#SHAPES AND COLOURS GOD DAYUM

[oosteven-universe]

Heart Attack #2

Heart Attack #2 Skybound/Image Comics 2019 Created & Written by Shawn Kittelsen Created & Illustrated by Eric Zawadzki Coloured by Michael Garland Lettered by Pat Brosseau     Ever since Variants were “birthed,” the country has feared the emergence of Powers of Mass Destruction. Now their fears become reality as Jill and Charlie manifest abilities beyond their wildest dreams—and the Variant Crimes Unit is their first target.     I do believe that the boys just blew my mind! I mean hit me out of left field with this one and keep my feeling curiouser curiouser cried Alice. I'm certainly not going to tell them to hit me with your best shot, fire away because dayum sons. I know I am feeling all cliché but somehow that's me getting my bearings and thoughts straight after reading this as I am still reeling. Last issue set us up for this but there was no way on god's green earth I could have thought it was this. Either Charlie is the best actor in the entire world or he's completely out of his depth and doesn't how he got himself into this nor how to get himself out of it. It will be interesting to see what choices he makes next.     I am enjoying the way that this is being told immensely! The story & plot development we see through the sequence of events that unfold as well as how the reader learns information is laid down perfectly. The way we see the interaction between Charlie and Jill goes a long way in both story and character development. Speaking of the character development here is off the charts and while we get to know these two a lot better it's really the defensive nature they both display that pulls you in the intrigue factor range. The pacing is excellent and the way that it takes us through the pages and how it brings us these twists and turns help to create this really interesting ebb & flow to the book. The entire book with it's overall structure is so well done and how it is being told through the interactions and through the one-on-one time is so deftly applied.     I liked the first issue, it was good, interesting and set up a promising premise but it is this issue that cements it in the must read pile. This is where the set up pays off and the really good meat of the story starts to take shape. While I am somewhat surprised to see things move so quickly unless of course this is a four issue series.     I really like the interiors here. There is this mix of old indie/underground style going on with this modern sensibility that really makes an impact. The linework is sensational and to see the different techniques utilised to bring about this attention to detail that we see is phenomenal. That dress she's wearing for instance is awesome and the fact that Eric has to play fashion designer is lovely. I am a huge fan of the way that we see backgrounds utilised here as they enhance the moments beautifully and bring us this sense of size and scope to the book. The composition inside the panels brings us depth perception and scale to what we see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this amazing eye for storytelling. The colour work is beautifully done as well. There is some really nice colour blocking and how it interacts with the lines creates this optical illusion that's divine. Also the weathered camo look works for this and overall I really like the application between day time and night time is done. ​     Can Charlie overcome his own insecurities and stand up for himself or will he bring his new friends into some serious trouble? The newfound power he finds with Jill, I feel like there should be some Charlie's Angels references here, is something that hopefully will embolden him in ways he never thought were possible. In the meantime I think this could be one of the next years hottest most talked about franchises, see what I did there.  

[gender-pages-blog]

CAMPAIGN:

1. 

I Want You To Fuck All The Women In Me The female heart carries courage in the chambers that pump blood into lifeless souls, for it has learnt to surreptitiously push itself through tsunamis that dismantled strategically established structures with a mere hair flip. It knows how to put make-up in crowded metros, when all the women wonder why she's so obsessed with the idea of putting up make-up, that she's doing it here in front of everyone, when she could have done it within the confines of her home. Or wait, eyebrows raised, with questions on their otherwise serene morning faces, "why do you need make-up when you're beautiful the way you're?" To the women going to office without wake-up, standing firm amidst unsettling remarks, "your eyes look patchy and droopy", "are you sick or didn't get enough sleep?"Her dark circles are easily ignored evidences,of all the nights she was up convincing her family, to let her go to another town for her undergraduate degree, and from the time she spent breastfeeding her hungry daughter in the middle of the night, or from ensuring that socks don't keep falling off the little feet of her son. To the women who spent 6 hours dressing up, fixing it, re-doing it, deciding it's all been done wrong, so staring over all again, imitating the women on the Internet, finding just a fraction of the perfection she was looking for. We know how years of societal ridicule telling you that you're shorter, darker, heavier, slimmer, taller, than other women or than what men would have liked, has reduced you to a zombie feeding off on other people's shallow validation, and how deprived you're of the goddess that sits in your chest singing victory songs to the gods in heaven, proclaiming how it learnt to fight, from the time when she was a ball of blood and flesh in her mother's womb, hearing carefully drawn strategies to strangle her before she can come into the world only to learn what the world will snatch from her, from the time when genital mutilation was the only way out to keep her from letting things in, from the time when marriage stumbled like an unprecedented warning call over her ears when the only thing she wanted to hear was, "well done, you're meant for great things!", but she forced herself to learn each word of the "Guide To A Happy Married Life", learning how to find happiness in her husband's happiness, and her so-called "conflict of duties" didn't permit her to utter a word to her parents, because daughters can be scarred and sacred and scared, but no matter what, they don't come back home once married because they were never yours to begin with, from the time when she could claim the streets and dance naked celebrating her glory, being unrestrained and beautiful and ugly and melodramatic without giving a fuck to any tag that tried to push itself down her throat slowly choking her and claiming everything she could have been, from the time when liking pink and hugs and romantic movies were blurred lines segregating the dumb whores from the intellectual bitches, from the time when Holi (the festival of colours) was an excuse of a festival for men to feed off her in socially approved ways, leaving marks of their convenient pride over the skin that she proudly wore, over the skin that just wanted to see the colours of life, they showed her the colours of their souls when she was just 7, from the time when they told her she would never be able to walk or dance because she is too fat to move like that and has flat feet that will stifle her aspirations to keep pace, from the time when being beautiful was a warning bell that would never stop ringing and being ugly was "desperation dressed subtle", from the time when standing up for yourself was being a feminazi-sick-hysterical-neurotic-abused-crazy woman, and being silent was ignorant-dumb-weak-powerless-submissive, from the time when glancing through books under bed covers were plans to destroy established civilisations and control systems meant to maintain exploitative structures, from the time when letting a man touch you wherever he wants however he wants defined how much you loved him by surrendering your body-mind-soul at his feet even though he refuses to let you stroke his hair when he "doesn't feel like it", from the time when biting my lip was sexual and uncovering my breasts could wreck havoc  over the most dead faces in the room, from the time when you divorced me and left me stranded in the middle of the road with your child in my womb and I still tried my best to ensure that our daughter could have a relationship with her father despite the abuse that became my everyday life, to the time when social media where I find the illusion of being able to say what I feel, is a careful traitor trading my messenger (a place to initiate communication) in the hands of men, who can't resist telling a woman they don't even know, how much they wanna be frandz with her, and fuck her under the streetlight in a car that stinks of their unfriendly odour, but they say that the hostile smell is of her unclean and hairy vagina, wait but try naming the patriarchal instruction manual that told you to equate a woman's genitals with roses and lemons and peach, so I can have that shit banned, from the time when travelling alone meant being a money bank deliberately putting itself on sale, to the time when a simple activity like travelling alone was enough to get me called "rebellious",when it was nothing more than a statement of my power, defying your suffocating nerve-cracking fear-installing soul-wrenching systems, from the time when leaving my hair open meant a rude declaration of my recklessness on an otherwise warm winter day, and how sitting with my legs spread wide grants you commodious certification to get right between them no matter how much I scream, from the time when sex meant your entire being reducing me to pieces with the blink of an eye, without taking the time to understand what my body wants and how it responds, when it meant letting hormones dictate the anxieties of my confused head and shivering soul, I think today is your day to fuck me, show me how you will fuck all the women in me, because I swear that though the women in me are tired, they will fuck the fuck out of your fragile ego rusting at their fingertips, if you take a close look at us,you will see how we are so tired our bones would've given up on us if we didn't have this perpetual sadness keeping them together,our wombs would have refused to nurture lives if we didn't push hard enough to expel out lives that could live by everything you wanted to kill,our blood would refuse to flow if you weren't following our unchaste moves with the vigilance of a midnight cop, look at us, my dear, we're about to change the world, the tables are turning, the lights are getting dim, keep your shoulders down, don't grin like that in front of me, stop your suggestive wink emojis, step down from that convenient biased system-granted CEO chair that your ass is so accustomed to, your time's up boy, your time's up my boy.

2.

Thing I learnt after being in an all girls college:

1) It could be extremely uncomfortable to sit with your legs close to each other, as the touching/rubbing of thighs causes sweat and irritation. And contrary to popular belief, women feel absolutely comfortable keeping their legs apart and airy, when they aren't being monitored by sperm-possessors under the gender-conforming systematic apparatus that sexualises vaginas, hence reinforcing the idea that the vagina should be carefully hidden at all times, as sitting with your legs open grants legitimate authority to the privileged sex to get right between them or puts the sex in their eyes. DAYUM GIRL SPREAD THEM LEGS WHENEVER YOU WANT HOWEVER YOU WANT 2) Women tend to love each other without any inherent impulse to harbour hate or jealously over how the other woman looks/what the other woman possesses. In-fact, when they're allowed to express themselves in a free setting (without being headed by men in lines and classrooms), they recognise their power to RESIST/MANIPULATE systems that strategically reproduce similar societies while subtly accommodating the idea of a progressive flux. 3) In an environment where you don't have the  consistent fear of being groped/harassed/raped shoved down your throat with every breath you take, women LEARN TO UNLEARN pre-conceived ideas of living in bodies, that are pre-determined crime spots, with socially approved criminals, who are just doing what nature has conveniently assigned them to do, and since women are the ones defying the law by resisting the order of nature, anything happening or the mere lack of it is caused either by the inability/ability of women to have caused otherwise. Reading, discussing, sharing (without the fear of threatening traditionally empowered groups), often enables women to work their way through contexts and scenarios while reclaiming their power to bargain with patriarchy and challenge discourses. 4) Timely acceptance of your sexual impulses is the key to recognition of manufactured consent. Only you own your the body you inhabit, and if anyone tries to alter your state of consciousness, refusing to take the time to understand how your body functions and what it really needs, you can show them the unapologetic exit gate from your phenomenal life. I think what I'm trying to say is that I didn't know how the fear of being physically weaker, the fear of being groped/raped/beaten, altered my mind and body so much on an everyday basis, until I stepped into a world where I was allowed to run free without anyone discussing the weird shape of my ass when it moves too fast, or without anyone commenting on my nipples being visible because I didn't wear a bra, or my dark lipstick shade being a subtle invitation to invade everything familiar. I slowly learnt to voice my opinion without a louder (ignorant) voice suppressing mine. I learnt to wear crop-tops without the fear of my waist-line being a mid-day party for hungry hands. I learnt everything by unlearning what FEAR, had almost gradually, with the abruptness and the consistency of a moving fan, injected into my craving nerves. And for the first time, the grass was greener on my side. For the first time, the grass on my side wasn't short"er" or weak"er" or less"er". For the first time, the grass on my side was all that there was, and I was told to run on it freely for as long as I wanted to, without the other side calling the act of running, sexual or rebellious or inappropriate. Of-course, my hair flew and my boobs shook, but it was all okay. For the first time, I was complete. I was whole. I was enough. For the first time, sentences began with, "if she does this/does that, then..." You'll probably tell me I shouldn't have gone to an all girls' college because it alienates the viewpoint of the other gender, and I would look at you with puppy eyes amused at the spontaneity of the moment, where you never realised how the OTHER viewpoint is all that has existed since the beginning of time.  When male viewpoint is all you've known all your life, a certain distance is needed to give you the permission (as it's said) to have your own. To let you have your own as an independent entity, without existing in relation to a fear-installing, soul-wrenching, gender-reinforcing, system. And unless you have your OWN, can you fully accept the OTHER?

Artist: Avnika Gupta Sociology Honours; Lady Shri Ram College For Women, Columnist; Berlin ArtParasites & Thought Catalog

The Redesigned, Renovated and Refurbished project is running a campaign on social media where we invite all of you to transgress, embrace and showcase your true gender performance by wearing whatever you would have/ already do, had their been no regulation and the different spaces you would occupy in those clothes.