if i look back, i am lost
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
hello vonnie
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will byers stan first human second
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$LAYYYTER
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祝日 / Permanent Vacation
we're not kids anymore.
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@gainaxvel3o
I’ll admit that I’m a pretty ignorant guy on a lot of things and I’m bound to get stuff wrong. I hope I never reach a point in my life where I say something stupid, people call me out on it, and I double down because of dumb pride.
You’re never gonna get everyone completely on your side but for the most part? Always better to listen, apologize and take action to avoid repeating mistakes.
You know how when your body is craving a specific nutrient we just blanket it all under 'hungry' but our body actually is demanding carbs or protein or The Vitamin.
I think there's a version of that for loneliness too. Like you can spend all day with your partner and your mind will be screaming 'I need human connection!!!' which can make you feel guilty for feeling that way while actively with someone that you love.
It's important to try to work out what your heart is seeking and remember we cannot source all of our needs from one person.
It's so unhealthy to starve your heart trying.
Adding some clarity as someone responded to this assuming that I (a sex-repulsed asexual) was referring to needs as in sexual needs.
And though they are a valid form of intimacy, they are just one kind and they even have a classification of word to their hunger (horny).
I meant more that like craving protein, carbs, vitamins, fats and such we can crave intellectual stimulation, emotional stimulation, competition based interactions, cooperation, catharsis.
I cannot list them all but we cannot feed every part of our soul from single sources. There will inevitably be incompatible areas of personality and THAT IS 100% OKAY.
"it's not that deep" START DIGGING!!
DIG
DIG
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DIG
OOPS TOO DEEP
CLIMB
CLIMB
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CLIMB
If Backrooms and Obsession are signs to film studios that movie audiences want new, original stories from unique voices, I wonder what was different about Sinners, an original story by a unique voice, that didn't generate the same studio interest 🤔
I mean besides the obvious, there is an actual answer to this. Coogler managed to negotiate a deal that allowed him to maintain pretty much everything and get paid first-dollar gross for the film and have near eternal control over the intellectual property after 25 years.
Pretty much the only other director in Hollywood who negotiated this treatment is Tarantino.
Dan Limerick helped seal one of the more extraordinary deals of the year, granting the director near eternal ownership over his Oscar-winnin
WB were actively betting against the film's success when it hit theatres. There was a lot of reporting on it when it became an unprecedented success.
My favourite versions of Superman are the ones that draw from pre-crisis but are transformative about it.
Saw a copy of Not That Kind of Good Guy by John Ringo at a used bookstore the other day. Obviously AI-generated cover, peak-internet-rightist-brainworms John Ringo writing a teenage superhero brutally murdering what a Republican imagines when he thinks of globalist elite Epstein types. As the prose superhero guy - heard of it, any thoughts?
(When I first saw it in the wild, my first thought was that it probably serves as an obvious rebuttal to a certain type of comic fan who says cape stuff is inherently leftist, but I figured you'd have more substantial thoughts if you'd heard of it.)
Haven't heard of it, but I have heard of John Ringo, and from what I've heard of some of his other writing I find myself wondering what his actual practical objection to the Epstein types even possibly could be. Was he miffed that he didn't get an invite?
Jokes aside, I do think you're likely correct that it's meant as that kind of rebuttal to the "everything I like is secretly leftist" crowd, but I also think it's emblematic of a fact about our current moment, which is that everybody interested in reading or writing these things is currently getting frogboiled by horseshoe theory into the same basic conclusions about the world and the appropriate response to it. At this point, is the idea that there's some leering, murderous club of elites playing real-life monopoly with our lives and livelyhoods a "left-coded" or "right coded" idea? Vs. something that's basically just taken as a given prior to any further discussion? Is there any escaping the drumbeat of the idea of political division at the highest level is basically Kayfabe- that all of these people, regardless of their ostensible principles or affiliations, are meeting behind closed doors and laughing about what rubes we are? Personally I'm finding that It's getting harder to get away from offline.
I'm not speaking to the truth of these ideas (although it's almost certainly more than zero) but I am speaking to what I've observed in the zeitgeist. The world is very transparently run by monsters and really always has been, and whether you approach that fact from a left-leaning or right-leaning starting point doesn't affect the shape of the resultant stories all that much. The entire premise of The New Ultimate Universe (and to a lesser extent he Absolute Universe) is that there's a secret Neoliberal Illuminati group co-ordinating to continuously ensure the end of history and the smooth functioning of extractive, exploitative systems of power. In the particulars of how this is framed, and particularly in the parts written by Deniz Camp, these are fairly leftist comics- but with this premise, did they have to be? Was that a given? Obviously not. And, from the other direction, I was disillusioned with the politics of The Dark Knight Returns for quite a while, but in recent years I've warmed back up to it, because even if I don't agree with the objectivist libertarian overtones of the thing, the way in which the comic is visibly writhing against the political monstrosity of things As They Are, the naked evil on display in the halls of power, is immensely relatable to me. The underlying evil of something often isn't hard to spot, even if your personal politics are going to determine the language you use to articulate it (and, for right-wingers and many left wingers, the specific ethnicity you determine to be most directly at fault.) As the belts tighten, the masks come off, and the people in power stop bothering even to grasp around for an ideological fig leaf to justify their behavior, both audience demand and creator interest are inevitably drawn in the direction of the truest, basest, and most noble impulse at the heart of the superhero genre- that is, the desire to find the people who made the world the way it is, and then make them choke on their own blood.
a world where we can meet
LOVES me a comic relief character w/ a reputation for The Melodrama—but once you consider their backstory/working conditions you realize they are actually holding shit soooooooooooooooo much closer together than most-o-us could manage in the same situation.
there are MANY goons and mooks and goofy best friend characters this applies to, but i wanna give a shout-out to the Living Prima Donna Embodiment from phantom of the opera.
woman with 20+ years experience, most respected professional in her field, refuses to work under unsafe conditions (aka shitty colleague literally trying to murder her) and instead of listening to her massively justified concern, the new tech bro investors decide to just have an entry-level employee fill in for her.
Carlotta shoulda personally been allowed bring that crummy chandelier crashing down on her shitty bosses' heads!!!
YES! YES! YES!
“These things happen” On what planet Mr French Multimillionaire?!? On what planet is that an acceptable working environment! And the Phantom is picking on her and taking her voice because he, one out of thousands, doesn’t like it! And the owners just… fold?!? No!
"UNTIL YOU STOP THESE THINGS FROM HAPPENING, THIS THANG DOES NOT HAPPEN!"
hell yeah Carlotta invoking 👏 her 👏 worker's 👏 rights 👏
The person I reblogged this from deserves to be happy.
"Friends to lovers" this, "enemies to lovers" that. How about "guy who kinda pisses me off to lovers"
"Goddamn it, I was hoping for an interesting answer to this mystery, but it turned out to just be another secret time war between superhumans and aliens."
An expression I miss in alien media is "greeting earthlings". It distinguishes that wherever the aliens came from, ours is the foreign planet to them. No matter what corner of this planet you land on, what every single human has in common is that they are an earthling.
If you don't like thinking of Clark Kent as "human", it may be better to think of him as an earthling. Or a Kryptonian-Earthling. No matter which continent he lands in, if he's been raised there since toddlerhood, he qualifies as an earthling. I'd also say if John Jones has lived here all 300 years since he fled Mars, he qualifies more than most to call himself an Martian-Earthling.
Human is often used as a synonym for sentient. It is the short term for our dominant sentient species name homosapiens. But every single alien species comics or any science fiction franchise makes up is also the dominant sentient species of their own home planets. Kryptonians are the "humans" of Krypton. Martians are the "humans" of Mars (in which two sentient species battle for dominance and it's a horrific genocide). Tamaraneans are the "humans" of Tamaran. I'm sure you remember more DC planets and aliens than I do.
I think it would be a cool world building exercise to come up with scientific names for the alien species. Names that sound nothing like their home planets, but have connotations that relay what that sentient species thought would distinguish themselves. So that Clark doesn't have to call himself a 'human' when semantically he's not. But he is a sentient person with the same bandwidth of emotions, intelligence, devotions and ideals as anyone. And Clark Kent is an earthing because Earth is his home.
I think we tend to get lost in the sauce of analyzing these fictional concepts as if they were real people/creatures when there's a much simpler approach to all of this. Aliens aren't real, at least not in the way they are in fiction- as in Kryptonians aren't real and Martians aren't real. So why do we write about "not real" things? Well, because these larger than life concepts are avenues to allegorize human experiences. These Aliens, as a writer writes them, are meant to represent something about us.
It gets more convoluted for cape comics when tons of writers have their own interpretations and intentions for these characters but let's say for the sake of discussion that Superman and Martian Manhunter represent immigrants.
Kal-El is not human, as in there isn't a single part of him genetically that is descended from a human being. Both his biological parents are Kryptonians from Krypton. But- he does pass as a white human man. He is sent away since infancy to live on Earth, is raised by American farmers, and grew up in a culture he wasn't born in. This essentially allegorizes an inter/trans racial adoption of a first generation immigrant from one "country" to "another". Yes, Superman is culturally an "Earthling" but what that actually means is that he's culturally raised as an American. He wasn't born in America (usually...), but he was adopted and raised to be one as an undocumented immigrant.
Now let's move on to Martian Manhunter. As this character has developed in popular culture, he has grown to represent the racialized first generation immigrant. Similarly, he is a full on Martian. No human genetics, both his biological parents are Martians. How long J'onn has been on Earth is honestly irrelevant (sometimes he's been on Earth for 300 years like in older comic runs or he's a Fresh Off the Boat recent immigrant like in CW Supergirl). Because what remains consistent is that he's a full grown adult (unlike Kal) raised in Martian culture once he lives on Earth, and does not pass as any sort of human. He has to put on disguises through shapeshifting. In J'onn's true form, humans call him a foreigner. He's a fish out of water, having to learn on the spot (as an adult) how to act like a convincing "human". Sometimes he succeeds and other times people think he's odd. This allegorizes the racialized immigrant.
Think of people like Carl Lumbly, who purposefully pulled from his experience as the son of Jamaican immigrants in order to characterize one of the most iconic depictions of J'onn J'onzz. These racialized immigrants moved to America, do not pass as the White American standard, have to learn on their feet how to "act American" or "speak ""American""" in order to get by. Because of their race, sometimes these immigrants will never be seen as Americans- branded as Perpetual Foreigners even if their children were born and raised in America. J'onn too is an undocumented immigrant like Kal.
It doesn't matter if J'onn is a Fresh Off the Boat immigrant compared to a white passing raised-since-infancy to be culturally American Kal. Both see Earth, and by extension America, as their true/new home. In this, they are Americans. They aren't humans by any stretch of genetic in-universe logic, but they are both American immigrants. "Human" or "Earthling" really serve more as nationality markers rather than a denotation of racial identity.
In American media, "Earthling" really means..."American". And if we're talking Superman 2025, "human" just means "American". Because Aliens were historically meant to allegorize the fear of human foreigners.
It's important when we discuss fictional concepts to ask where these ideas historically came from, and how they can manifest in modern stories- unchecked. For aliens, that's xenophobic fears of the racialized other. Logically, in real life- we recognize that humans populate the Earth. That no matter what country you're from, we are all human beings. Even though we are different, we are all some sort of "humanity". Some sort of human centric definition of "sentience". But, defining who is "a human" is how these concepts get weaponized both in real life and fiction. It means the othering of anyone who doesn't fit that definition- painting them as barbaric animals or unfeeling conquering aliens. In real life, things like scientific racism served a similar purpose.
If alien characters are meant to meaningfully represent immigrants, then this standard of comparing them to "humanity" or a desperate attempt to label them as something they're not needs to stop. In this fictionalized context, when we equate "human" with "a sentient person with the same bandwidth of emotions, intelligence, devotions and ideals as anyone" then we're implying that Kryptonians don't have the range for such "humanizing" emotions. That any alien doesn't have that bandwidth. That these concepts are culturally unique to Earth.
And in regards to finding human equivalents, like calling Kryptonians and Martians the "humans" of their respective planets, it sets the standard for sentience and intelligence to a human centric one. When really, all we mean when we say this, is that these fictional aliens represent something about us as human beings.
It's really about being honest about what these fictionalized concepts represent- and being sure not to accidentally conflate them. Kal El is not a human, but in the allegorized context of Supes 2025, "human" means "American" and being "American" is to be "good". And in that, of course Kal is an American- raised as such since infancy with "natural kindness" (cough American Christian raised ideals cough). The problem here is how a "national identity" erases the racialized identity of Kal as a Kryptonian. But that is the point. For Kal to assimilate so affectively into "humanity" (America) that he disavows what makes him Other and Foreign.
In the same breadth, if an undocumented Chinese family immigrated to America to find a new home in this country- then they too are as much Americans as Superman is. The difference is that one of them is never truly going to be seen as American. They're visibly recognized as the Perpetual Foreigner no matter how much they assimilate. A Fresh Off the Boat European white man will be more easily accepted as an immigrant than a Chinese American family who lived in America for multiple generations. And we all know what the difference is.
As to the point about alien name species- that has technically happened! Martians call themselves ma'aleca'andrans, and in some adaptations- will have unique ethnic names depending on the color of the Martians. In Young Justice, "Ma'alefa'ak" is the name of a creature on their planet. In the Orlando comics, earthlings are called "thu'ulc'andrans".
I rewatched Paddington with the kiddo last night and just take a look at how much more air tight their immigrant allegory is:
"Mrs. Brown says that in London, everyone is different, but that means anyone can fit in. I think she must be right, because although I don't look like anyone else, I really do feel at home. I will never be like other people, but that's alright. Because I am a bear. A bear called Paddington."
compared to the far more assimilationist Supes2025:
"That is where you’ve always been wrong about me, Lex. I’m as human as anyone. I love, I… I get scared. I wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time. But that is being human. And that’s my greatest strength."
I've said before in the "is Superman a human or an alien, which one!" debate that it all boils down to allegory. What are these stories representing and saying to you. Because (to quote myself lol):
If alien characters are meant to meaningfully represent immigrants, then this standard of comparing them to “humanity” or a desperate attempt to label them as something they’re not needs to stop. In this fictionalized context, when we equate “human” with “a sentient person with the same bandwidth of emotions, intelligence, devotions and ideals as anyone” then we’re implying that Kryptonians don’t have the range for such “humanizing” emotions. That any alien doesn’t have that bandwidth. That these concepts are culturally unique to Earth.
Now imagine I replaced my statement before with "bears from Darkest Peru" and instead of Earth I said London. It might seem silly but that's what Superman and Paddington are meant to represent as allegories. One just looks a whole lot more human than the other. But they both serve the same narrative purpose.
There's this great scene in Paddington (2014) that I think is brilliant for being basically a baby's introduction to how xenophobic people perceive the immigrant Other. It's the flashback reveal that the explorer that be-friended Paddington's aunt and uncle refused to kill them and put them in a British Museum. He tries to argue that the bears were "not dumb beasts! They were intelligent and civilized." But the guild argues back: "They didn't even speak English." "Did they play cricket?" "Drink tea?" "Do the crossword?". It's allegorizing the arbitrary standards of "human" intelligence- or in this case the standards of the colonizer.
Meanwhile Superman in Supes2025 bends over backwards to prove himself "human" which we know really means "American". He's brought up by classic Christian American Kansas parents (tm) and because he's been "civilized" by Americans he knows how to act and is a model citizen. But that's not the case for Paddington. He isn't forced to act "human". He's given an English name and a hand me down coat, but the Brown family love him for who he is. They even return the love with making marmalade and (in the daughter's case) learning bear language.
This to me just shows how far gone Superman is as an immigrant allegory. Paddington is a delightfully simple and straightforward allegory for kids, but its in that focus that his character doesn't lose sight of their immigrant message.
From @jesncin's bluesky account. It describes how I'm feeling rn.
For character asks: Venom! (The symbiote, not eddie or any of the other hosts)
For the Core Lies ask meme where we break down the central lie that a character believes guiding their motivations.
I adore that you asked for the symbiote specifically. We love the symbiote and adore when a writer remembers to write it as such.
The Venom symbiote is a living allegory for relationships, usually toxic ones. It is in love with Peter and when it was rejected it formed a bond with Eddie Brock where they each drew out the worst impulses in the other.
Then you have the period of time where Eddie and Venom were no longer bonded (and there was editorial muddying of the water over what could even be true of a character whose entire core is tied into knowing Peter's identity in the BND era) and it bonded with a number of alternate hosts.
If I were going full Media Essay Mode I'd pull out some TPBs and start scanning for how the symbiote handled each host, particularly Mac Gargon, but I'll be brief and say that it was feeding on rage at that time.
It'd spent a lot of time in the Lethal Protector role and found alternate food sources to brains. It made it clear that no matter how closely bonded it got with Eddie it still wanted Peter.
To this day it loves Peter Parker.
But Peter is not its only love.
It loves the child they share with Eddie, Dylan Brock... and it loves Flash Thompson.
A lot of the time Eddie and Venom have spent together has been a toxic and codependent relationship with a core of self-loathing that keeps them locked together but never feeling anything other than a bitter and jaded love which is poison.
Flash Thompson allowed the symbiote to grow and be better. It experienced a healthy relationship for the first time and is having difficulty with everything now. It is currently bonded to Mary Jane, a person that it outright abused back in its worst days. The pair have discussed it.
MJ hates Eddie and is livid that the symbiote wants to return to him so bad.
The relationship between MJ and Venom at present is interesting because they are forced into it by circumstance and neither wants to be there. As of typing they have only JUST accepted that they need to be closer than roommates for this thing to work. But she's been doing a lot of therapy for the symbiote as they discuss their past as ex-lovers of Peter Parker. Especially as they are both victim to Peter's inability to handle close relationships and his tendency to push people away to an absurd degree.
The divide is entirely on Eddie.
Venom loves Eddie. Even after experiencing a better relationship with Flash. Even after witnessing through MJ how toxic the two of them were at their most bitter and angry.
Venom and Eddie have an unbreakable bond and a child together.
(This essay is going to skip Venom's spawn for now because I'm not sure I can really do Venom and Carnage's relationship any kindness)
Venom is a symbiote. It is relationships. It cannot exist alone. "I need a partner" is not really a lie when it will die alone.
No, Venom's lie is tied in its allegory for abusive/toxic relationships that it is named for. It's lie is locked in to the status quo resetting nature of comics.
Venom symbiote was wildly in love with Peter in a way that it has never been with any of its hosts. "I can have that back"
It was in a healthy and measured relationship with Flash and got to heal a lot of the damage it had formed during its darker days after leaving Eddie. "I can have that back."
It managed to rejoin with Eddie and actually communicated a lot of the things it learned during its time with Flash. It helped Eddie be a better father to Dylan. "We can change"
But in its heart of hearts, Eddie is just the stable fall back. Venom craves either the wild euphoria of Peter or the healthy comfort of Flash.
It no longer eats brains. It is no longer consumed by bitterness and rage. It is getting better.
But it hungers for a deep connection and will always go back to Eddie.
I'm not saying Eddie and Venom are a bad couple. I love them. I want them together. As much as I enjoy Ewing's writing of MJ in the current run, we all know it ends with Eddie kicking Carnage out and letting Venom back home.
They will always come back together. Like a pair of toxic lovers who just can't stay apart. Constantly trying to fix it and make it work this time.
I think Eddie and Venom can be good for one another. I think Dylan needs them both. I don't want this answer to be that they are better apart and that Venom deserves better, though I do believe that. (someone dropped Eddie in my ask box so we'll get to him later).
I just think that the way it is with Peter, the way it is with Flash, even the way it currently is with Brock. It is constantly looking back into the past with rose tinted glasses and longing for what was rather than what is.
My read is that Venom's core lie is "It used to be better and it can be that again."
Which, honestly, if Venom is a character defined by relationships and the toxic cycle of going back to someone who isn't good for you because of comic book status quo?
What better allegory for that cycling status quo than the core lie of comic books in general "it used to be better and it can be that again"
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For other core lie asks:
Daine (Tamora Pierce's Tortall series) and Susan (Terry Pratchett's Discworld series) Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Jesse Faden (Control) Elliot Alderson (Mr. Robot) Evangeline Morgan (Of the Devil) Juri Arisugawa (Revolutionary Girl Utena) Master Aqua (Kingdom Hearts) Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler (The Circle of Magic) Rei Ayanami (Neon Genesis Evangelion) Devil Hulk (The Immortal Hulk) Beatrice the Golden Witch (Umineko)
