Archyduke posted:

I'm sure I've posted bits of this before-- albeit not, I don't think, in this thread, but today was, for many people, an extraordinarily lovely day, and for myself and many, many other trans, nonbinary, or GNC people I know, one in which all the arduous work of self-acceptance and confidence was dealt a pretty rough blow by atavistic old bigots thrashing around spitefully in their cultural death-throes. I otherwise had a long, busy day but when I got home a few hours ago and had a chance to decompress all I could think about was Captain America's queer friend Arnie Roth, from J.M. DeMatteis' 80s run. Arnie wasn't a perfectly written character-- like many gay characters of the period he was always ambiguously in the closet, and mostly existed as a magnet for misfortune and tragedy, but he's always stuck with me.

I think part of it is the way he was drawn-- he didn't look like a superhero, and he didn't act like one. He's lucky; his first appearance was drawn by Mike Zeck, who draws him as a stout, chubby, balding guy, all soft edges, but with this big smile and round eyes. In a nice touch, he "clocks" Steve Rogers in a certain sense right away-- sees this guy on the street and instantly recognizes his old friend from before the war, and knows he can turn to him for help in getting his "roommate" Michael back from some bad guys. He doesn't look like anyone else in the comic-- he looks unglamour, unbeautiful, and more than that, he looks happy with it. Then later Michael dies (because of course the gay guy's lover dies in a comic book from the 80s), and at the funeral Arnie does something I'd never seen in a superhero comic before. He tells Cap angrily that he's living in a fantasy-- and you know, he is. His problems are larger than life and most of them can be solved by throwing a shield at it. Steve Rogers is lucky-- for all the scrapes he gets into, he also gets to fight his way out of them, and at the end of the day, beneath his costume and his powers, he gets to feel normal.



A bunch of issues later, in Captain America #296, Arnie gets captured by the Red Skull, who, in the definitive Red Skull story imo, is using his dying days to enact baroque schemes predicated only on leaving the world with a maximum of pointless, superfluous cruelty. And what he does to Arnie is indeed cruel. Cap finds him dressed up in a foppish suit, in a crude, campy approximation of a Weimar cafe, his face smeared with make-up, giving a brain-washed monologue that surely sounded coldly familiar to many queer kids first encountering this issue: I'm not right. I'm something evil and disgusting. I shouldn't be here. And say what you will about the weaknesses of Arnie's overall trajectory-- after all he plays no part himself in getting out of his scrape but is passively rescued-- I'll never forget reading Captain America's response, holding his friend and telling him he was valued and loved, and denouncing the Actual Nazi Villains who had the vicious audacity to try to make him feel otherwise. If the whole long (and very DeMatteis) Grand Guignol of sadism that makes up this arc is my definitive Red Skull, these pages are my definitive Captain America:




Captain America is a character I often dislike. He can be easy to write as tacky, or even monstrous. Sometimes it's hard to root for the hot blonde soldier wearing the flag as pajamas. What my favorite Cap writers get, though, is that his accessory of choice is a shield for a reason. It's not just to throw around and biff people with-- a shield is to protect, and Captain America, this dumb, cis, white caricature of American privilege and yes, at his worst, bravado, is at his best using his strength and his power to shelter and protect the people upon whom the vultures of his country are descending. This administration's petty, pointless attempts to rhetoricize and legislate trans lives out of civic existence is a scheme right out of the DeMatteis' Red Skull's playbook-- a vindictive spasm by a body clinging spitefully to the last vestiges of an ugly life of power abused and unearned. As a trans person I spent much of the day, as I drove around and tried to do my list of errands without breaking down or puking, like Arnie-- like the persistent red thumb of bigotry and evil had finally pressed down on me hard enough to make something inside of me pop. And it's stupid-- this is a comic I read decades ago when I was too young to know poo poo about poo poo, and which in so many ways is, I keep telling my grad-school-rear end self, reductive and problematic-- but when I got home I found I could remember Cap's little speech in that last scan almost word for word, and in looking it up out of idle curiosity I found myself totally blubbering in my living room, all this anger and fear I'd been cooping up all day. It helped.

And if you're a cis person, or if you're a white person, or a straight person, or a man, or someone with citizenship, or with access to healthcare, or with two legs that work, or have one of any other number of bulwarks and advantages that surely anyone reading this, myself included, lucked into by idiot luck, please, today and tomorrow and whatever godawful days ahead, please be like this version of Captain America. You have a shield, and if you're heroic you can use it not only to bash the "pariahs [...] the disease" of predatory, sneering structural power, but to draw the marginalized and vulnerable people you love close to you, and to offer them some small, sturdy radius of protection and safety and warmth.

Jim the Nickel posted:

Oops, this made me tear up at work.

Thank you for your words, and the reminder to use my privileges for good in these godawful lovely days.

IronSaber posted:

I don't know what it says about the state of things where being a white, able-bodied, cisgendered male can be considered a superpower.

Nevertheless, if my privilege can be used to aid those who've become disenfranchised or marginalized, then so I shall.

Lurdiak posted:

biracial bear for uncut posted:

I know somebody says this every year, but 2018 is the loving worst.

Cabbit posted:

2018 is the year I stopped lying to myself and accepted the fact that I'm transgender, lost 40 pounds, and found joy and direction in my life that I couldn't ever conceive of before; I feel like I actually have a future for the first time in my life. It's honestly been the best year of my life, even with all the garbage going on in the world.

I don't say that to diminish all of the poo poo happening, or to invalidate or refute the suffering of others for whom the year has been less kind-- just to remind y'all that there is joy and there is progress and there is happiness even in this shitshow, and that's what you have to hold on to and focus on.

I'm tired as gently caress and maybe (probably) this post is less clear in writing than it was in my head, but the point is don't let the bastards grind you down.

biracial bear for uncut posted:

I know somebody says this every year, but 2018 is the loving worst.

Rhyno posted:

Bad stuff has happened but I got married, found a wonderful new job and bought a house.

biracial bear for uncut posted:

Meanwhile, children are literally in concentration camps in the US and the US President is threatening military action against a 7,000 person refugee caravan instead of asking the question "What are they running from?!"

Rhyno posted:

Oh I thought we were just talking about our personal experiences with 2018. My bad.


Yeah 2018 can suck a dick.

Mikl posted:

l
loving bring it, 2019. I ain't scared of you.

Cabbit posted:

2018 is the year I stopped lying to myself and accepted the fact that I'm transgender, lost 40 pounds, and found joy and direction in my life that I couldn't ever conceive of before; I feel like I actually have a future for the first time in my life. It's honestly been the best year of my life, even with all the garbage going on in the world.

I don't say that to diminish all of the poo poo happening, or to invalidate or refute the suffering of others for whom the year has been less kind-- just to remind y'all that there is joy and there is progress and there is happiness even in this shitshow, and that's what you have to hold on to and focus on.

I'm tired as gently caress and maybe (probably) this post is less clear in writing than it was in my head, but the point is don't let the bastards grind you down.

Lurdiak posted:

Everything in my life has become steadily worse since 2013 and I'm mainly continuing out of spite.

poly and open-minded posted:

this page was great. you're all doing the best you can and I am genuinely happy to have read how your lives have a positive trajectory

Moto42 posted:

2018 is the year I got fired from work and was told I'm to poor to qualify for unemployment.
2018 is the year I got my rear end into gear self-taught myself the basics of web development.
2018 (maybe early 2019) is the year I start my new career, for the first time ever doing something I feel is worthwhile and rewarding.

quote:

[edit] gently caress that horrified poo poo.
All y'all's stories: 2018 didn't beat us. It really is the year we starting pulling it together and great things happened.

Archyduke posted:

Congratulations, that's awesome. I'm so stoked for you (and for Mikl) and it's really wonderful to see other people in the same early stages of this journey feeling similarly.

Malachite_Dragon posted:

I don't really have an uplifting 2018 story. Or 2017, or 2016, or anything. I'm just doing the same thing I've always done, and because of my disability and the restrictions on my life because of it and the rules I have to follow to keep the disability benefits that we use to be able to pay the rent, I can't really change anything to a meaningful degree.

But I make a few people important to me happy, in small but important ways. That's enough for me.

Everything Counts posted:

Not everyone is able to fight back to the degree they want. Some of us just have to survive and don't have the resources for anything else. That's fine, too. You're doing great.

Senior Woodchuck posted:

2018 is the year my daughter was born.

ManiacClown posted:

Congratulations! Here's a word of advice. You know that bit in the original Tremors where they tell the guy he needs to get off the ground so he sits on a tire, then while they're telling him that's not high enough and he gets eaten? That's your stuff. Once your kid can walk all your important stuff needs to go up— higher up than you think a child can reach. Why higher? They can always reach higher somehow. Always.