I was having a pretty good day. Week, even. Killed in a job interview that I’ll find out about the end of the week. Got called for another interview this week. I’m hitting on all cylinders, so to speak, job-wise. I binge-watched Castle from Episodes 12 to 20, so I found resolution for the missing 2 months arc, and that’s good. It was a mild closure, but closure of that arc it was. I got my disability payment today. It always comes a bit earlier than the posted schedule, but it always feels good to get it early, just the same, even if it is a rather modest sum. I bought dinner out, more than I could eat, even. I’ll have leftovers for breakfast. Yet another good feeling, one not common, lately. My insomnia seemed to be letting go. I’d just about managed to wrestle my “tired” to nighttime hours, so I can be more human than vampire, and that’s a challenge, let me tell you.
As I was eating my dinner, and choosing what to watch off the DVR, I pulled out Twitter and started watching my threads. I’ve not been a good twitterer in the last few years, frankly. My carefully curated set of followers had fallen away, in a large part, to lots of abandoned accounts, and those not abandoned, don’t seem to pay any attention to me, any more. Not that I blame them. I did stop posting regularly, and as I found myself, there are a multitude of tools to help you unfollow “idle accounts.” My best friend of nearly 30 years no longer follows me. (I choose to think it was because he used one of those tools, rather than he actively unfollowed me on purpose. But he could have given up on me, as well.)
But I’ve been trying to get back into active twitter status. I went a couple weeks without anyone replying to me, on anything, then one or two replies, and one or two giggles, and it’s getting better. I have a few favorited tweets now, even, which is somewhat exciting, considering I don’t really think I’m all that interesting, no matter how much I’m trying. But anyway, the whole point is, I am reading my feeds, and I am saying the occasional thing, outside of what I’m wearing and all that. And once in a while, I reply to someone else’s tweet, like you do, right?
This particular tweet was originated by someone I do not follow, Noelle Stevenson, and was retweeted by someone I DO follow, most avidly, Tamara Brooks. She’s quite fun, lots of geeky goodness is most of her tweets, she has lots of opinions, and lots of funny comments. And, as it turns out, takes a real responsibility for the tweets she resends. Noelle tweeted a comment about some artwork from the Spider-Man artists, saying (Sic) “IM REALLY UPSET ABOUT MJ’S BOOBS HERE” in regard to this picture: Noelle’s original post, and all that followed starts here: You can follow it all, if you really want to. I’ll present my own side and summary, if you don’t want to do the work.
Tamara did a simple retweet, and I responded to that RT; IOW, to her AND Noelle, saying “What, Jealous that only in comics boobs are gravity defying? I got over comics vs reality at 11, you should too” Snarky, yes, and only half-funny, even to me. I never meant it to be some rant, or anything, I had a thought, I sent it to twitter, and that was all I needed, really.
I was about to settle into Secrets & Lies. I usually only give a show 3 episodes stored on the DVR, then watch, and if I still like it, I keep recording, and watching. But in this case, I just kept recording for weeks, and now had 9 episodes waiting for me. This was a good thing, sort of. I already didn’t expect to like it much, being of a genre not in my favorites, and all. Revenge lasted 4 eps, for me, Scandal barely made it past 3, and How to Get Away with Murder, couldn’t stop watching fast enough. All critical and audience darlings, to be sure, but I just don’t like them. S&L seemed of the same sort, so I could watch a few episodes, and if I didn’t like, as expected, I could free up a WHOLE lot of space for stuff I did like. And, I was in a very receptive mood, giving that show the best chance to survive my inner filter.
But I sent the tweet. And Tamara, she took up the mantle of responding to my tweet, as though the entire thought was her own. She made several good points, don’t I allow little jokes, and how I sounded like I was using attack language. I will admit that the language I used was far too familiar, in context. She’s not my family, she’s not even used to talking with me like she used to be a couple years ago. Likely she even forgot whether I was someone she liked speaking to, altogether. (I used to keep a spreadsheet of who I follow, and who follows me back, but I don’t any longer, and I’m not going to use some webtool to figure out if she does follow me, or not. She responded to my tweet, and that’s good enough.)
She also mentioned a joke she had made, and didn’t she get any points for it. Something about the boobs being that buoyant because of a deal she had made with Mephisto. Frankly, at the time, I never saw that tweet. As I said, I was responding to the simple retweet. The one about being upset about MJ’s boobs. Again, Noelle said that, not Tamara. But, again, Tamara spoke back and forth to me as though she made the original comment. Which is laudable, but it makes it hard, sometimes, to be really clear what you’re responding to. I did finally see her joke, and and it is funny enough. But all our back and forth about my half-joke being only a proportional response to the original half joke might have gotten quite confused. Her joke, I got, and it’s okay. Noelle’s, on the other hand, still seems like political commentary, especially in all caps, like she posted.
For the record, the picture is unrealistic, I get that. My argument, as I attempted to present to Tamara, is that it’s a comic, therefore art, and there is artistic license in so many areas, why is there a need to dump on that one, in that way? Superman, and a host of others can fly, for Pete’s sake, and I don’t hear a lot of rants about how that’s unreal and the artists should be taken to task for daring to depict that. Art, to me, is aspirational, not authentic. Yes, there are realistic paintings out there, but I’m not buying comic books filled with Realistic Art. I have a few, and even they take liberties, here and there. “The Book of Genesis” by R. Crumb springs to mind. It’s history as explained by a book or parables, but history nonetheless.
And I don’t want to leave out the efforts of Noelle to argue on her own behalf. She did, in her own way. She is, evidently, a quite talented artist in her own right. She whipped up some drawings of Superman, only calling him Spider-man because ‘that’s what the “S” means, obviously’. And one with Spider-man with toaster feet, and a chip-clip on his penis. Because “it’s only comics, right” I didn’t see these tweets for a while, as I don’t follow her, and I keep forgetting to check the “notifications” tab one twitter. (I keep getting mentions for Jindai Botanical Gardens, from people visiting and raving, (Or ranting, I can’t know, it’s primarily in Japanese) about being @Jindai. So, I tend to simply ignore that, for the most part. I had the nick first, deal with it, JBG) But when I did check, I saw all her tweets, and I did read them. I didn’t dismiss, them, but I was already soul-tired from the discussion with Tamara that I didn’t want to start anything up again.
But I’ll respond now. Noelle, you are absolutely right, (and thank you for turning off the caps lock, it really gets old, after a while) you can draw anything, any way you want to. I will fight for your right do so with every breath in my being. And all I expect from you, or anyone, is your fight to allow me not to spend a single penny on any of that art, if I don’t like it, or it doesn’t agree with what I consider pretty, useful, or story-driven, right?
I used the word “jealous” in my original response. I’ll use it again. I’m quite jealous of your ability to quickly draw up images like that. I have no talent in that regard, and I envy your ability. And you can use that ability to do anything you want to, within legal bounds, of course. (No drawing up hundred dollar bills with the intent to spend them, for example, that would be no-no.) I just wonder how you feel about people criticizing your work, or dismissing it for trivial reasons?
I now know the name of the artist of that picture. (If I’d had a bit more sleep, I might have been able to read the watermark on the picture.) He’s Mike DeBalfo, and I don’t know him personally, but I’m sure he worked hard, and was proud of what he did. And to have some political attack on something intended to bring joy, well, were I that artist, I’d not feel so good about that. It’s not like he drew Hitler eating babies, and had the caption of “Yum” now, did he? (Some context, that thought came to me because I just found out that Hitler was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938. Bet they wish they could take that one back, eh?) What I mean is, he didn’t draw an intentionally controversial piece of art, yet it drew controversy. Doesn’t seem just, to me.
Now, I didn’t present every argument I was thinking of, to Tamara. The entire series of exchanges were pretty linear, with some overlap. Come to think of it, Tamara MIGHT follow me, because I did make a twitter comment, not directed at anyone in particular about not ruining my good day with political trivia, and she responded to that. Then again, there are other ways she could have seen that. But, if she did follow me, I’m sure she corrected that, soon after. I know she invited me to unfollow her many times. I guess she finds it impolite to block people, or maybe she didn’t think I reached the level of needing to be blocked. Either way, I’m grateful. I do enjoy the majority of her tweets. She’s funny, wise, and very informative on a variety of topics. I DO NOT appreciate her calling some things a “Fail” simply because she disagrees with the way they are presented, but hey, some people call opinion fact, just ask Fox News.
But I digress. What I was starting to say is that there are a lot of other arguments that I might have made, and I’ll make a few of them now. 2] Maybe MJ is one of the very rare women in the world that looks amazing in that pose, boob-wise, and if that’s the truth, why not pose that way, often, and with great aplomb? Do a google image search for “Upside down bikini girls.” Go ahead, I’ll wait. I did, and it’s amazing. There’s a whole bunch of girls that go around, in bikinis, and invert themselves, en masse, for the camera. I had no idea, before this discussion, now I do. Thanks for that. I also found this pic, from 19reallylongago
She’s not as endowed as MJ, but you can’t deny the similarity. If you have a hard time with thinking what was drawn was real, well, this is a photo. Looks pretty amazing, right?
3] She is an actress and a model (In various continuities, I have no idea which one she is in that single panel) and it’s not uncommon for actress’s and models to have a little work done on the boobs, and that might make them a bit more gravity resistant, right? I also did a few google searches that would fit here. I’m not going to post the results, too many, too varied, and some absolutely on-topic, but would start some other controversy I don’t have the energy for.
4] The Mephisto idea. Not a bad one, at all. Props, Tamara. Or ingestion of the regrowing formula that created The Lizard, and only standing on her head reduces the swelling, perhaps. That character, and the Spider-man franchise, has had so many ret-conns at this point, you can make up just about anything and get away with it.
But getting upset at it? I find that a really wrong-headed, and non-proportional, response.
And that is ALL I was meaning to say, but I was trying to be funny. One guess as to if I’m a professional comedian, and the first one doesn’t count. I’m not, and have never aspired to be. I have, however, aspired to fly, even if it’s not realistic, and I’m not getting mad at the artists who draw things I’d like to do, be, or become.
You might think that I didn’t have to write this post, and you’re right, on the main. I just found I couldn’t sleep. Too much running through my head, and my body’s natural desire to be a vampire just jumps on any old bandwagon that will keep out of bed during darkness. (No, not LITERAL vampire, it’s just my way of saying addicted to nocturnal living.) Stupid, too, I have an early morning appointment today. And I’m sitting here writing a post.
I guess I should also say thank you, to both Tamara and Noelle, to stirring me up to the point I DID write something. Even if neither read it, thanks. I have been not writing for a LONG time, now. Which is pretty shameful for someone that counts writing as one of his few real talents. I can’t draw, can’t play any instruments, and am so far out of practice singing, I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone, any more. But I should write.