#Bea Dixon

[riverstardis]

happy lesbian visibility week to jan jenning and ffion morgan and bea kinsella and kathleen “dixie” dixon and archie hudson and stevie nash

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Out of this entire essay, this was the section that I considered cutting entirely. After all, in the past there have been instances when Barbara Gordon and her romance with Dick Grayson have been weaponized by Taylor and his fans against his critics. 

The example that comes to mind was when Taylor and Redondo were criticized for not including Duke in a Nightwing cover that parodied The Brady Bunch.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Finale. Nightwing: Rebirth. 96, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022)

Personally, I believe that, while discussions of how Duke’s positioning in the Bat Family is warranted, the matter was blown out of proportion, and many of the attempts to cancel Taylor crossed the line into harassment (make no mistake, while I believe him to be a terrible writer, I do not wish him any ill-will). That being said, Taylor also escalated the matters when attempting to pin said negative comments onto DickKory shippers who did not like that he wrote DickBabs.

(While the original Tweet has since been deleted, the screenshot used is available in this tweet 

Neb | 🏳️‍🌈 [@NebsGoodTakes]. Twitter, 20 June 2022, https://twitter.com/NebsGoodTakes/status/1538939571789934593)

For this reason and this reason alone, I considered removing this part of the essay. While I have no idea if anyone will read this monstrosity, I did not want my arguments to be invalidated simply because I did not have a favorable opinion on the DickBabs.

However, after much consideration and numerous discussions with other Dick Grayson fans, I found that the subject of Barbara Gordon’s portrayal in this run (as well as in many recent DC media), and her romance with Dick perfectly embodies many of ideas I wish to explore in this essay — mainly, how shallow approaches to progress ideals create deeply problematic narratives that not only undermines the themes of a story, but they also destroy characterization.

I will start by once again stating that I do not believe this is a problem unique to Taylor’s writing. As I alluded to above, I believe DC’s modern portrayal of Babs does a great disservice to her wonderful, empowering, complex character. This is but the analysis of one of the stories she appears in. It is my hope to prove that in Taylor’s Nightwing, Barbara Gordon is not written as a woman with a strong sense of self and an internal life, but rather idealized girl whose existence revolves around the men in her life, and whose perfect yet shimmering depiction serves only to make her into the reader’s proxy-girlriend.   

Barbara Gordon in the late 90s and early 2000s was a mature and confident woman in her late-20s to early-30s. She had her own job, her own friends, team, villains, and the type of confidence that can only come with age and experience. She was serious while still having a sense of humor, pragmatic, and she knew exactly what she wanted for herself. 

(Gail, Simone, writer. Bennett, Joe; Barrows, Eddy, illustrator. Perfect Pitch: Part One. Birds of Prey. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005. pp. 22)

She was also flawed. She could get angry at people for little reason, she could be too cold or too straightforward without considering the other person’s feelings, she could be purposefully petty and selfish, she could get unreasonably jealous, she was impatient, she could be too proud to admit when she was wrong. It was all of these factors which allowed Barbara Gordon to be her own person — to be a fleshed out, well-rounded woman. 

(Dixon, Chuck, writer. Leonardi, Rick, illustrator. The Gun. Birds of Prey. 39, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2002. pp. 16)

Babs’ life did not revolve around Dick. Yes, she loved him, but she still had some interiority. She had a life outside of Dick Grayson, outside of Bludhaven, outside of Batman, and outside of Oracle. She had her own goals, her own dreams, her own likes and dislikes that worked independently of the men around her. She had her own history that informed her decisions, she had both positive and negative relationships with other women and those relationships were not dependent on her connections with Dick or Bruce. 

(Gail, Simone, writer. Timm, Bruce; Lopez, David; Melo, Adriana, illustrators. A Wakeful Time. Birds of Prey. 86, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005. pp. 02)

By comparison, Taylor’s Barbara is not a woman, but a girl. She is very young and very immature. If Dick is written like a young man who just left home and is experiencing adulthood for the first time, then Babs is written as his girlfriend who is still in college and does not have concrete plans for her future. 

Note that when referring to Taylor’s Babs, I mainly characterize her through her relationship with Dick. That was intentional. While writing this essay, I struggled to think of Barbara having any meaningful interactions with characters who were not Dick or Dick’s friends, the Titans. I also struggled to think of her doing something for herself rather than for Dick and the Titans. I struggled to define her goals independent of Dick, I struggled to describe the plans she has for her future that do not revolve around her relationship with Dick, and I struggled to give an account of what she does in her spare time when she is not helping Dick, Nightwing, the Titans, or Batman. That is because everything in Barbara Gordon’s life, as written by Taylor, is constructed around Dick (As many may know, it is really hard to prove a negative. How can I get supporting evidence from the comics that Babs does not have a life outside of Dick Grayson when my argument comes from those factors not existing? For this, though I hate to do so, I’m afraid I’ll have to rely on the reader’s familiarity with the run being discussed).

Barbara is a constant presence in Taylor’s Nightwing run. She is a secondary protagonist, and she is often portraying helping Dick Grayson behind the scenes,

(Taylor, Tom, illustrator. Redondo, Bruno The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 93, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022 pp)

Helping Nightwing as Oracle,

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part 4. Nightwing: Rebirth. 81, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 19)

Or fighting by Nightwing’s side as Batgirl.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. You are Nightwing. Nightwing: Rebirth. 105, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp. 05)

She is always present, she is always doing something… But all of that is in the service of the men around her rather than for herself.

As Dick Grayson Fan A pointed out during a discussion, “Modern Babsgirl is forced to be perfect at everything. She's never allowed postcrisis Babs' edges, her flaws and intrinsic motivations. Taylor's Babsgirl is designed to be the perfect girlfriend for his blank self insert Nightwing. There's no meat to her bones, she's just shimmer and gloss.” (The subject of Babs came up when DC announced the lineup for Birds of Prey (2023) and Babs was not included on the roster.)

In other words, Babs as portrayed in Taylor’s run lacks any bite, edge, and maturity that would make her feel like a woman with her own sense of self and with a life that is not dependent on her boyfriend. Babs’ portrayal is a shallow girlboss-type of feminism, where though Babs is powerful and intelligent, she is not allowed to be a real person for she serves no purpose other than to be the perfect, understanding, badass girlfriend.

As a result, Dick and Barbara’s relationship becomes hollow. Because Babs lacks interiority, individuality, and agency, she becomes a flat character. This, in turn, makes it so it is hard to understand why Dick and Barbara are together other than for the fact that DC mandates it. The over reliance on the childhood friends-to-lovers trope only increases this hollowness rather than fleshing out their relationship. While Taylor includes flashbacks of Dick and Babs as friends when children, growing up together as teenagers, and fighting together as Robin and Batgirl, those instances feel removed from their individual histories. These moments exist in isolation, removed from the context of the rest of their lives, be it together or separately.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart. Nightwing: Rebirth. 92, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 06 - 07)

DC currently treats Dick and Babs as a foregone conclusion. As a result, Taylor does not make an effort to get his readers on board with the relationship because he assumes that they should already support it. Dick and Babs are portrayed as getting along great, never having had any conflict, tension, or disagreements. This idealized romance would not necessarily be a problem if it didn’t come at the expense of developing Dick and Barbara as individuals outside of their relationship. They are not one being, but two separate people coming together. They should be written as such, but in trying to create the perfect relationship, Taylor robs Dick and Babs of their identity outside of their romance. 

Not only does this inseparability that Taylor attempts to portray as “charming” destroy Dick and Babs’ individuality, it can also be downright insulting. In #106 Taylor infantilizes Dick when making it so Babs needs to be the one to wake him up so he can start his work as Nightwing. 

As I mentioned previously, Dick is known for his toxic perfectionism, his obsessive tendencies that often come at the cost of his health. Making Dick laze around in bed while people need his help and having his girlfriend tell him to get ready for the day, as if she was his mother and he was a teenager who did not want to go to school in the morning, is not only out of character, it also diminishes Dick’s competence. It makes it seem like he cannot function as a responsible adult without Babs being there to hold his hand through everyday difficulties. 

Not only that, the scene also plays into incredibly sexist dynamics where women are expected to carry the domestic labor in a relationship — the man cannot keep track of his own schedule, and so it becomes the woman’s responsibility to attend to his needs. What was intended to be a “cute” scene portrays Dick as being immature and irresponsible, and portrays Babs spend her time keeping track of an adult man’s responsibilities.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Byrne, Stephen, illustrator. The Crew of the Crossed Part One. Nightwing: Rebirth. 106, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp 08)

This unhealthy codependency further insults Dick when, in #107, Babs demands Dick come back home as he is about to help his ex, Bea. Rather than believing Dick’s capability as a vigilante who has been operating in the field for far longer than she has, Babs shows her complete lack of faith in Dick’s ability to get anything done by himself by telling him that she “wants him home now.” 

(Taylor, Tom; Byrne, Stephen The Crew of the Crossed Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 107  e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp. 19)

This is a great contrast to Nightwing (1996) #66, where Babs encouraged Dick’s independence and had full trust in his abilities to take on such difficult challenges on his own. When Lockhaven goes up in flames, Babs trusts Dick to be able to handle the situation by himself, even though she also knows that Dick’s mind is greatly preoccupied with Bruce and the murder of Vesper Fairchild. Indeed, in the next issue (not part of Murderer/Fugitive, but happening simultaneously to it), Dick does handle the Lockhaven fire by himself, without requiring any assistance, before returning to Gotham to help with the investigation that should clear Bruce’s name.

(Dixon, Chuck, writer. Burchett, Rick, illustrator. The Unusual Suspects. Nightwing. 66, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2002. pp 18 - 19)

This healthy separation and this unconditional trust not only portrayed Dick and Babs as both trusting each other’s abilities as heroes — Dick did not worry about Babs’ capability of taking care of herself, and Babs knew Dick could handle his own — it also portrayed them as being more secure in their relationship. They were individuals first. They had their own independent lives and personalities outside of their romance. They trusted the other’s ability to win on their own and handle their own cases without help. And that, in turn, made it so that they could stand on their own, and so that their relationship did not feel so vulnerable.

That being said, it wasn’t as if previous depictions of Dick and Babs didn’t present them with hardships, or demonstrated how, at times, they could bring out the worst in each other. As much as they could compliment one another, Dick and Babs could also disagree, get into arguments, and even fights. That is because they were individuals first, with their own opinions, preferred way of doing things, and their own background that would sometimes come in conflict.

Taylor avoids having meaningful conflicts in his story. While this negatively affects his narrative in a myriad of ways, the lack of the conflict in the plot also affects the relationship between Dick and Babs. It is fine to have a wholesome, sweet romance, so long as it is balanced with a plot containing other forms of tension. This way, the relationship can be a safe harbor for the main characters, the one space in their lives where they can be safe, and the one source of strength they can draw upon when facing the challenges ahead. By balancing a conflict-filled plot with a wholesome romance, the stakes of the plot feel higher while the romance feels sweeter. They foil one another to create a cohesive and unified story.

In Taylor’s Nightwing, all major plot beats take a backseat to the sitcom-like relationship between Dick and Babs. The lack of conflict in the plot and the lack of conflict in the romance makes it so everything is stagnant.

I do believe that Taylor thought he was writing a “Will-they-won’t-they” style romance in the beginning of his run. In Nightwing #95, for example, Batwoman implies that the reason Dick and Babs aren’t together is because Dick and Babs are scared of crossing that line. 

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Four. Nightwing: Rebirth. 95, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 17)

Wally also played into that idea when, in #91, he pointed out that Dick and Babs were already together and just needed to make it official.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Get Grayson Act Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 91, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 19)

More than that, I believe Taylor attempted to make a commentary on comics imposing needless conflicts in relationships to keep two characters apart. In Taylor’s view, Dick and Babs were always in love, always meant to be together, and never had a complicated history that prevented them from rekindling their romance when Dick is trying to regain some control over his life after recovering his memories. This shows a lack of understanding as to why Dick and Babs often break up and does a disservice to both their characters.

Now, to explain this, I’ll borrow heavily from a private discussion I had with a Dick Grayson Fan A once distinguishing the difference between external and internal conflicts in a romantic plot. While we were not talking Dick and Barbara then, much of what we said still applies to their relationship.

External conflicts, as the name suggests, involve external forces that keep the couple from being able to develop their relationship despite their mutual feelings for each other. This is the case with a romance like Clark and Lois. Given Babs’ laugh at Dick’s condescendingly sexist claim that Babs shouldn’t be with him because it is too dangerous (as if he doesn’t know very well that Babs can easily take care of herself), it seemed that Taylor believed that this was the conflict that has been keeping Dick and Babs apart. And so, with one panel, he dismissed the idea that external forces could keep Dick and Babs apart because they are able to face their enemies together.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Finale. Nightwing: Rebirth. 96, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp. 17 - 18)

But in the past, what broke Dick and Babs up were not external conflicts, but internal ones. If external conflicts are created due to external forces, internal conflicts preventing a couple from being together come from the characters not yet being who they need to be in order to be happy together. This can be due to a clash of personalities, worldviews, needs, wants, or goals. To prove my point, I want to look at Dick and Bab’s break up in Nightwing (1996) #87 and the Nightwing Annual #02. (I’ll be honest in saying that it pains me to cite Nightwing Annual #02 in this essay, for I absolutely detest it. I believe Dick is written incredibly out of character and it, quite frankly, captures one of my major problems with how some writers choose to depict DickBabs. In trying to prop Babs up, Dick gets knocked down and ridiculed, and often burdened with the full responsibility as to why Dick and Babs haven’t been able to get together due to timing and Dick’s immaturity. As such, writers make it so Dick and Dick alone must change in order to become a partner worthy of Babs. They greatly mischaracterize him, fault the failures of Dick and Babs’ relationships on those mischaracterizations, and then portray Babs as the patient woman waiting for her immature soulmate to grow up. This is both an insult to Dick’s character and a propagation of sexist tropes where a woman must put her life on hold in order for the man to “catch up” to her maturely. Not only that, it unfairly requires that only one party makes changes for another. It is not Dick and Babs that must change for each other, but Dick who must change for Babs.)

Just as Taylor uses Dick and Babs’ shared history to bring them together, their breakup explores how shared history can make being together so difficult. 

In Devin Grayson’s run, their shared history can be painful to Babs. Not because she doesn’t look back on their time growing up together fondly, but because it was such a happy time in her life that it makes her feel bitter about what she lost. While she is incredible as Oracle, she is still frustrated that she can't be Batgirl anymore. The past, no matter how good, is a reminder of what she can no longer be, and Babs wants to move forward. So Dick bringing up their time as Robin and Batgirl, however fondly, is painful for it makes her feel like they are stuck in the past they shared rather than moving forward together.

(Grayson, Devin, writer. Zitcher, Path, illustrator The Calm Before. Nightwing. 86, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003. pp 21 - 22)

But to Dick, the past you share with someone is what makes your relationship in the present special. The past informs the present and the future. Dick, much like Bruce, doesn’t move forward by disconnecting himself from the past. His parents are part of his past. So is Robin. His childhood with Bruce. The past is something good to Dick, even when it's also so filled with pain. Dick is not shackled by his past the way Bruce is because he does not see it as something that needs to hold him back. You can move forward while still embracing who you once were and honoring the legacy you carry on your shoulders. The past informed who Dick is now, the relationships he has, and the person he wants to be. The past is where much of what he loves exists. So when he brings up their shared history when talking to Babs, he is not doing it because he loved Batgirl but cannot love Oracle, and he is not doing so because he is just focused on who they were then and not who they are now; he does it it's because to Dick, there's no such distinction between Batgirl and Oracle. They are both Babs, and he loves both of them. 

(Grayson, Devin, writer. Zitcher, Patch, illustrator. Snowball. Nightwing. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003. pp 16)

The way Babs copes with trauma is by divorcing herself from the hurt, by letting go of who she was and embracing who she wants to be. Dick, on the other hand, merges who he was then with who he is now. He doesn't see those people as separate entities, but rather as extensions of him. And that makes sense when you consider that Babs' main trauma relates to something that was taken away from her, and for Dick, the only way he can remain connected to his parents is through the past. It's a great example of incompatibility. Neither one is "at fault" for how they view this issue, neither of them is more correct than the other. They are just different. They care for each other, but the way they understand and interact with the world prevents them from being happy together at this moment. For that to work, internal change is needed. 

In portraying Dick and Barbara as complex individuals first, who have different attitudes towards looking back at the past and looking forward to the future, Grayson managed to make their relationship feel real. There’s a weight to their breakup, you can see why they care for each other and why this decision is painful and not taken lightly. They love each other, but they are not in a place where they can be themselves and be happy together yet. It is not danger that keeps them apart — it is the very same differences which they admire most about each other which pushes them away. 

In Nightwing Annual #02, we see other reasons why Dick and Babs failed to come together so often. These included Babs being scared of Dick eventually leaving her due to tensions between Dick and Bruce

(Andreyko, Marc, writer. Bennett, Joe, illustrator Hero’s Journey. Nightwing Annual. 2, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007. pp 22 - 23)

Timing,

(Andreyko, Marc, writer. Bennett, Joe, illustrator Hero’s Journey. Nightwing Annual. 2, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007. pp 25)

And, perhaps most importantly, the way in which Dick devalues his own life. 

(Andreyko, Marc, writer. Bennett, Joe, illustrator Hero’s Journey. Nightwing Annual. 2, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007. pp 37 - 38)

This is something Grayson also alludes to during her run, when she often portrays Babs being both worried and frustrated at Dick’s tendencies to push himself too far.

(Grayson, Devin, writer. Zitcher, Patch, illustrator Snowball. Nightwing. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003. pp 13)

In both Grayson’s run and the aftermath of Infinite Crisis, the toxic perfectionism referred to many times during this essay led Babs to break off their relationship despite their mutual love. 

Having lost the mobility of her legs due to the Joker, Babs sees her life as Oracle as a second chance, and one which she will use to its fullest by putting herself first. It makes sense, then, that she sees Dick’s self-sacrificing tendencies and his desire for approval as both concerning and irritating. As Dick constantly puts himself in near-death scenarios for even the smallest of things, Babs decides that she would rather wait for a time when Dick learns to value himself more rather than to continue in a relationship where she is the only one who cares about whether Dick lives or dies. 

Whether this is the right solution to their relationship is up for debate. Personally, it irks me that stories will often frame this as Dick having to mature to be with Babs and not place an equal burden on Babs having to learn to accept that this is just who Dick is. But that is irrelevant to this discussion, for what matters is that there have been plenty of reasons why Dick and Babs did not work out in the past, and those are almost always rooted in who they are as individuals struggling to perfectly fit together as a unit. Dick and Babs have a messy history, both as individual characters with their own stories, and together as friends and romantic interests. They are two different people who, although their morals align, approach life differently. The development in their romance, then, comes with how willing they are to change for the other, and how willing they are to accept the things that cannot — and should not — be changed. It is about a balance of give and take, and when Babs and Dick broke up in the past, it was because they were not able to find that balance. It is because they, as individuals, clashed. As Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Cesar Alfonso Marino put in their essay analyzing Dick’s portrayal in the Batman Family (1975-1978) series, Dick and Babs will often find themselves in “point[s] of inflection which marks that both heroes must go their separate ways to avoid further tensions (developed by sexual attraction and/or problems about leadership).” (Pagnoni Berns, Fernando Gabriel and Marino, Cesar Alfonso “Outlining the Future Robin: The Seventies in the Batman Family.”Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 years of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman edited by Kristen L. Geaman, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015, pp. 32)

In other words, it was about interior conflicts, not exterior ones.

When taking this into consideration, one can see how Taylor’s portrayal of Dick and Babs’ relationship is not only incredibly hollow, but incredibly cynical. Because Taylor removed Dick’s self-destructive, toxic perfectionism, that is no longer a point of friction in their relationship. Because Babs is no longer the pragmatic woman who doses out tough love, that is also no longer a point of friction in their relationship. But as a result, Dick and Babs are no longer themselves, and their relationship is no longer representative of their shared history. Instead, we are left with an insulting and purposeful misrepresentation of their past relationship, with Taylor displaying a blatant disrespect and disregard for anything his predecessors contributed to these characters. Dick and Babs were never apart because of danger. Dick would never condescend to Barbara in this manner, and Barbara would never let something so trivial go unchallenged or get in the way of what she wants. What got in their way was a matter of compatibility. They may compliment each other in the field, be great friends, get along well, but in previous attempts to make their relationship work, they found that they were simply too different to share a life together, their goals did not align, and their approaches to life did not work together. Getting and staying together was not a matter of external factors, but rather whether they could do the difficult internal work necessary to make their romance last. 

I want to make it clear that I actually love the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope. But what makes friends-to-lovers interesting is the fact that it creates inherently messy romances. If you two characters who have loved each other for so long, then they naturally have a history. They have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Yet, insecurities, timing, and compatibility keep them from being able to get their happily-ever-after. That creates a messiness that adds weight and meaning to the relationship. Seeing them overcome these challenges, become better individuals, and then finally come together is what makes the narrative so effective.

Dick’s and Babs’ romance, as currently portrayed, lacks that weight. Taylor and DC want that history, that “true love” aspect of their relationship without acknowledging the complications that come from having lived so many years in close proximity. In other words, they want the appearance of a long shared history without acknowledging the contents of said history. This robs both Dick and Babs of their individual personalities and backstories, for it is there where the source of their conflicts lie. All of the things that make them interesting individuals are sacrificed for the heteronormative DickBabs amalgamation. There is no Dick Grayson. There is no Barbara Gordon. There is only a happy, wholesome, smiling couple of nothingness — as it was put earlier it is all “shimmer, gloss, and no substance.”

And this does not affect only them.  

In making Dick and Babs inseparable, Babs has become heavily involved with the Titans. This leads to the majority of Babs’s interactions in the current canon to be with Dick’s friends. And because, once more, Taylor skirts away from conflict, that means that all of Dick’s friends have become Babs’ friends. However, by making Babs friends with all of Dick’s female friends, Taylor created a shallow girlboss feminist narrative where all of these women’s individual personhoods are reduced their relationship to one man. He does not take into account who they are, only their gender and their mutual connection to Dick. In trying to do a girl-boss feminist empowerment, Taylor instead creates a deeply misogynistic narrative. 

Kory and Babs, for example, should be allowed to dislike each other despite being on the same team. They are, after all, supposedly fully realized women with their own personalities, values, and goals. Their existence is not dependent on Dick Grayson or their romance with him. Real world women dislike one another for various reasons that are unrelated to men. Male characters often hate each other without it being because of a woman. So why can’t the same be true for female characters? 

To attempt to make Kory and Babs friends simply to undermine expectations because one of them is Dick’s ex and the other one is Dick’s girlfriend is not empowering. It sacrifices characterization for the purposes of subversion.To think of the dynamic between these two characters in terms of their relationship with Dick reduces their existence to a man by implying that the only possible reason they could dislike one another is because of said man. It is not due to different value systems (which would be incredibly reasonable given their different background and cultures), it is not because their personalities clash (as they are two different people), it is not because their likes and dislikes may contradict (once more, because they are two different people). All the things that would make them realized individuals with agency are ignored in favor of focusing on their relationship with Dick. 

Babs is a cisgender, straight, middle-class white woman from New Jersey. Kory is a warrior Princess from a different galaxy. It would not be unreasonable to expect their opinions to conflict when their backgrounds, upbringings, and experiences also differ. After all, those are things that shape our value system, dictating our perspectives. 

Having different values or different ways to express your opinion does not mean that one is right and the other is wrong. It does not mean one is superior to the other. It only means they are different. Diverse. To believe one must be correct and the other must be wrong is to fall into the traps of ethnocentrism. By making Kory and Babs values indistinguishable, the story implies that there is only one correct way to interact with the world. This eliminates diverse perspectives in favor of a monolithic one. The fact that Kory's culture is the one that is ignored so that they are compatible with Babs implies that Babs – the cisgender, straight, middle-class white woman from New Jersey – is the one whose culture and world views are correct and, therefore, superior.

Dick’s relationship platonic relationship with Donna is also devalued and watered down in favor of Dick and Barbara’s romance. Because Dick and Barbara are depicted as having been each other’s best friends since childhood — when, in reality, Dick was closer to Donna during his preteen and teenage years, and Donna is often portrayed as his best friend — Donna’s place in Dick’s life is replaced by Babs. Babs must be everything to Dick — his true love, his longest childhood friend, his one female best friend. 

This creates a narrative in which Dick cannot have a significant interaction with another woman without it being a threat to his relationship with Babs. Needless to say, this is an incredibly heteronormative worldview which implies that men and women who are not related cannot share deep and significant platonic intimacy without some underlying romantic tension. So naturally, Donna cannot he Dick’s longest friend, his best friend, because in the heteronormative world portrayed in Taylor’s run, that would mean that she is a rival to Babs.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Melinda was revealed to be Dick’s sister so soon into her introduction. If Melinda and Dick were not related but were still meant to interact with each other, that would create a bond that some might see as romantic or sexual. So by presenting Melinda as Dick’s biological sibling within moments of the two first interacting, Taylor strips Melinda of any romantic or sexual appeal. In this heteronormative world, only by being related can Dick and Melinda share intimacy without threatening Babs’ position in Dick’s life. 

Needless to say, this heteronormative worldview which only allows for the relationship between non-biologically related men and women to be seen through lenses of romance and sex is also a misogynistic, male-centric worldview. In this story, women are not treated as people and are instead perceived solely through their relationship to Dick Grayson.

[incorrectfabfifteen]

Hello, welcome to Incorrect Fab Fifteen, a blog about all things Silver Age Teen Titans! I've come up with the term Fab Fifteen to broadly refer to all of the members (which I'll explain below) as well as a natural expansion of the Fab Five (plus, it's better than just calling them the OG Teen Titans or the 70s Team).

For DC newcomers, don't be afraid of some of the comic terminology present, they'll make sense with more exposure.

Introducing: The Fab Fifteen!

Dick Grayson

Full name: Richard John "Dick" Grayson

Alter Ego: Robin I, Nightwing, Batman III, Red X

Birthday: March 20th

Love interests: Bette Kane (Pre-Crisis), Princess Koriand'r, Barbara Gordon, Helena Bertinelli (DCYou), Bea Bennett [There's probably more, feel free to send an ask so I can fix this]

Reading recs: The Judas Contract, The Cheshire Contract [collected as Nightwing: Old Friends, New Enemies], Nightwing Vol 1 by Chuck Dixon, Batman & Robin, The Black Mirror, New 52 Nightwing by Kyle Higgens

Wally West

Full name: Wallace Rudolph "Wally" West

Alter Ego: Kid Flash I, The Flash III

Birthday: January 16

Love interests: Donna Troy (Pre-NTT), Rachel Roth (🤨?), Frances Kane, Linda Park, Jesse Chambers

Reading recs: Born To Run, Savage Velocity, The Flash by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRoque, The Flash by Mark Waid, Flash Forward, The Flash by Jeremy Adams (especially The Return of Wally West and One-Minute War)

Donna Troy

Full name: Donna Hinckley Stacy Troy

Alter ego: Wonder Girl, Troia (Who Is Wonder Girl? until Total Chaos; JLA/Titans until Infinite Crisis; No Justice onwards), Darkstar (Zero Hour until Meltdown), Wonder Woman IV (Who Is Wonder Woman?)

Birthday: April 26

Love interests (oh boy): Dick Grayson (FORMERLY), Wally West (only during the Silver Age + some weird thing during DC Rebirth), Garth (Titans 2018 + Titans United), Roy Harper, Kyle Rayner

Reading recs: Who Is Wonder Girl? [Collected in The New Teen Titans Who is Donna Troy?], Wonder Woman By John Byrne Vol. 3, The Return of Donna Troy, Wonder Woman: Who is Wonder Woman?, Titans: The Spark and Into The Bleed

Garth

Full name: Prince Garth of Shayeris

Alter ego: Aqualad (also legal name until Crisis), Tempest

Birthday: March 6

Love interests: Donna Troy, Tula Marinus, Dolphin, Lilith Clay (temporary)

Reading recs: World's Finest: Teen Titans, Death of a Prince, Tempest by Phil Jimenez, Aquaman by Peter David, JLA: The Obsidian Age, Aquaman: Underworld

Roy Harper

Full name: Roy William Harper Jr.

Alter ego: Speedy, Arsenal, Red Arrow

Birthday: November 1

Love interests: Donna Troy, Jade Nguyen, Kendra Saunders

Reading recs: Snowbirds Don't Fly, The Cheshire Contract [Collected as Nightwing: Old Friends, New Enemies], Arsenal by Devin Grayson, Outsiders 2003, Justice League of America 2007, Infinite Frontier, Green Arrow 2023

Lilith Clay

Full name: Lilith Jupiter-Clay

Alter ego: Omen

Birthday: Not stated but her debut was November 18

Love interests: Gnarrk, Donald Hall, Garth, Bette Kane

Reading recs: The Terror of Trigon, Teen Titans by Dan Jurgens, Teen Titans: Life and Death, Titans Hunt (2015), Titans Rebirth

Mal Duncan

Full name: Malcolm Arnold "Mal" Duncan

Alter ego: Guardian (Pre-Crisis), Hornblower, Herald (Post-Crisis), Vox (Infinite Crisis until Flashpoint)

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Karen Beecher

Reading recs: Silver Age Teen Titans, Titans Hunt, Titans Rebirth, The Other History of the DC Universe #2

Fun fact: Mal Duncan was featured in the first interracial kiss in comics history with a goodbye kiss between him and Lilith!

Karen Beecher

Full name: Karen Beecher-Duncan

Alter ego: Bumblebee

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Mal Duncan

Reading recs: Silver Age Teen Titans, Titans Hunt, Titans Rebirth, The Other History of the DC Universe #2, Doom Patrol by Keith Giffen

Don Hall

Full name: Donald Hall

Alter ego: Dove

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Lilith Clay

Reading recs: The Hawk & The Dove, Silver Age Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths

Hank Hall

Full name: Henry "Hank" Hall

Alter ego: Hawk, Monarch (Armageddon 2001), Extant (Zero Hour until JSA)

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Dawn Granger, Ren Takamori

Reading recs: The Hawk and The Dove, Hawk and Dove: Ghosts & Demons, Hawk and Dove (1989), Birds of Prey (2010)

Dawn Granger

Full name: Dawn Marie Granger

Alter ego: Dove

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Hank Hall, Sal Arsala

Reading recs: Hawk and Dove: Ghosts & Demons, Hawk and Dove (1989), Birds of Prey (2010)

Duela Dent

Full name: Duela Dent

Alter ego: Joker's/Riddler's/Penguin's Daughter, Card Queen, Harlequin

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Earth-1 Dick Grayson, Earth-3 Dick Grayson

Reading recs: Silver Age Teen Titans, Teen Titans: Titans East

Bette Kane

Full name: Mary Elizabeth "Bette" Kane

Alter ego: Batgirl (Pre-Crisis), Flamebird (Post-Crisis, current mantle), Hawkfire (N52 Batwoman only)

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Dick Grayson (Pre-Crisis)

Reading recs: Teen Titans Vol 1 #50-53, Hawk and Dove Vol 3 Annual 1, Beast Boy (2000), DC's Legion of Bloom

Charley Parker

Full name: Charles Edmund "Charley" Parker (human name); Ch'al Andar (Thanagarian name)

Alter ego: Golden Eagle, Hawkman IV (Rise of the Golden Eagle)

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Kendra Saunders (I think?)

Reading recs: Hawkman: Rise of the Golden Eagle,

Tula

Full name: Tula Marinus

Alter ego: Aquagirl

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Garth

Reading recs: Tempest by Phil Jimenez, New 52 Aquaman, Mera: Queen of Atlantus, Aquaman by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Aquamen

So a special note: despite Beast Boy being a part of the Titans West (as well as appearing in the above photograph), they do not count as part of the Fab Fifteen, mainly because he's already part of the New Teen Titans. Also note that this acc won't be using the New 52 version of Duela Dent (although the Gotham Knights version is fine so feel free to send in any hcs about her)

Also you maybe be asking why Gnarrk's entry is below instead of with everybody else. That's because Gnarrk was never a Titan in the first place. Sure, he appeared as part of the title and was there when the Titans West was formed but he never actually joined the team at all. Gnarrk becoming a Titan became a thing when he was introduced following the New 52.

Gnarrk

Full name: Unknown

Alter ego: Caveboy

Birthday: Not stated

Love interests: Lilith Clay

Reading recs: Titans Hunt (2015), Titans Rebirth

Uhh, yeah, so that's the Fab Fifteen! Again, don't worry about this technical jargon if you're a newcomer and you just wanna look at the other posts, we're all here to have fun.

[celaenaeiln]

The bimbofication of Dick Grayson is sad but I also feel like a lot of it has to do with his place in the batfamily and fitting a certain role which is different from his role as part of the Titans fam. Like there is a reason he gets killed off in a lot of Batfam stories and or he takes up the role as Batman despite wanting to make a name for himself as Nightwing. I’m not a huge Dick Grayson fan but that’s because my introduction to him was through the Batfamily and he was always portrayed rather silly or kind of the butt of the joke to Barbara Gordon’s know-it-all-ness (I love her but that’s how it feels) , but then I would read his interactions with the Titans and I actually became more invested in his character even if the writing is a bit outdated.

This goes for his relationships too, he used to be portrayed as a one woman man but then Dixon got a hold of him and suddenly the tiring trope of guy is a bit of a playboy except for that one girl who is the love of his life took hold and it hasn’t left since. I miss the Dick who meet this out of this world (literally) woman and who grew to love each other and watching him grow into a man who learned to love in a passionate way and who learned that people were different from him.

Even a lot of his newer relationships have a lot of depth (like with Bea Bennet or Shawn) but then they get axed. Taylor isn’t really writing anything that hasn’t been written before, like Rebirth Dick wasn’t that great and Rebirth DickBabs was childish and Dixon had some takes on Dick but Taylor has really has highlighted a lot of that bad writing and It’s crazy that it’s becoming the most popular iteration of Dick Grayson and even Barbara Gordon.

og post in reference

Absolutely!

There was the comic thing DC released during an event with all the heroes talking to the reader like they were in the Office, and Dick's was, "I'm the nice, funny one."

Now that's funny because Roy literally refers to him as uptight. The statement is true but it's a lie by omission. It doesn't take into account his craziness, his leadership, his dedication, his intelligence, his prowess, his good-standing - nothing! "Nice, funny one." I think Ra's would've run a sword through the writer's heart at that, given that he was easily defeated by the "nice, funny one."

Aside from that I can't really speak to the dumbification of Dick in Batfamily comics because I think most of them have done a good job but I used to see it a lot in fandom. It's much less now but five years ago, there was so much fandom content about incompetent himbo Grayson and some writers genuinely meant it too. Which I don't understand because nowhere in the Nightwing comics is Dick ever written as being dumb. The Batman comics (1940) and (2016) also do a fantastic job of writing him. His fighting ability, his emotional intelligence, his IQ, all of it is there and off the charts!

I guess the main thing with Dick's role in the batfamily is he's seen as an authority figure. He's Batman's second in command and seen that way by both Bruce and the rest of the family. So if some major disaster were to occur, he would need to be killed off because he's both of exceedingly high emotional value to Bruce or because he's going to be the next person in charge and god forbid that happens because the apocalypse would end then.

I mean, the villains made the mistake of leaving him alive in Convergence and he literally reset the universe back to how it's supposed to be.

So there's no way they can leave him alive because of that. Also his death fuels Batman to end whatever crisis the world is facing so that's an important plot event.

But the Barbara Gordon arm candy.

I am certain. That the idea of Dick being stupid comes from him being with Barbara Gordon. No where in the Nightwing comics, Batman comics (both!), Red Robin comics, Robin comics, Titans comics, Justice League comics, and other DC comics is Dick ever written to be stupid EXCEPT when he's written with Barbara.

Take this nightwing panel for instance

Nightwing (2011) Issue #27

or this

Nightwing (1996) Issue #42

and then take this

Convergence: Nightwing/Oracle Issue #1

AKA: I'm smart. You're dumb. Now shut up and leave because you're too stupid to understand.

The arrogance. This is the same shit Bruce would pull except when Dick asks, Bruce actually tells him.

Justice Leagues: Justice League of Atlantis

Barbara in the Nightwing comics isn't the best but at least it tracks with her own personality in her own comics and the Batman and Bird of Prey ones. The best Barbara Gordon depictions I've seen are through Cass and Stephanie's Batgirl comics funnily, but the Barbara Gordon Batgirl comics have the worst treatment I've seen of Dick in all of DC.

This is where I think the idea Dick is dumb orginates because it's definitely not coming from Tim or the Titans or Batman. It also makes sense if that's the case since Dickbabs is such a huge thing in this fandom.

I miss when Dick would just be with Kori through everything. They were so in love! I genuinely believe they could have worked out their problems or at least gotten back together but DC will never let that happen for logical reasons. If Dick marries Kori, he's going to end up spending all his time with the Titans which would be bad for the rest of the family because they need him when they have problems or just to hang out. It's a lot more convenient for them to have Tim hang out with Dick and Barbara if they were dating than him hanging out with Dick and Kori. Which is the biggest reason why Batfamily writers want to keep the romance within the family.

I will never accept the cheating thing because it was so out of character but I've kinda gotten used to him finding new relationships because I grown to fall in love with those characters. As long as he has meaningful relationships like with Bea and Shawn where it develops and grows, I end up loving it. My only requirements for his relationship is letting Dick be himself and letting him be happy. I was furious that whoever writer ended Bea's relationship and for what? "I'm sorry, I can't love you anymore, I got memories back." What kinda a reason is that?! It's not even remotely believable! I have so much to say but it's going to turn into a rant about how dumb the reasoning is.

Tom Taylor took all of Dick's fake worst traits and amplified them by a billion. Actually you know what? I get what's he's trying to do. He picked one trait of Dick's - caring - and trashed his entire life story at the expense of his intelligence, athleticism, humor (c'mon Dick was genuinely funny before this run, his humor did not suck), and wit to support this one little thing.

He wouldn't understand subtlety if it hit him in the face.

[critical-quoter]

October Books

Man, I don't know what my life even is any more. I'm just reading and disassociating and trying to get my husband to let me decay into my final mushroom form. This is my lightest reading month. I have no reason for it other than some of these were absolute bricks.

When the Moon Hatched - Sarah A. Parker ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hockey Boy - Brittanee Nicole ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ No Pucking Way - C. R. Jane & May Dawson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Our Pucking Way - C. R. Jane & May Dawson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reverie - Shain Rose ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Truly Madly Deeply - L. J. Shen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Connor - Billie Lustig ⭐️⭐️ The Restoration - Maia Terry ⭐️ Before We Came - Sloane St. James ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Things We Hide From the Light - Lucy Score ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Words - Ashley Jade ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Paved in Blood - Sonja Grey ⭐️ Holy Sinner - Darcy Dahlia ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lights Out - Navessa Allen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fire Line - Maggie C. Gates ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pucking Around - Emily Rath ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Love on the Waiver Wire - Anna Noel ⭐️ The Pucking Wrong Date - C. R. Jane (Audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ People We Meet on Vacation - Emily Henry ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Darkest Temptation - Danielle Lori ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Art of War and Love - Honey Mavryck ⭐️⭐️ Icebreaker - Hannah Grace ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Thug and His Doll - Bea Paige ⭐️ Doppelbanger - Heather M. Orgeron ⭐️⭐️ Burned Dreams - Neva Altaj ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Center Ice - Julia Connors ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fell for You - Renee Harless ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Saving Anna - T. Thomas ⭐️ These Rough Waters - Ria Wilde ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Au Pair Affair - Tessa Bailey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ His Tesoro - Emilia Rossi ⭐️⭐️ The Mistake - Elle Kennedy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Bull Rush - Maggie Rawdon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ruin - Samantha Towle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Off Limits - Emma Creed ⭐️⭐️ Silent Lies - Neva Altaj ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Does It Hurt? - H. D. Carlton ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ On the Wild Side - Kristen Proby ⭐️ The Pieces We've Lost - H. K. Green ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ghost Knight - Jewels Baxter ⭐️ Campfires and Canines - Aly Hollis ⭐️⭐️ Reckless - Else Silver (Audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Bloody Heart - Sophie Lark ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Devoured by You - Tracie Delaney ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Dixon Rule - Elle Kennedy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Things We Left Behind - Lucy Score ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Exposing Atalanta - Molly Briar ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Exposing Adonis - Molly Briar ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

48 total books read for October 2024.

[sleepy--anon]

Sleepy's Writing List

I will also write ler!reader, (there is a severe lack)

Mcyt

Dream

Sapnap

Georgenotfound

Badboyhalo

Skeppy

Dream XD

Sapnap 4K

George HD

Antfrost

Velvetiscakee

Captain Puffy

Awesamdude (Sam)

Larray

Sidemen

JJ Olatunji (KSI)

Simon Minter (MiniMinter)

Harry Lewis (W2S)

Ethan Payne (Behzinga)

Josh Bradley (Zerkaa)

Tobi Brown (Tobjizzle)

Vik Barn (Vikkstar123)

Heartstopper

Nick Nelson

Charlie Spring

Darcy Olsson

Tara Jones

Elle Argent

Tao Xu

Issac Henderson

Imogen Heaney

Sahar Zahid

Tori Spring

Otis Smith

Sai Verma

Christian McBride

9-1-1

Hen Wilson

Karen Wilson

Denny Wilson

Mara (Driscoll) Wilson

Maddie Buckley-Han

Chimney (Howie) Han

Athena Grant-Nash

Bobby Nash

May Grant

Harry Grant

Eddie Diaz

Christopher Diaz

Evan (Buck) Buckley

Tk Strand

Carlos Reyes

Ravi Pannikar

Tommy Kinard

Red, White, and Royal Blue

Alex Clermont-Diaz

Henry Hanover-Stuart-Fox

Beatrice (Bea) Hanover-Stuart-Fox

Nora Holleran

Percy (Pez) Okonjo

Smosh

Anthony Padilla

Ian Hecox

Shayne Topp

Damien Haas

Courtney Miller

Olivia Sui

Keith Leak Jr.

Tommy Bowe

Spencer Agnew

Amanda Lehan-Canto

Angela Giarratana

Trevor Evarts

Chance McCrary

Arasha Lalani

The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes

Michonne Grimes

Carl Grimes

Judith Grimes

RJ Grimes

Glenn Rhee

Maggie Rhee

Daryl Dixon

Carol Peletier

Rosita Espinosa

Paul (Jesus) Rovia

Enid

King Ezekiel

Aaron

Connie

Kelly

Juanita (Princess) Sanchez

Michael Mercer

Gabriel Stokes

Noah

Lydia

Jerry

Bridgerton

Anthony Bridgerton

Benedict Bridgerton

Colin Bridgerton

Daphne (Bridgerton) Bassett

Eloise Bridgerton

Francesca (Bridgerton) Sterling

Gregory Bridgerton

Hyacinth Bridgerton

Penelope (Featherington) Bridgerton

Kate (Sharma) Bridgerton

House of the Dragon

Simon Bassett

John Sterling

Rhaenyra Targaryen

Aegon II Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen

Daemon Targaryen

Jacearys Velaryon

Lucearys Velaryon

Helena Targaryen

Baela Targaryen

Rhaena Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen

Alicent Hightower

Rhaenys Targaryen

[aut2imagineart]

For the art event of MerMay I wanted to make some sketches to celebrate it.  The I included three ideas of mine on the top and three fan arts below.  Top left is an alien Diva (working name Bea) from a Don Bluth inspired story of mine titled “Galena”.  Top middle is my genie OC Zakiyah as a mermaid.  Top left is a blast from the past; my take of one of the posthuman species from Dougal Dixon’s book Man After Man called the Aquatics.  Bottom left is Classic Harley Quinn wielding her signature hammer.  Bottom middle is my current favorite mermaid Mermista from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power.  Lastly bottom right is Seraphina, a mermaid who appeared in the Disney Channel series Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.

Harley Quinn Belongs to DC comics, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power belong to ND Stevenson, and Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure belongs to Disney.

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

[ninelivesart]

2023 Draw My Reads

Here is a full list of all the books I read in 2023 and links to the art I’ve made for them.

Just a few quick notes. I didn’t make art for everything I read. I also fell off the wagon a bit toward the end and went through an art block. Not sure if I’ll continue this project into 2024 but I might do some variation. We’ll see.

Also, I read some absolutely filthy (and ridiculous) stuff sometimes. So be warned.

*Sequels will have an asterisk. First book in series will be in parenthesis.

January

1. Alpha Wolf* by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (Caged Wolf)

2. Feral Wolf* by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (Caged Wolf)

3. Constantine: Distorted Illusions by Kami Garcia and Isaac Goodhart

4. The Ballad of Never After* by Stephanie Garber (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

5. Wicked Beauty* by Katee Robert (Neon Gods)

6. Vicious by V.E. Schwab

7. Hell Bent* by Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House)

Total (so far): 7

February

1. How Y’all Doing by Leslie Jordan

2. Vengeful* by V.E. Schwab (Vicious)

3. A Court of Mist and Fury* by Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses)

4. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Total (so far): 11

March

1. Kingdom of Flesh and Fire* by Jennifer L. Armentrout (From Blood and Ash)

2. The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

3. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

4. Scarlet* by Marissa Meyer (Cinder)

5. Cress* by Marissa Meyer (Cinder)

Total (so far): 16

April

1. Winter* by Marissa Meyer (Cinder)

2. A Soul to Keep by Opal Reyne

3. Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

4. Lauren’s Barbarian* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians, spinoff series)

Total (so far): 20

May

1. Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith

2. The Song of the Marked by S.M. Gaither

3. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

4. Fable by Adrienne Young

5. Bea Wolf by Weinersmith

6. Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

Total (so far): 26

June

1. A Ruin of Roses by K.F. Breene

2. Veronica’s Dragon* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians, spinoff series)

3. Willa’s Beast* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians, spinoff series)

4. Over My Dead Body by Sweeney Boo

5. Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey

6. A Court of Silver Flames* by Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses)

7. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Total (so far): 33

July

1. Zodiac Academy: Beyond the Veil* by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (Zodiac Academy: The Awakening)

2. The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

3. The Traitor Queen* by Danielle L. Jensen (The Bridge Kingdom)

4. The Little Library Cookbook by Kate Young

5. Sheets by Brenna Thummler

6. Cackle by Rachel Harrison

7. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

8. The Borderlands Princess by Ophelia Wells Langley

9. Bride of the Shadow King by Sylvia Mercedes

10. Vow of the Shadow King* by Sylvia Mercedes (Bride of the Shadow King)

11. Angie’s Gladiator* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

12. Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

13. Gail’s Family* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

14. Hanna’s Hero* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

15. Devi’s Distraction* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

16. Destination Alien Bride by Dee J. Holmes

Total (so far): 49

August

1. Destination Alien Mate* by Dee J. Holmes (Destination Alien Bride)

2. Gilded by Marissa Meyer

3. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

4. Cursed* by Marissa Meyer (Gilded)

5. Nadine’s Champion* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

6. Callie’s Catastrophe* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

7. Ice Planet Honeymoon* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians)

8. Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell

9. I’m in Love with Mothman by Paige Lavoie

Total (so far): 58

September

1. Cryptid Club by Sarah Andersen

2. Radiant Sin* by Katee Robert (Neon Gods)

3. Ice Planet Honeymoon: Raahosh and Liz* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians)

4. The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner

5. Throne in the Dark by A.K. Caggiano

6. Ice Planet Honeymoon: Aehako and Kira* by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians)

7.  A Soul to Heal by Opal Reyne* (A Soul to Keep)

8. Ice Planet Honeymoon: Rukh and Harlow by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians)

9. The Barbarian Before Christmas by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians)

10. Penny’s Protector by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

11. Mari’s Mistake by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

12. Raven’s Return by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

Total (so far): 70

October

1. Bridget’s Bane by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

2. Steph’s Outcast by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

3. Sam’s Secret by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

4. Daisy’s Decision by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

5. Flor’s Fiasco by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

6. R’jaal’s Resonance by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians spinoff series)

7. Forged by Magic by Jenna Wolfheart

8. A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

9.  A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber* (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

Total (so far): 79

November

1. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

2. Namesake by Adrienne Young* (Fable)

3. Blackwater by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham

4. Surviving Skarr by Ruby Dixon* (Ice Planet Barbarians Spinoff series)

5. Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

6. Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson* (Sorcery of Thorns)

7. Destination Alien Treasure by Dee J Holmes* (Destination Alien Bride)

8. Zodiac Academy: Origins of an Academy Bully by Susanne Valenti and Caroline Peckham* (Zodiac Academy: The Awakening)

9. When She’s Ready by Ruby Dixon

10. When She’s Married by Ruby Dixon* (When She’s Ready)

11. When She Purrs by Ruby Dixon* (When She’s Ready)

12. When She Belongs by Ruby Dixon* (When She’s Ready)

Total (so far): 91

December

1. The Dreaming Forest by LB Black

2. Gold by Raven Kennedy* (Gild)

3. Chained to Krampus by KL Wyatt

4. Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell* (Series of standalones)

Total Reads For 2023: 95

My goal was to read 90 books and I beat that by 5. I think I’m going to set my reading goal to just 80 this year. Just to give myself a little more freedom. I did read a lot of really short books just to get my number up and I’d rather just focus on reading whatever I want.

Shortest book read: Ice Planet Honeymoon: Raahosh and Liz by Ruby Dixon

Longest book read: Winter by Marissa Meyer

Current read started in 2023 but will finish in 2024: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

[zahri-melitor]

Okay looking at this again now all the votes are in:

Devin Grayson ended up with over 50% of the vote. That's...notable to me. I do wonder how much of it is people who haven't read a lot of the other options remaining. Now I'm interested in what I'd get if I could have all the Grayson voters give me a second preference. (It also confirms for me that removing Dixon and Tomasi was extraordinarily necessary).

Everyone, even Lobdell and Bruce Jones, got a vote. I don't believe in especially that Lobdell vote as anything more than a misclick but I'd be fascinated to hear from that person. Maybe they're a really big Bea Bennett fan or something.

Wolfman, Seeley, then Taylor and O'Neil feels about right, in terms of what I know about the fandom. I expect Taylor to keep tracking upwards, just as Seeley is here. The run will look better when you come back to it after a break, I promise.

Kyle Higgins fighting for his life next to Sam Humphries, here. From opinions I've seen through this: there's definitely a cohort of fans that wish Humphries had got a longer run, and Higgins honestly is good, folks! It's just the n52 of it all.

Everyone else is pretty much data noise.

In terms of my starting premise for why I ran this poll: Tom Taylor has come in as probably the 6th top writer of a title called Nightwing. Which... yeah my vibe was he was probably in the top 5, out of a pool of 6 names (he's certainly in MY top 5), but it appears the pool might be 7. Denny, you absolute wizard, I was not expecting that.

Okay, commit and put down your preferred run. These are your only options.

Lobdell and his two writers got lumped because I don't think you can actually separate out the three of them over those issues.

[lebaronlordking]

Saturday Afternoon Reggae Show DJ LeBaron Lord King June 10, 2023 lebaron@kpoo.com kpoo.com

SaturdayAfternoonReggaeShow

4:00 PM Stephen Marley - Hey Baby 4:04 PM Popcaan - Next To Me 4:08 PM Libianca - People 4:11 PM Rad Dixon - Times Are Hard - Reggae Version 4:15 PM Inna de Yard - Baltimore 4:19 PM Runkus - Energy 4:23 PM Devon Cry - Ghetto Cry 4:27 PM Barry Brown - Rich Man Poor Man 4:31 PM Junior Kelly - Dem Story 4:35 PM Eek-A-Mouse - She Feels It 4:39 PM Skip Marley - Make Me Feel 4:42 PM Frankie Paul - Foreign Mind 4:46 PM Toots & The Maytals - Do You Remember 4:49 PM Bob Marley & The Wailers - Jamming 4:53 PM Protoje - Late at Night 4:56 PM Capleton - In the Game 5:00 PM Maxi Priest - Should I 5:04 PM Arise Roots - Rootsman Town 5:08 PM Black Uhuru - Plastic Smile 5:16 PM Sylford Walker - Golden Pen 5:20 PM Stoneface Priest - Mind Your Tongue 5:24 PM Alborosie - Natural Mystic 5:30 PM Protoje - Incient Stepping 5:34 PM Beanie Man - Girls Dem Sugar 5:38 PM Sampa the Great - Energy 5:43 PM Romain Virgo - Taking You Home 5:47 PM Sistah Jahia - Ice Gold and Green 5:51 PM Estelle - Lights Out 5:54 PM The Maytals - Bla, Bla, Bla 5:57 PM Baba Ras - Real Vegetarian 6:00 PM The Wailers - Is This Love 6:05 PM ILah Medz - Bunn de Beas 6:08 PM Damian Marley - Life Is a Circle 6:13 PM Cedric Myton - Rat Trap 6:17 PM Capleton - That Day Will Come 6:20 PM The Congos - Fisherman 6:26 PM Super Cat - Dem No Worry We 6:31 PM Ras Iba - Pay the Price 6:35 PM Inna Vision - Sensi Must Burn 6:38 PM Kabaka Pyramid - Mr. Rastaman 6:42 PM Lee Perry - Let it Rain 6:48 PM Renegad - Island In The Sun 6:52 PM Drake - Energy 6:52 PM Anthony B - My Day Will Come 6:55 PM Aborijah - Moving To Zion

[heyscroller]

Venture capital for black entrepreneurs has plummeted 45% in 2022

Bea Dixon, CEO and co-founder of The Honey Pot Company Courtesy: Honey Pot Company In 2016, Beatrice Dixon finally secured a deal Goal to lead her line of women’s grooming products. But she had a problem: she was still making them in the kitchen of her Atlanta home, and she needed to scale quickly. The CEO and co-founder of The Honey Pot Company, a vaginal wellness brand, faced the “impossible”…

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (PART 2)

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Instead, Taylor readily abandons the statue just as soon as it is introduced. We don’t return to it, we don’t even use it as a set piece that can ground Bludhaven and make it feel like an actual place. It doesn’t make an appearance in any covers, nor in establishing shots. In fact, even its thematic symbolism is forgotten when Alfred’s statue is built. Such a decision is especially infuriating when one considers the fact that not only would Alfred hate having a statue in his honor, but that Alfred means absolutely nothing to the people of Bludhaven. He means something to the reader, but not the citizens of the city that Dick is meant to protect. In this, we see how once more Taylor’s online mindset interferes with his storytelling, replacing a set piece that was tied to the in-universe history of the city he was writing with fanservice.

By contrast, Humphrie’s Bludhaven is filled with specific locations that are unique to, well, Bludhaven. We have the different casinos

(Humphries, Sam. Ruthless, writer. Janson, Klaus; Campbell, Jamal, illustrator. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 37, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018. pp. 22)

The Tiki District

(Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Two: Relentless. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 36, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018. pp. 13)

Which greatly contrasts the darkness of the docks…

(Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter One: Hunter. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 35, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018. pp. 17)

And the melancholy of the sunken city

(Humphries, Sam, writer. Jimenez, Phil; Campbell, Jamal, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Five:Face Off. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 39, e-book  ed. DC Comics, 2018 pp. 05)

All of it is so specific that it makes Bludhaven feel alive. It gives Bludhaven an identity rather than keeping it a generic location.

Let’s take a closer look at the establishing shot of the sunken city and see how the page is laid out to emphasize the storytelling going on in the dialogue and enrich Bludhaven. There's something so visually poetic about that last panel. The intimacy between the Judge and Nightwing, the opulent throne atop a simple boat in a sunken, destroyed home. 

It feels a bit like a visual metaphor for Bludhaven and corruption. Bludhaven is thriving because of the casinos, but they are also corrupt. And yet, despite their rich aesthetic, they are built on top of a tragedy, of a city that was lost and had to rebuild itself, taking advantage of a corrupt system that devastates its citizens while also being the only thing keeping them from drowning. 

The lighting of the page is also so beautiful. Light coming in from above, appearing almost heavenly, and yet it makes the scene so still and lonely

During Dixon and Grayson’s runs, and during Taylor’s run, Bldhaven does not have an identity outside of Gotham and Nightwing. It is difficult to describe it without relying on those two factors. It is not impossible, of course, but those descriptions would be rather bare, relying on what one wishes Bludhaven could be rather than what is actually on the page.

In The Untouchable, however, Bludhaven can be described independent of Gotham and Nightwing. Yes, those elements are still crucial to its depiction, but rather than being all that there is to it, they serve to enhance what is already there. Dick’s interactions with people from Bludhaven further fleshes out the city while also demonstrating that they have their own lives outside of their meetings with Dick or Nightwing. Guppy, Svoboda, Lucy, Dick's clients at his gym... All of them are clear products of Bludhaven, they are affected by what happens in Bludhaven, and they interact with different parts of Bludhaven. Because they are characters with their own interiority, the reader really is able to feel the consequences of the Judge's actions. 

Yet, Taylor and Redondo both refuse to pay Bludhaven any of the attention it deserves. They do not even give it the respect of making it into Gotham-light. Instead, they opt for the generic, lazy, and morally simplistic depiction that is yet more proof of just how little thought they give to anything remotely related to Dick Grayson.

Bludhaven, as it exists in The Untouchable, was built on top of a corrupt foundation, and its systems are so intertwined with the rot that you can't neatly separate them. There's no easy answer to this, no solution without a victim. It adds some nice stakes to the story, creates constraints which Dick must creatively work around, and demonstrates how Nightwing’s fight is far larger than just The Judge. It illustrates how even if Dick catches this one guy, he still has so much more to do, creating a perfect comic status-quo where the hero can progress and make a difference without eliminating conflict sources for future stories.

Through the Judge, we also get to see Bludhaven’s history, and through this evolution, we also get to see just how much Humphrey cares about Bludhaven. I have yet to encounter another writer who has devoted so much care to Dick’s city. I have yet to encounter a writer who put so much effort into making this city feel alive. Gotham is beloved by many writers and fans alike, and The Untouchable showed that Bludhaven has the potential to be just as great if only it was given to a writer who cares enough to develop it. 

Needless to say, Taylor is not that writer.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part 4. Nightwing: Rebirth. 81, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 13)

While this may be wholesome, the truth is that by giving such a triumphant moment early on in the story, Taylor robbed his characters of any opportunity to change, and any opportunity for a well-earned pay off later. In turn, this robbed the story of its ability to engage with its themes by creating a very simple morality. Evil can be manifested in different ways and anyone is capable of it. Perhaps not all of us will be uppercase Evil, but we're all capable of the smallest acts of lowercase evil by letting our anger blind us to what is right, not helping others because we tell ourselves we have to survive, upholding unfair systems because they benefit us.

The city of Gotham does something similar. We have the evil of the rogues, but we also have the crime families, a myriad of corrupt institutions -- from the police department to the justice system to the politicians who are in the pockets of those on the top – and the ordinary citizens who have been disillusioned by the hardship they face. We have greed on a massive scale but also a small and personal one that is far more relatable, we have chaos of the Joker and we have more relatable pettiness, selfishness, apathy, and cruelty. 

Some of these play a larger role than others, their influence has a wider reach, but it is the different layers that makes Gotham feel so difficult to tackle. There’s a reason why Batman's origin story works best when it's just about a mugging gone wrong, and when Joe Chill is just a simple man who fired two shots in a dark alley because he wanted a pearl necklace. There's a reason why Bruce stays in Gotham rather than trying to save the entire world all the time. Batman, after all, is not about fighting the just grander Evil, but about bringing justice to everyone, even in what may be perceived to be a small scale. 

While I do not believe Batman: The Knight was perfect (and, indeed, I have a lot of problems with it and dislike Zdarsky’s current Batman run nearly as much as I dislike Taylor’s Nightwing), I do think that Zdarsky did a good job when having Ra’s Al Ghul confront Bruce on this matter. 

In #09, Ra’s challenges Bruce to work on a macro scale, and Bruce explores that idea before deciding he needs to work on a more personal level.

(Zdarsky, Chip, writer. Di Giandomenico, Carmine. The Knight Part 9. Batman: The Knight. 09, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 13)

Bruce’s world did not fall apart because of a war or an alien invasion, but that did not mean his pain is invalid. There might be far more important things than catching a mob boss who orchestrated the murder of two circus acrobats, but that doesn’t mean that their lives did not matter or that their son does not deserve to see justice. One of the beautiful things about the detective stories of Batman and of Nightwing is that they treat everyone’s trauma with equal respect. Batman and Nightwing aren’t just about catching the bad guy, they are about giving the victim a chance to heal by offering them closure. 

You can also observe the dichotomy of these two evils in The Untouchable. The entire plot of The Untouchable is about the Judge using people’s desires to corrupt them, luring them into committing evil deeds. At the same time, the story does not condemn those who fell prey to the Judge’s promises. Instead, it portrays them as complex individuals, and this reaffirms the themes of corruption through desire and the necessity for forgiveness.

Lucy, for example, is not vilified for betraying Dick. She did the Judge’s bidding, but she is not a bad person. She is still Dick’s friend and cares deeply for him. And yet, her choices are not portrayed as excusable. The comic perfectly balanced having Lucy not be a bad guy for what she did while also making it clear that she was still in the wrong for accepting the Judge’s offer. She is not Evil but she made an evil choice and she needs to be held accountable for that. 

This plays into the idea that to Dick, people are not naturally Good nor naturally Evil. They just are who they are, they have the potential for both, and it's their choices that dictate their nature. 

(Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Six: Deep Dive. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 40, e-book  ed. DC Comics, 2018. pp. 18)

And as mentioned previously, Grayson also played with such ideas when she introduced the character of Sophia into the story. 

Taylor flirts with similar ideas without ever committing to them. His Bludhaven supposedly has corrupt institutions, big men on top who oppress others in order to stay rich, but to lay every wrong and every sin in the city at Blockbuster’s feet is morally simplistic. It's flattening. Immature. It's, frankly, boring. It just doesn't work on a narrative level. Most importantly, it makes Nightwing's presence superfluous.

Once more, I must emphasize that I do not believe that one must incorporate a social commentary in the themes of one’s story. However, as Taylor's narrative seems to signal he wants to discuss these matters, I think it is only fair to point out how his actual writing is uninterested in examining the complications inherited in these subjects. Taylor wants those big, meaningful moments that claim to say something thematically important, yet he creates easy-to-take down strawman villains who can take the blame for everything while wrapping them in the trappings of social commentary. 

Nothing in Taylor's supporting characters, conflicts, villains, or city were created to challenge Dick in any way. Part of the reason why you can feel Bruce's genuine love for Gotham is that that city is always challenging him, always giving him a reason to give up, but Bruce never does. Again and again, Gotham shows itself as a place that perhaps should not be saved, that is too rotten, literally cursed to bring out the worst of humanity. It would be easier to burn the whole thing down and start new. 

But Bruce doesn’t do that. He still sees something in Gotham worth saving. No matter what he uncovers, Bruce won’t give up, and that makes us, the readers, root for Batman and root for Gotham.

Bludhaven should challenge Dick in a similar way. But in this run, it doesn't. Dick's assertion that the citizens of Bludhaven are good and there are only a few bad apples ruining it for everyone is never challenged. Dick is never asked to question his beliefs. When he decided that the solution to one of Bludhaven's biggest problems (homelessness) was just to create a shelter, Dick is never challenged for his savior mentality, he never faces push back from those above him or below, is never paralyzed by bureaucracy, never has to deal setbacks that force him to re-strategize. He's just... Proved right. And everything goes on smoothly. 

Taylor’s approach gives Dick no room to grow and no room to stand his ground. I can’t help but think how much more powerful Dick’s own belief in Bludhaven and its people would have been if, during that earlier scene when the tent city was in flames, no one came to help. Nightwing and Robin would have had to save everyone on their own, and Dick would be faced with the difficult to swallow possibility that maybe he’s wrong. Maybe the people of Bludhaven are too disillusioned to do good. Maybe Babs and Tim, both characters who are known for being pragmatic, would even tell him so. But he refuses to accept that. As he looks upon the octopus statue, Dick affirms  the resilience of the city and how it does not need to come at the cost of kindness. Bludhaven is worth saving, its people are worth saving, and Dick will continue to believe in them, even though he was just given a reason not to. 

Again, I must emphasize that it is fine if a person is not interested in writing a story about this. Not every superhero story needs to explore these real-world, complex themes. One of my personal favorite Batman stories (and one I believe should be required reading for any Batman fan) is Murderer/Fugitive. While there are certainly themes of forging of identity, the story is far more concerned with what the forging of one’s identity means in the specific context of Batman rather than that of the real world. That is not to say you couldn't do an analysis on identity about Murderer/Fugitive, but the work as a whole serves more as a commentary on Batman, and it is in conversation with the popular idea that "Bruce Wayne is the mask that Batman wears." 

And just because one wishes to engage with themes of class and economic inequality, it does mean one needs to tackle it directly. Again I must bring up the modern masterpiece that is Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls. That story beautifully uses the fantastical and noire elements of the Court and the creation of the Talons to engage with themes of wealth inequality and to explore Bruce’s complex relationship with Gotham. The secret cult, of superhuman assassins, and the murder mystery element provide enough distance between the real world issues and the story itself that Snyder has the creative freedom to play with his characters and narrative while the specificity allows him to dig deeper than he ever could should he have decided on going for a broad approach.

Taylor tries to ground his themes by using real-world issues, but he refuses to engage with what those real-world issues look like in, well, the real-world. He deals with them in the context of his morally simplified, perfect little society. As Braxis perfectly pointed out “When Dick starts a charity to help the homeless he never actually explains how that will be done, what causes homelessness, or what the homeless are asking for support.” (Braxi, Steve, “On Superman, Shootings, and the Reality of Superheroes” Comics Bookcase, September 2021)

Taylor’s Bludhaven demonstrates a frustratingly simplistic view on morality that prevents the story from engaging with these issues with the care they deserve. By not fleshing out the city, by denying Dick’s interactions with other characters, Taylor creates a world of simple morals. This means that rather than engaging with the progressive ideology he claims to care about he is simply creating the appearance  of social commentary and rich themes. This demonstrates that he’s not actually interested in the work required to make that work, only the prestige that comes from it.

[isaacapatow]

"When I was a kid, yeah. My sisters all wore these boots that had a shit ton of buttons on em, so we always had a bunch of button hooks kicking around or it would take forever for them to get dressed."

Ike twirled the scissors in his fingers before going back to cutting rag strips, nodding at Bea's feedback. She was close on the couch and he spread his legs a little wider, so his knee could push against her leg. Bea was the kind of girl where Ike wanted to be in physical contact with her all the time, like holding a fruit and feeling it warm up in your hand, its perfume blooming.

"Southern doesn't include Appalachian?" Ike leaned back, eyebrows raised, but then Bea went on to explain while her voice rocked in the particular strain of this area of the country, a sing-song cadence that Ike liked hearing when it slipped out of her. "Laws-a-massy, you just learned me something I had no idea about. I never paid much attention in History and I'm a Yankee. Twice over if you're only going by the Mason-Dixon line."

He snickered as he went back to his snipping and tidying, murmuring, "honey bea," in her wake. "Very sweet," Ike said approvingly, though it hardly mattered at this point whether or not he liked her childhood nickname. "And no. We didn't do nicknames. Everyone just called me exactly Isaac. My people believed our names were chosen for a reason and distorting them was a wicked contravention of God's will."

Ike gave her a sidelong look. "I grew up real religious," he murmured, knocking the tip of his nose with the back of his hand to scratch it. "You may have gathered."

The idea that Ike knew what a button hook was charmed her beyond belief. “Kinda like a button hook, yeah. The old fashioned ones, anyway. You run into a lot of those?”

She watched him cut long strips and hold them up for her inspection. She spaced her thumb and finger about two inches apart. “You wanna keep ‘em kinda short so the rug’s nice and dense. It’ll keep you warmer that way.” Having been to his place, she really, really wanted him to keep warm come winter.

He was nice to look at while he worked. It held true to what she remembered of him in bed that night—large hands that were surprisingly nimble. He chewed at his lip in concentration and took care to trim little frayed strings to keep them from pulling further. It was odd to think of him out there beyond the walls with his barbed wire bat. But she liked that bit of mystery about him as well. That aspect of his life that she couldn’t possibly access.

“First of all, I’m not Southern, I’m Appalachian. West By-God broke off from Virginia specifically because it didn’t jive with Southern ideology. That said…” she smirked at the mock-scandalized face he was making. “Yes and no. Never had bee-related things, but my Mama called me Honey Bea. You have any cutesy nicknames growing up?”

[k3mistryproductions]

K3mistry News Brief ����

Black Women’s History Month: Beatrice Dixon ❤️🖤💚🚺

The following speaks on Beatrice Dixon.

Narrated by: J. Stokes

[digitalsushma007]

List of Famous Black Women Entrepreneurs who have established themselves. Read about the successful women of colour attacking racism with their work. Read more @ https://bit.ly/3f2OD8F

[silasplaskett]

this ep could have literally just been daryl meeting dog and then him and carol having depressing conversations across the river and i would have loved it i did not ask for whatever the rest of this is