I don't wanna time-travel no more

[lotesse]

some things make a post!

i. I had a lovely encounter with a little old lady outside of the Uni library this afternoon, I was picking up a book and on a meter so couldn't stay long to talk to her, but she was handing out informational flyers about the fact that in Indiana 17.3 percent of girls in grades 9-12 have been raped. The woman must have been 75+, and there was something beautiful about the interactions I saw taking place between her, earnestly handing out her flyers, and the teenaged students she was reaching out to her. I admire the hell out of her dedication, drive, and chutzpah.

ii. on a less good note: I wish my extended family could grok that the way to help your introverted grandkid is not to poke her about her lack of a social life until she feels completely crushed by social expectation and her failure to measure up. I hate my patterns of response to that sort of thing, because I also recognize that I do need to keep trying to be social, especially in the collapse of a lot of my support structures after The Breakup last fall. But the overwhelming fear and self-hatred that inevitably swamps me in the aftermath of those conversations makes it difficult for me to do anything but retreat to the safety of my room & my computer & my cats. Just. Not helpful, you guys. I love you, but not helpful.

iii. on a more geeky note: 12:30 am last night, while hiding from social anxiety with help of internet, I had a brainwave. Steve/Tony = a more sexed-up, contemporary, potentially-edgy rendition of a lot of the things I loved as a kid in Sam/Frodo. Strong fairhaired earnest genuine do-gooder paired with angsty cerebral guilty-about-the-past, not to mention physically damaged by past contact with objects of mass destruction. No wonder this ship is eating my life. It's like a whole bunch of my favorite tropes have grown up with me, and started critiquing heteronormativity and the military-industrial complex.

Comments

[lotesse]

Well, okay, so the weird thing about US hippies is that they were the children of veterans who spent their youth as peacenik radicals and then somehow turned around and voted for Ronald Reagan and have been trashing the country ever since. I mean, not all of them, but a lot. The same Baby Boomers who protested the war are the generation driving the dismantling of the US social safety net, the deregulation of banks, ect ect ect. So the whole thing gets weirdly self-hating, because either you'd have to hate your youth or hate your age.

Also, year more situational than characterological - Tony obvs has a VERY different relationship to his darker side than sweet Frodo does. But I guess what I find interesting is the way that situations mold characters: Tony is what we need him to be, just as Frodo was what Tolkien needed. Swap backgrounds/time periods/general narrative ethos, and -

It's the balance of the pairing more than anything, setting up slightly different kinks (self-harm, guilt, culpability, shame vs. service, power differentials, duty, and shyness) in similar patterns/rhythms, circling around similar problems/traumas. If that makes sense.

[ilthit]

It's not necessarily pacifists turning into autocrats, though that happens too, but that there were young conservatives and soldiers existing alongside the high profile peaceniks, and due to a general swing towards conservatism the other side of the population has gained in power.

Mmm yes. The storytelling potential in the situation is so rich.

[lotesse]

To my eternal shame, my own maternal grandparents voted for Reagan. They're lifelong liberals - I don't know what the hell they were thinking. Stuff got weird around that.

[ilthit]

A successful smear campaign of the opposition, perhaps?