”
Captain America: “Yes, we know that, but... that is, how were you conceived?”
Marcus: “Uhhhm... by my father?”
Captain America: “Well, of course, blast it! But who is your father?”
Marcus: “I am.”
I wanted to joke that, like Vision, Cap doesn’t know where babies come from. But look at this completely unhelpful brat. He’s definitely being willfully contrarian. And I don’t want any good things to happen to him but from his point of view, things would have gone a lot better had he been a lot more forthcoming.
Iron Man, whose child interaction credentials are suspect, suggests that they just give Marcus whatever he wants and then maybe he’ll behave better.
Cap doesn’t like it but he agrees.
Sending Marcus to his room probably wouldn’t work. He doesn’t have a room. And sending him to bed without dessert? Also probably wouldn’t work. We haven’t seen him eat and he’s growing so fast as to seemingly preclude any nutritional needs. On the other hand, if he’s never tasted anything, the taste of chocolate might kill him. I read that in a book.
Time for another interlude! West of Queens where Ms. Marjorie Hansley checks the mail in hopes that she won a big publishing company sweepstakes grand prize all-expense-paid trip around the world.
We don’t learn whether or not she won the sweepstakes (which I consider rude) but the universe provides in another way and gives her a no-expense-paid no-refusal trip to Jurassic Park.
Or some prehistoric dinosaur time.
Where she is likely to get eaten by an alligator.
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Ms. Marjorie Hansley is dead, basically.
But also it seems that time is warped and space is bendable.
I bet this is Marcus’ fault. You don’t backsass Living Legend Captain America and not break time.
But also: he’s aging at an accelerated rate. And time is screwing up elsewhere? He’s borrowed so much time from the time bank that the bank has gone bust and there’s no bailout package for the fourth dimension!
Probably not actually. But imagine if that was the plot.
Back at the mansion, again. Wonder Man and Yellowjacket have a talk.
Wonder Man: “I guess Ms. Marvel isn’t going to show. Tell me, Hank, you’re an old married man -- how did you ever come to understand women?”
Yellowjacket: “I didn’t.”
Wonder Man: “What? But, you and Jan -- !”
Yellowjacket: “Simon, I love Jan, and I accept her for what she is, but to be honest, the day someone comes out with a book on what really makes women tick -- I’ll be the first in line with my checkbook!”
There’s just so much I could say to this exchange. Much of it very harsh towards Hank and about upcoming events. I guess this is in-character for him though. He has never put much effort into understanding his girlfriend and then wife Jan and he passes that ignorance off as women just being fundamentally inexplicable.
You’re not a good scientist, Hank. Let’s leave it at that.
And Wonder Man. Ffs, Simon. Is it really, really, so difficult to understand why a woman might not want to come meet her rape baby?
Again. Not out of character from a man stuck in the past like Simon Williams can be. But this isn’t as fun a character moment as the pool sharking.
At least they’re saying women instead of females.
Meanwhile again, there are a lot of meanwhiles in this comic. A lot of jumping around. But Dr. Donald Notthor Blake observes a now twelve-year-old Marcus sciencing up some gadget or doohickey and marvels that this 12 year old has the intellectual capacity of Einstein now.
And he also wonders that maybe this situation does not require the talents of Dr. Donald Notthor Blake but instead those of the Mighty Verymuchthor Thor.
To put it another way, I think the good doctor Blake is imagining hitting a child with a hammer.
Another meanwhile, where Cap, Beast and Hawkeye are having a tea party.
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And where Hawkeye has just suggested putting Marcus in a cage.
Now that everybody isn’t going ‘squee babyyy!1!’ because he is no longer a cute infant, the backlash the other way towards violence and imprisonment is something to behold.
Iron Man comes into the... parlor? Tea room? to let Cap know they’ve been getting some prank calls on the public line. Just some nonsense about a delicatessen being robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Probably some snotty teenagers having a fun.
Meanwhile again and elsewhere, Jocasta comes to talk to Vision. Who is currently engrossed in studying a subtle energy aura around Marcus that grows as the child does. And it seems that the energy is emanating from within the weirdo and might account for his unnatural growth rate.
Jocasta offers to help with his investigation but just then Scarlet Witch returns with Yellowjacket’s latest readings on Marcus’ physiology. Just what Vision needed.
And now that Scarlet Witch is here, Vision turns to her and starts telling her about his fascinating theory about Marcus.
Feeling like quite the third wheel, Jocasta just leaves, unnoticed.
“Sensing in her husband’s well-modulated tones an excitement that would escape most others, the Scarlet Witch listens intently... so much that neither she nor the Vision even notice when Jocasta turns and, softly, leaves the room. And that, thinks the metalloid would-be Avenger, is the harshest hurt of all...”
Dammit. If she leaves the team because of this bullshit, I’m going to be nettled.
BUT ALSO: lets mock Yellowjacket.
Do you see how Scarlet Witch takes the time to understand Vision, able to sense in him moods that most others don’t? Because she loves him and took the effort to connect with him?
Maybe if you had done the emotional labor, Yellowjacket, women wouldn’t be a big impenetrable mystery to you.
But of course not. That emotional labor flows one way. Get dunked on Yellowjacket specifically and the culture that shaped him more generally.
Elsewherewhen AGAIN, but specifically half the mansion away, Ms Marvel decides that she will, after all, go see the baby she didn’t want.
And also she apologizes for snapping at Jan.
Boooooo! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Not My Carol!
But she also waited too long. Without proper parental role models, Marcus has grown into a teenage dirtbag, baby.
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Now that he’s not a baby I can say: What a punchable face. Someone should punch that face and never stop punching that face forever.
Also the narration specifically states that seeing Marcus fills Ms Marvel with “an odd sense of calm... along with an unexplainable, and undeniable, attraction.”
HEY. That’s gross, comic. I don’t care about the eventual bullshit handwavey explanation for this nonsense. That. Is. Gross.
And I mean, look at that face. Its a face that only a mother could punch. Because she’s closest.
... And Marcus is wearing his child clothes as a loincloth. Did... did nobody get him grownup clothes? Several Avengers live in this mansion. Raid someone’s closet!
Marcus also continues to be an inscrutable ass and refuses to explain anything until his science project is completed. Like how he already knew Carol’s name.
The weirdness of the situation is sufficient that even Wasp is noticing that the situation is freaky.
But before he can refuse to explain anything any further, there’s a huge explosion and Marcus complains “Not so soon! Not so soon!”
Because outside there’s a dinosaur and several UFOs attacking Avengers Mansion.
... Y’know, usually I’d be excited to see dinosaurs and UFOs living together mass hysteria but in this comic its just time wasting to fill out a page count and throw some action scenes into the mess.
I can’t even enjoy Dinosaurs and Mars Attacking the Avengers.
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Of course, the Avengers rush out to go fight the dinosaur. Iron Man even punches a T. Rex in the face. But as said, I can’t enjoy this.
Okay. So there’s one bit of the pointless action that I like. While Vision phases through the ceiling to join the dinosaur punching action, Scarlet Witch runs into a medieval knight who decides that she’s obviously a sorceress and so he’s honor-bound to run her through. As ya do.
Not even stopping to think 'this is bonkers' she uses her probability-altering powers to make the knight’s own lance wrap around his face and throw him off his horse.
Which you may recognize as having a probability of ‘exactly zero that would never happen in any circumstance just admit that her power is magic, comic’ but I don’t even care because I love it when Scarlet Witch gets to Do A Thing.
It takes six pages but the knight manages to get up from that asswhupping and accosts Scarlet Witch with a sword.
He doesn’t even get a chance to get his ass kicked by Wanda again because Jocasta comes out of nowhere and uses her ever-useful eyebeams circumcise his sword.
He tries to stab her with the remaining stump while yelling he won’t be bested by women but the blade just shatters on her invincible metal bust.
Sir Cecil of Clampett then immediately surrenders and sinks to the floor muttering about how he’ll never throw porridge at the queen again if they let him live but they’re not even paying attention to him anymore.
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If this is to become another bullshit love triangle, I love that Jocasta is still being a civil, great person coming to Wanda’s aid like that while conceding that Wanda can take care of herself.
I just want there to be super-heroine Avengers who are best friends. MEET MY EXTREMELY LOW BAR DEMANDS, COMIC.
But I skipped over a lot of action scene to get to the part I liked. Lets summarize. Iron Man punches a dinosaur again.
... And then some Native Americans attack Beast, Hawkeye, and Captain America.
I’m uncomfortable with this. And Cap beating them up. And with the usually delightful Beast making jokes while beating them up.
Pro-tip: you should probably never have a man dressed as an American flag punching Native Americans.
Hawkeye is smart enough not to get involved in this. Or paranoid enough. Because he’s sure that Marcus is behind this and runs off to deal with him.
In the... science room? Marcus refuses to leave before he finishes his machine, even as the roof is crumbling around them.
Wonder Man, Yellowjacket, and the Wasp fly off to investigate, Wonder Man cheerfully disobeying orders that he stay and protect Marcus.
Ms Marvel also decides to shove Dr. Donald Blake into a reinforced broom closet for his safety. Which gives Dr. Donald Blake the privacy to turn into Thor so he can fly off and join the pointless action scenes.
It becomes clear that in addition to padding out the story and adding some, any action at all, the point of these time distortion fight scenes was to split the party so that events can unfold without too many people around.
I also take some comfort in knowing that even in this comic, Wonder Man’s intrinsic Wonder Manliness shines through as he Leeroy Jenkinses into the fight and immediately gets blasted by future cannons that he didn’t notice because he was recklessly charging into things.
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And then as he considers the benefits of cowardice, he gets attacked by a giant snake. Because Wonder Man.
He gets to throw the snake at a pterodactyl that was bothering Iron Man because the fundamental truth about Wonder Man is one of contrast. Bone-headed failures making more apparent when he manages to do a good job.
Thor shows up and does what Thor does best, invalidate the presence of most of the rest of the Avengers by just being so much stronger than they are.
He creates a giant tornado that sucks up the dinosaurs and UFOs and such.
Thor is the Avengers’ win button.
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He also notes that there’s something weirdly familiar about Marcus.
Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Jarvis finds himself accosted by the actual fucking D’Artagnan of the Musketeers. Hahaha what.
Who threatens to stab Jarvis in the tongue if he doesn’t tell him where Rochefort is.
Yellowjacket summons a cloud of ants to distract the musketeer and then Jarvis punches him in his face.
Take that, beloved literary figure.
Meanwhile there are so, so many meanwhiles. But in the nursery lab random location, Marcus tries to convince Ms Marvel to leave while he activates the machine.
But she is struck by a strange compulsion to stay at this side no matter what.
So he makes her smell his fingers or maybe uses pink energy to zap her face and that knocks her unconscious and cover Scarlet O’Haraing in his arms.
Which is the part Hawkeye managed to come in just in time to see.
Assuming that Marcus was attacking Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye fires an exploding arrow at the machine built. Exploding it.
Marcus cries a single tear and then puts Ms. Marvel down safe and comfortable in a pile of assorted rubble and pointy shrapnel.
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Hawkeye: “Okay, curly-top, put the lady down, gently!”
Marcus: “Yes. I shall... since that had been my intention all along. FOr I knew that the energies from my machine might prove dangerous to humans, and so had planned to take Ms. Marvel to a place of safety. you see, it had been my wish that no harm should befall anyone. But now, bowman, you’d be well advised to try and kill me! For if you don’t, then by the seven levels of limbo, I shall kill you!”
A smirking Hawkeye replies that sounds fair.
But then the a lightning bolt hits between them and Thor and Iron Man enter the scene.
Thor reiterates that Marcus looks familiar and demands he know the source of this deja vu. But Marcus says he’ll tell them nothing unless they kill him.
Ms. Marvel wakes up off-screen and tells Marcus to cut his shit out.
Ms. Marvel: “I don’t understand you -- but I do know you, somehow. And I sense that you’d no more take a life gratuitously than an Avenger would.”
Marcus: “Well, y-you’re wrong! So you’d best tell your comrades to defend themselves, b-because I’ll destroy anyone who gets in my way! I will!”
Ms. Marvel: “In that case, Marcus -- you can start with me.”
And then she stands between him and Iron Man, Thor, and Hawkeye.
Marcus confesses that he wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He just wanted to goad them into killing him, honest!
Because he couldn’t bear to go back to living like he has been since his father abandoned him. His father... IMMORTUS!
DUN DUN DUN!
Ms. Marvel has some concerns. Like how she’s never met Immortus and definitely never did the nasty with him.
And now the rest of this comic is going to be backstory and exposition. Just pages of Marcus explaining things, while crying a single tear.
So once upon a no-time, Immortus ruled Limbo. Not the Illyana one. Or the fun party game. But the place of no-time that we visited during the Celestial Madonna story. You’d think you’d remember that. I certainly typed enough words words words about it.
Anyway, Immortus grew lonely living in Limbo all by himself (later retconned so that he lived with a bunch of Space Phantoms but they’re all boring) so he decided he’d go cruising for some booty.
So he cruised through Earth’s time-stream and eventually found a woman, the sole survivor of a sinking ship, pulled her from the cold waters, and took her back to Limbo with him.
Marcus: “Once back in Limbo, through a combination of gratitude and the subtle manipulations of my father’s ingenious machines, the woman fell in love with him. My father then created within Limbo a pocket of change -- a bubble where time flowed naturally. It was there that I was created.”
... So to reiterate, Immortus caused a woman to fall in love with him with the aid of “subtle manipulations of... ingenious machines.”
Mind control, basically.
So if Marcus had a dad and a mom and neither of them were Carol then how did Marcus come out of her?
There’s a very... explanation for that though.
Immortus raised Marcus in a yes-time bubble so that he could grow and develop.
But there was a limit to how long a mortal could spend in Limbo before being just rubber-banded back to Earth. Which is what happened to Nameless Mrs Immortus.
And then Immortus went to help on the Wild West Adventure which led to Kang dying trying to kill Thor which led to Immortus dying because Kang is his younger self so he never existed.
Which raises unanswered questions now that we know about Marcus.
If Kang died before becoming Immortus which caused Immortus to fade away, why is Marcus even still around?
Is it because he was in a no-time zone like Limbo, unaffected by changes to the time-stream? If that’s the case, couldn’t Immortus have avoided disappearing in a puff of logic by staying home?
Its possible that after all that time alone and all the regret for his past self’s actions, he wanted to die. But that’s a rude as hell thing to pull on a son.
So Marcus was left alone and even more alone than his father had ever been. As a child of Limbo, if Marcus tried to visit Earth, it would create an irreparable disruption of the local time-stream.
But then he had an idea. Marcus got a wonderful awful idea.
If time disruption was a result of being born into Limbo, what if he were born onto Earth?
And by accelerating his birth and aging processes he could negate the time flux distortion before it became irreversible. Because it would be slowed down or confused by him being a baby.
Time would be like ‘whaaaaaat a baby?’ and get really distracted and out of character.
But it would take an exceptionally strong woman to survive gestating a nine month pregnancy in only a couple days so he searched through time and eventually decided on Ms. Marvel for her powerful combination of Kree and Human strengths.
Also, I think he just has a thing for strong blondes that should kick his ass.
A different version of Marcus, Kang’s son instead of Immortus’ but still named Marcus and still looking the same genetics are weird, later developed a crush on Carol. Her reaction to which was split between ‘wut?’ and ‘get rekt!’
But this Marcus decides to time-kidnap Carol while she was traveling to visit Scarlet Witch in New Jersey. Just takes her right out of the Quinjet and brought her to Limbo.
And thus began the wooing process. Because Marcus wanted to win her hand on his own merits and not through some skeezy mind control technology.
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Marcus: “To aid my purpose, I brought others in from Earth’s time continuum. I had Shakespeare write you a sonnet, and Beethoven performed an original prelude in your honor, while Marie Antoinette herself clothed you in the finest of satins and silks. Finally, after relative weeks of such efforts -- and admittedly, with a subtle boost from Immortus’ machines -- you became mine.”
You started off with such noble? intentions of kidnapping a woman and convincing her to love you and then you ended up using mind control anyway. You can’t say he didn’t come by it honestly. Its even the same word choice of ‘subtle.’ Subtle manipulations... subtle boost. He learned it from you, dad. He learned it from watching you.
Anyway, after using a machine to convince Carol that she loved him, he used technology and magical limbo powers to implant his ‘essence’ in her “causing a condition that resembled pregnancy.”
Y’know. In the sense of having a baby growing inside her womb. That’s the resemblance.
Also, also. The process of implanting essence looks a lot like rated-g sex. And now we know what Carol’s orgasm face looks like. Thanks a lot, comics. Thanks a lot.
Anyway, having implanted his ‘essence’ inside of her he wiped her memory and sent her back to Earth a second after she had been taken.
I... don’t know why it was necessary that she have her memory wiped. You’d think that to prevent a lot of anxiety and fear, you’d want her to know that her boyfriend would be popping out of her in a couple days.
The memory wipe and the mention that he totally used machines to make her love him make this one sketchy story. Which, do note, he’s saying right in front of Thor, Iron Man, and Hawkeye.
Who are all nodding and going ‘yeah that sounds like your classic love story right there. Like Beauty and the Beast.’ Because they are fools.
Marcus: “Once ‘reborn,’ I knew that as my artificially accelerated growth progressed, the Limbo effect would become stronger. But I had hoped to build a machine to negate the effect before I reached full maturity -- and the effect became permanent. Then, I could have lived among you, using my knowledge of time and history to better the human race. but when my machine was destroyed, I knew there was no time to build another before the Limbo effect became fixed. Therefore, since I cannot and will not cause the destruction of a world just to realize a dream, my options became either to return to Limbo, living in solemn, solitary hell unto infinity... or else goad you Avengers into killing me, and thus sparing me. Now, I have no options...”
This again raises the specter of why didn’t he just let Carol keep her memories. She could have gone up to Iron Man, Yellowjacket, or Beast and said ‘hey time is going to start breaking, I need you to build a machine. No time to explain, I met a guy and I’m going to give birth to him soon. I SAID NO TIME TO EXPLAIN BUILD FOR ME, WRENCH FOOLS.’
Getting a head start on the machine would have erased some of the race against time aspect.
When Hawkeye asks why he didn’t just tell them any of this, Marcus claims that they never would have trusted the son of one of the Avengers’ oldest enemies.
But Immortus has been more a weird, helpful weirdo than an enemy when you factor in that his first appearance was retconned out of existence by Enchantress. They’ve only ever known him as the guy that helps them fight Kang. Who, in fairness, is one of their oldest enemies.
But Carol decided or perhaps ‘decided’ that Marcus won’t be alone.
Ms Marvel: “I mean that while I still don’t know what I felt for you in Limbo, some of that feeling still lingers. And that, combined with the fact that by some bizarre logic, you are my ‘child’ -- makes me feel closer to you than I’ve felt to anyone in a long, long time. And I think that just might be a relationship worth giving a chance. So I’m returning to Limbo with you.”
Which might be a sweet sentiment minus the fact that the lingering sentiment she feels was mind control and the pseudo-incestual vibe to this whole relationship and MINUS THE FACT THAT EARTH PEOPLE CAN ONLY BE ON LIMBO FOR A LIMITED TIME BEFORE BEING YANKED BACK TO EARTH AS PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED.
So, no. Nothing about this is a sweet sentiment. Its just layers of horrible.
Iron Man questions if Carol is really sure about what she’s doing and she tells him “not entirely” but she gonna do it anyway. Which at the very least is very Carol Danvers. She tells him to say goodbye to the others.
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And then Thor hammerwhirls Marcus and Carol to Limbo. Because he can do that. Remember? He can open space-time rifts by spinning Mjolnir fast enough?
Once Marcus is hammerwhirled off of Earth all of the various time weirderies throughout the mansion vanish, leaving the Avengers who were fighting them perplexed.
And back in the nursery/lab/whatever Hawkeye laments that maybe if he hadn’t destroyed Marcus’ machine none of this would have happened.
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Hawkeye: “I can’t help it, Shell-head. I just feel rotten. If I hadn’t destroyed Marcus’ machine --”
Iron Man: “-- Maybe things would have happened the same way, Hawkeye. There’s no way of knowing. We’ve just got to believe that everything worked out for the best.”
Hawkeye: “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s all we can do. Believe... and hope that Ms. Marvel lives happily ever after.”
Spoiler: She does not.
So, uh. Yeah. That was Avengers #200.
What does one even say about something like that?
How does something with so many otherwise decent writers turn out like this?
Jim Shooter, George Perez, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie are all credited with writing the plot.
But it seems nobody remembers whose idea this was.
The usual Avengers writer at that time was David Michelinie and he attributes the poor quality of the issue to last minute rewrites and being written by a committee.
David Michelinie: “It’s true that that story originally had a different ending, one suggested by Bob Layton. I believe it involved an alien race (the Kree?) which had reached the limits of its evolutionary possibilities. By generating an alien/human hybrid (impregnating Carol with an alien seed), a new evolutionary path could be created and the dead end could have been circumvented. However, after that storyline had been set up and Avengers #200 plotted, a story came out in another title which almost exactly duplicated the story we had scheduled for Avengers #200. So a last minute alternative was hammered together (hence the plot credit for four different people on that issue) and was hastily drawn and scripted to meet extremely tight deadlines. I don’t remember why we sent Carol Danvers off with Marcus, and out of the Avengers, but I assume it was something that was put together in that marathon plot session.”
The comic that duplicated the original proposed #200 probably would have been What If? #20: What If the Avengers had Fought the Kree-Skrull War Without Rick Jones? Wherein the Supreme Intelligence fuses with Rick Jones’ corpse to become a new being.
In the sense of creating a Kree/Human hybrid, I guess it was stepping on #200′s toes. Although Carol is already a Kree/Human hybrid anyway so. Whatever.
Artist George Perez says in his book:
George Perez: “I don’t remember if it was Dave or Jim who did the Carol Danvers pregnancy story. I believe by the time it was printed it was by four different writers or something. That was probably not the most shining hour for the character, but I liked the idea that they had the story that I really love, which was kind of a precursor to what I would end up doing in Crisis [on Infinite Earths], stuff where you could draw anything happening from various time zones. Like issue 200 of the Avengers, I got to draw a dinosaur attacking Avengers Mansion, with a biplane flying [by]. All this great stuff I eventually got to do with Crisis on Infinite Earths, I got to do with the Avengers.”
As for Jim Shooter, he weirdly both disavows any knowledge of how this happened and also takes full credit.
Jim Shooter: “I found my copy of Avengers #200. I read it. I agree with the consensus, it’s heinous. But, I don’t remember much about how it got that way.
I am credited not only as Editor in Chief but as one of the co-plotters. However, I didn’t see anything in the book that jogged my memory. No bits that I remember suggesting. No corrections of the sort I might have made to a plot passed before me.
But I did see many things I would have changed if I’d seen the plot. For instance, leaving aside the Ms. Marvel mess for the nonce: Iron Man thinks it’s okay for the weird, mysterious child to be given a “laser torch” and electronic equipment so he can build a machine. What?! As the massive machine is being assembled, no one bothers to question what it is or does. What?! Trouble ensues. No kidding, really? Good grief.
At that time, I didn’t approve plots. Editors did. I can think of no reason that plot would have been passed before me. I don’t remember participating in a plotting session. David Michelinie lived far away and seldom came to the office. He and Bob Layton plotted books together mostly over the phone, then Dave wrote them up and presented them to the editor. I don’t know to what extent George Perez was involved. George often added bits and scenes, or made small changes to stories he was drawing, so possibly that is why he was given a plot credit. Usually writers didn’t mind George’s modifications because they were generally pretty good.
Generally, the first time I saw a book was when the finished pages were given to me to sign off on before they were sent to Chemical Color, the separators. There were exceptions, of course, books with which I was more involved. I don’t think this was one of them. But, possibly I made some suggestions that garnered me a ‘co-plotter’ credit, and if so, what was I thinking?
And, I guess I signed off on this book.
I regret it.
But, in those days, in any case, the buck stopped at my desk. I take full responsibility. I screwed up. My judgement failed, or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. Sorry. Avengers #200 is a travesty.”
I’m not here to unravel this mystery or cast blame. Although I blame everyone, really.
Shooter is right that the buck stopped at him and he said yeah sure buck go on ahead. Good on him for taking that blame.
Was Avengers #200 the worst story in Avengers history?
I don’t know. I can’t rightly say. I’ve only covered 200 out of... somewhere over 500.
Its not the worst written Avengers story. That would probably be the Crossing crossover. So convoluted and impenetrable, nobody is quite sure what order the issues should be read in.
It might not even be the most offensive. Avengers #33 tried to say that racism is made up by communists.
Its definitely a contender.
Made worse that nobody involved seemed to realize what message they were putting out, which judging by some comments I’ve seen was just unblinkingly accepted by children who read this back in the day.
But here’s the thing. Four different people had enough input to get a co-plotter credit and not one of them went ‘maybe we shouldn’t.’
You can blame the writing by committee for the uneven quality and weird tonal whiplash but you can’t blame it for the central problem where Ms Marvel is raped and impregnated against her will and against her very clearly stated desire not to have children.
That was the foundation of this entire thing.
Even before the story was changed, it was going to be about Carol being impregnated mysteriously. The only thing that was changed was the set dressing. Instead of the Supreme Intelligence and the Kree, it was changed to Immortus’ son.
Because this was a milestone celebration and the important thing here was that a long-time Avengers enemy be behind it.
(Its not even a good milestone celebration. Whose story is this really? Its not really Carol’s. Things happen to her and then she gets a sendoff that would make Doctor Who say ‘whoa, too far.’ It doesn’t celebrate her as a hero. It doesn’t celebrate any of the other Avengers and their history. This is a story about Marcus? And who the fuck is Marcus? The previously unmentioned story of a barely recurring Avengers frenemy. Avengers 100 had EVERY AVENGER. They were badly utilized but thats how you do a milestone.)
There’s no reason to believe that the setup pre-rewrites was going to be any different. Ms Marvel suddenly coming down with a bad case of three-day pregnancy while being alarmed and terrified by what was happening.
There are stories that are bad because of rewrites. And then there are stories that would have been bad from the very conception.
And this would have been one of them.
Pun unintended.
No matter how well-written Avengers #200 was. It would always have been the story where Carol Danvers was written out.
Maybe she wouldn’t have headed off into Limbo at the end because of lingering mind-control affection for her rapist/son but I feel it likely she still would have left the team. Probably gone into space to raise her Kreeman baby.
Heinous and travesty are right.
Could this story have been salvaged?
Like I said, the core concept was Ms Marvel getting mysteriously pregnant. They moved the tombstones but didn’t move the bodies. You’d have to get entirely away from that to find something worth telling.
You could do something with the time weirdery that lets the Avengers punch dinosaurs and maybe relive some old enemies. That could be a way to do a milestone issue. Harkening back without literally just reprinting old panels. Right, AVENGERS 150??
You could have done the pregnancy thing is Carol was an active and willing participant and didn’t have her mind wiped but it still would have felt gross. Because you had her loudly announce her opinion that punching people was more important than motherhood to her.
Do you see, various people who worked on this book, that by having her say that and then immediately become pregnant that it kind of feels vindictive? Punishing her for the words you put in her mouth? And that anything that comes after that will be tainted by that?
Also, mysterious pregnancy plots are usually bad. The only one I can think of that wasn’t was the Spider-Woman plot and the only mystery was that she wouldn’t tell people that she just got a sperm donor so she could make them think that Carol was the father somehow. And its still not great that someone’s thought was ‘what surprising twist can I do with this female character after a time skip? PREGNANCY!’
So was Avengers #200 salvageable? God no. Some of the interpersonal interaction bits were okay. But the actual plot itself was bad, bad, bad. I couldn’t even enjoy the time weirdery because it was disembodied from the plot and was time wasting action scenes and to split the party.
Iron Man punched a T. Rex. TWICE.
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I should be gushing about that. I should never stop gushing about it. But it does nothing for me.
Carol Danvers will return... In Avengers Annual #10, angry as hell.
Follow @essential-avengers. Because I will cover Avengers Annual #10 wherein Carol Danvers is angry as hell.
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cursedcandyroses · 7 years ago
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The Most Influential Artist Of The Decade: Pt.1 of An Overly Detailed Investigation Into Travi$ Scott
Drake, J. Cole, Wale, Kid Cudi. These were supposed to be the hands down leaders of hip-hop leading into the 2010′s. All these artists could rap, came with great production, full bodies of work, and had layers of emotion and relatability that the previous decade had little to none of. Kendrick and Big K.R.I.T. were barely on the radar, and Tyler The Creator dropping on Christmas of 2009 with his debut didn’t give much time for the “Leader Of The New School” title to fall onto him. Cole was with Jay-Z, Drake was with Lil Wayne, Kid Cudi was with Kanye, and Wale wasn’t quite with Rick Ross yet but it was over the horizon. Everything went according to plan for a few years. Drake’s 2010 label debut (”Thank Me Later”) came with chart topping hits, and his 2011 effort (”Take Care”) took him to a new level. Wale kept busy post 2009′s “Attention Deficit”. “More About Nothing” was astounding and 2011 brought us MMG’s “Self Made Vol. 1″ and Wale’s sophomore effort (his best major label release then and now) “Ambition”.
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 J. Cole’s “Friday Night Lights” came, and with that one of the greatest mixtapes of all time, in 2010 amid frustrations with Roc Nation from withholding his eventual major debut “Cole World: Sideline Story”, which would come out in 2011. Then there was Kid Cudi, the GOOD Music signee and Kanye protege who in 2008 & 2009 dropped two game changing project, but with 2010 came his best and darkest work. The second instalment of the Man On The Moon series, “Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager”. This was a project that on it’s own is a creative masterpiece, but with it’s themes of depression and addiction came a look into darker subject matter than was once openly talked about in mainstream hip-hop. The world painted by Kid Cudi on “The Legend Of Mr. Rager” is one Travi$ Scott played in and became one with. 2012 was the year the world came to know Travi$ Scott, and it was on an album that was seen at the time to be the true coming out party for another Kanye protege. In many ways “Cruel Summer” was the album that best described that era as far as artists involved. 2 Chainz, fresh of “Based On A T.R.U. Story” had the midas touch. Kanye was riding high of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and “Watch The Throne”, and a remix of Chief Keef’s “Dont Like” (when at the time Keef was the Drill Movement and hip-hop’s golden child). Surrounded by these stars was where Big Sean rose from behind the curtain to show up The Throne on the song of the year in “Clique” and everyone else who he was featured with. Sean was nothing more than a punchline heavy Detroit star who rode into the blogs hearts off his “Finally Famous” mixtapes and into Hip-Hop Folklore after allegations of Kanye using Sean as a ghostwriter on “Graduation”. Yet “Cruel Summer” was his showcase. Also on that album featured co-production on 3 tracks from a young Travi$ and a leading track called “Sin City” which was a beautiful glimpse into what Scott’s sound was. Along with that Travi$ scored a large majority of the Cruel Summer film, and began work on Kanye’s next solo project which was yet to be known of. 
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 Talk was little, yet it was there, for the Houston native post-Summer. 2013 came an with it Travi$ was a member of probably the greatest XXL Freshman Class of all time, being featured alongside Joey Bada$$, Action Bronson, ScHoolboy Q, and a slew of other future All-Stars. Even then Travi$ was a bit on an enigma and seen as one of the lower ranking members of the class. Shortly after the cover was revealed and the impressive freestyles were sent to the internet to see, Travi$ was featured on 2 tracks from another one of his mentors compilation’s T.I. and his Grand Hustle crew’s “G.D.O.D.”. These songs again flew under the radar, but a few weeks later “Owl Pharaoh” came. It received solid reviews, but the overall feel was Travi$ was a producer who rapped sometimes. The world had started to pigeon-hole him the same way they did Kanye over a decade earlier. Speaking of Kanye a few months later he came out with a lil project that deserves an article of it’s own, and has received a million of them since it’s release. “Yeezus” came and with it a million think pieces about electronic and industrial music in hip-hop, and the inspiration for such an album. Again, in the smaller corners of the internet, rumours began about how Kanye had used another one of his proteges extensively, and uncredited, on a solo album. Travi$ has spoken in before about being involved on every track that came from “Yeezus”, yet if you check the credits his name is there only three times. 
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Now a counter to this theory is that “Travi$ was not, and may still not be, at a level to which he could created the production on “Yeezus””. Which is true, but involvement is involvement none the less, and with credits being given to so many other people, does it hurt to add Travi$’ name to the mix? With names like Daft Punk, Mike Dean, Arca, Hudson Mohawke, Sinjin Hawke, and Gesaffelstein coming in from the electronic world to aid Kanye on his creative left turn, how much could Travi$ really have done? Again, Travi$ has been pushed to the back of the crowd, forced to watch others shine. In the coming months Travi$ went on to meet a very crucial person in his development musically. Yet a month later another big light shined down on Scott in the form of Jay-Z’s “Crown” from his July 2013 release “Magna Carta Holy Grail”. It showed again Travi$’ hallmark sound to a wide audience, an album with a demographic Travi$ has heavily criticized, and had also criticized him. And the critiques would not get any better.  A chance show in South Carolina led to a friendship with another hip-hop enigma named Young Thug. Thug was at the time riding off the wave of his breakout mixtape, “1017 Thug”, and had been slowly evolving since his earliest project. His rapping style was becoming close to the sound we know it as today, but he seemed out of place on a lot of his production. The beats were still very much of the generation before him, an Atlanta trap sound that was more “Flockaveli” then “Culture”. As their friendship brewed hype for a collaboration was rising across blogs across the internet. After much silence from Travi$ on the musical spectrum, in July of 2014 a collaboration with Big Sean and Indie rockers The 1975 was released, revealing an even more menacing sounding Travi$ and production style. That coming August “Days Before Rodeo” was released, and with it came a new sound that wasn’t seen very much beforehand. Travi$ had immersed himself with Atlanta’s best up and coming producers and underground rap stars like FKi, OZ, PeeWee Longway, friend Young Thug and an a newly buzzing Atlanta producer named Metro Boomin. 
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Metro had major placements with artists like Future, YG, and Migos, which were enough to get a buzz going for him. This was at a time for Metro before he produced all over Future’s “Monster”, before his albums with 21 Savage and NAV. His biggest songs were Future’s now Gold selling singles “I Won” and “Karate Chop” and co-production on iLoveMakonnen’s “Tuesday”. Metro was bred under the same school where guys like Mike Will Made-It, Zaytoven, Southside, Sonny Digital and TM-88 came from. The underground Atlanta and mixtape scene surrounding sites like Datpiff and LiveMixtapes was the playground at one point for all these beatmakers, and now Metro was on top of that same game. It has been debated whether the sound of “Days Before Rodeo” was just Metro Boomin’s skill meeting Travi$’ resources, or if it was Travi$ just finally coming into his desired sound.
(To Be Continued)
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genovera942vbucks-blog · 6 years ago
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skullfacewrites · 7 years ago
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They’ll be tagged as “The Awful Couple” TM. I’ll probably post some ideas or thoughts or bare bone scenes.
About the only concrete thing I have thus far about awful couple (TM) is that they aren’t human (obvs). The female is somewhat spindly and deceptively frail looking but could stop a bullet train no problem (if fed), and her face splits into a massive maw when she eats in her natural form. The male typically pretends to be very submissive and meek within the female’s presence but once alone… whoooo boy total 180 hold on to your ass it’s gonna get nuts. Both are different species (either within the same scientific family or completely separate species) that can reproduce with each other but it’s not like. Necessary. More like a “”””fun”””” and for shits and giggles kind of thing. They can reproduce with humans but I haven’t gotten that far yet or really messed with it but I don’t think that they can produce offspring in such a way. Maybe. They primarily feed on negative emotions, mostly on humans (and one another to a lesser extent). They can and do eat solid foods, but it’s not as filling or nutritional. I think they have (or are capable of) very vague or basic empathy but their much stronger predatory instincts come first. Or they’re really good at picking up pheromones when it comes to emotions
I will try to come up with names at a later date but at the same time i’m very tired and very lazy. >>; I can probably look into some mythology and figure something out there but again lol. anyway.
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sherristockman · 7 years ago
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‘The Reality of Truth’ — The Psychedelic Experience and Its Potential for Healing Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Psychedelic drugs are a controversial topic, but despite decades of negative press, science suggests these plants may actually have psychiatric benefits worth exploring. According to data from the National Institute of Mental Health, the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the U.S. may be as high as 40 million, or about 18 percent of the population over the age of 18, making it the most common mental illness in the nation.1,2 The conventional approach to anxiety and depression treatment typically involves antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs. Unfortunately, studies have repeatedly demonstrated antidepressants are no more effective than placebo. In the long term, they also produce changes in the brain that may actually worsen your condition. Psychedelics, such as psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, clearly have a mind-altering effect, but it's quite different from conventional psychiatric drugs. While the scientific evidence is still slim (since their illegal status makes them difficult to study), two of the most recent studies on magic mushrooms found they had truly profound benefits for cancer patients struggling with anxiety and depression. Psychotropic Drugs — Gateway to Happiness Through Enhanced Understanding of Reality? The featured film, "The Reality of Truth,"3 explores how psychotropic drugs can enhance your understanding of reality, thereby freeing you up to be happy, regardless of outward circumstances. Deepak Chopra opens up the conversation noting that the human brain has specific receptors for psychoactive substances such as psilocybin, and the fact that we have them is a clear indication that we are part of their nature, and these plants are part of ours. In other words, psychotropic plants appear to have a role to play in the human experience. But what is that role? Psychotropic plants are well-known for their ability to induce dramatically altered states of consciousness. Many of these altered states correlate to religious or spiritual experiences, and such experiences, Chopra says, is part of being a whole human being. A common experience (although by far not the only possibility) is the experience of being "at one" with God or "the source of all creation" — a feeling of no longer being separate from anyone or anything, not just in our immediate surroundings but indeed the entire universe. As Chopra says, psychotropic drugs "help people break out of the hallucination of separation." Many believe psychotropic plants have a rightful place in human life, as they can act as a key, if you will, to expanded levels of consciousness and a personal experience of the divine. By making them illegal, we're effectively been barred from using natural substances to explore the spiritual dimensions of our being that can be tremendously healing and beneficial. Psychedelics Are Illegal in the US For clarity's sake, let me state for the record that I am not advocating the use of illegal substances. Doing so may land you in prison, regardless of how pure your intentions. Psychotropic plants may be "all natural," but they are extremely potent mind-altering compounds that should not be experimented with willy nilly. Psilocybin, for example, is a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act.4,5 The mushrooms are typically ingested in their fresh or dried form, or can be made into tea. Large doses have been known to induce panic and/or psychosis, which is why careless experimentation is strongly discouraged (in addition to their use being illegal). My intention for posting this video is for educational purposes only, to allow you to explore some different points of view. It is not an invitation or a recommendation to partake in illegal substances — for any reason. At present, the only legal way I know of to use psychedelics in the U.S. is to be part of a registered study. Other countries have different laws pertaining to psychedelics and their use. Going Within The video starts out by exploring historical references to psychedelics and meditation, giving examples of celebrities who have embraced meditation as a way to improve their mental health, creativity and happiness. As noted in the video, most of us search for happiness outside ourselves. More often than not, it's a fruitless search. At the end of the day, we realize that new car, the new romantic partner, the money in the bank, all failed to produce a lasting effect. The idea that true, lasting happiness can only be found inside yourself is an ancient one. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single philosopher throughout history who thought otherwise. But how do you get "inside?" Meditation is one of the oldest, most tried-and-true ways of reaching your own core. Changing our own state of mind is also thought to be the best, if not only, way to achieve lasting societal change. The way to reduce war in the world is for each individual to be an agent of peace by being more peaceful. You can't fake inner peace. You have to work at it. Similarly, the way to reduce environmental destruction is for each and every individual to act in less destructive ways; to become more environmentally conscious and make different choices in our day-to-day lives. Transcendental Meditation 101 Transcendental Meditation (TM) is one of the most popular forms of meditation, practiced by millions of people around the world. You choose a mantra that has meaning for you, sit quietly with your eyes closed, and repeat your mantra for a period of about 20 minutes, once or twice a day. The idea is to reach a place of "restful" or "concentrated" alertness, which enables you to let negative thoughts and distractions pass by you without upsetting your calm and balance. Ultimately, TM is said to open you to universal consciousness, a transcendental state where all apparent divisions disappear, and you recognize yourself as being a part of everything. While this state of bliss is, well, blissful, the idea is not to remain there forever. Your aim is to return to normal waking life, and slowly, over time, integrate more and more of this transcendental nature into your waking state. Effects include a greater sense of peace, harmony and happiness — regardless of outer circumstances. It also improves emotional resilience, the ability to bounce back from stress, which has direct implications and benefits for physical health. The Psychedelic Experience and Its Potential for Healing The film explores what appears to be references to meditation and psychedelics in religious texts, and interviews a number of people who have experimented with these drugs about their experiences. By and large, people say the experience of "oneness" produced a radical shift in the way they view not only themselves but all of life going forward. The experience is life-altering and seemingly permanent. Indeed, the two studies I mentioned earlier concluded that this spiritual component was one of the determining factors that allowed patients to release their fear of death, and hence their anxiety and depression over their cancer diagnosis. In a Time magazine article, Dinah Bazer recounts her personal experience with psilocybin.6 A cancer survivor struggling with severe anxiety (driven by her fear of a recurrence), Bazer agreed to participate in a magic mushroom trial conducted at the NYU Langone Medical Center. While fear gripped her when the drug first brought her "tumbling through space," the experience ended up being a profoundly healing one: "… I started to feel love. I felt like I was being bathed in love and it was overwhelming, amazing, wonderful … The feeling of immense love lingered for weeks, and four years later I still feel it at times. My fear and anxiety were completely removed, and they haven't come back … The experience changed how I wanted to live my life. I used to get up, grab a quick snack and eat it in the car. But I no longer want to be in a hurry. Now I get up an hour early, make a real breakfast and read my paper … I used to imagine what it would be like if the cancer recurred, but I don't think about it the same way anymore. When I don't feel well and thoughts of a recurrence creep into my mind, I lack fear and simply think, 'Let's just see what happens.'" Psilocybin — An Immediately Acting Anti-Anxiety Remedy Another cancer patient that took part in the NYU trial was Patrick Mettes, a television news director. His magic mushroom trip helped him make peace with and overcome his fear of death, his widow told CNN.7 "He was not afraid of death and, in fact, he seemed to grow through the process of dying. My brother was with us quite a bit during that time and says that he felt that Patrick's spirit grew as his body declined … I believe it helped him, and both of us, live life fully up to the very end." Addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky, who is interviewed in the film, admits the research very clearly demonstrates the benefits of psychedelic plant medicines in end-of-life care, for the fact that it very rapidly helps people come to peace with their own dying process. He also believes end-of-life care may be the area where we'll eventually see psychedelic drugs be used. According to lead author Dr. Stephen Ross, director of substance abuse services and associate professor in the department of psychiatry at NYU Langone, their investigation revealed that psilocybin "was a rapid, immediately acting anti-anxiety and antidepressant." The second psilocybin study was done at Johns Hopkins University. Fifty-one patients participated, randomly receiving either a high dose or very low dose of psilocybin. As reported by CNN:8 "… [T]he high-dose psilocybin resulted in significant decreases in both clinician-rated and self-reported measures of depressed mood and anxiety among the patients. The effects lasted in 78 percent of patients for depression and 83 percent for anxiety in a follow-up assessment six months later. 'These effects appear to be sustained in our study at least six or seven weeks and very plausibly more than six months,' Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins Medicine and lead author of the study, said … '[I]t's a very exciting opportunity to consider entirely new approaches to therapy.'" The Importance of Spiritual Connection Sherry Marcy, diagnosed and treated for cancer in 2010, described herself as "very depressed" when signing up for the Johns Hopkins study. After a single dose of magic mushrooms, "the cloud of doom seemed to just lift. From then on, I was fine," she says. Many others had similar experiences.9,10,11,12,13 Regardless of one's opinion about hallucinogens, it's pretty remarkable to consider that a single dose of a substance can result in several months' worth of relief. Certainly, it's far safer than opioids that have already killed nearly a quarter million people in the U.S. alone. Some patients even report being anxiety-free four years later. Other research has confirmed that the effects of controlled psilocybin administration indeed appears to be long-lasting in a majority of cases.14 According to researchers, the freedom from anxiety and depression appears to be the result of spiritual reconnection. The feeling of love and being "one" with everything results in alterations in the brain itself — a mechanism ascribed to neuroplasticity, where your brain changes in accordance to experience. Indeed, a majority of the participants ranked it among "the most meaningful" experiences of their lives. Psilocybin also binds to the same receptors as serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood and perception. Studies using MRI imaging show psilocybin alters brain activity, allowing for communication between regions of your brain that normally do not connect. This is believed to be part of the breakthroughs people report. Aubrey Marcus, founder and CEO of Onnit, is one of the individuals interviewed in "The Reality of Truth" who admits using psychedelics as an aid in his explorations of "experiential spirituality" — a journey in which the plants have been his "greatest teachers." Amazon John Easterling, a conservationist, compares the use of psychedelics to "10 years of therapy in seven hours," because the experience really cuts to the core of your problem, whatever it might be. Psychedelics to Explore Human Potential Documentary host Mike "Zappy" Zapolin travels to Peru to get the psychedelic experience firsthand. Aside from magic mushrooms, there are a number of other plants and traditional brews with psychedelic effects. Ayahuasca, for example, is commonly used for spiritual exploration. As with magic mushrooms, ayahuasca users often have positive mental and emotional breakthroughs, brought on by the overwhelming depth of the spiritual experience. Ayahuasca is prepared from a mixture of ayahuasca vine bark and leaves from the cacruna plant. San Pedro or "huachama" is another ancestral medicine, made from the San Pedro cactus. The Andean people have used San Pedro for healing and religious divination for over 5,000 years. Under the guidance of a Peruvian San Pedro shaman, Zapolin and his co-explorers, who include actress Michelle Rodriguez, partake of both of these ritual beverages. Their shaman guide discusses these traditional plant medicines saying: "When you do the medicine [San Pedro], 50 percent of the medicine's responsibility is to do all the healing, all the cleansing, all the awakening, all the clearing, all the harmonizing that it needs to do. But the other 50 percent — of taking it further, of taking it deeper, is always yours. Part of my work in this is to make the transition possible, from being very sleepy to being fully awake … Each person has a pattern, and that pattern is 50 percent woven by the person and 50 percent by the divine. Ayahuasca is capable of changing that pattern. From being one person one day, the next day you're completely another person." The Ayahuasca Experience An example of this kind of 180-degree shift in personality and outlook on life is given in the film in the form of a firsthand account by Gerard Powell, who broke his addiction to smoking, alcohol and drugs with a single dose of psychedelics. Recounting his own ayahuasca trip, Zapolin says he suddenly realized he had died: "As I was looking at death, experiencing death, I saw how dynamic it was and how much was going on, and I realized that I never needed to fear death again. It was totally liberating. And, as I spent time in this ayahuasca experience, I realized I was sitting in a place where I could ask any question. I could go into the future, into the past; whatever I wanted to know … I decided to ask, 'Why do bad things happen?' Immediately … I was whipped out into the edge of space … I was out there at the edge, looking at everything in the universe … and as I'm looking at it, spirit said to me, 'You see that? It's totally balanced. It's perfect.'" Daily Transcendence Through Breathing After his trip to Peru, Zapolin sought to practice transcendence on a daily basis. Along the way, he was introduced to sudarshan kriya yoga (SKY),15 a breathing technique taught by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. More than 65 studies have investigated the effects of this technique.16 Among the findings, studies have shown it can help: Increase deep sleep by 218 percent Increase hormone secretion associated with well-being by 50 percent Decrease stress hormones by 56 percent Decrease depression by 70 percent Reduce anxiety by 44 percent Like other experts on breathing, Shankar notes that for every emotion, there's a corresponding rhythm of breath. Since the two are linked, by regulating your breathing, you regulate your emotions. Practicing SKY, Zapolin discovered he could in fact enter into a psychedelic state simply using his breath. In closing, I want to reiterate that I do not condone or recommend imbibing illegal drugs, be they "plant medicines" or not. Should you decide to experiment, make sure you do it in a place where it's legal, and under the guidance of someone with the proper experience. The most important point, I think, is that what these kinds of psychedelic experiences tell us is that spiritual connection is an important part of life, health and happiness. Fortunately, you don't have to take a psychedelic to gain similar benefits. A consistent meditation and/or breathing practice can help you reap similar benefits, albeit over a longer period of time. >>>>> Click Here >>>> Click Here
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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago
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Hyperallergic: ArtRx LA
Paul Thek, “Untitled (Ferocious)” (1971), glass, steel, plasticine and dried flowers and foliage, 12 1/4 x 19 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches (© The Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York, photo by Gary Mamay, via hannahhoffmangallery.com)
 Creative Activism: From Terezin to Trump
When: Wednesday, January 4, 6:30–9pm Where: Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center (1110 Bates Avenue, Silverlake, Los Angeles)
In times of cultural and social repression, art can prove to be a potent form of resistance. One of the most powerful examples of this is Vedem, an underground magazine produced 83 weekly issues by teenage prisoners of the Terezin Ghetto. To coincide with the opening of their exhibition on the magazine, the Silverlake Independent JCC will be hosting a panel discussion featuring award-winning creative activists, filmmakers, and performers, including artist Dorit Cypis. Tickets are $10.
Image from “Vedem” (via vedemunderground.com)
 Norm Laich: Tip or Die!
When: Opens Saturday, January 7, 9–11pm Where: Mandujano_cell (171 N. LaBrea Avenue, #204, Inglewood, California)
Norm Laich got his start as a professional sign painter in Detroit before moving to LA, where he used his lettering skills to create artwork for Lawrence Weiner, John Baldessari, Mike Kelley, and Ed Ruscha. Alongside his commercial work, he has had his own artistic practice, which offers an irreverent and often politically charged twist on traditional sign graphics. A selection of his new work takes center stage with his upcoming show at Tip or Die! at office space-cum-gallery Mandujano-cell in Inglewood.
Norm Laich: Tip or Die! (via Facebook)
 Sam Durant: Build Therefore Your Own World
Sam Durant, “God wills us free (John Jack’s epitaph, Thoreau’s flute)” (2016), Sandstone and bronze, 31 x 21 x 16 inches. (via blumandpoe.com, Photo: Heather Rasmussen)
When: Opens Saturday, January 7, 6–8pm Where: Blum & Poe (2727 South La Cienega Boulevard, Culver City, California)
Taking its title from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, LA artist Sam Durant’s upcoming solo show at Blum & Poe draws on the writings of the American transcendentalists, contemporary African-American writers, and abolitionists like Frederick Douglass.
Durant creates hybrids of historical objects and artifacts — such as a cast of former slave Jack Garrison’s walking stick crossed with Thoreau’s pencil — thereby laying  bare unexplored narratives of 19th-century African-American life.
   I Can’t Even: A Pet Peeve Funeral
When: Saturday, January 7, 7–10pm Where: Basement Projects (207 North Broadway, Santa Ana, California)
2016 was filled with so much disappointment, frustration, and loss that most of us are relieved it’s finally over. To celebrate leaving it all behind us and moving on, artists Steven Frost and Molly Jo Shea have organized a Pet Peeve Funeral, inviting visitors to lay their physical and emotional baggage to rest. Around a cemetery built out of soft sculptures and video projections, the artists will stage a funerary procession at 9:15pm, at which black attire is encouraged.
I Can’t Even: A Pet Peeve Funeral (via Facebook)
 Paul Thek
When: Closes Saturday, January 7, 10am–6pm Where: Hannah Hoffman Gallery (1010 N Highland Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles)
The late artist Paul Thek is known primarily for his assemblages and installations that suffused everyday and ephemeral materials with a spiritual quality. Although his career was cut short when he died of AIDS-related causes in 1988, his melding of the abject, personal, and mystical would prove influential for later generations of artists. Don’t miss Hannah Hoffman’s current exhibition of his work — his first solo gallery show in LA — which closes on Saturday.
Book installation by Tm Gratkowski (via Facebook)
 Community Book Installation
When: Sunday, January 8, 1:30–3:30pm Where: Craft & Folk Art Museum (5814 Wilshire Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles)
In conjunction with their upcoming book arts exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, the Craft & Folk Art Museum has invited artist Tm Gratkowski to create a large-scale book installation in its lobby. Visitors are invited to drop by the museum this Sunday to collaborate on the project and learn more about the artist’s book-weaving technique.
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