So I only read two comics. Spiderman, and Batman.
The problem I've run into is with Spiderman, the comic has been running since the 1940s or whatever, as one continuous comic. I'm the type of person who gets obsessive over one thing, instead of casual about 10 things. So my natural instinct is to start reading at issue 1, and then go until current. Let's see, how many issues are there? Ohhhh.......oh that's a lot of issues.......
So obviously I'm not going to read them all, and not even in order. Even though that's what my brain is telling me I should do. At some point I have to let the logical side of me take the wheel and say NO! You're not going to go reading hundreds if not thousands of comics, just so you can stay current with monthly releases!
So my other option is Batman.
And Batman releases little arcs I guess you could call them. I'm currently reading a little 5 comic mini-series, which is like the perfect size for me. A nice complete comic I can read once per day, for 10 minutes, and at the end of the week I have a complete story. But the problem is, each complete story doesn't carry over to the next. Batman assumes you know a few core things about Batman. He's Bruce Wayne, his parents were murdered when he was a kid. He's constantly fighting crime to deal with his own mental illness of not being able to cope with the concept of crime. You know.....the basics.
But the individual stories don't carry over. Batman could kill Catwoman in a story. Murders her completely dead. And that will carry over the following issues. Until they reboot the whole damn thing, and then Catwoman is back. Never murdered. That's no longer canon. It mattered to the story you already read....but that's done now. We've moved on.
So I guess the thing I don't understand is, why can't comic books find the balance between "Neverending story that's literally lasted since before your grandpa was born, but somehow is still going today with the same people", and "Basic characters and themes stay the same, but individual stories will eventually mean absolutely nothing for having had them happen"? Why can't we get comics that can be 5-10 issue complete stories, but if a future story wants to mention it's past, then this character died. And no bringing them back. No making a replacement. I still haven't gotten in the comics how Miles Morales exists. I heard of him through the video game.....no clue how he comes to be though, or why he replaces spiderman.
I guess I'm just having difficulty finding points in comics where I'll say "I start here". Because I would like end dates. The open ended date of spiderman is intimidating. Even though Batman offers conclusions to the story, it's also disheartening to know that eventually what you're reading won't matter.
Law says you can't pee in the bathroom? That's ok. Pee in their mouths instead!
Ah, but then the media would run amok with stories like "Trans perverts are peeing everywhere! What you can do to protect your kids!"
Why do so many afraid people think kids need protecting? You know what my dad did when I was a kid? Nothing. He was passed out drunk on the living room floor after watching football at 2pm on a sunday.
You know what I was doing? Roaming the city. We lived in a bad neighborhood too. Our street was known as a drug and prostitute meetup spot. I can remember going to the playground at 5 years old, which had a basketball court, and a big grass field. I found something shiny in the grass. I picked it up not knowing what it was. Suddenly I hear "Hey yo! What're doin?" I turn around, and about 15 gang members, who were just a moment ago playing basketball had now turned their attention to me. I was holding something of theirs. I didn't know it, but I just picked up a brass knuckles.
I wasn't scared. I was too stupid to be scared. I just happily said "I found this thing!" and he said "No, you got MY thing!". To which I said "Oh, it's yours? Ok. You should put it over here. Are these bags yours? Here, I'll show you."
So now still holding the brass knuckles, and now grabbing a duffle bag, I walk onto the basketball court they were using. Just on the other side of it, is a bunch of pine trees in the grass. I used the sawed off tree branches as hooks to hang the bag, and then slid the brass knuckles into a side pocket.
I said "See? Now you can keep an eye on it, so someone doesn't mistakenly walk off with something, not knowing it's yours."
And this one of them walked over to the bag and said "You wanna see something?" and he reaches into the bag, pulls out a gun and starts shooting down past the trees onto the railroad tracks.
And so I said "Wait, hold on a second, don't fire that for a little bit. I have an idea."
And I reached into the trash, pulled out 4 beer cans that someone threw away, jumped the fence, put them on the tracks, came back, jumped back over the fence, and now pointed at the 4 beer cans I placed on the track, about a foot apart from each other. They were about 200 feet away. I said "Think you can hit those?" Sure enough he did. 4 shots, 4 hits.
So we played basketball together until the cops came, and they all ran. I didn't run. I didn't understand what was going on.
Cop comes up to me thinking I was hurt or something. They got reports of gunshots. I said "Well yeah. I put those beer cans on the track to see if Devon could hit them. And he did. Want me to set them up again for you, to see if you can hit them?"
Cop was quite confused, said no, and then insisted he take me home. Which was literally across the street. When the cop woke my dad up, he thought I got arrested, and yelled at the cop for arresting a 5 year old. Cop could tell he was still drunk, and just gave me over to my dad, who passed back out after the cop left. I just went upstairs and played Sega Genesis.
To this day, my dad refuses to believe that I was too dumb to realize I was in danger multiple times, and did illegal things. But that's what I did. Nobody taught me how dangerous guns were. Nobody taught me what gang members did. I just saw a bunch of new friends, and that's how they acted for the 45 minutes or so we interacted. Never saw them again.
And now, being 41 years old, I see these people today saying "Oh, the world is too scary to let them out of my sight! We must protect the bathrooms from people with different genitalia! Oh everything is scary!"
Meanwhile I'm a little 5 year old white boy walking up to gun carrying gang members, like "Hey guys! Let's play!"
So they can fuck off with this bullshit of kids not being able to handle themselves. Just like when I was a kid and ran after a bear with a stick, and the bear runs off. Sometimes in life, you just gotta stop being a little bitch, and stop being afraid. Even the things that DO want to kill you aren't going to fuck with you if you know you're not going to get fucked with.
In conclusion, I don't care what genitals you have. Go pee in the toilet. Fuck everybody else.