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I Really Do, Honest

@hoaxmakesmusic / hoaxmakesmusic.tumblr.com

Musician, sometimes writer, oft-times fool.Looking for my music? Look up "winthefightproductions" here on Tumblr.  My fanfiction and other writings are contained at the Tumblr page "hoaxwriting".

A Thought

Any analysis of Superman and Captain America should involve two main points. 1) They are every bit the caricature of honest goodness that they are said to be. And  2) BEING a a caricature of honest goodness means not just fighting obvious villainy, but raging against institutional injustice, even when it comes from “Legitimate” sources.  There is a difference, however. The Kent’s raised Clark with a strong moral compass, but also good sense. He’s very aware that, as Superman, anything he does comes with a tinge of Threat. He’s keenly aware that with the power he wields, the only way he can continue to operate is by appearing completely nonthreatening to the status quo. Unless he is preventing immediate, obvious harm, he has to be very careful with his intervention. He’ll see a city councilman skimming funds from schools, a factory illegally disposing of waste, or Cops inflating their quotas with bogus charges, and he’ll be outraged. But, Superman can’t do anything about those things. If he intervenes, people won’t see Superman protecting civilians from police abuse, they’ll see Superman Threatening A Cop. If Superman expresses any opinions besides the most milquetoast “Be Kind To One Another” stuff, it gets spun into “Scary Indestructible Alien Man Wants To Take Over The World”. So, Superman takes all that rage, every injustice and abuse he sees, and those that he cannot solve as Superman, he gives to Clark Kent.  And behind the “Aw Shucks’ Kansas Farmboy affect, Clark Kent is RUTHLESS. He will pick apart your life and nail you sins the sky for all to see.  Like, everybody knows about Lois Lane, and she’s objectively the better journalist, but people always underestimate Clark. Those that remember anything about him usually think of him as harmless, the guy who comes to collect the statements your media people prepared, so you’re caught off-guard when the fangs come out. A Clark Kent interview goes like this: First Question: Hello Police Chief Smith. So, how did you get involved in law enforcement? Second Question:  What are the key values that drive your police department?  Third Question: On September 14th, you called your officers together and told them to, and I quote “ Pull over every [racial slur] you can find out there. If they let you search, say you smell weed and bring them in. If they don’t, bring ‘em in for refusing to cooperate. Just get those [expletive deleted] in cuffs and paying fines, or else start looking for a new job”. Would you say this policy of deliberately targeting racial minorities is in line with the values you described earlier?”  And Clark Kent doesn’t stop after he gets his headline. It might end up on Page 3, but he’ll keep the story going until your career is torn to shreds and staked outside as a warning to others.  And then it’s back to human-interest stories and the feel-good beat until he selects his next target.  Superman is forced to overlook things, but he IS looking, and he won’t forget, and just because he’s not throwing you into the sun, doesn’t mean he intends to spare you.  Steve Rogers on the other hand will interrupt an interview to kick the shit out of a crooked real estate developer for driving people out of their homes. When arrested he’ll say “I’m sorry, how about we just chalk up the next time I save the world as community service”. 

There’s a short story by Cory Doctorow called “Model Minority” (that doesn’t quite know whether it wants to be a fanfic or an expy; it renamed Superman to “American Eagle” but then continues to refer to Lois and Bruce) that goes into this. Superman saves a black man from police brutality and things spiral out of control to the point where Lois has to cut ties with him for her own safety and he has to go into hiding.

I think the strategy outlined by the OP would work a lot better for Superman and is also rather more in character in general, but I wonder, if he saw an act of police brutality right in front of him, would he be able to stop himself from intervening?

I think, and of course this is all in ideal circumstances, but it’s fiction so whatever. I think Superman would be able to intervene directly in acts of open police brutality simply by “helping” the police to make the arrest. “Oh yes, officer, I saw you struggling to apprehend this man, and felt it was my civic duty to assist you. What did you say he is charged with, again?” And should the officer not have a sufficiently meaningful excuse for the arrest, then Superman can either make a mental note of it, and offer the officer “company” back to the precinct, or possibly subtly remind the victim of their rights: you can’t be held without a charge, you can call a lawyer (and as a journalist AND superhero, he knows plenty to recommend and maybe has a business card on hand), you have to say, “I am invoking my fifth amendment right to remain silent. Please provide me with an attorney, as required by law” before you sit perfectly silent and still, you don’t have to sign anything, etc. Delivered with his classic Boy Scout Charm, after he just helped the police apprehend a violent criminal and saved those Blue Lives that Matter so much, it would be possible to spin it.

Superman is meant to be the living embodiment of the obligation the Jewish people have to fix the world, he is Tikkun Olam in living flesh.

Captain America is the living embodiment of the Jewish willingness to fight and struggle. It is our “I will fight in synagogue parking lot” brought to life.

They were both written around the same time, but Superman was written by two Jewish teens and so I think with Superman because they were teens there is more optimism to him. A more sense youthfulness almost and fragility because there is also a more one to one of the Diasporic Jewish story going on with him.

Where as Captain America was being written by Jewish adults so there more of sense of him having seen the horrors of humanity, a sense of trauma, and Captain America was meant to a Golem who protects the Jewish people in a life threatening time. So he has to be ready to fight even if the fight is a verbal smack-down.

So I find with them two different, but very distinctive Jewish personalities essentially or methods of expressing Jewish philosophy, Jewish problem solving, and Jewish characteristics. 

The most hilarious thing about She-ra and the Princesses of Power is this: it’s a sophisticated and critically-acclaimed 2010s cartoon, with characters who have complex, multi-dimensional relationships and well-developed personalities with interesting character arcs… and they’re all saddled with these ridiculously on-the-nose 1980s toy commercial cartoon names. So there’s the snow princess Frosta and the mermaid princess Mermista; the archer is named Bow and the sorceress is named Castaspella. The leader of the Horde is Hordak, and Catra is a cat. It’s like a version of Avatar where everything’s the same except Katara, Sokka, and Zuko are named Waterella, Boomer, and Hotman.

Guys, guys, let’s get back into Animorphs!!!

They are all free to read with Applegate’s permission on the animorphs website!

Oh yeah babey

oh

EVERYONE READ THEM I WANT TO GEEK THE FUCK OUT WITH YOU ALL

ANIMORPHS ARE A MAJOR REASON I STARTED WRITING AT ALL!!!

I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF A WHOLE SERIES THAT’S BASICALLY JUST A FANTASY HOMAGE TO THIS SERIES!!!

READ THEM!

Ok but the subplot where Aragorn becomes the protagonist of a Horse Girl Movie™ is one of my FAVORITE things to come out of the Two Towers. 

In the stables of Rohan, there is an unruly horse named Brego. This horse is so wild that even the horse-masters of Rohan can’t tame him. He’s just a lost cause, they say. “There’s nothing you can do– leave him,” they say.

BUT THEN ARAGORN COMES IN. And like the heroine of a Horse Movie™ he’s all: “You just don’t UNDERSTAND the horse! The horse is wild and rebellious and free– like me!” 

Aragorn begins gently talking to the horse, first in Rohirric, then in Elvish. He calms him down and asks him what’s wrong.

You could easily draw a parallel between Aragorn and Brego’s “rebelliousness.”  To Theoden, Aragorn was acting overly unruly and difficult.  “When last I looked, Theoden, not Aragorn, was King of Rohan.” Then Brego acts unruly and difficult – and Aragorn’s like “the people of Rohan just don’t understand you!!!!!!”

And then Eowyn explains that Brego used to belong to Theodred.

Suddenly Brego’s unruliness IS completely understandable— his master was killed in battle.  He’s a horse with a Tragic Backstory.

“Your name is kingly,” Aragorn tells the horse. Aragorn is also a king. Aragorn is projecting. 

Now that she’s explained the horse’s tragic backstory, Eowyn tries to get Aragorn to open up about his own Tragic Backstory™. (”I have heard of the magic of elves, but I did not look for it in a Ranger from the north….?”) She fails. Aragorn is briefly like “yup I was raised by elves,” does not elaborate, and then peaces out.

But as he leaves Aragorn dramatically says: “turn this fellow free; he has seen enough of war.”  

And Eowyn is forced to wonder whether Aragorn is talking about the horse….or about himself….

Then Aragorn has a Near-Death-Experience, but Arwen’s elven-magic (just roll with it) saves him. And the horse who comes to carry him to safety is none other than Brego.

It’s Brego, repaying the kindness and understanding Aragorn showed him earlier in the film! 

 Aragorn set Brego free, and in return Brego saves Aragorn’s life!

 Because they UNDERSTAND each other, as fellow free spirits who “have seen too much of war.”  Both of them are KINGLY but also WILD, they’ve lived through too much and lost people they cared about, and their strong wills cannot be tamed by anyone in Rohan!

 It’s beautiful. Aragorn canonically has Disney-Princess-level animal friendship powers. 

When they arrive at Helm’s Deep, Aragorn smiles and earnestly says in Elvish:  “thank you Brego, my friend.” And we know that Brego understands….

Literally every time I watch this subplot I think of that one tumblr post on the plot of Every Horse Movie

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more sites for free images <3

About an hour and a half ago I felt a cat jump on my bed and settle down, curled up next to me. Ten minutes ago the cat started meowing quite a bit, and it occurred to me that this didn’t sound like the meowing from the cats I own

This... this isn’t any of my cats.

Congrads on ur new cat!