#I THINK IT IS THE CORRECT WRITING DECISION TO MAKE BECAUSE HOW SPIDER SOCIETY FEELS ABOUT MIGUEL'S LEADERSHIP W CANON IS NOT THE MOST

[fellhellion]

its also why i think people who are looking forward to a detailed breakdown of how spider society will react to miles being able to challenge canon -> how that effects their feelings towards miguel are like. just honestly setting themselves up for disappointment AND just not really acknowledging the constraints of the story.

we do not have time for that. it's interesting, absolutely, but not that important to the story being told when there are far more pressing narrative threads to be addressed first.

i can tell you now at MOST you will have a couple of important characters like Jess or Peter representing two slightly different ways to feel about Miguel leadership re canon, but the even more likely path is that all of spider society will be portrayed as having a singular feeling about it. and that's not bad writing, it's just shorthand again. prioritising focus in the narrative to where it needs to go in service of miles as our titular character.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

This is not goddam problematic FFS.

I saw someone once claim that because it was subtextually supporting a pro-life POV.

But like...how?

The female character and her partner are presented with a choice, they acknowledge they have a choice, they debate which option to take, they make a decision and said decision is not one stemming from a feeling of there being a moral obligation to continue a pregnancy or that there would be anything immoral in terminating it if they so chose.

Advocating for pro-choice does not have to mean you must depict a character having an abortion if the option is available or presenting it as what should’ve happened in hindsight.

It just needs to have the characters have the choice, acknowledge it and make a decision that has nothing to do with valuing the life of a foetus for the sake of it.

Yes the story depicts MJ as brave. But it wasn’t a sure thing the baby was going to die or kill her. It wasn’t like she was taking a million to one shot like a hero. And she wasn’t doing it out of a belief that life is sacred and precious no matter what or because she herself is opposed to abortion on a fundamental level. The over all message isn’t that abortion is wrong but that that specific character in those circumstances wanted the baby and felt the risk was worth it/there was enough of a chance for success. Remember in context even without any medical tests or opinions there would’ve been an inherent risk in conceiving children with a superpowered person regardless just because there is little-no medical precedence. So it made perfect sense for that character in that context to make the decision.

AH but ya see:

Anti-choice propaganda in the US leans heavily on the sophistry that every termination is the murder of a happy, healthy person who would be a benefit to society. And again, my point isn't about the story choice. It's about the message being sent - which is in line with the message in anti-choice propaganda. The mother was correct to carry the baby to term.

This is BS because it’s just coincidental. The writer wants the family to have another baby, but also wants drama, so goes the route of the pregnancy having complications but because they end result has already been determined it happens to turn out okay, but the intention was never an endorsement of anti-choice propaganda. I mean I’ll be honest when it comes to being in line with anti-choice propaganda, I think this might be a case of what an individual takes from the story is up to them. Case in point, its in line with Liberal certain beliefs that rich CEOs of mega corporations can be/are exploitative. And Marvel has characters like Justin Hammer or Lex Luthor (who let us remember was rebooted in the 1980s specifically to be like Donald Trump) exactly like that. And yet they also have Tony, Bruce, Ollie, etc. So they obviously are not wholesale against rich CEOs or corporations but the depiction of the former is in line with certain Liberal beliefs. Or lets consider Spider-Man 2099. He’s a subversive figure within his society, someone who is almost seen as a revolutionary figure and commits crimes such as property damage and breaking and entering alongside vigilantism. He is also of Irish and Mexican decent so this would be in line with racist stereotypes of both cultures but it’s obviously not the case. In Spider-Girl Mayday is often hit or injured in the course of her battles, but obviously this is not a reinforcement of it being okay to hit women (especially given that there is a subplot all about that). But those who feel it is okay to do that could look upon her receiving injuries as showcasing that it is okay because look she’s fine after wards. In isolation the Byrne FF story where Sue’s second pregnancy ends in a miscarriage and in which the characters never even discussed abortion could be seen as being in line with pro-choice views because a choice was never even presented and things turned out tragically when they could’ve been prevented if she’d had an abortion. However I don’t think anyone would agree that the story actually does do that, not least of all because of who wrote it. So the story could show MJ choosing to not have an abortion because she believes that in fact there is a good chance of things turning out okay and because she wants the baby and her turning out to be right without necessarily advocating the anti-choice camp.

This mentality is just a classic case of reading way too much into things and prioritising a social-political reading over a character centric reading. A good writer writes the characters and story in line with the needs of the characters and their ideology, not the writer’s personal ideology.

[violetsystems]

#personal

The only drama I’ve been tolerating lately is my return to reading physical comics in public.  The world has gone batshit insane and that isn’t the intro panel to Immortal Hulk.  It’s pretty much real life for me without much explanation or external plot narration.  After a year of writing here about how I feel on any number of issues nobody in real life knows any different.  It’s always been here where the act of social sharing has fifteen layers of safeguards in terms of anonymity.  The community has always been very subtle and muted in how it treats each other.  It’s intimate how you come to know a person through their curation of content.  There’s entire relationships I have with people on here that matter more to me than people I’m in daily contact with in Chicago.  I’ve been submerged in the deep web like a cybernetic dolphin in a tank for years with the rest of you.  The Tumblr fishbowl has always been much more comforting than the public eye.  The only theory I have is that people really don’t pay attention to anyone in real life.  I’ve come to know the pain of recognizing when people stop listening.  Most people just project how great they are or how much more they know.  Society in America especially under the guise of capitalism is always a competition.  You can only assess the success or value of a person by the amount they make or more importantly spend.  From there people splinter off into efficiently divided cliques, tribes and teams that people try to draft you into out of fear of isolation.  Peer pressure doesn’t ever go away unless you shut the door completely or maybe even bust it wide open.  Even then it just gets nastier and more sophisticated.  You’d have to be the Hulk to enjoy that kind of constant abuse.  My follower count has been mostly the same which has always been something I respect.  Everybody knows I try to play it safe and genuinely respect different perspectives.  I walk boundaries and I maintain layers beyond that.  Around this time last year I had made a decision in my life to focus my attention on things that made me happy.  One of those was my communications here with people.  Things had grown from this into real life in a magical way.  And then people starting hijacking the narrative for their own selfish reasons.  Putting their own spin, opinion and value on the things they thought I was “trying to say.”  That kind of thing has been happening to me since the beginning of time.  People trying to turn something I do into something that can benefit them, influence or control.  When it comes to blogging on the internet here the outside world is mostly negative towards this space.  Truthfully I am pretty excited about the recent purchase of Tumblr but everything in the press is always negative.  People are so conditioned to bad news these days that we just fixate on the drama and do nothing about it.  People crave it in almost everything.  Walk into a coffee shop and employees are trashing other coffee brands instead of focusing on their own.  People talk behind other people’s back like it’s a secret trial and never face the demon within themselves.  Sometimes these things escalate into crossing the line or threshold of your dreams overcome by some madness and zealotry.  They think they have a say in whatever it is I do in my own time.  And with me we already know how badly people have fucked up in this regard.  It is sadly comical at this point and I am the butt of a constant cosmic joke.  It would be a broken record to spend another year describing how I haven’t gotten over it.  I don’t give a fuck about any of that shit really anymore.  I changed my train route, subscribed to better coffee at home and read Hulk comics on the commute.  

With all the drama between Sony and Disney over Spider-man people forget sometimes we’re talking about movies.  Who owns the rights to the intellectual property of poor artists to bankroll their studio profits every summer is maybe important.  If you didn’t have twenty two movies linked together already.  I don’t know really I just read comics.  I’m supposed to have an opinion about every part of the world I’ve never lived in.  Within all these arguments it’s always picking a side.  Mostly because people want a battle and a chance to feel right even when they are missing a perspective totally.  We can focus on all the talking about the problems all day and never find a solution.  It’s been particularly hard for me to come to grips with being in the environment I’ve been in.  I spent five years traveling to Asia to figure out my place outside of all this.  This last year I came back and focused closer to home.  In that respect I’ve found New York to be much less pretentious than I thought it would be.  It’s truly the city where you can cry on the street and nobody cares.  That feeling of freedom is something I don’t feel lately myself in Chicago.  There’s too much manipulation and utilization of public space.  People so concerned about why you aren’t happy and never would do a thing to correct the problem.  There has to be something wrong with you for feeling that way.  In New York you kind of share the space and let things breathe.  In Chicago everybody is trying to maximize your contribution to society.  Your social obligations in the highest taxed city in America are also taxed if not just by patience and will alone.  I pay taxes and I don’t mind paying them.  But encroaching on people’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for the sake of a brand is a bit weird.  Unless it’s Pink.  This coming from a guy decked out fully in Nike and Undercover.  You see these shirts that say “Chicago Over Everything” and then you see me rot in silence in my street wear coffin.  I hear a lot of sentiments that don’t ever address me directly.  People project what they hope you will hear and expect you to take the bait.  Looking for a fight.  Looking for a new friend to abuse.  Looking for another cult member.  People approach inclusion by never leaving you alone and make you feel crazy for feeling claustrophobic.   I guess people have never been a victim of police entrapment.  That’s some drama I’ve already written about and left in the dust.  These days it’s ten thousand times worse and then again I’m over it.  The double standard I see in the real world is mostly about making people question their legitimacy in the face of incompetence.  I’ve been the victim of so many dumb social experiments for art’s sake and otherwise.  All it ever really amounts to is intimidation and drama and it’s boring and ineffectual.  We argue things we can’t or won’t change instead of leading by example.  And leading in public by yourself with no safety net gets old after awhile.  Especially when nobody remembers all that you’ve done.  Or at least gives you the benefit of the doubt when the court of public opinion puts you on trial for the fifth week in a row.  People who will talk about you behind you back all day but never address you to your face.  Never acknowledge your validity.  Too busy being negative to give you a chance to shine.

There’s an entire decade of my life that has been left behind and forgotten about outside of Tumblr.  Imagine the irony that the people I shared things with here knew the deeper side of me.  And we all watched me get passed over and ruminate about how I could be a better person.  How I could right all these wrongs?  How I could be the hero.  And almost eerily like the Hulk comic I’m looked upon as something else.  I haven’t really had a modern comic experience quite like reading that graphic novel.  I just ordered the next volume and get to pick it up from another school’s campus after work tomorrow.  I do have to work all day tomorrow.  I’ve done that for almost two decades.  People still treat me like a kid.  People on Tumblr of course know I don’t feel like a kid or even remotely account for one mathematically.  But I’ve learned people look for any excuse to write you off.  They do it for years and when you grow better they find another thing to drag you down with.  When they can’t find anything they just ignore you.  And here we are a year later looking back.  It’s that time of year again.  People are actually back in school.  Just like every other year really it feels like.  People can acknowledge I feel invisible but not acknowledge me personally.  That’s the whole curse of the Undercover aesthetic.  You wear it so well even the police start getting it twisted.  Nobody asks.  Nobody has the guts to approach you and treat you fairly.  And so you grow to know better than to waste you time on shit that doesn’t appreciate your value.  It’s a mind fuck for me really to understand the way forward is more of the same.  That being isolated and exiled in some way is far more safe at this point of my life.  That maybe there’s things too precious for me to share with people who can’t fathom or know the value I place on it.  Because they don’t make the sacrifices I do to keep things safe.  To be responsible and be myself at the same time.  A year ago I felt like that mad scientist locked in a lab.  I’ve done enough barbell reps to be the skinniest Hulk alive.  The title of that volume is “Or is he both?”  It’s a far different vibe from either Professor Hulk or Planet Hulk.  Bruce Banner is a transient who changes into the Hulk nightly.  He’s tracking gamma ray signatures of what he calls Walking Ghosts.  Toxic creatures exposed like a virus to gamma radiation by another scientist trying to heal his son.  Banner is trying to right a wrong and at the same time stay in control of his inner core of responsibilities.  He keeps a secret that grows out of control and finally the Hulk cannot be contained.  Interestingly enough the Hulk exacts his rage in frighteningly calculated ways.  He even speaks kindly of Banner.  He also buries the other scientist in a mountain and makes him ponder hell forever instead of ending his life.  The Hulk eventually learns about this green door through the Walking Ghosts that whisper about it in fear.  There’s no gatekeeper at that door to hold the Hulk back.  And I’m sure there’s so much more drama behind that door.  It’s only Volume two after all.  I can’t wait to find out because that’s about the only drama these days I pay attention to.  I don’t need any drama getting in the way of my love for you.  Hulk out.  <3 Tim