How am I not myself? (slam poetry rant)

"You are not yourself"

Oh boy, is that a lot to unpack. Myself? Myself is the dark and the light. Myself is the sludge of the earth and heavens above. Myself is not a solid state that you can keep in its box hoping it will be worth something someday. Myself is amorphous and you have caught but a glimpse in our brief history. You have blindly held only 1 part of the elephant, and when you discover another part you state that I am not myself?

Myself?

Myself is not a statue you can place on a pedestal only to see it fall from a greater height so that it hurts more when it hits the ground. And as i'm sprawling chipped and broken you deflect from any form of self reflection, stare down and decry that I... am not... myself?

STAR WARS: Beyond the Return

Return Of The Jedi
The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy
The Truce At Bakura
* Tales 4 #15
*Tales 6 #23
*Tales 1 #4
*Epic Collection: The New Republic
*Tales 1 #1
*Tales 1 #3
*Tales 3 #12
*Xwing Rogue Squadron omnibus 1 - 3

*Shattered Empire
(VG) Uprising
Aftermath trilogy

Tales From The New Republic
*Tales 6 #22
(VG) Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2
Dark Forces trilogy
*Tales 3 #10
*Tales 5 #19
*Tales 2 #5
Luke Skywalker and the Shadow of Mindor
Xwing: Rogue Squadron to Solo Command
* Tales 5 #17
The Courtship of Princess Leia
Tatooine Ghost
The Thrawn Trilogy
XWing: Isard's Revenge
(VG) Jedi Knight: Mysteries Of The Sith
* Dark Empire trilogy
* Boba Fett omnibus
* Bounty Hunters
The Jedi Academy trilogy
I, Jedi
*Tales 4 #16
Children Of The Jedi
(VG) Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Darksaber
Xwing Starfighters Of Adumar
Planet Of Twilight
*Jedi Academy: Leviathan
*Crimson Empire trilogy
*Tales 2 #8
The Crystal Star
*Tales 3 #11
(VG) Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy
The New Rebellion
The Corellian trilogy
Hand Of Thrawn duology
* Union
Survivor's Quest
*Tales 4 #14

NJO: Vector Prime
* Invasion
NJO: Dark Tide and Agents of Chaos
*Tales 5 #18
*Chewbacca
New Jedi Order: Balance Point to end
*Tales 6 #21
The Dark Nest Trilogy
Legacy Of The Force Novels
Riptide
Millennium Falcon
Fate Of The Jedi novels
Xwing Mercy Kill
Crucible

Batman Begins

I'm planning on reading and eating as much Batman as possible. Starting from the very with Batman: The Golden Age volume 1, back when his Batmobile was just a red car, and he would snap necks, let folks fall into acid vats, and throw people off buildings without a care.

Detective Comics #27 May 1939
We got our first taste of the Batman in The Case Of The Chemical Syndicate.
A decent tale, with the first Commissioner Gordon appearance and a clever enough plot. Villian: Alfred Stryker (killed)

DC #28
Starts with the classic 2 crooks on a roof getting jumped by Batman. Ends with Batman leaving a note for Gordon, letting him know he's here to help and here to stay.
Villian: Frenchy Blake (apprehended)

DC #29-30
This is the first 2 parter and first villian that has that Batman rogues gallery quality to him. Has the name Doctor Death, calls Batman out instead of merely having Batman show up, gets face burnt off etc. Batman stone-cold kick-snaps a dudes neck in this, killing him.
Villians: Jabah (killed),
Doctor Death (apprehended)

DC #31-32
Bruce Wayne has a fiancee, Julie Madison. This also has the first appearance of the Baterang. First villian with powers, hypnosis. Also werewolf/vampires and first time outside of Gotham. Feels like they're jumping the shark with weird supernatural stuff all of a sudden.
Villians: The Monk and Dala (killed? Silver bullets on vampires)

DC #33
First backstory for Bruce Wayne and origin for Batman. Villian motivated to rule the world with death ray blimp. Fashions himself after Napoleon.
Villians: The Scarlet Horde - Dr Carl Kruger (dead? Plane crashes and body is recovered) Travis, Bixley, and Ryder (apprehended)

DC #34 (follow up to #32)

Another international adventure. Weird science that has no payoff, it's just weird. No strong motivation to villian either.

Villian: Duc D'orterre (dead? Car crash)

DC #35

This may be subtley the first appearance of the Batmobile, even though it's called Batman's "high-powered roadster". Utility belt also gets used. Gordon is NOT a fan of Batman,  thinking he is making the police look bad.

Villian: Sheldon Lenox (dead)

DC #36

HUGO STRANGE! First of the main rogues gallery gets mentioned.

Kadir - the Half Orc Shadow Sorcerer

Born of a human mother and an orc father. He was raised by his mother and his older human sister who taught him the art of herbalism. He left on a pilgrimage to meditate in solitude and to quell the call of gruumsh within him to further fit into human society. While away he had a vision of some great calamity and knew he had to return. Alas he was too late to save his sister. He attempted resurrecting her at the temple but the clerics could not help. They stated that resurrections have been failing for the last 20 days.

Desperate to find out what happened to his half sister's soul Kadir sought dealers in dark magics to assist with his investigations (red wizards?). Short of killing himself, the next closest thing to tracking his sister was to try and search the Shadowfell, the place you go on the way to the afterlife. He questioned wraiths and spirits, and Shadar-Kai asking if they had seen any newcomers on the way to the afterlife. To his surprise no ghosts attempted to possess him, acting afraid of the prospect of revisiting the mortal realm. His questioning found that no newcomers, other than himself, had arrived or passed through the Shadowfell. One word uttered in vacant haunted fear escaped them.... "Chult".

Though Kadir had left the Shadowfell for the material plane to seek Chult, the shadowfell had not left him. His time there poisoning his soul with dark energy and newfound power, power he would use to smite with singular purpose whoever had possession of his sister's soul.

ARROW FLASH crossover part 3

Hoo boy, this is going to get crazy. 4x series crossing over with each other. Flash, Arrow, Legends Of Tomorrow, and Supergirl (a show i never thought i'd get into but i'm eager to give it a try).

FLASH Episode 2 refers to Arrow episode 1. So start alternating between episodes with Flash ep1 then Arrow ep1 then Flash ep 2.

One of the coolest things with Flash s2 and Arrow s4 on bluray they both have the episode 8 crossover episodes for each series. Unlike other crossover eps that are mere cameos these are literal 2 parters.

F1, A1, F2-6, A2-6, S4, F7, A7, F&A8, S5-7 F9-10, A9-10, L1-2, S8-10, F11-14, A11-14, L3-5, S11-14, F15, A15, L6-8, S15-17, F16, A16, S18-20, F17, A17, L9-12, A18, F18-19, A19, L13-L15, F20-22, A20-22, L16, F23, A23

Okay... i'm tempted to tell you to just skip the first 3 episodes of Supergirl. They are simply awful. Episode 4 is the first good episode, and its not just good it's great. Supergirl faces challenges both physical, emotional, and interpersonal. It felt more akin to Arrow, Flash, and dare i say it Buffy-esque. It also didn't have any cringeworthy, forays of forced faux feminism. Not to say the episode doesnt have a feminist message to it, it's just handled way more organically, which is a sign of good storytelling. Also its the first episode with some real foreshadowing of things to come. Another problem was too much "reveal" and not enough "give me a reason to keep watching this season" mysteries.

My life as a male

How to describe it? Pain. Throbbing pain. Like a constant jab in your brain. Over and over. Every muscle tense. A fly that keeps buzzing that you cant catch. Restlessness that makes you stare at the ceiling in the dead of night. Not just once a month... always.

You look at a billboard, it makes you want it more. You listen to news or view a poster and it shames you into hating the most natural thing about male desire.

You try to drown it out with actual vices like alcohol and fast food. You make yourself ugly and undesirable for fear of how you were treated by women in some yesteryear. You use it as a crutch, as the reason why she doesn't want you, because if she doesn't want you at your best then that will kill you.

And you're stuck because you need the person you love, and you need physical intimacy, and you know you can't have both.... and you dont know how you're going to live without one of the 2. And slipping again isn't an option.

And then theres the fear the current climate has over you. News reports of a female serial killer luring a guy with sex and slaughtering him, accusations of rape and sexual assault or retellings of entire embarrassing sexual encounters. A women scorned, beware. It creates an atmosphere of permissive persecution based on a factor of birth and not based on an individual's actions.

Sympathy for men is in near non existent supply. Noone talks about the near paralysing pain and fear. Most men just kill themselves.

Not me though. Not on purpose anyway. I've been through far too much to die now.  And i have a naive hope things will change. We used to work towards change but it's been 5 years and things have somehow gotten worse than they were to begin with. Time to sip a bit more from my JW double black and watch Arrow.

Star Wars The Last Jedi thoughts

Wow... so many people have their space knickers in a twist over this movie. I thought it was great, in fact i'd say it's one of the better Star Wars movies i've seen since the original trilogy.

Heres a response i made to a recent FB post.

"No it wouldn't. Say Poe goes out in a fighter (which he is known to do) or any type of spacefaring daringdo and gets captured (which he is known to do). He's not covert ops guerilla warfare type guy. He's Poe Dameron, impulsive cocky war hero. Do you really think she's going to trust a guy who has just been demoted by General Leia if she's any kind of commander at all? If she had trusted him i would have been disappointed in her character as just another Leia.

I too am disappointed that we dont get to know what Snoke's deal was. He didn't die in the worst way. He died in a very Sith way. Dark Jedi are always rising through the ranks by killing their masters. Case in point... https://youtu.be/mm4JEZudf0c

I didn't mind Rose but that kiss was so forced (hey a force pun!) I also felt Phasma once again got criminally low screen time. Overall I loved it, it made perfect sense to me, character motivations actually were clearly defined (unlike IMO Force Awakens). It had enough lore from the SWU while not feeling like a clone of the story structure of previous films. I also like that it didn't feel it had to copy the filmaking style of the previous Star Wars films. I was surprised for a change instead of counting the beats of a tired formula."