#But still it doesn't make sense

[purpleangiie]

Just finished UTRH (the comic) for the first time... Might gonna pretend it isn’t canon.

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[uncanny-tranny]

The leftism/anticapitalism leaving people's bodies the zeptosecond you imply that disabled people who aren't "productive" still matter in society and need to be treated like intrinsic equals who have a place in this world:

[gordonfreemanspussy]

happy october :]

@scienceteamtober day 1: before the game

with lovely beautiful awesome forever character art by @winkreallyisntable goes CRAZY!!! full art below the cut.

[secondbeatsongs]

well folks. I've done it

at long last, I have reached the end of the boops

[mondo994]

"We were both silent for a little, and then he looked at me with a direct, gentle gaze. His face in the reddish light was as soft, as vulnerable, as remote as the face of a woman who looks at you out of her thoughts and does not speak.

And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear; what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was.

-The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 13: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.

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[casscainmainly]

A Deep Dive Into Why Cass Threw Dick Out A Window

If you've been here long enough you've probably seen or heard of this moment, which is super hilarious and iconic. It's mostly discussed in reference to Dick and Cass' relationship. However, in my opinion Cass throwing Dick out a window had very little to do with her opinion of him, or even of Barbara; it has more to do with her understanding of romance and love. I briefly touched on this in my gender/sexuality post, but I'm going to explain more in depth my interpretation of how Dick functions in Batgirl (2000) as a whole. (This moment is very open to interpretation though, this is just my opinion!). So let's try to answer Dick's question: what was that all about?

Love, Language, and DickBabs

While Puckett's run is notable for not having Cass date anyone, romantic love does play a role in Cass' early understanding of the world. It's the impetus that spurs her to write: in issue 2, she sees a wife read a letter from her deceased husband, and her reaction affects Cass so strongly she immediately starts trying to write. (She also kisses the husband on the cheek earlier, which may or may not be a crush). Romance, and the ability to communicate your love, is a fundamental part of Cass' desire to learn language.

So we have Cass, who has experienced neither love nor language, living with Babs, who's in a relationship with Dick. This telephone conversation in #4 (the issue where a metahuman changes Cass' brain into understanding language) again links romance to communication. Dick and Babs are talking on the phone, unable to see each other but understanding each other perfectly; Cass and Babs, on the other hand, live together and can't understand each other at all.

"She can't talk, so it's not all that different [to living alone]." Babs is telling an eavesdropping Cass that her inability to speak prevents her from love and connection - a love and connection symbolised by one of the first romantic relationships Cass is consistently around, Dick and Barbara.

Dick as an Ideal

There's a debate whether Cass likes Dick or not because half the time they're friendly, and half the time she's punching him or throwing him out windows. This disparity makes sense if you consider that Cass strongly associates DickBabs with communication, understanding, love - very idealised notions - but she does not associate Dick as a person with them. Her interactions with Dick (sans Babs) are cute and normal - Batgirl #29 and Nightwing #81 feature some very adorable Dick-Cass moments, with no real tension whatsoever.

It's only when Cass sees Dick in a romantic light (as in associated with Babs) that she makes him into a symbol.

Cass often tries to copy Babs, thinking it's the 'correct' thing to do - in DC First: Batgirl/Joker, she goes after Joker because that's what Barbara did; later in Horrocks' run she'll wear Barbara's outfit. In a way, Cass' affairs with Tai'Darshan and Kon - as much as I do think Tai'Darshan was genuine attraction - is another way to 'copy' Barbara. In #42, Cass stares at a picture of Dick and Babs while asking if Babs likes boys. Obviously Cass knows the answer is yes, but see what she asks next, and how Barbara responds:

She shifts from 'like' to 'love', and Babs responds that she 'care[s]' about him. For Cass, whose arc in Horrocks' run is about parsing out the nuances of attraction, understanding the difference between like, love, and care is incredibly difficult. She struggles to separate familial from romantic (Bruce in #50) or romantic from platonic (Kon, and in somewhat the reverse way Steph). In this conversation, Cass comes to associate Dick with like, love, and care - DickBabs becomes not just a symbol of romantic love, but of any connection whatsoever.

The Old Costume

I've discussed elsewhere that Cass wearing Babs' old costume in #45 is a representation of her desire to be 'girly', and how she associates girlhood with someone other than herself, discarding her own costume for Babs'. But putting on a costume is not the only prerequisite for being a 'girl'. In Babs' speech to Cass, she emphasises being sexually attractive to men, with her final comment being about this "particular look Dick used to give [her]". For Cass, visual language is incredibly important; putting on Babs' costume is not about being or feeling like a girl, but about being perceived as one. Dick is symbolic of the perceiver: the one who can essentially 'grant' women their femininity.

But Cass is disgusted when Tim calls her hot, which adds to her confusion - why should Dick being attracted to Babs make Babs happy, but Tim (who's not a sibling at this time) perceiving her like that grosses her out? Cass' inability to feel good - to feel 'feminine' - through the male gaze is another sign, to her, of her failure to be a woman.

Which finally brings us to issue 46...

That Ableist Kon Comment

Cass finds out Dick breaks Babs' heart and then starts hallucinating on a drug. One of the things she hallucinates is Kon saying "who wants to date a cripple? Ain't that right, Nightwing?" and Nightwing responding "not me--at least, not anymore."

For the first time, we get to the heart of why DickBabs mattered to Cass: it was an example of a disabled person in a loving, romantic relationship. It goes back to that phone call in #4, where Babs implies that Cass is hard to care about because she can't speak. The Kon comment suggests Cass has carried that with her all this time, trying to find proof that she can be loved, no matter her disability. DickBabs showed her it could be done - the break-up shows her now that it can't be done.

Dick's hallucination mocks her disability: "look at her--she can't even read!" Attributing this mockery to Dick (whose real-life counterpart, unlike the other hallucinations, has never said anything remotely like this) shows that this 'Dick-as-ideal' is intrinsically tied to Cass' self-worth.

Honestly this whole post stemmed from me thinking about this one panel. There is no real reason, from Cass' view of Dick as a person, for her to think he's brave and noble and kind (more so than anyone else). But it's in the DickBabs context - that Dick seemed to love, wholeheartedly, a disabled woman - that makes Cass think this way. And now that DickBabs is broken up, it shows that she, too, is rotten to the core; that someone like her cannot be loved.

And so when Dick shows up, she throws him out the window.

Conclusion

In this moment, Cass isn't just reacting to Dick breaking up with Barbara, she's reacting to what it means to her. If Dick can't stay with Barbara, then that means Cass, as another disabled woman, is also unable to be loved. This all leads up to #50, which features another Cass punch to Dick's face, but more importantly is when Bruce and Cass reconcile through Cass' first language. It's a confirmation that though her verbal skills may not be fully developed, she still can communicate, and she can love and be loved.

I don't think a lot of the ideas I touched on here are fully developed, or conclude cleanly. For example, how does Cass' 'failure' to be a woman relate to her inability to be loved? Is she able to have a stable romantic relationship? There are lots more questions, but the role Dick specifically plays in Cass' understanding of romance is probably not going to develop further. I just think it's interesting how Horrocks uses the Dick-Babs relationship to explore Cass' identity.

[okthisway]

[gunsatthaphan]

[...] internal summer. the taste of summer that looks like you."

[ineffable-romantics]

Thank GOD for those new promo pics.... I've always said this was the way I picture Aziraphale in modern day if he'd been the demon instead, and now I have the perfect angel!Crowley to match!

[hazelnootnut]

Act 3 (But why did they look so...?)

We finally got to the comic that actually made me think about this AU in the first place. After I was mulling around the idea of Loop looking like Siffrin the whole time, I realised that the conversation of "who or what do you think I am?" doesn't apply anymore. But you know what would?

The question of why Loop is even here in the first place. Because while it's nice to have another you around to help you out of the loops, isn't it weird that they're even here? Who sent them?

... and what was with their response?

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[uncanny-tranny]

Please intentionally attempt to see the magic in everything. Everything is magic, even if you understand the "boring" reasons why things happen. Look at the magic in growing plants, the magic of your muscles flexing and retracting, the magic of your eyes and skull, the magic of a cat's purr.

It's all magic. Understanding the "why" is just understanding what makes things magical, it doesn't change that it's all significant and magic.

[erineas]

@unnamedcrane looking back at when we were figuring out fairy au, I'm craving fairiesssssssss grrrrghrgrhrhr