#everyone’s personalities seemed a lot more grounded than in the follow-up New 52 origin story

[daydreamerdrew]

Flashpoint (2011) #4

[bonyarishitafuan]

A lot of people probably are gonna hate me for this, and if you disagree with what I’m about to say, please don't bother to respond, just ignore me completely and move on, go make yourself happy.

It’s just that I honestly don't see how this:

can be the same as this:

Personally, I don't care for Dick-lite Pre-Crisis Jason at all, because he’s never seemed to me a real character with any real personality of his own, and I just really don’t buy the idea of a teenager, with still very recently murdered parents that might as well be every bit as the same kind of loving parents and positive influences to their kid as the Flying Graysons, getting over the loss of their old parents’ and accepting someone they’ve only just met around the time their parents died as his true new parent in practically no time at all...especially when it’s happened in a world where a preteen could end up spending the rest of his adulthood fighting crimes in a bat suit after witnessing his parents being gunned down by a mugger.

The only thing Pre-Crisis/Earth 1 Jason Robin seemed to have going on was being a son to Batman/Bruce (and a son to Nocturna, because clearly if he could’ve gotten over his real dad so easily, why wouldn’t he have also gotten over his real mom and come to think of this mysterious criminal lady as his true new mom when she had wanted so much for him to be her son and they had lived together for like a week)--and I feel that if the executives at the time had really wanted Bruce to become a dad, they'd probably just let him settle down and give him a biological child as in the Golden Age, but instead they gave him a second Robin; and the way they laid themselves out to make the relationship between him and this second Robin to be exactly father-and-son despite the fact that Bruce would’ve had to be real stupid to actively endangering a young person whom he consider his own little boy by bringing him to fight crimes just never sits right with me.

It always seems to me like they’re just trying to retcon the original Batman and Robin relationship without actually retconning Bruce and Dick, who hadn’t really been Bruce’s adopted kid just then and had often regarded his mentor Bruce as more of his older brother/closest friend rather than just plain old “dad”--It’s like they’re just trying to remove every implication that there's ever anything gay/creepy in the original Batman and Robin dynamic, simply by bringing in another Robin character, one with the exact same backstory as Dick and nothing that could actually differentiate him from Dick (except him being originally blond-haired and himself outright telling people that he’s “not Dick” in one of his few featurings in the New Titans where he’s portrayed as every bit as much as a smart, decent, capable young person equipped to be a successful young hero just as Dick Robin or Tim Robin would’ve easily been portrayed), and making his relationship with Batman to be plainly, unequivocally father-and-son, then with there being no actual difference between Robin II and Robin I and the two Robins being virtually the same, sure the viewers would see that the relationship between Batman and Robin II and the relationship between Batman and Robin I are very much the same too, and no one could say if there’s any resemblance of a gay couple with a creepy age difference in the original Batman and Robin’s dynamic ever again since they’ve always been father and son.

It just feels so manipulative to me and I hate it, but that’s just how I feel and I’m not saying that it’s truly the case. I’m sorry if this offends anyone who loves Earth 1 Jason. If you love him, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong to love a wholesome Robin and his altogether wholesome relationship with Batman, nor there’s anything wrong to love Red Hood Jason but prefer his softer New52 version which would’ve certainly seemed to be a less drastic change from his Pre52 version if he’s more like his Earth 1 counterpart to begin with.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong to prefer one version of a character to another, to just say fuck canon and recreate a character you love into the way you could enjoy them most and have all the fun you want with them.

What gets to me and drives me bonkers, is when people couldn’t just be happy with their headcanon, but have to go out of their way to tell other people that it’s fact that Pre-Crsis/Earth 1 Jason and Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason are the same character, while in actuality, they weren’t even meant to be the same in the first place.

If DC had ever wanted to just keep using Pre-Crisis Jason but give him a new backstory, they would just follow up on whatever he had been doing with Bruce as his pre-crisis self while casually throwing in his new backstory at some point, just as they did with a lot of other characters such as Donna post-crisis, not give him a full reintroduction in Batman #408 and rewrite his relationship with Bruce from the ground up.

It just makes me want to scream, when people, who never seems to have a lot of problems with Under the Hood and maybe also Lost Days, have to go out and call every portrayal of Pre-52 Jason and some of the more recent Red Hood Jason that shares a resemblance to him wrong for not portraying Jason as that sweet little bookworm he really truly was, and that an entire different life experience just cannot change a character in any substantial way, and Jason being an angry kid with aggressive and violent tendencies is just something that had never been established until the more recent retcon/the OOC work of Jim Starlin, while in truth Pre-Crisis Jason with the exact same backstory as Dick just simply cannot be the same as Crime Alley Kid Jason, who doesn’t even have the same biological parents as Pre-Crisis Jason to provide him with the same gene that the Flying Todds, which were Joe and Trina Todd, had created their son with. 

If Pre-Crisis Jason and Post-Crisis Jason are one and the same, then it’d mean Dick is also very much the same as Jason is the same as Tim is the same as Damian is the same as Bruce and no one character is truly unique and special because every character ever made is just an alternate version of another character.

It had been shown most clearly since his first appearance that Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason, other than literally being a different kid with the same name, was nothing like his pre-crisis counterpart, but rather a bold, outspoken, confrontational, fully independent and proactive ghetto kid, who had got some serious stones to rob Batman’s gear, actually succeed in taking the tire off the freaking Batmobile and getting away originally, and had only run into Batman when he had come back to steal more, and called Batman a “big boob” after he had given him a good hit right in his Bat stomach.

This precious cupcake here↓

↑...that was often used as a proof that the NE Angry Robin Jason is a later retcon/ mere misconception had actually only ever existed in Detective Comics #569-573 during the earlier part of the writer Mike Barr’s run. These 5 issues from Barr are all notably 60s-ish, and while they’re published after CoIE and Batman Year one, it’s clear that they’re Earth 1 stories, seeing that they’re written with characters such as Earth 1 Catwoman. It was only in #574 that Jason’s New Earth origin was first introduced in Detective Comics, right before Batman Year Two; and although the issue was still written by Mike Barr and it did seem to have followed directly after #573, the previous issue was ended with the caption of “The New Origin of Batman”, and the tone of #574 as well as the writer’s latter issues and his portrayal of Jason Robin were no longer the same.

↑Detective Comics #574↑

It was stated by Bruce repeatedly, in both his own title and Detective Comics, that the reason he had taken in NE Jason as his new Robin was to save him from walking down the wrong path and to provide an outlet for his rage.

While no doubt Jim Starlin’s NE Jason Robin (that everyone hates) was the most aggressive and violent, it had never contradicted how the character was initially written by Max Allen Collins, the writer of Batman #408.

↑Batman #410 by Collins↑

↑ Batman #411 by Collins, after Jason had found out that Willis was murdered by Two-Face and Bruce had been hiding the information from him ↑

Although in the end of Batman #411, Jason did seem to have gotten over his anger and saved Two-Face’s life, judging by the way he’d talked about his dad Willis in his first introduction and the fact that he’d never before bothered to find out what had happened to the man the whole time while he’s in the manor where he had all the resources to acquire the information, it was doubtful that he and Willis had had a good relationship, and what he’d felt for his crook dad then could hardly be the same as what he felt later in “The Diplomat’s Son” story.

NE Jason had always been consistent in being a fearless, proactive, feisty individual with a hot temper, even in the hand of a writer with a much mellower sense of writing like Mike Barr.

↑ Jason and Bruce encountered Two-Face again in Detective Comics #580-581 by Barrs ↑

It had been established from the get-go that NE Jason Robin was the type of kid who would challenge Batman and go out handling a criminal on his own without consulting him or anyone else first, and was morally questionable with tendencies to aggression and violence, which was perfectly understandable for someone with his background--Only at the beginning it’s easy to brush these things off, because there's never any real consequence to his behavior and so Bruce was okay when he’d behaved this way at the beginning, and since Jason’d still got a lot to learn and was eager to learn from Bruce at the beginning, it would only be right that he’s more agreeable and willing to obey Bruce, but once he had completed his training and been allowed on the field, it would also only be right for him to feel like he had learnt enough and gotten the hang of the business already, and so just easily slipped into his old habit of handling things on his own, just as he had always been while he had been surviving in the Crime Alley on his own before Bruce came along.

NE Jason Robin wasn’t suddenly turned from 0-100 in The Diplomat’s Son story (though I really doubt that it’d be impossible for someone, especially someone around Jason’s age, to go from 0-100 if they have to deal with what Jason had dealt with in the story)--

↓ This didn’t happen until after the diplomat’s son was let go by the police due to his status, and on his way out of the police station where he’d been initially brought in by Jason and Bruce for raping and kidnapping an innocent woman, the mofo called his victim right in front of Jason and Bruce and threatened her on the phone, which led the woman to immediately commit suicide. 

I’ve always thought it’s a good story and a lot more tasteful than it’s usually given credit for. It wouldn’t even have been the first time a “teenage superhero” has killed in the DCU (whether it was accidental or intentional); it’s certainly not something so dark and controversial that DC wouldn’t go for it, they could’ve easily just gone for it and had Jason Robin murder a criminal then, except they never really showed that he did. The audience just naturally assumed that he did because the whole scene was shown through Bruce’s view, and Bruce could see that even if Jason didn’t really kill the rapist then, he might very well be capable of it, and it makes the whole Under the Hood storyline as well as the continuation of Red Hood Jason possible.

The concept of Under the Hood and the continuing existence of Red Hood Jason works, instead of just being a complete character assassination like One-Year-Later Cass, only with Jason being his post-crisis version with all of his very established traits and his very established problems with Bruce.

If Under the Hood Jason is indeed Earth 1 Jason or similar to him, he would really need to be under some outside influence for him to do the things he had done, for there’s just no other justification for his action.

He would really have to be driven mad by the effect of the Lazarus Pit (which has only ever been showed to exist momentarily on other characters), he would have to be incapacitated the whole time, unable to control his own action or even form any conscious decision--and it would only make it extremely possible for him to do something truly awful such as killing some innocent or other heroes or even someone in the Batfam, since he wouldn’t be able to stop himself even if he wanted to, or be able to tell if that’s wrong; that’s what being incapacitated means, that’s why people who’s committed crimes, even as bad as murders, cannot be held legally accountable when they’re proven to be mentally ill--and if that’s truly the case, then Bruce as well as Dick (who had a pretty amicable relationship with Earth 1 Jason) and everybody else who has any knowledge about the matter would all have to be some real awful persons to not lift a finger to help him, by making it a point to stop him from committing any more murder that he wouldn’t have committed if he could help it, and figuring out a way to relieve him from the influence by means of the various science and magic overflowing in their world, like they’ve repeatedly done for many others who’ve been in the similar position, and eventually getting him the hell out of this altogether traumatic crime-fighting life, so he could finally begin to heal from his extensive traumas, including being forced to kill which has always been a very common cause of PTSD for soldiers at war; and even if Jason doesn’t leave the crime-fighting life forever, he could no longer continue operating as the Red Hood; it’d just make no sense for him to keep up the identity previously belonged to his murderer, and have it constantly remind him of how he didn’t just get brutally murdered, he was also forced into becoming a murderer himself, which.he never would’ve become if he wasn’t literally out of his mind.

Moreover, there could never have been a Tim Robin (even if Tim didn’t go by Robin but something else), if the Jason who died in A Death in the Family had the same disposition as Earth 1 Jason and none of his NE traits which was the one and only justification Bruce had for taking in Tim as his third teenage partner, seeing that Tim is patient and careful and cooperative with all the qualities to become the same kind of hero like Dick, and not at all “reckless” and “rebellious” like NE Jason, and so he’s likely to turn out like Dick and not get himself killed like Jason (that’s the only true significant retcon Pre52 Jason had. Although NE Jason Robin could be rather reckless and rebellious, that’s certainly not why he had gotten killed. They just made Bruce and everyone pretend that that’s what killed him, so it wouldn’t seem so utterly horrible for Bruce to endanger another teenage kid with no superpower or any previous fighting training by bringing them in the business that had already gotten one kid killed, and also for Dick and everyone else to just let him).

It’s a complete disregard of facts and logic to call Earth 1 Jason and Red Hood Jason the same character, which doesn’t really matter as long as it’s only headcanon; but when people push it as a fact, it really just sound to me like they’re saying that it’s wrong to like Pre 52 Jason/Post-Crisis Jason Robin, which I very much do because I actually think he’s an interesting character with an interesting and more coherent story than a lot of other DC characters.

It’s like they’re saying that it’s just plain wrong and unnatural for a person to have aggressive and violent tendencies and be inclined to criminal behavior simply because they had grown up in a most crime-infested place and had to rely on themselves and learned to do what it takes to survive since before twelve, or become more and more violent simply because they’ve been made to work in an extremely violent environment and have never been provided with any kind of actual aid for their mental health the entire time.

It’s like that if a person, after being brutally murdered and then coming back to find that their mentor/guardian who was the closest thing they had to a family and was also responsible for their death in a major way just didn’t seem to be giving any shit about that at all, is filled with such murderous rage that they could very well just go out and kill a bunch of criminals, but they aren’t actually a smol whump baby with no absolutely agency of their own that must be protected at all times all along, then they’re just no good at all and don’t deserve any love or respect or understanding.

...I don’t like myself for ranting about this. I hope I could just not give any shit about this dumb thing, but it’d been driving me crazy and I’d just got to let it out.

[thevindicativevordan]

On Supergirl

Figured I should put up my thoughts about Kara in the wake of her first film appearance being announced, and the final season of her TV show fast approaching. Short version is: Kara is very cool and DC needs to stop messing with her. 

My Introduction to Kara

I was introduced to Kara the way most millennials/Gen Zers were I imagine, via the Loeb Superman/Batman arc which brought the traditional Kara Zor-El Supergirl take into Post-Crisis continuity, after years of DC attempting to have a “Supergirl” without violating the editorial mandate that Kal needed to be the literal “Last Son of Krypton” (an example of one of the dumb ways DC fucked Kara over). Story goes that one day Dan Didio was in line at the Superman ride at Six Flags (I love that ride even though it’s stolen my glasses every time I’ve ridden it, even when I left them in a locker!). The ride had signs that talked about various Superman characters. Didio was reading the entry for Supergirl where it talked about her not being Clark’s cousin but instead some weird merge of alien shapeshifter, angel, and human girl, and he realized how fucking stupid that was, and he went back to the office and told Loeb to bring Kara back. 

Years later I would also be standing in line at the Six Flags Superman ride (probably at a different park location but who knows?) as a youngster and would read the new Supergirl sign that trumpeted that Superman had a cousin who shared all his powers, an update reflecting the new Loeb origin. I thought she sounded pretty cool, made a note to see if my library had any Supergirl stories next time I visited, then got on the Superman ride and promptly lost my glasses like an idiot because I wanted to take them off while I was riding and pretend I was changing from my “disguise” into Superman mid flight. My dad grounded me for this afterwards, but it gave me a funny story to tell at family get togethers and isn’t that what Six Flags is all about?

A month later (and with spiffy new glasses), my mom dropped me off at a new library next to where she worked, and they had one of the best Superman collections I’ve ever seen to this day. I was in heaven and while reading every Superman book I could find (I couldn’t check them out because I didn’t have a card, my mom’s card didn’t cover the area the library was in, and my mom wouldn’t have checked them out anyway since comics were “too violent”), I found the trade collecting Kara’s new origin. I read it and I thought both she and Superman were really cool, and Batman was a  punk who had to beat Darkseid by cheating, the loser. Turner’s art to my young eyes was the best I had ever seen, and the panels got engraved into my brain. 

I still get downright nostalgic whenever I see Turner Superman or Supergirl stuff. I also got my parents to rent the animated movie adaption of the Superman/Batman arc from Blockbuster (remember those?), and that sealed the deal. Seeing Kara hold her own against Darkseid convinced me she was as cool as her cousin. Next time my mom dropped me off at the library next to her workplace, I went looking for Supergirl stuff to read. I found the first volume of her new volume by Joe Kelly taking place after the Loeb arc and dove in.

It was... weird. 5 years later I might have enjoyed it but at the time I was majorly put off. Kara took a secret identity for a day and then ditched it because it was “stupid” and the kids bullied her. She was always getting into fights with Kal, and there was this weird plot that I couldn’t follow about how her dad had sent her to kill Kal, maybe or maybe not? Also she could grow crystals which I thought was dumb, and said she was stronger than her cousin which I couldn’t buy for a second given he looked like he was carved out of marble, and she looked like she relied on sunlight instead of food. I put the volume back on the shelf and kinda gave up on reading the character after that for a while. 

I followed her via the DC wiki updates just like I did Superman, and everything I read seemed dumb and convoluted. She was split in two, moped around a lot, made out with an alternate version of her cousin, and basically just flopped about the same way the rest of the Superfamily did during the 00s. Nothing made me think I had made a mistake dropping Kara until I read the latest update to her wiki page.

I was super into what I was reading about the Busiek/Johns era of Superman online. Lex was back and making a big revenge scheme that involved all the other Rogues! Old Superman Rogues were getting revamped and made cool again! Johns reintroduced Brainiac and made him a big threat, with Kal and Kara teaming up to fight him! Busiek was revamping Prankster and telling big ambitious Superman stories! For the first time in a long while, the consensus on the Internet was that Superman was good again. My “home” library had zero Marvel books and no Superman or Batman books, all their DC stuff was Flash or Green Lantern, mainly written by Johns. Insane to think back on now. My hopes that because Johns was involved with Superman, Superman books would show up at my library were fulfilled. They started bringing in Busiek and Johns collections, and someone there also ordered Sterling Gates’ first volume of Supergirl, and I checked everything out since I was old enough to have my own library card, and my parents were worried more about the violent video games I was playing rather than comics.

I read everything and loved it. I also really liked Gates’ take on Kara. She was still an imperfect teenager but she wasn’t insufferably angsty or constantly fighting with Kal. She was going to give the secret identity another try and Lana had “adopted” her. It’s funny remembering how I enjoyed all that given my current thoughts on how Kara should work, but it was great at the time. I liked Gates introducing new foes for Kara, some classic Superman Rogues adapted for her like Bizzarogirl, others crafted specifically for her like Reactron. Gates’ basically rekindled my enjoyment of Kara the same way Busiek & Johns rekindled my enjoyment of Superman.

Of course it ended terribly like everything Superman-related seems to.

I’ve got a whole post I want to do about New Krypton and what came after. In short that is the most blatant example of “hitting the reset button” that I’ve ever seen. All the potential got wasted, and afterwards everything except Lex’s Action Comics stuff just didn’t appeal to me. Gates got booted off Kara for Nick Spencer who ended up leaving himself later, a promising Teen Titans line-up with Kara on it didn’t happen, and the last proper Pre-Flashpoint Superfamily story was a crappy team-up with Doomsday against Bigger Doomsday (thank God for Cornell’s final Luthor/Superman confrontation at least). When news of the reboot arrived, I was honestly happy. The Superline needed an enema.

Controversial opinion time: I liked New 52 Supergirl. It’s weird because a lot of the stuff I hated about Kelly’s run was here, and a lot of the stuff I loved about the Gates’ run was not. This was angry, moody, emotional Kara again, fighting with Kal and not fond of Earth. But I was in my teens at this point, and I didn’t want happy go-lucky Superman or Supergirl. I wanted my heroes angry, scared of the future, ready to go out there and smash some cars. Morrison’s Action Comics was 100% my jam (still is once I really understood the deeper meaning beneath the work) and this Kara felt like a natural fit for this universe. Plus we got Asrar on art and that guy made it damn pretty to look at, lots of cool science fiction stuff going on, even with the dumb H’el storyline.

I loved all the new Rogues Kara got. I loved her new Fortress under the ocean. I loved how traumatized she was by the loss of Krypton, that she wanted more than anything to go home, that her cousin was like a stranger to her since they had been apart for so long. I found all of that incredibly relatable. A lot of the New 52 Supergirl stories might have been schlock but it was my type of schlock damnit, and I enjoyed it!

I kept with her New 52 series all the way through the Red Daughter Saga (which I loved). As someone who grew up on Johns GL (since that was the only comics my home library had), seeing a Supercharacter join a Lantern Corp was the hypest thing ever. I loved the finale about Kara finally letting go of her anger and losing the ring while smashing her foe into the sun, it was incredibly cathartic for me as an angry teen myself. I finally stopped following her series sometime after since I was no longer enjoying the Superline or really DC as a whole. It wasn’t until I heard that New 52 Superman died and the “old” Superman was back, that I checked back into DC.

DC Rebirth & How I Think Kara Should Work

I did not enjoy Supergirl Rebirth, and I think I’ll talk about my problems with it alongside how I think Kara as a character should work since the two are related. A pet peeve of mine that has formed over the years is this: I don’t like it when Superfamily members get turned into Clark clones. Kon wearing glasses and going to Smallville High. Kara going to high school and being involved in journalism. Jon more or less being written as a copy of his dad personality-wise. I hate that kind of stuff because it’s boring. What’s the point of a Superfamily if everyone is just copying Clark? It also doesn’t fit the characters especially in Kara’s case. Why the hell does she want to be a journalist? Were there journalists on Krypton? I don’t remember ever seeing one! Shouldn’t she want to be, I dunno, a scientist? That seems to have been the El family tradition, wouldn’t she have been groomed for that?

This one-off by Shea is honestly the only acceptable outcome for Kara going into journalism for me. She realizes she’s just copying her cousin and switches to something she wants to do. So Orlando copying the show, which already basically turned Kara into an expy of her cousin, just did not appeal to me at all. What had worked for me under Gates way back when was not clicking for me this time. I wanted to see Kara embody the principles of the S-shield in a different way than her cousin did. So I really enjoyed when Rebirth ended and we moved into the Bendis era with Andrekyo relaunching the title as Kara in space.

Kara in space has always felt like a good fit for me. Unlike Kal I’ve come to believe that Kara really shouldn’t be all that fond of Earth. For him it’s home, but for her it’s just where she ended up after her real home got destroyed. I think Kara works well as a sort of nomad, occasionally making stops back home to Earth to check on her cousin, but otherwise? She’s more comfortable out in space than she could ever be on Earth. Out in space she can be Kryptonian (which is what she should think of herself as in contrast to Clark being torn between his Kryptonian biology and human upbringing, and Jon/Kon identifying as human), be her true self, not have to pretend to be human to fit in. Kara founding a moon refuge was one of the best ideas for her that I’ve seen, I would love if DC made her Future State refugee center on the moon canon. I’m excited for more Kara adventures in space with the upcoming Tom King story.

Also love that her and Krypto are getting tied together, if they don’t want to use Krypto in Superman’s stuff, let her have him! Bring on cosmic adventurer Supergirl!

Personality & Other Traits

Kara to me should be more hot-tempered than her cousin. All the Superfamily members should have a temper in my opinion, I see that as the “Deadly Sin” of Superman and his family. But while Kal is like a simmering pot that will explode if it’s left cooking for too long, Kara is like dynamite. Light her fuse at your own peril because she will go off on you.

I also like the idea of Kara being rash. Kal’s got a maturity that came from over a decade of having to live with Lex Luthor constantly getting away with all his evil schemes. He’s patient because he’s been forced to be. Kara? If you ask for her help she’ll give it, but beware because she doesn’t really care about the long term impacts of her decisions. She’s an invulnerable teenager after all.

Really liked that Venditti Annual where Kara got tutored in history by a reincarnation of Hawkman. Kara having a passion for history is a neat trait, would be nice to see her teach Kal or Jon some Kryptonian lore, or have her lead a Kryptonian holiday celebration for the Superfamily because she’s the only one who remembers how to do it. 

Sexuality wise I know a lot of people ship Kara and Lena on account of the chemistry between the two in the show. I haven’t watched the show myself but I’m fine with making Kara bisexual, the Superfamily could use some LGBT+ rep, and Lena hasn’t done anything of worth as a villain, so undo that and throw the two together. If we’re letting Harley and Ivy get away with murder I think we can let Lena off the hook too, undo the Ultrawoman weirdness and put the two together. Could be fun seeing the two building that moon refuge together.

All in all I think Kara is a great character who is a stronger embodiment of the immigrant experience than even her cousin in some ways. I hope King does a good job with her, she’s treated better than her cousin on the film side, and that overall the 20s are a better decade for Supergirl than the 10s were.

[ijcmcrjournal]

COVID-19 and the Blue Genie by Abbas AM*

Editorial

In stories, in the cave of Wonders, Aladdin finds the magical lamps, rubs it, and unwittingly summoning the omnipotent Genie who lives inside it. The Genie has the power to achieve anything in the world, but he tells Aladdin that he grants him three wishes except murder, romance, and the resurrection of the dead. In reality, things appear to be the same, but with some difference.

On Feb 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his group found Facebook, the company that presents now in the Silver Valley [1]. Since then and Facebook passed through too many changes until it reached the blue app we know soon. Now anybody can touch the blue app like Aladdin, and it will tell them anything is happening anywhere in the world like the Genie. Even though does our blue Genie always tell us the truth?

On Dec 31, 2019, the whole world was celebrating the New Year 2020, while the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in China was reported about cases of severe acute pneumonia of unknown cause were detected in Wuhan [2]. This new disease was discovered to be caused by a novel type of coronaviruses that's transmitted by droplet infection. WHO chose the name COVID-19, which means coronavirus disease 2019.

Since that day, the governments, one by one, have started curfews in their countries. Everyone has stayed at home, but tried to keep in touch with the world and know the last news about the pandemic depending on social media, especially Facebook. The last digital 2020 global overview report shows that: more than 4.5 billion people now use the internet, while social media users have passed the 3.8 billion. If we compare January 2020 to January 2019, the growth rates are +2.4% increases in mobile phone users, +7.0% increases in internet users, and +9.2% increases inactive social media users. Nearly 60% of the world's population is already online, and the mean daily time spent with media is 6 hours and 43 minutes per person, which means we spent about 1/3 of our waking time using the internet. The latest trends suggest that more than half of the world's total population will use social media by the middle of this year [3].

Unfortunately, this was associated with another outbreak of false information [infodemic] and a lot of rumors. While scrolling down through Facebook, there were posts about the source of COVID-19. They said it came from eating bats, which is a behavior of the Chinese. Others said it was due to sexual contact with animals. Meanwhile, some news reported that it was created by China in a trial to create a biological weapon. Some started to blame China, and others blamed the USA and accused it with the creation of the virus.

After that, others were talking about the harmful effect of Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs on corona cases. There was also news about drugs that were used for other diseases like malaria and can treat corona cases. This lead to a vacancy of markets from antimalarial medicines in Egypt. Another funny rumor in Egypt was about the use of "Sha Law Law," a type of Egyptian food in Upper Egypt, in the prevention of infection of COVID-19. However, the rumor that got the most popular was the 5G conspiracy. This theory claims that 5G helps in the spread of the corona virus, which is against any logical thinking.

Guy Berger, the Director for Polices and strategies regarding Communication and Information at UNESCO, said: "There seems to be barely an area left untouched by disinformation about the COVID-19 crisis, ranging from the origin of coronavirus, through to unproven prevention and cures, and encompassing responses by governments, companies, celebrities, and others" and added "In a time of high fears, uncertainties and unknowns, there is a fertile ground for fabrications to flourish and grow. The big risk is that any single falsehood that gains traction can negate the significance of a body of true facts. When disinformation is repeated and amplified, including by influential people, the grave danger is that information which is based on truth, ends up having an only marginal impact" [4].

Psychologically speaking, public health emergencies affect the health and well-being of both individuals (causing, for example, confusion and stigma) and communities. Extensive research in disaster mental health has established that emotional distress presents in the affected populations. Add to this reading, watching, or listening to this "mis-news." So people become more afraid of the virus. This may be translated into their emotions and behavior and become more anxious and respond aggressively even to the usual events in their life and noncompliant with public health directives [5]. An obvious example for that, in a Daqahlya, a governorate in Egypt, people in a village refused to attend the funeral, or burry a doctor died with COVID-19 infection for fear of the spread of infection to them. Even more, they made demonstrations against her burial in their country.

From an economic point of view, countries entered a vicious circle of curfew, work, and school closure, inadequate resources for medical response, and decreased income, while the demand still as it is or even increased and the bad psychological condition of their nations. And so, we can say the fake news and decrease of funds worked together and lead to the strange behaviors we see now and helped in the spread of rumors [5].

These outbreaks of COVID-19 and misinformation are a great challenge not only to the psyche of the people but also to the health system. This misinformation in etiology, prevention, outcome, and cure of the disease has a harmful impact on the population, masking good practices like hand washing, isolation, and decrease compliance of infected patients. An example of this misinformation is that the use of high doses of Chloroquine, the antimalarial drug, for the treatment of COVID, after the "mis-news" about its effectiveness. Another one, and actually the most dangerous one, is describing this disease as a stigma, which made a patient in India to attempt suicide after hearing about his positivity for corona [6].

On searching for the source of these rumors, we will find nothing except for some people working for their agenda. Mrs. Berger said:" The motives for spreading disinformation are many, and include political aims, self-promotion, and attracting attention as part of a business model. Those who do so, play on emotions, fear, prejudices, and ignorance, and claim to bring meaning and certainty to a reality that is complex, challenging and fast-changing" (4). We are not sure about the source of these rumors misinformation, but we are confident that social media platforms provide a rich environment for their rapid spreading.

That's why WHO cooperates with several social media platforms and companies like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Linked In, and Microsoft [7] to overcome misinformation and to ensure that the people worldwide whenever they search for COVID-19 or related concerns, they directed to valid sources of information at WHO website or US center for disease control.  Although efforts made by WHO, the unverified sources of information are the most popular as over the last months, posts of WHO and  CDC gathered only several hundred thousands of reacts while other sites that share conspiracy theories and hoaxes gathered over 52 million [8].

It may come as a result of creating dramatic headlines by those sites to increase viewership and, as a consequence, down out credible sources. A study found that much misinformation doubt directly or indirectly the actions qualification and permissibleness of public authorities that are resulting in many difficulties facing these authorities to be credible by populations [9].

There are compelling needs for overcoming misinformation on social media platforms as a reduction of wrong advice by 10% and making people stop sharing it by 20% will reduce the severity of the pandemic (10). Eventually, all rumors are like a gangrenous part of our society, so their removal is the best solution. It must be replaced by correct ones to keep our society's body healthy. Mass media should help people to follow the right source of information. Online ports and persons get involved in the production, and sharing such fake news and information should be presented to justice. All authorities, media, societies, and everybody have to collaborate to put an end to this chaos.

For more information about Journal : https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/

https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/pdf/IJCMCR.SC.ID.00018.pdf https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/ijcmcr-sc-id-00018/

[disneymoviethoughts]

Thoughts I had while watching Tangled

1. Warning: this is my absolute favorite Disney movie so there's a good chance this will be loaded with a lot of squeals, a lot of GIFs, and a lot of facts. Don't @ me. 2. This is Disney's 50th animated feature which makes it even more special. 3. It's also the first all CGI film. 4. I can recite Flynn's entire intro. 5. Who am I kidding, I can recite the entire movie. 6. If I found a magic flower I'd probably hoard it too. 7. Pascal is on baby Rapunzel's mobile and there's nothing like Disney does better than hidden Mickeys and foreshadowing. 8. I know Mother Gothel is the absolute worst- she's a kidnapper, she's abusive, she's selfish- but she DID attempt to only take a piece of her hair first. 9. I see a lot of people always saying how Mother Gothel should've just told Rapunzel her birthday was on a different day but I honestly believe that she didn't think Rapunzel was smart enough to put two and two together. 10. Pascal. Is. The. Best. 

11. Highly recommend watching his origin story episode on Tangled the Series if you haven't. Your soul will be crushed. 12. The fact that Rapunzel gets up at seven am and accomplishes all this stuff in like two hours is more than I can even do in a week. 13. Fun fact: Rapunzel's hair is seventy feet long. 14. Zachary Levi is absolute perfection in this role and if Flynn is not your favorite prince, you better get with the program. Unless your favorite prince is Aladdin then I understand. 15. Even in the original story I was always impressed that she could lift the witch. I can't even lift my laptop. 16. She charts the stars, you guys. She's just so amazing. 17. Fun fact: not only does Mother Gothel refer to her as a flower, she often is always talking about her hair when she's being endearing.                                 18. Can we talk about how this shot of Rapunzel’s hair floating out of the tower is just freaking gorgeous. It’s one of my favorites. 

19. They just can't get his nose right. 20. Maximus is the best horse and never buys into Flynn's hijinks. He just wants the satchel back for the kingdom. 21. I can safely say that if I came across that tower, I would not make it five feet off the ground, let alone all the way up the tower. 22. Can we just talk about how incredibly brave Rapunzel is. She's never seen another human besides Mother Gothel and yet she has no problem going on the defensive right away.                                                                                           23. Let it be known that any time I say "surprise" now, I only say it the way Mother Gothel says it.                                                                                           24. Fun fact: they had a "hot guy" conference at Disney so that women could talk about what made a male good looking to ensure that Flynn was hot. 

25. They succeeded. 26. More princes need to be as sarcastic and wonderful as Flynn. 27. I also love Mandy Moore. 28. Fun fact: if you watch This Is Us, the best new show on TV with Mandy Moore, it was written by the same man who wrote Tangled. 29. I wish I had a Pascal to tell me when to pick fights. 

30. I will keep saying Rapunzel is the best, because she is. She's brave, resourceful, loyal, and doesn't buy into anything Flynn says even though he's charming and good looking. How many princesses can we honestly say that about? 31. Also her following her dream is mad inspiring and it's been the basis of my life since it came out. 32. Here comes the smolder. 

33. What is it about the reprise of a song that makes it so much better? 34. It would be fun to slide down all that hair. 35. Mother Gothel didn't even make it that far and she's been walking for at least a few hours. 36. I love that Rapunzel thought to put pillows under her covers. Classic. 37. I still want to eat at the Snuggly Duckling regardless of the Pub Thugs. 38. Flynn's one liners are just so on point. I love this movie. 39. I also love that Rapunzel got a group of rough men to to sing a song even though she was scared of them two seconds ago. 40. And Flynn's face during this entire song. 

41. How did they find the guards so quickly? This seems like a bigger city than that. 42. I wish I could take away from this to be nice to everyone but I'm way too cynical. 43. I love Flynn getting to know Rapunzel because even though it still takes only three days for them to fall in love it just seems more real and natural than other Disney movies. 44. She doesn't care that he's a thief and he sees that she's a good person who's also had a hard life and it just makes me all warm inside. 45. This is so action packed and then trying to get out of the cave gives me so much anxiety. Especially when they just resign themselves to dying. 46. Flynn's reaction to Rapunzel's hair gives me life.                                         47. She just so easily starts calling him Eugene and it's so freaking cute.         48. Mother Gothel is such a master manipulator it's insane.

49. Okay but having magic hair that heals would be so useful to me since I am clumsy AF and get bruises all the time. 50. You can just see Flynn falling in love with her and it's beautiful and magical and if the way he looks at her doesn’t make your heart warm and fuzzy, you’re dead inside.                                                                                                         51. But real talk, how can Rapunzel find a man in a tower and I can't even find one on the street. 52. Rapunzel standing up to Mother Gothel is such a growth for her. 53. Where does she stash the satchel when they go into the kingdom though? 54. Pascal woke up red and alert and he's my favorite sidekick ever. 55. Rapunzel is so pure and innocent that she can calm down a restaurant full of thugs and a rogue horse and I'm so here for it. 56. I can't even properly French braid my hair but those girls braided her hair so fashionably. 

57. I just want to point out that Flynn has been actually buying things for Rapunzel all day instead of stealing them and I can't get enough. 58. And him getting the boat was SO ROMANTIC I get chills. 59. Rapunzel talking about how she might be let down by the lanterns and what will happen after is so relatable. 60. Everything about her trying to live her dreams and doing anything she can to get there is just so inspiring. 61. The heartbreak in King Frederick's eyes kills me.   62. "I See the Light" is the best song in any Disney movie and I tear up every time. 

63. This whole entire sequence is so visually appealing that I just cannot, so prepare for all the GIFs right now. 64. Fun fact: the lantern that Rapunzel pushes back up is the king and queen's. You can tell cause it has Corona's logo on it (the sun). 

65. Fun fact: there's over 45,000 lanterns used in this sequence. 

66. Fun fact: while Mother Gothel only cares about Rapunzel's hair, Flynn always looks right at her and pushes her hair back. 

67. DON'T GET OFF THE BOAT FLYNN. 68. This manipulation is just so deep I mean Mother Gothel had to think about this as soon as she saw the Stabbington Brothers which was an entire day ago. This woman is insane. 69. Rapunzel lime green light is bad do not go to her. 70. As soon as Flynn woke up his only concern was Rapunzel and even though Maximus doesn't like him he believed his cries. 71. At least Mother Gothel acknowledged that Rapunzel was a pure bright ray of sunshine. 72. The fact that Rapunzel had been painting suns in her paintings without realizing it is such a brilliant plot line that I can't even be mad that she shouldn't have remembered it since she was only like a day old. 73. Flynn also only knows a minimal amount about Mother Gothel and still realized that she was in trouble. PROPS. 74. "You were wrong about the world. And you were wrong about me. And I will never let you use my hair again" favorite line in the whole movie. It just shows how far she's come and how brave she is and how quickly she figured everything out and didn't even care what Mother Gothel's explanation was. 

75. If someone ever tries to murder me you best believe I'm grabbing a frying pan. 76. I love that they included the "Rapunzel let down your hair" line from the original. 77. He just free climbed that like a boss. 78. It is at this moment where I start to cry every time. 

79. Mother Gothel kicked Pascal and that was so awful I want to punch her. 80. Rapunzel not caring about what's going to happen if she goes with Mother Gothel and her only concern being about Flynn is just heartbreaking. 81. And then Flynn sacrificing himself to save Rapunzel the two of them are seriously just so perfect for each other. 

82. Mother Gothel turning into dust is so savage. 83. I don't care how many times I've seen this I never sob as hard as I do when Flynn is dying and they tell each other they are each other's new dream.         84. Fun fact: in the original story Rapunzel cries into the prince's eyes and it heals his blindness just like Rapunzel's tears bring Flynn back to life.               85. I literally yell YOU GO GIRL every time Rapunzel kisses Flynn first. Including at their wedding. 

86. Fun fact: the king and queen don't have any speaking lines at all the entire movie. The queen has a line in Tangled Ever After and they speak in the show but not in the film. 

87. It cracks me up that they replaced swords with frying pans. 88. Pascal turns red every time they kiss and it's so cute. 89. They're such a realistic couple, more than any other Disney couple I think. If none of you have watched the hour long special that takes place after this but before they get married, you should. Rapunzel turns down Flynn's marriage proposal which makes sense because at the end of this Flynn said he asked for years and years. You thought he was joking. 90. This is the best Disney princess film ever and I'm so happy I watched it. 91. I hope this was entertaining and not annoying. Sorry for all the GIFs, and that they were mostly of Flynn.                                                                           92. Now go watch the show.