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Another Relaxing Saturday
Yesterday was a bit exhausting. I slept from about 7:30pm until 11 this morning. Lo, the life of a busy computer programmer…
Shadow Of Our Burden
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. ~Samuel Smiles
The hazard of being good at something is that it leads to people wanting you to do lots of it.
The good part of that is it’s job security. The bad part of it is that it can lead to working yourself to exhaustion.
All things being equal, I’d like to arrange a better work/life balance.
Either way, it’s all to a means to an end. I’ve got bills to pay like everyone else.
Well, no matter how much work I’ve got piled up, it’s Saturday and I’m going to chill.
Ms Marvelous
MS MARVEL EPISODE 1 BREAKDOWN! Easter Eggs & Details You Missed!
Finally saw the first episode of Ms. Marvel and it was marvelous.
Kamala Khan is a very likeable character with all the teenage awkwardness of Peter Parker.
She’s more of an active daydreamer than Peter, so the show features a pervasive overlay of her active imagination in augmented reality cartoon form.
It looks like it’s going to be a very enjoyable series.
The first episode established her personal circle of friends and relatives.
I particularly like that. I want to have that sort of cast of peripheral characters in my stories.
As much as it’s exciting to watch superheroes blast and punch their way through an army of aliens, a cadre of evil secret agents or a team of supervillains, it’s the day-to-day lives of people on the periphery that generally make stories like this believable and interesting.
Sure, Peter Parker might have been duking it out with Doc Ock or the Green Goblin but he still had homework due and he needed to get in before Aunt May came in to check on him.
Kamala has the same problem in this episode. She and her friend, Bruno, sneaked out to Avengercon. She tried to climb back into her room before her parents checked in on her, but she got snagged by her mom.
Real-life problems help to ground the super-craziness of the superhero lifestyle.
MS MS MARVEL Ep1 Breakdown: Every EASTER EGG + Where Her Powers Come From!
Consenting To Dream
An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. ~George Santayana
In the case of superhero fiction particularly, dreaming of the actual world is a bit closer to the mark than in a high fantasy or futuristic sci-fi world.
I liked how the Daredevil series handled some of these actual-life issues. Matt‘s partner Foggy correctly chided him for his vigilantism and how it could potentially lead to both of them being disbarred and all of their cases being reopened and possibly overturned.
Another thing I enjoyed about the series is how they took some of the recurring throw-away characters and added a human dimension to them. Turk and Grotto were low-level thugs and informants for a number of street-level heoes. Season 2 of Daredevil took on a variety of facets of Grotto’s personality.
As a witness to Punisher‘s devastating attack on the Irish Mob in Hell’s Kitchen, he presents himself to the law firm of Nelson & Murdock as someone in need of protecting. As a singularly driven agent of vengeance, the Punisher presents Grotto to Daredevil as a criminal who killed a helpless old lady. Both points of view are completely accurate and yet they contrast in a dramatically interesting way.
Grotto is in fear for his life, rightfully so, because he is the sole surviving witness to the Punisher’s execution of the Irish Mob. By the same token, Punisher was already hunting Grotto for the murder of this helpless old lady who had also witnessed a violent crime. Grotto was sent to silence her. Grotto didn’t see the hypocrisy of his situation even when he was in Punisher’s crosshairs.
I like this kind of analysis of character motivations and the repercussions of choices made. It’s something I want to incorporate into my series.
Those are my well-rested thoughts for today. I hope you’re having a relaxing weekend as well.