#you can just read it as a coincidence maybe she got gum stuck in her hair maybe it’s a bad hair day maybe she just has odd taste in fashion

[cologona]

I think Sasha must not have been very close to her mother, or they had a strained relationship. Because despite knowing her father is a henchman and saying her mother was right that he was “no good” she still chose to follow him to Gotham of all places. Not just that, she stayed there. The entire time she was running around with Jason, Sasha wasn’t an orphan. Her mother was still alive, in Russia! Did she ever call her mother to tell her what happened? Did she visit (perhaps while Jason was in prison?) If she did then she didn’t stay, because in the end when Jason asks her where she wants to go she asks to stay with him.

Now I don’t read Jason and Sasha as father/daughter (among other reasons, Dick calls her Jason’s girlfriend) but I definitely think there’s a parallel between her relationship with her father and her relationship with Jason.

I’m not convinced that Sasha shares the same conviction in killing for the greater good that Jason has. I don’t think she’s really thinking about the greater good at all really- she just loves Jason and knows he loves her back. That’s all she needs. It’s interesting that she has this element of… innocent apathy(?) to her.

Another parallel: Jason’s first official kill was Egon, and he did it because he cared. Likewise, Sasha’s first kill was her own father and she did it as a mercy. If she had been allowed to stick around the story longer, what would her morals have turned out to be like?

[recurring-polynya]

Bollywood Review Time!

Today, I am going to talk about Om Shanty Om, a very good movie that was Not For Me.

Let me back up. People recommend stuff to me a lot and I try to watch it and talk about it, and I always feel bad when I don’t like it. This one was recommended to me by my friend @serene-faerie​ I want to make it very clear that you, reader, may like this film very much! It was a strange perfect storm of Things I Don’t Care For, and I actually rather enjoyed the experience of picking apart what I didn’t like about from what I did, because honestly, I am always interested in the ways stories are told and what stories say about themselves.

Cut for spoilers and also length

First off the bat-- this is not a film for the Bollywood beginner. It’s sort of a meta-narrative, with a ton of cameos from famous stars and jokes about Bollywood tropes and directors and such. There’s a ten-minute dance number in the middle that’s just famous people showing up to get down and everybody cheers every time someone new rolls in. I have only actually seen a handful of Bollywood films, mostly made after this one (it was made in 2007), and I could tell that there were a ton of gags and references that flew over my head. I got the sense, both from watching it, and from reading reviews, that this was all very well done and funny, I just didn’t have the proper frame of reference to appreciate it.

The main character, Om, is played by Shah Rukh Khan, an incredibly famous Bollywood star whom I had never heard of before watching this film. In the beginning, Om is a somewhat-bumbling movie extra, dreaming of stardom, flipping his hair, and falling in love with a beautiful starlet on a billboard. I… was not taken in by his charms. I feel like I really missed out by not knowing who Shah Rukh Khan was ahead of time. That was sort of an interesting thought to me-- that a famous actor brings the good will of all his previous roles to a movie with him, and that it was very interesting to me to watch a film stripped of that context. I was literally shocked when halfway through the film, he rips off his shirt and had killer abs, I was absolutely not expecting it.

The deal of the movie is that, through a series of coincidences, Om meets Shanti, the actress of his dreams (from the billboard). She is played by Deepika Padukone, who I fell for immediately. She is gorgeous and had a ton of charisma. This movie seems like it’s going to be a love story, but it really isn’t. Shanti is charmed by Om’s sweetness, but she’s already in a doomed secret marriage with a scumbag director, Mukesh, who ends up murdering her when she wants him to publicly acknowledge her, which is kinda time sensitive, because she is pregnant. Mukesh had planned to have her star in a lavish movie spectacle called Om Shanti Om, but when she forces his hand, he burns the set down with her locked inside. Om witnesses all this; he tries to save her and dies in the process.

Om happens to die in the same hospital where a famous director’s child is being born, and he is reincarnated as the baby, and grows up to have the life he always wanted-- that of a Bollywood superstar. His name is still Om, but his nickname is O.K., so I am going to call him that to distinguish between 1977 Om and 2007 Om. He meets Mukesh again who is now a super-successful Hollywood producer. O.K. gets all the memories of his past life back, and decides to Get Revenge by proposing to do a remake of Om Shanti Om. He finds a wanna-be actress, Sandy, who looks exactly like Shanti, and has her haunt the set in order to make Mukesh think he is going crazy (and maybe also confess? It’s not a terribly clear-cut plan). You might think that Sandy is the reincarnation of Shanti, but Shanti’s ghost shows up in the grand finale of the film, so I guess she wasn’t?? You also might expect O.K. and Sandy to have some romantic feelings, but they really don’t, and in fact, O.K. is actually pretty mean to Sandy, even though she is extremely sweet and I don’t see how anyone could possibly be mean to her.

The movie is lush. The costumes are elaborate, the sets are lavish, the dance numbers are many and long. There is not a single scene without an off-screen fan to dramatically tousle the actors’ hair. I actually rather liked the last act of the movie where they were gaslighting Mukesh and it was over-the-top, scenery-chewing, Hamlet--play-with-in-a-play madness. A chandelier falls on someone. A lot of the end doesn’t even make a lot of sense or exist in any sort of linear time, cutting between the film-within-a-film and dance numbers and what’s “really happening” and I really had no problem with any of this. I actually really liked the amount of meta that was happening and the breakdown of boundaries, and I found the end to be reasonably satisfying.

So what didn’t I like about it?

The entire film relies on you being charmed by Om and I did not care for him. We all have this set of trope personality types that we enjoy and fall for, and “young person who dreams of making it big on the stage/screen” is a huge swipe left for me. Give me a stolid second-in-command who has been stationed at an ice wall for 30 years to protect his homeland. A incredibly tired dude muttering “fuck” as he wades into a swamp to fight a bog zombie, because who else is gonna? My dude turn-ons include duty and self-sacrifice and really good posture. I couldn’t watch Naruto because everyone spouted off about “their dreams” too much, and I thought Om should have cut his losses and gotten a real job. I am who I am.

There’s a weird fine line between “meta,” that is, stories about storytelling and presentation and media, and movies about being in love with making movies. I like the former a lot and I do not care for the latter one bit. I did stage crew for a high school production of 42nd Street and I have a very distinct memory of thinking “this is a play about putting on a play. Why on earth would anyone who is not an actor want to watch this?” I also hate books where the main character is a writer (yes, Stephen King, this is a call-out). I also hate biopics about musicians and actors. I honestly do not care about the craft, and the “magic of cinema” has never been a thing I have found remotely compelling. 

What I love about reincarnation storylines is the period where the characters recognize the feelings and memories that are tied to their previous lives-- where they see someone and can feel their old emotions for this person, but without knowing why. This is where I live. I eat this with a spoon. I want this to prolong the emotional burn, because the characters don't know what are their own feelings and what comes from their past lives, and that there are conflicts that must be resolved for both lifetimes. Alternatively, you can also use a reincarnation storyline to skip the emotional burn entirely, by just having the character “get all their memories back in one fell swoop.” This is… the opposite of what I want. This is what Om Shanty Om does. I felt deeply cheated.

Relatedly, the entire theme of the movie was "When you want something badly, the whole universe conspires to give to you", a sentiment I wholeheartedly disagree with. I love stories about the conflict between agency and destiny, I think this is a really meaty subject, but once again, the movie used it as an excuse to let the characters sit back and do nothing and have a solution to their problems drop into their laps. I am sure you could make an argument for the charm of this viewpoint, but it is not for me.

I like dance numbers all right, but they are not why I watch Bollywood films. This movie is over two hours long and a lot of it was dance numbers. I was very tired of dance numbers by the end. That being said, the titular song was a bop and I had it stuck in my head for days. “Disco of Distress” was my second favorite.

I do not really feel a lot of nostalgia for the late 1970s, which is when the first half of the film takes place. If noisy patterns and kitsch and big winks and goofy hair is your period aesthetic, you will enjoy this part a lot!

Here’s what I did like!

Sunglasses. There were so many good sunnies in this film. So many. A parade of excellent shades.

Deepika Padukone. She is so adorable, for one, and she charmed me in every way that Shah Rukh Khan did not. I loved her both as the melancholy starlet Shanti and the doofy, gum-chewing Sandy, and also the Angry Revenge Ghost at the end. I would say this movie is 75% Om and 25% Shanti, and I would have liked it a lot better if it were the other way around. Sandy had basically no agency whatsoever; the second half of the plot was basically about O.K. getting revenge on Mukush... mostly for himself? I liked that the first half of the movie didn’t make Shanti fall in love with the puppy-like Om just because he was devoted to her, but it would have been a nice reversal if the jaded O.K. had softened toward Sandy more in the second act, and that there had been a bit of a love story to temper the revenge plot.

The idea of the plot. The plot described in words is very cool to me, and there was a period of about 3 minutes in the film when O.K. recognizes Om’s mother when I got real excited about where this was going, and then I realized it wasn’t going where I wanted and was sad again. I think I might have liked it better if the movie started out with O.K. and revealed Om’s story slowly, through flashback, but nothing about this movie catered to my narrative aesthetic, so I eventually gave up with ways of trying to fix it.

Anyway, as I said, I can definitely see how someone could love this movie! If you are a big Bollywood buff and you love dance numbers and silliness and Shah Rukh Khan, I would recommend it in a second! It was strangely almost tailor-made to hit some of my pet peeves, and I was mad because I wanted to like it more than I did.

That’s my review! @serene-faerie​ I hope you still love me even though I didn’t like your movie. I am always trying to expand my movie knowledge and I learned a lot watching this one, and I don’t regret watching it, even though it wasn’t my fave.

[irondadgroupie]

Bohemian Rhapsody: Chapter 7

A/N: Caring for a comatose patient, Tony and May bonding, one of the two was not originally in our to-do-list @intoresus

May was curled up in her chair, dozing off, relaxed by the soft humming Tony supplied. Peter's heartbeat was calm and slow.  

“How did you know it?” May couldn't help asking. She'd been battling herself but couldn't take the quiet anymore. Tony blinked and raised his head.  

“What?”  

“Earlier when I was sucking the breathing tube clean, you told me to stop it then.”  

“Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have-”  

“No, no,” May shook her head and planted her feet on the ground, her lower back was getting sore. “You were right. It's just that medicine isn't your field.”  

“I'm a curious person.”  

“Noted, but that was quite specific knowledge.”  

Tony lifted Peter's left hand and began to rub the boy's fingers. “When I have downtime, I read medical articles about coma patients and how to care for them. There are some excellent educational videos about different procedures.”  

May nodded, a bit surprised by the revelation. She wondered when Tony had time to do that. Did the man even sleep?  

“I shouldn't have stepped on your toes, May.”  

“No, it's okay, I was just shocked.”  

They were silent for a moment.  

“You know, things like that can't be learnt from books.”  

“I understand and I won't be in the way anymore,” Tony admitted.

“No, no,” May shook her head. “I might not be here every time so it's good you learn how to do everything. I can teach you, or at least try. If it looks like you are not getting the hang of it, the task rests on my shoulders. That good?”  

Tony smiled. “Sounds good.”

May was still hesitant, but had to admit that Tony was putting all his effort in doing whatever she told him as perfectly as possible, without ever once getting impatient or careless. His voice was always soft, and he explained to Peter what he was doing in excessive detail, no matter how minor it was.

“Tugging you in tight. I know you like sleeping like a burrito,” Tony cooed as the adults silently co-operated the blanket. May helped him by wrapping the right sight of the blanket around her nephew’s small body, so that Tony could focus mainly on the left one. “And it keeps you all warm and cozy.”  

May smiled sadly. “I never understood how he can sleep like that.”

“It’s not like he actually sleeps in that position,” Tony rolled his eyes. “He closes his eyes, falls asleep, and as soon as he does, he starts freeing himself. I usually find most of the blanket towering over the floor.”  

Tony paused, looking up. “But I guess that’s nothing I have to tell you.”

May shook her head with a sad smile: “Not really, no. I really have my own share of stories when it comes to Peter.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Tony slumped back into the chair, taking a deep breath in.

“Bet you don’t know he can snore like a sawmill on a good day.” May laughed quietly, partly at the memory and partly at the sight of Tony’s bewildered expression.

“He does?”

“Did. Not that much since the Spider-manning started, if that’s what he’s calling it. But he used to when he was starting to get sick.”  

She turned away, trying to blink away a sudden rush of tears. “We have a small flat, you know? And after a particularly rough day at work, it was pretty hard to fall asleep with an electric drill in the next room. But right now... I’d happily listen to snores twice as loud instead of this.”

“Me too,” Tony admitted quietly. He lowered his head, eyes focused on the sight of Peter, his kid, unconscious and helpless. “I’d be damn happy to have him walk through the lab doors, rambling at a speed quicker than light about things I have no idea of - without him ever taking a breath once.”

“Yeah, he can have quite exhausting monologues sometimes.”

“Quite some -“ Tony huffed, half a smile gracing his lips. “Let me show you something.”  

He grabbed his StarkPad and quickly searched for the file he had in mind. He flipped the screen so that May could see the video recording of a very enthusiastic Peter almost running down to the lab, dropping his bag while giving a speech about black holes and how they meant that time was both a finite and an infinite concept and how it was being a paradox from probably greater value than every other astrological and physical phenomenon combined.

“I was nodding in agreement, but I had to listen to the recording after he left to understand at least half of what he was telling me.” Tony turned for Peter, squeezing the kid’s hand fondly. “Sorry kiddo, but I fear I’m getting too old to follow someone at your speed.”

Peter did not respond, the mechanical breaths only movements he gave.

“At least you got the gist of it.” May countered after a silent moment both reserved for the young man alone. “I’ve never had a perk for science, so most of what he’s saying feels like he’s speaking another language. Not to mention that I sometimes watch him doing his homework and realize that I would have no idea how to solve anything.”

Tony hemmed in agreement: “Believe me or not, I went to MIT and sometimes find myself frowning at some of the problems when we’re doing his homework.”

May raised her eyebrows. “You help with his homework?”  

Tony gave half a shrug as he closed the tablet and set it back on the table “Occasionally. When he’s having questions on it. Has gotten somewhat of a coming in rite - once he’s finished his monologue, of course. We’re usually having a lot of fun with it, don’t we?”

Peter didn't give an answer but Tony and May still acted like he was an active participant in any conversation.  

“You're gonna have a lot of homework to catch up on,” Tony stroked the boy's hair. He lifted his eyes to meet May's. “I have no idea how long he is going to be in coma and then the recovery- I read it can take weeks or even months.”  

“Yes, it's very individual,” May nodded. “He might have to skip the semester.”  

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” The man bit his lip. “Maybe I can bring his school books here and read them aloud.”  

“Yes, because that is every teenager’s dream: History lessons while hooked on a ventilator.”  

“Maybe not anything boring,” Tony saw the point,” but sciences. Spanish texts, Italian books. I could go and buy the latest Science Journals. Does Peter like medicine?”

“Not until a few weeks ago.”  

The remark hung in the air between the two adults like the metaphorical sword of Damocles. May had said the words without a conscious thought but the accusation resonated in her voice nonetheless. A part of her wanted to apologize: she was not oblivious to the pain and guilt in Tony’s eyes whenever he looked at Peter. But she wasn’t ready to let her guard down and definitely not yet ready to believe that things had been a mere coincidence.

Tony swallowed hard and tried to buy time. He was playing versions of apologies in his head until he realized that none of them sounded convincing. If somebody harmed Peter, even indirectly, there was no kind of apology Tony would accept.

At the same time, he couldn’t deal with the reproaches either. He looked at Peter.

“Yeah, medicine has been an interesting mental field trip, kid. Who knows. maybe you’ll even settle for medical engineering when the time comes?

The ventilator hushed a wordless response. Tony leaned forward and grabbed Peter’s hand while giving a small kiss on his knuckles.

“I still remember the day you came up with the idea,” The man’s voice was soft as he reminisced, for a moment not plagued with guilt. “Right out of the blue, while working on the webbing formula. I thought you were just playing around, seeing how sticky and imperishable you had made the webs. You got some stuck on your hair,” Tony chuckled and caressed the place the substance had rested on like the most devilish gum drop. “I had to give you a haircut. And it took forever to get the stuff out of your hands.”

The man shifted in his position and closed his eyes, trying to focus. “Who could’ve guessed you suddenly had bigger things in mind than mere Spiderman?”

“He always wanted to change the world for the better.” May said, her fingers gently tracing her nephew’s facial features. She remembered well how Peter had come home, eager and words falling out of his mouth.

“He already has.” Tony corrected. “And he will.”  

He looked away while saying the following sentences. He had to tell Peter, even if it meant possibly increasing May’s anger. “The final formula you designed is in testing stage right now. I don’t have the results just yet but if it didn’t look promising, we would’ve definitely been informed already.”

Before May could huff her disbelief over the pronoun “we”, Tony was again talking.

“I’ll keep you tuned if they leave me any messages for you. And don’t you worry your pretty little head if they send it back to us with twenty pages of issues the testing brought up. No good invention has worked properly at the first try.”  

After installing the life lesson, Tony forced himself to smile and squeezed the boy’s hand. “But no matter what happens, keep working, don’t give up, because this could very well revolutionize the field of applied biological chemistry.”

“He will,” May’s eyes flashed at Tony. Her demeanor switched 180 as she looked down on her nephew. “You will, sweetheart.”

“May.” Tony sighed, his eyes on Peter. He had to maintain his temper, Peter need peace, his heart was weak, he was so weak. “I made a mistake, alright? And you can be sure that I’ll be beating myself up for that for the rest of my life. It was my car, I drove it and I should’ve held the wheel straight but couldn’t.”  

The man raised his glance, forcing himself to look at May. “I can never put into words how sorry I am. Never. But I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an awful accident that’s going to haunt my nightmares forever. And if you can’t believe that I could never do that to Peter as it is, then I guess the only chance I have of convincing you is to tell that this project won’t work without Peter.”  

Tony’s eyes wandered to the kid again, tears of pride and pain stinging. “Honestly, I’ve lost track of the details of the formula. I’ve seen it work, and I know the basic science that makes it work but the details are beyond my scientific horizon now.”

“You can’t be serious about -“

“I am.” Tony disagreed vehemently. “He had the basic formula for the webs he uses down before we even met. Secretly made solemnly with the material that his chem class could supply. Believe me when I say that he outsmarted me with that feat alone. When I want to invent something, I just order the material.” The man shrugged. “All I ever wanted was to give him a place where his ingenuity could blossom in the best way possible.”

May found herself just staring at Tony, at the visible tear tracks on his face, even if the man tried to wipe them away. Tony was inhaling air heavily in an attempt not to sob. She tried to swallow all the new information. The fact that Tony helped Peter with his homework just as much as the fact that he was still there, sitting at her boy’s bedside, using the time reading journals when he should be sleeping and watching videos just to know how to take care of her nephew. Finally, she could look beyond the curtain of her own grief.

“Tony?”  

The man looked at her, eyes holding the guilt and worry from all the previous days.  

“I believe you.”

The sentence was simple, too simple maybe, but it was enough to have the last ice between the two adults melt.

“Huh,” Tony stated after reading an article in a Medicine Journal aloud. “You live, you learn. But again, engineering is my specialty, not human anatomy.”  

The man tossed the journal to the bedside table, almost knocking over a vase of flowers. Pepper had practically bought out a flower shop: all kinds of plants inhabited every corner, window shelf and table. Tony both appreciated and hated the gesture.

The fumes were relaxing and he had a fun time moving Peter's fingers over different textures on petals. He would stroke the boy’s face with leaves and bring the buds close to his nose, in hopes that the aroma would awaken his brain.

But again, flowers dying was a cruel reminder of how long they had been here, how long this had been their normal. It had been too long since Peter had opened his eyes, since that day on the shore he had gotten the boy's breathing back and clutched him in his arms. Tony had thought after that the worst was over but no.  

The man sniffed and wiped his eyes. Peter needed positive attitude, not pity.

“You want to take a nap?” Tony asked softly while stroking the boy's hair. It was ridiculous to ask it but he wanted, needed to keep up some resemblance of normal day rhythm. And around this time of the day Peter’s crazy metabolism would require the boy to crash and take a short rest from the stress of the day.

Tony frowned and stroked a strand of hair between his fingers. The usually soft, slightly rough curls were slick and matted. Tony grimaced. “You need a bath. Yeah, it's about time. I'll take it up with May when she comes back from her break.”

An hour later, May opened the door, freshened up and carrying a tray of food. “Pepper asked me to bring you this.”  

“Just leave it on the table.”  

May raised an eyebrow. “Tony, if you don't eat, you'll get sick. If you get sick, you can't be here because Peter is extremely vulnerable to any kind of germs and diseases.”  

The man grunted and offered his arms. “Fine,” He took the tray and started nibbling on meatballs and mashed potatoes.  

May sat in another chair and planted a kiss on the boy's hair. “Hello, sweetie. You need a bath.”

“Just told him that,” Tony began to get his appetite back. His stomach was screaming for meat. “I can do it, just talk me through the motions.”  

“Yeah, no,” May shook her head. “The nurses are here for it.”  

“Why pass it on to them?” Tony did not see anything wrong with the issue. His mouth was half-full and he placed a hand over it discreetly. ” They have enough work as it is.”  

“Yes, but I would rather they do it.”  

Tony raised an eyebrow. “It's nothing to me, May. I have seen him naked before, we are both male, what is the big deal?”  

May sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.  

“Try to think it from Peter's point of view, would he like you to wash him up?”

Tony crossed his arms. “What about you? Whom would you choose more: Me, a trustworthy adult who loves the kid to the moon and back or some sleazy old woman who would probably fantasize about the kid's body and do who knows what?” 

“Okay, first of all, there is nothing sexual about washing a comatose person and two, yes, I would rather it's someone Peter doesn't know.”

“May, that’s really irrational. I don’t think -“Tony interrupted himself. Even after only a few days, he could instantly hear if something about Peter’s condition had changed. May seemed to recognize it too, now that the room was silent aside of the sounds of the ventilator and the steady beeping of the monitor, in a quicker pace than usual.

“You don’t like it when we fight, do you?” She asked, fingers stroking Peter’s cheek in an attempt to calm him. Tony was immediately down on earth too.

“Sorry kiddo.” He whispered, hand moving to take Peter’s, kissing the kid’s knuckles, he’d learned it relaxed the boy a lot. “We didn’t mean to upset you. We’ll sort it out.”  

May frowned at him, gaze steady and leaving no doubt that she wouldn’t give in to Tony’s plea no matter how rational he made it sound.

“Fine.” The man complied. He didn’t like it, however, putting Peter under any more stress was not worth winning this argument. “But I want to oversee them washing his hair. It’s a delicate process with the breathing tube and the weakened neck muscles, and I want to make sure none of the nurses are too distracted to do it properly.” 

In the first days, May would’ve disagreed with him, trying to explain that he was overly careful, but time had taught her that it was a blind end. Tony cared for Peter so much that no rational argument could be used to change his mind.

“Keep your hands behind his neck!” Tony ordered, heart thumping hard in his chest while he watched. He hated the risk of Peter suffering a spinal damage - even if it was minor and more than unlikely - just because some of the nurses made a reckless mistake. Next time the physiotherapist would visit, he definitely needed to have a talk with them about how to strengthen the kid’s neck too, because that’d only get more important in the long run. Until then, he had to endure the torture of helplessly watching until the nurses finished their work.

Thirty minutes later, nurses were gone and Tony was drying up the water droplets from Peter’s ears.

“There you go, kiddo. All clean and fresh. Feels good, huh?”

“It sure does.” May said, smiling, ruffling the now finally washed hair. The nurses had listened to her when she’d asked them not to brush it neatly. Now, he at least looked a little like her boy again. “I have a surprise for you, too.”  

Tony raised an eyebrow, smiling. He knew Peter loved surprises. Good ones, at least.

May rummaged in her bag, and retrieved a stuffed animal. It took Tony a while, but he recognized it as Roo, the little kangaroo kid from Winnie Pooh, looking like it had been loved for a few years.

“Remember? Ben bought it for you when you had that really awful flu and watched the new movie all day long.” She gently moved it along Peter’s fingers, intending him to feel the plushy texture and love. “You didn’t go anywhere without it afterwards, especially not when you were sick.”  

Tony saw her lips twitch with emotion and didn’t dare disturb the moment. But May wasn’t finished yet. 

“Brought something else too. Although that’s probably something Tony and I will enjoy a little more.” 

The next thing May had in store was an old photo album. 

“He has been sharing some of his good memories, so I thought it’s only fair if we show him some of ours? I brought your favorite album” She told Peter and waited a few seconds before turning to Tony. Normally the two adults took places on both sides of Peter’s bed. Now, however, the boy had been positioned on his side to hopefully avoid bed sores. May and Tony sat beside each other, both facing the boy.  

It’s the only one with some pictures of his parents in it, “May explained and Tony nodded understandingly. Peter didn’t really talk much about his biological parents, given that his aunt and uncle had been more of a family to him than they ever could, but he had once found the boy scamming some very old audio recordings of Richard Parker and Mary Fitzpatrick. “I... don’t want to forget how their voices sounded, you know?”  

Tony could only assume how hard it must be for a teenager that has lost his parents at an infant age to find a balance between moving on and mourning a loss far beyond his comprehension.

“You’re one of the people that thinks newborns look like old potatoes, aren’t you?” May remarked, closely observing Tony’s reaction to yet another ‘newly welcomed to the world’ Peter in the arms of his mother. He was about to say something on the contrary but May only laughed. “It’s fine, really. Infants do look like unpeeled potatoes. Even Peter.” She squeezed the boy’s hand. “But you were an extraordinary cute little vegetable.” 

Pictures of 2001 passed, then 2002 and the following years, and Tony saw a change in the facial expression of that once happy rambling, chaotic little toddler that May had described. As if the light in the bright eyes was suddenly missing. 

“He didn’t know what was happening. He cried, all day, all night, asking for his mom and dad.” She explained, sighing. “It’s been a decade, but I still remember the first time he smiled afterwards.” The next page revealed a picture of a roughly four-year-old, curly-haired Peter, face covered in ice-cream, obviously giggling. All hearts in the room melted and May smiled while telling Peter which picture she was showing his mentor.

“And I’m sure you’re going to love these ones, too.”

The following ten pages were all scrambled with pictures of a young Peter at Stark Expo: Eyes glistening with joy whilst pressing his face against the glass surrounding the exhibits, broad smile on his face posing next to a life-sized cardboard stand-up of Iron Man. Tony felt another wave of tears welling up at the admiration in the kid’s soft, brown eyes. If Peter didn’t idolize him so much, he probably wouldn’t be where he was now, but instead having a sleepover with Ned, like any normal sixteen-year-old. He should never have-

“It was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to him at that time. He just wouldn’t stop talking about it, ever. Imagine how hard it was to get him to sleep that evening. I could still hear him whisper about what he’s seen at two the next morning.” May went on, forcing Tony to get his mind away from blaming himself.

The distance in time between pictures became wider in the following years, but the most important moments were still captured: School events, Christmas eves, the hugs following. And then, yet again, there was a change in the pictures, more subtle in the face of the teenager, but still there. Faked smiles in the rare pictures taken of him.

“We... had a lot to deal with. I still do, and I assume Peter has, too. Maybe that’s why I never realized it and couldn’t help. Neither with his grief nor with the superhero identity. So, I guess I really have to thank you for taking him under your wings. Both him and Spiderman.”

“May I -“

“No. I mean it. That internship - working with you - has made him become more like the boy he used to be. Happier. You helped him find a mental balance and purpose again. These last couple of weeks, before the accident, have been the first time I’ve seen him at the top of his game ever since Ben died.”  

May paused, clearing her throat. “Certainly, it cheers me up, too. Although, I don’t know if there’s a single sticky note without a chemical formula on it left in our apartment.”

That was certainly something Tony could relate to.

“You think I have any clean napkins left?” The man chuckled.

“You care about napkins?” May teased. “I was doing laundry and found a note on one of his socks!”

“Ever seen a formula written in letter-shaped noodles?” Tony returned, finding himself grinning at the memory of Peter eating two bowls of hot soup just because he was searching for a ‘2’

“Ever seen your living room covered in schematic blueprints from door to window?”  

The competition went on for a little while longer, given that Peter had taken the saying “never leave a good idea waiting” very literally. 

The good mode broke when both of them slowly sunk back from joyful memories to the reality of machines beeping around them.

“So... Steak formula was the last one?”

Tony raised an eyebrow, but his eyes were fixed on Peter’s face. Ignoring the breathing tube, he could easily pretend the boy was just sleeping peacefully after a rough patrol. “‘Steak formula’?”

“The nickname Pepper and I gave, after the two of you were rude enough to leave the dinner you invited me to halfway through.”  

Tony finally remembered the evening. The pride he had felt warming his body when he heard Peter exclaim “I got it”, knowing that this time, the boy didn’t just have another idea how to fix the issues they were having – Peter had fixed them.

“It is. As of now, at least.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“Sure.” Tony leaned forward, grabbing for Peter’s hand, massaging the boy’s fingers. “And if not, he’ll just continue to work on it until it does.”

[sarahunfiltered-blog1]

My Diet/Fitness/Nutrition Journey Thus Far

Most of the memories I have of life growing up revolve mostly around food. I remember growing up and all we’d eat was Sonic, Dairy Queen, Whataburger, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, you name it, I ate it. I could still to this day probably tell you my order from each place. I was raised on Hamburger Helper, Ramen noodles, Rice a Roni, canned and boxed everything, candy and soda. 

I remember when I was around maaaaaybe 12-13 and my mom doing a diet that may have been slim quick or something along the lines of you eat chicken and veggies, take these pills and do some sort of workout. I had a really bad sweet tooth (still do) as a kid and I started to gain weight and at 13 I was 165lbs, so my mom included me into her diet routine and I would eat the chicken and veggies, rice cakes, a tbsp of coconut oil and would chew sugar gum and we’d walk between the stop signs on the street we lived on and I’d do her workouts with her. I remember watching my brothers and sisters eating candy while I ate my caramel rice cakes because I was the bigger one of all of them, so for the longest time I was just the fat tomboy of a girl that would stare at herself in the mirror and look at how big my butt was at 13 and hating it and my stomach to stuck out and my fat face. I remember I used to grab my stomach and cry and scream about how much I hated it. If only I were skinny I’d be enough. I would sneak and binge on sweets, it was my comfort, it was there for me and it made me feel better

When I got my period and more of my hormones kicked in I lost a lot of weight. I want to say I got down to 125 when I was around 14-15 and I wouldn’t eat because I was extremely depressed. My sweet tooth was still there, but I wouldn’t eat because I thought eating would make me fat, so I wouldn’t and when I did it was minimal. I ate a lot of 100 calorie snacks, drank juice like V8 because I thought it was healthy, diet coke because it was diet and wouldn’t make me fat. When I was 16 I started working at Target and they have a Pizza Hut Cafe and almost every shift I would go pick up there bread sticks and a diet Pepsi and that would be my lunch (the thought of that now literally makes me cringe). I went to a bible college from 17-almost 18 and ate Ramen noodles and whatever shit food they served while I was there, but I didn’t know any different so I just ate it. I was still pretty skinny because ya know I was 15-17 and you can eat like shit and still be a twig.

When I turned 18 and moved out of my parents house my diet didn’t suuuuper change. I was still living a hardcore Taco Bell and Pizza Hut bread sticks and diet coke life style because I was living on my own, broke as a joke and ate the food I was used to eating, but then I gained probably 30lbs easily within a short amount of time (surprise surprise). I had spent my whole time as a teenager not wanting to be the fat kid and here I was back at 165lbs... wtf. I didn’t really know how to cook, didn’t have money for groceries, refused to apply for food stamps, so I just thought starting to workout would cure all my problems. Well, it didn’t long story short. I mean why didn’t working out and running for an hour THEN going eat Taco Bell work? I was working out, right? HA.

I remember scrolling Pinterest when I discovered it and finding the “Military Diet” and giving that a go. You basically don’t eat anything for 3 days and could apparently lose 10lbs. I wanted to DIE during that diet. I made it the first time around and lost 5lbs, then gave it another go and didn’t make it 2 days and stopped by Taco Bell on my way home from work and binged on that. So my diet search continued... One of my coworkers at the time started using My Fitness Pal to track her calories and she was losing weight like crazy, so I obviously I needed to give it a go and the weight just started falling fall. I went from 165lbs to 125lbs within a matter a months. I didn’t work out, I just ate less than 1,500 calories a day, cold turkey stopped eating candy, drinking soft drinks and unfortunately my Pizza Hut bread sticks. Everything was going GREAT. When I wanted to go down to the next lbs and I was 0.2 from it I would pop a few laxatives the night before and then would weight myself the next morning after shitting my brains out, but I HAD to lose that 0.2lbs.. just had to. I became overly obsessed with counting calories and eating lean cuisines and and 100 calories snacks and drinking Naked juice and weighing myself DAILY and measuring every single little thing I ate and would legit cry if I went over my calories. Funny, not so funny story. One weekend I was headed to my mom’s and had already eaten all of my calories for the day, but was staaaaaaaarving, so I stopped by Jimmy John’s and ate a sandwich that was 800ish calories, which put me 800ish calories over what I was “allowed” to eat, so you bet your ass I drug all of my brother and sisters and mom to a walking trail and walked/ran until I burned off the entire sandwich because I wouldn’t sleep peaceful knowing what I did by eating that sandwich. It was bad, just so bad. I remember the day I hit a breaking point and just wanted some damn chocolate chop cookies, but didn’t have the calories saved for it, but I binged on them anyways and cried in Michael’s arms over what I did and he was telling me it was fiiiiiiine and all the sweet things he could, but it wasn’t to me in that moment, but in that moment I just knew I needed to stop all of this, so I did. I feel like I remember just deleting the app off my phone and being done with it. I was 20 at this point and working a standing job.

Beginning in February of 2014 I started a corporate sitting job, so I didn’t have access to Starbucks or a grocery store on my breaks like I did working at Target, so I had to start bringing my lunches and snacks and to top it all off I was sitting. As you could maybe imagine I started gaining weight from being stagnant and snacking ALL day at my desk (#teamnutrigrain). I put on a good 20lbs within the first couple of months. So I started going for walks on my breaks, eating a lean cuisine a day, eating more fresh fruits and veggies, almonds, and limited my snacking to only in the afternoons and that kind of helped and worked for me for a long time and I stayed at a healthy maybe 140ish lbs and that worked for me because I was still skinny. All about that skinny life because skinny = healthy, right? Well, I thought so. 

I turned 21 and didn’t go crrazzzyy drinking, but I drank moscato and margarita’s often enough and still was all about my Friday candy binge. I was also drinking up to 3 cups of coffee a day at work and just couldn’t figure out why I was sweating and so anxious all the time. I genuinely thought it was from work when in reality I was just pumping myself with coffee after coffee after coffee day in and day out (I’ve learned since my lesson since then). I went through a phase of HIIT workout and running, but that faded really quick, but I really enjoyed hiking when I gave it a go, still do. Along with yoga which I am planning to make a goal of starting a practice in 2018. 

Around the time I turned 22-23 my older sister, Meghann, had a baby and really educated herself around living a more holistic lifestyle and it really intrigued me and around that time I had discovered podcasts and I realized how much processed foods aren’t the best choice and what I could do as an alternative way of going about eating, so I stopped lean cuisine’s (haven’t had one since), milk and yogurt along with limiting candy and processed snacks. I completely cleaned my desk out at work from all the sugar filled granola bars and whatever else I had in there and started to work with that. I shortly thereafter learned about one of the best ways of going about what to eat/not eat is if it didn’t come from the earth and/or has a label on it to think twice before eating it and READ the back of the label if you do. This is still newer-ish to me to do and I’m currently learning about all things nutrition, and how the mind, body and spirit all work together and you can’t have one fully without the other.

 As of now I don’t drink dairy milk, I limit cheese but still love it, I grocery shop once a week and buy as much organic produce as possible, I am still working on the meat switch when it comes to buying organic meat (not quite there yet), I cold turkey stopped eating candy and have found organic, non high fructose corn syrup filled alternatives when I have a sweet tooth, I haven’t been drinking alcohol much the last 2 months or so (don’t have a legit reasoning behind it, just doesn’t sound good), I am really into cooking paleo, vegan, Whole30 friendly foods because it coincides with my eating from the earth method I live by and when I want Whataburger breakfast on a Friday or a taco with a flour tortilla or a real homemade chocolate chip cookie I happily will eat it because I do not believe in living a restricted lifestyle. My entire life leading up to recently whether it was mentally, spiritually or physically has been restricted and I’m not OK with it because it’s limiting and keeps me in a box. I’m a believer in the energy you put into something is negative the outcome will be negative, so if I’m to sit here and say “this is cookie is SO bad for me. OMG. I am going to gain 10lbs.” Well, I’m asking for it to happen, versus eating the cookie cause I want the damn cookie and loving every bit. They doesn’t mean I sit there and eat 12, it just means my mindset around food was so terrible for so long and I know what it did to me mentally that is not worth it for me to be negative about it. I am content and happy with where I am out now, I don’t even care to weigh myself anymore, I don’t body shame myself anymore, I don’t calorie count, I don’t binge, I don’t use food as a reward system, I just educate myself around it, listen to my body and see how it feels and go from there. My anxiety has lessened, I sleep so much better, I feel so peaceful inside and out, and my skin has completely cleared up (I’ll talk about my skincare routine future post).  It’s been a long, ongoing journey, but I am thankful for the million and 2 podcasts I’ve listened to, my sister and everyone else along the way to get me to where I am today and I am excited to continue to learn and grow and now have a place to share all the info I am taking in and it maybe help someone else. :)

- Sarah xo

[trueishcolours]

American Gods: ARRRRRRRGHHHHH

This post comes with content warnings for sexual violence, child sexual abuse, misogyny and general violence.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I hate Neil Gaiman’s American Gods with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Now I know that a lot of people really love this book and I’m sure it has much to recommend it, so this post definitely isn’t intended as shade at any fans. It’s just that I’m filled with salt and love to rant.

My central thesis is that American Gods contains a ton of gratuitous sexualisation of women without enough redeeming features to make me forgive it. I think I’d have found it a dull read no matter what, but the real sticking point is the women. And you know how a lot of stories don’t have that many characters? Or at least not many important ones? So in a story with say five detailed characters, there’s one woman and she gets fridged and you side-eye the author but you’re like, ‘maybe it was just a coincidence! Not every character has to be a woman and people do sometimes die! Perhaps all his other novels are full of feminist icons and it all evens out!’ But the gimmick of American Gods is that it has probably hundreds of characters who pop up for a scene and then disappear, so you can really get a representative sample of how Gaiman writes women.

So if you don’t want to plough through 635 pages of this, strap in for the highlights!

p.5 – we meet our first female character. She is the protagonist’s wife, and he imagines having sex with her. Reasonable.

p.14 – his wife is dead. Does it count as fridging if she gets back up later?

p.32 – a man has sex with a woman who turns out to be some kind of goddess. Her vagina swallows him up. Om nom nom.

p. 54 – a woman comes to the protagonist’s wife’s wake and spits on the corpse. Why does she do this? It could have been because she is a bigot and the dead wife is a member of a minority group. It could have been because they were colleagues and the dead wife ruined her career. It could have been because the dead wife put gum in her hair in third grade. But actually it’s because her husband was cheating on her with the protagonist’s wife. A reasonable reason in itself, but it’s all about context…

And then we find out that the protagonist’s wife died because the guy she was having an affair with crashed the car while she was giving him road head, and this is where I lost my shit for the first time. Of all the fucking male power fantasy bullshit. Road head. I’m starting to wonder if Gaiman realises that women can do things or have things happen to them for reasons that aren’t sexual.

Just. The woman is angry because sex. The wife is dead because sex. The wife is linked to the protagonist through sex. It’s getting boring and we’re only on page…

63 – where the hero watches a TV episode called ‘I want to be a prostitute,’ featuring ‘several would-be whores, mostly female.’ Gotta give him marks for the ‘mostly,’ I guess.

p. 64 – the protagonist dreams that he is walking through a hall of statues. One has her tits out; another has a ‘gash’ between her legs. Some male statues. No dicks.

p. 65 – the statues continue: ‘…their faces had an unfinished, hasty look to them, although their breasts and genitalia had been carved with elaborate care…’ Yo Gaiman I think you’re describing your female characters here!

p. 70 – dead!wife shows up. I must admit that she seems a decent character so far. Also there’ve been several service industry women who’ve appeared for like a line without getting sexualised, and it seems only fair that I mention them.

p. 71 – wait shit I take it back the God Odin is in bed with the ‘ratty’ ‘girl’ from the motel desk. She has small breasts, in case you were wondering.

p. 81 – ‘ “The best thing about the states we’re heading for is they have the kind of women I like…full breasts with the veins running through them like a good cheese.” ’

p. 82 – we meet some old lady goddesses. I am pleased that women get to be old in this story.

p. 97 – a midnight conversation with another Goddess. The hero is ‘uncomfortably aware’ that she isn’t wearing anything under her nightgown.

p. 99 – ‘Her nipples, every goose-bump on the areolae, were visible momentarily.’ Thank God, because I was getting worried she didn’t have any.

p. 105 – an 18th-century diarist reminisces about a buxom scullery maid who gets knocked up by the squire’s son. Got to admit her story is kind of cool overall.

p. 117 – ‘ “Liberty is a bitch that must be bedded on a mattress of corpses…that’s who they have in their New York harbour: a bitch, who liked to be fucked on the refuse from the tumbril. Hold your torch as high as you want to, m’dear, there’s still rats in your dress and cold jism dripping down your leg.’

p. 137 – the god Anansi reminisces about having ‘a big old high-titty woman’ to keep him company.

p. 139 – store mannequins with ‘sexless breasts.’ Not too sexless to be worth mentioning, apparently.

p. 151 – an old woman in a red sari shows up, but it turns out she’s got a goddess-form and it’s naked.

p. 163 – dead wife (Laura) shows up and kills a bunch of baddies and saves the hero and it’s actually kind of badass?

p. 165 – one of the baddies was in the middle of jerking off when she killed him. It’s not a sexist moment, it’s just a whyyyyyyyyyyy moment. More sexy/=more interesting.

p. 174 – totally relatable believable humanised cash register lady.

p. 178 – totally relatable believable humanised hitch-hiker.

p. 190 – a TV goddess has a reasonable, interesting conversation with the hero, and then, when she can’t persuade him to join her by other means, starts to unbutton her shirt while asking if he wants to see her tits. Aaaaaaaaaaand we’re back.

p. 193 – a little girl. Female children are also allowed to exist.

p. 204 – sex but with two men this time.

p. 213 – okay, so we had a lull there, but this is where I lose my shit for the second time because the protagonist enters a funeral home and a teenage girl is lying dead and naked on a slab and photos of her smiling and happy are stuck up around the place and the death God/coroner cuts her open and catalogues all her organs and eats bits of them and he’s supposed to be doing an ancient Egyptian embalming ritual but I don’t even care because I’m in full-on militant feminist get your hands off my sister and stop making a spectacle of women’s pain rage at this point. And of course she was murdered by her boyfriend who thought she was pregnant because nothing happens to women for reasons unrelated to sex. We learn, in detail, about all five of her stab wounds. No, Gaiman, this scene is not ‘respectful, not obscene,’ and your protagonist’s urge to give the girl some privacy is right. It could have been a man’s corpse on that slab, but it’s not. It’s a teenage girl’s. Surrounded by three living men.

p. 228 – another goddess appears to the protagonist and they have healing, life-giving sex. Some might call me churlish for complaining both about the vagina-nomming death-sex and about the soothing ecstatic life-sex. Maybe there’s no pleasing me. She has nipples, in case you were wondering. Hard nubs.

p. 252 – a character flirts with a waitress, who looks ‘scarcely old enough to have dropped out of high school.’ Look, you can put your misogyny in the mouth of a morally bankrupt character if you want, but in the end it’s just going to sound like misogyny. Especially if nobody refutes or punishes the character. I don’t care whether it’s the author saying it or just the character. I’m sick of hearing it. I’m tired.

p. 260 – the character succeeds in his seduction of the waitress. It is unclear why, since he is creepy and gross. Possibly magic? The hero is ‘uncomfortable’ and remarks that the waitress looks ‘barely legal.’ The other character says he doesn’t care. Apparently it is important for his godly magic that she is a virgin.

p. 267 – two fourteen-year-old girls get on a bus. The protagonist eavesdrops on their conversation. We learn that ‘one of them knew almost nothing about sex, but knew a lot about animals, while the other was not interested in animals, but thought she knew a great deal about human sexuality.’ A brilliant ruse! By mentioning that the girls are also talking about animals, Gaiman conceals the fact that he is absolutely slathering to write about them talking about sex. This is where I gave up.

This concludes my ethical quarrel with the book. My other issues are just a matter of taste, and your mileage may vary. Basically, there is not one single character who I give a fuck about. The hero starts out completely passive, which makes sense because he’s just come out of prison and lost is wife and is obviously traumatised as fuck. But three hundred pages later he’s still completely passive. I know that trauma doesn’t get better all in a minute, but it’s unclear whether Gaiman wants the reader to understand that the hero is in a bad, bad way, or just thinks that writing an apathetic lead character is edgy and cool. And all the other characters seem to be varying degrees of terrible, so there’s no reason for me to get invested in any of their problems.

But at least we know they all have nipples.