calliopechild

[calliopechild]

Pop culture reduces It's a Wonderful Life to that last half hour, and thinks the whole thing is about this guy traveling to an alternate universe where he doesn't exist and a little girl saying, "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings." A hokey, sugary fantasy. A light and fluffy story fit for Hallmark movies.

But this reading completely glosses over the fact that George Bailey is actively suicidal. He's not just standing there moping about, "My friends don't like me," like some characters do in shows that try to adapt this conceit to other settings. George's life has been destroyed. He's bankrupt and facing prison. The lifetime of struggle we've been watching for the last two hours has accomplished nothing but this crushing defeat, and he honestly believes that the best thing he can do is kill himself because he's worth more dead than alive. He would have thrown himself from a bridge had an actual angel from heaven not intervened at the last possible moment.

That's dark. The banker villain that pop culture reduces to a cartoon purposely drove a man to the brink of suicide, which only a miracle pulled him back from. And then George Bailey goes even deeper into despair. He not only believes that his future's not worth living, but that his past wasn't worth living. He thinks that every suffering he endured, every piece of good that he tried to do was not only pointless, but actively harmful, and he and the world would be better off if he had never existed at all.

This is the context that leads to the famed alternate universe of a million pastiches, and it's absolutely vital to understanding the world that George finds. It's there to specifically show him that his despondent views about his effect on the universe are wrong. His bum ear kept him from serving his country in the war--but the act that gave him that injury was what allowed his brother to grow up to become a war hero. His fight against Potter's domination of the town felt like useless tiny battles in a war that could never be won--but it turns out that even the act of fighting was enough to save the town from falling into hopeless slavery. He thought that if it weren't for him, his wife would have married Sam Wainwright and had a life of ease and luxury as a millionaire's wife, instead of suffering a painful life of penny-pinching with him. Finding out that she'd have been a spinster isn't, "Ha ha, she'd have been pathetic without you." It's showing him that she never loved Wainwright enough to marry him, and that George's existence didn't stop her from having a happier life, but saved her from having a sadder one. Everywhere he turns, he finds out that his existence wasn't a mistake, that his struggles and sufferings did accomplish something, that his painful existence wasn't a tragedy but a gift to the people around him.

Only when he realizes this does he get to come back home in wild joy over the gift of his existence. The scenes of hope and joy and love only exist because of the two hours of struggle and despair that came before. Even Zuzu's saccharine line about bells and angel wings exists, not as a sugary proverb, but as a climax to Clarence's story--showing that even George's despair had good effect, and that his newfound thankfulness for life causes not only earthly, but heavenly joy.

If this movie has light and hope, it's not because it exists in some fantasy world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, but because it fights tooth and nail to scrape every bit of hope it can from our all too dark and painful world. The light here exists, not because it ignores the dark, but because the dark makes light more precious and meaningful. The light exists in defiance of the dark, the hope in defiance of despair, and there is nothing saccharine about that. It's just about as realistic as it gets.

[calliopechild]

[calliopechild]

Leo coughs out one of his famous one liners and cracks a smile. Anything to keep his baby bro from worrying. He’s fine! But by the way Leo’s breathing hitches, Mikey knows he’s not. He has to get his brother back home. And even though he’s younger, he’s always willing to carry the weight.

———————- I need to get back into writing prose. It’s been ages! This came from an angst prompt of having one of the brothers being carried. I like the role reversals of characters who are generally the ones being protected or seeming to “need protection” being the protectors. Also, Leo and Mikey are a duo deserving of more attention.

Oh and I’d like to give a shout-out to @churros-on-a-unicycle for the inspiration for the color palette.

I also ended up doing a second one with Donnie and Raph.

[calliopechild]

I never posted this one on tumblr, did I! Leo being an annoying brother.

[calliopechild]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my family and how I was treated as a child, and honestly, my father has never seemed more amazing in my eyes.

I used to love Luigi(Mario's brother) when I was little. Like, he was my favorite character ever, and I had multiple plushies of him. Didn't give a fuck about Mario, vaguely tolerated Peach, but I loved Luigi.

On my first day of kindergarten, my dad gave me the number for his work phone and said it was Luigi's phone number. "If anything happens at school, call Luigi."And not even twenty minutes into my first day, I was having a panic attack. So I went down to the principal's office and called "Luigi."

Now, at the time, my father was in a meeting with his manager and his supervisor, along with most of his coworkers. And when I called, he picked up before he even left the room.

And he put on a very awful Italian accent and said, "Itsa me, Luigi! Whatsa the matter?"In front of his boss and coworkers. Without telling them what was going on. So they were absolutely bewildered, and he carried on like they didn't even exist. He only explained what was happening after I had calmed down and hung up, to which most of them responded with "Aww, cute."

I continued to call him whenever I got upset at school, and eventually his coworkers got in on it. I distinctly remember one of them impersonating Toad. I don't know why I'm telling you this, I just thought it might make you smile :)

this is so delightful I love your Luigi dad

[calliopechild]

"... bought... copper... from... this... shady fucker... bad quality... zero stars... "

[calliopechild]

gotta love a dog that just doesn't care if the ball of fluff is spicy or not, it will eventually surrender to the warm

[calliopechild]

Stolen from reddit where it wasn't being properly appreciated

[calliopechild]

Mako. What was all that about? I mean… I'm not crazy. You felt it, right? We are Drift compatible.

Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori PACIFIC RIM│2013

[calliopechild]

i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back

[calliopechild]

A new site, FuckLAPD.com, is using public records and facial recognition technology to allow anyone to identify police officers in Los Angeles they have a picture of. The tool, made by artist Kyle McDonald, is designed to help people identify cops who may otherwise try to conceal their identity, such as covering their badge or serial number. “We deserve to know who is shooting us in the face even when they have their badge covered up,” McDonald told me when I asked if the site was made in response to police violence during the LA protests against ICE that started earlier this month. “fucklapd.com is a response to the violence of the LAPD during the recent protests against the horrific ICE raids. And more broadly—the failure of the LAPD to accomplish anything useful with over $2B in funding each year.”

24 June 2025

[calliopechild]

[calliopechild]

This is who is leading the NYC mayoral democratic primary rn

[calliopechild]

merlin has more strength than me bc if I heard uther pendragon bitch and moan about how magic only brings harm after I just saved his sons life for the ten billionth time that year with my magic and almost died yet again, I fear id accidentally turn him into a log

[calliopechild]

met a woman today whose original real actual given-at-birth first name is "Vendetta." ma'am are you aware you are a videogame protagonist and/or a character in a skullduggery pleasant novel. real quick sorry to bother you miss but who exactly were your parents expecting you to avenge in their name

[calliopechild]

Just a silly idea I drew in like, 20 minutes xd

[calliopechild]

im getting really fucking sick of all this “it gets better!” bullshit. im going to have depression for the rest of my life. it’s not going to “””get better””” fuck you