Shower Thoughts: Captain Marvel is Buzz Lightyear

• They're both loyal space cops from Starforce/Star Command, respectively.
• They're both quite stubborn.
• They both have wrist comms built into their outfits
• They both shoot laser/energy projectiles from their wrists.
• They both work with blue people during their time as space cops.
• Their lives are both rocked violently by the revelation that their former lives as space cops are lies. 
• They fall with style.
• Their helmets do that... that... that whoosh thing. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

- Lazuli

Picture Prompt: A Female Study - John William Waterhouse

A ghost haunts me, the ghost of the man I'd loved and lost. 

This could not be real, of course not. I'd been asleep, dreaming distantly of traumas past. How could this be? How could he possibly be with me in any way, any form at all? 

A demon! A demon of Hellish origin, come to claim my soul in the form of one trusted and beloved! I'd not allow him passage to my spirit, I'd not let him! I will not be deceived! I will not--

He grabs me somehow, in this barely corporeal form. He grabs my hands and stares deep into my eyes. I can see his mouth motioning for words, word I cannot hear. He tries to speak but he cannot make the sound! He is trapped. Trapped between now and the hereafter in his own personal hell, forced to witness life, unable to partake in its beauty...

I gaze back at him, choking back a sob. I clutch his hands as best as possible, my own grasp shaking violently, my own thoughts deeply and truly troubled to the core.

My God... could it be him...? Could it possibly be?

"William?," I ask. 

He vanishes into shapeless vapor that ekes between my fingers far too slowly. My heart remains suspended in time, suspended in that moment just before dissipation. 

"W-what...?"

The silence is so much louder than it was just a moment ago, so much more overwhelming... 

My William is gone once more. 

He had something to tell me...

A ghost haunts me.

The memory of his death, a shapeless morbid vapor that clings to the flesh, haunts me. 

And only my own end will have it cease. - Evelyn Raczynski

Picture Prompt: The Mermaid - John William Waterhouse

I look upon the human vessel from afar, and they look upon me. Some wish to take me as their own. Some wish to be like me, aching to be a part of another world, another kingdom. I work my hands through my hair for them, amused by their reactions. Reactions of lust, of desire. I see not what they clamor for, I see not what they desire, for I am naught more than a little mermaid, sitting upon the human shore.

Soon, I can tell many things of the human race from this shore, I can see many things from the passing ships. I can tell who rapes and pillages, plunders and exploits. I can tell who extends their hands of mercy and love, tenderness and joy. I can tell who would violate me. I can tell who would join me under the sea. I see very clearly how complex they are from the intensity of a glance, the tone of a shout.

But none can tell a single thing about me. They scarcely hear my voice. They've forgotten how to listen to the world. They've forgotten how to listen to the sea. They cannot hear my song. They cannot hear my voice. To them, I am an exhibit, nature's exhibit, meant for others to ogle at, to reach for but never touch. In one way or another, I am objectified, idealized, placed upon a pedestal in an all too human manner.

They cannot listen.

And so I return to the sea for good, in search of another shore.

They no longer amuse me. 

I will no longer amuse them.

- Evelyn Raczynski

Double Feature: Recieve With Simplicity - The Big Lebowski (1998) & A Serious Man (2009)

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi.

The Big Lebowski & A Serious Man, directed by Joel & Ethan Coen, oppose each other in their protagonists' decisions and views on life.

The Big Lebowski's Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski lives gracefully, taking all that happens to him simply and impersonally. No matter how bad his day gets, he is able to move forward, even in the face of outright hatred. He seeks no answers as to why the world treats him as it does. 

His bewilderment is moment to moment, his anger never constant. He is at peace with the people around him, treating them as equals, proving a positive force. His energy is relaxed, secure, and honest. 

He takes the world as it is, in direct opposition to the people around him, such as Walter, who scapegoats everything on Vietnam, so self-involved and wrathful that he can't see anything outside of himself, and Uli the Nihilist, who bemoans the "unfairness" of later situations.

A Serious Man's Lawrence "Larry" Gopnik lives tensely, refusing to accept that terrible things happen to people for no reason, that no real structure or narrative can be found in the chaos of human existence. With everything that happens to him, his own energy grows increasingly more anxious and emotionally draining.

 His relationship with the people in the society around him is as hostile as the Dude's, with people constantly disregarding him. However, where as The Dude has healthy boundaries with others, Larry has none, exacerbating his own interactions with people until they become whiny and toxic.

This extends to almost the characters, who are ultimately cowards and children, facing nothing for themselves, never speaking honestly, always putting negativity out into the world. Larry's daughter complains constantly, his wife is a shrew who refuses to treat him like an adult, Clive retreats to his father to deal with his problems for him.

The Dude receives with simplicity all that happens to him. Larry does not, until his own life crumbles. The Dude does not allow this to happen to him. Larry has allowed the world around him to make him as entitled and self-involved as they are. The Dude stands tall, secure in who he is, at peace with the world's chaos.

This double feature is an acute observation into the minds of the Coen Brothers and how they perceive living, ultimately pitying those who cannot take responsibility for their lives, those who allow the struggle of life to affect their own energies. It is a case study of "receiving with simplicity" and of how the energy we place out into the world can help make life easier... or make it that much more difficult.

Larry Gopnik "didn't do anything," which is exactly the problem. Without boundaries in the right places, he has been stepped on and mutated into a shambling mess of a person.

Meanwhile?

The Dude Abides.

- The Songbird

Double Feature: The Horror of Responsibility - Eraserhead (1977) & Midsommar (2019)

The films are surreal domestic drama horror-comedies directed by AFI scholars centering around the dissolution of an unhealthy relationship as the result of the male protagonist's refusal to accept responsibility and face adulthood, embracing fatalism and hedonism, all the while the world around them proving isolating vacuums, simultaneously grotesque and hilarious in their absurdity and hostility.

They feature deformed children, deceptively happy endings for their protagonists, and similar executions to their finales (haunting crescendos before sudden stops)