#spider haters united

[farfromstrange]

Spiders | Matt Murdock

Pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader

Summary: Matt finds a huge spider in the house and he refuses to kill it.

Warnings: arachnophobia, description of a spider’s sounds and body (the way I see them with my arachnophobia), fluff, not proofread, no beta, probably a lot of grammar mistakes my bad

a/n: my body is tingling. I hate this, but it’s also cute. Matt Murdock hates spiders and I stand by that. [the gif seemed fitting, but for both sides]

find my masterlist here!

If there is one thing Matt Murdock hated with his whole heart it had to be spiders. He would never admit it though. His previous girlfriends had been deadly afraid of the small insects and so he had to step up and remove them whenever one came crawling in. He couldn’t kill a spider even though he wanted to because even that went against his moral code somehow.

He could hear their heartbeats and the almost inaudible sounds they made when throwing their webs around the corners of his apartment ceiling. He could hear their tiny steps as they walked around his furniture or over the walls. It was unsettling because even though he could hear them, he couldn’t find them. He couldn’t locate them. They were fast little bastards and mostly tiny at that.

He hated spiders with a passion that was unmatched to anything else he hated. They gave him the ick.

She didn’t have many fears either, but spiders were a big no-go. He could hear her heart jump whenever one appeared on the tv or her phone screen suddenly and she would cringe away, scratching at her skin until the disgusting tingling would disappear. Though whenever one happened to be in the apartment, she pulled out the vacuum and got rid of the animals easily without batting an eyelash. She was disgusted, yes, and her hands shook with the panic that spread through her at the mere thought of the spider attacking her and eating her alive (which was a pathetic thought, according to her, but he understood where she came from). Though whenever one happened to crawl by, she removed it because she knew he hated them.

No one had ever been this considerate, and they had only had one conversation about their dislikes in the past when the topic arose in a rather humorous manner and he dropped his irrational fear of spiders, explaining how he could hear them but never find them and that freaked him out. She had just laughed, keeping her own arachnophobia a light subject, playing it down for him so he wouldn’t get suspicious. Ever since then, she would remove every spider without him asking for it. She found them, always, even if it was a little late sometimes and he had already heard them crawling on the walls. But Matt being Matt, he was too much of a coward to ask her to remove them.

Until the size changed completely and it was no longer a daddy long legs or a tiny spider sitting on the wall but a huge, black one with legs that were seemingly bigger than his and Matt decided he had enough. He couldn’t stand in the kitchen with that thing staring at him, plotting his murder. He didn’t have to see it to know how monstrous it was.

Her reaction was proof of his suspicion. She jumped and screeched audibly when she saw it. Matt had his hands on his hips, sightless eyes directed at the kitchen as he listened to the spider do its thing. It was gross and he kept his distance specifically so it couldn’t jump on him even if it had the ability to do so.

“What the fuck is that?” she choked out. Her heart was beating up to her chest. “Why is it so big? What did it eat? Oh, my God, maybe she ate the neighbor.”

“She?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Spiders are all female to me. Doesn’t matter! That thing is huge.” It started moving at the same time she said that. “Ew, ew, ew, ew! Get it off. Get it away from me. Matt, kill it! I can’t look at it. God! Ew!”

Matt swallowed. He would do it. He would ask her to kill the spider instead because there was no way he was going to catch a thing that big and set it outside, and he didn’t want to listen to the heartbeat die out either. Not at his hands, at least, so he would do it. He would ask her, even though he hated that he had to. "Baby, I love you. You know that I'd do anything for you, but, uh... seven fucks to the no,” he said. “You're gonna have to kill that creepy thing yourself."

She gawked at him, then eventually huffed in absolute defeat. "So brave.”

He believed he could still talk himself out of her being mad at him. She knew about his distaste after all and would do it for him, right? She would conquer her fear for his sake, she had to or else both of them had to burn the house down and move far, far away, to New Zealand maybe.

“Have I told you that I love you? So, so much. You're beautiful, a goddess, I worship the ground you walk on. But sweetheart, love of my life, please go kill that fucking thing before I break out into hives. Please?"

The soft please let her defenses fall. She sighed, already searching for the vacuum. “If she is gone by the time I turn around,” she said, “I am moving out.”

“Right there with you,” he said.

“New Zealand maybe?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

They were so in sync, he felt proud.

“Honey bees are considered the most dangerous there, you know. We wouldn’t have to worry about monstrous, venomous spiders trying to eat us.”

“I doubt it’s venomous, we’re in New York,” he argued. “But yeah, I get what you’re saying.”

The spider moved again, faster this time as if it could sense that she had gotten the vacuum from the closet, even adding the extension so she could stand as far away as possible.

Would it die in there? What if it crawled back out? Matt’s back itched. He didn’t want to think about that, but the longer he stood there, the bigger his concerns grew. Maybe burning the house down wasn’t such a bad idea after all. They could find a place to stay anywhere and just clean it all out before moving.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered in her general direction, “don’t want to alarm you but it sounds like the thing is fleeing the country.”

“No!” She snapped around with the vacuum in hand. “I will not let that fugitive get away with it.” She turned it on. “Be gone, Satan!”

He listened in awe as she squealed while sucking in the huge spider. She could have sworn she saw hairs on the body and she almost dropped the device. Sighing in relief once the spider was gone, disappeared into the depths of the vacuum, she went to turn it off.

Matt stopped her. “Maybe we should break a glass and then suck in the shards just in case it didn’t die,” he said.

“Matt, her legs were torn apart in there. She’s not gonna crawl back out.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Can you hear a heartbeat?”

“No, but insect heartbeats are faint. Please, let’s just completely demolish it before we put the vacuum back in the closet.”

“Oh, my God. I’m not gonna smash a glass,” she said.

“Then just vacuum the apartment,” he retorted.

She groaned, handing it over to him. “Do it yourself, big boy.”

“What if it comes out though?” He gave her a panicked expression. “What if it comes back out and eats me?”

“She won’t.”

“It might.”

“Matthew.”

“No, I won’t do it. I’d rather ask one of the neighbors to get rid of the entire vacuum than risk it coming back out again.”

She wanted to hit him over the head. He looked adorable like this, but sometimes he could be quite annoying, even after a scare like that. Perhaps he was onto something though. It might have still been alive and even she couldn’t take that chance.

She gave in and took the vacuum back, turning it on and sweeping the apartment, making sure to suck in as much dirt and dust as possible. She even vacuumed the couch and the bedroom. Pressing the head down on the carpet, she waited until she was sure any living thing would have suffocated, and then she finally turned it off.

Matt gave her the go-ahead, allowing her to stash it away. She did.

The pair continued staring at the door for another five minutes, eyebrows furrowed and senses spread out to make sure they weren’t going to be attacked by the monster.

She eventually turned to her boyfriend. “Do we think she’s dead?” she asked.

Matt tilted his head. “Jury’s still out on that one,” he said.

“I want to take a shower.”

“Then go.”

“Not when she can come out of the closet and eat you anytime.”

“I’m pretty sure a lesbian spider would be a new one.”

She needed a moment to register what he just said. Then, she toppled over with the brightest laugh he had heard her utter in a while.

“A LESBIAN SPIDER?!” she wheezed. “What is wrong with you, Matthew? Oh, my God.” Her chest rumbled with laughter once again until her sides started to hurt and she ran out of air.

Matt joined in, more surprised about how he got to that conclusion than anything else. He hadn’t even meant to say it, the words just slipped, but the joke was a good one and he had to note that he made her laugh like that. His mission was to do it more often, even if it were just with jokes about gay spiders, which, as he thought about it, was truly quite ridiculous.

“Yeah, I mean if she’s gonna come out of the closet…” he trailed off.

“Don’t explain the joke,” she said. “You’re gonna ruin it.”

“Sorry.”

“A lesbian spider.” She giggled. “Alright, I’m going to take a shower now.”

His arm shot out. “Wait!”

“Relax, Matthew. If you’re right about lesbianism, she’s not gonna eat you.”

Her footsteps disappeared into the bathroom where a lesbian spider could definitely find her in the shower and eat her, he figured, so he instantly trailed after his girlfriend.

“That doesn’t make me feel better!” he squeaked.

Her laugh rang out. “I know.”

Needless to say that they staked out to watch for any signs of the mysterious spider in the vacuum the entire night, even beyond their shared shower time.

[brisquad-unit-4402]

rating luxiem and noctyx by how good they would be at taking care of bugs

my name is unit 4402 and i’m typing this on my phone. autocorrect’s suggested emojis are going to go crazy wish me luck

tags: ambiguous relationship, can be read as platonic or romantic, gender neutral reader, fluff, humor, bugs and spiders

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

🖋 Ike Eveland: 4/10

he’s neutral about most bugs. he’ll pick up critters like beetles and caterpillars with his hands and set them outside

gets grossed out by the nastier bugs though. won’t touch ‘em himself, they’re lucky if he can gather himself enough to get a paper and cup. otherwise it’s swatter time with gritted teeth and barely mustered courage

SPIDERS. HOWEVER.

certified spider hater. absolutely terrified of them get out of here!!!

he'll use a swatter, pesticides, everything. but he’s so afraid of how they disappear when he’s not looking

you’ll have to keep an eye on it while he finds the pesticide or vice versa

if he’s unfortunate enough to be the one to kill it you’ll have to hype him up, calm his nerves, and then tell him it’s okay once the deed is done

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🦁 Luca Kaneshiro -100/10

this guy… easily the worst of both units at bug duty. you might just have to take the bullet

he gets sketched out by even the cute ones like butterflies and ladybugs if he looks at them for too long. there’s no way he could even take a moth with a level head

he even reacts to all of them the same. “AAAAH! T-t-there’s a [BUG NAME] in [room name]!”

even so he tries to be nice to them with a cup and paper, or some other method to get them out of his space

unfortunately australian wildlife has prepared him so smaller bugs are still scary but he’ll be a big scared scary mafia boss and take action

and everyone says they’ll leave the house as a joke if they can’t find the spider but it’s luca. there is a solid chance that he will invite you to stay with him in one of the kaneshiro vacation homes for about three days. that’s enough time for the bugs to leave, right?

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

👟 Shu Yamino: 10/10

oh! a bug!

is rather delighted at bug!

honestly if it’s a cool bug he might just take a video of it doing its thing and give it a personality!

he has a out-of-sight, out-of-mind philosophy with bugs. he’s fine with just about anything as long as they aren't annoying

harmful pests will get swatted tho ofc

everything else, he’s fine with bringing outside himself without much fanfare

some of them are a little creepy but he tries to rationalize it. they’re just tiny animals and he’s a big strong sorcerer, it’s fine. what are they gonna do, infest him to death?

…he’s going to spray the house down later just to be sure.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

👹 Vox Akuma: 9/10

a wild card. and also VERY emotionally invested in any bugs that come his way whether that’s good or bad

if they manage to sneak up on him he’ll probably yell “WOAH” or curse out of surprise, then figure out whether he should be scared or not

surprisingly fine with the nastiest of them. he actually loves worms, centipedes and similar critters, and he’ll even admire them if they stumble into his territory

“look reader this is me if i were a worm. would you still love me if i was a worm 🥺” “vox please just get that thing outside”

spiders have a 50-50 survival chance. he’ll kill small spiders but bring the big ones outside because the big ones are like full Animals to him and slaughtering animals is not something he can bring himself to do (tiny ones don’t count)

are scorpions bugs? do they count? either way that’s his one objection. he wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole if he had the choice, but if you’re really that scared, then he’ll put on a brave face and hide his fear

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🎭 Alban Knox: 2/10

if he’s going to take care of a bug you need to make peace with the fact that he will whine the entire time

not a cute fun whine either. he’ll complain the entire time that it’s gross and nasty and ewww yuck ugh!

and that’s just for beetles and caterpillars

show him a spider or something else just as creepy and he will actually scream

and yell as he fumbles around to take care of it

and yell as he eventually grabs it with his hands (he’s panicking a little too hard to get a tool)

and yell as he tries to open the door and throw it outside

this is assuming he doesn’t find a slipper nearby. if he has a tissue or something he’ll smash the bug over and over until it’s pulverized

and he’ll STILL be yelling while he does that

the job gets done but at what cost

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🐑 Fulgur Ovid: 6/10

he’s not a 6/10 because he dislikes bugs. he’s neutral towards them, not really creeped out by them but not a fan either

he’s a 6/10 because he’s a dick about taking care of them for you

here’s how it usually goes: you summon him to save you from a creepy crawly. he’ll inspect it and go “really, you’re scared of that little thing? look at it closer, it’s just a bug”

and once he quits fooling around he just swipes it up. his fingers are solid steel which allows for Precise Bug Snatching

but he’ll act unsure and go “i think i got it. here, reader, look inside my hand and tell me if you see it”

or even the dreaded move where he pretends he’s bringing the bug closer to you so you have to see it

and THEN once he’s outside he’ll open his hands and go “wait i think i lost it” just to get a rise out of you until he confirms yes, it’s safe and out of the house

if you’re legitimately terrified then he doesn’t even bother with the jokes. just point out the bug and close your eyes, and he’ll be washing his hands while you stare back at a smudge on the wall before you can even get out a sentence

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🔗 Sonny Brisko: 8/10

somehow both a gentle soul and a complete menace

he's very matter-of-fact when you point them out. "it's just a little jumping spider, no big deal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

in fact he's almost adorable with how he quietly talks to the bugs and coaxes them to crawl on his hand so he can get them out of your way

and then he prods and begs you to take a picture of the bug bc it's a cool little guy

surprisingly knowledgeable and can identify bugs easily, so once he's got one in his hands he'll show it to you and tell you some facts about it

which is very sweet except for the fact that it's still a nasty bug and you want it out of your face!

he'll lightly tease you over being so scared of a little bug while he takes them outside. and if it's a pest-eater like a spider he'll hide it in a dark corner out of your sight

overall very kind to bugs and thinks they're friendly

which is why it throws you so hard that sometimes after he coos over them he just FUCKING SMASHES THEM IN HIS PALM?

NO HESITATION AT ALL??

WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM???

also when the bug is taken care of he'll sneak behind you and lightly tap his fingers up your arm like a creepy-crawly and then laugh when you get scared. what a shithead

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🔮 Uki Violeta: 15/10

the very essence of "i'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with ME"

it's like watching a cat hunt an unaware mouse. he's so quick about it

and he's so good at it too?? he'll find the bug, swat it, and throw the remains away in less than a minute on a good day

doesn't even act like it's a big deal either, he just goes back to what he was doing before you asked for help

he uses tissues or shoes on the big ones like roaches, but anything small, he's surprisingly good at crushing them with his bare hands. this is especially funny when he has acrylics on bc those nails never get dirty nor in the way

spiders get the relocation pass, and he'll insist they stay inside, just out of sight

non-zero chance if you complain about it, he'll go on a lecture about how spiders are how you prevent other pests from invading the house

honestly you only see this side of uki once. the bugs are too scared to show their faces after this stint

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

✧. ┊ masterpost ✧. ┊ kofi

[fdelopera]

Jew-hating bigots, get your paws off Moon Knight

What the hell is it with these anitsemitic Moon Knight "fans" who reblog my old Moon Knight posts??

You are engaging with posts written by a Jew, about a Jewish character.

And yet here you are, praising the terrorist organization Hamas, spewing Holocaust inversion, and comparing Jews to Nazis on your blog.

Listen up, you fucking BIGOT, you are a raging Jew-hater, and MOON KNIGHT IS NOT FOR YOU.

I'll go one step further: COMICS ARE NOT FOR YOU.

Comics are a JEWISH artform. Most of the early comics creators like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Jerry Siegel, and Joe Shuster were Jewish, and they coded their superheroes as Jewish characters.

They couldn't write these characters as definitively Jewish because of the antisemitism that pervaded the United States -- antisemitism that still pervades US.

The political source of that antisemitism may have changed from far-right to far-left, but it is as virulent as it ever was.

Let that sink in. You Hamasnik bigots are making the US as antisemitic as it was in the 1930s and 1940s.

Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man ... the list goes on -- they are ALL Jewish-coded characters. Some of them, like Peter Parker, are now intentionally written as being Jewish, based on who is in charge of the movie or the run.

Moon Knight is one of the few canonically Jewish characters in Marvel comics. And he PUNCHES Jew-hating scumbags like you Hamasniks.

So if you are a Jew-hating bigot, get the fuck off my blog.

But more importantly, get the fuck away from comics. In the words of Jewish actor and national treasure Gene Wilder:

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 17 – A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys

Okay, I have officially finally read a solarpunk thing I unreservedly enjoyed! Which means my opinion about all the other examples of the genre is no longer entirely just me being a hater.

...I joke (mostly), but I was sold this as basically ‘Psalm for the Wild Built but with actual conflict and an attempt to seriously think through its ideas”, and it absolutely lived up to that! Plus it’s a fun read with a few actually meaty characters, too. I mean, I do have complaints. Which I will go on about below. At length. But in the loving way, not the ‘actively resent having read this’ way. As proof of this, I offer the fact that this thing is well over two three four thousand words long, and for readability I’m breaking it into subheadings.

Summary

Anyway, the basics are that it’s the late 21st century, and the world’s been through a bit of a ringer in terms of climate change-induced disaster. At some point in the previous generation, a lot of political-economic power was seized by the Dandelion Networks, cyber-eco-anarchist collectives organized around the watersheds of major river networks, and dedicated to trying to unfuck the planet some. The actual plot revolves around First Contact, as an alien ship lands in the Chesapeake, offering evacuation and relocation to what they fully expect to be the desperate and grateful inhabitants of a dying planet. This leads to some awkwardness, given the Networks civilizational commitment to the mission of restoring the earth and lack of interest in eventually pulling it apart to make a dyson sphere, and the paternalistic (well, maternalistic) condescension of a decent chunk of the aliens about whether humans are competent to make that choice. Made even more tense because representatives of the vestigial United States and the much-reduced-but-still-important former globe-spanning megacorporations are much more enthusiastic about what the aliens have to offer.

So yeah, book full of cultural confusion, high stakes diplomacy, intrigue and ideology. I adored it.

General Discussion

The aliens were fun, in that they were absolutely and entirely nonhumanoid – two species, and neither of them mammalian or bipedal, and one of them not even having anything we’d really recognize as a face. It made the descriptions of conversations and physical interactions pretty funny to visualize at points, honestly; though it did also take me something like a hundred pages to get a real proper image of what both of the species in question actually looked like.

It was kind of interesting how so much effort was spent on making the alien’s appearance so, well, alien, but everything else worked on maximally convenient space opera rules? They can breathe the same air as humans with only minimal discomfort (and vice versa), and even enjoy each other’s food. Plus the story starts with the aliens having already created translation software that does its job perfectly with zero meaningful confusion or plot-relavent loss of meaning. Which all makes sense in terms of making the plot works, but still – no matter how important sharing food is as a thematic expression of shared intimacy and cultural exchange, still wounds my suspension of disbelief in this First Contact story when the 2 meter furry tree-spider can even digest human cuisine, let alone enjoy it.

The alien’s culture was both fascinating and kind of frustrating – I did love how the whole common sense of ‘of course a species will advance enough to leave their homeworld behind, or else die on it’ was so bone deep that most of them kind of floundered trying to actually try and convince someone who didn’t already agree with them. And likewise our protagonist and her compatriots were basically totally unable to make a convincing argument that didn’t take the value of Earth and a natural ecosystem as a given. That felt very true to life.

But frustrating because, like – the aliens have a sort of matriarchal social organization where nursing mothers (especially/specifically of one of the two species?) are taken as the natural authority figures in the extended cross-species households that seem to be the atomic units of economic production and political participation. But there’s a massive amount of gestured at nuances and references to wider institutions that are just never followed up on, which I’d normally consider just generally good worldbuilding except for that the fact that writing the Xenology 101 handbook should literally be the main character’s job here. Third act of the book, and she’s still never gotten around to asking for the precise mechanics of how authority is divided among the crew of the interstellar spaceship/first contact team/extended family she’s been dealing with!

The Dandelion Networks have to be by far the most thought out ‘solarpunk’ society I’ve ever really seen in a story, though that’s admittedly an incredibly low bar. I’ve still got some qualms and quibbles and bits that annoyed me about the portrayal, but insofar as it’s kind of unfair to expect every sci fi book to come free with an extra utopian manifesto, they did pass the sniff test as seeming, well, real? If not exactly as a socio-political/economic structure, then at least as a culture and civilization with its own traditions and minor hangups and celebrations and day-to-day routines. I also very much do appreciate the fact that even if they’re clearly portrayed as much, much better than the alternatives, they’re not an outright utopia.

The fact that, legally speaking, the United States government never gave up any territory or jurisdiction, it just chose of its own accord to merge and massively expand several national parks and subcontract their administration to these revolutionary anarchist networks with absolutely zero coercion involved nosiree, was also great. Or made me laugh, anyway.

The vestigial USA – here also our only representative of the entire class of still-extant nation states – gets comparatively little attention compared to the other players involved. On the one hand that’s kind of a shame because it’s legitimately unclear the degree to its the government and not the watershed networks putting on delusions on grandeur (which, to be clear, I kind of loved). And I did adore the fact that NASA...well, it didn’t actually do a coup, but just selectively read the legislation defining its responsibilities to just jump in and start handling everything about First Contact negotiations without really bothering to wait for permission first. But on the other hand they do very much seem the most normal – which is to say archaic, from the rest of the setting’s perspective, with Congress and the federal bureaucracy being characterized as ineffectual deadlocked quagmires where ideas go to die. Also the only people for whom monogamous long-term relationships or ‘most people being cis’ seems to be at all the norm, which I think makes them the closest thing the book has to on-screen social conservatives.

The Corps – the remnants of the formerly globe-spanning and world-burning megacorporations, now in the main restricted to the artificial island city-states they fled to when the world really started going to shit and the revolutions started – are the actual main ideological foils to the Dandelion Networks presented through by the book. And – look, I’ll be honest, the culture and politics feels like a natural (if incredibly optimistic) outgrowth of certain trends in modern American culture. The Corpos feel like an alien civilization invented whole cloth for a space opera because it seemed interesting and fun. Which, to be clear, they absolutely are – but, like, this book theoretically takes place sixty years in the future. ‘Specifically the corporate oligarchs and their most loyal guards, technicians and toadies have in one post-revolutionary-exile generation developed a stable entirely presentation based normatively genderfluid 7-gender system” seems like, how to put this, a bit of a stretch?

Still, they’re definitely fun, and I do really appreciate that Emrys gave them a real ideology and mythology instead of just making them self-consciously evil (a carefully nurtured bitterness that the Watershed Networks and their carbon budgets and sustainability mandates essentially stole the future from them, combined with a real belief in meritocracy and just deserts). Though, like, even moreso than the USA, I’m legitimately not sure the degree to which Judy and the other Watersheders common sense about them being slowly decaying relics losing people with every year is supposed to be taken as correct? Because, like, city-states in the middle of the ocean capable of sustaining themselves in the style we’ve seen implies either vast hinterlands or sufficient productivity to import all the raw materials they need from abroad in exchange for finished goods or access to truly immense amounts of energy or some combination of all three, and none of those really scream ‘archaic relic’. All to say that I might have come out viewing the Watershed Networks as more full of triumphalism and groupthink than was intended – though honestly if so, I like them better that way. It’s an entirely natural flaw for their system to create, honestly. Look at reddit.

Speaking of flaws the protagonist’s society had – I found it immensely charming how Judy was just, so utterly and completely terrible at being a spy? On a cinemasins level you do have to wonder how the corps weren’t already ruling the world again if the Network’s best and brightest are all this easy to entrap and blackmail, but on a thematic level it does work as emphasizing how the networks, well, work through the wisdom of crowds and constructive debate, and trying to fly off on your own in little self-appointed conspiracies rarely ends well for anyone involved.

The Eponymous Garden

The question of what humanity is for – whether we have a destiny to reach for the stars, or if there’s something vital about the planet earth (about a living ecology, about one’s ancestral home writ large, about having a place in a natural order) – is, if not the book’s overriding theme, certainly the one it spends the most time consciously thinking about. (I mean, it’s literally the title). And the book really does try to make the conflict genuinely difficult and nuanced; our heroine is a voracious and vitriolic partisan of the Earth-is-special side of things, but the text pretty clearly doesn’t agree with her about that as much as it does some of her other positions.

The entire debate was honestly fairly reminiscent of some debates you see floating around Tumblr every so often. The Ringers have created a curated toy ecology to keep their habitats pleasant and livable, and that done see their abandoned homeworlds as containing nothing really worth mourning in fact they’ve literally pulled them apart as raw materials for their orbital habitats and megaengineering projects. Judy views the idea of humanity doing the same – even to Mercury or Mars, let alone Earth - as both horrifying and, well, not quite profane (her Judaism is definitely an important part of her character, but she never directly uses theology as explanation for her politics) but certainly ontologically, fundamentally wrong.

The Ringer’s teleology is pretty simple – technological advancement gives a species the ability to care for itself and free itself from the various tyrannies of nature, at the cost of expending scarce resources on a dozen different fronts and eventually leaving their planet uninhabitable. The only question is whether they’ll escape the world or die with it. Humanity is the first species they’ve encountered that hadn’t already gone with option B. More fundamentally – and here’s where the human corporates jump enthusiastically on board – leaving the planet behind means refusing the limits of ecology, and to an extent of scarcity. Populations in the trillions, a dyson swarm, mega-engineering projects with millennia-long schedules. Not to mention the whole romance of endless new horizons, novelty and exploration and a consciously arranged world.

Which is all, of course, exactly the dream the Watershed Networks spent their revolution fighting against. The Chesapeake Network is from every indication a very nice place to live, but it’s also very much defined by the necessary scarcity that comes with trying to live sustainably, and in harmony with the horrible damaged biome you’re also in the middle of a massive, civilizational infrastructure project to restore. International travel and imported goods strictly limited by carbon budget, international communication strictly limited by the need to limit potential infection vectors for malware, apparent societally normative coparenting and/or polyamory as a labour-saving thing – abstracted away from the specifics of space travel, it’s basically the perennial degrowth argument on here.

Though as far as space colonization qua space colonization goes, it’s kind of fascinating to compare Garden’s take on it to how it’s presented in Terra Ignota? Which is to say, Ada Palmer presents spreading through space as a heroic endeavour – something worth doing for its own sake, because it is in some sense humanity’s purpose, but a great and arduous project that will strain every available resource and lead to a lot of impoverishment and scarcity for the doing. Which comes amusingly close to mirroring exactly how Emrys characterizes staying on Earth.

A few trillion aliens willing to handle the capital expenditure for relocation and infrastructure do change the math a bit, I suppose.

...and It’s Gardeners

Which is to say, the Watershed Networks. As I said above, they’re clearly intended to be something of a flawed or incomplete utopia, generally heroic and praiseworthy but with major blindspots and issues. I’ve got qualms about what those issues are and their severity, but I’ll save that for the petty bitching section below. Besides, given that they’re decently thought out and detailed, it’s honestly more interesting to examine them as an incomplete utopia and the principles underlying them.

So, the networks are a high tech cybernetically-organized federation of green anarchists, organized around the watershed of a major river and with the civilizational mission to protect and restore that watershed’s ecology; coordination between watershed’s seems to be limited to small scale trade or else matters which affect multiple watersheds.

‘High tech’ isn’t a joke, either – augmented reality interfaces seem totally normative and almost necessary given their government, not to mention the ten thousand different monitoring systems used to keep track of the status of each part of the whole ‘unfuck the ecosystem’ project. Robotic drones and prosthetic limbs with full haptic feedback were both totally unremarkable – anprims they really aren’t.

They govern themselves by – okay, I said ‘by reddit’ above and that’s mostly a joke. But like, only mostly. By infinetly flowering nested chats and discussion fora dedicated to any topic of public interest, to which any citizen can contribute to the debate or propose action items through that AR interface, with ones weight on any given issue being determined by the algorithm’s approximation of the community’s trust in your wisdom and expertise on topics like what’s being discussed (‘Utopia’ means taking as read that this works).

Beyond just weighting and being an automod, the Dandelion algorithm also encode the Network’s values, amplifying the voices that live up to them and de-emphasizing those that don’t. And most of all, they act as phantom votes representing the Watershed’s nonhuman constituents, boosting suggestions and action items based on the interests of the wider ecology, wildlife, etc.(again, accepting that this works is basically the price of admission).

So far so Eclipse Phase-but-green. But there’s a couple specifically interesting things about the whole setup that I do want to focus on.

First, the whole theory of politics and decision making underlying the Networks (and the book) is something like a wholehearted belief in the wisdom of crowds – that everyone involved cooperating and trying to come up with a crowdsourced solution through moderated debate will lead to better ideas and better solutions than a small group of experts or conspirators or operatives. And the book does actually commit to this – basically every time anyone from the Watershed goes off on their own and assumes they need to make an important decision on their own/in a small group it blows up right in their face.

You know the one line from Men In Black? ‘A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals”? The book basically commits to the exact opposite of that.

More minor but it did just strike me as interesting – Judy (and, I think, other networers) never refer to each other by their job title, and in fact object to it. Judy is not an environment engineer, she just does some environmental engineering work, as well as jam making, gardening, child-raising, and a dozen other things. On the one hand, almost everything about the life of someone in the networks pretty much has to be pretty legible – basically everything seems to be public, the community is tight knit and expected to host each other as needed, everyone wears pronoun pins, the entire labour-allocation and weighting system must require immense amounts of information on each individual participant – but on the other, none of them are ever reducable down to their jobs or roles. Reminds me of that one Heinlein quote, honestly. ‘Specialization is for insects’ and all that.

Cultural Exchange

I don’t really have much to say here, but it’s a prominent enough theme I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention it, so. Aside from the high politics and idealogue-ing, Garden is really concerned with what the worm’s-eye-view of cultural exchange following First Contact might look like, and just demonstrating different ways that culture can be shared.

Which is why I really can’t be too annoyed at the implications of both species of Ringers and humans being able to both consume and appreciate each others cuisine – Emrys has clearly some of those ultra-viral tumblr posts about how sacred sharing food is, and the sharing of meals and ways of eating is a pretty key way the book both characterizes cultures (e.g. corporate culture ‘feast food’ being a way of showing off artifice and competing to make novel designs its impossible to guess the taste of is just one more way they’re shown to be obsessed with appearances and artificiality and general decadence) and demonstrates trust or sharing between them.

Beyond meals (or as part of them), there’s also religion and ritual used for much the same purpose. And sex, of course – it takes like a week and a half for Judy to go from being introduced to intelligent alien life to asking one of them if he wants to try a threesome – and, probably more importantly, family and children. There’s a whole gimmick about how Ringer matriarchs always bring their children with them to negotiations as (among other things, roughly) a show of good faith, and expect humans to do the same. The book seems slightly unsure of itself about how much it thinks this is a good idea (also about Ringer family structure/matriarchal authority more broadly, to a less degree), but the different species of children bonding and playing together while their parents is pretty clearly shown as an unambiguous good.

And finally-

Complaining

Because if I’m going to think about literally any piece of media for this long, I end up with annoyances I need to vent about. So! In no particular order, narrative issues, worldbuilding issues, and random nitpicking.

The whole final arc of the plot – basically everything after they leave Earth – felt incredibly rushed for how much it was trying to introduce. Now, getting a little glimpse of how the Ringers lived and worked and bickered was absolutely necessary, but there just was not enough wordcount devoted to it to really be anything more than a glimpse. The politiking just felt broad and clumsy, and the way Ringer politics worked a bit half-baked. Beyond which, there’s all these hints of interesting power dynamics and inequalities among the Ringers but then the book never really expands on or does anything with them (beyond, like, spending half a page introducing the concept of pronouns pins and...okay ‘being trans’ is wrong because one of the species’ seems to be entirely genderfluid as a rule, but determining ones own gender? To them. And then never following up on that either!).

But beyond all that, there’s just the more significant issue is just that the entire climactic confrontation is resolved by...a tertiary character whose spoken on a single-digit number of pages being overcome by conscience and admitting the whole corporate conspiracy and sabotage which is responsible for every wrong thing the Networks have done so far. Not even under prodding or courting from the protagonists, either – if that one fashion designer hadn’t been a slightly more important secondary character’s sibling and just been left with the luggage, the Networks would have been fucked. Instead, the one bit of testimony sways the assembled aliens and saves the day. Just felt too neat and easy and unearned.

More annoying still is the specifics of how the Networks failings are portrayed. Now, as I said above, they aren’t portrayed as perfect, but the book does a thing I really, truly despise in fictional worldbuilding (in large part because of how common it is in nonfiction too) where essentially every thing the networkers get wrong and every stupid mistake they make is the result of nefarious Outside Agitators corrupting and sabotaging the system – like the evil corporate spies and hackers are literally responsible for everything wrong with Networker politics, and if they hadn’t sabotaged the Dandelion Network there’s no way people would ever get anything wrong. Puts a bad taste in my mouth, like the people who never shut up about any stupid mistake done by ‘their’ side being a false flag.

Beyond that, like – okay, so if I’m going to take the book on its own terms I just have to accept that this anarchist network is capable of coordinating labour on a vast and detailed enough scale to handle ecological restoration efforts that are halfway to terraforming at this point, and capable of mustering and deploying coercive force with enough strength to actually cow and keep in line numerous polities with more centralized social organizations that historically really do win at that sort of thing. Sure, okay, not exactly fair to ask Emrys to Solve Anarchism, even if I’d have really loved some acknowledgement of where exactly all the metal and rare earths for all these robots and prosthetic and IT infrastructure is coming from (sure, carbon budgets, but like – where’s the Chesepeak’s sacrifice zone that got designated to hold all the mining and heavy industry?).

More importantly, though, I can still wish the book had dug into the guts of the system and, like, pproblematized it a bit? The fact that public debate and the weighting of people’s votes is controlled by these opaque algorithms seems like it requires investing your programmers (not even just programmers, specifically the ones working to maintain this incredibly intricate system) incredible amounts of trust and power they could abuse without people really noticing! Or take the fact that political debate is structured and influenced by the consciously determined ethical and political principles built into the system; okay, so the system’s a full generation old now, yes? Is there no controversy, no generational divide, no resentment among the younger cohort about their speech and opinions being weighed according to their parents ideals? The whole setup seems like it’s built to exemplify that one Marx quote, traditions of the dead weighing like a nightmare on the brains of the living &c. There are multi generational households, and the family is clearly an important socio-economic unit, with some being much more prestigious and influential than others, so how does inheritance work in this anarchist utopia? There’s some interesting drama to dig into, here!

Beyond that, everyone in the Networks is just too...nice? Like, the final epilogue involves the corporae programmer who literally created the malware that almost destroyed everything – and did get people killed – defecting. And absolutely no one holds any sort of grudge? She’s just given a house and told to start helping when she can? Which I found pretty hard to swallow on like three or four different levels (‘do they just keep spare houses lying around to give away whenever someone needs’, not least. If you’re deeply concerned with living sustainably and in harmony with nature, immigration and land/resource use are actually major issues that are going to run into a lot of resource constraints, especially if you’re trying to rewild or diversify what had been industrial farmland).

And significantly less important but – the fact that everyone who appeared on screen (anarchists, corporate executives, federal bureaucrats, random Network programmers and partygoers and corpro interns and-) is basically a queer feminist with only a vague historical understanding of being oppressed on the basis of gender or sexuality (and the only exception is one of Judy’s coparents being raised in an oppressive ‘Purist’ cult he eventually escaped from) is probably necessary to keep all sides at least potentially sympathetic to the expected audience, but it did hurt the verisimilitude of the worldbuilding some, for me. Though hey, maybe that’s just me being unduly pessimistic, fuck knows there’s been plenty of progress on those fronts between 1960 and now, so hey!

Anyway yes, good read!

[glenglam324]

About me!! ୧ ‧₊˚ 🎐 ⋅

Warning!: this account has a very slow operator, and also contains things that might be dangerous for some users: Such as Bright colors and static

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Bio: I am an artist from the United States who is 19+!. I am a multitshipper and a oc/selfxcanon shipper who likes to roleplay and do random shit

Yes my bio is shorter lol.

Also I’m not for kids under 16 so please either block me or ignore me. This is not a Nsfw account anymore but I do follow suggestive accounts, those who aren’t up to age for those are not allowed, and no that doesn’t mean you can be around 16 and stroll on over.

Bot = Block

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Other info: Sexuality: Aro, Ace, Bi

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her They/Them

Religion: None (Atheist)

Likes: Sugary things, Cooking, Steak And Vegetables, Roses, Mask (Theater and Guy Fawkes), Animals, Friends, Art, Games, Music, Hot topic (yes judge me), The Colors Black And Blue, Stories/Fanfiction, Many other things

Dislikes: Rude People, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Fat Shaming, Bullying, Mentions of S/A, Pedophila, Necrophila, Narcissist, Proshippers/Proshitters, Toddlers, Spiders And Bees, My Ex’s

Health Problems: None other then blacking out from dehydration and some medication having a overdose reaction do to my kidneys having different effects on stuff

Mental illness: Suffers From Depression and Anxiety, As well as insomnia. I take anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills to help with my depression and anxiety cause those are the major ones, also takes small amounts of melatonin for sleeping

Disabilities: ADHD, Autism, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (luckily it wasn’t that much of a problem because it didn’t effect my face or body, it just took therapy to fix my left side of my brain)

Fandoms I’m in: Minecraft Story Mode Kung Fu Panda V For Vendetta Cookie Run/Kingdom Trollge Cuphead Bendy Savant Ascent Just Shapes And Beats Subway Surfers SCP Undertale Parappa The Rapper Dayshift At Freddy’s the sims The Smiler shred force Oddworld

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Dni’s!

Racist, Dream Stans/K-pop Stans, proshippers, pedophiles, rape supporters/rapsexuals, fake sexualities to mock the community, sexist, fatphobics, Zionist/Israel supporters, homophobia/transphobia, narcissists, Bots, minors under 16 to 18, zoophila, furry haters

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Other socials

Discord: papyrus_real_wife

Twitter: https://x.com/glennthesimp?s=21

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glennglam324?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/glennglam324offi

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/31gfzwehjobaz43gdrxp7ltbcaw4?si=2DkFIB_HT7-9oRdj3YQQ9g

Cara: https://cara.app/glennglam324

Art fight: https://artfight.net/~Glennglam324

———Blogs———-

@oddtheaterau

@askthemort

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Commission info!

Thank you all for the support and I’ll see you later!! ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[modernghostfare]

i made a tierlist of how everyone feels about cats vs dogs. grinch is neither bc he likes reptiles, syd likes spiders/insects, domino likes fish, and zane never wants to have a pet. he hates having a pet. mace and d-day both still like and are cool w dogs (d-day less so, he might be strictly small dogs) but they rly just like how cats are chill on their own. nikto and yegor are from apartments they do not fuck w dogs at all they stink they shit wherever they want and theyre so noisy at night esp. mara and azur AGREE. nikto and yegor would never actually willingly have a cat but they are chill being in a house with a cat. mara and azur would love to have a kitty. raines is the only one with a cat preference to be slightly scared of dogs he doesnt like the unpredictability of untrained, big dogs. he will not Tell you he is scared of dogs (bc he doesnt think he is) but he is wary of bigger ones. he has seen what they can do to people. iskra and farah have similar views but it doesnt lead to them feeling fearful just watchful. gaz is just really picky about dogs for the most part he likes them but he hates a crusty white dog and he hates a noisy dog.

ghost doesnt gaf he doesnt want a pet. so it doesnt matter to him. but he wouldnt be opposed to petsitting for someone if necessary. bale n minotaur grew up w farm dogs so its just sort of what they enjoy most bc they could Play with them they can't play with a barn cat as much. golem really does enjoy cats but he finds training a dog to be very rewarding. velikan likes that you can play with a dog harder than you could a cat but he would carry a cat around like a baby. they are cute to him. alex and alice both just really like having worked with k-9 units so they gained a lil bias. lerch hates cats he doesnt understand cats at all. hes the biggest cat hater out of the four. krueger doesn't mind cats at all but he loves the various jobs dogs can do, esp since theyre such a help in the field either in tracking, chasing, or taking down combatants. its funny when people get scared of a dog. its not a quick kill. the rest arent as bloodthirsty as krueger about it but a lot of their love for dogs is just for how obedient they are.

frank is gone . they ate him all up .

[steelbluehome]

"The film mostly succeeds in this monstrous true story due to the transformative and utterly compelling performances of Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. Stan’s gradual transformation is entirely believable, avoiding SNL-levels of parody through his eerily uncanny, surprisingly restrained, and frightening portrayal of a total and complete narcissist. He absolutely nails Trump’s body language, speech patterns, and facial expressions, and he does this more progressively throughout the film while never once overplaying it. By the time you reach the end of the film, his version of Trump is completely unrecognizable from the person we met at the beginning of the film, not just in mind and body (courtesy of some convincing makeup work), but also in spirit."

The Next Best Picture

"THE APPRENTICE” (click for article)

May 20, 2024

By Matt Neglia

THE STORY – A dive into the underbelly of the American empire, the film charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.

THE CAST – Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan & Joe Pingue

THE TEAM – Ali Abbasi (Director), Jennifer Stahl & Gabriel Sherman (Writers)

THE RUNNING TIME – 120 Minutes

Making a film about former President of the United States, Donald Trump, was always going to be a hot-button topic amongst cinephiles. Such a controversial figure who is still, to this day, a very real presence in our lives and has no intentions of fading away, one would think any form of a biopic about him would want to wait a number of years, perhaps after his passing, to tell any story about him so not to garner intense reactions out of people. But perhaps that’s the goal all along. No matter what the response to filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s (“Holy Spider“) latest film is, it’s going at least get some sort of a reaction out of people. And in a way, such a reckless and blatant approach to making and releasing this film now, while both his supporters and haters are out in full force during an election year where he will be the Republican nominee once again (barring an indictment of any kind) feels right in line with the kind of person Donald Trump is and has always been, well at least after he met Roy Cohn, which is what Abbasi’s film depicts. It’s not concerned with his Presidential years in the Oval Office, but rather the early days in his real estate career, when barely anyone knew who he was and through a mentor/protege friendship, it gave birth to this Frankenstein’s monster who not only became rich and famous, but infamous.

Before he made his billions, Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) was a young, upstart real estate mogul looking to secure a deal with the city of New York under his wealthy father, Fred Trump’s (Martin Donovan) nose, who owned The Trump Organization. After venturing into a bar one night visited by some of the most powerful, corrupt, and wealthiest individuals in the city, Trump meets hotshot American lawyer and prosecutor Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a blowhard, vulgar, and offensive individual who doesn’t care about anything other than winning. Trump elicits Cohn’s help to get the feds to back off his family’s business so he can move forward with building a luxury hotel in the middle of Grand Central Station, and Cohn eventually agrees. He likes the kid and seizes the moment to take him under his wing and teach him his three key principles to winning: Rule 1: Attack. Attack. Attack. Rule 2: Admit nothing. Deny everything. And Rule 3: Claim victory and never admit defeat. This mental attitude would go on to become the blueprint for how Donald Trump would eventually grow his family’s real estate empire through the 1970s and 80s, leading to the unbreakable mindset that would one day lead him to the Presidency.

Naturally, there’s quite a bit of fear and hesitation about how Sebastian Stan would portray Trump in “The Apprentice” (the title of the film applying to Trump’s role under Cohn’s tutelage and a play off of his famous television show of the same name). Is this meant to be a comedy? A drama? Perhaps even a horror film? Abbasi’s film, surprisingly, plays everything mostly straight, giving the film “Succession” levels of Shakespearean drama (backed by some brass-heavy pieces of score which will also remind viewers of the hit HBO show) as the relationship between Trump and Cohn touches upon themes of friendship, loyalty, and betrayal. The two start off the film in totally different places, and, by the end, they swap as one eventually becomes humbled by life, and the other displays a total disregard for it and its rules based on the teachings he inherited from the other. By telling such a story, “The Apprentice” does not shy away from showing audiences what a driven but naive young Donald Trump once was but also the notorious scumbag he would grow to become.

The film mostly succeeds in this monstrous true story due to the transformative and utterly compelling performances of Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. Stan’s gradual transformation is entirely believable, avoiding SNL-levels of parody through his eerily uncanny, surprisingly restrained, and frightening portrayal of a total and complete narcissist. He absolutely nails Trump’s body language, speech patterns, and facial expressions, and he does this more progressively throughout the film while never once overplaying it. By the time you reach the end of the film, his version of Trump is completely unrecognizable from the person we met at the beginning of the film, not just in mind and body (courtesy of some convincing makeup work), but also in spirit. The same goes for Strong as Cohn, who captures Cohn’s voice, slight head bob while speaking, and, more importantly, his viciousness, ruthlessness, and cruelty. The latter human qualities are particularly noteworthy for how Strong manages to pry even the slightest degree of pity for Cohn from the audience by the end after watching what a despicable human being he was earlier in his life is nothing short of fantastic acting from the Emmy Award-winning actor. Watching those almost inhuman powers transfer from one actor to the other seamlessly over the course of the two-hour runtime is the film’s best asset, as Abbasi never asks us to sympathize with Trump but instead seeks to give us a better understanding of how anyone could ever think and behave the way he does. By the time you’re done watching Abbasi’s cautionary character study, it starts to make a bit more sense.

Some will feel that none of this is new information and the film’s very act of existence is objectionable, given how much of a prevalent force Trump remains in our daily lives. While Stan and Strong’s exceptional work makes the film worth checking out, there are still numerous flaws to be found within its storytelling. The decision to shoot utilizing different video formats, such as celluloid filmstock and camcorder footage, provides a clear distinction between the time periods, accentuated by the film’s soundtrack comprising various hits from the time. Some of these needle drops feel appropriate, while one in particular during a physical assault by Trump on his former wife Ivana Trump (a sadly underused Maria Bakalova) feels completely out of place and cuts the horrifically violent act’s knees right from underneath it. Abbasi wisely avoids showcasing any and all contemporary scenes during Trump’s presidential run and eventual Presidency, but that doesn’t stop screenwriters Jennifer Stahl & Gabriel Sherman from constantly eluding to it in some heavy-handed ways. Whether it’s played for laughs or for a cheap wink at the camera to tell audiences unnecessary indicators such as, “See! That’s how he got his campaign slogan!” it never hits as hard as the drama conjured by Stan and Strong, nor the queasy feelings it produces in your stomach knowing what this power-hungry, nonsensical fraud of a businessman would later go on to do.

While Trump constantly fabricates the truth to create a scenario where he comes out ahead, Abbasi’s film is about getting as close to the truth as possible to paint a picture of a figure where he comes out not as low as possible but across as honestly as possible. That honesty is rotten to the core, and Stan’s immersive portrayal never breaks away from that truth. There is no breaking of the fourth wall to over-explain details to the audience, nor is there a sharp divide between the film’s drama and comedy, causing us to question whether we should take the film seriously or not. It’s as serious a film for our tumultuous times as any other. Although it might not be perfect, and some will rightfully question whether the timing of “The Apprentice” is justified, Stan and Strong provide awards-worthy work that will get people talking and hopefully convince them to see Trump for who he is and has always been.

[impishsensei]

get to know me meme

TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER! under the cut for length

1. favorite colors: purple and green atm

2. favorite flavors: spicy ig if that counts

3. favorite genres: action or fantasy ig... i love romance too but i'm very VERY particular about it lmao

4. favorite music: i listen to basically anything so irdc yk? if i like it i like it. usually my most favorite songs fall under pop or r&b tho so

5. favorite movies: jurassic park, howl's moving castle, lilo & stitch, into the spider-verse, sleeping beauty

6. favorite series: tv i'm assuming? my favorite anime is hunter x hunter and my fave live action show is law & order: special victims unit. i also rly like the good place

7. last song: get low by lil jon & the east side boyz (i'm listening to my 2000s playlist as i type this hehe)

8. last series: mha i think? i was rewatching it with lee

9. last movie: nct concert movie that val invited me to see lol

10. currently reading: some incredible fanfics that i will not be sharing because the haters will sabotage me

11. currently watching: jjk season 2 like prob everyone else here lmao. also watching fruits basket at a snail's pace

12. currently working on: drafts... also thinkin of writing a goofy ass crackfic. we shall see

tagged by @strawdxll tagging: @zangyo @ntzenin @foraltruism @inun4ki @katikis @tvrningout @norowaretaai @phonokinetix @vulpesse & anyone else who wants to do this!

[tacticalhimbo]

I posted 2,034 times in 2022

That's 156 more posts than 2021!

550 posts created (27%)

1,484 posts reblogged (73%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bor-ous

@markproksch

@hater-of-terfs

@ollierachnid

@tonysopranobignaturals

I tagged 1,601 of my posts in 2022

Only 21% of my posts had no tags

#txt - 574 posts

#important - 343 posts

#save for later - 90 posts

#pic - 77 posts

#comfort - 72 posts

#my ocs - 57 posts

#long post - 39 posts

#cw discourse - 38 posts

#my art - 34 posts

#fave - 33 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#still in between whether i wanna do social work/case management or do therapeutic stuff but i can go either way from where i'm sitting atm-

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

[ DO NOT STEAL/REPOST. REBLOGS APPRECIATED. ]

I'm a simple man. I see trans* character, I immediately fall in love and must draw them.

Anyway, Claire is one of the best side characters and I will not take criticism 😌💕

91 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

#4

Y'ALL LOOK AT THIS—

Thread by Alejandra Caraballo on Twitter. Link in post source; CW/TW for reposted transphobic rhetoric in the original thread!

A trans woman posted about working with her doctor and a lactation consultant to breastfeed her and her partner's baby by following the widely used and respected Newman-Goldfarb protocol to induce lactation. T//ERF's proceed to lose their minds and fail basic biology.

The New York Times covered this in 2018. It is not novel and is only newer to the medical literature. (Side Note: I wasn't even aware of this in 2018, hence me resharing it now for those in a similar boat)

Here's a highlight from the NYT article:

When a transgender woman told doctors at the Mount Sinai Hospital that she wanted to breast feed her pregnant partner's baby, they put her on a regimen of drugs that included an anti-nausea medication licensed in Britain and Canada but banned in the United States. Within a month, according to the journal of Transgender Health, the woman was producing droplets of milk.

With three months - two weeks before the baby's due date - she had increased her production to eight ounces of milk a day.

In the end, the study showed, "she was able to achieve sufficient breast milk volume to be the sole source of nourishment for her child for six weeks," according to the journal.

95 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

#3

Gary Miller: RAIN. OF. SPIDERS. (spiders! spiders! spiders!)

John, trying to exorcise him:

238 notes - Posted October 25, 2022

#2

Obsessed w/ his eyes... 😫

273 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

[ source ]

going to be a bit more serious on the dash, so i'll be trying to uplift some voices now that initial celebrations have been made.

2,516 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[totally-correct-idv]

how were there literally no asks a while ago but the past couple of weeks everyone started sending them in

i honestly have no fucking clue but i love it!! i’m pretty sure it started with naib being a bottom and then it all escalated to hating violetta

[hale-13]

Enterobacter

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 2 - Food Poisoning

Being Spider-Man sometimes means that Peter has to eat on the job and eating in the job means eating a lot of fast food. Some of his favorite stops are new and local food trucks since most of them give him free food for the obvious influx of business he brings to them. And Peter loves Thai so much he just HAS to try the new truck that opened.

Words: 2339, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Tony Stark

TW: Vomiting

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

Before the Bite, Peter was a staunch and vehement hater of warm weather. He spent every spring and summer feeling overheated and sweaty and gross and May and Ben would always joke that he ran hot which, Peter supposed, wasn’t completely untrue. He had always spent most of his falls and winters sleeping with the window by his bed cracked to let in the cool air and under a light blanket.

So November through about March was great for him. The rest of the year however? Awful. Miserable. Abhorrent. Just… any terrible adjective you could think of would work as a descriptor. The city heat was always so overbearing that their tired little AC unit couldn’t keep up and would, inevitably, give up and the Parker family would spend half the summer every summer without the blessed cool air flowing through their apartment. And the humidity! Peter felt like he was trying to breath and walk through soup – the heat wouldn’t be nearly as bad without the humidity.

One might think that, with the loss of his ability to thermoregulate well, the warm weather might be easier for him post-Bite but all it did was give Peter new things to worry about. For example: getting heat stroke for doing nothing more than sitting still in his bedroom and doing homework on a hot day.

Yeah. Peter really hated the warm weather.

Which explains why he wakes up on a Thursday in mid-May already angry and irritated and sweating through the ratty tank top and boxers he wore to bed about three minutes before his alarm for school is set to go off.

“Seriously,” he groans, rolling over onto his back and draping one forearm over his eyes in the perfect picture of teenage angst. His stomach twinges a little as he does and he bites back a grimace – probably shouldn’t have tried that new Thai truck while patrolling last night he thought. It didn’t help that he got it super spicy either, he supposed, but the delicious taste would more than make up for the irritability of his bowels later.

His phone started blaring a bright tone and Peter groaned louder, flopping out a hand blindly to snatch his the device up from where it was charging on his nightstand and shutting off the alarm, dropping the phone into the mess of sheets he had bunched up into a corner while he slept. He gave himself another couple seconds for his pity party before rolling off the bed and grabbing the towel he had draped over the end of his bed frame – intent on taking a cool shower to bring his body temperature back down to a reasonable level and wash off the sweat he could already feel drying over him.

“May?” Peter called as he walked out of his room. The apartment was almost eerily quiet for what should be May’s day off and Peter furrowed his brows in confusion – May normally attempted to cook breakfast on Thursday mornings before giving up and making them both bowls of cereal. Towel over his shoulder, Peter wandered into the kitchen and frowned at the fluorescent pink sticky note on the counter next to a fresh box of Lucky Charms.

Got called in to cover ER – twelve hour swing, home after ten.

Eat your breakfast!

Love You!

Peter crumpled the note and tossed it in the garbage. He was looking forward to grabbing ice cream after school with May at the new shop that had popped up the month previous but it looks like they needed a rain check on that one. His stomach bubbled again and Peter wrapped his arm across his abdomen in discomfort. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to miss out on ice cream today.

The cool shower was refreshing but Peter, somehow, felt worse after. His stomach was straight up cramping now as he pulled on a light pair of shorts and a t-shirt, forgoing his usual layers and just hoping that the bagginess of the shirt would cover up his muscles. He frowned and swallowed down the sour, burning taste of stomach acid in his throat. He didn’t usually have a problem with acid reflux but maybe the spicy food was messing him up? Choosing to ignore it for now, Peter gathered up his books and homework to shove into his backpack before leaving the apartment to walk to school.

The subway that morning was absolutely vile. The smell that he could already barely handle on a good day was worse since it was simmering in the heat and Peter’s sensitive senses didn’t appreciate it. He had to choke down a couple of gags, which was not normal and hadn’t really happened to him before despite the offensive odor. He was used to the smell, it came with using public transportation in one of the busiest cities in the United States. The only good thing that came out of the nauseous feeling was the extra leg room when the other passengers sidled away from him with disgusted looks on their faces.

His relief (and that of the other passengers) was palpable when he was able to stagger off the car and onto the platform outside Midtown, though the temperature didn’t improve much since there wasn’t a good breeze that morning. Moving quickly, Peter made his way across the field and driveway to enter the blessedly cool school building.

“Dude,” Ned said, eyebrows scrunching, as he met Peter a couple minutes later by his locker. “You look like shit.”

“It’s hot,” Peter told him a little defensively, slamming his locker door just a touch too hard. Ned didn’t look impressed.

“No like, you’re really pale and a little green. Are you sick?” Ned asked, squinting his eyes at Peter.

Peter frowned, all he felt was a little overheated. Well, yeah, his stomach was still bubbling and cramping but that was just from the spicy food. He was fine. It was just the heat.

“I’m fine,” Peter protested, brushing past Ned to make his way towards their home room class. He wobbled just a little, lightheaded.

“Did you eat breakfast?” Ned questioned as he steadied his friend, still looking concerned, pushing them out of the foot traffic of the hallway and back up against the cool metal of the locker bank.

Peter’s mouth filled with saliva and he swallowed down the acid again before shaking his head ‘no’. There was no way he could stomach breakfast that morning – it would be like asking for disaster.

“I think you should call May to come get you,” Ned advised, still gripping Peter’s elbow and frowning deeper when Peter shook his head again in protest.

“She had to pick up a shift in the ER today so she’ll have her phone off and, anyway, I’m fine Ned!” Peter shook his arm a little, trying to dislodge Ned’s hand and not succeeding.

Ned bit his lip but released Peter’s arm. “You could call Mr. Stark?”

“For what?” Peter asked, frustrated. “I’m fine, I’m just hot and have a little stomach ache from eating at that new Thai truck.”

“Wait, you mean the one that normally parks off fifth? The green and purple one?” Ned asked and Peter nodded in confirmation. “Bro do you not look at the news? They had to shut it down late last night because some of their food was contaminated with E. Coli.”

Peter’s stomach twisted and grumbled ominously and his hands dropped to grip at the loose shirt covering his abdomen. “Oh,” he said slowly before abruptly turning to race through the near-empty hallway toward the closest bathroom. He barely made it into a stall, not bothering to close it, before he vomited up everything he felt like he may have eaten in the past week. He vaguely heard the door creak open as Ned entered but paid it no heed, doing his best to stay standing and hunched over the toilet so he wouldn’t have to touch it or the disgusting floor.

A few minutes and a round of dry heaving later, Peter didn’t care about how disgusting the floor might be and was just thankful to slide down the wall of the stall to rest, panting and dizzy, on the tile as he tried to keep anything that might be left in his stomach where it belonged.

“Peter?” Ned asked, peaking around the door to survey him. “Are you okay to walk? I’m going to take you to the nurse.” Peter moaned and leaned over to vomit another round. “I’ll take that as a no,” Ned sighed, his own face a little pale from trying to keep from being nauseous himself.

It took at least ten minutes after round two before Peter thought he’d be able to stand without falling over but Ned still insisted that Peter sling his arm over his friend’s shoulder so he could have support for the short walk to the nurse’s office.

“Oh Peter,” Ms. Shelly, the nurse, said sympathetically as she took in his pale face and trembling limbs. “You look awful honey.”

“He has food poisoning,” Ned told her, depositing Peter into one of the closest chairs and shoving one of the emesis bags on the table into his hand just in case he needed it. Peter gulped and nodded his head shortly in thanks, gripping the bag so tight he thought he might tear it.

“You can go on back to class Ned, I’ll make sure he gets home.” Ms. Shelly made a noise of pity and took his temperature before clucking her tongue in disapproval.

“Feel better buddy,” Ned told Peter with a pat on the shoulder before hastily making it out of the room so he could catch the tail-end of his home room, accepting the excuse note that Ms. Shelly passed him.

“Do you have a preference on which contact I call honey?” Ms. Shelly asked from where she was crouched down to eye-level in front of him and Peter let out a groan and squeezed his eyes shut in misery. May was at work which meant his only option was…

“Mr. Stark please,” he muttered, eyes downcast. Ms. Shelly raised a brow in obvious disbelief before she schooled her features. Peter was just glad she didn’t question him like most of his classmates and some of his teachers had taken to doing once the rumor about his internship had spread through the majority of the school.

“Let me just pull your chart and make the call okay? There’s a cot through the door if you want to lay down,” she gestured to the open door across from him before making her way to her office to pull up his digital chart.

“Thanks,” Peter said, seriously considering how nice it would be to just lie down again. This pleasant thought was interrupted by his stomach clenching again and he hung his head over the emesis bag, dry heaving but not managing to get anything up which was almost worse. He let out a little whine that he was glad Ms. Shelly wasn’t around to hear and stumbled into the single person bathroom in her office, sinking down onto the floor and gagging.

A light knock on the door sounded a few minutes later and Ms. Shelly’s soft voice called, “Peter? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he called back as loud as he dared before swallowing compulsively. It did nothing for the bile climbing up his esophagus and he leaned back over to vomit again.

“Just call me if you need anything sweetie. Your emergency contact will be here in about twenty minutes.” Peter let out a grunt of assent and let his eyes slip closed as he leaned back against the wall. He must have dozed off at some point because he woke up to the sound of the door creaking open and a low whistle.

“Looking a little rough around the edges kiddo,” Tony said, head leaned around the door to peer into the room. Peter, feeling tired and sick and embarrassed, let out a groan and felt his face heat up.

“This is the worst thing that has happened in my life. Ever.” Tony snorted as he entered the bathroom fully and crouched down on knees that popped and clicked to squat in front of Peter.

Peter closed his eyes when Tony reached forward to rest his cool hand on Peter’s forehead and hum. “Running a little warm too. The nurse said food poisoning?”

“Ate Thai that had E.Coli,” Peter said and then gagged at the thought, hanging his head back over the toilet to spit out bile. Tony moved his hand to rub up and down his back and made an empathetic noise.

“Just get it out buddy. Brucie’s waiting for us back at the tower with some anti-nausea meds for you and some fluids to help hydrate you.” Peter moaned and gagged again but nothing came up.

“Think I’m done,” he said a second later, wiping the tears of effort out of the corners of his eyes and letting Tony pull him to his shaky feet. The room spun briefly but he was able to keep most of his balance by leaning heavily on Tony’s arm. The walk to the car after signing out with the stunned secretary was a little blurry but soon he was ensconced in the darkness of the Roll’s that Happy favored driving lately.

Ignoring everything around him, Peter let his face fall to the cool, supple leather and he let out a sigh of contentment. He heard a chuckle before the emesis bag was pushed back into his slack grip with instructions to “Use that if you need to Bambino,” but Peter thought he might be done for a while.

Finally cool and mostly comfortable, Peter fell into a light doze, looking forward to spending the rest of his day cuddled up in a blanket under an AC vent in the penthouse sleeping and watching bad movies with his mentor.

[nomisong]

good night to people with ulcers, drag kings on instagram, jennie stans, girls who make poop jokes, blacksmiths, star wars prequels fans, orb weaver spiders, coworkers who tell you how to do your job the easy way, magicians, people born the summer of 1996, microbiology students, single bisexual dads, manchester united haters, owners of dogs named charlie, mc ride, gingers, people who have never won a trophy, and the guy who made the “shower time adderall a glass of whiskey and diesel jeans” video

[alegotic-twelve]

read if you want (warning, very very long post)

I have decided to speak calmly, transparently and with the truth, to bring an end to all this

I know it's a subject that I should have left already, that I should have overcome but let's say that, I'm not the kind of person who swallows emotions, and lets others tell lies about her, or her friends so that's why I make this post

a few days ago, well, weeks (more time, I think), s0me-rand0m-fand0m was dedicated to talking many things about Moy, a Korean artist who, despite her great talent, has not been able to reach as much scope as she deserves , maybe by the haters, by many post that say many things about her, I do not know In short, since I am her friend, I go out to defend her, because, that's what friends do even so, things got more difficult when this artist that I nickname puppo (was his nickname when we met) decided to find ways to invade our privacy and publish not only personal drawings, but content that was totally taken out of context

firstly I will not deny that, yes, Funnylunetta is 16 years old, legally does not meet the age to be called an adult, even so, she is a teenager with enough coefficient to make the decisions that she wants, I am not the one to tell her what to do And what not to do, besides, before I could realize, was her friend, and then I knew that she was 16 years old (it's internet, the last thing you know about a person is their personal data)

but if I denied having shared my drawings of fictional characters with children older than 15 years, on the server where I posted this, there were more than 70 people, many fans, and some friends of Funnylunetta, on the server nsfw and gore channels, they were blocked, only those that Lola gave them access could enter and see the content Funnylunetta and Spacy were the only ones under 18 on the nsfw channels, although, if there was another, I do not know, again, I can not know the age of everyone or their personal data

If someone tells you that it was not like that, well, then you are simply lying to try to create another environment my intention to draw nsfw is not about morbid or looking for minors to see, on the server was just another way to share with my friends, much as Moy did, because I never seek to hurt someone or try something with someone, from Anyway, they are just drawings, if you think that can harm a person, then maybe you should start to differentiate reality from fiction

in short, Puppo says faithfully that this is wrong, because they are "minor" It is true that the law says that a child under 18 can not be considered an adult, that he can not consume pornographic content, and I respect this law, because in any case if I see a child watching porn, it would obviously turn off the computer even so, we are not talking about children from 5 to 10 years old, nor less than 11 we are talking about teenagers from 15 years old and up, but in the post they do not stop showing that they are "children" no, they are not, believe me, if I was their age, and I ever had, it would bother me to be nicknamed a child Being a teenager is another thing, is that your body begins to change, your mind too, you start to mature, and there are things that start to get your attention, I was a teenager, since I was 11 years old, I was drawing and consuming material nsfw, I'm not proud of that, obviously, but it's something that happens, because no one can tell me that as a teenager he did not see at least this type of content at least once and if you tell me no, you're just lying to me

Also, although Moy and I did not know Lola, she would continue to consume nsfw and drawing it, because she draws it, but consumes it only as a creative medium many times, all teenagers

Now, returning to the topic, yes, I understand that the rules of Tumblr also indicate that sharing nsfw content with a minor is prohibited, but, no, we never share any explicit content with Funnylunetta inside the tumblr website.

Now, have you thought about how this affected "the victim"? obviously she, or anyone in our circle of friends have wanted to talk about it, are not happy, we are in a difficult situation, because they want to ruin everything we have, and Funnylunetta has chosen to tell us not to say anything, that we simply ignore , a blanket of darkness has covered us and we try to pretend that it is not there and I try, but it is difficult for me all this, for Moy too, people who do not know us choose to judge us by the bad words of people who were once our friends, people that we trusted and love it, and now decided to do this for a kind of justice

no doubt this reminds me of the followers of the black bible ...

Again, I understand that they do not agree with the whole thing, but just as we are not sharing more nsfw drawings between us, Funnylunetta had to close her server, distrusting his own shadow and writing only occasionally in the private messages of discord, the change really hurt me, but maybe it's better that way but it does not mean that we all stop being friends, Maybe puppo wanted to hurt us, or make us separate in some way, but I'm sorry to say that it will not be like that, Moy, Funnylunetta and I, together with all our friends, will remain united, because in spite of all we love each other very much, and I'm very, very happy to have got friends like that

I do not expect that with this they think the same as me, it is good to think that a child should not consume this, it is okay, but do not think that it is something totally insane, that is morbid or something like that, you adults, you were adolescents, you came to Do worse things than Funnylunetta at his age, and do not tell me no, we were all crazy teenagers who went to the limit, and sometimes crazy experiences give us wisdom, and not only do I say it for nsfw, of course not, but if They do not want young people to be badly influenced by this, so teach them about sexuality, support the sexual education movements in school, so they can talk to them about how to take care of themselves, how to be mature before a sexual experience, and more important, how to know when someone really manipulates them to sexually abuse them

neither Moy, nor I are doing anything bad, the only thing we want is to have fun with our friends, enjoy being in a fandom and share our drawings, and not necessarily nsfw, because the nsfw is only 4% of our time between jokes , ideas, creations and drawings, we do not want anything from Funnylunetta other than her friendship, she is not being manipulated in any way to do anything wrong why something I can tell you, Funnylunetta is an extraordinary girl, and not because her art is good or her characters beautiful, of course not, she is a very nice girl, who cares for others, who is always willing to give you her shoulder, she is ambitious and very sweet, and she is extremely mature, I would have liked to have her mental maturity at her age, to make the decisions that she takes now, when I was 15-16 years old, I made many mistakes, I had many bad friends , I did many silly things, she is not like that, she even advised us to do in this situation, and her words and advice have calmed me down a lot Also, I know that many people have attacked Moy, not because of this issue, I know that this is just an excuse because many are resentful, believe that Moy is pretentious, that he is selfish and that he harasses beginner artists

Well, people have been able to say bad things about her, I know Moy a little over a year ago, I hurt her once, and I've always repented of that, she apologizes and she knew how to forgive me, and it's something that I treasure. Moy is not perfect, but since I've known her I've never seen her attacking anyone who has not harmed her first, I've never seen her harassing beginner artists, nor have I seen her wanting to destroy someone (even with this situation, only she's scared) it's true that many of her fans are upset that she rejected her ocs for the spider groups and those things, well, I think you should know how to put on her shoes Moy is Korean, as you all know, the Asian countries are highly strict, and if you do not do something right, they do not accept it and they tell you coldly, she is used to it, she does not tell you that you do the wrong things to treat her badly , if she tells you that you have done something wrong, it is because she tries to guide you on how to do it well, some people should know how to take a rejection besides, also Moy is in his right to allow certain people in his life, do you get upset because she did not let you be her friend? Well, you have no right to get angry, it's your decision, it's your life, not yours

Another thing that I want to emphasize, is that Puppo has also been saying that I told her to kill herself and go to hell Well, I will not lie that when people make me angry, I say things that I later regret, but no, I did not say that to her, and here I have the proof

I'm not proud of this, this post is aimed at anons who started attacking me

She was talking about this post, it's not a post I did to her, where I mentioned her that I hated her, and that's all, back then it was between August and September, months after a best friend I had, did something horrible to me, something I do not want to explain for being very personal and is not anyone you know, but the post above was not for her, and I understand that she was confused, but I would not tell her that, because after all, she was my friend

Yes, for those who have been following me for a long time, they know that Puppo and I were good friends at the beginning of 2018, I had a lot of appreciation, and even support her after something bad happened to her, but in July of that same year, she block after knowing that I liked the cupcest, yes, i ship cupcest, is not something that I presume, it's just something I like, I do not seek to normalize incest, nor less I would like that pair to be a canon, it's something I do for fun, and everyone is in his right not to like it, because it's okay, we do not all like the same things, but just block me after several months being friends, well, it's not something I'm happy

In short, I regret that the post is so looong, I wanted to vent a little, I carry this in my chest for days, I have not been well, maybe puppo thinks that saved many people from another pedophile of the world, but, I am not a pedophile , and I have spent very horrible days, I almost do not sleep, I wake up afraid to read some new accusation inveterate, I have almost not eaten well, even a friend blocked me without giving explanations, and a madman who did not even know who he was began to talk about what disappointed that my family would be Well, it is not, my mother is worried, and angry with Puppo's actions, my close friends know it, and they are worried about my situation.

Finally, I do not want you to go and attack puppo when you realize that she did something wrong, do not do it, please, if she tried to do something good, she did it wrong, everyone make mistakes, and it hurts people who do not deserve it, The only thing I want with this is to not talk about it anymore, to stop believing cheese and a bad person, if you do not like what I do, well, do not follow me, but I'm not doing anything bad, or hurting anyone

if even after reading this you hate me, then maybe the problem is you, because you do not know me, you do not know how I am, you do not know how to act, and you prefer to trust a post with words taken out of context to judge me, and that well, it's wrong

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol 2 #6-7 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Okay I’ve finally caught up to where I left off with RYV in 2017 so these are my thoughts on the X-Men arc.

I have very mixed feeling about this arc depending upon what POV I look at it from.

As a general story unto itself and an instalment in this series it was pretty great.

However in the context of an AU series with a limited shelf-life as is and in a context when Spider-Man had so often been sharing the spotlight (and the Spider-Marriage hadn’t been seen) making what amounted to a standard paint by numbers X-Men story just from the Parker’s POV was very questionable even if I like the X-Men.

Finally from the POV of a guy who likes the X-Men but isn’t hardcore but is very much in love with 90s X-Men (which this version is based upon) my feelings are very mixed.

And that boils down to what I love about the X-Men and that era of the X-Men vs. how Conway apparently feels about them.

But let’s get general perennial opinions out the way. I’ve grown to begrudgingly accept the conceit of this series as a Spider Family book and a book where we are just going to ignore the child endangerment issues at play. But i’ve spoken about that before in my older coverage of issues #1-5. Similarly in those issues and it still holds true for this arc, Stegman is the goddam man when it comes to the artwork.

Whilst there was one panel in which he tried to draw MJ shocked and upset and it came off just goofy, over all the artwork in this arc was stunning and I genuinely said ‘wow’ out loud when I got to the splash page of Spider-Man and Wolverine.

Keeping on the visuals for a moment, I goddam love the costumes chosen for the characters here. Yes even the reimagined looks for Toad, Crucible and Mist Mistress.

Obviously I don’t talk X-Men here much but I adore the 1990s X-Men costumes from the 1992 cartoon, which originated under Jim Lee. And honestly they genuinely are among the most iconic and visually dynamic looks for the characters so it’s not purely personal preference. This is especially resonant for me with Wolverine. Spider-Man is my favourite (American comic book) character and following him are various Spider-Verse characters like MJ, Norman Osborn, Ben Reilly, Mayday, etc.

But outside of those Spider-Verse characters, Wolverine is my absolute fav Marvel character and it’s always annoyed me that Marvel were like embarrassed to put him in his classic Giant-Sized X-Men uniform once Whedon began writing X-Men.

That is THE iconic Wolverine look and in this story Stegman brought it back baby!

Similarly I appreciated that the Magneto of this story both looked and acted like classic Magneto. Not the aweful black and silver shit he was wearing around this time in the comics and I’ve never been fond of him as a good guy member of the X-Men.

Honestly, whilst I get it was well executed character development, Magneto is inherently more interesting as a morally grey antagonist for the X-Men than among their ranks. So much of the core premise of X-Men is built around the fundamental philosophical conflict between Magneto’s beliefs and Xaviers that you lose a not insignificant chunk of the essence of X-Men when you put them on the same side. Not to mention in a superhero story you want strong characters as antagonists and Magneto is arguably the best X-Men villain, scratch that best comic book villain, ever.

Okay now let’s chat story.

I wasn’t pleased with  the deaths in this. Banshee might be few people’s fav  but Beast was and in both cases their quick shock deaths were unearned and unworthy. Kind of overly dark to be honest with you given the nature of the RYV book and it gave the impression that Conway isn’t fond of either character.

But that sentiment shines through far more poignantly with Jubilee and Cyclops. Whilst Cyclops gets screwed over slightly less badly than he did in the X-Men movies, the same problems occur. He gets undermined in favour of Wolverine and so Logan and Jean can be shipped together. Which is only a different flavour of frustrating if you LIKE the Cyclops/Jean relationship as I do, than when Jean got screwed over so Scott and Emma could hook up. I still despise that.*

But at least this was kind of believable, at least to me. No X-Men expert so maybe their break up was OOC, but the idea that Cyclops and Jean broke up because Jean didn’t have faith in controlling her Godlike powers whilst Cyclops did is an interesting piece of relationship drama. And at least the characters in RYV didn’t get fucked as hard as they did in the 2000s.

Still you can kind of tell Conway isn’t a big fan of Cyclops (understandable he has his haters, I hate 2000s-2010s Cyclops) but you can equally tell he really doesn’t like Jubilee.

Again, not an X-Men expert here but I’m pretty sure Jubilee being a traitor to the X-Men and being disillusioned by Xavier’s methods is immensely OOC for her character.

Now that isn’t that big of a deal because this is an AU at the end of the day. But if you like Jubilee or just know her character then it will probably annoy you. Unfortunately for one reason or another Jubilee in my observations seems to get a lot of hate that Kitty Pryde and X-23 don’t and I do not understand why.

In the cases of both characters I could tell instantly that Conway was setting one of them up to be the traitor and honestly if you are doing an AU book, Cyclops is kind of the more interesting choice although I grant you maybe not in the context of 2010s Cyclops who already murdered Xavier in AvX and has been a douchebag for a long time. But in the context of this story and 1990s X-Men which this story is trading off of, it’s the more interesting choice. I will give it to Conway though for at least bothering to give us 2 suspects. These days most writers wouldn’t even bother with that and just think they were being subtle when they have Jubilee say shit like “Maybe your human friend wouldn’t like you if she knew you were a mutant!”

On some final notes about the X-Men themselves I feel like there was maybe something more interesting you could’ve done with Jean and Wolverine’s child than what we got with Shine. In her personality and powers she could be any one of the army of Summers/Grey children or any given generic mutant. There is no Wolverine in her to be seen.

That’s not me inherently hating her. She’s just more of a missed opportunity. She was adorable unto herself and even moreso in her relationship with Annie and I hope that gets revisited in consequent issues.

My final little note regarding the X-Men themselves was that I didn’t care for Magneto being mind controlled at the end or his over all plan.

Okay, it’s more like I felt his plan was underdeveloped. Because it’s not that it didn’t make sense because it was literally the same plan from X2: X-Men United. But Conway basically expected you to have just known  that because of the visuals and results of the plan. And for comic book and comic book movie fans like me, sure I know the shorthand but it’s not good storytelling. Similarly Emma Frost shows up at the end, barely talks but just kind of takes over as the main villain when Magneto had been the guy built up in the story and...he, he’s Magneto dude. That’s like having Puppet Master show up towards the end of a story where Doom’s been the main villain and take over.

Also doesn’t his helmet shield him from psychic control? I mean again it’s an AU and I feel like that wasn’t established until way later about Magneto but still.

I also wanna talk about how this arc more than anything else just blows up the continuity between RYV volume 1 and volume 2.

In RYV vol 1 #1 it was a big deal that the X-Men got wiped out by Regent and the implication was that the universe diverged in the early-mid 1990s.

In this arc though it’s made crystal clear that obviously the X-Men are fine and that in this universe (the dumpster fire clusterfuck that was) Civil War 2006 was avoided.

Which is again an example of Conway subtly saying screw you to stuff he doesn’t like but I don’t mind that because yeah screw Civil War it was hot trash. But it does make RYV volume 1 way more confusing in terms of continuity, especially since literally no other post-Secret Wars ongoing series (including X-Men ’92) seemed to radically alter their universe after the event like RYV did.

Honestly I think the only way to have it make sense is to just say RYV volume 2 is an alternate version of the RYV volume 1 characters and that prior to volume 2 a guy called the Regent showed up, stole some people’s powers then Spider-Man and his family stopped him. He didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t take over the world, he wasn’t trying to kill God Emperor Doom or whatever and the world didn’t know who Spider-Man was by the end of it.

This actually jives way better with what Houser would later establish in her run on RYV that Annie isn’t a daughter Peter and MJ had INSTEAD of Mayday, but in fact the daughter they would’ve had if OMD hadn’t fucked everything up. I guess in the RYV universe though Spider-Man never joined the Avengers and fashion was stuck in the 1990s even in the 2000s.

I’m not complaining I’m just trying to get all this stuff straight.

Okay let’s move onto the Parker family.

I loved the payoff to issue #2 with MJ planning a party and it turning out to be for Peter’s birthday. That was the best scene in the whole story. Normal life drama with supporting characters we know and love. This is the heart of Spider-Man! And it came with adorable scenes like Annie confronting the horror of gluten free desserts and acknowledgments of Aunt May and Aunt Anna’s deaths.

The heart of the story was the stuff related to whether Peter and MJ should make Annie stay at the Xavier school or not and the scenes exploring this were really good.

Spider-Man deal with relatively relatable everyday issues and failing that stuff that s clearly allegorical to said issues. In this case Annie’s powers are allegorical to a kid with a disability, special learning issues, or someone with a particular aptitude for learning that would make a normal school more challenging.

Special props goes to Peter relating to how he struggled in school and not wanting that for Annie. In MJ’s case though she wants to keep her daughter close. This makes sense retroactively when you consider she’s already lost one child and if you pretend RYV vol 1 happened then she spent years keeping Annie close out of fear that she died.

Putting those aside though it could be a commentary upon MJ’s own childhood growing up where she was constantly being uprooted and saw her family and her sister’s family fall apart. For MJ it’s likely very important that the family unit stay close together.

Conway’s writing shines because he organically (albeit not as subtly as he could) has them switch positions creating yet more potential conflict and makes sure Annie has her own view on the matter. She likes the school, she likes Shine but she doesn’t want things to change and justifies this in a childish way by making out a popular kid in her school is a bigger deal than she actually is.

My major point of condemnation though is that I feel way more could’ve been done with the premise (e.g. having MJ and Jean connect over super powered kids) than actually was because so much of the plot is dominated by villains invading the Xavier school for the umpteenth time.

Actually goes into two other problems with the arc. This is an incredibly generic X-Men storyline because obviously it’s from a Spider-Man perspective. Like if an X-Men story tried to present a window into the world of Spider-Man it’d be a typical thing about him making rent, working for Jameson and missing a date or whatever. It’s like default setting X-Men and whilst I like that because I miss those days before X-Men became a clusterfuck, it’s not the most compelling main plot in the world.

And honestly it wraps up too quickly and easily, MJ just decks Emma Frost and the story is done. Annie and Peter don’t get involved enough which is weird because isn��t this a team book? I mean as the story highlights it makes Mj look cool but I don’t like doing that at the expense of the other characters.

Now in fairness that might’ve been set up for the next arc, which I know is about MJ becoming Venom. The last page or two of the arc implies this because it features an overtly villainous Liz Allan.

At first I raised my eyebrow at this. Around that same time Liz had been presented as evil in the 616 books and I thought this might’ve been lame out of nowhere synergy.

But in thinking about it, if this really is a Liz Allan who is recently went through the stuff she dealt with in DeMatteis’ Harry Osborn arc from the 1990s (as is the implication) then Liz would be a darker person, would be more hard hearted to protect her son and she wasn’t the nicest person to the Parkers at that time.

Although issue #4 had MJ refer to Normie as creepy implying the Osborns and Parkers generally aren’t all that close in this universe.

Regardless Liz with the Venom symbiote targeting MJ and having the there be an explicit thematic connection between them via their shared motherhood was a darkly delicious moment.

As many mixed feelings as I have for this arc over all I give it a solid B.

*Hence I personally also loved Emma Frost just being a plain villain and getting decked by MJ because I goddam hate Emma Frost I really do.

[thezachrogers]

#justiceleague

The most non-anticipated comic book film of the year is in theaters now!

Ehh. That’s pretty much the summary of this film. With only a four film/two origin stories buildup to unite the six (Marvel had a five film/four origin stories build up to Avengers) Justice League doesn’t even break the top 25 of 2017, not even top 75 all time comic book list among Rotten Tomatoes, which honestly is heartbreaking.

Please note everyone that I am not a DC hater. I grew up the biggest Batman/Superman/Justice League fan. The Dark Knight trilogy stands as my all time favorite movie series. Yes, I am a bigger Batman fan than I am Star Wars and Marvel fan. However, Warner Brothers wanted to rush the DCEU franchise to compete with Marvel. If you didn’t know Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman both had the same release date. The Motion Picture Society of America let Disney hold their May release date and BvS had their late Winter release moved up to February simply because one thing: story. 

These WB writers just cannot figure it out. They want to cut against the grain and it just isn’t working. Disney-Marvel has laid out the formula to make a perfect comic book universe. Give every character their own origin story/solo movie before they all come together in one film. WB - “lets make a sub-par Superman movie with the director that made Sucker Punch, then lets put a different Batman that is not Christian Bale in a sequel THREE YEARS LATER!” 

This film has the biggest three comic book characters of all time in one movie. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are in one film (FOR THE SECOND TIME) and they still cannot break a billion. And then you give Thor his third (some would argue tired) film and it breaks Rotten Tomatoes records; and no one knew who Thor was seven years ago...

This is confirmed, not rumored that there are some massive changes happening to the DCEU. After the success of Wonder Woman this year (and yes that was a fantastic film; the only good film out of the 5 DCEU films) that there will most definitely be Wonder Woman 2 dropping in 2019 with its story taking place in the 1980s. Ezra Miller is getting a Flashpoint film that will rewrite the entire history of the DCEU. What this means is they will dismiss Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League out of existence. This is a very similar approach to what Fox did with X-Men Days of Future Past in 2014 to write the Logan and First Class series into the X-Men canon without any plot holes.

Positives to take away from Justice League? I really like Ben Affleck as an older, tired, and bitter Bruce Wayne/Batman. Gal Gadot was born to play Wonder Woman, and it is very clear that Ezra Miller’s Flash is a similar play to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. I haven’t decided how I feel about Mamoa as Aquaman. He looks cool, but his Baywatch acting ability shines in this movie. Its just not there. Cyborg sucks. Jesse Eisenberg continues to suck as Lex Luthor. Cavill is a great Clark Kent/Superman, but as long as Zack Snyder (director/writer/lead executive producer) continues to sit on the throne, his character will continue to suck. 

I mean come on! Who thought Steppenwolf was a good idea as a villain? Who the hell is Steppenwolf? What about DARKSEID, THE JOKER, THE ENTIRE RESUME OF BATMAN VILLAINS!?

This movie dragged, there were some good moments, but all in all it was just okay and a cluster-you-know-what of CGI.

When you have that many big heavy hitters in one film, Justice League should blow us away. But it doesn’t. That’s why I say it sucks.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 40%, IMDB gave it a 7.2/10, I give it 3/5 stars.

Coming later today - review for The Disaster Artist

- Z

[joyinmanyplaces-blog]

The DOs and DON’T of Self Love

Do you ever feel the need to always justify who you are?

* Moody because I’m born PISCES, a woman who is gentle, compassionate and exciting, and she will do anything while she is in love. She will inspire and lift up, fly above the clouds and take her loved ones with her. On the other hand, she is unreliable, changes with the smallest negative circumstances and she could end a relationship at any moment if she finds it lost its purpose.

* May be in the wrong job because I’m extraordinarily an Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging (ENTJ). One who has a natural tendency to marshal and direct; plan creatively and to make those plans a reality; and, is often “larger than life” in describing projects or proposals making it difficult to decline.

* Too hot to handle? Well, that’s a given being a Perfect Melancholy/Powerful Choleric temperament. Genius, organised, perfectionist and creative; but, assumes the worst and can easily get depressed. That on top of a strong-willed, independent and “usually right” attitude.

* I need appreciation! Words of Affirmation is my love language. Hearing the reasons behind that love with kind and encouraging words can send my spirits skyward; or, shatter me with unflattering, insensitive words.

Do you get me now? If you don’t then best to end this here because I love myself too much to hang around and wait for you to accept who I am.

CRAZY. I used to think and act like that (well, sometimes I still do). Why does the world find it so hard to make things work my way according to who I am? I mean it’s so clearly defined and categorised. Don’t I fit somewhere? With someone?

These tests are neither true nor false. The truth is these are based on the past (what hurts me) and the present (what makes me happy), so we can have, on false pretence, the future we want (what completes me).

Yes, it is a priority to regard our own well-being and happiness. So we look for ways to understand who we are; and then either change it to fit in; or, just decide not to care about the bashers and the haters.

To make my life simple yet purpose-driven, I’ve lived by these rules of Self Love:

DOs

1. Keep Moving!

Insert one of my fave Disney movie lines from *Kung Fu Panda:

“Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, and Today is a gift… that’s why they call it present” ― Master Oogway

2. The only skills you need to survive is AGILITY and RESILIENCE:

“Be thankful for the hard times, for they have made you.” ― Leonardo Dicaprio

But never compromise to do what’s right and assert your personal values.

3. Mirror the image you were created from. You want to know your value as a being? Well God created you in His very image, how’s that? We were not born to be told what and who we can be. We were given “power” to rule over everything else that God created.

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

There’s a catch: superhero dilemma like Peter Parker/Spiderman:

“Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: ‘With great power, comes great responsibility.’ This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I’m Spiderman.”

Have a purpose with the ‘dominion’ God gave you. It’s a gift to make a better world to live in; but it becomes a curse if you make it an idol. Your choice.

And lastly, 

DON’T ever allow people to bring you down

The White House described Anna Eleanor Roosevelt as “the longest-serving First Lady throughout her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office until 1945. She was an American politician, diplomat, and activist who later served as a United Nations spokeswoman.”

She came in the White House in 1933 and understood social conditions of her time. But it did not keep her from functioning as a political helpmate to her husband and dedicated her life to his purpose by becoming his ears and eyes. She transformed the role of First Lady by officially entertaining with charming friendliness, hold conferences, travel around the country giving lectures and on radio broadcast to express her opinions.

And so, one of her famous quotes, which I am learning as a habit to live by, is “What other people think of me is none of my business.”.

Even God said “Don’t mind people. “

Isaiah 2:22

Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?

Whatever you do, people will still talk and they will judge you according to what society deems as acceptable. So let them. Have inner peace and celebrate your uniqueness:

Psalms 139:14

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Never let ANYONE tell you otherwise. Again, your choice.

Links: 1 Pisces Woman 2 ENTJ Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging 3 Amazon.com: Personality Plus: How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself (9780800754457): Littauer, Florence: Books 4 Discover Your Love Language - The 5 Love Languages® 5 Kung Fu Panda Quotes (13 quotes) 6 SUCCESS magazine on Twitter: “We can let hard times make us, or we can let them break us. It’s up to us. #QuoteOfTheDay… “ 7 Spider-Man - Movie Quotes - Rotten Tomatoes 8 Anna Eleanor Roosevelt | The White House