The Charles

I don’t have a lot to say about it. I just hate Cat Grant. She went from a potential love interest for Clark Kent in an attempt to create a love triangle, faded into obscurity, then showed up again as a shallow, man-chasing bimbo.

I’m going to lay down and listen to music from video games for a bit.

It’s amazing how much one person can affect how you feel about yourself. Being rejected by one person has caused me to believe that

• I’m not worth anyone’s time (relationship-wise) 
• I put too much work into making someone feel cared for 
• Someone will always have more to offer than I do 
• Even if there’s no one else for them, I’m not even a romantic option 

Those ideas have shaped my courtship since. I’m timid, low maintenance, my contact is minimal. Significant others are often surprised at how much my behavior changes after a certain point in the relationship. It’s because I have to feel sure that whatever we have is real. This is generally not a productive strategy, but I don’t know what to do about it. How do you unlearn these kinds of things?

People often wondered how flea circuses were trained (back when those were a thing), and it turns out the explanation is a pretty good illustration of conditioning and potential. All it takes to train a flea is a glass container. You place the container over the flea and it will attempt to escape constantly. Eventually, it will get tired of hitting the glass at the top of the container and never jump that high again. An animal that can jump 200 times its body length can be conditioned to limit itself by something as simple as a jar. For people, our jars are often less physical.

• They’re things like I got fired I failed that test 
• He/She only wanted me for the sex 
• He/She didn’t find me attractive 
• They said I’d never be more than [x] 
• I’ve only ever done [x] 

I’d say that it’s all about perception, but being aware hasn’t magically fixed anything. Breaking conditioning is hard. It’s a frustrating process to convince your psyche of something it’s already made a decision about.

I don’t know where all of those words came from. Maybe someone else needs to see them.

Titans Together

The Teen Titans probably appeal to me most because I started reading comics as a teenager. The idea of a group of young heroes who just wanted to be respected on their own merit, rather than be in the shadow of their mentors was really cool. That’s not why they’re my favorite team, though. I love the Titans because five kids who were initially just tired of being sidekicks learned that being together helped them cope with growing up, and they inspired a new generation of young people to band together and do the same. These young heroes can relate to each other better than anyone else in their individual lives (aside from the friends who have previously been Titans themselves), and the grow into better heroes because they have each other’s support. The Teen Titans are more than just a team, they’re a family, and like any family, they get bigger with each generation. No matter where each of them ends up, they always have the friends they made in the Titans to fall back on. Once a Titan, always a Titan.

P.S. Aww Yeah Titans!

I’m going a little bit crazy right now, but for the first time in a long time I don’t want to just pour booze on top of it. I actually poured out a good amount of a drink I’d made.

The Flash Family’s connection to the speed force. It’s fantastic. They can accelerate their thinking, generate a uniform, travel through time, run up to light speed, resist friction, and even travel into the Speed Force itself. It’s probably the best deal in the DCU.

Real good.

I’ve been seeing some variation of the statement “the person they were meant to fall in love with, not the person they were meant to be with” a lot, and I hate it. It implies that everyone you fall in love with and don’t stay with forever was brought into your life to teach you some sort of lesson, and it discounts the feelings of those that were hurt by the ones they love. We don’t live in an idealized fairy tale where we have a moral of every life story. You fall in love with the people you do because some part of them appeals to you, makes you feel good, even if you absolutely hate another part of them. Love isn’t some living entity that pushes you towards its final destination for you. It’s true that we can’t always choose who we fall in love with, but we can choose our actions when we do, and what we take away from the situation if it doesn’t work out.