#you can defend it as necessary for the films' goals or whatever but the whole 'well film as a medium requires...' is nonsense | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

geneticmisfit · 5 years

Text

Okay, so, I had posted this before, but it was during my Identity Crisis and Waning Muse so it didn’t really stick. Not anymore. Basically RIP to MCU canon but we’re doing things differently here.

Below you will find a numerous canon rewrites from Peter’s highschool years up to his post-graduation days, incorporating elements from the MCU movies, tv shows and games. No specific mentions on relationships and other characters unless it is necessary to the Narrative, because a lot of that tends to be extremely thread and partner based. We got it? Good.

ANYWAY ON WITH THE SHOW:

HIGH SCHOOL:

Freshman Year

-DECEMBER OF 2015 -Gains his powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider during a class trip to Doctor Curt Connors’ lab in Empire State University. -Spends the Christmas Break discovering and learning about his abilities, makes his First Suit out of some old pajamas.

-JANUARY 2016

-Being a kid and wanting to make a quick buck with his abilities, he enters a wrestling competition against Crusher Hogan.

-It’s the classic wrestling origin. Peter gets swindled out of money, a burglar steals money from the fight manager, Peter lets the Burglar go out of anger and spite for the manager. -Uncle Ben is murdered, Peter goes after the assailant and is horrified to discover it is the same Burglar he had let go earlier. -When you do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you. -Guilt stricken, he realizes the importance of Power and Responsibility and starts to fight crime, initially stopping small crimes, petty robberies, etc.

MARCH TO JUNE 2016:

-Rumors of an Insectoid-Man spread quickly throughout the underworld, it is initially believed to be a Lie made by crooks who want to dodge blame, but more and more YouTube videos of a man in a red and blue pajamas doing extraordinary feats quickly kills that possibility. -At the recommendation of his teachers, Peter starts interning at Connors’ Lab in ESU, it allows him to get a closer look at the kind of spiders that bit him, and leads him to discover that the irradiated spiders are a project Connors is working on under the funding of Oscorp. -During his crime fighting, he unknowingly halts several of The Big Man’s jobs. -Frequently swings into and stops the crimes of Alex O’Hirn and Flint Marko. -He runs into his first Out of the Ordinary Bad Guy when he ends up fighting Stilt-Man, instead of going for his legs he just punches him out cold.

CIVIL WAR INCIDENT - JUNE 26TH 2016

This is where the first of the several big canon rewrites comes in. For starters, the Airport Fight happens in New York instead of Germany, and Tony does not recruit Peter for his cause or give him the new suit. What happens is as follows,

-Peter sees the news of The Winter Soldier’s attack on United Nations. ( For the purposes of this rewrite, let’s say Bucky gets extradited to the U.S. for interrogation and trial and he is held in the same SHIELD base Steve woke up from his coma or whatever ) -Peter and Ned argue about Spider-Man not going for Stilt-Man’s legs during their fight. -Hearing the news of JFK suddenly closing down and rumors of people spotting ‘Very Serious Government People’ , Peter puts the two and two together and leaves abruptly, heading to the Airport in hopes of ‘Auditioning’ for the Avengers, because that’s what you do when you are a 15 year old with superpowers. -Beginning of the airport fight and Steve and Tony’s argument happens the same, majority of the fight happens the same way. -Peter, as Spider-Man, jumps into the fray during the Line Up. He immediately swings to Tony’s side because Iron Man is the hero he idolizes the most at that point in time. -Tony and Peter banter, with Tony not wanting a kid there and Peter being a dumbass kid and wanting to impress Tony. -Peter does not fight Steve, he is only there to take down Bucky and Prove His Mettle as a superhero. -The entire sequence with Bucky and Sam versus Spidey happens as shown. -Seeing Giant-Man appear and grumbling himself about the whole Stilt-Man argument still, Peter realizes he can go for Scott’s legs to take him down and does the whole AT-AT takedown move. -Gets knocked back onto the ground like in the movie, Tony goes to check on him to make sure this dumbass kid didn’t get himself killed, seeing he is alive and well, Tony is impressed but he tells Peter to go home. -Bedroom scene occurs as a post-credits scene, it becomes less about Tony recruiting Peter to his side and more about figuring out what the deal with this Spider-Man Kid is, leaves the suitcase with the Stark Suit as he leaves, says they’ll be in touch.

HOMECOMING - END OF AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 23RD 2016 / SOPHOMORE YEAR

-Peter turns sixteen in August 10th. -The movie happens largely the same -a Film by Peter Parker and the Limo Conversation naturally doesn’t happen considering the afromentioned changes to Civil War. -Tony does not save Peter from drowning, Peter gets out of the lake on his own. Reason for this change is that this scene makes Tony way controlling and uncaring towards Peter? Which, compounded by the following scenes, really paints Tony in an awful light. It also makes it more impactful that the next time, and thus the first time, Peter properly interacts with Tony since Civil War is in the direct aftermath of the Ferry Fiasco when Tony comes to collect the suit. They are then both valid in their arguments in that Peter has let the Stark Suit’s abilities get to his head and act way reckless than he should, ( Stark Suit thus serving the same narrative purpose as the Symbiote Suit ) but it also makes Peter valid in that Tony has been completely ignoring Peter ( at least on the surface / from Peter’s point of view ) until it was too late. -Rest of the movie unfolds as shown. -Toomes is Peter’s first proper Super Villain.

OCTOBER 2016 - MAY 2017

-Toomes’ arrest causes his Alien Weapons empire to fracture and for alien tech to be more readily available to the highest bidder ( In the movie it seems like Toomes really wanted the sales to be more gradual and under the radar ) -Shocker breaks away from Toomes’ crew and ends up joining the Enforcers, working for Hammerhead, who works as the Right Hand Man for The Big Man. -Spidey’s encounters with the Enforcers leads Peter to learn about the existence of The Big Man. -Phineas Mason is still at large, Peter dubs him ‘ The Tinkerer behind Toomes ’ toys ’ because he does not directly know who he is but highly suspects his existence. -A Mysterious Benefactor starts bankrolling experiments for Super Mercs, armed with the alien tech, with the, initial, goal of ‘distracting’ Spider-Man from the Finer details of The Big Man’s organization (if he’s too busy fighting Super Villains, he’d be too busy to stop Illegal Shipments ya kno). -Alex O’Hirn undergoes the procedure to become the Rhino, having the experimental alien armor fused to his skin, and only able to perspirate through his face. It is due to this fact Peter manages to take him down the first time, ‘ overheating ’ him to get him to pass out. -During this incident, Spidey gets Rhino to spill the identity of the Big Man, one L. Thompson Lincoln, aka Tombstone. -It is also during this time Spidey has his first run-in with Captain George Stacy. -He goes to visit Tombstone to tell him he knows about him, promptly gets his ass kicked and high-thwips it out of there.

THANOS INCIDENT - MAY 2017

Welcome to the Big Canon Rewrite Number Two, here, Peter does not go to Titan. First part of his appearance happens as shown, with Peter seeing the giant Q ship up in the sky and sneaking out of the bus to help Tony and co. fight the Aliens, but after losing Strange to the ship’s tractor beam, he stays on Earth and helps with the clean-up in the aftermath. Maybe even bumping into a few Defenders while doing so wink wink nudge. As a result, he does not get the Iron Spider-Man suit, sorry Marvel’s toy department.

ENDGAME - DATE UNKNOWN

Okay here’s the deal, it literally does not matter how long it has been since they’ve been blipped. Literally anyone important to a plot has been Conveniently Snapped, only reason there is a five year jump is so they can age Cassie so she can become Stature in Ant Man 3, and have Tony have a family for the Drama of it. Literally that’s the only reason, there is a reason why Far From Home makes a joke out of it. So for the purposes of sanity, let’s just say they were snapped throughout the duration of the summer and they conveniently get brought back at the beginning of the school year. -This means Peter is a part of the Final Fight but in his Stark Suit instead of the Iron Spidey suit, he also does not activate Instant Kill (why the FUCK would he, Russos!!!!!) I don’t care either way about the hug, so that’s up in the air, but he definitely does not cling onto Tony’s body lmfao nah. It is nevertheless very upsetting and near-traumatic for him to see someone die in front of him (again!)

JUNIOR YEAR

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2017

-Peter is now seventeen. -And he’s got PTSD like a motherfucker lmfao. -Getting turned into dust and coming back has everyone rattled, so the Criminal Underworld is working overtime. - Captain Stacy comes to Midtown to teach about Criminology, and also to keep an eye on his kid considering the circumstances. -Silvio ‘Silvermane’ Manfredi, head of the Maggia, is also due to be released on parole by the end of the year, so various Mob factions are trying to prepare themselves. -As a result, schematics to make more Rhino-like people hit the market, Spidey and O’Hirn actually end up teaming-up together to destroy the schematics, resulting in a three way fight between them, Hammerhead, and the Manfredi mob. -Hammerhead’s recent repeated failures shakes Tombstone’s faith in him. -The Enforcers get fancy schmancy Combat Enhancement Suits, courtesy of The Tinkerer, and Spidey has to deal with them. -Hammerhead stops the Enforcers’ getaway attempt in secret, signaling a rift between him and Tombstone. -Manfredi is released right before Christmas.

JANUARY 2018

-The Gang War™ begins in full force. -Spidey’s hands are full navigating the powder keg of a situation, with Tombstone and Manfredi vying for control, with Hammerhead planning something behind the scenes.

FEBRUARY 14TH 2018 -Hammerhead arranges a meeting of the factions in Metropolitan Opera House, without Tombstone’s knowledge. -Once revealed, Tombstone does not take kindly to this disobedience. -Hammerhead reaches his breaking point and attacks Tombstone. -Silvermane decides to take both of them out to eliminate the competition fully. -Silvermane, in a mechanical combat suit of his own (because comics bebey) attacks Tombstone and Hammerhead, resulting in a three way fight. -Spidey arrives and has to fight the three of them. -After a long and exhausting battle, Spidey prevails, Silvermane is arrested once again, L. Thompson Lincoln is publicly revealed to be The Big Man of Crime, and Hammerhead is nowhere to be found. -Tombstone posts bail, but Captain Stacy tells Spidey that his crime empire is crippled and there is a power vacuum. One that a certain Wilson Fisk will take advantage of soon.

LATE FEBRUARY - JUNE 2018

-Spidey is basically doing clean-up duty in the aftermath of the Gang War™ -He is trying to find where Hammerhead is, but comes up empty. -All Spidey can find are the rumors that he went back to his old employment under the Maggia. -He takes down last of the known Manfredi fronts before preparing for his Europe trip (it’s the restaurant fight from the FFH trailers)

FAR FROM HOME - JUNE 2018 -Happens largely the way it is depicted in the movie -He does not have the Iron Spider Suit still, in case you forgot. -Smaller differences being Peter being pegged the ‘New Iron Man’ less because of his ‘Mentorship’ under Tony and more because people are just fucking desperate for a new Big Hero, which is where Mysterio comes in. -He sees Ben’s grave instead of Tony’s during the Mysterio Fun Tour of Trauma, Zombie Iron Man still comes out of it tho because Symbolism ( not because Tony is a new Uncle Ben figure, but because it represents Peter not always being able to save everyone, even though Tony’s condition was out of his hands.) -BIGGEST DIVERGENCE: Unless plotted, I generally DO NOT recognize Peter’s identity being outed. There are two options / variations I could go with -Peter IS claimed to be Spider-Man, but after a Movie’s worth of adventures, he enlists the help of either a skrull or Chameleon (Dmitri the Bus Driver in FFH) to have Spidey appear in the same room as Peter and re-establishes his secret identity. -Mysterio just brands Spider-Man as a menace and that’s that. In any case, this leads to..

SENIOR YEAR

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2018

-Peter turns eighteen. -Branded as a menace, Spider-Man is now disliked and hunted by most authorities. -Captain Stacy, however, does not believe Mysterio and is one of Spidey’s few friends still left in the police force. -He also makes numerous remarks towards Peter and Spider-Man that suggests he figured out his secret identity on his own. -Anastasia Kravinoff arrives in New York with the intention of Hunting Spider-Man. -At the same time, Mac Gargan is hired by The Mysterious Benefactor to undergo the Super Merc procedure to hunt Spider-Man. -Kraven has her first encounter with Spidey, in which she manages to tear off a piece of his suit that she later uses to track his scent. -Mr Harrington’s class trip to Bronx Zoo is promptly ruined when Kraven shows up tracking Spidey’s trail. -The publicized skirmish in the Zoo attracts the attention of Gargan, now in a mechanical suit with a long, poison-tipped tail, stylized after Gargan’s favorite arthropod, which easily earns him the nickname ‘Scorpion’. -Spidey manages to escape, but barely. -It all comes to a head in New York Botanical Garden is a totally epic final showdown. -Maybe Rhino gets involved too and it’s a full on Survival of the Fittest in the jungle. -Peter gets stung by the poison tail but manages to shake it off. -He gets speared in the thigh at least once during the battle. -Scorpion and Rhino get imprisoned in the Vault, Kravinoff gets arrested as well but she posts bail and gets out scot free because she’s got Powerful Connections™

JANUARY - MAY 2019

-Doctor Connors achieves a breakthrough on his Cross-Species formula -He tests it on himself, and initially achieves great results by regrowing his arm. -Over the following weeks, however, more and more side effects start to show by patches of green scales on his skin, increased aggression and hostility and occasional lapses in intelligence. -Around March, he has his first Lizard transformation. -Peter suspects it’s Connors, but he does not figure it out until April. -With each transformation, Connors stays as Lizard longer and longer. -I am basically ripping off the plot of the first TASM movie. -Peter and Gwen manage to synthesize an antidote. -Connors has a similar goal as to his movie counterpart, but he decides to Unleash the Lizard virus on top of Empire State Building. Because a) King Kong reference with Lizard climbing the antenna, and b) Connor going from Empire State University to Empire State Building, it’s a fun progression. -Spidey and Lizard fight on top of Empire State, with George Stacy coming to Spidey’s aid. -Spidey manages to administer the antidote to the Lizard, reverting him back to Connors who retains no memories of his actions as the Lizard. -Stacy gets injured by Lizard and before succumbing to his injuries, tells Peter to keep Gwen safe and ‘out of it’. -Lizard’s true identity remains unknown to the public, but Connors decides to relocate his family to Florida to get away from the noise of the city. Before leaving, he tells Peter to seek out his old colleague Otto Octavius if he wants to further his studies.

END OF MAY 2019

-Peter Parker graduates Midtown School of Science and Technology. -He applies and is accepted by Empire State University. Peter does not consider any other college as he wants to stay in New York for obvious reasons.

FRESHMAN UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2019

-Peter is nineteen. -He starts his studies in ESU -He is still not the Most Popular -Peter reconnects with Harry Osborn (they are Old Childhood friends and Harry used to be in Midtown for the first year but then he went to Europe, as you do.) -Spidey is still branded as a menace and hunted, though not as ferociously as before as the public’s opinion starts to turn positive ever so slowly. -The Mysterious Benefactor has Alistair Smythe build robotic spiders to hunt and slay the Spider. Like Spider Slayers. Catchy name huh. -Peter has various encounters with Slayers while trying to figure out who is behind them -He eventually discovers it’s Alistair Smythe and tracks him to Oscorp. -Smythe unleashes the Ultimate Spider-Slayer, The Black Widow to try and stop Spidey once and for all. -Fight spills to the power plant, an Oscorp employee who is currently working on the plant, Max Dillon, gets caught in the crossfire and gets electrocuted. -Spidey manages to take down Smythe, Dillon is hospitalized. -Norman Osborn publicly denounces and distances himself from Smythe ( he’s The Mysterious Benefactor if you haven’t caught on yet ) -Norman profits both from making Super Mercs and Spider-Hunters for various factions behind the scenes, and for building housing units to hold said Super Mercs and Spider-Hunters, Vault is his creation. -He is also a terrible dad, but he does genuinely care for Harry, go figure. -Harry starts taking Gloublin Green, an experimental enhancer, to boost his academic and athletic life, as his body is regularly failing due to a hereditary disease (NOT the Goblin disease, the one Harry’s mom had in the PS4 game) -Max spends Christmas in the hospital and gradually transforms into Electro. -Black Cat drops in to give her Christmas Greetings by saying the mob is salvaging the parts from Spider-Slayer fights to re-arm themselves, also notifies him to the existence of a new Big Man consolidating power. -Peter thinks it’s Hammerhead, the only loose end from the previous Gang War, and starts his investigation into him. -Peter discovers Hammerhead leads the Maggia now, having quickly climbed through the ranks after the fallout of the last Gang War.

JANUARY - MAY 2020

-Harry joins the ESU football team, his performance enhanced by The Green. -Electro is Born and he’s Angry -He blames Smythe for his condition and tries to attack Oscorp, not knowing that Smythe is imprisoned. -Spidey arrives and fights him, fight eventually spilling to Times Square -Is it obvious I’ve started ripping off TASM 2 yet or…. -Electro is arrested and sent to Ravencroft for rehabilitation. -The news of a new Big Man starts making the rounds. -Harry’s Green Juicing gets bad, he starts blacking out.

SOPHOMORE UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

-Peter is twenty. -He starts interning for Otto Octavius after Doctor Connors’ suggestion. -Flint Marko returns after a long absence in the streets, Spidey learns that Marko left the life of crime when he fell in love and got married, but returned back into it once he learned his baby was born with a disease and he needed the money for surgery. -Bet you didn’t expect me to rip off Raimi in this. -Marko is offered money to undergo a Super Merc experiment of his own, inspired by the Elementals Mysterio faked back a few years ago. Experiment uses bio-electricity generated by Electro, but it goes ‘wrong’ and Marko is turned to dust. -Sike he can control it, he’s Sandman now. -Spidey and Sandman fight, once Peter learns of his motives, he tries to get him to stop. -Marko is told to stop the movement of an oil tanker so the new Big Man can siphon it dry. -Spidey and Marko fight on the tanker, tanker explodes, Marko expresses remorse for he only wanted the money and not to hurt anyone, so he helps usher the ship crew to safety and contains the explosion, turning into glass due to the heat. -Sandman is presumed deceased, but he survived and just blew away gently in the wind. -Maybe he’s out there somewhere who knows.

JANUARY - MAY 2021 -Norman discovers Harry’s Green Usage, he gets Harry to stop. -Stupid boy drinking the Green instead of inhaling it like his dad did I mean what -Harry discovers the Green exacerbated the progression of his illness. -Spidey meets Yuri Watanabe, who is the lead detective and later Captain who is after the Big Man and the Mob. -Peter discovers the identity of the actual new Big Man, it’s Wilson Fisk, quickly filling the power vacuum after Tombstone’s defeat. -Spidey and Fisk fight, with Fisk seriously injuring Spidey and him having to swing away.

JUNIOR UNDERGRAD

September - December 2021

-Peter is twenty one. -As Harry’s illness progresses more and more, he and Peter’s friendship is strained, Peter is unaware of the illness. -Norman starts winding down Super Merc experiments as he turns his focus into curing Harry. -He also readies for a mayoral run because he’s nothing if not a multitasker. -Harry wonders if Spider-Man’s abilities can cure him, wants a bit of his blood, Spidey is like ‘ew no wtf’ -Great Harry hates Spidey now. -Desperate, Harry springs Electro out of Ravencroft to sic him on Spidey and make him bleed. -Electro is like ‘Sure’ but once freed, he immediately goes to the Vault to try and kill Smythe. -You just can’t trust bio-electrical beings nowadays. -Spidey fights Electro in the Vault. -Electro cuts the power to the Vault and releases a bunch of inmates, but Spidey stops him before he can cut the power that holds the more super powered inmates. -Electro is imprisoned in the Vault.

MARCH - MAY 2020 -Yeah Peter had a quiet winter for once can you believe it. -Norman is elected mayor of New York, using his role in the building of the Vault to boost his approval ratings, motherfucker was playing the Long Game. -Norman revives his old genetic experiments to find a cure for Harry. -Devil’s Breath experiment is resurrected. -Harry’s condition worsens, Norman decides to send him to ‘Europe’ to heal. -In truth, Harry is in Oscorp in ‘stasis’. -Spidey’s attention turns yet again to the rising gang activity, he channels his focus into taking down Fisk.

SENIOR UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER 2020 - MAY 2021

-Pete turns twenty two. -He spends most of the year working on his thesis like a good nerd. -Spidey is occasionally tipped toward Fisk fronts by a Mysterious Goblinafactor -Norman wanted to bust into the Crime Scene being the Goblin and taking over the Big Man’s turfs but Fisk beat him to it so he has to be content with just being the Mayor for the time being -Goblins am I right. -He’s also the one who supplied Silvermane with his own armor. -Also the one who maaaay have broadened the rift between Hammerhead and Tombstone by sabotaging Hammerhead’s plans behind the scenes. -He is the Big Man behind the Big Men if you will. -Anyway back to Peter -Turns in his thesis, graduates ESU. Strength of his thesis is what convinces Otto to have Peter also come into work with him in the Brand New Octavius Industries. -Norman is content to just play the Mayor and let Fisk be as Spidey and Yuri gather more and more evidence.

POST-GRAD / INSOMNIAC’S SPIDEY STUFF -Events of the game happen broadly the same -Fisk is taken down, Mister Negative enters the scene, Devil’s Breath Incident happens and Spidey gets his ass thoroughly kicked by Sable, etc. etc. -Otto turns into Ock. -Ock facilitates the Vault Breakdown (MCU got a Raft up and running and it ain’t in NYC sooo, Vault it is) and forms the Sinister Six. -However instead of Vulture being part of the Sinister Six, it’s Kraven. She’s back for a proper rematch. -Unless plotted, May does not die from exposure to the virus, she just gets really messed up and hospitalized, but she gets cured later. -Events of the DLC happen largely as shown as well, Hammerhead techs himself up, Yuri goes Wraith, Sable kicks Spidey’s ass again but also grows a Heart. Aw. -Osborn resigns in disgrace, but as luck would have it, Fisk and Li’s arrest leaves a nice Goblin-shaped hole in the criminal underworld for Gosborn to fill. -Norman discovers Harry’s ‘cure’ is sorta sentient.

WILL GORMAN GOSBORN FINALLY FACE OFF WITH SPIDER MAN? WILL SPIDEY LEARN THE REAL MASTERMIND BEHIND EVERYTHING? WILL HARRY GET GOOPED? WILL PETER FINALLY DISCOVER WHY KIDS LOVE THE TASTE OF CAP’N CRUNCH?

ALL THAT AND MORE, NEXT TIME ON, THE SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING SPIDER MAN!

#headcanon tag.#this is still my magnum opus ngl #rip to mcu canon but fuck em kids

7 notes · View notes

tomtefairytaleblog · 6 years

Text

I’ve seen a lot of people immediately associate Puella Magi Madoka Magica with the story of Faust, in part because of the whole “Deal with the Devil” plot element. And the show does reference Faust here and there (i.e. the name “Gretchen” shows up near the end, and the character associated with it plays a huge role in the overall plot; not to mention all the other Easter eggs scattered throughout).

That’s all well and good, but if we’re talking about stories that involve a girl making a bad deal with a diminutive creature that turns out to have ulterior motives, couldn’t one also draw parallels between Madoka and “Rumpelstiltskin?”

(Long post with spoilers ahead.)

The most popular iteration of “Rumpelstiltskin” is pretty straightforward: the daughter of a local miller is tasked with spinning straw into gold by a greedy king, after her father makes a huge boast in an attempt to seem like a big deal. One night while the daughter is despairing over her task, a little man appears and offers to do the deed for her, in exchange for something of hers. After the first quota is met, the daughter is forced to continue spinning, and eventually gets to the point where the little man requires her to hand over her firstborn as an exchange. The daughter cannot bear to do this, and eventually must discover the creature’s name in order to be free from him; she does so, and the creature is never heard from again.

There have been numerous retellings/variations of the story, but Walter Rankin sums it up nicely in his book Grimm Pictures: Fairy Tale Archetypes in Eight Horror and Suspense Films using a quote from Maria Tatar: “At the heart of all versions of [the tale] is a contract made between an innocent young girl and a devilish creature” (125). Does that sound a bit familiar?

In Episode 8 (out of 12) of Madoka, there’s a scene where Homura and Kyubey confront each other, and Homura reveals that she knows what Kyubey really is, and what its long-term plans for Madoka are, hence why she’s determined to stop Madoka from making a contract with it. The scene also reveals that Homura is from an alternate timeline/future, and her power is actually time manipulation. When Kyubey asks if she wants to change Madoka’s fate that badly, she responds (English dub dialogue) “I do. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to stop you, Kyubey... Or should I say, ‘Incubator?’” It is at this point in the series that Kyubey takes a turn towards creepy, with one shot framing it in shadow, with only its beady, red eyes glaring at the camera, and it becomes very clear that it isn’t the helpful, magical companion it initially presented itself as.

Episode 10 then goes into more detail about Homura’s past: In the original timeline, Homura was a quiet, nervous girl who struggled to keep up in school and make friends, not helped by the fact that she spent some time in the hospital due to a heart condition. Here she met Madoka and another girl, Mami, and found out about the existence of Magical Girls and Witches, the latter of which are later revealed to be the mutated forms of Magical Girls, after they lose hope and have fallen into despair. After growing close to the two of them, in particular Madoka, who is in the same grade as her, Homura watches them both die while fighting Walpurgisnacht, a notoriously unbeatable Witch. Madoka’s death in particular hits Homura the hardest, especially when she finds Madoka’s lifeless body in the middle of the ruins left in Walpurgisnacht’s wake. Coincidentally/conveniently, Kyubey appears while Homura is crying over Madoka’s body, hearing her scream out (English dub dialogue) “It wasn’t worth saving me, if you’re not alive... I want you back!” This leads to Kyubey offering to grant her wish, in exchange for the price of dedicating her life to fighting Witches.

Homura makes her wish--to redo her meeting with Madoka, only this time, she wants to be strong enough to protect her friend--and she is given the ability to stop and reverse time, and goes back in time, allowing her to fight by Madoka’s side. However, Homura is unable to fulfill her wish of stopping Madoka’s death, and must constantly repeat time, eventually learning that Kyubey is nothing more than a manipulative liar who hopes that the girls will eventually lose hope and become Witches, as his race needs the energy output this brings for their own goals. And so the series is revealed to be one long conflict between Homura and Kyubey/Incubator.

So, to recap, just like the Miller’s Daughter, Homura is approached by a mysterious creature while wallowing in despair, and is offered what she desires in exchange for a heavy price. And just like the Miller’s Daughter, she learns that she has been tricked, and attempts to gain an edge by learning the creature’s true identity. While there is no baby at the risk of being lost, one could argue that Madoka fills that role in some capacity, given that Homura’s whole goal is to have her friend back and safe from Kyubey’s influence.

In the chapter “Rumpelstiltskin and the Decline of Female Productivity” in his book Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale, Jack Zipes comments that a common element in Rumpelstiltskin stories is the idea of a girl who cannot perform adequately. Within the context of the fairytale, this refers to the girl being unable to spin what is required of her--Zipes mentions an alternate version where the girl’s problem is that she can only spin gold, which is not of much use to her (56). In Madoka, Homura’s problem is that she perceives herself as weak and worthless; she becomes easy prey for a Witch early on when the latter takes advantage of her low self-esteem to lull her into wallowing in her self-pity, to the point that she unknowingly wanders into a labyrinth, which leads to her being saved by Madoka and Mami. “Without this predicament,” Zipes writes, “there is no tale... And as we all know, tales are born out of necessity and desire” (Zipes 56). Homura’s constant time-traveling and witnessing her friends die over and over again end up affecting her considerably, to the point that by the time the series’ plot starts, she has become considerably colder and outwardly emotionless.

The image of a spinning wheel also factors into both the Miller’s Daughter and Homura’s tales. The Miller’s Daughter must work with a spinning wheel to spin straw into gold; Homura, meanwhile, possesses a circular shield that, when turned, can stop time, and if allowed to spin a bit more, can reverse the flow of time as well. In fact, sequences of Homura traveling back in time are accompanied by images of her shield spinning. Both images call to mind the Rota Fortunae, the Wheel of Fortune, and how both heroines need to work against opposing forces in order to change their destinies. In Greek mythology, the spindle was also tied to the Fates, who spun the thread of life and determined what was to come of a person before they died. Zipes calls it “an image of the cosmos that contained the Platonic spindle of necessity in it” (59).

Then there’s the act of naming the mysterious creature: knowing the true name of someone or something is a staple in folklore, due to its link to having power over the unknown, and means to defend oneself from a threat (Zipes 51). In “ Rumpelstiltskin,” the Miller’s Daughter finally rids herself of the title character when she learns his name; in Madoka, Homura knowing Kyubey is an Incubator begins the chain of events in the series that unmask Kyubey’s real motives for contracting Magical Girls. Walter Rankin, in his analysis of the fairytale, points out the implicit consequences that may unfold when the Miller’s Daughter becomes required to spin gold once more, now that she lacks the creature’s assistance (126). Similarly, knowing Kyubey is an Incubator doesn’t automatically solve Homura’s problems; it does, however, give her knowledge necessary to begin to fight back against the Incubators.

Both stories feature a girl who strikes a deal with a demonic creature in exchange for a heavy price; both end up having to fight back against the creature in order to keep what they have, and while learning the name of said creature gives them an edge. There are a few unanswered/unsolved plot threads that imply that things aren’t over entirely yet--the king may be greedy again, the Incubators may do whatever it takes to get energy--but ultimately both are about one girl trying to survive a situation they have found themselves in, in order to hold onto what they have.

Outside Sources

Rankin, Walter. “The Devil in the Details: ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ and Rosemary’s Baby’.” Grimm Pictures: Fairy Tale Archetypes in Eight Horror and Suspense Films, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007, pp. 118-141.

Zipes, Jack. “Rumpelstiltskin and the Decline of Female Productivity.” Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale, University Press of Kentucky, 1994, pp. 49-71.

#puella magi madoka magica #rumpelstiltskin #brothers grimm #anime #television #madoka kaname #homura akemi #kyubey #mod post #analysis #fairy tales #long post #text

197 notes · View notes

zenosanalytic · 6 years

Text

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Politics

So I’m FINALLY getting back to this after, as usually, letting myself get distracted with other things |:T Partly that was me wanting to do a rewatch to get my thinking on this issue in order, and then not having the time to before it left theaters(X| X|), but Anyway! I’m doing it now!!

Tl;dr: I feel like the details of the plot confuse and undercut its laudable messages, and that it furthers a sort of shallow, commoditized understanding of “rebellion” as a character trait/mindset rather than a political act, much like Rogue One.

Political Ethics

So like I said, the messages are good. The Rebellion is clearly presented as Good and the First Order clearly as Bad. The Rebellion is egalitarian, people-oriented, universalist(humans & nonhumans of all stripes are welcome, and there’s no visible gender discrimination), collectivist, and affirming of its members’ worth, needs, and initiative; these values deserve to be presented as Good. The First Order is hierarchical, object-oriented[1], exclusionary(no place for nonhumans; mostly filled with white men), aristocratic[2], and actively erases or ignores the individuality of all but its command staff[3]; these “values” deserve to be presented as Bad.

Unfortunately the plot focuses on the individual “heroes” of The Rebellion, an inherently aristocratic perspective[4] and, aside from the planetary evacuation, none of the Rebellion’s successes have a particularly collective feel to them. In certain respects this is necessary, Poe can’t start off understanding he has to think of the group first if learning to do that is his arc, but that’s a single character, and there ought to be a noticeable progression as he learns that lesson through the film; instead, he continues to make the same myopic mistake again and again until the very end. This mismatch does more than undermine the larger message; it makes it seem as if Poe’s actions exist to create drama in the film, rather than as part as a personal narrative, within a wider story. The presentation of Holdo is much better on this count, she’s almost always in a group, discussing and directing actions(that we aren’t privy to |:T), though unfortunately those are all distilled into individual moments for her, or antagonistically between her and Poe. One could argue that Poe’s increasing reliance on followers rather than his own actions --first Rose and Finn then what’s left of the pilots-- is meant to show him growing as a leader, but I find that argument unconvincing. Rose and Finn’s mission is a decision he makes on his own without consultation in secret in contravention of the collective’s decisions, and is explicitly presented as yet another “Heroic” mistake on his part. The Mutiny is similarly presented, and the collective aspect of it rest on a single scene, after which the focus moves back again to Poe. Something as simple as having Poe be with others, visibly leading them, in these arc-moments, or surrounding Holdo with bustle rather than just people, or showing extras accomplishing vital tasks, would have given the Rebellion a more collective, egalitarian feel. Instead, we get Poe taking the bridge on his own; Holdo standing up to Poe, alone; Holdo and Leia stepping out of separate smoke-clouds to stop his mutiny, alone; Holdo left on the bridge, alone, sacrificing herself for the collective.

The overall presentation of the Resistance/Rebellion adds to this confusion. The Rebellion/Resistance is supposed to represent the Galaxy and its people as they are, which is why its membership is diverse and why the oppressed like Rose and the children at the stables side with it. But the Resistance isn’t presented as a mass-movement: instead it’s a small handful of stalwarts Fighting the Good Fight, led by an even more select cadre of Heroes responsible for all their successes. It is more vanguard than expression of the common will, let alone defenders of a standing government which unites the galaxy. This desire to stack the odds against the “Rebels” --to emphasize their vulnerability, increase tension, and contrast their individuality with the dehumanized First Order-- ends up presenting the struggle for democracy and freedom as an elite endeavor. The common struggle for dignity, democracy, and freedom cannot be fought by a handful of mythic heroes; collectivist goals cannot be accomplished through elitist ends and avoid corruption into precisely what they fought against. Leaders and organization can and must exist to direct action and prevent subversion, but to present them AS the movement and the movement as alone and abandoned -as the “spark of hope” that “will ignite the galaxy”- is to present the people of the galaxy as the passive object of their will rather than as their partners in the struggle and society.

Which leads into a more delicate question about TLJ’s politics: people, sacrifice, who dies, and who matters. There are four events that focus and turn on these questions, in two mirrored pairs: Poe’s distraction/bombing run and Luke’s illusion; Holdo’s kamikaze and Finn’s attempted one. Structurally these are a bit imbalanced as three take place during or after the climax, and one at the very beginning of the movie. They are presented like this: Poe risks his life to distract Hux so the Rebels can escape, which is good, but then he needlessly risks, and loses, the lives of his pilots to blow up a dangerous ship, which is bad; Holdo selflessly commits kamikaze to save the Rebel transports and destroys much of the Order fleet, which is good; Finn tries to selflessly commit kamikaze to save the rebel base and destroy the Battering Ram, which is bad, but is stopped by Rose risking her life to crash him off course, which is good; Luke projects himself over galactic distances, knowing it will kill him, to delay the Order long enough for the Rebels to escape, which is good.

The message here seems to be that it is right to sacrifice your life for others in dire moments, and wrong to sacrifice the lives of others for your plans, which fits perfectly with the moral and political opposition established between the Rebellion and the First Order(and between Poe’s grandstanding and Holdo’s quite marshaling of the fleet), but the episode with Finn puts an asterisk on that. I am NOT saying Finn should have died; that’d have been criminal and derailed the whole franchise and ruined this movie for me. But I do feel like they could have handled that sequence better, or presented that attempted sacrifice with circumstances that more clearly explicated the ethical message. It must also be said that women are allowed to die and risk themselves for others far more often than men in TLJ. Given the central place of women in the film, Luke’s sacrifice, and that, as above, killing Finn off would be a Horrible Criminal Offense that I would gladly hemotoxin people over, I don’t think TLJ intentionally played into this trope of women being “naturally” more sacrificing, “giving”, and group-oriented than men, but it’s still a Bad Look. This is worsened by the writing of and around Poe; he’s never shown mourning the loses he caused, never blames himself, never questions his actions, never loses the regard of his crewmates or the fond forbearance of his commanders for his atrocious decisions. Nominally he is demoted but he’s still able to do basically whatever he likes and, if anything, his insubordination marks him even moreso as the future of the Rebellion(protip: this is nepotism, not institutionalized revolt). Out of all the bombingcrew and fighter pilots who die only one, Paige, is given extended attention and heroic treatment, and nobody aside from Rose even mentions her after her death.

And also: Holdo and the A-Wing Pilot were both Great, and I Loved Them, and why did you kill them, Rian Johnson, in a movie I mostly enjoyed???

Rose and Finn’s storyline was far more politically satisfying to me. Their escape is fundamentally a collective one(though making it a full-on prison break would have been nice for this); without the Fathiers, children, and BB-8(sigh, and DJ *eyeroll*), they wouldn’t have been able to get out. They free the Fathiers in the process of freeing themselves rather than using them to advance their goals. Moreover, Rose gets her chance to be part of putting a metaphorical fist through a town built on exploitation and the performative excess it affords. That the movie would take aim at wealth like this, implicating it in the fascist, ethnic-supremacy of the First Order(even rich non-humans; there is no ethical stock-trading in galactic capitalism), really surprised me; I just wish it’d aimed wider, at wealth in general, rather than at weapons-dealers. Though having said that, singling out weapons-dealers does have a particular salience to USian politics, so maybe that’s part of it. Anyway: the message is far clearer than in Poe’s sections, bolstered by the action, and they get a chance to throw barbs at a “both sides are bad” idjit on the way out, which: Very Satisfying ^u^

Rey’s story I didn’t really see as all that political but, thinking about it just now, there is one aspect of it that touches on morality and politics, and that is her desire to “turn” Kylo Ren. In Impermanence I went into the psychological reasons Rey may have had for wanting to do this, but it all lends itself to a political analysis as well. Rey’s attempt to turn a violent fascist is not, I think, a promotion of the “let’s debate them, guys” school of rhetorical critique. To begin with she’s entirely willing to throw down with him if he chooses his desire for dominance over his connection to other people(and does), and secondly there’s much less uncertainty for her in this equation than in real life. Rey can feel Ben’s uncertainty and doubt, his love for his family and the anguish he feels over hurting them, the truth of his conviction that he is a monster for doing it. He is, absolutely, manipulating her, and using her knowledge of his feelings to manipulate her, but it’s a fundamentally different situation than one where the only thing you really have to honestly assess another person’s intentions is their actions, and the goal their words are meant to achieve. Besides, TLJ is about a war with fascists brought on by a central gov apparently doing nothing to stop their rise; that seems more a promotion of confrontation than of “debate”.

Rebellion

The presentation of “Rebel” is my other big complaint. I don’t really think this will take very long. It basically has two parts.

The first is: these people ARE the government. Leia helped rebuild the Republic; all the soldiers, officer or grunt, are Republic citizens who must have learned about how to fight from Republic institutions(and if they have military academies, why wouldn’t they have a military?). There was the suggestion in TFA that they were secretly funded by the Republic. The First Order is a hostile, invading, outside polity defined, to the audience, entirely by its militarism and oppression. So what are the Rebels Rebelling against? The term “Resistance” is frequently used, but by the end of the film it falls away entirely for this “Rebel” label, which is taken as exemplifying their values, mindset, and situation. But again: they are fighting to defend a standing, democratic, egalitarian government. They are no more rebels than Union soldiers fighting Confederate traitors were. The Empire itself, based on what I know of the backstory, was a massive and short-lived break from the historic mores and institution of galactic society. There is little, if any, polity calling for the Empire’s return, and many worlds actively supported the Rebellion during the civil war. So why are they so few, the Order so many, and why does no one come to help them? All these decisions made to heighten the situation and amplify the heroism of our protagonists not only undermine the idea that the galaxy is behind them, but also pour into valorizing this “Rebel” label and marking these “Rebels” as the courageous conscience of an apathetic and passive world, but it is the First Order that is rebelling against the democratic government that galaxy has legitimated, and in the name of the very defunct fascist coup they help that government end. The Galaxy does not need to be saved from itself: it needs to be protected from the forces of oppression and exploitation.

The second is this, and it’s related. Rebellion is an act and, like any act, it’s morality is judged by its context: why it is done, what it is responding to, how it is done, and what it accomplishes. Rebellion, in itself, is absent of moral meaning. Yet we see here, just as in Rogue One, rebellion being presented as good-in-and-of itself, “Rebel” as a personal quality rather than an act(i.e.: Phasma: “you were always scum!” Finn: “Rebel Scum!”), and zero examination of WHO is rebelling in this situation, against WHAT, and WHY. “Rebel” and “Rebellion” are transformed from political actions with discrete content into brands for people to wear; to be more direct, into corporate logos for Disney to sell. This is fucked up and, in the political context of the US where murderous confederate diehards like Jesse James are STILL lauded as folk heroes, unhelpful.

Nitpicks

The rest of my quibbles are pretty unimportant and mostly have to do with effective worldbuilding, so I don’t think they really detract from the movie in any general way, or even for a general audience that DOESN’T get twitchy over how believable depictions of political and social order are on screen.

Here is a Convenient List of my Niggling Complaints:

where’s the Republic? It’s a galaxy-wide government built on a foundation of THOUSANDS OF YEARS of galaxy-wide democracy pre-dating the Empire and, while having its capital destroyed with all-hands would certainly sow chaos, it certainly wouldn’t make it disappear! In every system!!

Where’s the Republic Military??

If the Republic HAD no military other than the (unofficial) Resistance, then wouldn’t the sudden wealth of all these weapons-manufacturers just as the First Order’s ramping up its rhetoric be kind of... suspicious???

And why would a government birthed from a rebellion against a fascistic “Empire” disarm in the face of organized remnants of said Empire(led by another Dark Jedi, no less!) anyway????

Why couldn’t this story take place during an all-out assault on a confused and headless Republic+military, rather than with the Republic poofed suddenly out of existence?x5

The collapse of governments is chaotic on all aspects of society and especially commerce: couldn’t they have shown at least ONE person on Canto Bight freaking out about their portfolio, and all the deals with the Republic gov they had that have just disappeared?x6

So like I said these aren’t really BIG complaints, but they’re aspects of the film that make my political-history brain Itchy. Maybe they’re all answered in EU material but if they are: it’s kind of a bad idea to build movies on information that the audience isn’t going to have going in, and won’t get by watching. Anyway they BUG me --just like the Bombers for all their rhetorical importance BUGGED me-- in basically every aspect, and I just wanted to State that For the Record. States and Governments don’t vanish in a day, they influence and express the societies which create them, and they always leave behind survivors.

[1]putting its faith in tools(the Dreadnought, their Cannons, the Battering Ram) and surplus(large ships, numerous fleets, innumerable faceless legions).

[2]Everyone speaks with posh accents. Also: only command-staff is allowed to show their faces or include idiosyncrasy in their uniforms.

[3]And even their avenues of expression are supremely limited.

[4]A “Hero” is, necessarily, “outstanding” and possessed of “superior” qualities, whether physical or moral. To be a “Hero” is, by definition, to be “better than” and “above” other people, which is what aristocracy - “rule by the best/highest”- is all about. And Yes: meritocracy literally means the samething as aristocracy, so don’t let people tell you it’s a democratic concept.

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #SW: TLJ #Politics #Movie Reviews #zA's Outside Viewing #analytic posts

12 notes · View notes

jewrocker · 4 years

Text

Biden’s “Impossible Dream”

Along with the other eighty-million Americans with an IQ over five, I too am doing backflips at the prospect we’re just weeks away from flushing this unprecedentedly corrupt and incomprehensibly cruel administration into the cesspool of infamy where they belong. However, as ecstatic as I am at the thought of an actual human being once again occupying the Oval Office, one must still be realistic as to what to expect going forward. Sadly, it seems, to the contrary of our president-elect.

President Biden’s statement that he intends to be a president ‘...to all Americans’, while admirable and more than a welcome change from the incoherent ramblings of the Mad King, seems to be more than a bit out of touch with what’s actually going on in this country in 2020, and beyond. While he may indeed devote every ounce of energy to this seemingly insurmountable task, unity is still a two-way street. Last we checked, there’s a massive concrete divider in the middle of this one. A concept that the president-elect inexplicably doesn’t seem to fully have grasped. Especially, considering, as a former vice-president, he lived through eight years of Senate Republicans sticking it to his boss every chance they got. I mean, “Hello, McFly?” Do you really believe Congressional Republicans are just going to snap out of their near twenty-year trance because you’re friends with them?

Exhibit One: Leader McConnell.

If you’re old enough to remember the Obama years, you’ll have no trouble recalling the now-infamous line uttered by that bastion of Honor and Ethics, Mitch McConnell. That being, “My only goal for the next four years is to make Obama a one-term president.” Aside from being borderline treason for a Senator to openly admit he’s going to spend every waking moment betraying his oath in order to achieve his despicably anti-American goal, “Moscow Mitch,” as he’s now affectionately known, hasn’t changed a bit. In fact, he’s gotten worse, and, thanks to his miraculous re-election in a state that had him at just an 18% approval rating, more emboldened.

After shamelessly defending our Russian-asset POTUS at every opportunity, including predicting the outcome of an impeachment hearing before it actually took place, the worst leader in the history of the United States Senate spent the past four years doing NOTHING, but filling an unprecedented number of conservative judgeships; including, surprise, the Supreme Court, where the louse seemed to actually revel in reneging on his own call to wait until after the election to choose a replacement for Justice Ginsberg. No policy. No compromise. No nothing. Nothing, that is, but increasing the deficit by trillions and making sure his corporate cronies are exempt from responsibility due to their shameful response to the pandemic. I guess that’s something.

Thus, unless our incoming president is suffering from severe amnesia, he should have no illusions that, following the Georgia runoffs (should Republicans maintain the stranglehold they currently enjoy), there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell McConnell, the demonic amphibian he is, will allow any dissenters to side with the president, on anything. Not a bill to curtail the amount of robocalls one gets on a daily basis, nor a motion to change the ketchup dispenser in the congressional cafeteria.

Exhibit Two: Trump’s Minions

If, after witnessing 126 House Republicans sign onto what is nothing short of a statement supporting the overthrowing of our Democracy, as well as several Republican Senators coming out in support of objecting to the States’ already-certified electors, anyone who thinks president Biden will somehow get these cockroaches to join hands singing Kumbaya, is living on another planet. In fact, from what we’ve seen in the last six weeks, alone, it’s fair to say Congressional Republicans are now more of a threat to our nation than ISIS. Yes, that ISIS. At least, the Islamic State have the decency to tell you to your face exactly what their objective is: The total destruction of American Democracy. Period. Modern day Republicans have proven they have the same exact goal; they just do it from within, disguised as “patriots.”

Exhibit Three: Seventy-Million Idiots

In spite of the Deplorables on The Hill, the biggest hurdle the president, and vice-president, have in front of them may very well be the American People, themselves. While there’s got to be a few million in the human Chernobyl’s base of seventy-million-plus who aren’t full-blown, racist psychopaths, there are still way too many who’ve shown they’re fully committed to the cult of Trump. Even now. Even though their government led them into a year-long nightmare of misery and misinformation: even as their apathetic leaders choose to bail out their billionaire buddies, while sending them a $600 slap in the face, they continue to support them. Unmoved.

Even though Benedict Donald has spent the past two months proving he has zero interest in/reverence for this Democracy and in a peaceful transference of power, truth is, outside of maybe a handful of ‘awoke’ individuals who’ve finally seen enough, he’s most likely not lost a single one of his hardcore supporters. In fact, many of them have doubled down in their support of the village idiot - going as far as to organize a “parallel inauguration” on Universe Two - the fantasy world where Trump will still be president (Most pundits refer to Trump supporters as living on ‘Earth 2,’ but their thinking is so alien to facts/common sense, IMO, they deserve their own universe.). These sad, sorry fools fell hook, line and sinker for the president’s claims of “fraud”, to the tune of stocking his post-election war chest with a cool quarter-billion dollars. Translation: you’re looking at an entire sect of people who have no basis in reality. So, who’s worse? The Trump supporter? Or the one who tries to reason with the Trump supporter?

These Trump-described “suckers,” who, in spite of everything they’ve seen, in spite of the fact we have a president who’s golfing while millions can’t even put food on their table during the holidays (those still alive that is) are still so consumed with hate for the other side, they’d rather see their nation brought to the brink of civil war than be governed by a Democrat. They’d rather elect a corrupt, bottom-dwelling QAnon conspirator to Congress, than an honest, sane liberal whose major crime is refusing to believe Tom Hanks and Bill Gates are partners in a global kiddie porn empire. Case in point, the more than dozen House seats that flipped red this past November, and, with them, some who actually believe the above. This kind of unhinged, spiteful, masochistic thinking suggests the hate modern day Republicans have towards liberals is greater than the love they have for their own children. Good luck overcoming that type of home-grown martyr, Mr. President.

Exhibit Four: Biden, Himself:

The welcome, sorely needed public comments seeking to reunite a hopelessly divided nation, notwithstanding, by stating what the New York Times calls “no interest” in pursuing any type of retribution/Justice, re: the myriad of crimes committed by this horrific administration, IMO, the president-elect has already stepped in it. Especially after the Georgia phone call.

It’s never a good idea to address your supporters, many of whom feel they’re owed some form of payback after being forced to watch helplessly as their Constitution was consistently used as toilet paper by a mob boss POTUS for four, long years, and, right out of the gate, say you’re just going to forget the whole thing. After all, this isn’t Nixon we’re talking about here. This is a thousand Nixons... on steroids. This is treason in all its forms. The attempt to “find” 11,780 votes, just one more than Biden, is the most egregious crime ever committed by a U.S. President. Yet, the president-elect continues to spew this type of disappointing, non-confrontational rhetoric. While hopefully just said for the cameras, it definitely gives many of the incoming president’s supporters, including Yours Truly, night sweats.

In fact, IMO, SDNY aside, letting these, spineless, racist, anti-American miscreants sail off into the sunset, with free health care for life and full pensions, on us, would be worse than all their crimes put together. As it will not only show the next corrupt bunch of lawless idiots to come down the pike they can do whatever they want and they’re guaranteed a free pass from the next guy, it will end our experiment in Democracy as we know it; as it will have all-but-proved the president is, in fact, above the law. I really hope I’m wrong. Fingers crossed Biden is just doing his job and saying all the right things, while privately working to nominate Sally Yates for A.G. IMO, should Ms. Yates get the nod, she will see to it Justice is served on all fronts. If not, you can bet there’s a damn good reason.

Mueller made the fatal mistake of playing fair with Trump and Barr, and their legion of sycophantic sheep in Congress, and wound up looking like a timid, outmatched eunuch. After living through the Obama years, after living through The Trump years, after seeing the literal definition of treason on a daily basis, it appears Biden is choosing to ignore these screaming red sirens and walk down that path, as well, at least with his words.

How much more proof does the president-elect need to know these individuals on the other side of the aisle are only interested in one thing? Total Dominance, by any means necessary. Even if it’s a flagrant violation of their oaths to defend The Constitution. Every single low-life choosing to join a wanna-be fascist in his reprehensible attempt to overturn our national election are only Americans by birth. That’s where it ends.

In Alan Parker’s classic film, Mississippi Burning, there’s a great line in the scene where the two FBI agents, played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, realize playing by the rules with these racist bastards will never get them the Justice they seek. Straight-laced Dafoe says, “Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson.” To which, no-nonsense Hackman replies, “These people crawled out of a sewer, Mr. Ward! Maybe the gutter’s where we outta be!” Here’s hoping there’s more of Anderson than Ward in our next president.

0 notes

yasbxxgie · 5 years

Link

Fourteen years ago, during my first year of college, I sat in a creative writing class and listened as my teacher, an elderly man, told another student not to use black characters in his stories unless those characters’ blackness was somehow essential to the plots. The presence of blacks, my teacher felt, changed the focus of a story, drew attention from the intended subject.

This happened in 1965. I would never have expected to hear my teacher’s sentiments echoed by a science fiction writer in 1979. Hear them I did, though, at a science fiction convention where a writer explained that he had decided against using a black character in one of his stories because the presence of the black would change his story somehow. Later, this same writer suggested that in stories that seem to require black characters to make some racial point, it might be possible to substitute extraterrestrials—so as not to dwell on matters of race.

Well, let’s do a little dwelling.

Science fiction reaches into the future, the past, the human mind. It reaches out to other worlds and into other dimensions. Is it really so limited, then, that it cannot reach into the lives of ordinary everyday humans who happen not to be white?

Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Amerindians, minority characters in general have been noticeably absent from most science fiction. Why? As a black and a science fiction writer, I’ve heard that question often. I’ve also heard several answers. And, because most people try to be polite, there have been certain answers I haven’t heard. That’s all right. They’re obvious.

Best, though, and most hopeful from my point of view, I’ve heard from people who want to write science fiction, or who’ve written a few pieces, perhaps, and who would like to include minority characters, but aren’t sure how to go about it. Since I’ve had to solve the same problem in reverse, maybe I can help.

But first some answers to my question: Why have there been so few minority characters in science fiction?

Let’s examine my teacher’s reason. Are minority characters—black characters in this case—so disruptive a force that the mere presence of one alters a story, focuses it on race rather than whatever the author had in mind? Yes, in fact, black characters can do exactly that if the creators of those characters are too restricted in their thinking to visualize blacks in any other context.

This is the kind of stereotyping, conscious or subconscious, that women have fought for so long. No writer who regards blacks as people, human beings, with the usual variety of human concerns, flaws, skills, hopes, etc., would have trouble creating interesting backgrounds and goals for black characters. No writer who regards blacks as people would get sidetracked into justifying their blackness or their presence unless such justification honestly played a part in the story. It is no more necessary to focus on a character’s blackness than it is to focus on a woman’s femininity.

Now, what about the possibility of substituting extra-terrestrials for blacks—in order to make some race-related point without making anyone…uncomfortable? In fact, why can’t blacks be represented by whites—who are not too thoroughly described—thus leaving readers free to use their imaginations and visualize whichever color they like?

I usually manage to go on being polite when I hear questions like these, but it’s not easy.

Onward, then. Let’s replace blacks with tentacled beings from Capella V. What will readers visualize as we describe relations between the Capellans and the (white) humans? Will they visualize black humans dealing with white humans? I don’t think so. This is science fiction, after all. If you tell your readers about tentacled Capellans, they’re going to visualize tentacled Capellans. And if your readers are as touchy about human races as you were afraid they might be when you substituted the Capellans, are they really likely to pay attention to any analogy you draw? I don’t think so.

And as for whites representing all of humanity—on the theory that people will imagine other races; or better yet, on the theory that all people are alike anyway, so what does it matter? Well, remember when men represented all of humanity? Women didn’t care much for it. Still don’t. No great mental leap is required to understand why blacks, why any minority, might not care much for it either. And apart from all that, of course, it doesn’t work. Whites represent themselves, and that’s plenty. Spread the burden.

Back when Star Wars was new, a familiar excuse for ignoring minorities went something like this: “Science fiction is escapist literature. Its readers/viewers don’t want to be weighted down with real problems.” War, okay. Planet-wide destruction, okay. Kidnapping, okay. But the sight of a minority person? Too heavy. Too real. And, of course, there again is the implication that a sprinkling of blacks, Asians, or others could turn the story into some sort of racial statement. The only statement I could imagine being made by such a sprinkling would be that among the white, human people; the tall, furry people; the lumpy, scaly people; the tentacled people; etc., were also brown, human people; black, human people, etc. This isn’t a heavy statement—unless it’s missing.

From my agent (whose candor I appreciate) I heard what could become an even stronger reason for not using black characters in particular. Not using them in film, anyway. It seems that blacks are out of fashion. In an industry that pays a great deal of attention to trends, blacks have had their day for a while. How long a while? Probably until someone decides to take a chance—and winds up making a damn big hit movie about blacks.

All right, forget for a moment the faddishness of the movie industry, forget that movies about blacks are out. Movies, science fiction and otherwise, with a sprinkling of minority characters, but no particular minority theme, seem to do well. Yaphet Kotto certainly didn’t do Alien any harm. In fact, for me, probably for a good many blacks, he gave the movie an extra touch of authenticity, and a monster movie, even a good monster movie, needs all the authenticity it can get.

That brings me to another question I hear often at science fiction conventions. “Why are there so few black science fiction writers?” I suspect for the same reason there were once so few women science fiction writers. Women found a certain lack of authenticity in a genre that postulated a universe largely populated by men in which all the power was in male hands, and women stayed in their male-defined places.

Science fiction writers come from science fiction readers, generally. Few readers equal few writers. The situation is improving, however. Blacks are not as likely as whites to spend time and money going to conventions, but there is a growing black readership. Black people I meet now are much more likely to have read at least some science fiction, and are not averse to reading more. My extra copy of Dreamsnake has reached its fifth reader, last I heard. Movies like Alien, Star Wars, in spite of its lack, and Close Encounters, plus the old Star Trek TV series have captured a lot of interest. With all this, it’s been a pleasantly long time since a friend or acquaintance has muttered to me, “Science fiction! How can you waste your time with anything that unreal?”

Now to those reasons people aren’t as likely to give for leaving minorities out of science fiction. The most obvious one, and the one I feel least included to discuss is conscious racism. It exists. I don’t think science fiction is greatly afflicted with it, but then, racism is unfashionable now, and thus is unlikely to be brought into the open. Instead, it can be concealed behind any of the questions and arguments I’ve already discussed. To the degree that it is, this whole article is a protest against racism. It’s as much of a protest as I intend to make at the moment. I know of too many bright, competent blacks who have had to waste time and energy trying to reason away other people’s unreasonable racist attitudes; in effect, trying to prove their humanity. Life is too short.

A more insidious problem than outright racism is simply habit, custom. Science fiction has always been nearly all white, just as until recently, it’s been nearly all male. A lot of people have had a chance to get comfortable with things as they are. Too comfortable. Science fiction, more than any other genre, deals with change—change in science and technology, and social change. But science fiction itself changes slowly, often under protest. You can still go to conventions and hear deliberately sexist remarks—if the speaker thinks he has a sympathetic audience. People resent being told their established way of doing things is wrong, resent being told they should change, and strongly resent being told they won’t be alone any longer in the vast territory—the universe—they’ve staked out for themselves. I don’t think anyone seriously believes the world of the future will be all white any more than anyone believes the present world is all white. But custom can be strong enough to prevent people from seeing the need for science fiction to reflect a more realistic view.

Adherence to custom can also cause people to oppose change by becoming even more extreme in their customary behavior. I went back to college for a couple of quarters a few years ago and found one male teacher after another announcing with odd belligerence, “I might as well tell you right now, I’m a male chauvinist!”

A custom attacked is a custom that will be defended. Men who feel defensive about sexist behavior may make sexist bigots of themselves. Whites who feel defensive about racist behavior may make racist bigots of themselves. It’s something for people who value open-mindedness and progressive attitudes to beware of.

A second insidious problem is laziness, possibly combined with ignorance. Authors who have always written of all-white universes might not feel particularly threatened by a multicolored one, but might consider the change too much trouble. After all, they already know how to do what they’ve been doing. Their way works. Why change? Besides, maybe they don’t know any minority people. How can they write about people they don’t know?

Of course, ignorance may be a category unto itself. I’ve heard people I don’t consider lazy, racist, or bound by custom complain that they did not know enough about minorities and thus hesitated to write about them. Often, these people seem worried about accidentally giving offense.

But what do authors ordinarily do when they decide to write about an unfamiliar subject?

They research. They read—in this case recent biographies and autobiographies of people in the group they want to write about are good. They talk to members of that group—friends, acquaintances, co-workers, fellow students, even strangers on buses or waiting in lines. I’ve done these things myself in my reverse research, and they help. Also, I people-watch a lot without talking. Any public situation offers opportunities.

Some writers have gotten around the need for research by setting their stories in distant egalitarian futures when cultural differences have dwindled and race has ceased to matter. I created a future like this in my novel, Patternmaster, though I did not do it to avoid research. Patternmaster takes place in a time when psionic ability is all that counts. People who have enough of that ability are on top whether they’re male or female, black, white, or brown. People who have none are slaves. In this culture, a black like the novel’s main woman character would, except for her coloring, be indistinguishable from characters of any other race. Using this technique could get a writer accused of writing blacks as though they were whites in Coppertone, and it could be a lazy writer’s excuse for doing just that. But for someone who has a legitimate reason for using it, a story that requires it, it can be a perfectly valid technique.

More important than any technique, however, is for authors to remember that they are writing about people. Authors who forget this, who do not relax and get comfortable with their racially different characters, can wind up creating unbelievable, self-consciously manipulated puppets, pieces of furniture who exist within a story but contribute nothing to it, or stereotypes guaranteed to be offensive.

There was a time when most of the few minority characters in science fiction fell into one of these categories. One of the first black characters I ran across when I began reading science fiction in the fifties was a saintly old “uncle” (I’m not being sarcastic here. The man was described as saintly and portrayed asking to be called “uncle”) whom Harriet Beecher Stowe would have felt right at home with. I suspect that like the Sidney Poitier movies of the sixties, Uncle was daring for his time. That didn’t help me find him any more believable or feel any less pleased when he and his kind (Charlie Chan, Tonto, that little guy who swiped Fritos…) were given decent burials. Times have changed, thank heavens, and science fiction has come a long way from Uncle. Clearly, though, it still has a long way to go.

0 notes

comic-movieheroesranked · 7 years

Text

Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2001)

Today's ranking is covering comic book characters introduced in Cinematic film in 2001. Our three contenders are Josie and the Pussycats, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Ghost World. I had no idea each one had a comic series. I never heard of Ghost World, but I knew that the Pussycats had a TV show and that Tomb Raider is one of the most iconic games in history. Although each movie had some boring moments, I really enjoyed watching them. So let's get to the spoilers and rank these characters!

Cameo Appreciation: Melorra, Bus Man, Weird Al Waiter (Ghost World)

Since I've never seen Ghost World before I did some research and was happy to see that the movie included favorite minor characters for some quick cameos. We got the waiter who looks like Weird Al, the old man who waits for a bus that's out of service (or is it?), and a girl from high school that's so bubbly it drives Enid and Rebecca crazy.

Cameo Appreciation: Eugene Levy (Josie and the Pussycats)

Not a comic cameo but a celebrity cameo! Actor Eugene Levy showed up in a educational video that explains how and why kids are being brainwashed by the top artist's music. Even though it's random, it's fun and totally matches the lightness of the movie.

19. Ms. Roberta Allsworth (Ghost World)

“Oh. I thought maybe it was supposed to be your father.”

Starting off on our list is someone I didn't think was going to be significant in the film but just kept showing up as it went on. Ms. Roberta Allswroth is teachers the Remedial Art class Enid has to take after initially failing in high school. I went to a performing arts college and my playwright teacher was exactly like her. I never read a single play that was assigned and would completely bullshit my way through our discussions and she bought every second of it. Goes to show that some people really just want you to believe in what you're saying or, in Roberta's case, creating. She even manages to get Enid a scholarship but Enid screws that up when she doesn't show up to defend her controversial art piece at the gallery.

18. Fiona (Josie and the Pussycats)

"You can kiss my cellulite-free ass for all I've done for you!"

OK on the real, I have no idea why Fiona was in the movie. In fact, I'm still scratching my head at the whole "control the minds of the youth because I wasn't popular and had a lisp!" thing. I didn't even think that whole dialogue exchange where she would mumbled under her breath was necessary. Like I get why they put it there, but honestly they should have just cut her out and make the movie about Wyatt just trying to screw them over or something.

17. Manfred Powell (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Lady Croft, tell me, is there a good reason why I just kept you alive?"

I've always said that in a good movie, if the hero is worried about the villain the audience will too. And if the hero isn't worried...well there's probably a reason for that. The whole movie Manfred Powell is trying his very best to show that he is this intimidating person who knows what he's doing and during the whole movie Lara just proves that he isn't. At the end he manages to surprise Lara by killing Alex, but she quickly fixes it and he ends up dying from his own knife throw.

16. Seymour (Ghost World)

"I can't relate to 99% of humanity."

Seymour, Seymour, Seymour. He's probably the only real outcast in the entire movie. He looks and does things in a different way which quickly leads him to this lonely lifestyle when Enid finds him. Of course he falls for the girl after she shows interest in him and sleeps with him because what else is he expected to do? Like the rest of our characters, we don't know what's going to happen to him when the film ends, but you won't hear any complaints from me.

15. Dejour Boys (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Dejour means friendship!"

The boy band that's on everyone's lips at the start of the movie. These four white dudes are at the top of their game when Wyatt and Fiona decide to pull the plug. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that the dudes are spoiled as hell, especially the monkey. It's assumed they met their demise in a plane accident but they appear at the end of the film, revealing they survived but not after getting jumped by a Metallica crowd. You think they're there to save the day, but they don't. They don't really do anything since they're all in casts.

14. Josh (Ghost World)

"That's a vanilla milkshake."

He's the boy that's too nice to stick up to his asshole boss and too nice to say no to Enid and Rebecca's ridiculous plans. Seems that Enid and Rebecca both had a thing for him at some point which is why they keep bringing him around and involving him in their adventures. Josh, being the nice guy that he is, just puts up with it, which earns my respect.

13. Alex West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Now for a cold shower."

Alex seems to be having an on-again off-again thing going on with Lara, who seems to be the in charge of their relationship's guidelines. Makes sense, they're both always traveling the world separately, why make it complicated? He's always there when Lara really needs to release some stress and she returns the favor by bringing him back to life when he gets knifed followed by getting crushed by some giant planet machine. It's a win/win situation for both of them.

12. Enid (Ghost World)

"I just hate all these extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers."

You know how in high school there's that one person in your group of friends that you know you wouldn't be friends with if it weren't for both of you having mutual friends? Well my person was exactly like Enid and I couldn't stand her. I made it my life goal in high school to constantly call her out on her pretentious bullshit which is exactly what someone needed to do with Enid. Like my person, Enid is trying very hard to be something she's not. She's the type to act like being popular was overrated but if the popular kids wanted her to hang out with them, she'd do it in a second. It was annoying to watch her and I'm a little bummed the movie focused on her more than Rebecca.

11. Alan M. (Josie and the Pussycats)

“Josie McCoy, I love you!!!”

I really liked that when Alan M's car was acting up he went to Josie instead of acting all macho and trying to fix it himself. After I knew I was going to like him. He's a good boyfriend that supports the band and their success even when he's still trying to make something of his folk music career. At the end of the film he ends up crowd surfing to proclaim his love to Josie and then runs off to the side of the stage to continue supporting her as she performs her concert.

10. Bryce (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Well, I'm a free spirit, me."

The gadget man responsible for all the cool tech Lara sports throughout the movie. He's always cracking a joke and he's always reluctant to join in on whatever crazy adventure Lara is doing next. I also don't understand why he doesn't live in the mansion with 81 rooms that's only hosting Lara and her butler but to each their own.

9. Alexandra Cabot (Josie and the Pussycats)

"I'm here because I was in the comic book."

I never expected a character from Josie and the Pussycats to break the fourth wall. Alexandra did it so well that I mentally gave her a standing ovation (because I didn't feel like standing up from my couch). Because of her answer it doesn't bother me that she's always around despite no one wanting her around. I also appreciate the digs people constantly take on her, mainly as a response to the digs she tries to throw at them.

8. Alexander Cabot III (Josie and the Pussycats)

"I want a vintage tee...and Heath Ledger."

Either I wasn't paying attention or the movie never says who's actually older, Alexander or Alexandra. Are they even twins? Besides that Alexander is the manager of the girls even though he never does anything to actually manage them. He mainly just hangs around and spoils himself on his 15% commission until the end of the film when he realizes that all the superficial things in life do not matter.

7. Hillary (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"I'm only trying to turn you into a lady."

If Lara Croft was Batman, Hillary would be Alfred Pennyworth. The similarities are ridiculous. Hillary takes care of Lara as her butler and doesn't hesitate to grab a shotgun and do damage when a threat arrives. He doesn't seem to mind Lara Croft's lifestyle, only wishes she'd do it in a very lady-like gown. I would've liked to see a little more tenderness between the two but Hillary serving Lara her pistols on a food tray will do just fine for the time being.

6. Wyatt Frame (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Eye Contact. Hand."

Despite being the secondary villain in the movie I thought Wyatt was way more interesting to watch than Fiona. He's a no nonsense kind of guy and knows how to get things done. I can't blame him for working for the dark side when he had to take care of the Dejour boys but I also can't say I felt sorry for him when his evil plans went to shit. Him punishing the Dejour boys was probably one of the funnier moments of the movie but I still wish they just rewrote the script to make him the main villain with a different (maybe even simpler?) evil plot.

5. Valerie Brown (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Wyatt, you messed with the wrong pussy."

In the TV series, Valerie made history as the first African American female to be a regular character in a TV show. In the movie she's the "mom friend" of the trio. She's always there when Josie's feeling down and she's quick to save Melody from whatever danger her naive self is about to get into. She also plays a mean bass guitar. We also see her insecurities when she seems to be an afterthought that comes with the other two pretty white girls. When the girls resolve all their issues, she serves a can of ass-whooping to Wyatt before performing the concert of their dreams.

4. Rebecca (Ghost World)

"Some people are OK, but mostly I just want to poison everyone."

Rebecca was easily my favorite character in Ghost World. While Enid doesn't try to fit in with the popular crowd because she thinks that somehow makes her cool, Rebecca doesn't because she genuinely doesn't feel the need to. While Enid doesn't go to college because she thinks it's uncool, Rebecca doesn't go to college because it really just isn't for her so she gets a job and starts earning a living. She starts calling out Enid more and more (like when she dyed her hair green) and eventually just gives up and starts becoming her own person. I really wanted the movie to focus more on her instead on Enid struggling to keep pretending to be something she's clearly not.

3. Josie McCoy (Josie and the Pussycats)

"It's cool if you like it, it's okay if you don't, just decide for yourselves."

The leader of the band, Josie is the only one who's name is promoted in the group's title. She sings, writes, plays guitar, and knows her way under the hood of a car. She has her insecurities, like every normal teenager does, but she's always there for her girls no matter what. She learns to share the spotlight and encourages their finds to like them for them, not because they're part of the next new fad.

2. Melody Valentine (Josie and the Pussycats)

"The tough makes lemonade!"

This precious cinnamon roll is too good for this world. She's literally always in a good mood, except for when she's being attacked but even then she throws in a few smiles here and there. Melody is the glue that holds the band together, always looking at the bright side of any situation. Despite Valerie being my favorite of the trio, I can acknowledge that the movie was as good as it was because of Melody. In the end she shows us just what a little ass kicker she is before rocking out on the drums for their dream concert.

1. Lara Croft (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"I woke up this morning and I just hated everything."

Is anyone surprised? Lara Croft is one of the most iconic women in pop culture. When I was young, so many people were pumped for the movie. Despite the film being a bit of a bore, one thing most people agreed on was that Lara Croft was everything! The first scene with her against the robot literally felt like I was sucked into the game itself with her flipping around and sporting her signature dual pistols. She's unimpressed by the film's villain the entire time and easily outdo's him in literally every scene they share together. This badass proved early on how awesome a woman can be...and only in a tank top and shorts!

2000's list was dominated by the cast of X-Men and this list was dominated by awesome female characters from three different universes. The next list will cover all comic book characters that showed up in cinematic film during the year 2002. Can't wait to get started!

14 notes · View notes

chiefpaperdonut-blog · 6 years

Text

day 1 journal

here i am

after all this time

make the changes you need

and stop being a broken record

it feels good being able to type on a keyboard again. strange that i haven't been able to for months.

i like not being a computer slave though.

also, this computers HDD may die soon

it's probably worth getting some sort of HDD that you can collect all your various datas and throw them together

it'd be nice to have the photos. even if photos make me sad.

i think what's sad is just what you've given up

and for nothing of lasting value

nor people who valued you for you

well maybe that last point is a bit dramatic

maybe just write out your emotions and let yourself cry and be a human again

====

you got to love/shake your head at the excuses used for the various drug addictions i ended up stacking on top of one another

the reality is that you are intelligent, but you've not lived intelligently

stop handicapping yourself. it's illusionary pleasure, distraction

it could be a videogame addiction. but it wasn't. it was drugs.

the cheapest shortcut

and of course, there's a lot of price to pay eventually

it doesn't seem like it at the time but that's how it transpires.

i'm sick of being a drug addict and not reaching my true potential. not facing the reality of life. of course it's hard. but you've made it harder, through short term thinking.

you're midway through your 20s. this is in someways the most productive period of your life.

it hasn't all been a waste. you've been relatively functional. but you don't see things through enough. you could have done far more. also, you need to get out of this environment.

this house has been fun. it's also been illuminating. the place has been mostly a total fucking sty. indulgent nothingness. you had some fun times with friends, who you thought would always be there for you. the reality is that some of those friendships are not like that, and are built on very shaky foundations.

i want to hold myself to a higher standard. i want to do more good in this world. i want to be able to properly look after myself.

it's ok for it to be hard. it's ok for this to be a struggle. believe believe believe

i've had enough signs from god to know it'll all be fine.

don't forget the signs. they are telling you to change path. this is a time of change.

even if it's hard. not fun. even if sobriety fucking freaks you out, or stresses you out

eventually that'll fade. and you'll be free. and infinitely better off.

the whole living with high people sitting on a couch playing games or watching tele, doing fuck all, messy place, no money, it's too sad and empty. it's not what i want for myself or for anyone else, there's a lot more to life. you used to know this. you still know this, but you've made the decisions.

time to make another decision. the decision to not use today.

just a day at a time. you don't need to quit forever. plenty of people have slip ups anyway.

just one day. one day is more than none.

===

i just saw someone walk by my window. and middle aged but poorly aged woman smoking a cigarette, wearing baggy, cheap, scrappy looking active wear / salvos stock. you see a lot of the older, poor people in the kilburn area. even the people your aguish at savers (sam commenting what was she doing with her life). that is a result of decisions by and large. it begins with the decision to smoke a cigarette. then drugs, alcohol, whatever - it ends up coming before alll else. even appearance. showering.

their lives aren't necessarily bad. it's not my place to make a value judgement about the content of their character. because that so easily could be you. it's a result of decisions, one after the other.

these people may be carrying burdens that you have no idea of

at the end of the day though, i don't want that

i don't want to be poor as shit on a pension, scraping by

getting the bus because there's no other options

picking cigarette butts off the ground

prioritising alcohol or whatever substance above all else

it's the relationship with it, and the decision one makes around them

is it a healthy relationship?

for me, obviously not. it's not the path i wish to walk down.

drug addiction very rarely ends in a positive manner, excluding stories of going straight. even the famous people for example who made it work would have likely been more effective / lived longer if they'd nipped it in the bud.

it's a crutch but you already knew how to walk

but you used it so much that you ended up forgetting how to walk

and was then afraid without it you'd fall flat on your face

----

(−)-trans-Δ⁹ -- -tetrahydrocannabinol

anhedonia

----

you already quit your opiate addiction earlier this year.

don't replace drug addiction with laptop addiction

you already know the sort of stuff you are good at and the work you can do

the goals you can and do hold

time to stop wasting

---

i want to quit

that's why i'm on /r/leaves

that's why i'm going to make an account to keep accountable.

---

other thing about living situation - no matter how many problems you think you have and that you've neglected through drug use, it's not like that applies just to you. ky is the same, hence that list i wrote earlier talking about his actions. how they reveal a lot of flaws in the way he interacts with others / honesty. that's the other thing about weed. oh, it's so chill. people who smoke like ky are so chill. well, not really. it's artificial and fake. you've seen him lose his shit. act in a pretty crappy way. he's human like the rest of us, but he is still stuck in using weed and as soon as he gets back, he likely will again. it makes more sense then him going sober, paying his bills, changing the way he interacts to be more honest instead of trying to remove any amount of difficulty / disturbance from his life.

---

think of all the times you scraped for res

searched the ground for bud

smoked weed covered in cat hair

checking stash spots that you know you don't have any weed in

but MAYBE

maybe there'll be something

opening baggies and collecting particles

filtered bong water to collect plant matter that had fallen through

didn't it make you feel rather grubby? to take a drug to such an extent, to never not try maximise etc.

instead of just waiting until the next time, it had to be MAXIMUM

no waste

but that sounds too positive, no waste

considering every second spent on that behaviour was a total waste.

don't ever go back to that.

----

a random catholic covered a church being robbed for 1000 dollars. that's a spirit of awesome generosity. you could be that type of person if you make the necessary decisions.

---

by the time you are sober , by your next bday, you'll have three years essentially

three years to work it out, get your shit together and make something of yourself

not that 30 is a deadline for life. but for me, i'd like to be well on the way then.

the sooner the better

----

you're reading weed defenders defend their drug on redid and it's hilarious in a sense, sad in another. it really drives home the bad stereotypes about the drug and the obvious delusion most daily stoners labour under. 'i'm still productive, i've still achieved things' - like what? - not much -

think of people like mark carey . supposedly smart, knows a lot about science blah blah blah. yet he's mid 30s , achieved fuck all and that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

maybe the debauched lifestyle is romanticised to help those who live with it. shame that it convinces others, such as myself, to jump deep into that pool. especially with it's connections to art and music. the reality though - you and everyone else for that matter would be better off (bar those with seizures / genuine medical use eg. NOT ANXIETY OR DEPRESSION IT MAKES IT WORSE EVENTUALLY)

---

if you get through all this mess, it'll be something to be proud of and proof of the strength i have to draw on.

---

SOBER

Stop, observe - with detachment - how do i feel?

Breathe - deep slow breaths

Examine - why do i feel like this?

respond - not react.

10 minutes meditation

---

remember zoe from work commenting about how i should just leave instead of wanting to get evicted. i was annoyed at the time because of course i was thinking it's not that simple.

there's ky, the band, cats, money owing , shared responsibilities yada yada yada

but the reality is it is that simple

you've accepted so much that is unacceptable through acquiescence through drug use.

kyrons constant fucking around with money.

it's been months and months of being fucked around.

so come on. time to wake up.

it is that simple. and necessary.

mum will help you. you can then rebuild, and change your life.

i could be in a position where i could move to japan if i hadn't smoked weed. i probably would have finished university, if not prior to working at child support, certainly the next year and a half of not really being that employed.

you still did a lot of things in a sense. they just weren't very productive. time spent at salvos. working writing jobs. won that writing competition. wrote an entire film script. made music, improved skills , and exposure.

you may be entering in some senses your golden period.

plenty of people make use of themselves later then 27

sure, we hear plenty about the young who are already running out the gate

you made decisions to build friends, have memories, different experiences and exposures to different lifestyles. that is valuable and this part of your life is not wasted. in fact, by recognising how much more i am capable of, and by beating numerous difficult drug addictions, i'm proving my ability as a human, growing. i don't think it's true that weed puts you in a COMPLETE stasis, but maybe i was lucky because i still liked doing things / reading / learning. plenty just sit about playing fortnite. the reality though is that i could have done A LOT more. and that makes a difference. you've gained an interesting perspective into different ways of living / people. even if you think about high school, nearly all your friends were kinda middle class and well off and not turning to drugs. now you're with the drudgers , it's all dysfunctional , single parent homes. maybe that's a bit harsh and inaccurate. at the end of the day though, hardcore drug use is dysfunctional and dysfunctional people will be drawn to this.

you have been dysfunctional. this is why you've alienated a lot of former friends, through treating them inappropriately. things won't get better unless you make a proper effort at becoming functional. and you can. a lot of the things that motivated you to take drugs initially - lack of being cool, having friends/fun, trying new , different things, and even though i probably didn't think of it, taking the easy way out to feeling good and ignoring the bad of life and my self-esteem issues from not fitting in as a younger person. i wasn't very assertive when i first came back over. i found it hard to talk to others blah blah blah. even though socially things were better in wales then melbourne/rose park, there was still plenty of mistakes and growing pains. these are not problems anymore. i'm a lot wiser. and there's still a lot of mountains to climb, but different ones. not just sitting at the top of the one i climbed years ago. in fact, i've been atrophying and going backwards in a lot of those areas - DUE to drugs. it has kept me static but also dysfunctional, and over time, i've had that manifest through bad behaviour that has alienated my friends. at a certain point they have to give up. it's for their own health as well.

day 1 for weed, day 7 for tobacco. keep it up.

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

The first 30 seconds of the trailer for Insatiable, a new comedy series coming to Netflix on August 10, introduces the story of a chubby high schooler grappling with bullies, unrequited crushes, and the FOMO that comes from nights spent on the couch eating ice cream.

It’s all a fairly standard setup for what looks to be a show about modern teens — perhaps even one that, like Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, is benefitted by the fact that its lead looks more like an average high schooler than the glamorous 20-something stars of shows like Riverdale.

But then the trailer takes a turn. Patty, our main character, gets punched in the face, has her jaw wired shut for months, and thereby loses so much weight that by the time she goes back to school in the fall, she’s a bonafide (thin) hottie. It’s with this newfound power that she can apparently get her revenge on the kids who’d excluded her in the past.

[embedded content]

Because no one has officially reviewed the show yet, the trailer is all that we have to determine what the rest of Insatiable will look like and what themes it will deal with. But based on that one minute and 30 seconds, the reaction has been … not great.

Critics on Twitter and elsewhere have called the premise of the show fatphobic, triggering to people with eating disorders, and a regressive lens through which to view fat people’s stories. The Good Place star Jameela Jamil, who has advocated for body autonomy in the past, tweeted about how there’s a problem with implying that the only way to “win” in life is to diet:

Kids who bully are just miserable, badly raised arseholes. It is not, and should not ever be YOUR problem that they have a problem with you. You don’t have to conform. You don’t have to placate. Revenge isn’t a good use of your time and energy. And starving yourself is

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) July 20, 2018

Writer Roxane Gay also noted the trailer’s flawed logic that fat women can’t stand up for themselves and must undergo physical trauma to become their best, skinny selves:

Ahhh yes, a fat girl could never stand up for herself while fat and of course she has to be assaulted and have her mouth wired shut before she becomes her best self, her skinny self. Good to know!

— roxane gay (@rgay) July 22, 2018

There’s now even a Change.org petition that, as of publication, has garnered more than 145,000 signatures to stop Netflix from airing the show, on the grounds that releasing it will be damaging to young girls’ self-esteem and cause or trigger eating disorders.

One day after the trailer premiered, on July 20, Insatiable’s writer and producer Lauren Gussis defended the show against critics, writing that the inspiration was based on her own experience with an eating disorder as a teenager, and that comedy is a means of dealing with our vulnerabilities.

Star Debby Ryan, a former Disney Channel actress, took to Instagram to defend the show, writing that it was a satirical look at “how difficult and scary it can be to go to move through the world in a body,” and assured viewers that the humor is “not in the fat-shaming.” Alyssa Milano, who also appears in the trailer, said in a 30-minute Twitter video that she “totally gets” the backlash to the trailer, but hopes people will wait to see the full show before judging it.

This, above all, is what the creators and stars are attempting to communicate. But for people who are so accustomed to seeing their stories told onscreen via the same harmful tropes, the Insatiable trailer could be seen as just another exhausting example of the negative ways TV and movies portray fat people.

To understand why the Insatiable trailer hit such a nerve, you have to look at pop culture’s terrible track record of telling fat people’s stories.

On July 23, artist and writer Kiva Bay asked his Twitter followers to name the fat-hating moment in media that has stuck with them, starting with the scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Aunt Marge inflates to such great proportions that she literally floats away.

Responses ranged from Bridget Jones being consistently described as fat (in the books, she weighs 130 pounds) to pretty much the entire premise of Pixar’s Wall-E, which depicts a futuristic dystopia in which everyone isn’t just overweight, but share the negative characteristics associated with being overweight: that they are lazy and stupid, and that all they care about is passively consuming whatever’s in front of them.

The problem persists even in media that’s often held up as progressive — many people in the thread called out Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks & Recreation’s recurring fat jokes, while others brought up the inherent fatphobia of shows like Gilmore Girls and 30 Rock in which objectively thin main characters have an obsession with unhealthy food.

A 2009 Jezebel piece described the “skinny glutton” phenomenon as “a sure indicator to the audience that these women are Single, Quirky and, (because they’re thin, only gently) Sad” because casting an actually fat actor in the role would, the thinking goes, be too pathetic.

The Insatiable trailer also reprises an especially troubling Hollywood practice: the fat suit. When a character actually is meant to be fat, instead of casting a bigger actor in the role, often a thin actor will wear a fat suit.

We tend to see them used in flashbacks to a time when a now-thin character was fat, like Monica in Friends, Schmidt in New Girl, or Ryan Reynolds in Just Friends. The “humor” comes not only from seeing actors wearing a silly costume, like Eddie Murphy in Norbit or The Nutty Professor, but also from the ability to crack jokes at a past character’s fatness with the knowledge that the present character is laughing now, too.

Few uses of fat suits, however, are more controversial than the 2001 film Shallow Hal, in which Jack Black plays a man who has to be hypnotized to find Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit sexy enough to be his girlfriend. Not only is the entire premise pretty gross, but, as a Telegraph piece noted after comparisons were drawn to the recent Amy Schumer film I Feel Pretty, the movie consistently uses fat bodies as punchlines:

“The camera linger[s] over every dimple and crease on the physical form of Ivy Snitzer, Paltrow’s body double, and contrasting the sight of Paltrow in revealing booty-shorts with a large woman spilling out of her clothes. Jokes are endlessly made about her appetite, while every chair Rosemary sits on appears perilously close to collapsing (it’s a sight-gag that is repeated twice on-screen, along with a deleted scene involving a caved-in bed).”

That contrast — the visual of the character wearing a fat suit versus the character without it — can have the effect of implying that fatness, when constantly compared to the superior thinness, is grotesque and deserves to be laughed at.

That’s the history Insatiable is drawing on when it puts Debby Ryan in a fat suit, regardless of intention.

And there is yet another pattern that Insatiable seems to fall into: the idea that weight loss is the road to happiness. Friends’ Monica and New Girl’s Schmidt are both characters who don’t accomplish their goals until they lose weight. The entire wellness industry is based around this false promise — that losing weight is the key to getting whatever you’ve always wanted, whether that’s love, money, or revenge. (See: Khloe Kardashian’s extremely on-the-nose reality series, Revenge Body.)

In an essay for Medium titled “To the writers of Insatiable,” fat activist and writer Your Fat Friend wrote about the problem with this narrative, pointing out that not only do 97 percent of dieters gain back what little weight they lose (or more), but that weight loss is often the only narrative that fat people get to have.

She continues:

I have never seen a fat life like mine on screen. I have not seen fat people recklessly, happily in love, as I have been. I have not seen thin partners struggle to accept their own attraction to fat people. I have not seen fat people getting promoted, getting fired, working hard, succeeding. I have only seen fat people fail. Anything else, I have learned, is reserved for the penitent thin.

In short, fat characters are defined entirely by their fatness, and only get to become multi-dimensional once they lose the weight. It’s a trope that the Insatiable trailer even touches on in a meta way: When Patty returns to school, newly thin, she muses, “Now I could be the former fatty who turned into a brain, or an athlete, or a princess,” as if these character traits can’t apply to fat people because their main identifier is already “fat.” Until we see the show, it isn’t clear where this strain of self-awareness’s endpoint lies, or how far the series will take its meta-understanding of fat tropes, but it could be a promising sign.

So yes, the Insatiable trailer, as of right now, is still just a trailer; there’s still a whole show to come and be watched and discussed, starting on August 10. But many viewers are worried that the groundwork seems to be laid for a series about the same stories of fat people we’ve seen thousands of times over.

And though its stars and creators promise the show is an empathetic look at the pressures modern teenagers face surrounding body image, well, don’t we already sort of … know them? Above all, what’s necessary is an empathetic look at fat people in general: one that ideally doesn’t involve weight loss — and certainly no fat suit.

Original Source -> Why 150,000 people are calling for Netflix to cancel the teen comedy Insatiable before it debuts

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

achristmasday · 7 years

Text

September 25th-27th

Monday

This morning Steve put on a workshop that was based around the idea of children’s Christmas Tv and film. The focal point of this was for the class to understand what was humours to a child and how we could incorporate this into the show as the demographic is that of a family nature. It is also important to keep the adults entertained in order to get premium audience interaction/ response. I already held some prior knowledge of this as last year we did a pantomime where the demographic was very much the same. The humour that children find entertaining is very slapstick and obvious. This will also entertain the adults too.

Firstly as a collective we brainstormed as many Christmas films and TV shows that we could think of. There was quite a variety of these, for example: EastEnders, The Grinch, Doctor Who, A Nightmare Before Christmas. We then had to create a soap opera based off of a film of programme that was previously suggested eg: Hollyoaks meets EastEnders.

After this the class got split up into smaller groups and got asked to create small snippets from different types of TV or film. The different groups got genres like children’s TV or soap operas. I helped direct and went around each individual and gave them direction.

In the afternoon the 2nd years had a group meeting with Steve where we discussed ideas for a storyline that would be predominate throughout the show. As the only second year actor I felt it important to make sure I had a significant contribution to this meeting to ensure that the actors voices were heard. I felt that the dancers and musical theatre have more of a solidified idea of what they are doing- however, this is because the actors are being used as tools to fill in the gaps to create the story. However, it is important that everyone agrees with it. A producer I was constantly battling for the actors importance and made a significant point of saying repeatedly how the actors deserve as much stage time as everyone else. I feel that my point was put across strongly and professionally.

After this meeting when the college day was over, I stayed behind for an extra 1 and a half hours to be part of a production. I consequently was late for work by 2 and a half hours. However, I felt it necessary to stay to make sure that furtherly the actors voices were heard. At the end of the day, this is what’s most important to me and I would prioritise it over anything and everything else.

In the meeting we discussed what we spoke about with the second years collectively. I will include the minute notes in my evidence.

Tuesday

I was off College today as I have recently had some really bad news. One of my oldest friends has taken his own life. I have been very upset and I’m really scared that this will effect my college work. My mental health has been getting significantly worse since this has happened and I’m finding it really hard to do easy day to day tasks or even get out of bed some days.

I got a phone call from a couple of people this evening saying that Steve had spoken about me negatively in front of all of the second years. I rang college and spoke to Annette about this issue straight away, however- I am really not happy about this situation ad I’m sure as you can imagine disappointed in a member of staffs lack of professionalism. I will be having a meeting with Paul Gibson in the morning to discuss matters further.

Wednesday

This morning I went into Steve’s lesson as normal, punctual and on time. The only conversation I had with him this morning was me saying yes to the register and then asking if I could go and see Paul.

I went to Paul and discussed what had happened with Steve yesterday. I told him how I felt and got quite emotional in his office. He made a note of what I had to say and said that he would discuss matters with Steve to ensure that this wouldn’t happen again. I find it hard to comprehend how Steve can talk about my lack of professionalism and how I apparently have not been turning up to meetings when he turned up 15 minutes late this morning with a cup of costa in his hand.

When I later returned to lesson I was sat waiting for Steve to include me in his lesson. Which he did not. I was sat there for two hours waiting to be told what to do, however this never happened. He proceeded to pull out a script that he had written, every single person in the class had a part specifically written for them with lines. Everyone that is but me.

I went to lunch and cried to Lauren and Jordan about how upset I was and then went and spoke to Annette I told her everything that had happened in the morning and she made a note. I then went back into Steve’s class after lunch to register and went off with the Techies as I saw no point in wasting my time sitting there doing nothing for another three hours. Arun came into the breakout room (where we were) and showed me a voice recording of what Steve had said in the lesson the day before when I wasn’t there. With this I was so angry that I went into Steve’s lesson and asked to talk to him outside about what had happened. His response was “Whatever you want to say to me you can say in front of the whole class” so I straight up asked him in front of everyone why he had said those things and with this he asked to speak to me outside. I went outside to speak to him followed by the techies, I wasn’t aware that they had followed. Steve’s reaction to them coming outside was asking me “Do you need you’re little cronies with you for support?” I told him that I did not and that I could stand up for myself. With this, things got a little heated. I never once razed my voice to him, I simply was putting my point across.

A lady from student services came over and asked if we wanted to go into a meeting room. Steve agreed to this and we sat fact to face with this lady in-between us. He brought up the fact that musical theatre had told him that I hadn’t been showing up to meetings and I told him how I was late for work and stayed behind- I also told him to look at the minutes from the production meeting. He said he had been told by a “couple of students” when I asked who he wouldn’t disclose this information. I told him that he shouldn’t take students word over evidence without knowing the 100% facts. He said he had a problem with me coming into his lesion and asking to speak to him and I said I had a problem with him slagging me off behind my back when I wasn't there to defend myself. He told me my roll as a student was to go to him and engage myself in lesions and I told him his roll as a teacher is to make sure everyone is engaged in his lesion. He said it doesn't work like that in professional theatre and I said but you're a teacher in a college it's not the same thing. This meeting went on for a while, I’d say 20 minutes and he made me cry. He said that I'm insecure as I'm the only second year and I feel because things have changed and I'm not as talented as some of the first years I feel threatened. I told him that I didn’t care about whether I got a part or not, at this stage i just wanted to pass this unit. I left the room crying and went to the toilets, the mediator came with me to make sure I was okay. She was really lovely and helpful. She got me a tissue and calmed me down a bit. I rang my mum crying saying I wanted to leave and that I couldn’t take being at college any longer. I’ve never done this before. Luckily my mum could see the urgency of the situation and came in straight away and had another meeting with Paul.

I will include the Recording of Steve as evidence to back up this Journal entry. I have to say I have never been so humiliated by a teacher, or bullied. I have no idea how he comes with references when all he does is speak over students, not let anybody contribute and condescend. A teacher has never reduced me to tears until now. I have an interview at Norwich City College this Friday and I really hope that I get in, because I cannot deal with CWA right now.

Strengths/ weaknesses and my response:

My strengths this week I feel include coming into college given my current personal circumstances. I have stayed focused and on target even though I am struggling. My directorship skills are defiantly improving and I feel like I am starting to be able to work with my peers to draw the best performance out of them I can. I constantly ask them thought provoking questions and ask them to evaluate their performance. I really enjoy this. I also think that I dealt with the situation with Steve in a professional and grown up manor. I went to the source of the problem and spoke to him about what had happened to try and get a solution which unfortunately didn’t happen.

Applying to Norwich City College is another strength. I am being proactive and making a change if I feel is necessary in order to be able to finish this qualification and ultimately be able to study this at University/ drama school.

Although this week has been stressful and defiantly distressing, it has made me realise just how much I adore my subject and how much I will fight in order to be able to peruse what I love.

What will happen next/ Personal targets for next week:

My personal target is to try and stay focused and positive and to have my head on the end goal- university. I also need to make a start in my personal statement.

0 notes

geneticmisfit · 5 years

Text

Nerdy’s Long Overdue MCU Canon Rewrite / Complete Timeline Verse by Verse

Okay so if you’ve been following me long enough, you’d know that my various verses are essentially Frankenstein’ing of various movies and shows and games. They’ve always felt a bit disjointed and wobbly and that’s because I never really comitted to having my own canon proper I always tried to keep it MCU-focused while also having my cake and eating it too lmfao. WELL NOT ANYMORE. Time to bend the MCU canon to my will.

So there is a LOT to get through so I’ll be categorizing it all based on Peter’s school years. Also no specific mentions on relationships and other characters unless it is necessary to the Narrative, because a lot of that tends to be extremely thread and partner based, and I don’t want to box people in by ‘canonizing’ what their character does in my timeline, you know?

ANYWAY ON WITH THE SHOW:

Personals do not reblog I’m just forewarning you

HIGH SCHOOL:

Freshman Year

-JANUARY 2016

-Being a kid and wanting to make a quick buck with his abilities, he enters a wrestling competition against Crusher Hogan.

MARCH TO JUNE 2016:

CIVIL WAR INCIDENT - JUNE 26TH 2016

HOMECOMING - END OF AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 23RD 2016 / SOPHOMORE YEAR

OCTOBER 2016 - MAY 2017

THANOS INCIDENT - MAY 2017

ENDGAME - DATE UNKNOWN

JUNIOR YEAR

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2017

JANUARY 2018

-The Gang War(tm) begins in full force. -Spidey’s hands are full navigating the powder keg of a situation, with Tombstone and Manfredi vying for control, with Hammerhead planning something behind the scenes.

LATE FEBRUARY - JUNE 2018

-Spidey is basically doing clean-up duty in the aftermath of the Gang War(tm) -He is trying to find where Hammerhead is, but comes up empty. -All Spidey can find are the rumors that he went back to his old employment under the Maggia. -He takes down last of the known Manfredi fronts before preparing for his Europe trip (it’s the restaurant fight from the FFH trailers)

-This in-between point is where the main verse is currently set.

SENIOR YEAR

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2018

JANUARY - MAY 2019

END OF MAY 2019

FRESHMAN UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2019

JANUARY - MAY 2020

-Harry joins the ESU football team, his performance enhanced by The Green. -Electro is Born and he’s Angry -He blames Smythe for his condition and tries to attack Oscorp, not knowing that Smythe is imprisoned. -Spidey arrives and fights him, fight eventually spilling to Times Square -Is it obvious I’ve started ripping off TASM 2 yet or.... -Electro is arrested and sent to Ravencroft for rehabilitation. -The news of a new Big Man starts making the rounds. -Harry’s Green Juicing gets bad, he starts blacking out.

SOPHOMORE UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2020

JUNIOR UNDERGRAD

September - December 2021

SENIOR UNDERGRAD

SEPTEMBER 2020 - MAY 2021

ALL THAT AND MORE, NEXT TIME ON, THE SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING SPIDER MAN!

#; I'm making it up as I go along ( headcanon )#IT'S DONE. FINALLY. HOLY SHIT. THIS TOOK A WHILE.#BUT A COHESIVE TIMELINE CAN YA BELIEVE IT #PERSONALS DO NOT REBLOG #I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL BLOCK ANY PERSONAL THAT REBLOGS IT #okay now I'm gonna go and play some video games to mentally recharge lmfao #v; all grown up! ( college )#v; you're an Avenger? That's awesome dude! ( main verse )#v; I'm on the rooftop with curious strangers. This is the oddest of summers. ( post grad )

26 notes · View notes