#even years later it still feels like the epitome of kirby to me

[aquapede]

deliverance of judgement

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 15: DR. EGGMAN

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a mini-series of mine, in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, it’s finally time for him. The bad doctor himself. Gather round ladies and gentleman, for the spotlight is on the arch-villain that shines above them all... Dr. Eggman.

The Gist: It's the dawn of the 90's. A little company called SEGA had an ephiphany. They wanted to make a video game juggernaut that could rival the quality and iconic appeal of the then-unmatched Super Mario Bros, and their current star, Alex Kidd, just wasn't doing it in the way that they hoped. They promptly set about starting anew, as a worldwide phenomenon wasn't going to make itself.

So a gentleman named Naoto Ohshima created a selection of design concepts for this brand new mascot. One of these concepts was President Roosevelt in his pajamas.

Seen here with his catgirl body pillow.

The response to this character was “This is good, but we think kids would prefer kicking the shit out of him”, and so he was given an antagonistic role instead. In the meantime, after juggling the rest of their ideas, they eventually settled on a rabbit hedgehog named Sonic for their main protagonist, knowing his Mickey Mouse-like aesthetic would help endear him to the audience, and the franchise as a whole would have an easier time gaining a DeviantART fanbase later on down the line.

Initially, the character of today's review was but a mere lackey among many, seemingly little more than one of numerous minions working for Sonic's originally intended main villain, the Nonspecific Goblin. He was also dressed as a bee for some reason.

Which is the least weirdest thing in this image.

At some point however, they all got together and decided that actually, the guy with the moustache was the only one worth shit, and so he was upgraded to the role of main villain himself. With a spiffy new attire of red and black, he was given the bold title of Dr. Eggman, because with a shape like that, what else are you gonna call him?

“Funny you should say that”, laughed SEGA of America, as they rebelled like an angsty teen and named him Dr. Ivo Robotnik instead. While this name does make equal sense for the character, as he is indeed a hard worker who also happens to like robots, the reason for this name's existence seems to have been mainly because they thought Eggman was too out there of a name for an egg-like man. Whatever the case, this would confuse a lot of fans for years, and remains a point of divisiveness to this day... Unless you're like me and your first game in the series was Advance 2, in which the manual clears it up right away, and you accept the idea of a character having two names and immediately carry on with your life.

He would have aimed it perfectly if it weren't for the Sonic Heroes Parrot distracting him.

And that was that, really. It didn't take long for them to come up with his characterization, which was that of a cackling fiend with an ego to end all egos. This guy was the Narcissist Alpha, more king than actual kings, no strings attached. Other villains would build statues of themselves, but only Robotnik would deface Ancient Egyptian monuments to improve them with his face. Other villains would think “Nah, refacing all four in Rushmore would look silly”, but only the Eggman, the Eggmyth, the Egglegend, would go “Well fuck you, I'm doing it anyway.” Then he'd do it anyway, and proceed to address to the entire world that he did in fact do it anyway.

It also didn't take long for them to develop his primary schtick. With the dynamic of Sonic VS Eggman, you had a classic rivalry between nature and technology. Interestingly enough however, this turned out to be executed more tactfully than your typical Amish-abiding examples in similar media. Never was technology itself regarded as a corruptive influence that you should never utilise no matter what. Rather, it was only as good or as evil as the person using it, with it just so happening that the villain loved machinery only slightly less than he loved himself, and it was countered by Sonic’s best friend being a techno wiz in his own right anyway. Anyhow, with his machinery, the doctor would make a name for himself among video game baddies by confronting his enemy as the boss of nearly every zone in each game, rather than hide away until the endgame.

And all without a driver's licence.

In his soon-to-be-30 years of activity, he has largely remained the same since his inception. Other characters have been introduced, other villains have came and went, but Eggman has remained THE villain of the franchise, and he's remained a vital part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe... with a slight redesign along the way.

The only ad I don't want to skip.

The Design: Eggman's design may be more simplistic than the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf, and he may not look as openly threatening at first glance, but it's still a very iconic look no matter what look it is. His original appearance was devised so that kids could have an easy time drawing him, which only makes me feel worse about not being able to do it as a grown adult without it looking like a Sexy Legs Kirby.

Still, it's a classic for a reason. With his to-the-point colour scheme, contrasting heavily with Sonic's blue, and his capelet collar resembling walrus tusks, it was an instant winner and made everyone goo goo for g'joob.

The Emeralds he’s juggling are a metaphor for the divided fan community.

And when it was time to give the cast an update for Sonic's first real 3D adventure (or at least the first one that didn't get axed for being a magic eye seizure), Eggman got a respectable change of his own. He was taller, his getup was militaristic, and his body was more legitimately egg-shaped rather than basketball-shaped. He also gained a pair of goggles that he never uses, except in scenes where he puts them on and then never uses them.

“How do my chicken legs not collapse under the might of my gluttonous mass? Find out in an unrelated tie-in novel that you have to pay additional money for.”

There was also that one redesign from 2006, but...

Be it Classic or Modern, I've always loved his design. Before he even says a word or does anything, you know from his appearance that he's a bit of a clownish sort. But he also has a subtle creepy vibe going on, with the way his glasses often obscure his eyes, and how this only makes the pearly-white, unnecessarily wide grin on his face that much more empty and unsettling. This little bit of eeriness hiding among his cartoonish physique reflects the full extent of his character pretty accurately, as we’ll delve into soon enough.

If nothing else, it's more effective than him having no eyes at all.

GRRRRRRRR FUCK YOU BUNNIES THAT I CAN'T SEE

The Personality: If you've seen my villain reviews, then you'll have gathered that Sonic's rogues aren't known for having much in the way of personality. There are exceptions, but they are indeed the exceptions. More often than not though, whether it's an alien conquerer, an ancient monster, or Dan Green the Recolour, they can be summed up thusly: They're evil, they want to destroy the world, and the heroes stop them because they're evil and want to destroy the world. If they're feeling particularly daring, they might go for a second colour.

Luckily, as if to counter all these cardboard drawings, the central adversary of the franchise makes up for these voids of personality by actually having one. And what a personality it is.

The writers of SatAM looked at this and thought “No, this won't do, there's no character to work with here.”

He really is brimming with comedic charm. Every moment that he's present...

Every moment that he shows off...

Every moment that he basks in his own glory...

Every moment that he unveils a new wicked scheme...

Every moment that he puts his enemies to the test...

Every moment that he challenges the world...

Every moment that he laughs at the world...

Every moment that he lives, nay, every moment that he breathes...

Yes, the man has plenty of humor, and it's part of what makes him so enjoyable and memorable. However, if you think being a clown is all there is to him, then prepare to have your expectations subverted initial assumptions taken in a unexpected direction, because although he puts the goof in goofy, he ALSO puts the “oh...?” in “oh shit”.

For you see, Eggman is by all means the epitome of Laughably Evil, but do not, under any circumstance, take him at face value and write him off as a joke. He is anything but.

For starters, he can swing a planet.

There is a rule of thumb that I personally go by with Eggman’s characterization, one that I believe is an immediate make or break factor in regards to whether or not you understand what makes this villain work. Eggman - when you put all his secondary traits aside - is made up of two prominent halves. There’s the egocentric meme machine that bounces up and down like a kid with his N64 and laughs like Santa... and there’s the monster buried within that remains completely and utterly unrepentant for everything he’s responsible for. This is very important. Despite the character’s simplicity at his core, many writers have failed to grasp this, official writers included, and I for the life of me cannot understand why this is such a recurring problem. Eggman is funny, AND Eggman is evil. Both are equal. When you take away one or the other, you may have a funny character, or you may have an evil character, but you don’t have Eggman. Simple as.

Armchair intellectuals may argue that Eggman’s deeds aren’t that evil, since he tends to be merely callous rather than actively trying to hurt or kill people. Those people are probably the types on TV Tropes who weigh a villain’s evilness and effectiveness purely through the surface-level scale of their goals rather than what they actually do to achieve them. While it is true that Eggman tends to be more apathetic about the aftermath of his actions, that doesn’t - and shouldn’t - negate how dangerous he is. It shouldn’t negate what he’s capable of. It shouldn’t negate how far he’s willing to go. And it shouldn’t negate the consequences and casualties that can and do result from his many schemes.

Seriously, think about this for a second. If you confronted Eggman about his current plan to... I dunno, make a water park in Africa or some shit, and you informed him that there has been unexpected mass suffering as a result of this, how do you think he would truly feel about that? What do you think he would actually say to that?

Spoiler: No fucks.

If anything, that he “merely” doesn’t care either way as long as he gets what he wants is more uniquely horrific and deplorable than if he were a generic baddie who committed his evulz specifically for evulz’s own sake and nothing more. At least you’re inadvertently acknowledging that other people’s lives have value when you act one-dimensionally gleeful over ending them, but when your immediate response to the side-effect of a million potential deaths and environmental disasters is “Oh well, fuck ‘em, Eggmanland time baybeeee”, that’s a new level of cruelty.

Besides, even in the Genesis era, he was carpet bombing Angel Island...

“Good thing I have this shield. Sucks to be this forest!”

And he’s only gotten worse since then, indulging in such acts as going full suicide bomber with a missile, after his initial plot to destroy and rebuild Station Square through the means of Chaos and the Egg Carrier didn’t work out...

But don’t worry, he kept it lighthearted by making it look like a penis.

Making one of Sonic’s friends go insane with power against their will, forcing the Blue Blur to put them down personally...

It’s ironic, cause he’s metal. Or do I have to awkwardly explain the joke two more times before I’m a proper YouTuber?

Capturing thousands of innocent aliens, and forcefully converting them into mindless beasts...

I’m pretty sure I saw Alfred Molina conduct this experiment one time.

He even removed the heroes’ collective IQs so that he could shoehorn a cliffhanger on an already terrible game.

Thanks, cunt.

And honestly? When it comes to Sonic and chums at least, Eggman does let out a more openly sadistic side now and then. Need I mention that time when the doctor forced Sonic and two random buddies to make their way through a trap-infested island of his own creation? Not for the sake of nabbing Chaos Emeralds or anything of the sort mind you, he just wanted the blue motor mouth to suffer.

Images you can hear.

To make matters even worse, as befitting of his manchild tendencies, he’s ridiculously petty. How petty? Petty enough to abduct a little girl’s mother for no other reason than because Cheese completely trivialized his forces the girl was friends with Sonic and helped participate in the latest kicking of his own ass.

He only picked Vanilla because there was no Strawberry.

But at least his captives can admire the sheer variety that their captor has to offer. One of the greatest things about the doctor's style is that anything goes. With all due respect to Bowser, he tends to stick with his fiery castles (although he has been branching out recently), and plenty of other villains in gaming tend to be similarly stuck in their ways when it comes to tastes. Eggman, on the other hand, will create all sorts of fortresses and reside anywhere on the planet and beyond. It can be in the sky, in space, somewhere hot, somewhere cold, under the sea, in a circus... and every now and then, he might combine some of them together and thensome. So long as it's even vaguely mechanical in some way, his ground rules have already been ticked off.

Hang on a minute...

You know what else Eggman is? Relentless.

Persistence is a quality that most villains by their very nature share, lest they cease to be an effective antagonist. But once again, Rrrrrrrobotnik maxes out more than any other, and will often go to insane lengths to keep the current plan going, or if not that, then to spite Sonic.

Exhibit A: Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in which the grand finale consists of the madman throwing a gravity-shifting contraption your way, busting out a Kaiju-sized robo, escaping with the Master Emerald after his defeat, continuing to escape even after the Death Egg has been thoroughly destroyed, getting chased through the asteroid fields in space by Super Sonic, and only finally going down when the escape craft and the piloted mech controlling the escape craft are down. And all of this came after a grand adventure where, among other things, he destroyed an entire level just to kill you.

There are immortal omnipotents that put up less of a challenge.

“Looks like it’s time for Plan... *checks paper*... F.”

His relentlessness also reveals another side of the doctor that is simultaneously admirable and terrifying: He bows to no one. No one. Doesn’t matter who it is. Doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Doesn’t matter how much the odds are stacked against him. If another villain were to demand that he cower before them, the scientist would laugh and show through physical demonstration that this is not the way the egg rolls. Unless he’s absolutely unable to do so, he will give it his all every time, and even if he can’t, he’ll use his crafty mind to find some other way to get around the issue. You can beat him in battle, you can foil his plans, but you absolutely cannot break his resolve.

“Dad said it’s my turn to play with the Ruby. I know this, because I’m your dad.”

What about his relationship with those who actually serve him? Specifically, his own robots? Well for the most part, he treats them like absolute crap, what with verbally abusing them at every corner and being all too willing to go full Vader on them the moment they mess up. He IS capable of expressing fondness and giving praise to his more successful creations, like with Metal Sonic and Gamma, but even then, it’s a roundabout way of praising himself, since he’s the one who made them what they are. So basically, you’re only valuable to him if you make him look good.

Gaming in the Clinton Years in a nutshell.

And as for Sonic? Yeah, like with any legendary and long-lasting hero/villain dynamic, it’s obvious that Eggman has some degree of begrudging respect for his opponent. But if you think this respect would dissuade him from actually going through with his ambitions of rulership...

As the hedgehog’s apparent demise in Sonic Adventure 2 proves, as well as his defeat at the hands of Infinite and the subsequent six months of brutal conquest in Sonic Forces, Eggman is dead serious about his goals. If you think he’d get bored after conquering the world, he would simply expand his resources and have a crack at conquering the rest of the universe. When he says he hates that hedgehog, I’m inclined to believe that he means it, and although he may enjoy his “games” with Sonic to an extent, I also can’t see him wanting to remain stuck on square one forever.

If this were Sonic X, he’d just grieve.

By the way, the scene above? Undeniable proof that for all the doctor’s boasting, he’s not actually lying or exaggerating when he prides himself on his brilliance. Because when you get past his goofy exterior, when you look beyond the occasional, relatively minor mistake (*glares at IDW*), you’ll see that... yes. He IS brilliant. And not just in the science department either, although his countless robots and strongholds over the years are no doubt a testament to his credentials there. While he may prefer to go in big and bold, he can also be shrewd with his strategies when he wants to be.

Sonic’s aforementioned near-death experience, for example, was the result of Eggman turning the heroes’ own cunning plan on its head by being one step ahead of them. And in Sonic Unleashed, he lured his enemy into a trap, culminating with him cancelling out Super Sonic.

“...and pay the price for your Werehog gameplay...”

And after all those years of struggling, he finally got a giant monster under his complete control. “But he had help!”, you say? Yeah, from himself.

Did Flynn sleep through all this...?

Much like his inner nature as an evil bastard, Eggman's effectiveness is likewise commonly underestimated by writers. Yes, he occasionally makes mistakes. Yes, he occasionally overlooks details. Yes, he occasionally lacks foresight. But he is NOT stupid. A hero is only as good as their villain after all, and if Eggman is portrayed as a bumbling fool, then how can Sonic be a truly great hero? Eggman is humorous, sinister, and when the chips are down, competent.

...Did I mention that he's also a master Olympian?

The Execution: There's no surprises here. You knew from the moment you saw this review that my stance wasn't going to be anything less than 100% fanboy adoration. In that respect, this section almost feels redundant, because there's only so many ways I can say “Dr. Eggman is the fucking shit and I'm eternally grateful to Mr. Ohshima for bringing this absolute masterpiece into our world” without it getting repetitive. So to cap this review off, I'm going to very briefly compare his portrayals in other media, and explain why they tend to not be as good as the original SEGA Eggman.

“Cause they’re not balanced, right?” you ask. “Cause they veer too far in a particular direction? You're so predictable,” you add. To that I say:

1. Yeah, basically.

2. ...S-Shut up...

3. While the conclusion may be obvious, it's nonetheless important because as I mentioned previously, despite how straightforward this villain is, writers seem absolutely intent on not getting the point. There are loads of villains out there who share Eggman's talent of mixing hilarity and evil together with a bow of competence on top. Two of those villains are among the most famous supervillains of all time, in fact. You might have heard of them.

Joker can do it just fine. Green Goblin can do it just fine. And plenty of others can do it just fine. So why is it such an issue with Eggman? What is it about a round body and a long moustache that gets people to think “No, this guy is absolutely incapable of being comedic and threatening at the same time, no question, end of.” Is it because he’s a more cartoony franchise? Well, that can't be the case, because even Mario has a couple of beloved examples. Fawful, anyone? How about Dimentio? Cackletta? King Boo? K. Rool? Hell, you could even count Bowser himself depending on the portrayal.

Anyway, the point is, writers tend to miss the mark for one reason or another. With Sonic X for example, he wasn't too bad in the beginning, but as the show went on, he became exactly the toothless non-villain that many people misjudge him as. We all know that scene where he berates Black Narcissus for harming their captives (not for pragmatic reasons mind you, he genuinely took issue with the act on moral grounds, even though his own hands weren’t exactly clean either), but even before that point, he was doing such things as healing an injured Sonic without an ulterior motive, not taking any opportunity whatsoever to start conquering Sonic's world because he was pining for Sonic's attention, and being the Jiminy Cricket to Chris Thorndyke's Pinocchio. Why they thought the goddamn villain should be the moral conscience of this show remains an unanswered question, but at least it no longer influences how he's portrayed in the games.

Then you have the IDW comic, which is a similar tale of starting off decent and then careening wildly into the abyss, but for different reasons. Initially, he was built up to be in-line with his competent, foresight-packed self from Forces, with his inevitable return being met with dread, and a delightfully devilish scheme to match when he finally did so. But somewhere along the way, Ian Flynn thought that Eggman coming back from his amnesiac period and returning stronger than ever with a new minion and a deadly virus wasn't enough to up the stakes... so they decided to “up the stakes” by turning both the doctor and his new minion into massive imbeciles so as to justify their plot getting hijacked by the Deadly Six, a move so predictable yet infuriating that it got even me to turn against the Six. And the reason the Six got invited in-universe is because Starline decided he didn’t like being unique and devolved into Snively 2.0 behind Eggman’s back. All this from the alleged “best writer” for the series...

Yeah, same.

And then you have the Boom version, which shares basically the same issues as Sonic X but in a more mundane fashion. It's easier to dismiss because it's a comedy-centric show and his redesign makes it easier to separate him from mainline Eggman, and I'll gladly admit that he does have a lot of genuinely funny lines that redeem him a little bit. But yeah, too much of not being a true villain for my tastes.

Now this isn't to say that there haven't been portrayals in other media that are up there with the original. The versions that I consider better off than the ones above include...

- The OVA Eggman is pretty faithful all things considered, aside from his romantic feelings for Sara, which feels slightly off since the idea of Eggman loving anyone other than himself is incredibly unrealistic at best. But it doesn't actually soften or undermine his deviousness, so I'm willing to let it slide for an alternate take. Especially since he gave us the best Metal Sonic out there.

- AoStH is far from a perfect show, but there's a reason why even its detractors tend to treat its version of Robotnik like a national treasure. Admittedly most of that is because of the legendary Long John Baldry and the endless memes associated with this incarnation, but despite hailing from a comedy-focused show like Boom Eggman, this Robotnik still had a lot of legitimately dangerous moments, more than you'd think.

- And of course, Jim Carrey's Robotnik in the Sonic movie is just... *chef's kiss*

So obvious aesop though it may be, but you see what the more effective portrayals have in common, I assume?

Granted, this also isn't to say that SEGA Eggman himself has had a perfect track record. The decade's worth of upstagings and backstabbings by other villains should be enough of a counterpoint to that claim, and I've also made it clear now and then that I take issue with certain games regarding what they do with the doc, no matter how revered they may be by other fans. Sonic Adventure 2, for instance. I praised the fake emerald scene, and I do sincerely believe that he has a number of other badass moments in that game, but because Shadow was playing him like a fool the whole time, I can't help but have a bitter taste in my mouth when I look at the bigger picture.

So close to greatness, yet so far...

So in that case, which game do I think has Eggman's best showing overall? That's not in any way an easy question, but lack of dialogue aside, I'm gonna go with Sonic 3 & Knuckles again, as the classic journey through the sights of Angel Island plays out in a way that highlights just how determined, ruthless, and underhanded he is with carrying out his mission to revive the Death Egg by any means necessary. Other games do win out in other areas - SA1 for how bastardly he is, Forces for how cunning he is, Colours for his hilarious announcements, CD for using the scenery to show the effects of his actions, Mania for not letting the other villain walk all over him - but for the purest essence of the doctor at his cartoony yet competent best, I'd say S3&K is a reasonable bet.

And when it comes to all his many traits, which one do I find the most special one of all? Well again, far from easy to answer, but I think the coolest aspect about him is also one of the most overlooked. Robotnik, despite whatever superhuman qualities he may occasionally unveil, is for all intents and purposes a regular guy with a big brain. This might make him appear unimpressive when compared to your average Final Fantasy villain and the like, but if anything, it paints him in a more flattering light than expected, because he doesn't even need to be on their level to still be on the radar. It's easy to be a big bad threat when you're an ancient demon or an almighty god-like being, and you only have to wave a hand to cause armageddon. But when you're just Some Guy™ going up against superpowered opponents, meaning you have to earn your threat level the hard way, and you prove to be a challenge every step of the way regardless, because you're just THAT much of a genius... that's fucking awesome, no other way to put it.

And you know what else is awesome? You may not like Eggman, and you don’t have to like him, but like it or not, he is directly and indirectly responsible for a vast majority of the coolest and most loved moments and aspects of this franchise.

The opening to Unleashed? Eggman set up the scene.

Shadow running around and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman released him.

Blaze getting involved with Sonic’s world and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman’s half-responsible for that.

Metal Sonic? Eggman made him.

Egg Dragoon? Eggman.

Big Arm? Eggman.

Monkey Dude? Eggman.

That text is missing a blue checkmark.

This review is probably longer than the echidna family tree in Archie at this point, so I better finish it off. If it wasn't obvious from all the paragraphs I've belted out in this post, I'm very passionate about Eggman and the way he’s portrayed. Ever since I got into the Sonic franchise in 2003, I immediately took a liking to the doctor, and to this day, he remains not only my favourite Sonic villain, my favourite Sonic character, but also my favourite character period. Some may find it a weird or lame choice compared to other, “better” characters, but that's the way it is, and I ain't about to change it. I am very unlikely to ever stop enjoying the hell out of this villain, and even if he got irreversibly ruined in some way, I'd still continue to love what he was before that point.

Because yeah, he's not the deepest character ever, but... who cares? Is it not enough that we find something that appeals to us? When I got into Sonic, I was introduced to fantastic games, a likable cast, high quality soundtracks, beautiful worlds, numerous friends on this very site, and of course, the lovely treasure that is my partner. I may not have been with this franchise during the 90's, but it's given me just as much fun, nostalgia, and happiness as those who were. Despite the flawed titles, despite the fandom conundrums, I still love this series.

And I still love this absolute prick.

Crusher Gives Dr. Eggman a: TWO Thumbs Up!

[tessatechaitea]

The Invisibles #1

If I had to pretend to know anything about art, I'd say this cover represents how pop culture can kill. Or will blow your mind. Or feels dangerous but it's actually pretty safe because the pin is still in the grenade.

What the fuck do I know about art and why the fuck am I assuming this comic book is going to be about art anyway?! Just because Grant Morrison wrote it and I happen to think Grant Morrison has written some pretty smart comic books? Well, I'm pretty sure he's written some huge fucking turds too! It's just that I haven't read any of them that I remember. Apparently I've read a few issues of this but I don't really remember it. I don't like to tell people that I don't remember it when they talk about how great it was because that's admitting that 22 year old me wasn't a discerning critic of his entertainment. At least I also can't remember the truly garbage comic books I was reading in 1994 as well! So it's possible I read this and thought, "I'm so smart because I understand what's happening!" Now I'm terrified to read it because I'm absolutely certain I'll think, "What the hell is going on in this comic book? I'm such a stupid asshole!" Oh boy. This comic book is forty pages long. Get ready for a review that explicates the first fifteen pages thoroughly while also digressing twelve separate times before quickly summarizing the last twenty-five pages so I can go play some Apex.

I can't say for certain this is a shot at Ann Nocenti but, thankfully, I can say it's definitely not a shot at me!

This guy is Elfayed. He's retrieved a mummified scarab from the desert believing it might be a sign for the mysterious bald man with too many face piercings and the endeavor he's currently on. Which is a mystery because Grant Morrison isn't going to let the reader understand the comic book on the first page! Sheesh! The second page doesn't help explain things but it does place the word "synchronicity" burning in my brain like a buzzing, blinking neon sign.

Get it? Mummified beetle. Dead Beatles. Boy throwing a Molotov cocktail. Pop culture and violence. I think I intuitively understand this comic book so 70% of the rest of what I say will be dick jokes.

The kid throwing the explosive is one of three members of a gang called the Croxteth Posse. Every youth in Britain joins a gang no matter how stupid and lame they are. It just proves how hard they are even if they never throw one Molotov cocktail or ever even get their genitals touched. The gang members run off into the night, past some "King Mob" graffiti which will be important later, yelling, "We are the boys! We are the boys!" Is that a thing lame youth gangs in London did in the 80s and 90s? Because I remember Lister and his posse saying that shit about being the boys of the Dwarf when they thought they were acting hard on some adventure that probably involved Lister fucking a future version of himself. The Croxteth gang are from Liverpool because Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool. It shows how imaginative these youths are. I bet there are at least fifty different Croxteth Posses bumbling about at night destroying things. The bald guys name is Gideon (and possibly King Mob. Unless the antagonist is King Mob. I should probably keep reading to find out) and he's both young and old at the same time. He's probably some kind of spirit of the zeitgeist or something, Grant Morrison's Jenny Sparks. He's looking for a new recruit for his own gang since something happened to John-A-Dreams. He might have just died of old age because Gideon's other acquaintance, Edith, is now 95 years old and sulking in her mortality. He wants her to contact somebody named Tom to let him know he thinks he found their new recruit. I think it's probably the anarchist kid because I know how stories work. I'm starting to think maybe The Invisibles are a bit like the Upright Citizens Brigade. Their only enemy is the status quo. Their only friend is chaos. Except there will be less skits with people wearing giant papier-mâché cat heads and more ultra-violence. The arsonist kid's name is McGowan and he's smarter than he acts, according to his teacher who gives him the old "you're not fulfilling your potential and your friends are just dragging you down" speech. But what kind of an anarchist would McGowan be if he gave a shit about what his teacher thinks of him? Oh, that's right! He'd be a good anarchist if he really gave a shit and a bad anarchist if he didn't give a shit but he let the teacher's words affect him anyway. That's how anarchy works, right? The problem with anarchy is that it needs a few rules to make it work well but you can't enforce any rules or else you're not living an anarchic lifestyle. Here's my definition of anarchy from Places & Predators, my roller playing game: a philosophy where anybody can do anything they want without worrying about some stupid guard putting an axe in their head. But they have to worry about everyone else putting an axe in their head all the time because there are no guards. I should probably read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin instead of all these stupid Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventure books.

Oh, well McGowan's mother withholds love and affection and blames him for all the ills in her life. I suppose I can now forgive him for torching the school library, right?

McGowan heads out to sit in the cold and watch John Lennon have a conversation with Stuart Sutcliffe. They joke about being dead and it's funny because they are dead. Stuart even says he wants to die young which is doubly funny because he does. Ha ha! McGowan doesn't laugh because maybe he doesn't find gallows humor funny. But some weird creature that speaks some German does laugh. He's all, "Ha ha! They're going to die young! Oh ho ho! Such jolly fun! Now join with me, you dumb kid." He also says some German stuff that I can't make sense of because I don't speak German and I don't want to ask the Non-Certified Spouse what it means. I could use Google but I'm being extra lazy right now. McGowan tells the weird German tourist to fuck off because he doesn't care about anything. But you know what kind of people actually care a lot about everything? The kind who need to tell everybody that they don't care about anything. Only people whose feelings are super hurt say stuff like that. And maybe serial killers. Later McGowan decides to prove he doesn't care by suggesting he and his friends blow up the school. Not because he cares how they think they know everything and they want him to be just like them and all adults lack affection and sincerity. No, he just wants to blow it up because he doesn't give a shit about nothing, man. The scene switches to the bald guy who might be King Mob on an LSD trip. It's nothing like taking LSD but I'll pretend it's all metaphor and analogy and spiritual nonsense. In his trip, he sees a gigantic head of John Lennon. Mostly because the whole trip was to summon this head. It's a double page spread of psychedelic images and nonsense mixed with Beatles lyrics and album titles. Strange that Morrison fails to translate an acid trip involving The Beatles when The Beatles themselves have a song that I think most feels like and describes an acid trip. No, it's not "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; it's "Strawberry Fields." If I had to state what my favorite Beatles song was right now, I'd say "Strawberry Fields" even though Magical Mystery Tour might be my least favorite (later) album (although now that I type it, I remember it contained "Penny Lane" and "The Fool on the Hill" and "All You Need is Love" and I guess I was wrong about Magical Mystery Tour being my least favorite album). I added the later because their early pop shit doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I appreciate their music until after they've met Doctor Robert. Just listened to "Strawberry Fields" and now I'm crying. Fucking great song. While trying to burn down the school, McGowan is caught be his teacher. He gives his teacher a brutal beating and then answers a question he refused to answer in class, just to show he's both smart and violent.

McGowan's arrested and Hugh Laurie sentences him to hard juvenile labor.

I was speaking of acid earlier and I'd like to recommend the documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip, especially to people who have never done acid. It's enlightening. You might think that my favorite part was one of the crazier bits about hallucinations or one of the stories about how something odd always happens when on acid (it totally does) but I think my favorite bit is when the musician from Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna, tells the story about how acid made her realize that you didn't have to cross the street along the legs of the two triangles comprising the square intersection but can just cross along the hypotenuse. It's not that the idea is mind blowing or even close to an "A-ha!" shower thought; it's just that's the kind of mundane thought that seems like a fucking magic revelation when you're on acid. It's the epitome of the acid experience. LSD makes the mundane profound which is way more exciting than you might think. If you've never done acid, you might have fucked off to the comment section just now to point out that the universe is a wonderful and magical and profound place even without acid. And I fucking agree. But LSD makes everything profound. Every single thing you see or think combines with the fabric of the universe and it all becomes staring at the stars and wondering how it all fucking fits together. But you don't need space or infinity or philosophy; you just need LSD, a stapler, a bottle of water, and a Jack Kirby comic book from the early 70s. Dane McGowan is sentenced to ten weeks in a juvenile facility called Harmony House. It's where violent teenage boys aren't taught to stop being violent; it's where they're taught to use their violence to benefit the government! At least that's my guess. I like to pretend I know what's happening in the comic book as I write the review and then later I delete the wrong assumptions I made and replace them with lies to make me look like a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Actually, that last sentence was a lie. Normally if I get something wrong, I just write "Oops!" later and then tell readers to forget the terrible mistake I made.

This is the plot to every young adult dystopian book ever written: "Society says conformity is good. But one young spunky individual with weird hair won't submit and will save the world!"

Sometimes I feel the only people touched by stories about the individual refusing to be a sheep of the status quo are people who tend to be sheep of the status quo. To rely identify with the hero in one of these stories, the reader needs to have though of themselves as part of the status quo and felt the need to participate in some activity that would prove that they weren't. Instead of, you know, just being themselves and never actually giving their place in society a second thought. I find odd people who are inspired by a story that tells the reader to be themselves. How is that inspiring unless you never really knew that was an option? And how could you fucking not know it?! But then again, Heathers is one of my all-time favorite movies and I suppose that's got a similar message about being oneself. But it also has murder and some seriously great lines of dialogue and Christian Slater blowing himself to bits.

Oh, remember where I mentioned this comic book was basically screaming "synchronicity" at me and that I understood it on an instinctual level after page two? Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

The leader of The Invisibles (man, I wish the comic book would just tell me that the bald guy with piercings is actually King Mob already) decides to infiltrate Harmony House to make sure their soon-to-be new recruit, McGowan, is doing okay. I'm sure he'll find he's fine because he's not buying into the whole "be a soldier of the status quo" bullshit being fed to the young boys at the institution. It's easy to be against a Headmaster who thinks arguments like "Liberals love freedom but do they want people to be so free that they can steal their VCRs." But will he be able to stand up against the techno-brainwashing and the influence of the mystical creature running things from behind the scenes?! Probably but only with help from the Upright Citizens Brigade. I mean The Invisibles.

It's surreal that this is the way we thought of controlling the populace in the 90s: turn them into content sheep without any anger or frustration. And yet the exact opposite of that is true: control them by making them angry and frustrated at as many lies and half-truths as you can.

The big twist reveal isn't that the boys' brains are cut up and messed with; it's that the boys genitals are removed as well. Yeesh! Now I'm angry and frustrated! I'm totally against this Harmony House bullshit. Is this actually happening red states?! Horrific! King Mob (yes, they finally reveal that's the bald guy's name) rescues Dane from Harmony House while shooting a bunch of people (including the Headmaster) and blowing the building to bits. It's a good thing we learned the real antagonist was some dick-eating creature called the King of Chains. Dane McGowan isn't ready to join The Invisibles which King Mob was ready for. He had a tarot reading earlier that said the kid was going to have to be put through the wringer first. So he leaves the kid in London and disappears, just so we all know why they're called The Invisibles. I guess Batman is a member? The Invisibles #1 Rating: B+. This issue was forty pages long and it felt like it used every page to move the story along. It's insane that that's one of the greatest compliments I can give a comic book. Way too many writers just fill their scripts with nonsense because they don't have a real plan for their story. I know everybody espouses the idea that a good comic book story should teach the reader something new about the character. But unless learning that Superman can punch something harder than he previously thought he could, or Batman is super resilient and can take a ton of punishment for five issues before rising to the occasion through pure force of will, most comic book writers really don't put a lot of thought into themes. Sure, sure. This sort of feels like the mystic super hero version of Catcher in the Rye which might be why I stopped purchasing it after six issues. Although it's just as likely that I stopped purchasing it at six issues because my infrequent visits to the comic book store made me miss Issue #7 and I just gave up on it. It's not bad and it's put together well and as a young 48 year old who thinks the man can go fuck himself, I'm totally into it's message about being a unique individual! Anarchy rules!

[lakesandquarries]

from the perfect start (to the finish line)

Aubrey and Ned, from beginning to end.

Massive spoilers for TAZ Amnesty episode 28.

title from “youth” by daughter.

Read on AO3 or under the cut!

The day after Aubrey officially moves in to Amnesty Lodge, Ned shows up. He comes armed with a box of Halloween decorations, a bag of candy, and a wide grin.

“I found some extra decorations lying around,” is what he tells her, but it quickly becomes clear these were carefully chosen for her.

Most people might have found the red lace curtains and pumpkin string lights and light up ghost tacky, but it makes her room feel more like home. He helps her unpack, too, something she hasn’t bothered to do in years. Staying still feels unreal, almost unnatural. Even now, some small part of her is ready to leave any second.

Ned seems to recognize the impulse. “So, how is it, living here? You’ve been on the move for the last few years, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, been doing shows all over. I like moving around. It’s cool, to get to see new places.”

“I understand the feeling. I’ve done my fair share of traveling too. But there is something to be said for a more….sedentary lifestyle.”

“Yeah. It’ll take some getting used to, though.”

The last thing she puts up is a photo in a relatively plain frame, of a woman with dark brown hair and bright brown eyes, her dark skin a perfect match to Aubrey’s.

“Family member?” Ned asks, nodding at the photo.

“My mom. She’s gone, now,” Aubrey explains. “Don’t have much family left anymore.” Ned looks a little pale, awkward with the sudden change of topic, and Aubrey nearly laughs at him. He’s quiet for a while, working out what to say.

“You have family here,” is what he settles on.

---

Painting Ned’s face is not how Aubrey expected to spend her Saturday night, but she doesn’t have much of a desire to complain. As the only person Ned knew with experience wearing makeup, he’d enlisted her to try and do his. This episode of Saturday Night Dead is a old vampire movie, so she’s trying to make him look pale and eerie.

“You know, vampires don’t really look like this,” she says as she covers his face with more white Snazaroo.

“Well, we know that. But the general populace does not.”

“True. But shouldn’t we trying to fix those kinds of stereotypes?”

Ned shrugs. “I think our job is just to kill the bad guys.”

Aubrey huffs. “Well, excuse me for thinking proactively.”

Ned chuckles. “C’mon, we don’t need to worry about anything like that for a while. Right now, our job is to relax and have fun.”

“And paint your face white.”

“Is that not the epitome of fun?” Ned smiles at her, an odd look with the paint. “That being said, you may need to hurry this up. We go live in….about 20 minutes.”

“Beauty takes time,” Aubrey says, but she decides to stop fussing with the paint and move on. It’s a shame it’s such a simple look; Ned is a wonderful canvas. He doesn’t squirm or complain, simply sits quietly and lets Aubrey do her work. “You should let me do real makeup on you sometime.”

“Is this not real makeup?” Ned asks, opening one eye.

“I mean like, let me do some kind of Look. Eyeshadow, highlighter, lipstick, the whole nine yards. I think you could rock it.”

Ned smiles at her. “Well, if you think I could pull it off...I trust your judgement. We’ll have to do that sometime.”

---

Aubrey’s the first one to catch Ned limping. Duck doesn’t have the best grasp of what normal human abilities are, but Aubrey is very familiar with the limitations of the human body.

It’s not until she finds a cane in the back of the newly painted Crytonomica van that she realizes what’s up.

“Hey Ned, this yours?” she asks, pulling it out. She was supposed to just be helping with Saturday Night Dead, as she does whenever she can, but this requires further investigation.

Ned looks at the cane disdainfully. “The doctors gave it to me, after the….incident at Leo’s.”

“You can talk about it, Ned.” She knows everyone’s been avoiding talking about the Pizza Hut Incident around her, too worried for her fragile emotional state to dare mention it. “I can handle it.”

Ned chuckles awkwardly. “It’s not that, it’s... I’m the one who can’t handle it, really.”

“Are you supposed to be using this cane, Ned?”

“Well the doctor told me to, but, what does he know? I’m fine, friend Aubrey, just dandy. Nothing wrong at all!”

“You sound like Duck right now,” she says, folding her arms.

“Is that your way of calling me a bad liar?”

“Yes. Now tell me the truth.”

Ned sighs. “It’s embarrassing, having to use a cane like that. I’m not old enough to be needing one yet.”

“There’s nothing embarrassing about using aids like that. I’m on medication, is that embarrassing?”

“Well...no...but-“

“You could have died, doing what you did. You saved people’s lives. There’s nothing embarrassing about getting hurt saving lives, or about needing help.”

Ned huffs. “When you put it like that I sound completely ridiculous.”

“That’s because you are. But I think I know of a way to make the cane at least a little more fun to use.”

She insists he meet her at Amnesty Lodge tomorrow, and the next morning she presents her gift - his cane, painted with bright flames creeping up it.

“Now it looks cool, and you have to use it or I’ll be sad.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we,” Ned says.

He presents it flamboyantly on Saturday Night Dead, a gift from the Lady Flame herself, a powerful artifact imbued with magical properties.

—

The letter is singed where she touches it, bad enough that she’s tempted to ask someone to read it to her, but she decides against it. This is between her and Ned.

Dear Aubrey, she reads, and bursts into tears.

Duck finds her sobbing on the floor twenty minutes later, the letter a safe distance away from her. Her hands are balled into fists, steam rising off them as she tries to keep her entire body from igniting. Duck makes the mistake of placing a hand on her shoulder and pulls away burnt.

“Aubrey,” he says, kneeling down next to her. “You found your letter?”

“Mhm,” she says, wiping at her eyes frantically. Duck sighs.

“He called me a hero in mine. Said he didn’t have what it takes to be a real hero.”

“He was a hero,” Aubrey says hoarsely.

“Yeah.”

“He - he wrote his real name,” Aubrey says, trying to swallow the tears that threaten to cut off her words. “He told me to hate him. Duck, he died -” she chokes on the word, hiccuping halfway through it - “he died thinking I hated him. He died wanting me to hate him. And now - I can never -” her words dissolve.

Duck scoots closer to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, which luckily has cooled by now. “He knew you cared. He probably wrote that in there ‘cause he knew you’d forgive him.”

“He’s more of a hero than anyone I’ve ever met,” Aubrey says, then bites her lip. “I mean - not that you’re not, I just -”

“Nah, you’re right. I didn’t take a bullet for anyone. But look, Aubrey, you can’t blame yourself. That’s not what he’d want.”

“But -”

“Nope, no buts. C’mon, he wouldn’t want you beating yourself up like this.”

“Yeah, well, I want him back, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?”

“This ain’t your fault. He knew you cared about him. You should’ve seen how he talked about you.”

Aubrey lifts her head slightly, looking at Duck. He gives her a tired, worn smile.

“He bragged 'bout you like you were his kid, practically.”

“I felt like I was, sometimes.” Duck leans his head against the wall, thoughtfully, then looks back at Aubrey.

“We gotta….preserve his memory, in some way. Kirby’s cool and all, but….well, he’s not much of a showman.”

Aubrey smiles, a little broken but better than nothing. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m saying….well, I’ve been thinking, and Ned wouldn’t want us wallowing around, right? I say we do a special episode of Saturday Night Dead. Saturday Night Ned, if you will.”

“I think I’d like that.” She’s never been to a funeral, but Aubrey has helped with nearly every episode of Saturday Night Dead. This, at least, she can do.

—

It feels wrong, being at the Cryptonomica without Ned, but Aubrey pushes through the grief and puts on a show. There’s no movie, this time. Instead, she and Kirby and Duck and any other people they can get tell stories about the enigmatic figure that was Ned “Insert Name Here” Chicane.

Aubrey digs up videos she took, the time she secretly filmed Ned practicing a monologue and a really stupid argument he had with Duck about whether pineapple goes on pizza and a short video of him passed out in the lobby of Amnesty Lodge, a blanket draped around his shoulders and Dr Harris Bonkers PhD in his lap. Kirby shares some of his own, videos of Ned singing show tunes while assembling the newest Cryptonomica exhibit, glaring at the camera when he realizes it’s filming. Duck has no footage, but he does have some copies of tickets he gave Ned for increasingly bizarre antics over the years. Aubrey’s favourite is his 12 tickets for illegally feeding animals - apparently Ned made friends with a raccoon at one point.

The ache in her chest never goes away completely, but it softens. It starts to become something she can live with.

The show wraps up after two hours, but Aubrey has one last speech.

“To everyone who tuned in today, who came by to share their own stories, thank you. I know not everyone liked the Cryptonomica, or even Ned himself, but the outpouring of love has been beautiful to witness. Thank you, Kepler.” She grabs Ned’s cane, smiling despite everything. “Let’s give it up for Ned “Brave” Chicane.”

If she listens carefully, she can almost hear the applause.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Excelsior: A Tribute to Stan Lee

I was going to type this up on my “professional” account but I have talked non-stop about Marvel and superheroes on this blog so this seems fitting.

I have had a night to collect my thoughts on what I want to say for this post to ensure I do it justice, but even 15 hours after finding out the news I still cannot confidently voice how I feel about this because as tragic as Stan Lee’s passing is, he is one of those great people whose work speaks for them.

It’s no secret that Marvel has been a huge part of my life for many years now, even before being introduced to the X-Men movies in the year 2000 I saw parts of the 90s animated series in the late 90s. Gaining an interest in these properties spring-boarded me into discovering Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and eventually the characters that compile the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Stan Lee’s legacy isn’t just that he created most of these iconic characters but that he invested his twilight years in them and the films and even television that they appeared in. His cameos in a grand total of 36 live-action Marvel movies over the years have been a fun Easter-Egg hunt for fans and some have even theorized that, at least his appearances in the MCU, are all connected. Also he is set to appear in the upcoming Avengers 4 but no word on Captain Marvel and nothing filmed for Dark Phoenix.

Sure some cynics may argue that he has been stealing the limelight from other talented writers at Marvel who helped create these characters, however when you’re the editor-in-chief and later publisher and chairman of a comic-book company while managing to take it from a niche audience to the mainstream, then you’ve earned the right to be the face of Marvel.

Everyone has their favourite Marvel characters and I am sure in the wake of this tragedy that people will be talking about their favourite Stan Lee-created Marvel characters. Mine easily combine the two as mine are the X-Men. This group of characters for me epitomizes just how unique and special Stan Lee was for the comic-book industry, he didn’t just create a group of characters with powers, deliberately or not Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby, created these characters to be a face for minority discrimination. Ethnicity, sexuality, disability, anyone who falls into a minority in life can easily draw parallels to and feel like Mutants which is what makes these characters so relatable.

For this reason, and so much more, Stan Lee was and will always be a visionary for the superhero genre just as Walt Disney was for animation. Both men managed to create something that you knew had their magic touch when either reading or watching it. But unlike Disney who’s work suffers when continued without him, Stan Lee has helped construct a universe where the echo of his greatness ripples out across it.

His work is untouchable, he is partly the reason I started reading comics, he is partly the reason I love the superhero genre in all medias and he is simply one of the greatest talents of our time.

Stan Lee has always been one of those deaths I never actually thought would happen, that feeling when someone is so great they’re invincible, but now that it has it is tragic but what a legacy to leave behind.

Thank You Stan Lee, ‘nuff said.

[its-lifestyle]

Almost every night for several years, Marlo Dean has helped her son to bed, then stayed awake listening for the machines that alert her when his breathing is off.

She then rises before dawn, helping young Dante’ Herrera get ready for a new day. Most of his hearing is gone and he struggles to speak or walk.

Family members sometimes tell Dean they don’t know how she does it.

Her response: Dante’ is the strongest fighter around. How could she not sacrifice everything to help her youngest son?

“Dante’ is the love of my life,” she says. “That’s my buddy, my best friend.”

Dean knew something was wrong with her son when he was an infant.

Though three older siblings walked before they turned one, Dante’ didn’t take his first steps until he was 18 months old.

He was rambunctious though. So much so that physicians first thought he might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It wasn’t until Dante’ was about two years old that a doctor mentioned a horrific possibility: That he might have a disease that affects his brain.

Years of inconclusive tests from different hospital systems followed.

Finally, when her son was six, Dean received a devastating phone call from Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters.

She was heartbroken. But both she and Dante’ found a new resolve.

For more than a decade, their mission has been to advocate for children everywhere like him who are fighting for their lives.

Teacher assistant Cindy Wheeler working with Dante’ on a modified tricycle during an exercise teaching about different kinds of energy at his school.

Inspired to fight

It was in elementary (primary) school that Dante’ first needed a wheelchair, though he could still walk. Now, he can stand with assistance, but primarily uses the wheelchair.

When he was younger, it was difficult to understand him when he talked, his mother says. Now at 17, he can speak, but expresses himself largely through gestures.

Dante’ depends on about 20 pills a day, and he visits doctors at least once a week. That’s in addition to nurses who help his mother take care of him almost daily.

Sleep is often a struggle for Dante’. When he is in bed, a machine monitors his vital signs. When it beeps, Dean checks on her son. She sometimes needs to drive him to a hospital.

Through the highs and lows, faith has kept her strong. “I’m going to take care of him because God gave him to me,” she says.

Eleven years ago, Dante’ was diagnosed with Batten disease – a common name for a range of rare, inherited nervous system disorders.

According to the US National Institutes of Health, it stems from a genetic defect that triggers a cascade of problems.

The progressive illness affects an estimated two to four out of every 100,000 children in the United States. Common symptoms include loss of vision and motor skills, seizures, dementia and abnormal movements.

Dante’ and Dean are doing their best to raise awareness and bring support to finding a cure for his rare and fatal Batten disease.

Many with the disease die in early childhood. Some may live into their teens or their 30s.

“Everything will slowly fail,” says Tracy Kirby, family liaison for the Batten Disease Support and Research Association.

This nonprofit organisation helps families deal with diagnoses and offers free admission into annual conferences, which serve as both pep rallies for emotional support and learning experiences.

It also connects them with needed equipment like wheelchairs.

People should treat children with the disease no differently than healthy youngsters because little ones who are ill recognise what’s going on around them, she says. “They know that you’re there,” she adds.

In addition to the regular symptoms, children may develop behaviour changes, learning difficulties, anxiety and trouble sleeping.

“I’ve spent many, many, many countless nights staying up watching over Dante’, unable to breathe or even get up and go to the bathroom without falling,” Dean says.

“It’s definitely an uphill battle.”

When Dean learned about her son’s disease, she decided she wasn’t going to let the crisis crush her or Dante’.

A short time later, she found out about an event in Washington about rare diseases. She didn’t have much time – the gathering was that week.

She didn’t have a hotel and hadn’t signed up, but decided to go. She set up a fundraising page, made a few T-shirts and took her son north.

“We were going to do something,” she says.

Dante’ and Dean met other families dealing with the disease. They came away feeling less alone. They were also inspired to educate people about rare illnesses.

PJ Caalim met Dante’ and his mother when they were all in Washington several years ago for advocacy work. Caalim has a son with a rare disease that causes the body to reject food.

Caalim saw Dante’ smile and couldn’t help but say hello. She quickly learned they lived near each other in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Dean, 49, is a “Godly woman” who is always positive, Caalim says. That attitude and her determination do wonders when they’re raising awareness.

Dante’s positive attitude also helps, Caalim says. “It could be the worst day in the world and he’s still smiling,” she says.

Dante’ laughs as Dean jokes with him at home. His condition has slowly taken Dante’s ability to walk without help, along with some of his hearing and vision. — Photos: TNS

Raising awareness

Dante’ doesn’t get a lot of youngsters seeking him out and asking to play. But he likes video games, making friends and watching television.

He enjoys a good laugh when he watches his favourite cartoons SpongeBob SquarePants and Tom and Jerry.

In April 2019, Dean took Dante’ on a wild outdoor animal safari in Georgia for his 17th birthday. He pointed excitedly as the exotic creatures poked their heads inside the family’s van.

When the group passed a camel, someone joked about it being hump day. Dante’ let out a bellowing laugh. “He’s a party animal,” Dean says.

Dante’ recently finished his sophomore (second) year at Salem High School where he took visual arts teacher Amanda Smith’s class.

He is like other teenagers in a lot of ways, she says.

Smith, who coaches softball, brought her junior varsity players to a March event at the school that was raising awareness for rare disabilities.

She wanted them to see what some of their peers endure on a day-to-day basis.

As the season ran through the spring, players did their part by wearing denim ribbons that Dean had given out on their equipment bags.

Such acts go a long way for anyone with a rare disease, Dean says. “When you see Dante’ in the halls, guys, say ‘Hi’ to him,” his mother said.

At that March event, Dante’ stood to meet political dignitaries. He also posed for photos. Even as he struggled to force himself upright, he beamed.

That spirit is the epitome of Dante’, Salem principal Matthew Delaney says.

“Dante’ proves to all of us that each day is not only a great day, but it’s a gift that should be treasured,” he says.

Dante’ used to be a patient of Virginia Governor Dr Ralph Northam, who began practising paediatric neurology at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters.

Dr Northam has declared June as Batten disease awareness month in Virginia.

Tears swell in Dean’s eyes when she thinks about Dante’s future. He’ll miss out on many typical youthful joys. He’ll never drive a car. He may never find romantic love.

But Dante’ is determined, she says. He can still raise awareness for rare disabilities just by being himself. And he is going to do that as long as he can.

“We fight and continue to fight on in faith,” Dean says. – The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service

from Family – Star2.com https://ift.tt/2GuFpQs