#nothing but the most mediocre for my trash son <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[aure-entuluva-2407]

my trash son. i hate him (affectionately)

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

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But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

[emma-christine-spoole]

My Muse Does the Vanity Fair Interview

https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2000/01/proust-questionnaire

Tagging: @normalouisebatesrp @itsnormanbates @leather-lover-massett @xeffie-thredsonx @maggiexesmerelda @tillhumanvxices  @foxbelieve @danascullyeffect @costaricaaguitars @theirlament

and anyone else who wants to. (repost, don’t reblog)

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Wow, we’re jumping right into the deep philosophical questions, huh? I don’t know if it’s possible to have completely flawless, perfect happiness in this life. The world has too many flaws and too many people with high capacity for senseless evil. I think the closest we can get to perfect happiness in this life is having strong bonds with those you love, the kind that will give you the strength to face down that evil when you have to face it.

2. What is your greatest fear?

I try to stay out of political discussions and keep my views to myself most of the time. I’ve just found it’s the smartest thing to do, having spent so many years living in the nation’s capital and considering where I was working. But here’s an exception. My greatest fear currently is that we’re sliding toward a Gilead-like nightmare, slowly like a frog in a pot, so we aren’t going to notice until we’re being boiled alive. Scared that women are going to be stripped of all the progress made over the last half-century, including rights my mother and her mother demonstrated in the streets for. But then I look at my daughter @xeffie-thredsonx and know that’s not going to happen without a hell of a fight from the next generation.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I can have a streak of hypocrisy, unfortunately. I can condemn and punish others for the same perceived wrongdoings I’ve been guilty of myself. I do that by rationalizing, believing my reasons are justified and even noble when theirs aren’t, that I’m bending or even breaking the law to protect those I love or to bring down those who otherwise would’ve gotten away.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Cowardice. It’s so often an underlying root issue of criminal behavior. I deal primarily with criminals who keep other humans as slaves to be sold. They put on such an act they’re such big, tough dangerous guys. But they’re really cowards; it’s obvious once you know how to scratch the psychological surface. Also cowards are the violence-fetishists who hide behind their keyboards and post death-bounties on my head on 4Chan. Pffft. Whatever. That’s been going on for years. Nothing new at all.

5. Which living person do you most admire?

Captain Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Army. She piloted a Black Hawk helicopter with both her legs and part of one arm blown off after it was shot down by a grenade missile in Iraq. Still landed it and the rest of her crew to safety. I met her once when she was campaigning for the Senate, and she’s an amazing person. That’s a true warrior and American hero. People overcome once-fatal childhood diseases every day now. That’s not a warrior. That’s called advances in modern medicine.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?

My white Mustang convertible. I love that car like no other. I bought it when I still living in D.C. and there was no need to drive, but so what? I got it anyway. In Oregon, there’s nothing comparable to driving along the coastal highway with the top down on a rain-free day!

7. What is your current state of mind?

Guess you could say I’m pretty introspective because of these questions. I’m also curious and a little bit apprehensive how this interview is going to be received once it hits the news stands. I know we talked about me being known in some circles as “The Sex Trade’s Most Hated Woman,” but I’d really NOT like that moniker splashed all over the cover, if you possibly have any control over it.

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Conformity to “traditions.” I have no patience with people who feel it’s best to be conservative, unremarkable, ordinary, to blend in and to blindly follow the life-script that gets pushed on all of us. To me, that’s consigning yourself to a lifetime of mediocrity and dead dreams.

9. On what occasion do you lie?

I lie when I have to protect my birth family, and that’s not the only thing I’ll do to keep them out of harm’s way. We’re not the typical close-knit family. We even have a dangerous side we show to those we perceive as threats. Spend some time in White Pine Bay, and you’ll soon hear all sorts of whispered rumors about us. And whispered warnings to stay off our bad side. Some of those people even act like we’re the Mafia or something! We might not have quite that much pull, but any of us will lie, defend ourselves, and more, when it comes to protecting our own.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Nothing, to be honest. I’ve always thought I look pretty damn good. If I had to pick one thing, I might’ve liked to share my sister’s bigger breasts. But trust me: they look best on her.

11. Which living person do you most despise?

It’s almost a tie between Ellen Sanders and Alex Romero. The former: Nearly assassinating the President while taking away another woman’s husband is one thing, BUT the latter: taking emotional and sexual advantage of my sister and trying to have my nephew locked up in an institution for no valid reason: NOW it gets personal.  

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?

Knows how to treat a lady. Ripped. Obedient. Has Mommy issues.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Sweetness. A great body. Willingness to give me complete control. Not only willing, but eager.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“‘Fuck.’ It’s such a blunt, to-the-point, attention-grabbing word in one syllable. Used the right way, it can express anything. Anger, excitement...climax...

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?

At one time, I didn’t believe having one “great love of your life” existed in reality. That was before I met my sister’s oldest son @leather-lover-massett. My sister’s his mother and my brother’s his father, so the only thing I’ve heard is accurate to call us is “aunt and nephew twice over.” DNA-wise, we’re closer to being mother and son than regular aunt & nephew. We were strongly, inexplicably drawn to each other from the minute we met, and over the course of one evening, we felt like we’d known each other our whole lives. Before anyone gets up in arms over the taboo of it: Genetic sexual attraction is real and happens 50% of the time in cases like mine. I didn’t believe in it either, until that indescribably intense love - and yes: lust - hit me like a ton of bricks. We’re two consenting adults, we’re hurting absolutely no one, and that’s the end of that discussion far as I’m concerned.

16. When and where were you happiest?

Cliche’ as it might sound: when I was an undergrad at Ohio State. I’d wanted to go there since I was 11 or 12 and watching the Buckeyes basketball games with my dad. I was a two-hour bus ride away from my parents, away from home for the first time; everything was so full of possibility. No one’s college experience is perfect. I would of course face challenges and pitfalls, but there were plenty of good times too. I haven’t been as completely, enthusiastically optimistic since.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?

It would have been cool to be able to learn an instrument. I suffered through piano and clarinet lessons before I started middle school, and I was terrible. It sounded like throwing metal trash cans down a flight of stairs, and I feel sorry for our neighbors back then. Tried some of my bandmates’ guitars when I was older, and I wasn’t much better. I can hear all the rhythms, timing, and such when I sing, but instruments: something just never computed.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

It’s all in the past now, but I would’ve changed the amount of courage I needed to first contact my birth family. I needed a lot more of it, which is why it took me so long. A lot of years were lost, and it would’ve been so different if we’d met earlier. I never got to meet my birth parents, and in a weird way I have some deep-down gratitude towards them, for putting me up for adoption. But then I start to feel guilty about that when I think of Norma and Caleb left behind with them, and the hell they were put through.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I don’t think about it much, and sometimes I lose sight of it, but yeah it’s achieving the rank of Special Agent. The exams and PT for it are quite challenging, and it can be very taxing mentally, physically, emotionally, every which way. Only 5-10% of field agents make it every year. Sadly, that percentage of women is even smaller. I’ve love to see that number start climbing within my lifetime.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

I haven’t thought about that one! If I got to come back as a whole new person and got to do it all over again, I’d want to come back as the rock star who makes it big this time. Recording contracts, sold-out arenas, the whole nine yards. No law enforcement career this time, in this next life.

21. Where would you most like to live?

I’d love to have a private island off the coast of Oregon and Washington State, and have a big fancy cabin built there for Dylan and myself. Since I spent time with my bio family, I’ve also fallen in love with this beautiful area of the country. Our island would have a causeway bridge and of course gorgeous views of the ocean and forests. Definitely with enough space and privacy for all of us in the family.

22. What is your most treasured possession?

My riverfront house I ended up buying, in northern Portland. Not that I don’t miss downtown Bethesda and all the urban excitement of D.C., sometimes. It was a big change, but I felt like I was home. On a deep level I’d never felt before. I can’t see myself living anywhere else, even after not this long a time. Now, if I could only get the city to sign off on the building permit for a hot tub on the back deck, that’d be great.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

That’s a tough one to talk about. I’d say it’s the feeling of being alone after a traumatic loss. A sudden loss of someone or something who’d meant the world to you, and you couldn’t have guessed it was coming. People can say they sympathize and understand how you feel, but they don’t. Not really. Not unless they’ve lived through the same kind of loss.  

24. What is your favorite occupation?

Ask me that a few years ago, and I would’ve said “Mine is! Working for the FBI, of course!” But lately I have low-key thought about what other career I would’ve pursued given the desire and the circumstances. The first one I came up with: I would’ve gotten my Krav Maga instructor certification and opened my own KM studio. It would be in White Pine Bay, because god knows women there especially need to learn self-defense. Then maybe I’d open another one in Portland, and after that: who knows? Another, very fleeting career thought: If I’d really pursued it seriously when I was younger, I might have ended up singing in a band that made it big, or *laughs* otherwise ended up in show business. But it wasn’t the path meant for me, in reality. 

25. What is your most marked characteristic?

I’ve always been told I pull the energy right to me once I walk into a room. Most people already there, their attention gets drawn to me even when they’re doing something else. I suppose that’s defined as magnetism. Others’ attention gets me energized and even more confident, though I’ve also been accused of arrogance. It’s something I’ve honed for years: the need to mentally and emotionally grab people and shut down any flickers of doubts they may have about me, my leadership, and my convictions that my course of action is the right one.

26. What do you most value in your friends?

I don’t have many female friends, except my sister and a few from the Academy or college that I keep in touch with on Facebook. It’s not that easy to make friends with most other women because we end up having nothing in common, and of course I’m guarded about my family. If I did have them, I’d value a lack of jealousy or toxic emotional fuckery that’s so prevalent among adult women who never matured past high school age. When it comes to finding a beautiful fuck-buddy, I don’t have nearly as much trouble ;)

27. Who are your favorite writers?

Anyone who has written a good autobiography or memoir. I love following other people’s journeys and experiences through this crazy life with all its highs and lows. They can be famous or not; it doesn’t matter to me. Everyone’s life is a story to tell. Some of my favorites: I’ll read anything by Haven Kimmel, most of Stacy Layne Wilson’s books, and similar. I’m currently reading “The Woman Who Smashed Codes” by Jason Fagone.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?

Most of what I read is non-fiction, like I said. I think anyone who writes down their life story and all its intricacies is pretty heroic, putting it out there for the world to read. If I had to pick a fictional hero, it would have to be Molly Bolt from Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle. You don’t have to be gay or even female to love this character. It also brought me a long way in realizing how much my own bisexuality is to be owned and celebrated.

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Gloria Steinem. I consider myself a Steinem-era feminist; I was raised that way and it definitely comes from my mother. I see all the ways feminism has changed over the decades, and it’s funny how some of those beliefs are downright conservative when you compare them to some of what’s considered “feminism” today.

30. Who are your heroes in real life?

I don’t truly have a lot of hero-worship for much of anyone. It goes back to my being a supposed egomaniac, which I still think is an exaggeration. Like a lot of kids, especially cops’ kids, my dad was one of my heroes when I was that young. Until I grew up some, then learned he (and any law enforcement officers) isn’t all-powerful against the evil in this world.  

31. What are your favorite names?

Those of us three Calhoun siblings: Emma, Caleb, and Norma. They sound rhythmic together. Even though I take serious issue with what my brother did to my sister, we are still bound by blood and that’ll never change. Caleb and I have a rocky relationship, and I would slap handcuffs on him in a second if he ever tried to hurt her again. But he’s still my brother too. Part of me will always believe there should’ve been three of us growing up together. I still wonder how different our lives would’ve turned out if we had.

32. What is it that you most dislike?

People who exploit and harm those who can’t defend themselves. They don’t even have to technically break the law, although most I’ve encountered do just that, over and over. There are too damn many of them in the world.

33. What is your greatest regret?

Shit, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to talk about this. *deep breath* My greatest regret is losing someone I loved deeply and highly valued as a colleague. He was married and a father of two, and I had no business falling for him. Of course that does nothing to stop it, ever. Neither of us could control falling in love. It’s taken me years to accept and believe David’s murder wasn’t my fault, that there was absolutely nothing I could’ve done to stop it. I’m just now coming to accept that what happened to him after he died isn’t my fault either.

34. How would you like to die?

In the words of John Lennon, “I’ll probably get popped off by some loony.” Haha! I kid! Ideally, I’d like to die naturally as an old lady, surrounded by loved ones. I don’t think the odds are much in my favor for that, but we can only wait and see...

35. What is your motto?

If you’re physically and mentally able to do something to make things better and punish the deserving, then you no longer have the luxury of shirking that responsibility.

Also:

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right--for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” --Eleanor Roosevelt

[margindoodles2407]

@whyoneartheven @seeking-elsewhither @jessicalled @griseldafury21 @cheerfullycatholic

@kommandantpinks @turdofanerd @majorproblems77 @seaotter-17

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my trash son. i hate him (affectionately)