paigeoforacle

[paigeoforacle]

If you’re a superhero and Barbara hand-makes a plush toy of you, that’s a sign you’re in her good graces.

[paigeoforacle]

Barbara Gordon being created as an intelligent, independent woman with a PhD rather than just a silly love interest like Betty. Barbara Gordon becoming a Congresswoman. Yvonne Craig using Batgirl to promote equal pay in real life. Barbara Gordon as a disabled superhero. Barbara Gordon creating a team of badass women. Barbara Gordon being a mentor to other overlooked girls. Just. Barbara Gordon.

[paigeoforacle]

Late nights, for day 5 of 90's batfam week !

[paigeoforacle]

Ok it's been 24 hours and my official post-mortem is literally just "Elizabeth Warren was right: Democrats should have appointed an Attorney General who was committed to prosecuting Trump and everyone who enabled him, cleaned house of Trump's appointees, nuked the filibuster to pass DC and Puerto Rico statehood, and prioritized dealing with corruption"

[paigeoforacle]

Fuck it, I'm going to start talking politics on a regular basis on Tumblr again

[paigeoforacle]

They make me insane. What if you were responsible for an eighteen year old girl and you sometimes get annoyed at how she dismisses learning words and trying to have "normal" relationships and hobbies but you still love her anyway even if it's hard.

And then you learn she's planning to go off and get herself killed in a death match by the deadliest woman in the world because of guilt for her first kill as an eight year old raised by a psychopath and you can't understand why and you try to tell her not to go but she has to do this and you just can't understand-

Yeah, I'm normal about them.

[paigeoforacle]

Babs messed up a lot in Batgirl (2000) but I constantly think about what it must've been like from her perspective. Being unable to connect with this girl who's wearing your costume, then bit by bit falling in love with her, but still failing to fully understand her and hurting her at every turn. What is it like to love someone who wants to die? How do you stop her without driving her away? What do you do when you call her stupid and do drive her away? Thinking about in #25 when Cass paralyses her, and how Babs has to hear her go, probably thinking it was the last time she'd ever see her. Batgirl (2000) Cass-Babs I miss you...

OUGH Cass and Babs is so much like you never asked for this... You never asked to care so much about this kid and there were so many ways that it was difficult to connect and yet despite everything she wormed her way right into your heart and you can't save her. You love her but it's not enough. You try and try and try and it is never enough she will always need something more than you can give her.

The Babs and Cass scene in batgirl 25 kills me. I think listening to Cass walk away to her death while being unable to stop her is the first time Barbara fully understood what Dick felt when he found out Jason had died. Only it's worse because not only is it family you care for dying in your old mantle, the legacy you created that started so positively ending in tragedy, but you are the sole adult figure in this girl's life trying to stop her from committing suicide. You are screaming and banging on the glass and trying to get her to accept that the guilt she carries is not something she deserves to die for, but she won't listen. She can't. And there's no one else to help you. Every other adult in her life either doesn't realise or is in denial about just how deeply unwell this child is. You are alone and you are responsible and despite your best desperate attempts she leaves anyway.

They make me feel so many emotions. Thank you for the ask!

[paigeoforacle]

Oracle on Jonathan Crane

Dr. Cranes early years in pre-med were unremarkable, but as a postdoc he really came into his own. Turns out people notice when you fire a live round in a classroom to illustrate a point about fear. he would have been fired if he hadn't been so brilliant at securing what every university needs, funding.

In the end, he was a subject of a bidding war between institutes resulting in a handsome offer.

An offer he turned down to take Huge Strange's position of director of rehabilitation at Blackgate. "it was" He said in his acceptance letter "The perfect place to shine a light on humanity's darkest depths. Or maybe he just enjoyed the hearty combo of endless test subjects and little oversight.

His published research at Blackgate focuses on the Jungian concept of the Shadow. The subconscious ID held in check by the Ego. By doing Shadow work you can integrate the ID and the Ego and become a more fully realized individual.

That's the theory, at least. If you ask me though, Dr. Crane's less about Shadow work and more about making people jump at their own shadows.

[paigeoforacle]

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” -Fred Rogers Donate to the ACLU

[paigeoforacle]

Need to do more Barbara Gordon metas again apparently, I am fading in the consciousness of Tumblr Babs stans

[paigeoforacle]

Headlines across eight years. Who you vote for really does matter. None of these headlines delve into the Boar's Head listeria outbreak because I can only post ten photos in one post. But the slaughter house self regulate headline? Yup, that's why.

[paigeoforacle]

one apple a day keeps doctors away or whatever the saying is

kinda unfinished (i burned out) KorixBabs cuz society needs more yuri.

[paigeoforacle]

Barbara wip :/

LORD I MISS DRAWING FOR FUN!!! Take me back to fanart pls uni is so boring (it’s not I love my course and doing art for uni but… dc fanart I miss u)

[paigeoforacle]

MISOGYNY & ARKHAM KNIGHT: my controversial onions & grievances i have with Arkham Knight (mostly)/city/asylum — mostly Arkham Knight because it's arguably better than the others in terms of misogyny but it lacks sooo horribly. playing the game as a female player was a completely different experience, one that was hard to enjoy without noticing the glaring misogyny present everywhere, so I thought i'd create a list of the things that truly bothered me; a general overview before diving into individual character specs.

We'll start with the fact that all the women in the game are hostages. and that's saying something for a game with only 4 female characters — 5, if you count that policewoman NPC at GCPD. In fact not even women in Arkham City are speared of this; Catwoman and Talia both, once more, end up as hostages — we'll get to Talia soon though; Scarecrow holds Ivy hostage, Arkham knight kidnaps Barbara, Harley is held hostage by henry Adams, Catwoman by riddler and Talia by joker in arkham city — they only serve one purpose and it's to be damsels for bruce to save; there are other contexts at play though, all equally shallow, but ultimately — All the women are hostages, sexualized figures, or only used to further male relationships.

HARLEY QUINN: first I'll touch on her garbage arkham asylum design, what part of it was meant to say 'former doctor'? It's not even on brand with the Harley Quinn aesthetic, it was purely made to sexualize her and degrade her to a walking blowup doll. (people say it's 'equal' because Scarecrow was running around half-naked too, but was it really? To say so means ignoring the current reality we live in — women largely exist for male pleasure, that is what we are reduced to. men 'sexualizing' — which I don't think Scarecrow was doing — themselves will never be equal to women who are sexualized because the societal circumstances and context are fundamentally different by far.)

✦ — moving onto Arkham Knight, Harley is meant to be an abused woman, I get that. But she is ALSO a villain. Joker himself says he was holding Harley back, and when we finally get to see her as a villain outside of his control — since he's dead at last, hoping to see her flourish, she is once again sidelined by joker-lites / Henry Adams; they don't know how to handle women, but especially Harley Quinn — she exists to be joker's arm candy or slave. (SKTJL does rectify her character and fix a LOT of the issues I have with it, so good on Rocksteady for improving 8-10 years later.) there is a repeated theme here of women not existing outside of men in arkham knight, we'll see this a lot with all the women in the game.

✦ — there's a line where Robin says neither Bruce nor he respects Harley and I find it laughable — they never used such condescending language against even the riddler, but Harley quinn, the 'crown princess of crime' is directly told to her face she's not worth it — it might've been done to taunt her, but does it matter when the narrative itself shows bruce kicks her in the spine and robin choke her unconscious only 5 seconds later? proving the point that she wasn't a threat. I believe this was the first and only fight where the boss is taken out FIRST and then the thugs are dealt with.

BARBARA GORDON: Barbara is perhaps the only female character in the serious who's NOT sexualized (though I don't know if that can be attributed to her paralysis or simply because the studio had genuine respect for her as opposed to the "evil" women who deserve their sexualization) but even still she isn't spared the 'not existing outside of male characters' dilemma — when her relationship with robin (tim drake of all people) isn't being shoved down our throats, she exists for the sake of bruce's guilt, or arkham knight's means of torturing bruce.

✦ — Barbara is kidnapped by Jason Todd, and held hostage by him and Scarecrow, it matters not that jason was 'kind' to her and ensured she wasn't harmed, the point is that they reduced such a strong and powerful character into, once again, a damsel for bruce to save — barbara in the game achieved nothing until the very end of it when she was able to fight with batman; her active impact was nonexistent and paled in comparison to her passive impact.

✦ — speaking of jason — I find it hilarious that he RAVED to Bruce and taunted him about kidnapping Barbara and how Bruce failed to save her (and by extension him), jason blames Bruce a lot for not killing Joker sooner — but he never once mentions Barbara's trauma though. Barbara who was paralyzed by the Joker is unimportant enough for jason to mention because it's all about him — Barbara's trauma doesn't matter unless it's for Bruce to feel bad, or for jason to taunt Bruce, jason never tries to avenge Barbara, he never even mentions it. and later, Barbara never gets the justice she deserves — she never gets to punish Scarecrow and jason for what they did to her; she should've at least headbutted him when Scarecrow was about to throw her off the roof.

POISON IVY: I hate hate hate her blow-up sex doll look where she walks around in her underwear only for male pleasure; every character from Asylum got a wardrobe upgrade with the exception of Ivy who dawns the same ridiculous garbage. The "sex doll" aesthetic reduces her to an object, and it plays into the larger context of how women’s bodies are consistently exploited for male gaze — even powerful women like Ivy

✦ — speaking of Ivy — they weakened her so much, I can potentially buy that she wasn't strong enough to purify Scarecrow's toxin, as stated here, but I cannot for the life of me believe that she allows SCARECROW and potentially jason to kidnap her — firstly, his toxin doesn't work on her, and even if jason were to get physical and kidnap her, there's absolutely no way she wouldn't have been able to use her powers and escape, instead she had to wait for batman to come and rescue her, reducing her to a helpless damsel only there for bruce.

✦ — Poison Ivy's "noble" sacrifice doesn't ring so noble to me; it's a commentary on female villains being unable to hold any agency to remain evil — on its own, it would've been fine. but the larger context is that there are no female villains in Arkhamverse who don't end up getting redeemed — now name me how many male villains get to remain evil, yet Ivy and later Harley are just... not committed to their cause as seriously as the males? what a joke lol. anyway even if I did see it as noble, it's undercut when Bruce (and Alfred) move on within 0.2 seconds.

TALIA: again, taken hostage by Joker, and as a friend of mine ( clitoralthinking ) pointed out, Talia perhaps gets the most laughably disrespectful death. not only is she, one of the best assassins, shot and killed by the Joker — a mediocre man with a gun — but after her death, Bruce has the AUDACITY to tell Joker 'i would've still saved you' and it's exacerbated by the simple fact that in arkham knight — under the fear toxin — Bruce never ONCE hallucinates Talia, it's joker who he cares about enough to lose his mind, not Talia to grieve over. Talia's death was a form of fridging where she was only killed off for shock value or to make bruce sad (funny how that worked out in arkham knight 😒)

CATWOMAN: again, hostage to two face (city) and Riddler (arkham knight), at least in city she had more autonomy. Her clothes have always been interesting; she's a thief with impractical clothing and absolutely nowhere to hide her spoils. Finally, the last point I have regarding Catwoman is that the one time we see her interact with female characters (poison ivy in arkham city) she betrays her needlessly, playing into the "women are just catty and bitchy" stereotype who lack any form of solidarity.

THUGS AND MILITIA: in the game are completely male — does this speak to Jason's unspoken misogyny 🤔 ? Or did the developers simply not bother adding female thugs (like how Gotham Knights had them because, contrary to popular belief, women do in fact exist)

conclusion, women can't exist outside of men; they all lack any real agency and don't exist outside of male ego and heroism. their role in the story, no matter how important, is always overshadowed by no one actually caring, the women in arkham knight exist to remind female viewers of their place at worst, or for male pleasure at best. women shouldn't have to pretend to be blind to the commentary about our sex to fully immerse ourselves in and enjoy a simple game, it gets tiring to ignore the glaring misogyny and to pretend any of the female characters have an actual depth that isn't added purely via fan interpretations. Why do female characters always have to exist in service to male egos?

[paigeoforacle]

The toothless body snatcher pretending to be Oracle is thankfully being dusted Thanos style.

Virgin Batgirls (2022) Barbara Gordon:

[gulp] aw s-shucks… i don’t know stephanie.. hacking the gcpd… that sounds like it might be [gulp] a little u-unethical! Uh…Better do this the legal way!

Batgirls #9 (2022)

VS

Chad Birds of Prey (1999) Barbara Gordon:

[hacks US Air Force to use their memory capabilities]

Birds of Prey #1 (1999)

[hacks into Blockbusters account to steal tens of millions of dollars from him regularly]

BOP #2 / BOP #18 (1999)

[hacks into Air Force to casually fire rockets from their top secret satellite]

BOP #9 (1999)

[hacks the cia]

BOP #9 (1999)

[hacks into White House cameras to spy on Lex Luthor]

Nightwing #66 (1996)

[paigeoforacle]

May I offer a Harvey and Jason fluff/comfort comic thing where they have both worked together for a while and are on the brink of actually being a bit more open to each other?

Once again I must apologize for the quality because Tumblr requires me to compress things severely. The GIFs had little animations in them which you can kind of still see but grrrr, compression.

But anyway, yeah, I've been thinking of the idea of Harvey actually employing Jason shortly after his return to Gotham, helping him through the ranks with ease because, dare he admit, he sees a son in him and doesn't want him to be eaten alive by Gotham like it has done with so many others.

Ko-Fi.

[paigeoforacle]

For the prompts how abt trans girl Jason hanging out with babs?

She and Babs are the girls night founders ft. ally lazzy pit