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judedeluca · 5 years

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Last Friday I Tried To Kill Myself: My Rant On Why Heroes In Crisis Is Destructive Garbage And Why Stories Like This Need To Stop Being Made

TW: Suicide, rape, abuse

I’ve made it no secret I’ve been in therapy since 2012, and I’ve especially been vocal about my dislike for DC Comics’ latest event book, “Heroes in Crisis,” which just released its last issue on May 29th 2019.

I tried to write something the other night but I didn’t like how it sounded so I deleted it. After my session with my therapist earlier in the day, she convinced me to simply write down what I feel regardless. And so I did. I typed and typed. This is pretty long under the cut. I don’t know if I got carried away. I think I did.

I need to be clear I did NOT just try to commit suicide because of how much I hated a comic book. I’d like to believe even I’m not that pathetic. I tried to kill myself because of a number of reasons which sort of snowballed together this previous Friday.

Look this is angry and long and it sounds ridiculous but I just wanted to write and get my feelings out and I’m sorry okay? I’m, just, I’m sorry. For being pathetic and a disappointment to my friends and letting this bother me so much.

But I’m talking about “Heroes in Crisis” because this book has been negatively affecting me since it began publication, and the state that it left me in this past week only served to exacerbate the negative thoughts I had to endure, and I briefly reached a point where I had a knife to my wrist.

I’ve been attending therapy for the past seven years in order to address trauma and abuse I suffered through in my adolescence. In grade school I was bullied, and from 6th to 12th grade I was sexually abused on two separate occasions in two separate schools from four different people. In middle school I was assaulted by three boys who weren’t much older than me on the bus ride home, where they grabbed my head and shoved my face into their crotches as all the other kids laughed. In high school a classmate molested me twice during art class, and spent the rest of that time trying to make me apologize after I smacked him in self defense.

In 2009 my family dissolved when my parents unhappily split apart, which placed me as the unwilling recipient of my father’s, mother’s, and sibling’s emotional baggage while my own problems were ignored. During the loss of my support system I juggled two jobs along with graduating from college, I came out of the closet and have been struggling to figure out both my sexual and gender identities, I made my first suicide attempt in 2013, and my best friend died in 2016 along with four other people I cared about or who saw me as a friend.

Seeking therapy was something I had to do on my own. I tried counseling sessions with the people at my college but despite their best efforts it didn’t do much to help. I never received counseling in middle school for my sexual assault and my parents weren’t of much help either despite it was clear I developed some significant behavior problems. In 10th Grade I did spend some time with a guidance counselor because they feared I was suicidal due to my depression around my bad grades in Chemistry, but again this didn’t really help.

God I realize how analytical and detached this is sounding and I don’t know why. I feel like I’m just listing everything. Ugh.

Aside from my suicidal thoughts I suffer from depression and PTSD. I think I’m a genuinely bad person and I’ve often thought I brought the abuse I suffered as a kid onto myself because I was a weird boy. I’ve wondered if I have a right to feel ashamed of what happened to me because it wasn’t as bad as what other people have gone through. I frequently think of myself as a shameless, greedy, manipulative person who doesn’t deserve to be happy because I use people. I’ve truly said some awful things to people and I know I’ve been blocked by a couple of people online and not without good cause. You need to understand that. My own sibling once said I was a wicked, blackhearted person.

I have trouble not assuming the worst of my parents and sibling because of how often I would find myself stuck in the middle of their arguing, which got me labeled a martyr whenever I tried to play peacemaker which I only wanted because I hate seeing them unhappy. I assume the worst about situations and I’ve spent countless nights lying awake thinking over and over again about past mistakes and how much I wish I was dead, or that I had died instead of one of my friends because they made the world a better place and I don’t. It’s easy for me to believe the world would be a better place if I died.

Often my problems had been ignored by the people I turned to for help. Ignored, looked down upon, or just belittled. It became hard for me to talk to people because it felt like no one really cared about what I was going through or that I wanted help. Or they misunderstood and their attempts to help failed because they didn’t really know what was wrong.

Despite all this I want to believe therapy has helped me deal with problems better than I had before, and helped me to take pride in what I have accomplished. I graduated cum laude with no student debt, I’ve held onto at least one job for over a decade, and I’m currently writing for three websites that have let me change my perspective on things and given me space to grow as a writer. I believe I’m better able to recognize boundaries and to let my feelings be known, and to know when not to engage in stressful situations. I’ve been trying, TRYING, not to let me depression and negative thoughts affect me too badly.

It’s not easy, but it’s better than not doing anything at all.

So, where does “Heroes in Crisis” fit into this.

Well.

Through middle and high school, comics were pretty much the only thing that managed to keep me going without having a complete breakdown. Well I did have other interests and I still do. I could never survive on comic books alone.

I didn’t really have any friends I could rely on or talk to about my problems, not in real life or online. I got lucky in high school since there was a comic store one block away, which meant I was now able to regularly buy comics instead of the odd issue here or there. It was after I graduated high school I finally began to make some friends through online message boards and by meeting people at comic conventions. So comics didn’t just keep me going, they helped me find the people who HAVE been able to help me and see me as an individual worth knowing. My very first best friend in the whole world (NOT the one who died) is a professional comic artist I met through DeviantArt. “Stuck Rubber Baby” helped me realize and be honest about the fact I’m queer, and it was through commissioning comic artists I’ve felt more comfortable about exploring my sexuality.

As cheesy as it sounds the presence of comics in my life has indeed helped me a great deal, and I want to professionally write comics someday as a way to repay some of that back and try to make the world a better place.

I’ve always bought a little bit of everything but I’m mainly focused on DC Comics. My favorite teams are the Titans, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Doom Patrol, and the Justice Society. Ask me my favorite Flash, I’ll pick Jay Garrick or Wally West. My favorite Green Lantern, I’d pick Alan Scott and Kyle Rayner.

Suffice it to say I really haven’t been happy with most of what DC’s published in the past ten years. I’ve been especially vocal about my dislike for books such as “Rise of Arsenal,” “Titans” by Eric Wallace, and pretty much everything Scott Lobdell’s worked on. Like a lot of people, I thought “DC Rebirth” back in 2016 was a step in the right direction, that they were finally cleaning the mess they made with the New 52 initiative.

“Heroes in Crisis” proved me and a lot of other people wrong.

But as a person struggling with depression and PTSD, this book offended me on a whole different level compared to anything those other books have done.

So you’ve got a place, Sanctuary, where heroes and villains can receive counseling for their respective problems and possibly get help. That sounds like a great idea. And then the first issue opens with the reveal every patient has been gruesomely murdered save for two who believe the other is guilty. And it gets worse from there.

FIRST: It turns out Sanctuary has no actual doctors or therapists. It relies instead on a computer programmed with the supposed best traits of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

SECOND: The patients are put in virtual reality chambers where they relive their respective traumas over and over again as a way to confront them.

THIRD: There doesn’t seem to be any real security except for a couple of robots, and anyone can just walk in. Which means Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman haven’t been monitoring the place until AFTER the massacre.

What followed was than eight issues of a supposed mystery that wasn’t a mystery at all. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman do almost nothing to figure who was responsible for this, while Lois Lane is given files of all the Sanctuary interviews which she PUBLISHES, leaking hundreds of secrets that were meant to be private even if she obscures the real names. The investigation falls to Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, who both believe the other is the killer.

It eventually turns out the killer was Wally West, who accidentally unleashed a burst of energy that killed those around him and in a fit of extreme suicidal despair violated the corpses to look like a mystery so he would have enough time to release the Sanctuary files and then kill himself believing it was the only way to make things right. He doesn’t die but turns himself in at the end.

I-I don’t have the energy to give a complete rundown, I really don’t. Suffice to say the book has problems. Racist problems, homophobic problems, and ableist problems. The series IS a problem.

Since the first issue was released I hated, I HATED, this comic with every fiber of my being. I hated the stilted writing and I hated the gross, overly sexualized artwork. I hated it was another event series built around cheap shock value deaths meant to drive up sales and garner controversy to make more sales. And I especially hated the premise, that this Sanctuary was supposed to be a place of healing but was anything BUT. The DC Trinity make no attempt to get real doctors to help them provide help for their comrades and friends, delegating everything to a computer that’s supposed to have their best qualities and assuming THAT is a decent substitute for qualified psychiatrists and therapists.

The very IDEA that Superman and Wonder Woman could be so arrogant and conceited to believe they could substitute for licensed medical professionals is appaling. Even Batman on his worst days would never be so inconsiderate.

And then there are the VR chambers, where the heroes relive their traumas over and over and over again until they can get over them. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY. To experience such pain over and over again. The comic even demonstrated through characters Lagoon Boy and Wally West that going through their trauma again and again clearly wasn’t helping. Lagoon Boy relieved the Titans East massacre HUNDREDS of times. And this seems to be the only real option Sanctuary allows besides the confessionals.

This, this NEGLECT. Sanctuary isn’t a place for healing, it’s a dumping ground! These people are secluded and essentially kept in solitary confinement where they have almost no one but a computer to talk to. A computer that does absolutely nothing to help them.

I spoke to my own doctor about this and she agreed with me none of this was healthy and that the book itself was extremely damaging and poorly thought out.

And I have spoken to her about this a LOT over the last nine months, because with each issue that came out I felt myself getting more and more worn down. I would dread the last Wednesday of the month knowing the next issue would arrive. And let me tell you this wasn’t the only thing I was talking about in my sessions, but it figured a lot into my past discussions and my therapist respected that. I’m glad I have her in my life, she’s a consummate professional.

I’m not talking about simple fan boy hate. This comic DRAINED me and struck more than a number of nerves. The apathy and insensitivity that went into crafting this book reminded me far too much of what I’ve gone through in life and not for the better.

For starters, the way Tom King portrays the problems the characters go through is nothing but a joke. We’re treated to multiple confessional sequences where different characters talk about their issues in a nine-panel grid layout featuring some of the most stilted dialog I’ve ever read. King shows absolutely no research or care in the characters he talks about, ignoring their backstories to make up nonsense and present it as deep when in reality he’s gutted them from the inside out.

The one that bothered me most was Roy Harper from the first issue, in a confessional sequence one page AFTER his corpse is found.

Tom King took nine issues to completely destroy and misunderstand Wally West’s character, even though he only needed one page for Roy Harper.

Of course Scott Lobdell spent eight years destroying the character, so King didn’t need to do much.

Roy and his daughter Lian have been two of my favorite DC characters for years. I’ve been able to relate to Roy’s issues a lot over the years. Not his past drug addiction, but his struggles with depression and abandonment issues and his fight to try and be a better person despite everything he’s gone through. He was raised in a Native American community and probably has a better understand of racism than most white people could dream of. He’s a devoted father who tries to be the best dad he can be for his daughter. But most importantly, he knows he can screw up and he knows he’s not perfect. He just wants to be good. He’s a complex and multifaceted person who is more than his trauma, and I’ve long admired that. I’ve wished I could stop beating myself up over my past mistakes and just focus on doing good instead of hating myself for not being perfect. As someone who never really had much support from my parents growing up and that feeling of being totally alone despite being surrounded by people, I empathized with the neglect he suffered form Green Arrow and the way he was essentially abandoned in “Rise of Arsenal” when he needed help the most.

But is any of that discussed in “Heroes in Crisis?”

No.

Roy’s abandonment and depression are ignored so Tom King can churn out some nonsense about abusing prescription meds given to him by doctors for his superhero injuries before he switched to heroin because it was cheaper and safer. Not because of his depression. He only started taking the meds because of his injuries and he got addicted, which I’ve seen a number of fans who suffer from chronic pain complain that this is ableist for presenting them as drug addicts.

God I hope I’m remembering that right, I’m sorry guys.

“So you go to a needle. To save your kidneys. And some money. But really, isn’t that what superheroes do? Save things?”

Objectively one of the worst things I have ever read in ANYTHING.

But it doesn’t stop there. Pretty much every character given a confessional more or less has the problems they truly did survive ignored for nonsense that never occurred or is completely out of character to the point it feels like these are SUPPOSED to be jokes. Firestorm talks about his head being on fire. Green Lantern Hal Jordan doesn’t know what “Will” is. Raven says her father, an inter dimensional monster who has tried to turn her evil over and over again and whom she hates, loves her. Minor character the Protector is revealed to be addicted to multiple drugs and was only an anti-drug crusader because he thought it was funny. That was just CRUEL.

I... I have spent so long being ashamed of a lot of the abuse I went through and it is still hard for me to talk about. Do you have any idea how disgusted I am with myself whenever I try to tell someone about what happened to me in high school? When I have to figure out a way to say that “He tried to stick his finger in my ass” and not think about how the people reading or hearing this must be laughing at me it’s so pathetic? Or when I think about the crying fit after my first day of high school begging my mom to take me out of this school and she tells me to suck it up?

And so this bothers me, because I frequently fear that my problems are just a joke. And I see the characters whom I resonate with have their problems degraded and treated as poorly thought out jokes.

Why were some of these characters even here in the first place? To deal with their problems? Even though some of them WERE ALREADY TRYING TO GET HELP. Roy in particular had his Titans teammate Lilith Clay as his substance abuse counselor, but none of that is mentioned in the lead-up to “Heroes in Crisis.” The help that Roy was already getting was ignored. His efforts at self improvement were ignored by those around him.

But it’s not as bad as the reason Wally West was in Sanctuary. In “Flash War” Wally regains memories of his twin children Jai and Iris and is told they’re not in the Speed Force but SOMEWHERE. And Wally tries to find them and can’t. So instead of Barry Allen getting the Justice League to help with the search, knowing the disappearance of these children are one example of how the universe has been damaged, Barry and Iris West allow Wally to be taken to Sanctuary to essentially get him to shut up about his missing kids. He is abandoned by the people he viewed as parents. And this is what leads to Wally’s breakdown. Despite knowing his children are out there somewhere, “Heroes in Crisis” tries to demonize Wally for wanting his family back and it’s used to make him into a suicidal mass murderer. Wally’s problems make him into a villain. He’s driven mad with grief when he hacks the Sanctuary computer thinking no one has gone through what he has, and is broken when he experiences all that trauma at once. All this because he wanted something that was perfectly rational for him to want.

Wally’s trauma is used to dehumanize him.

The dehumanization doesn’t stop there, especially in the case of Poison Ivy who is turned into a plot device for Harley Quinn’s sake.

Never forget this was a thing that Clay Mann drew and DC would’ve used before it got leaked.

This was supposed to be the cover for the seventh issue, Ivy’s bloody corpse done like a pin-up.

After being treated as Harley’s motivation for most of the series, Ivy’s revived but in such a way she’s lost most of her humanity. She gets turned into a rip off of Swamp Thing and her body is more plant than human, no longer having nipples or a vagina. She’s been murdered and brought back in a way that will let DC sexualize her as much as they want now that she’s not human anymore. But this is supposed to be treated as GOOD because she’s supposedly more powerful now and she’s alive. Like that doesn’t change the shameful way she was killed, and how she came to Sanctuary hoping to get help for the awful things that haunt her and it got her killed.

Ivy’s long been a very complex character herself and many people have looked at her as a strong, interesting, intelligent queer woman who ultimately only wants to save the Earth and be with the woman she loves. But she’s frequently the villain in her stories and often told she doesn’t understand what real love is. Instead of being recognized for the complex character and inspiration she is, Ivy also has her trauma used against her as an excuse for to be sent to die and LITERALLY be dehumanized. So what does that say to the women who resonate with her? The queer readers? What does that say?

The leaking of the Sanctuary files is also supposed to be seen as good. Wally claims he did it because he thought if people saw someone like him could make a mistake, they’d get help before he did something bad like him. That if they saw their heroes had problems, they’d get help too.

IT’S TRYING TO VALIDATE THIS VIOLATION OF PRIVACY AND HOW ALL THESE PROBLEMS ARE TURNED INTO A MEDIA SIDESHOW THANKS TO LOIS LANE AND SUPERMAN.

And Wally turns himself in he’s left to rot in jail, more alone than ever. Where’s the supposed help now?

But Booster Gold gets to hang with Blue Beetle and Harley’s with Ivy and it’s supposed to be about hope by showing no matter what mistakes you make it’s not too late and blah blah whatever that last issue was. It tries to pretend all this suffering and misery was worth it because now Wally really can represent hope by being an example!

Bros before heroes!

These people went to get help or were sent to get help, and instead they were ignored. They were killed. Their problems turned into jokes. They had their problems used against them after they died when all they wanted was to be better.

WANTING TO GET BETTER IS NOT A REASON WHY ANYONE SHOULD HAVE TO DIE. NO ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED LIKE AN AFTERTHOUGHT LIKE THIS.

One of the worst thing out of all this is knowing NONE OF THE CHARACTERS USUALLY ACT LIKE THIS. The reason why Wally accidentally killed everyone is because King makes up a retcon involving the Speed Force that was never, EVER mentioned in any Flash comic before. He makes up things on the fly to justify why any of the characters are there at all. Someone once said how, and I’m paraphrasing, “A story should be made to fit the characters, the characters shouldn’t be made to fit the story.” It’s been clear to a lot of people this book was blatant character assassination and Dan Didio’s latest attempt to finally get rid of Wally West because he hates him and all the other legacy characters so much. A story about PTSD that could’ve been meaningful and helped people got hijacked to destroy a character. To use their trauma as a tool to make them do something horrible. To exploit trauma for shock value and dehumanize not just the characters but the people who read these books and identified with the struggles and I

HATE IT!!!!!!!

It hurts because so many people care about these characters, and Didio would use a story that could’ve been uplifting to carry out his petty hatred.

This has been it, month after month for me. I’d get mad, and I would try to take my mind off it. I’d write fan fiction and commission artwork making fun of “Heroes in Crisis,” I’d try to vent on the internet and explain why I hate this comic. I’d connect with friends and other fans who’re equally unhappy, and I’d just feel myself getting worse and worse. I’ve had trouble sleeping thinking about this comic, stress dreams and laying awake at night before I’d start to think about how I’m a bad person too and wishing over and over again to die and end everything. To stop being a blight on the world and give it to someone who deserves to live. More importantly, that crushing sense of not being able to do anything to make this better. This powerlessness to try and change things for the better. Wishing I could do something to make it better and thinking about all the other ways I’ve failed in life. The loved ones and friends who died and I couldn’t help them. The unhappiness in my family. The state of the world. And then I’d think about how much I hate myself even more because there are more important things to worry about in the world, like what that rapist monster in the White House is doing to this country and to anyone who’s not a straight white man.

The week the final issue came out I knew right off it was going to be a train wreck and I was right. A disappointing ending to a disappointing story. More feelings of anxiety and self loathing and a feeling that my problems are nothing but a joke to mocked and exploited.

While all this was going on I had other things to worry about. In March my grandfather was hospitalized with a number of health problems due to a urinary tract infection. He spent a week gradually becoming confused and losing energy before he was taken to the emergency room when he said he was having trouble breathing. It turned out he also had a cyst, a clot, and bleeding in his brain. As me, my mom and sibling worried about his health we also had to worry about our house because my grandfather pays most of the rent and if his pension had to go towards a nursing home, we would have to move. So while worrying about my 92 year old grandfather’s health I also had to worry about possibly losing my house. And while he was recovering at the rehab hospital he had to go back to the ER again on Easter when we were told he fell during the night. He’s in another nursing home and he’s doing better thankfully, but he’s also the last grandparent I have and I’m not ready to lose him when he’s held onto his mind for so long.

So what exactly happened when the ninth issue came out that pushed me?

This past Thursday while I was at work, I get a call from my mother saying she thinks someone might be in our house because she went downstairs into my grandpa’s apartment and all the doors were open. I don’t know why she didn’t call the police or what she thought I could do since I wasn’t even in the Bronx. *Sigh* I tried to get my dad to come pick me up sooner so I could check out what was wrong and I was trying not to panic even when my mom texts me saying she’s okay but she locked her bedroom door and she’s got a blunt object. Then she says maybe it was nothing after all...

And then I get home and I see the garage door is wide open and it’s a disaster, as if someone trashed the place. I can’t get my dad out of the car and he just says “Call the police” as if he doesn’t care. I run into the house and begin checking the rooms in my grandpa’s apartment before grabbing a kitchen knife and going back to the garage. I then tell my mom what’s happened to the garage and it’s like I’m invisible. I can’t even get her outside to look and she’s more concerned about getting her dinner from around the corner. She tells me “It’s not like no one’s gotten in the garage before.”

AFTER SHE GETS ME WORKED UP THINKING SOMEONE WAS IN OUR HOUSE. AND I COME HOME AND THEY MIGHT’VE TRASHED THE GARAGE.

I literally can’t understand what was going through her head when she gave me this runaround. And I call her on it the next day, telling her how scared she got me and how it felt when she acted like I was making a big deal of nothing. I was frightened she could’ve been alone in the house with an intruder, because obviously she felt the same way if she wanted to lock herself in her bedroom. She STILL acted like it was no big deal and it’s like 2010 all over again and I’m being expected to drop everything to help her and she won’t give me any courtesy or empathy.

And then not even an hour later that Friday I get an email from my boss about a secret shopper thing and I rush to get my phone seeing he’s tried to call me. And he’s saying he’s mad at me because of something I did on Tuesday that might get our distribution license suspended or taken away completely. I’m thinking this is because of me. Because I screwed up. And I’ve had this job since I graduated high school and I might’ve ruined it completely.

And that mixed with how it’s like my mother has played fucking mindgames with me and all the other feelings and the general anger and hopelessness and thinking over and over it’s not going to get better I picked up that knife again and held it to my wrist while my boss was still on the phone.

I had it pressed against my skin and wanted to dig it in deeper.

I kept thinking “I CAN’T DO THIS I CAN’T DO THIS” seeing everything all at once, over and over again and...

I-I don’t know. Maybe just a part of me that said not to do it or something. Maybe because despite all my talk of wanted to die I don’t.

I don’t want to die.

So I put the knife down before I cut myself.

I went to work at my second job and I scheduled an emergency session with my therapist, and I tried to write.

So it’s Monday morning and I’m typing this and wondering now, if anyone actually reads this what kind of shit will I expect if people actually bother to read it.

I’m a loser who needs to get a life

I read the story wrong

I didn’t understand the story

I need to get laid

I’m just mad my favorite character died

I hate it because Tom King’s a good writer

I’m a contrarian who hates it because it’s popular

I don’t know what I’m talking about

I’m a whiny f****t

I’m conceited enough to think Tom King may ever actually read this and have him say “I’m sorry you reacted this way”

This isn’t the story King wanted to tell and he had good intentions

OH SCREW YOUR FUCKING “GOOD INTENTIONS”

My teachers had “Good intentions”

My parents had “Good intentions”

AND I AM STILL FUCKING PAYING FOR IT

I am so sick of hearing about “Good intentions.” Just because a person had good intentions doesn’t absolve them of messing up! King apparently handed in a basic outline and let editorial pick the characters. If King had good intentions, he would’ve bothered to do research on the characters instead of turning them into jokes. If he had good intentions he would’ve done a better job of showing how therapy actually CAN help people. He wouldn’t have given us a story all about death and suffering and say it’s about hope. If he had good intentions he wouldn’t have let Didio use this to get rid of Wally West.

You want to talk about people with ACTUAL good intentions? How about we talk about the people out there who’ve written about abuse and trauma and suicidal thoughts and how to address those things in ways that MATTER. In ways that don’t alienate people and can grant a better understanding of ways to act.

In ways that say “I see you. I understand you and know what you’ve gone through. You’re stronger than you think.”

Let’s talk about Jeremy Whitley writing “The Unstoppable Wasp” where Nadia Pym has a manic episode and attacks her friends, and has to be talked down from killing herself by her friend Priya because her own brother committed suicide.

Let’s talk about how Priya describes the world Nadia would create if she killed herself and convinces her she deserves to live because she makes everyone happy and she is a good person no matter what she is thinking right now.

Let’s talk about Magdalene Visaggio’s “Eternity Girl” where Caroline Sharp is a suicidal immortal superhero who wants to destroy reality because she thinks it’s the only way she can die, and her girlfriend Dani convinces her that she can build a new world for herself instead of destroying this one because Caroline’s stronger than her misery and has the power to choose what she wants.

Let’s talk about Chris Claremont’s disgust at how Carol Danvers had been brainwashed and raped and sent off to live with her rapist while her friends did nothing to help her and thought this was a HAPPY ENDING

Let’s talk about how he had Carol dress down the Avengers for the shameless way they treated her and abandoned her when she needed them

Let’s talk about Jim Salicrup and Louise Simonson working on the “Spider-Man and Power Pack” special which showed the right ways to address child abuse.

How Salicrup was able to make Spider-Man into a sexual abuse survivor without it being a joke and how his story helped a little boy tell his parents what happened to him. And how this helped Spider-Man accept what happened to him was not his fault.

How Simonson wrote about the Power Pack supporting a friend being sexually abused by her father and how they convince her she did nothing to deserve this.

Let’s talk about Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol run which showed that trauma is not the end of someone’s existence and that people can be happy despite what’s happened to them

Let’s talk about George and Marion who despite the trauma of having lost their bodies and being used as slaves they still choose to smile and enjoy life and love each other

Let’s talk about Kate Godwin, a transgender woman who changed her body to match the person she was inside despite what people said about her and treated her, and found a community that supported her and loved her and is a strong, good woman with the power and the empathy to help others

A woman who was outraged when a person tried to make her believe she’d been gang raped and needed trauma to make her life more meaningful.

SO TALK ABOUT ALL OF THEM AND TELL ME ABOUT KING’S “GOOD INTENTIONS”

NO ONE NEEDS TRAUMA IN THEIR LIFE TO MAKE IT MEANINGFUL. FINDING HAPPINESS AFTER YOU’VE SURVIVED SOMETHING HORRIBLE DOESN’T MAKE THAT SOMETHING HORRIBLE JUSTIFIED.

You can’t look at stories like “Heroes in Crisis” and say “Oh it’s okay because in the end it was worth it because it taught us something” and NO. IT IS NOT OKAY. HAVING YOUR PROBLEMS LAUGHED AT AND MOCKED AND DEGRADED AND TRIVIALIZED IS NEVER OKAY. NOT FROM THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT. NOT TOTAL STRANGERS. NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO THAT.

So yeah, maybe I am fucking pathetic for ranting about this and I should get a life and talk about more important things but I don’t fucking care! I’m angry about this and I’m gonna be angry for a long time! I’m angry about this story and I’m angry about how it affected me and the people I care about and people I don’t know and I will always be angry with myself that I tried to kill myself because of how this book made me feel and affected what I was going through.

Because stories are important to our lives. They can help us get through every day and they can make our problems not seem so bad. They can give us the strength to look at the bad parts of our life and think maybe they can change. That WE can change. We read about these people and we connect with them. We see things in them we wish to be like or things that are already in us and it can make us feel like we aren’t alone.

And even when stories aren’t enough they can help us find the people who can tell us these things. To help us find people who would care about us, and to care about them so maybe WE can help them. They’re a gateway.

So no, it’s not just a fucking comic book. And no, I don’t care what the intentions were. And I don’t care how pathetic this all sounds.

This, this was a bad story. This was a harmful story. And people deserve better. We don’t deserve to keep living in an age where stories like this, that can make us feel like we’re nothing, keep happening. We deserve stories that show us our lives are not defined by our trauma, we are NOT jokes, we are strong, and we deserve to live. That is not what “Heroes in Crisis” was and you will never convince me otherwise.

I had problems long before this story came out. I do not blame it for things that happened to me before. I do not blame it for my assault and abuse. I blame it for making me feel more like I don’t deserve to live and that what I’ve gone through doesn’t matter. I blame it for making me feel like my hard work and attempts to make my life better are meaningless.

This is not okay.

You wanna fucking blast me for this, go right ahead.

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leviticus101st · 5 years

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Heroes in Crisis Critique

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13409994/1/Heroes-in-Crisis-Critique

I wrote a critique on the garbage Event Comic Heroes in Crisis. I wanted to post my critiques here.

Ch.1

Let’s just jump to the basic story issues.

1: The Pacing

The storyline was originally supposed to be five issues and it got stretched out to nine issues. It should have stayed at five, probably less than that.

Out of those nine issues, only three of them actually matter to the plot. Issues 1, 8, and 9 are the only issues where the murder mystery plot goes forwards. (I feel like I’m being generous with issue 8, because that one just reveals that it was Wally who did it and that Booster cloned him…..I don’t know how he did that, but he did it.)

All the other issues? You can just skip them. They mean nothing, kinda like this story in general now that I think about it.

2: The Artwork

Much like RWBY with it’s animation, this is one I’m sure some people will disagree with me on.

The artwork for HiC was done by Clay Mann and it’s highly moody and detailed. The problem with it is how the women are drawn.

I briefly went over this in my ‘If Dragon Ball was a comic book’ story, but comic books have a problem with making women look as skimpy as possible. That is especially evident here.

The women’s outfits (Except for Wonder Womans.) look like they’re squeezing into every crevice of their bodies. Batgirl’s costume is especially bad in that regard. (Her confessional has her showing her skin. To be fair, she was letting out how the Joker shot affected her, but that’s not much.) Other than the women’s tight outfits, the artwork is pretty good.

3: The Mystery itself

HiC is a mystery story, but you could be forgiven for thinking it was trying to be a buddy cop movie. This is part of the pacing issue. While the plot will advance eventually, the mystery is not what does it. It’s just wacky circumstance. A good mystery story gives both the heroes and the audience the clues as the story progresses. Leading the hero to the most logical conclusion and the audience can have fun trying to put the pieces together.

HiC does not do that. As I said, most of the issues don’t push the plot and we don’t get clues to the fact that Wally West is the killer.

The reveal of Wally West being the killer ruined any chance of this story being taken seriously. There was NOTHING foreshadowing it and the one clue that was found doesn’t match up with it.

They say Batman couldn’t identify the wounds on the corpses because they were inflicted post mortem. Post mortem wounds are easy to identify because those wounds don’t bleed. This is ignoring actual facts!

4: Shock Value

Lots of good characters are dead by the first issue. This ruins any illusion of tension. Moving on.

5: Character Assassination.

I’ll get into specifics a later chapter, but everyone in this story acts nothing like the characters they’re supposed to be.

7: Wally West’s plan

Step one was to mail Lois Lane tapes that has tons of personal information of other people to upload.

Step two was to use the Speed Force to resurrect Poison Ivy.

Step three is to place himself from somewhere in time where everyone he accidently killed everyone.

Step four was to kill himself.

It feels like a spiritual successor to Identity Crisis alright. Accidental murderer with the dumbest scheme and dumb retcons along for the ride.

These problems are pretty bad, but if it weren’t for what I’mma talk about next chapter, I would just think it was bad.

Ch. 2

(Disclaimer: This will be a very angry analysis. This issue spikes a lot of anger in me. So this will have a lot of anger and swearing.)

Mental health is important. I’m not going to lie about that. People go through their struggles in life and they have their own issues to go through.

That is the reason that this story exists. Hell the title itself, Heroes in Crisis, is reflective of that. It’s Tom King saying that heroes have their own struggles and that they should get help for it.

If I could ask Tom King one question. Just one. It would be this.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU MISS THE POINT THIS BADLY?!

This story does an atrocious job of portraying mental health. To understand what I mean, allow me to discuss what Sanctuary does for its patients.

In my story, I went out of my way to show therapists in the story to show that the heroes were getting real help. That is not how the actual comic does it.

The AI in the story I showed briefly to make sure everything was okay? In the comics, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman created it using their best personality traits to help the heroes.

If that AI was made of their best traits, I’d hate to see their worst. The AI? It insults the patients of the Sanctuary, constantly belittling them for not ‘getting over’ their traumas and pain.

Any actual therapists will tell you that is a very terrible idea. I know WHAT King was going for, tough love, but that is not how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to be supportive of the patient, let them ease into their treatment. YOU DON’T INSULT PEOPLE AND TELL THEM TO GET OVER THEIR TRAUMAS! It’s wrong!

I wish that was all I could talk about with this, but there is so much more stupid shit in this regard.

You see the AI’s treatment for the patients is to force them to relive their most traumatic moment.

Do I need to explain why that is the dumbest fucking thing for a therapist to do? I feel like it would be an insult to you guys if I explained how fucking stupid that is.

YOU DON’T JUST FORCE PEOPLE TO RELIVE THEIR TRAUMATIC MOMENTS! ‘I have an idea! Let’s make our patients go through the very thing that caused them to need us!’

You can’t even make the argument that it’s a form of Immersion Therapy, because you don’t just throw the thing that causes a person's traumas in their faces! Let’s do an example real quick. Let’s say you’re treating someone who was traumatized by their abusive parents, then you invite the parents. Needless to say, it won’t end very well.

There’s another big problem in the mental health aspect. The other treatment.

Another thing the heroes do in the Sanctuary is a confessional booth, where the heroes confess their problems to a camera. One big problem with this.

People don’t just confess their troubles like that unless it’s urgent and it’s usually to another person. They don’t just speak out their traumas to a camera. It requires a lot of probing by the therapists. What’s sad is that problem is the least terrible about that, but it does lead to another massive issue.

A big plot point is that Lois Lane got some tapes from Wally. Lois being a very kind soul respects the privacy of the heroes and-NAH! She uploads them to the Daily Bugle.

You do not do that! Uploading someone else’s private information like that without their consent is wrong. Especially here, where they’re superheroes with secret identities. They’re loved ones are now in danger because of this.

It’s even a plot hole. They state that the tapes will be destroyed after they’re made (Let’s ignore how pointless that is and how some therapists keep tapes for future reference. Why would you record it if you were just going to get rid of it afterwards?) and Wally got the tapes that were destroyed somehow. I don’t get it either.

That’s all those issues from the actual story, but now let’s talk about a little something King himself said in regards to the killing at the Sanctuary. He stated that the killing was supposed to reflect school shootings.

For the sake of fairness, I know what he means. He’s referring to the tragedy itself.

Now to piss on fairness, because seriously, what the actual fuck?! First of all, Wally killing the heroes WAS AN ACCIDENT! Mass shootings are never accidents, they take someone holding a gun to a school and willfully opening fire.

Secondly, it’s highly distasteful to pull that shit for this story. Especially now, when there are so many mass shootings in the US.

Third, there’s a bullshit assumption that mass shootings are caused by the mentally disabled. The truth of the matter is that mass shooters are either self entitled assholes, racists monsters, or both. So this comparison is total shit and completely harmful in this age of mass shootings and attention to mental health problems.

Fourth, and this one is one that many people have pointed out, it’s really dickish to say that you’re going to die or become a mass shooter because you’re metnally disabled or someone trying to get help for your problems.

Lastly. If this story was about mental health, the issues people face because of mass shooting misblamed, then this would be the most relevant and important comic of our age. But it's not! It’s a poorly put together mystery story that barely touches on mental health.

And you want to know the most fucked up thing about all of these things I’ve discussed?

All of the horrible things I’ve talked about or portrayed as good in the story. Uploading someone’s private info, torturing them with their own traumas, and not doing any real work to help the mentally unwell. It’s portrayed as the right thing in the story. I can’t begin to think about how this hurts people who actively seek or attend therapy.

What was King thinking?! And before you say the editors and executives messed him up, Tom King himself has openly admitted that the only thing he didn’t decide on was what characters would be the focus of the story. Everything else? All him. This is how he thinks mental health should be handled.

I’m frankly very disgusted with this story and I pray to God that nothing like it ever happens again.

Take care of yourselves.

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help

Ch. 3

I wanted to use this last chapter to give my final thoughts and a chance to talk about things I haven’t had a chance to talk about.

Overall, HiC is terrible. Character work on the whole is terrible. The pacing is absolutely atrocious. And it’s just a distasteful mess.

One thing that always baffles me is the choice of characters for the story. Booster Gold, Harley Quinn, Batgirl, and Blue Beetle. These characters have nothing to do with mental health, so why have them? Harley is the closest to that, but she got over the Joker long ago.

The comic also suffers from the humor. It’s terrible and does not fit with the comic’s tone.

The story relies on retcons to a character’s history. Roy Harper is the best example. Roy got on drugs because of his depression and parental neglect, not injuries. I don’t know if that fits with his New 52 and Rebirth characterization.

One scene that captures the sheer stupidity of the comic is the scene where Harley Quinn(Who I feel the need to stress is a normal person with a baseball bat.) is able to single handedly fight off the Trinity. I’m dead serious.

Another Harley Quinn scene that is terrible is the one where she attacks Booster Gold while Batgirl and the Ted Kord Blue Beetle (BOOSTER GOLD’S BEST FRIEND!) watch as the crazy lady with a murder history attacks the good guy who’s been friends with them for years. Ted Kord says that he’s projecting a forcefield to protect Booster, so Batgirl (Who is part of the Batfamily who don’t kill unless necessary.) knocks him out to disable it and the whole thing is a joke. Lol look at that crazy lady try to kill the superhero.

Incase the last two paragraphs didn’t make it clear, I’m not a big fan of Harley.

First reason is that I find her annoying. She just yammers on and on and it distracts from the story.

Second, she’s a mass murderer who gets off easy because she wanted to impress the wrong guy. I know it was abusive, but she still choose to kill people and smiled about it.

Third and this one is kind of petty, but it kind of annoys me that there are so many sympathetic and kind villains who deserve redemption and a happy ending WAY more than she does and they don’t get it. She gets off easily because she was in an abusive relationship, even though there are other villains who have been abused and they don’t get redemption or a ‘Worth so much more than you think’ speech. She wasn’t hypnotised or converted against her will to be evil, she didn’t grow up with parents who gave her a twisted perception of the world, she didn’t grow up in an abusive household to make her snap, her life was fairly good until the Joker came along. Hell, you can’t even make the argument that the Joker made her crazy. All he did was spout some obvious bullshit and she fell for it.

I’m sorry that I went off on that tangent. It just makes me made that so many other villains deserve a happy ending and don’t get it, but Quinn, who I feel the need to stress has a body count, gets one. Yeah.

Let’s talk about Booster for a bit. Booster Gold doesn’t have psychological issues, so he’s out of place here. I’ve read some of the stuff that built up to this and it doesn’t give the impression he got some, just that he’s kind of an idiot. (Also, couldn’t he have just time traveled to stop all of this or find something out?)

Wally being the killer was a terrible decision. He just came back and he’s made into a villain. For some reason, DC doesn’t let him be happy. (Again, favoring the psychopath who murdered lots of people have a happy ending.) They hate him for SOME reason, though nobody can figure out why. He’s brought back just to suffer in this crapfeast.

Another problem with Wally here is how out of character he is. Wally has shown to be one of the nicest guys in the entire DC Universe and he pulls the crap he does here. As I said, him killing the heroes was an accident. He puts together a plan to make up for it, that requires him to have computer skills he’s never been established to have.

The act that made him kill the heroes was a mental trigger of his family. (We’ll ignore the fact that that’s not how the Speedforce works.) He spent five days getting tapes to Lois (Guess being as fast as a dude who can outrun an instantaneous teleporter makes it hard to be a delivery boy.), teams up with a past/future version of himself, and then tries to kill himself. (For those of you who didn’t get my Identity Crisis joke, Jean had a smiliar stupid plan for a stupid reason.)

Oh and after the heroes talk him down from killing himself, Harley knees him in the nads. (The mass killer gets a happier ending than the guy who wants his family back.)

The Trinity are morons in this story, they don’t do anything that a smart person would do, can’t tell when a person dies of electric shocks or when wounds are afflicted after a person dies, and get curb stomped to make Harly Quinn look good.

Let’s just finish this. This story just sucks. The only redeeming thing about it is the artwork, even then, the females are drawn like they’re weird aliens who want to conquer us all.

This story is a pathetic, distasteful, harmful piece of shit. I don’t want to say ‘I hope everyone forgets it’ because we need to know just how garbage this kind of thing is. We need to know just how wrong something can be.

Take care of yourselves everyone. If you need help, go find some real help. Whatever you find will be better than HiC will ever do for you.

#Heroes in Crisis #critique #my fanfic stuff #DC Comics

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newsbiteswithjennysok · 4 years

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Dec 9, 2019

1. Rising hip-hop talent Juice Wrld was set to attend his own 21st birthday party the day he died after suffering an apparent seizure, according to a report. The rapper, whose legal name was Jarad Anthony Higgins, had turned 21 days earlier and planned to celebrate Sunday night with a fete in his hometown, Chicago, news station WFLD reported. The “All Girls Are the Same” rapper arrived on a private jet early Sunday to the city’s Midway International Airport, where he experienced a medical emergency, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Post. Shortly after landing, he was seen “basically convulsing” in a private jet terminal and rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Police launched an investigation into his death, but there were no obvious signs of foul play, authorities said.The up-and-coming star — who was named Top New Artist at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards — first made waves in the music scene with his 2018 hit “Lucid Dreams.”

After his flight landed, the artist apparently swallowed a bunch of Percocet pills in what may have been a bid to hide them from authorities, sources told TMZ.

The rapper died after having an apparent seizure early Sunday at a private terminal of Midway International Airport, police said. He was brought to the Christ Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead around 3:15 a.m.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office said Monday that his autopsy is complete, but declined to rule on a cause of death, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Officials said they’re waiting on the results of additional tests, including for “cardiac pathology, neuropathology, toxicology and histology.”

2. The father of kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart has revealed how he prayed he was not gay and struggled to accept his sexuality amid the collapse of his 34-year marriage. Ed Smart made the stunning announcement that he is gay and would be divorcing his wife Lois and leaving the Mormon Church in August. Three months later, the 64-year-old shared intimate details about his internal battle to come to terms with his sexuality in an emotional interview with CBS This Morning's Gayle King aired Monday. Ed described how he consulted with therapists and church leaders in hopes of concluding that he wasn't actually gay, because 'I didn't want to believe I was'. 'How do you cure being gay? There is no cure. And for all of those out there that are struggling in the same spot, there is no cure,' he told King. 'This is absolutely not a "choice". And I wish my wife knew that. I wish that more than anything.'

3. Cardi B gets real about monogamy in her new cover interview with Vogue, published on December 9. The “Press” rapper, 27 — who is one of four powerful moms to cover the magazine’s January 2020 issue — poses with her 17-month-old daughter Kulture Kiari Cephus in red on the new cover.

The mother of one doesn’t hold back in her candid interview, in which she discusses how motherhood has changed her; a new album; the scrutiny of ever-escalating fame and how social media effects her; and, the most hot button topic of all, her marriage to Migos rapper, Offset. Cardi goes into great detail about how she and the Atlanta rapper, 27, overcame his infidelity last year. The pair, who secretly tied the knot in September 2017, split in December 2018 after Offset cheated on Cardi. However, they eventually reunited earlier this year.

“When me and my husband got into our issues — you know, he cheated and everything — and I decided to stay with him and work together with him, a lot of people were so mad at me; a lot of women felt disappointed in me,” Cardi admitted, explaining, “But it’s real-life shit. If you love somebody and you stop being with them, and you’re depressed and social media is telling you not to talk to that person because he cheated, you’re not really happy on the inside until you have the conversation. Then, if you get back with them, it’s like, how could you? You let all of us down.”

At the end of the day “everybody has issues,” Cardi said, noting, “I believe in forgiveness. I prayed on it.” — Something both she and Offset did together. “We had priests come to us. And we just came to an understanding like, bro, it’s really us against the world. He has my back for everything, I have his back for everything, so when you cheat, you’re betraying the person that has your back the most. Why would you do that? We have come to a clear understanding,” Cardi explained. “For me, monogamy is the only way. I’ll beat your ass if you cheat on me.”

Vogue briefly spoke with Offset, who gushed over his “outspoken” wife. “It’s not an easy thing. We both have our own households. But you grow,” he said of his marriage. “We’re way better now with communication. She’s balancing a lot. She feels like she can’t be absent a lot, and our jobs are crazy. But I think motherhood got her more focused. I always tell her, don’t follow the comments. But she’s been outspoken on things since before she was making music — she’s not ever putting on, she’s not ever being cool,” Offset said, concluding with, “At the end of the day, she’s still going to rap about the same shit, which is what it’s like being a woman.”

4. The Bachelorette alums Ashley Hebert, 34, and JP Rosenbaum, 44, announced on Instagram that he is suffering from a rare autoimmune disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome. “JP was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome yesterday,” Ashley posted on her Instagram Stories on Sunday, December 8. “He is in treatment and doing well. It may be a long road to full recovery, but we are so grateful to everyone that has helped us get to a speedy diagnosis and treatment.”

Guillain-Barré, according to the Mayo Clinic,”is a rare disorder in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves. Weakness and tingling in your extremities are usually the first symptoms. These sensations can quickly spread, eventually paralyzing your whole body. The exact cause of Guillain-Barré syndrome is unknown. But it is often preceded by an infectious illness such as a respiratory infection or the stomach flu.”

JP, who won wife Ashley’s heart on season 7 of The Bachelorette, spoke out to his Instagram fans in a series of videos, as well. Sitting in his hospital bed, he called the diagnosis “very surreal and humbling and crazy, rare. Things you do every day, like picking up this phone, or buttoning buttons, tying shoelaces, putting on deodorant, just can’t do it. Picking up my kids, can’t do it. Wiping your ass, maybe TMI, but might have Ashley assist on the next one. Can’t really believe it.”

He added that he’ll probably have to be in the hospital for a few more days, but he and Ashley are remaining optimistic about his prognosis. “I know there’s lot of physical therapy in my future,” he said. While there is no cure for Guillain-Barré syndrome at this time, there are treatments that can ease the symptoms of the disorder, and reduce its duration, according to the Mayo Clinic. The organization notes that “most people recover from Guillain-Barré syndrome, though some may experience lingering effects from it, such as weakness, numbness or fatigue.”

5. Chrissy Teigen has spoken out about her crippling battle with anxiety and how being famous has exasperated the mental health condition. Taking to Twitter to do a Q and A on Sunday, the American model, 34, said her medicine was the key to keeping her sanity. When asked if she has changed for the better since becoming a celebrity, Chrissy replied: 'Very good question. I don't know, honestly. I still see things from every perspective. But I’m also highly anxious and perceptive so it’s kind of hell for my own mind.

In another Q and A, Chrissy continued: 'I was always so nervous. I never knew what I was going to do next. I still don't really know. But it's okay. Don't just survive. Live!'.

The television personality also spoke about how fame has made it hard for her to tackle everyday tasks such as getting public transport of going to the supermarket.

Chrissy previously spoke about her anxiety with Glamour last year, she said: 'I used to be on anti-anxiety medication because I was confused. I didn’t know where I was going in life.

ll I knew when I was younger, or when I was 18, was that I wanted kids and a husband.'

Over the last few years, Chrissy has cultivated an impressive following on social media, with 12million fans.

Her tweets morphed from partying and hangover cures to fertility issues, motherhood, breastfeeding, and postpartum depression.

She explained: 'I thought postpartum was, you have the baby and you’re sad. It was like, no. It sneaks up on a lot of people'.

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