Authoritah

Oh, goddammit.

I take no particular pleasure in being anti-authoritarian. I believe in the hypothetical existence of righteous authority. I've just never seen it. What I have seen is ridiculous fucking things like the banning of "hip hop style" saggy pants. I've seen politicians move to stop "social ills" that basically amount to a refusal to believe in the same things the politicians do. When a social trend is decried for "encouraging rebellion"- when authority is itself defined as a social good authority must be used to promote- you can go ahead and include me out.

Having done something before does not, by itself, make a good reason to keep on doing it. I need a certain amount of order to survive and be happy, but really not much of it. I'm for chaos, as long as we make it fruitful and not merely destructive. If you want me to obey the law, you might try making some laws that are worth my respect.

Or, you know, you could outlaw fucking skateboards or something.

I may have to choke a sumbitch.

Athena wants you!

In the early days of Wonder Woman, there is/was a theme of Diana as preacher and the Amazons as a social movement. She spends some time telling other women that they can be Wonder Woman too- they have it in themselves to be powerful and great. Any woman who wants to can be an Amazon.

There's exactly one thing I liked about the horrible mess that was Amazons Attack.

( Spoilers )

In most versions, Paradise Island seems pretty cool. It's too bad they have such a problem with inviting boys.

The Mad Thinker

The Mad Thinker is a villain from Fantastic Four. He is one of quite a few villains who basically can't stomach the idea that Reed Richards is smarter than they are. (Reed's the smartest man in the world- his real superpower- and he can also stretch because of cosmic rays.) The Thinker is constantly constructing elaborate plans that always fall apart because of some utterly predictable thing that "no one could have predicted"- something like a junior-high girl being slightly boy-crazy. (Not an actual example from the comics- yet- but it has the right flavor.)

The key here, the thing that will be on the test later, is that the Mad Thinker is almost always wrong, but is always convinced that he is absolutely right. Unlike Reed Richards, he has a lot of ego invested in being smarter than everyone, and that makes him foolish.

Ultimate Fantastic Four had a cooler version of the Mad Thinker who was rejected by the Baxter Building think tank because they were rightly worried about her personality profile. (Like all characters in the Ultimate line, she was a teenager.) She became upset, and I can see her point. Her utterly screwed up home life played a part in making her paranoid and psycho, but her paranoia means that she can't leave home and go to a place where she might have peers. So she acted out by smacking around Reed and friends a little bit.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems like the "Ultimate" Mad Thinker would be fun to hang out with. I'm probably not smart enough to show her a good time, though. :P