#justify the tragedy even if it Eventually led to greatness because we keep doing it. honeybear also uses a lot of grand orchestration

[lilja4ever]

Chloe and the next 20th century is such a good album like I'm not joking. I think you all may be miserable haters. Unlike me who is a hater but in an intellectual way

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Not sure if ya’ll have noticed but talks about representation in superhero comics has been ever so slightly popular these days.

 Sarcasm deactivated.

 In all seriousness, yes there should be more though I have problems with certain approaches adopted by Marvel and to a lesser extent DC in recent years and the way a lot of fans have handled the situation on both sides.

 Like saying Miles Morales shouldn’t exist is not okay but nor is saying Peter Parker should be shelved for his sake. Writing Titania in Jane Foster’s book as having solidarity with Jane because she’s a woman stepping into the role of a male hero is not okay (because seriously, Titania’s main enemy is goddam She Hulk and she despises her) but nor is saying sexist shit about Jane (who lest we forget was awesome long before she became Thor, arguably moreso).

 But most of the time I personally feel disabled and mentally ill characters don’t get talked about as much whenever discussions like this pop up. Representing women, black people, gay people, etc, etc happens all the time but not so much with disabled and mentally ill characters.

 What’s even stranger though is that on the occasions where those types of characters are discussed people seem to not recognize a lot of the ones among the classic established heroes. 

 Oracle, Daredevil and Xavier get brought up a fair amount but Tony Stark had a heart condition that early in his series required him to hide a great big metal chest plate under his clothes which then compromized his former playboy lifestyle. Among the truly mainstream and major Marvel/DC heroes Tony Stark genuinely was the first physically handicapped hero (unless I’m getting my dates mixed up and X-Men preceded him, even then though Xaiver was a mentor more than the lead). 

 As for mentally ill characters, whilst people will cite Deadpool and Harley Quinn as mentally ill protagonists within the Big Two (and you could arguably put Wolverine in there too due to his legitimate anger issues, though they are contextualized as part of his bad ass appeal so...maybe not) both those characters are fun, wacky, violent former villains who even when they aren’t on the side of evil still do amoral things. They’re mental illnesses are rarely treated with too much gravitas. In fairness their core concepts is for them to be wacky and fun (at least nowdays) so it would be possible in a debate to argue there is a certain amount of justification for not going too deep with their problems and touching them lightly.

 Meanwhile you have Tony Stark and Carol Danvers who are both alcoholics. And if you know anything about that illness (and it IS an illness) you know it’s not one you really cure so much as manage. 

However multiple runs of Iron Man since the iconic Demon in a Bottle storyline have at best touched upon it rather or else avoided it altogether. From what I’ve seen of Bendis’ run it’s mentioned but off handily and wasn’t a focus before Tony died. Maybe creatively you could justify that too but technically speaking Tony is a mentally illl hero due to that illness so if you want representation viola it’s right there if writers bothered to make use of it outside of showing him relapse or something. 

 The same is true of Carol Danvers except in her case it’s worse because you could be forgiven for simply being wholesale unaware Carol was ever an alcoholic since multiple runs don’t even bring it up (I suspect because people legitimately forgot). Nevertheless the female hero Marvel is most keen to promote and who will be getting her own movie soon enough is canonically mentally ill. That should be brought up more but I can see why people who ARE aware of it might not want to count her because like I said it’s hardly touched upon.

 Which is why the next character I’m going to talk about is so important.

 He’s never been a legitimate villain.

 His mental illness(es) are integral to his character and impossible to ignore because of that fact.

 He’s got a history of physical and emotional abuse which led to his illnesses and isn’t thrown out as cheap backstory or motivations for his character.

 His illnesses have been showcased to ostracize him from wider society who often fear, hate and hound him either out of a desire to exploit him or else because they simply do not understand him. Which sadely echoes the experiences of a lot of mentally ill people.

 He’s portrayed sympathetically with the hardships and tragedy of coping with mental illnesses showcased routinely (albeit often on a metaphorical and not strictly accurate level).

 And most importantly he’s been repeatedly showcased as a truely heroic and caring figure in spite of his illnesses, even using them for the benefit of society as a whole when given the opportunity and right help.

 I am in fact referring to...the Hulk.

 Bruce Banner canonically was physically and emotionally abused by his father and developed serious anger issues and issues of self-worth because of that treatment. All of which led to him eventually developing Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as Multiple Personality Disorder or more commonly referred to as having a ‘split personality’; and INCORRECTLY referred to as schizophrenia.

  That’s not me interpreting anything or extrapolating either. That is an objective in-universe canonical FACT about the character. In fact he first ‘hulked out’ when he got mad and attacked his father...BEFORE he encountered any gamma bombs. In one iconic issue he even tried to resolve his problems via therapy where the different sides to his personality were integrated together.

 Whilst it involved superheroics and super powers and happened after ONE session that is the real life goal when it comes to helping most people who have DID/MPD.

 Whilst there is so much to talk about with canon Hulk let’s just use the MCU as a microcosm of the Hulk’s character.

 Bruce Banner in the MCU is so depressed over his condition (which involved being incapable of physical intimacy and constantly monitoring his stress levels) that he tried to commit suicide...only to discover he was physically incapable of doing so due to the Hulk’s healing factor.

 As Banner he wants to find a cure for himself and as Hulk he wants nothing but peace and solitude. But he gets neither because representatives of the government seek to exploit him and neutralize him as a threat as opposed to trying to HELP him. And the guy spearheading things is straight up an old guy who doesn’t want Banner ‘consorting with his daughter’.

 At any given time for reasons beyond his control Banner can become dangerous to those around him despite not wanting to truly hurt anybody, and yet he has been shown to be capable of managing his illness for altruistic ends, such as defeating the Abomination.

 When given help and support from the Avengers (who with his CONSENT employ mental exercises and when NECESARRY use non-lethal equipment to keep him under control) he’s been shown to be an invaluable force for good. His brains help resolve dilemmas and provide vital intelligence and as Hulk he is the Avengers’ biggest gun against physical threats.

 Which is why Age of Ultron was so heartbreaking. Once more he got exploited and hurt people without meaning to, looked upon in fear and scorn as a monster by those who just don’t understand him. So distraught was he that he opted to just go back into isolation.

 Of course Banner’s condition doesn’t realistically line up with real people who have MPD but when understood the character exists for drama and also deals with anger issues the character is actually an incredibly (heh) well constructed character and the legitimate (though relative) representation he provides should be celebrated.

 In fact I would argue it’s actually MORE important than the Asian representation Amadeus Cho provides because there are definitely more Asian protagonist characters than mentally ill ones. And also, though this sounds harsh...being Asian isn’t as compromising to your day-to-day quality of life as the kinds of illnesses that Banner/Hulk are analogous too.

 Of course that isn’t saying we shouldn’t have more of both but...taking away one character who represents an even more marginalized group who frankly suffers in worse ways (even if wider pop culture fails to appropriately recognize him as representing those people) for the sake of a group that comparatively speaking has it better is not a good thing. It’s made worse when you consider the shitty way Hulk was treated just before and during Civil War II.

 Bottom line: Let’s celebrate the old characters who represent mentally ill and disabled people more than we do and not throw them under the bus for other characters...especially the Hulk.

[oldguardaudio]

  NRA -> Gun Banners Unmasked: The Vengeful Face of the Anti-gun Agenda Emerges Once Again

Wayne Lapierre NRA at HoaxAndChange.com

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Donald Trump NRA @ Hoax and Change

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017

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In the aftermath of tragedy, when emotions are running high, some people reveal perhaps more than they intend about themselves and their true intentions. Gun control advocates are feeling especially emboldened in the wake of the terrible murders in Las Vegas, and their predilections and prejudices are again on full display. To no great surprise, they are openly speaking of repealing the Second Amendment, retroactively turning gun owners into criminals, and confiscating firearms en masse. And while their publicly-expressed furor will eventually subside when reason again dominates the national discussion of gun policy, it’s important to keep in mind that what they say now is what they really want. It’s not “reasonable regulation.” It’s give up your gun or the government takes it and you go to jail. It’s always that, in the end.

New York Times commentator Bret Stephens led the way with his call to “repeal the Second Amendment.”Dismissing the fundamental right to keep and bear arms as a “fetish,” Stephens cites a litany of tired and debunked “science” and rhetoric that may do much to ingratiate himself to his new readers at the Times but does absolutely nothing to advance the debate on controlling violent crime. 

He then asks, without apparent irony, why liberals nevertheless continue to lose the gun control debate. On this point, at least, Stephens is largely correct (if completely un-self-aware): Because gun control advocates don’t know what they’re talking about and because their proffered “common sense” solutions won’t make any appreciable difference.

Stephens, therefore, advocates for America to “fundamentally and permanently” change a “legal regime that most of the developed world considers nuts” by getting rid of the Second Amendment altogether. James Madison himself, Stephens insists, would look at modern America and say, “Take the guns – or at least the presumptive right to them – away.” 

What happens to the 400 million or so firearms already in private hands? How does society actually benefit from his plan? Stephens doesn’t say. He apparently just trusts that things would eventually work themselves out if the government had carte blanche over yet another aspect of Americans’ lives.

Paul Waldman also wrote a piece for The Week with an even blunter prescription: “Ban guns.” Waldman at least acknowledges some of the practical problems inherent in his proposal. Yet he still muses that “it’s worthwhile to step back from the concrete debates we’re having, as important as those are, and spend a moment contemplating what kind of society we’d prefer if there were no practical impediments to radical change.” 

Echoing Stephens, Waldman calls Americans’ dedication to their Second Amendment rights “absurd fetishism.” He insists, however, that “I get it.” But it’s not enough, he says, to justify “[o]ver 30,000 Americans dead every year, and tens of thousands more maimed and paralyzed.”

Self-defense would be less of an issue in his proposed Utopia, Waldman argues, because assailants “probably” wouldn’t have a gun, either. “[P]robably.” And besides, he writes, it’s a “ludicrous argument” that “even if you took away everyone’s guns, people would still have evil in their hearts, and if they really wanted to kill they’d find a way.”

We can only assume that Mr. Waldman doesn’t have much experience with the criminal element. Or much familiarity with history. Or even an awareness of the sorts of mass-casualty crimes committed in the relatively gun-free countries he obviously so admires.

Speaking of fetishes, no week’s worth of gun-prohibition rhetoric would be complete without gushing references to Australia, something of a Western democracy that actually managed to take a large number of guns away from peaceable individuals who already legally had them. Well, sort of, anyway.

And who better for this job than Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, who along with his protégé and frenemy Hillary Clinton is America’s foremost proponent of importing Australia’s gun confiscation scheme to American shores?

Writing (appropriately) for the website Crooked.com, Pfeiffer laments that he and his fellow radical Democrats are “now in the midst of another gun debate that we will almost certainly lose.” He blames this on Democrats accepting what he calls an interpretation of the Second Amendment that was “reversed-engineered to pander to fantasies.” He then basically argues that just because the U.S. Supreme Court has authoritatively construed the Second Amendment to protect an individual right, Democrats don’t have to accept that as true. 

Pfeiffer insists the “Democratic gun control strategy fails because it is defined by this poverty of ambition … .” 

He then lists his own policy prescriptions, which are nothing if not ambitious, although not particularly original. These include national registration; “[t]racking and limiting purchases of ammunition;” mandatory “smart-gun” technology; and, of course, an Australian style “national gun buyback program.”

As savvy gun owners know, what happened in Australia was not a “buyback.” Gun owners didn’t return guns to the shops where they bought them. Rather, the government retroactively banned firearms that most people had acquired lawfully and in good faith. It then sternly threatened to imprison anyone who didn’t surrender their gun to the authorities for whatever compensation was offered, assuming the individual even survived the government’s attempt to seize the gun by force.

Many Australians buckled to the threat, and the government confiscated many hundreds of thousands of guns. But many didn’t. In the unlikely event that a the government of the United States somehow amassed the same proportion of its citizens’ firearms, hundreds of millions would still be left in private hands, but with a disproportionate share hoarded by criminals who need firearms for their livelihood.

Ironically, even as he and like-minded gun prohibitionists call for confiscation of America’s guns, Pfeiffer remains incredulous that “the NRA is still producing” what he calls “agitprop aimed at convincing gun owners that liberal Democrats and radical leftists are going to come after their guns.”

How dare we state the obvious: Your guns are not safe, as long as people like Stephens, Waldman, and Pfeiffer continue to have a role in national debate and in politics. 

Which is to say, they’ll never be safe. Pfeiffer essentially admits this and counsels his fellow radical Democrats to stop trying to “fake moderation” and win over gun voters with “insincere pandering on the gun issue.”

It would be nice to think that with a pro-gun president and pro-gun majorities in Congress, statehouses, and governor’s mansions across the country, the battle to secure the Second Amendment is won. But as long as decent, law-abiding gun owners are blamed for the acts of deranged murderers, the battle can never end. 

We don’t have to guess what people who press for gun control really want. People like Stephens, Waldman, and Pfeiffer are telling us themselves.

For us to think otherwise is to sow the seeds of our own undoing.

NRA -> Gun Banners Unmasked: The Vengeful Face of the Anti-gun Agenda Emerges Once Again NRA -> Gun Banners Unmasked: The Vengeful Face of the Anti-gun Agenda Emerges Once Again FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017…