#and now the literal next day i'm just marvelling at the lack of pain in my feet

[loving-jack-kelly]

my feet were hurting so much for so long and according to my googling it was due to lack of arch support so I got better shoes and it didn't help and now I'm on day two of wearing arch support braces and oh my god. the difference it's making. never going back.

[the5thcellar]

The crossing boundary performative stuff is what makes the PR over the top and what turns people off. THAT is the stuff that isn’t needed or required of them. It makes everything about their supposed closeness questionable now. Professional PR industry folk were even on Twitter questioning certain behavior and said it went beyond normal and could potentially cause blowback.

this is a prime example of how the "it's all PR folks" are completely contradictory. it's not required of them to act that way.... so instead of accepting that they're genuine friends who share a level of intimacy and trust borne of their unique experiences ... people assume it's all fake ???

ok cool cool cool cool cool.

I mean. if that one photo of Antonia has y'all so fucking worked up I can't imagine how y'all are gonna react when more photos of them together start popping up. next thing I know y'all will start questioning if Nic and Luke even talk outside of doing their scenes together.

the lack of ability to deal with complexity and nuance is painful to watch.

different things can be true all at once. Luke and Nic can ham it up in interviews for the PR to tease fans. at the same time they can ALSO be really fucking great friends trying to navigate the fine line between friends and ... something else.

they can both see other people romantically ... and also be really fucking great friends who feel some type of way for each other.

they can get MARRIED TO OTHER PEOPLE and have kids and live whole other lives ... and also one day find their way back to each other.

this isn't even an uncommon path. it happens in real life and it happens in the celeb world.

I can't believe y'all think that just because they played some parts of their relationship up for PR ... that everything is suddenly fake and that they were outright lying to fans and trying to deceive them ...

and please miss me with the professional PR industry folk bs. I saw those tweets and rolled my eyes. I work in PR myself. those people were feeding into the frenzy and saying whatever would get them the most likes. it's obvious that it's hyperbole done for clicks. it's like doctors saying "I'm a medical professional and even I'm stumped by this case." they say it as a bit. if you actually asked them for their thoughts they WILL all have long drawn out explanations on the PR strategy the show is taking.

that's why media literacy and the humanities are so important. if people feel lied to regarding the PR, it's because they can't differentiate between when moments are exaggerated and when things are real. it's because they're too used to straightforward narratives à la Marvel movies and think what they see is literally what they get, instead of recognising that these are REAL PEOPLE with real lives and REAL relationships that are complicated. it's because they're watching too many tiktoks instead of reading novels and therefore not knowing how to read between the lines.

one rotten apple doesn't make the whole tree bad. if you feel you're being lied to and that the PR they did was all fake... that's mostly on you. find others who agree with you and can offer you the validation you clearly seek.

because i definitely don't feel the same.

[luthienne]

Truly feel like I don't even have the strenght in me to keep trying to help or make the world 'better.' It will never happen. I say this as an indigenous latina, so it isn't like I'm a white 'ally' with 'burn out.' I've literally been fighting my whole life. Don't feel like I can keep fighting. Everything is a lost cause. I lose heart I didn't know I have with every piece of news or post I see on Twitter or anywhere else. So much pain.

ay, mi amor, i’m so sorry. please know that as much as you witness cruelty and injustice, as overwhelming as it feels, as pointless as it feels to keep fighting (not just against injustices but for your own right to feel safe, to feel hopeful, to feel valued), you are not alone, you are not fighting alone, and it is not your fight alone. the joy harjo quote from her poem “the naming” comes to my mind: “truth can appear as disaster in a land of things unspoken.”

sometimes it feels like a lost cause. we are constantly assaulted w news about more injustices, more harmful actions. utter lack of accountability. and we wonder how the world can be such a violent place, after everything, after everything. but the truth is, despite everything, the world is full of tenderness and love and humans wanting to fight for what’s right and do better than they’ve done before, to do whatever they can to help even at the risk of getting hurt, of getting caught in the crossfire bc they care so much, bc they’re not willing to let these injustices happen silently.

words feel so powerless sometimes. language feels so insufficient. nothing feels enough. mary oliver can express what i’m trying to say better than i can: 

“meanwhile i know this: evil is one part of our beautiful world. and though my writing pays it small attention, i am not blinkered; i, too, have been forced to stand close to it, and have felt the almost muscular agony of impotence before it, unable to interfere or assuage or do anything effective. though i do—oh yes i do—believe the soul is improvable. oh sweet and defiant hope!”

some days, we just have to say: “i don’t have faith today. i don’t have hope today. i don’t have the strength to fight today. i can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, i can’t understand how things will ever change. maybe i’ll have faith again tomorrow. maybe i’ll have hope again tomorrow. maybe i’ll have the strength to fight again tomorrow.” and know that it’s ok. you are a human being and we are not made to endure constant horrors, what feel like never-ending battles on every front. sometimes fighting (especially things like systemic oppression) means taking a step back to take care of yourself.

i am loathe to use a choir metaphor but there’s this thing that we do when there are long lines of music: each singer drops out at different times to take a breath before coming back in, and it’s unnoticeable bc the rest of the choir is still sustaining the music. social justice in communities should be like this. you need to take a breath. we’ll still be here fighting, your community will be here to uplift you and support you and love you. you cannot continue pouring from an empty cup. you have to take care of yourself (if possible, in any way). this fight belongs to everyone. i’m so sorry that it doesn’t always feel like that’s the reality of it.

as a non-indigenous latina who grew up in new mexico alongside my indigenous latinx sisters, i recognize the harm that can come from within even the latinx community. the internalized normalization of systemic oppression, our complicity if we are not actively speaking out and working against it. it is our responsibility to step up and take on the fight in the ways that our privilege allows us. it is our job to confront racism and injustices in our communities, to not be silent, to shoulder the weight. i am here for you and w you in this fight. ♡ 

i have to believe that someday, big change will happen, that every day people are doing things that make the world a little better—and big change begins with the little changes that each of us take on every single day. it begins with people making the choice to become active in their communities, engaging w their communities about issues, looking for the places where they can donate a little bit of money even when they’re out of work, showing up to protests and vigils even in the middle of a pandemic, doing what they can to unlearn and learn and do better, voting for change, holding our elected leaders accountable. understanding that we will fuck up and that accountability is necessary (and that it is our job to hold ourselves accountable, not to expect others to do it for us). hopefully the smaller actions lead to bigger actions, hopefully this accountability carries us further in the fight than we’ve been able to go before. 

i attended a masterclass on stamina the other day--i thought it was going to be about vocal stamina (we were all opera singers), but she chose to also speak about emotional stamina, about resilience. she mentioned a ted talk she had listened to where the speaker talked about how resilient people choose where they focus their attention--is this serving me, or not? what can i change and what can’t i change? am i directing my energy toward a “positive” goal? bc we are wired to direct our attention to negativity, to danger, to threats. it is a survival instinct we all have. (i won’t get started on when we throw trauma into that mix.) she told us that our practice, not our results, is what needs to be consistent.

i personally needed that reminder: to direct my energy toward the act of simply achieving a consistent practice. all too often, my energy goes instead into the (paralyzing) fear that nothing i can do will ever be enough. the pointlessness of my efforts. the self-admonishment that my practice didn’t achieve the results that i wanted. it’s incredibly self-defeating. i don’t know if this is at all helpful for you. it is, of course, a false equivalence to say that trying to get better at singing is the same thing as trying to dismantle systemic oppression. but the reminder hit me on many levels--that everything i do isn’t necessarily going to achieve the results that i want. it’s just important that i show up to do the work.

i was chatting w my bestie @bronzeaxeli, who is an indigenous latina (and all-around amazing human being), when i received your ask. she passed along, “on the futility of fighting against an seemingly insurmountable social construct, i think my best advice is to consider how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time. it is going to take the entire ant hill to digest this beast. but all of us together working to make the small changes incrementally will there be change. it will take a long time, but these systems weren’t built in a day. and if hope isn’t enough, then do it for the spite. living well is the best revenge. make those who look down on us paranoid, and while they are continually looking over their shoulder, they miss all of us moving forward toward our own goals.”

“You cannot destroy a soul though you may destroy a planet. You cannot destroy a song though you can make people forgetful. A soul can appear to be destroyed, and a song can disappear for a few generations only to reemerge from the heart of a child who turns and becomes a woman.”

Joy Harjo, A Map to the Next World

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

“No matter, I said lightly, more to myself than anyone. We will make it through this, past the edge of the wound.”

Joy Harjo, A Map to the Next World

[sassycassie-s-writing]

Doppelgänger

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): Avengers - Peter Parker/Spider-Man & Tom Holland

Rating: PG

Original Idea:  I know I mentioned before that I don’t write for the actors, really, but I read a really good fic over on fanfiction.net about the Marvel characters coming into our world (Universal Headaches by Talk With Your Hands) so I gave it a quick try.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Gee, what is with me and these slightly-longer-than-my-slightly-longer-than-usual fics recently? I mean, I’m not complaining, and I hope y’all aren’t either, but this is, like, the third one! Harper is not my last name so don’t look for a Cass Harper on other social media. If you find one, it’s not me.

^^^^^

WHAM!

Groaning in pain, I picked myself up off the ground where I'd landed, coughing dust out of my lungs. On all fours, I looked to my side to see curly brown hair emerging from the dust, also pushing up onto all fours. “You okay?” I asked, voice raspy from the dust and the fall and the pain.

“Yeah,” Peter replied, also raspy. He sounded a little shaken. “You?”

I glanced at the bruises that would soon form on my arms from impact. “More or less.”

“Who are you?!” a new voice exclaimed with a British accent. The voice was… familiar somehow. “And what are you doing here?!”

Peter and I glanced at each other before I turned my gaze to see the owner of the voice while Peter favored coughing.

I almost fell back to the floor in shock.

The young man looked just like Peter. Same curly-ish hair, same brown eyes, same face. The only thing different was the fashion sense. Whoever this guy was, he wore skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with a necklace that had a long silver chain and a charm I couldn’t quite see because of my angle—pretty different from Peter’s science pun T-shirts, checked button-ups over them, and normal jeans with the hems turned up since they were too long. This doppelgänger looked startled to say the least.

“Who are you?!” I retorted in surprise.

Not-Peter scrunched his eyebrows. “I'm… Tom. Tom Holland,” he answered.

I got to my feet slowly, wincing, and introduced myself, sticking my hand out. Not-Peter—Tom—shook it.

And then Peter looked up. “What the f—?!” He cut himself off as he fell backwards onto his back.

This Tom guy looked down and realized what he was seeing. He blinked a couple times. “Am I seeing things?” he demanded. “Why—why do we look the same?” He took a couple steps back, one hand behind him, feeling for the wall.

“Well why are you British?” I retorted.

The British young man in question grunted but didn’t say anything.

I helped Peter to his feet. “You just had to plug the stereo into the weird machine, didn’t you Peter?” I grumbled as I pulled him up.

“Wait,” the British Not-Peter protested. “Peter? As in Peter Parker?”

Peter and I froze before slowly looking at the doppelgänger. “How, how, how do y-you know my name?” Peter stammered, his hand lifting and finding my arm. He held onto it like an anchor—and for a moment I thought he might fall over again.

“I know your name because I'm an actor and you're a character I portray in a movie series,” Tom-Not-Peter replied. “You're not real.”

I arched my eyebrows. “Movie characters?” I asked no one in particular.

“Well…” Tom-Not-Peter trailed off. “Not you, sorry. Or, if you're going to be in the films, you haven't been cast yet.”

“These films… are they well-known?” Peter asked Tom.

“Well yes. They're something of a cultural phenomenon. There’s never really been an interconnected universe comprising of multiple different franchises that can crossover before. It was exciting but a bit of a shock to the system when I was cast. It’s a bit strange to be relatively unknown and then a household name overnight,” Tom explained. I looked—I mean, stared—between the two of them, amazed at how perfectly carbon-copied the two were of each other.

I ran my hands through my hair. “I can’t believe this is happening,” I muttered under my breath.

“You and me both,” Peter agreed.

“So… if you're actually Peter Parker,” Tom started, “I mean, y’know, Spider-Man, how did you end up… here?”

“Where exactly is ‘here’?” I wondered.

“London.”

My jaw dropped. “London?!” I clenched my jaw. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I rounded on Peter. “This is all your fault,” I accused him. “We weren’t even supposed to be in the workshop but you wanted to work on something and listen to music at the same time so you plugged it into that weird machine. And when it started pulsing with that weird bluish light did you unplug it? No. Instead you decide we should check it out! Now look where we are! We’re in an alternate dimension where you're a movie character!”

“Actually,” Tom put in. “He was a comic book character first. And one of the most recognizable superheroes in the world.”

I sighed dramatically. “Great. Even better,” I commented, voice bleeding and dripping sarcasm. “So how are we going to get home without drawing attention to ourselves? Because I imagine he—” I pointed backward at Tom-Not-Peter, while still glaring at Peter. “—probably has hordes of fangirls who are all over his every move so what do we do about you?”

“It’s not that mad,” Tom corrected. I ignored him.

“How are we even going to find a way to get home?” I carried on.

“Whoever you are in this universe,” Peter answered, finally cutting me off. “If you haven't been cast yet, and he doesn’t know who you are, that means your actress isn’t well-known. So if we can find her, maybe she can help us. It’d be safer to be around her than him.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Tom asked.

We both ignored him.

I shrugged. “I suppose. But if your actor is British and mine hasn’t been cast yet, or may not even exist, how will we know where to look? It’s not like we can sweep facial recognition over, like, four different countries!”

“Four?” Tom wondered. Peter grunted in agreement with the question.

“America, Britain, Canada, and Australia,” I replied. “Those seem the most likely. I'm American, born and raised, but you ain’t even though Peter is, so that makes things significantly more complicated for me.” I rubbed at something warm on my lip—dried blood. I must have split it open when I fell. I grimaced in irritation. Of course I was bleeding.

“Well it’s not like we can use facial recognition,” Peter observed sarcastically. I raised my eyebrows suggestively. “No. No. No, no, no, no, no. We are not hacking into something to use facial recognition!”

“Well how else do you suggest finding the version of me of this universe? This isn’t like the time Tony told us to literally find that needle in the haystack and we lit the hay on fire!” I exclaimed.

Tom gave me and Peter a really confused look. “You lit a haystack on fire?”

I ignored him. “C’mon, Peter, it’s not gonna be hard. We just need an internet connection to connect to a database and search facial recognition. We photograph my face and search for it,” I pressed to my friend. Peter furrowed his brows in thought and heaved a sigh, refusing to meet my eyes for several moments while he thought.

“Fine. Let’s go find somewhere with internet.”

“All due respect, strangers,” Tom interrupted loudly. “It’s past midnight. You should get some sleep first. You're welcome here tonight but in the morning I want you gone. But, y’know, carefully. Because he has my face.” He nodded at Peter.

“Okay,” I replied. “Thank you, Mr. Holland.”

“No, please. Don’t call me that. Tom is fine. Mr. Holland is way too formal.”

“Very well. Thank you, Tom. We’ll be gone in the morning.”

He gave us a single nod and retreated down a hallway.

“I’ll take the floor,” Peter muttered. “You take the couch.”

“I can—”

“No. Don’t bother.” He sat down on the ground, cleared away the dust from our landing, and wrapped up in his jacket. I eased onto the couch, wrapped my jacket around my body, and burrowed down to sleep.

^^^^^

“Wow. It’s like looking in a mirror,” I muttered, peering across the university campus at the girl who looked just like me. Peter had his head down enough that no one would notice him or look twice, wearing a ball cap with the brim pulled low. “I thought you and the Holland-guy was weird but I'm looking at a girl who’s me. Wow.” Peter grunted but didn’t say anything.

I nudged him in the arm.

“C’mon,” I whispered. “Let’s go talk to her.”

“Let me go first,” Peter replied, edging around me and trotting down the hall. I followed him. “Excuse me?” he called. “Miss Harper?”

The girl who would one day be me on screen—maybe—looked up from her laptop. “Yeah?” Her face went slack. “Oh my gosh—has anyone ever told you that you look just like Tom Holland?” she asked in an awed tone.

“Yeah. All the time. Listen, my name is Peter Parker—you might know me as a comic book or movie character, but we’re real. And we’re in the wrong universe. We need your help to get back to ours.”

My doppelgänger tilted her head. “Who’s we?” she inquired curiously.

I came out from behind Peter. “Me and him,” I answered.

Miss Harper stared. “Oh. Well. Okay.” She opened and closed her mouth a couple times like a fish before regaining her composure. “So… what do you want me to do? I'm not a scientist. I'm studying to be an actor.”

“We mostly need your lack of fame to keep us hidden from the world,” Peter put in. “The actor who plays me has become high-profile because he plays me. But if, one day, you're cast as her—” He pointed at me. “—you haven't reached that level yet. So we need your help to find a way to get us home. Any research you can give us on anything like a Dimensional Cannon—or something.”

“A Dimension Cannon? Like in Doctor Who?”

“Yeah.”

Miss Harper bit some skin off her lower lip and looked down at her laptop. “Well, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but I am something of a Google master. Let me look.” She glanced at her watch. “Okay. Forty-five minutes till my next class. That should be enough time.” As she typed, her eyes looked up to me. “If anyone asks, say you're my twin. No one here really knows me so it won’t be too difficult for them to believe.”

“Thank you,” I offered. She nodded and returned her focus to her screen and her keyboard.

Peter and I sat down on the chairs next to her. Peter kept his head low, muttering something about ridiculous that I didn’t quite catch. Probably thinking it was ridiculous that he had to hide his face.

I had to say I agreed, but we couldn’t afford attention.

My doppelgänger slammed her hands down on the arms of her chair. “Shoot. I can’t find anything. Sorry guys, the technology doesn’t exist in this world yet.” She looked apologetic. I pursed my lips thoughtfully.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

“Well, after my day is over, you can come back to my apartment with me.”

“Thank you,” I repeated. She nodded. I looked over at Peter. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay.”

“I know,” he mumbled. “I'm just trying to figure out if we could make a Dimension Cannon ourselves.”

I raised my eyebrows. My double didn’t notice, she was still peering at her screen curiously. “How?” I whispered to Peter as some guys walked past in basketball jerseys, loudly joking around with each other.

He gave me a smirk. “I have an idea. You're not going to like it, but I have an idea.”