#the mary x jesus relationship genuinely does intrigue me

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Immaculate Mary | BODY BACK Update #2

Harrison's back, and he's only getting worse! <3

Let's talk chapter 2 of my novella BODY BACK. We're all about villain eras, unexpected developments, Mother Mary, Jesus thirst traps (yes...) & more. Check out update #1 if you missed it!

Post starts under the cut!

Unexpected developments

I'd already planned that Suzanna, Harrison's mother, wasn't going to be a major character in BB as she is in Feeding Habits. I didn't think we'd see her "on-screen" in BB, but when you get caught breaking into a stranger's pool & need your mother to bail you out...

Suzanna & Harrison

CW: child neglect, addiction

Suz and Harrison have SUCH a complicated relationship. They were once extremely close, but are now near-strangers. Having abandoned Harrison when he was a child amidst her own substance-abuse problems, Suz also never reconnected with her son after she got sober. She is only part of his life now out of fluke (the fluke is Lonan, who runs into her by chance in Moth Work--you can read that chapter update HERE though it's old!).

Harrison isn't sure what to make of their relationship. On one hand, it's a relief to have his mother back in his life because he's missed her (amongst other feelings) and also has a safety net when he makes bad decisions (chapter 1 lmao). But on the other hand, he's *extremely* resentful of Suzanna (and rightly so). At this point, they've only been reconnected for 2 weeks, and while Suz is trying to transition their lives together as seamlessly as possible, the last time they meaningfully knew each other was ~15 years prior (1990-ish), which makes this task, especially on Harrison's end, impossible.

This relationship is probably one of the most complex things I've ever written. It's hard to verbalize/describe it because at times it's irrational, frustrating, lovely, horrifying, hilarious, and comforting (and sometimes all at once). This culminates to a volatile emotional climax for Harrison that serves as the inciting incident for BB.

Immaculate Mary

We open "Immaculate Mary" with Harrison and Suz in the Bakers' bathroom (the couple whose house Harrison broke into). This chapter is about motherhood, yes, but also sonhood, and how Harrison believes his sonhood intersects with Suz's motherhood (and conversely, how Jesus' sonhood intersects with Mary's motherhood).

The title was just an inclination I had that addressed the chapter's holy and maternal themes. I was also aware this was a hymn, HOWEVER, upon writing this update (as in RIGHT NOW), I've realized this is a Catholic hymn I used to sing all the time in choir. So I guess I blocked that out?? LMAO

Scene A:

Suz attempts to blow-dry Harrison's hair which is soaked with pool water. This goes badly.

Scene B:

Desperate and unsure how to help her reckless son (lol), Suz drives Harrison to Eliza's apartment--where his ex, Lonan, now lives--in hopes he will talk to him. This also goes badly.

Scene B is *critical* here. Harrison isn't ready to face Lonan, even if that means merely facing the potential of seeing him. Suz rushing him into a conversation he isn't ready to have flips a switch inside of him. This is how we get to Chaotic Party Harrison, whose primary concern is A) forgetting and B) having a good time so he can forget some more.

The writing process

Writing this chapter was faster than chapter 1 because it's more action/dialogue heavy with longer scenes (it's also not as clean, lol).

I wrote a large portion of this chapter as a writing prompt for a class. The bathroom scene with Harrison & Suz was almost exclusively hand-written as a screenplay, so I had to adapt it. It was a lot of fun to have the dialogue/scene skeleton laid out, since it's not often I have a plan before going into writing sessions.

I similarly followed the circular plot structure I talked about in update 1. The "satellite" in this case was "mother/sonhood/mother Mary/Jesus." Mary x Jesus are critical to this chapter--not only does Harrison project himself onto Jesus, he also does the same to Suz, but with Mary. What does it mean to Mary to be the mother of the Messiah, and what does it mean to Suz to be the mother of Harrison? These are two questions we keep circling back to.

Excerpts

Guess who didn't share every single excerpt from this chapter so I actually have *some* new content??? :)

A plastic fantastic description of the Bakers' bathroom:

They stand in the Bakers’ bathroom. It vomits ‘under-the-sea’—a theme a child might request, but according to the living room’s unstained couch cushions and front mat’s lack of tiny shoes, no children live here. Perhaps Nash requested the décor. That might check out—a Ken doll on the outside dying to be coffined in his plasticky packaging, or in this case, plasticky bathroom. High-gloss cerulean walls. A clownfish soap dispenser. The toilet seat cover ridged into a lilac clam. A translucent blue shower curtain that flickers iridescent waves when you walk past it.

Here, we explore Harrison's psychology more overtly. Is he expecting to be yelled at--and why is that something he craves now?

In Suz’s body, Harrison expects rage. How far did she drive to get here? Honestly, he hadn’t tracked the length of the car ride when he’d hitchhiked. He analyzes her shoulders as she shuffles through the Bakers’ cabinet and emerges with a hairdryer, but she’s blanker than a blank slate—the empty air in front of God before he creates. If she’d only impale the wall socket with the dryer’s prongs. If she’d only grab his hair by the roots and hang him up to dry.

Harrison tracks the similarities of his and his mother's reflections:

Harrison stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. On his wrist: a gold herringbone bracelet Sadie hung on the key holder. In his ear: Lonan’s earring. His wet hair curls weakly around his ears, drips down his twiggy eyebrows. Last week, he caught his own reflection in the dishware cabinet and was so startled to find Suzanna’s face staring back that he dropped his cup. The crash pealed like a death knell long after the sound disappeared. Picking glass from the tile, it angered him that he looked like her. His father’s eyes, sure, but his mother’s bulbous nose, spare mouth, minky hair, stubby nail beds. The last time he’d compared their reflections, they stood in front of a funhouse mirror. They wore chromized party hats, technicolour butterflies painted on their left cheeks. He was five.

Here we have a description of Harrison wearing a (stolen) ring. This excerpt will be relevant in chapter three (also JEREMIAH BAIT):

He wears Jeremiah’s silver signet ring on his pinkie, and it clicks against the marble. Perhaps he’s been looking for it since Harrison’s been away. Hands and knees. Stuffing his head under his bedframe, a flimsy flashlight in hand, his mouth wide open.

(also... I may or may not have bought this ring... for myself)

The LINE of the century:

Harrison crosses his arms. The soaked leather of his jacket squelches, baptized by pool water just like him. His mouth is twitching again—he’d like to get high tonight, see neon, taste Jesus.

This is the unholy excerpt I vowed I wouldn't share (in other words, Jesus Thirst Trap -- take with that what you will):

How did Mary feel to mother Jesus? Listen, Harrison knows he’s no Christ. But Jesus was twenty-one once, wasn’t he? What did he do in his free time besides praise the Word of the Lord, perform miracles, etcetera, etcetera? He was a carpenter sure, nailed pleats of wood bare-backed in the tart Nazareth sun, flicked pearls of sweat off his tanned forehead. But did he ever break into a stranger’s pool? Did he ever wake up one morning, stumble out of bed, stick a frayed toothbrush into his mouth, stare at himself in the mirror and feel, with certainty, an unending urge to run?

Suz is exhausted:

Suz squeezes her nose bridge. She’s aged since August, if that’s even possible. The bags beneath her eyes are violet like the fleshy interior of a blueberry, the veins scarlet lightning bolts.

“Why are you upset?” Harrison asks, drumming his ringed finger against the counter’s lip.

This is a direct continuation of the above! This is actually sad I'm sorry:

What does Suzanna see when she looks at him? A miniature version of her wearing a jacket that once belonged to her at his age, and an earring that once belonged to another mother? Or is he a stranger? They know each other best by genetics. If she asked Harrison what he thought her favourite colour was, he’d have no idea. “This isn’t a big deal.”

“Oh, please,” Suz says, teary like the actresses on her favourite Portuguese soaps. Sure, Harrison doesn’t know his mother’s favourite colour, if in childhood she was the type of girl to make rings out of peach pits, if she was the type of girl to rip worms bare-handed, if she’d eat cottage cheese with cantaloupe, if she thought about enrolling in a life drawing class before she got pregnant, if her idols are pop icons of the 80s like his are, her favourite way to fold a paper airplane, when her birthday is. But he does know she does not cry.

When young Jesus stayed in Jerusalem unbeknownst to his mother, what did Mary do? Perhaps she stared at her hands, thought of the last time she touched him. Perhaps she wept. Or perhaps she found the closest mirror, wiped her sleeve against the glass until it glossed, and tried to find her son in her own reflection.

Emo boi dialogue (this is an ouchie lol):

Suz soothes her index finger over her thumb over and over. “Things have been so…”

“So what?” Harrison knows she could mean so many things. So raw. So indelicate. So tense. So like we’re a VHS set in reverse.  “This isn’t a big deal. No one was hurt.”

“You cannot come and go as you please in other people’s houses, Harrison.” She can’t even look at him. He could call her out by name again—Suzanna, Suzanna, Suzanna. She winces every time he does, plays it off as a sudden headache or a flighty twitch.

“Isn’t that what I do at your place?” he says instead, his throat heady with the need to scream, or perhaps cry. “Parade around as your son and then crash on the couch?”

“Harrison,” Suz says. Her eyes are pellets of amber, her pupils preserved in their warmth. As a child, Harrison climbed onto the bathroom counter, pried his own eyes open between his chewed fingernails. The colour was wrong, too light, too cold, too much like his father’s—and what was a father? God is as much a father as he is a traitor to his own sacrificial son. Harrison stood there for so long his eyes stung, and when his lid eventually snapped back in place, the world stippled.

“What?” he asks now. Where the hell is God in this dim bathroom? Sucked up in the fan? Hiding in shower drain hairballs? And where is his father? Both perpetually missing like a television remote, a set of house keys. That’s right. God’s not here—not in the olive wall paint, not in the patterned hand towels, not in the piranha portrait above the toilet tank, not against Harrison’s chest like he used to be. He’s the only one here in front of his mother, all seven of Mary’s sorrows etched into a man. He almost laughs. “And my name is kind of idiotic, isn’t it? Harry’s son—but I’m nobody’s son.”

“You’re my son.”

(^^ Funnily, the Harry's son bit was in the handwritten draft and I thought it was kind of stupid, but I have been unable to delete it... there's something very real about that line, lol, yikes)

This finishes off scene A:

He kicks off the counter, pushes past his mother, walks down the hall and back into the living room. His ears ring. He’s not even sure what’s so bad about what she’s said. Change is good, isn’t it?

“Change is good,” he mutters to himself. “Change is good.”

The Bakers gape at him from the couch. This defectless couple like the blue and pink pegs screwed into a Game of Life car. Their faces scream GET MARRIED, JOB SEARCH, BUY A HOUSE.

Harrison looks at Sadie, her sad, dead eyes. “Do something with your life,” he says, then salutes and walks right out the front door.

Scene B starts very normally, right? Here's Harrison wondering what'd be like if he was... a shirt:

The city isn’t as interesting when it’s just cars, in fact, it’s not much different to Boston, to New York. Everything is brilliant and irrelevant and bleary and transparent, like a raw brain spinning around a washing machine. Harrison might like to walk to the laundromat ten minutes from Suz’s apartment, hop into someone else’s load and just let himself swivel until he’s unsure if he’s a man or a chemise blouse. The dreaminess of it all, the way silk knows it’s as defenseless as it is coveted. Harrison could be both, couldn’t he?

Harrison starts getting an inclination of where Suz is driving him:

“Suzanna,” Harrison says, wincing when the wild cherry air freshener noosed around her rear-view flails in his direction.

She takes the next exit, the car even faster now—seventy-five, eighty.

“Suz.”

“I want better for you.” Suz slows, now weaving through a residential neighbourhood. Men sit on unruly lawns, grimy hands fisted around beer bottles. At the next turn, a teenage girl hurries a sheltie down a crosswalk. A mother squints at a bus schedule while she nudges a stroller back and forth with her heel. Boardgame people just waiting for their next play.

Would you rather have a single conversation with your ex or jump out of a moving vehicle? We know Harrison's answer:

When she doesn’t answer, he wants to ask the question again, but something changes. Perhaps it’s the texture of the wheels beneath him, the way he remembers the grit of asphalt under the rubber like someone remembers the sound of their loved one’s footsteps. Perhaps it’s the way the sidewalk shimmers with rain that’s so familiar, the way the streetlamps seem to flash as they appear like a signal lamp, or perhaps Harrison’s not a fucking idiot. “Mom,” he says, already unclicking his seatbelt. She’s not going as fast now—maybe forty miles an hour, perhaps less. He watched a documentary the other day about jumping from moving cars, the best techniques.

'My heart is fine' and other lies this man tells himself (AKA em-dash wars):

“What’s heartbreak to you? A little boohoo? My heart is fine. Let me out of the car.”

“I know you think so—”

“Let me out of the—”

“But you can’t fight a battle and run from it at the same—”

“Suzanna—”

“You loved him—”

“And what the fuck would you know?” Harrison slams his fist so hard against the dashboard the plastic fractures, the break like the entire Pacific sloshing against an eardrum. Harrison doesn’t care. He does it again, again, until shards clatter, until his hand’s bloody, until Suz is horrified because he can be horrifying—and not just horrifying, but the entire fucking horror.

(also this horror line is... fantastic lol)

Aaaand final paragraph. He is not in denial. No way!

Perhaps Jesus would enter that apartment like it were his father’s temple. But Harrison is tired of gods, of ghosts, of men. He repeats this to himself as he hustles through the rain. No gods, no ghosts, no men. His teeth chatter. His hands shake. He’s not wise. He never wants to be again. No gods, no ghosts, no men. It’s easier this way, no need to contemplate the open window overlooking the parking lot, no need to contemplate who lives there now, who makes a bed there every morning, who drinks his coffee with half a cream no sugar at the breakfast table, who grinds an inkstick to practice his new interest in calligraphy, who reads poetry on the balcony every Wednesday, who finishes a one-thousand piece puzzle in an afternoon, who wears Suzanna’s angel pendant and says he bought it vintage, who takes up pottery, herb gardening, darts whenever he feels like it, who sleeps with both eyes closed at last. No need to contemplate what might happen if he spared one glance. Who he might see if he just looked back.

Harrison from now on:

Yes you will bb!

That's it! :) Chapter 3 is writing itself. I'll be back soon lol.

Rachel

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundup 15/6/2017

So this is a day late but in my defense I had a ridiculous amount of comics to get through with no one to blame but myself here. And you know what? I genuinely enjoyed almost everything. But does that mean every comic was good this week? And even so what did I think was the best? 

Honestly I don’t know how to write these intros for people who wouldn’t be here to read my opinion anyway so let’s just jump into it. 

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Detective Comics, DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester, DC’s Justice League of America, Image’s Motor Crush, DC’s Superwoman, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DC’s Titans, IDW’s Transformers: Salvation, DC’s Wonder Woman

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #21 Tom Taylor, Leonard Kirk, Cory Hamscher, Terry Pallot, Michael Garland

Okay I need this issue to reread a million times over because there are just so many things I love all at once. Like, oh my gosh. I was almost in tears multiple times because relationships! Healing! Supporting each other!

Wade and Gabby alone could just about make this issue perfect, but then you have Laura and Daken hugging and worried about each other, and Old Man Logan being likable for the first time in any of my readings of him. There’s so much I enjoy, though I find the cover rather deceiving. This is much more of a Howlett family reunion than anything else, though I did enjoy Riri’s parts in it.

I just eriously adore these characters and it meant a lot to see them all come together like they have here and that cliffhanger HURT so much more for it. 

I will nitpick the art a bit because we’ve been doing so good about keeping Laura in the Wolverine costume which is much preferred to her X-23 wardrobes, for sure, but this issue it pretty much looked exactly like one of her old costumes without the midriffs and it was kinda weird. I know she took off a lot of her armor for skin contact but it’s... idk. It was weird. 

The main thing I’m happy about though is that as we go on, I realize that literally all of the Marvel books I’ve kept are going out of their way to not involve themselves in Secret Wars and it’s kind of beautiful. Laura and Gabby are stuck on an island that’s quarantined (and I can pretend Wade’s there with them instead of whatever’s going on since I dropped Deadpool for the summer crossovers, thanks Tom Taylor!), Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are literally off world, and the rest are non-616. So yay me!

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (2016-present) #8 Gerry Conway, Ryan Stegman, Jesus Aburtov

For those who don’t know, Mary Jane Watson is genuinely one of my favorite Marvel characters and is easily one of the reasons I ever stuck with the Spider-Man comics for as long as I did was because of my interest in her and wanting to see her and Peter.

I can also thank her for my genuine attraction to redheads probably.

But one of the main reasons that I’ve loved this book so much is because, as written by Gerry Conway, this is the Peter and MJ of my dreams. I love them so much, and the complications that comes from their relationship and from growing older, raising a daughter, and MJ’s desire to continuously be the glue to keep both Peter and Annie together logically causes her to seek out a way to continue being Spinerette without syphoning off Peter’s powers. 

It’s almost like growing old, having a stable relationship, trying to keep things fresh while raising a kid, are all dramatic and worthy of good storytelling in their own right or something HMM.

Anyway, yes it’s completely on the nose where this is going and it’s a little curious how MJ’s not immediately aware of the connection between what’s going on with her right now and the horrible, arguably traumatizing experience she and Peter had, but who knows what’s canon anymore lol

Basically, I sideye a bit from a story point of view, but this series continues to make up for it with the real thing that matters to me: these characters and their development.

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #958 James Tynion IV, Aluaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson 

Honestly I really love the slower issues where Tynion takes more time to make moments for the relationships between the characters and give us interractions we didn’t know we wanted -- Kate going with Luke and Jean Paul to a basketball game, Cass and Clayface being adorable by reciting a play, Bruce at a poker game with a bunch of assholes in homage to Almost Got ‘im!? It was a lot of fun honestly. 

...

Okay I take issue with Cass’ dialogue. I know she was repeating lines from a tape and such but it’s weird to see her make so much progress when just two issues ago she was almost monosyllabic. Like... I want to see Cass gradually learning, I want to feel her frustration with hitting walls, I want to see her struggle and achieve despite the struggle because that gradual progression was honestly something we weren’t delivered in the former canon. We have a great opportunity for it here. 

But y’know. I’m particular with Cass and it’s hard to say where her baseline for reading and speech even is in this canon because her dyslexia may be in tact but her circumstances growing up are completely different. So I don’t know. 

Now. I’m a sucker for Bruce and Zatanna team-ups because I’m a schmuck but I’m really excited for next issue. Had a lot of fun with this one. This feels like a decent pace for Tynion -- at least in my opinion. 

DC’s Gotham Academy: Second Semester (2016-2017) #10 Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan, Karl Kerschl, Adam Archer, Massyk, Sandra Hope

This comic is speeding toward an end and I’m not sure if I’m ready! 

From the beginning, for me at least, the selling point for Gotham Academy has been just how much these kids felt like real teenagers and real friends with all their various relationships and connections, platonic or romantic or something in between. And it’s powerful to see that coming to play as an advantage to completing Olive’s arc, but also as a disadvantage since the consequences of many of her actions hurt that much more.

I’ll save a lot of my thoughts for a complete wrap up of the series but overall, very happy and very grateful for the continuously good read that is GA

DC’s Justice League of America (2016-present) Volume 1: Road to Rebirth Steve Orlando, Jody Houser, Ivan Reis, Andy MacDonald, Stephen Byrne, Jamal Campbell, Mirk Andolfo

WE GOTTA GET THE BAND BACK TOGETHER. WE’RE ON A MISSION FROM GAD. 

In all seriousness, I’m a huge fan of Vixen and Ryan Choi as well as a big fan of Justice League International, as it was in its 80s glory. So my interests with this particular lineup were piqued from the beginning and I made myself wait for the first volume to dive in. 

For the most part, this is a team gathering exercise. Characters that have lacked the spotlight in the last few years -- Vixen, Ray, Killer Frost, and the Atom -- were given whole issues to reintroduce them to this continuity. And honestly those issues were great. I really, really love the updated origins for them and feel that they’re a good blend of honoring the past of the characters as well as adapting them for a new world. 

Lobo, Batman, and Black Canary took back seat, but considering that there were already tensions showing within the group, I think it’s safe to assume that giving the spotlight to the rest of the team won’t always last this long. Things are nothing if not explosive among these members.

I really did mean it when I said this is a team gathering exercise, because there’s no first case to unite everyone. There’s not any real antagonists or team-ups we see to speakof. It was just getting hte jLA together. 

And for me it’s enough to get me intrigued, though I’d completely understand if people told me it was far from enough for them. 

Now they just need to add Big Barda, Booster Gold, and Ted Kord and I’ll be satisfied. 

Image’s Motor Crush (2016-present) Vol. 1 Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, Babs Tarr

I was not the biggest fan of this team’s Batgirl team though I appreciated the aesthetics and what not. There just never seemed to be a storyline that really interested me and I couldn’t be sold on the characterization for Barbara. So I kept hearing about Motor Crush for the last year and was really itnerested in it so I wanted until this volume came out and. 

Well, quite simply, I’m in love.

Tell you what, those biker gangs that kept coming up really confusingly out of place in Batgirl make a hell of a lot more sense now that I can see this team’s actual passion project. 

So I love Motor Crush a lot, I’m really invested in Domino, the mystery that is her origins and the powers of Crush itself. I love her relationship with her ex, Lola, I love her father -- I love just about everything and the cliffhanger really surprised me. 

I will say that while I love having a world that speaks for itself rather than constant narration, it’s a little hard to follow this world entirely, I’d like a bit more explained than what has been, but at the end of the day I’m very excited to see more. 

DC’s Superwoman (2016-present) #11 K. Perkins, José Luís, Ray McCarthy, HI-FI

You know, I have made it clear that I’ve been worried about this title for a while now, really just hoping it was going to find its direction and wow us with the great potential that is the Super Family outside of the main Kent triad. And I feel like that’s for good reason -- the end of Jimenez’s run let a lot of people feeling justifiably scorned, there was a mishandling of a lot of heavy and important subjects that were raised, and at least the initial stuff with Perkins taking over kind of left one wondering if they had a fully formed direction to go toward next. 

But I am really glad that I stuck it out for this long because the family of John, Lana, Nat, and everyone else is so important and so fundamentally different from the dynamics found elsewhere in the new familial renaissance of the DCU that I needed it. And I hope it continues to emphasize these relationships and how important they are to each other.

I’m still unhappy with how anxiety and mental illness is being handled in the title and find it lacking since it was brought up to begin with and now being ignored. That subject alone is making me rethink my disinterest in Green Lantern books as a whole because I have loved and felt inspired so far by what I’ve seen of Jessica Cruz and their handling of anxiety, and it’s why I picked up Silk at the high recommendations of a close friend. 

So I’d like for mental illness to be treated better in this title -- the least it can do after bringing it up and treating it the way it did at the end of Jimenez’s run, but there’s so much value in the non-nuclear family dynamic of the Irons household and of the uniqueness of Lana’s powers and her approach to fighting crime that it’s worth it. For me anyway.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011-present) #70 Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz, Mateus Santolouco, Ronda Pattison

I knew the end of this storyline was going to be, at the very least, explosive but wow, WOW I had no idea how many twists and turns it was going to take in that time. That was a phenomenal ending to the Mutanimals storyline for the time being, and I just feel so bad for Slash, down to my core. I’m so worried about him, and whenever he will be allowed to recover.

At least I hope he’ll recover.

This series is seventy issues strong and i’m just so blown away by the way they still manage to keep me on the edge of my feet while so many different storylines and character developments are happening at the same time.

I mean, I even feel for Old Hobb here!

I do suppose a complaint I could hold here is that the titular turtles themselves have ultimately not been very front and center throughout this storyline, and that really showed in the conclusion, where for the most part they were lost to the colorfulness of the huge, colorful supporting cast that has been developed over the years. 

For me, personally, I think that’s honestly okay. We can’t have the same story over and over again with only the main four characters driving the narrative, and it’s been a long standing tradition in TMNT for a good 30 years now to sort of embody the concept that our main guys don’t really look for situations to get involved with but sort of fall into them naturally. 

Not to mention it’s probably a strength that 70 issues in, we haven’t once repeated plots or stories or put any of the characters on a loop of development to end up right back where they started. I don’t think the achievement of that can be understated, especially as we near that landmark #75!

DC’s Titans (2016-present) #12 Dan Abnett, Kenneth Rocafort, Dan Brown

Bleh. BLEH. I was holding out judgment on the twist of Wally and Donna and Roy ending up in some kind of love triangle because I wanted the context but honestly the context is kinda... bleh. It would be awesome if we lived in some world and time where Donna’s origins were not constantly retconned and thus the source of her characterization in every run of every thing she showed up in. Which is by no means a new problem but still.

And my opinion is... Wally and Donna are both going through a hard time and Wally is having to accept that his life is fundamentally different from the previous world he knew, that he can’t just badger people into returning things to the way they were -- especially Linda, who he loves but it’s a very one-sided relationship as a result of the parallel universe paradox and stuff. It makes sense to me that in a ploy to gain some sense of control over that, he and Donna both would try to take fate in an unexpected direction, into their own hands. 

But making it a love triangle with Roy just kinda keeps my eyes firmly rolled into the back of my skull. 

I overall like Lilith, Dick, Garth, and Karen’s development and characterization in this issue. I think they’re taking Lilith in interesting directions and I’m really curious about what her omen means for the future, since apparently there’s a traitor among them. And they set up plenty of reasons for various members to be that traitor in this issue but I can’t help but assume already that it’s going to end up being a twist. Good twist or not remains to be seen. 

IDW’s Transformers: Salvation (2017) John Barber, Livid Ramondelli

I’m going to be completely “original” here and say that I’m not a fan of Ramondelli’s at for the various Transformers comics. i know! I know. Shocking, never said before, completely going against the general fandom consensus. I’m such a brave soul. I know. 

Okay, joking aside though... I didn’t think the art was bad in this one-shot. Actually! I’d argue a lot of it was even good. He may not be my favorite artist and I’ll think that his colo gradients are butt ugly most of the time, but there was better handled action sequences than usual, the characters looked like they had weight, and we even got a range of expressiveness in the characters that is... well, frankly, not usual for Ramondelli. 

So other than that shocking revelation, I thought Barber performed good once more on tying the TF universe together again, answering some prior plot points and nicely knotting off loose ends. Trypticon being a Titan is not the biggest revelation in the world, but the development of Sandstorm and the Dinobots was great, and I loved just how devious Starscream truly is under Barber’s pen even though I’ve fully been enjoying the characterization for him in Till All Are One. 

But the most important thing of all: SPARKLINGS. SPARKLINGS. All I’ve wanted for years is baby transformers so I am HAPPY BEYOND BELIEF. THEY’RE NO LONGER A DYING SPECIES AND THESE PRECIOUS BABIES COULD BE BORN WITHOUT EVER KNOWING THE CIVIL WAR AHHHHHHHH

DC’s Wonder Woman (2016-present) #24 Greg Rucka, Bilquis Evely, Romulo Fajardo Jr. 

WOW! I mean, just wow! What a resolution to everything. I have so many emotions for Diana, for Barbara Ann, for even Veronica Cale of all people. Etta and Steve were great, the art was amazing.

It’s just such a relief and such... honestly just an amazing feat that Greg Rucka is beginning to wrap up this just phenomenal run of Wonder Woman 

I really enjoyed how everything turned out and it was so remarkable to see Diana’s resolution to save Veronica but also to not turn her back on her friends and loved ones as well as the torment it is for Barbara to not be able to get into Themyscira after all her life’s work.

And I liked Diana’s assessment of Veronica at the end, it was true and also blunt to the point of cruelty. But fitting also. 

It’s amazing what a turn around I’ve personally felt when it comes to Veronica’s character because in all honesty I was not a fan of her most of the time in the preboot, but Rucka really has fleshed her out and done something unique with her perspective now. There is tragedy but there’s also less deniability for her fault in all of it. 

I’m sad to be coming toward Rucka’s end on the run, but I’m also so happy to see the love and passion he’s put into everything culminating to what it is now.

This is a genuinely hard choice but I think if I go by what tugged on my heartstrings the most, what gave me the most joy overall and just feelings unrelenting from start to finish, I would have to say that my pick of the week is All-New Wolverine. I adore this series and I couldn’t be happier with this issue and how they’re keeping my precious Marvel girls faaaaaar away from Secret Empire. A close second would be Wonder Woman but really I would happily recommend my entire pull this week. It was a geat week for comics.

But that’s just my opinion! I’d love to know your thoughts. Agree? Disagree? Think I missed something I should’ve picked up this week? I’d love to hear from you!

[cupidsbower]

in re

Supernatural 12x11, “Regarding Dean.”

Most of the good things about this episode are thanks to the actors, especially Jensen Ackles and Ruth Connell, who were both delightful. The writing was competent but not meaty, like last week’s episode. I came away from “Regarding Dean” not really feeling I knew all that much more about Dean than I had before, which was a shame given the premise. But perhaps the point was actually to shine more light on Sam and Rowena, who both reacted to Dean in interesting ways.

Let’s start with the title, which is a reference to a Harrison Ford movie, Regarding Henry, written by J. J. Abrams.

Here’s the trailer:

It’s about an ethically-dubious but successful lawyer, played by Ford, who is shot in the head by a robber, and loses his memory. As a result, he turns over a new leaf, becoming more innocent and idealistic, and forges closer relationships with his quasi-estranged wife and daughter. Ironically, it is a film that is mostly appealing due to the actors, as the plot is rather by-the-numbers. If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that pre-shooting-Henry is unlikable, both to himself and others, and hates his job but loves his family, who he had been neglecting.

In contrast, post-amnesia-Dean discovers that he likes himself and his life, but quite possibly both Sam and Rowena are unhappy with their lives and their current relationships -- more on that below.

While I don’t think Abram’s script for Regarding Henry is very nuanced, I find the reference to the film interesting for another reason than the obvious similarities of plot between it and “Regarding Dean”. I have always assumed that Regarding Henry was itself a reference to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Follow that rabbit all the way down its hole, and you end up at the Daedalus myth, which is the story of a man making himself wings in order to escape imprisonment, and whose son who escapes with him, Icarus, falling to his death as a result of flying too close to the sun.

Why do I draw a connection between Regarding Henry and Portrait? It’s about that use of words with multiple meanings in the titles, and specifically about how we interpret and understand people and the ways we represent them.

Regarding:

in respect of, on the subject of

looking at

admiring

Portrait:

a visual likeness (something people look at)

a description of a person’s character (a story)

As I said above, while Ackles is very good in this episode, what we see just confirms what we already know (and/or admire) about Dean -- he has a childish delight in things that he often masks as self-defence, his responsibilities and perceived failures weigh heavy on him, he genuinely loves hunting things and saving people, he loves the people in his life and does the emotional labour of keeping them in his life.

The freshest aspect of the episode is not actually the portrait of Dean, but the reactions of Sam and Rowena to Dean, and in reaction to his memory loss -- how they regard him, in other words.

Sam is devastated by the loss of Dean, in a way that tells us a lot about what he’s living for. This love for Dean is not a happy thing, though, as it highlights Sam’s social isolation and depression. He comes across as ambivalent about the hunting lifestyle, and with the people currently in his life. With the “I’ll text everyone” scene, we yet again have the implication that Sam relies on Dean to keep in touch with people, unless there’s some particular need. I think that’s about the third time this season.

In fact, we’ve had subtext for many seasons now that Sam would leave hunting for the “apple-pie life” if only he could find a way to do so, but that he feels tied (chained?) to Dean, and this episode adds more weight to that reading. Sam is a mirror of Regarding Henry in a different way than Dean is. Where Henry is given a chance at a new and more satisfying life because of his memory loss, and Dean is confirmed as already loving his life via the memory loss, Sam, it is strongly implied, would love to ditch his current life -- he wants to be the lawyer, with the wife and kid, and to forget hunting, but doesn’t know how to achieve that, and instead is trapped and unhappy.

Ouch.

I mean, this is great for the deconstruction of the co-dependency, if only Sam can actually get to the point of honestly articulating that, and Dean can hear it without feeling rejected. But still, ouch.

Then there’s Rowena.

I really like that Rowena and Crowley are being shown to have character traits in common. In particular, it took a while, but Rowena has now figured out that the Winchesters are an unstoppable force, just like Crowley has, and as so many (now dead) villains never did. She had her own agenda in this episode to do with the other witches, and I love that her plot is getting closer and closer to intersecting as enemies with the Men of Letters -- I have wanted that for a loooong time. But in addition to that, now that she recognises the Winchesters either deadly or a form of supernatural social capital, I have some hopes she will live a good long while. *fingers crossed*

The other interesting Rowena thing picks up on a thread from last season, when Rowena told Crowley she had to hate him or else she’d love him. In this episode, we find out that Rowena is a lot like Dean. She projects a hard-as-nails outside to protect her squishy insides from the many people who have hurt her. And she yearns for connection, as demonstrated by her falling for Dean’s (at this point quite possibly supernatural ability to) charm, responding to his defenselessness with a lowering of her own guard instead of cruelty.

Well, except for this, which isn’t directed at Dean.

(I don’t have a source for this image.)

That voodoo doll and its multiple pins in the heart. It’s played for humour, but actually, it calls back to a visual motif we’ve been getting throughout the season:

The Immaculate Heart of Mary (x), representing Mary’s grief at the death of her son.

Interesting, yes? I mean, also kind of horrifying given the foreshadowing. Apart from the subtextual implication that Dean is Jesus Christ, stabbing his mother in the heart with his death(s), it does make me wonder about the nephilim. Are we going to get actual Jesus reborn in the superntural ‘verse? As the child of Lucifer? Because the symbolism certainly seems to be going there!

Hi, Satan, who is an angel and therefore not gendered as humans are. Ready to have your heart broke yet?

Anyway, for an episode that in itself was competent but not great, it adds some interesting elements to this season’s myth arc.

Final things:

I think it’s pretty strongly implied at the end of the episode that Dean does remember some of what happened, but isn’t admitting to it. I wonder how that will play out in terms of his relationship with Rowena.

I really appreciated that the waitress apologised once she believed Dean had been roofied while they were flirting. Good.

Tree magic. Hmmm. Angel grace can live in trees, and now this. I am intrigued, and not just because I wrote fic that used a premise jumping off from this. I kinda hope we get more on tree magic.

Previously:

The Ministry of Information vs Wayward Sons Carrying On (12x01)

My, my, how can I resist you? (12x02) and follow-up about Bohemian Raphsody

So what am I so afraid of? (I think I love you) (12x03)

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy Down in my heart (Where?) (12x04) and a follow-up about the codependency and about Dean’s self-flagellation and issues with space

There can be only one! (12x05), and a follow-up conversation with elizabethrobertajones on Freud vs Schwartz.

They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes (12x06)  

Presenting the Immaculate Heart Reunion Tour (12x07)    

I’m still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there’s half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola. ~Alan Rickman (12x08, 12x09)

When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men (12x10)