#I JUST HATE HOW DC HAS TREATED THEIR DISABLED CHARACTERS

[lazaruspiss]

After everything DC has done w babs and her disability ive developed a knee-jerk reaction whenever i see any art of her standing 😭 like no im sure random fan artist #1337 doesnt hate wheelchair users theyre probably just a modern reader its fine its fine and even when its not its DC's fault not random people who read their comics without knowing all the context

[catenary-chad]

Direct electrification and talking trains

(another nearly 5k word post)

A lot of people will make Electra mostly battery-operated (including the revival), but canon, through the lyrics of AC/DC and Electra’s replica design and “pantograph pose” pretty explicitly make them a non-battery electric engine that runs off overhead power.  Which imo is a very interesting and underexplored topic that affects a lot of dynamics.  Electrification has fascinating potential for a lot of social themes that aren’t seriously explored in Anglophone media, it’s a “fourth dimension” that impacts so much but is treated as a non-entity.

 It’s actually kind of… sad how train media seems to be quietly “batterywashing” electric trains that would be powered by overhead wire or third rail and really overselling a flawed technology while ignoring a proven, almost uniquely “train” power source with a fascinating history and practicalities. Early tech limits have a massive effect on even modern trains in the US and Europe, and countries’ adoption or rejection of electrification tends to say a lot about their political and economic outlook. It’s something that’s a no-brainer when rail is a public service focused on the long term, and usually a nonstarter when it’s a private business focused on short term returns.

So I’m going to cover some of the basics of it and my own takes on how it could affect a talking train society.

This topic is totally alien to a lot of people, so I’ll try and keep this as non-technical as possible. While this post focuses on Electra, a lot of these things would also apply to the Nationals or electric OCs.  And while this is mostly aimed at the Starlight Express physical setup and themes, a lot of this info could be applied to more realistic Thomas-style talking trains.  

(Note: I use “direct electric” because I’m not even sure there’s a specific term for non-battery electric trains besides just plain “electric”. I’ve seen “straight electric” which is hilariously ironic with Electra specifically. I avoid “pure electric” because it’s often weaponized to make the character a Malfoy-esque figure, which annoys me to all hell because it couldn’t be further from the truth. Electric trains have a notoriously liberal and diverse fanbase and it feels downright slanderous to make them out to be rich supremacists.  Those types HATE actual electric trains.)

On the most basic level, direct electric-only Electra (and most of the Nationals) would be like a whale.  Whales are almost unstoppably dominant outside of human threats… unless they end up out of the water, where they’re pretty much immobile and helpless.  Outside of areas with compatible overhead power (or perhaps third rail), or if their pantograph or other current collector was damaged, they would also be pretty much immobile and helpless. Usually electric engines like that have a small battery (akin to a combustion car’s) that can power lights and controls when disconnected, but that’s about it. So they might be able to respond to basic commands, answer yes/no, but not move without outside assistance.

Which leads to the VERY interesting situation where they would be bricked in 99% of the US, most secondary and smaller lines in the UK, and even a number of branch lines in Europe.  There’s major limits on where they can go, and even where they can go, the infrastructure they need is vulnerable to neglect and underinvestment.  It parallels disability accessibility in a lot of ways.  With the fascinating caveat that some countries like Switzerland and India are 100% electrified and with that accommodation omnipresent, being electric-only isn’t even “a disability” anymore, it’s just the norm.  Directly electrified trains actually dominate nearly all metrics of speed, strength, and power and are a nearly perfect metaphor for someone or something that excels in pure meritocracy but is repeatedly held back by institutional forces and government underfunding, and tends to be the first affected when programs are axed.  Half my fascination with the show and character is just how much better Electra fits the social themes they tried to implement early on, and how there could have been a story “just about trains” that also strongly mirrors human politics.  The broader problems of utilities being public services vs private businesses, and underfunded services being deliberately sabotaged by conservative governments to axe or privatize them have only become more relevant since the 80s in so many non-train avenues.  

(Electric trains in the Anglosphere are a Rorschach test of minority coding in general, with even more parallels in how they’re viewed as faceless statistics, their history has often been overlooked, forgotten, and outright erased, and are portrayed as an alien threat when they’ve been around for a century+ and have quietly done a lot of grunt work without much fanfare.)

A VERY different and more fanciful take is found in the “Electricity Fairy” of early 20th century France. This is a fantastic article about it in regard to model trains and French electrification, by an author who is incredible at characterizing electric trains in general (machine translation dampens things a little but his main points come across well). Electricity as a sort of Tinkerbell figure to a Peter Pan-esque Electra is a very compelling direction, especially with the thematic and personality parallels between the two characters.

EMUS AND LOCOMOTIVES

Before I go on, I need to address this distinction.  EMUs are self propelled electric railcars, basically coaches with motors attached. Like a subway train.  Locomotives pull unpowered cars.  This is why I keep saying the vaguer term “train” vs “engine” because most of this post is relevant to both setups. Diesel-powered multi units also exist… and bimode and battery and all three at once.  The MU/locomotive divide exists for those too, it’s just more prominent in electric systems since the advantages of electric traction are utilized so differently by locomotives vs MUs. MUs are almost exclusively for passenger use but have occasionally been made for freight use, and if you go all the way back to the trolley era you had some mixed/freight streetcars too. 

The main advantage of EMUs is faster acceleration/breaking and lighter weight, they’re often cheaper too.  They’re especially attractive for short trains of just a few cars. Passenger services, both commuter and high speed, have been increasingly replacing locomotive-hauled trains with EMUs because they’re better suited for the heavy start-stop nature of the task and can substantially increase train frequency.  Electric locomotives are far from irrelevant, but their main advantage is being able to haul fast and/or heavy freight trains like nothing else, ability to remove them from trains when they break down, and ability to pull double-decker coaches… which have been tricky to make EMU variants of.  EMUs are also a bit different maintenance wise (rail maintenance shops tend to hate change) and can be noisier due to motors being directly in/near the cars vs separate.

EMUs don’t really exist in Stex canon which is a shame, because they’d fit well.  They’re a massive wedge in the false engine/coach binary and just having the coaches converted to MUs as a way to permanently solve their engine problems would be an ending with a lot of irl train precedent.  Exploring how dysfunctional MUs (like the Metroliners) often end up unpowered coaches is also full of potential.  And then the whole streetcar/interurban/early electric era rarely follows any kind of freight/passenger, engine/coach, or heavy/light rail binaries, it’s just a spectrum of madness.  

You could also do some interesting things with class divides between loco-hauled trains and EMUs.  EMUs are often associated with very low-end trains irl, especially public transit and subways, but then you also have weird luxury exceptions like the Brighton Belle and some modern high-speed trains.  I think the Rockies are so subway car-coded it hurts, the perpetual underfunding of them in the US would fit Right Place Right Time so much better (freight is a profitable business) and the dance styles and graffiti are also right at home with the NYC subway (though SEPTA would fit their names better with the Philadelphia-Rocky connection). Loco-hauled trains in the present day seem to trend towards a weird midpoint, often old equipment that used to be high-end that’s now the cheap option for longer distance travel.  You can even get deeper into the independent locomotive vs power car and trainset divide, the latter is generally more prestigious today and the former more pedestrian. Coco or Bobo would likely see Electra as… kind of a big dumb lug because the Nez Cassé engines were used on lower end passenger trains and freight services after TGVs came in.

It’s personally hard for me to really make electric trains heavily divided though, they just have too much shared hardship in the Anglosphere to not be weirdly united despite their glaring differences.  But then again, the messy intricacies of inter-community conflict among them could be FASCINATING. 

Also, Caboose crashing the Shinkansen and pulling the “you’re no engine” speech would be funny because it’s accurate because that’s an EMU!  You are indeed no engine!  

TYPES OF ELECTRIC-POWERED TRAINS

Anyways, there’s a HUGE divide between direct electric trains, battery-electric trains, and bimode (electro-diesel) trains.  

There’s a very uncompromising, all or nothing aspect to the politics and economics around direct electric trains that sounds unreasonable from the outside…but becomes very reasonable and understandable the more you read into it.  There’s massive political friction against spending on them in the US and UK that doesn’t exist in much of continental Europe and Asia, advocates kind of have to take that relentless and uncompromising approach with how cyclical political and economic support for them is and how often projects are cut back or cut entirely when administrations change.  To have success like France you have to have a continuous, rolling program to create economies of scale and maintain a consistent, trained workforce.  Doing it in fits and starts every few years leads to dramatically higher construction costs and constantly training new workforce, which makes cost per mile/km much higher.  This all sheds a very different light on how Electra is so insistant and all-or-nothing, it’s not a cartoon villain wanting to take over the world, it’s someone who wants the equivalent of universal wheelchair accesibility when the government constantly pushes against that. Bringing hydrogen power into the mix has even more potential to be interesting, just look into the term “bionic duckweed” to see how the conflict between it and widespread electrification has been in the UK.  In a weird way, electrification has become the most conservative option in rail because its 100+ years of proven success is its main asset.  The oldest locomotives running on a non-tourist line in the US are likely the 1920s-era electric steeplecabs with trolley poles on the Iowa Traction Railway shortline!  There’s this bizarre and painful irony in how it’s viewed as both “inevitable and alien” and “antiquated and unglamorous” at the same time.  

(battery mining lokies my beloved)

Battery trains are actually even older than direct electrification (they go all the way back to the mid-1800s and are a very janky rabbit hole) and there were a surprising number of BEMUs and small battery locomotives as far back as the turn of the century.  They definitely have utility as switchers or on low-traffic commuter lines but the technology is nowhere near powering heavier, faster trains soon. Batteries just aren’t energy dense enough to power fast, heavy trains for longer periods of time. They have all the problems with battery power in cars and other things in regards to fire hazards, mineral sourcing, and the environmental and labor impact that involves (and unelected oligarchs trying to destroy world order for their access). 

There’s also a very double-edged aspect of “compromise” with battery power specifically with trains.  They can be a stepping stone for areas that aren’t fully electrified… or turn into a stopgap that never leaves, ala diesel power in the US and many parts of the UK, and impedes widespread electrification.  

(There is a third rail contact on this engine somewhere. Yes, this is the equivalent of Greaseball if he stuck a fork in a light socket on occaison)

As an important note, diesel-electric (not quite the same as electro-diesel/bimode) is NOT at all equivalent to electric-only trains.  They’re diesel-powered and use that engine to generate electricity for electric motors because giant gearboxes are impractical for road locomotives.  It’s like conflating lab-grown and conventional meat, same end product… but wildly different production and politics/economics. The power source and reliance on external infrastructure creates a massive divide, even though they have a lot of identical tech after the power supply.    

But that similarity means that if you add some kind of electric pickup to directly power their motors, they’re now bimode/electro-diesel.  Those are in the same “compromise” category as battery-electrics, just trade out the mineral politics of batteries for oil ones and greatly increase the energy density of that power source. They’re also fairly old, dating back to the 20s when diesel locomotives were in their infancy in general.  Some are glorified diesel trains that just have electric-only capability for tunnels or underground stations, some are mostly electric with limited diesel backup power.  

And then you can also have all three in one, which is also a 100+ year old setup.  Places like New York and London that electrified early and have weird, inconsistent systems often get some weird equipment to cope with it. This is foreshadowing, you have been warned

ELECTRIFICATION SYSTEMS

Anyways, now for some fun specifics on different electrification systems and why they’re important.  You may be familiar with how household power is 120 or 240 volts and 50 vs 60 Hz depending on country/region.  Rail electrification often predated the wider electrical grid and is so much weirder and less consistent due to the early tech limits that shaped it and the difficulty in changing things.  

THIRD RAIL

Heavily associated with subways and metros, but used on some suburban surface lines (NYC area, southern England).  Also used by three-rail model trains (like Lionel and Märklin).  

Low voltage DC for heavy rail use required the use of third rail vs overhead wire due to the conductor thickness required for the high current.  They were mostly used on early 20th century lines before catenary and AC power became established. The rails themselves are cheaper to install and maintain vs overhead wire, but they’re notoriously hazardous to humans and wildlife and vulnerable to icing over in winter.  They’re also DC-only, which requires more (and more complicated) substations, making the overall price much higher.  DC also majorly limits the power of trains they can run (AC can run far higher voltage, we’ll go into this later). They’re well suited to subway use though, since they reduce the tunnel size needed (VERY expensive), distances are shorter and trains are smaller/lighter, and there’s less risk of people/animals getting on the track.  On the surface, they’re rarely built anymore and outright prohibited in some areas, and generally being slowly phased out.  

I’m prone to giving Electra some kind of third rail pickup since it’s common on multi-voltage electric trains.  It’s a funny tie in to how model trains are powered by them and how static buildup on skates can be an annoyance.  The CC 40100 locomotives didn’t have one, but some related CC 6500s did for the Maurienne line.  Running a nearly 8000 hp locomotive on 600-750 V third rail systems like those around New York City or southern England would result in Electra being laughably weak/slow or just blowing out substations but could make sense for brief backup tunnel use (common in the tunnels around NYC).

Fun bonus: The exception to third rails being DC is actually three-rail model trains, which are usually AC.  There’s clearance issues with it on real trains, but it’s okay on that small of a scale/power.  The line between how model trains are run and full-sized third rail trains is… thin.  Especially when you factor in how some extremely early electric trains ran off two-rail systems exactly like oversized versions of other model trains.  A number of issues with regular electric trains also appear in model trains- like incompatible electrification systems and issues due to neglected maintenance.  A kid playing with toys is just a sillier microcosm of governments and businesses making rail decisions.  Voltage drops in DC power requiring more power sources/substations is also a shared trait, DC model systems often need additional power supplies connected.  

OVERHEAD WIRES

The modern standard worldwide, due to their ability to run AC power.  I’ll explain that aspect later, but the biggest thing is that AC is leagues better for long-distance power delivery and allows for more powerful trains.  Overhead wiring started with simple trolley wires and poles, but the catenary and pantograph setup largely replaced it for heavily applications. Far more expensive to install and maintain than third rail and design problems can plague systems for decades (fixed-wire catenary on the Northeast Corridor causing issues in hot/cold weather, widely spaced poles on the East Coast Main Line leading to more fragility and failures).  They also require more vertical clearance, a MAJOR issue in the UK due to their infamously low tunnels and bridges that cause them to have tiny trains in general. They also run into vertical clearance issues with double stacked container trains, though that can be remedied by well cars and purpose-built extra high wires ala India. 

The design of catenaries and pantographs is a deep rabbit hole of its own, but it’s pretty easy to mime aspects of them.  I’ve seen claims that some of Electra’s common poses were deliberately based on them and I’ve been calling some the “pantograph pose” myself.  Raising an arm to represent raising a pantograph, using both arms to represent older style “diamond” pantographs vs single-arm Faivley ones.  Lowering one arm and raising the other to represent switching pantographs for different voltages for Electra (the CC 40100 had FOUR pantographs).  Using an open hand to represent contact with the wire, coming loose if wire tension is lost and becoming tangled.  “Invisible catenaries” are an accepted convention with model trains because making functional ones is incredibly fussy so the wire doesn’t need to be there, just implied.  A laser beam might work though.  If electric infrastructure were a more important part of the show having catenary poles visible would be plenty to designate electrified vs nonelectrified zones, and so they could be damaged as needed.  Trolley poles also aren’t too hard to mime with an outstretched arm and balled fist or twirling fingers for the wheel.

Both catenary and third rail systems have issues of physical inconsistancy and incompatibility between systems even where voltage and frequency match.  Stuff like pantograph thickness, over vs under-running third rail adds yet another layer of complexity. That’s something that gets super regional that I don’t know all the complexities of though. 

OTHER SYSTEMS: You also have some oddball systems out there like fourth rail on the London Underground and some systems with overhead “third rail” with a rigid conductor that a tiny pantograph touches ala a bumper car on rails. Rail electrification is… a deep rabbit hole and there’s a lot of really weird stuff early on if you dig even a little.  Like this wacky three-phase AC railcar with three different pantographs that held the rail speed record for well over a decade in the early 20th century. 

My favorite wacky electrification method is just “giant extension cord”.  It’s mainly a thing on short industrial/switching yards in Europe but this example is from a mine in Chile and the Milwaukee Road had a homemade corded shop switcher used to pull electric engines from unpowered sheds to the powered main lines.  I’m not fully sure how it works logistically but it’s hilarious to imagine and makes sense for very short distances where it’s easier than building and maintaining catenaries.  

DC- DIRECT CURRENT 

If you use the water metaphor of electricity this is like a constantly flowing river.  

DC saw widespread use in trolleys and transit and early heavier rail electrification descended from this (the light/heavy rail divide is more of a spectrum if anything).  It was simple and durable for its time (early 20th century) and then-prevalent DC traction motors were simple to power and control with it.  It’s harder to implement over long distances due to the higher current needed and greater voltage drop and heat losses vs AC.  It requires far more (and more complicated) substations than AC because of this too.  AC can also deliver far more power.  DC has been gradually replaced with AC where possible, but sheer inertia has made it a slow process and it’s still common in Europe, usually as 1.5 or 3 kV mainlines.  There’s also some commuter railroads in the US with DC overhead supplies.  

Trains can be pretty easily modified to run on lines lower than their designed voltage, they’ll just be much slower/weaker.  Overvolting for short periods of time can increase performance but tends to be damaging in the long term.  The latter would be unlikely for a 3 kV-designed train though, since that’s about as high as most DC systems go.  

People talk about Electra behaving differently in AC vs DC modes, which is an interesting concept, but going off the CC 40100… yeah it didn’t make a difference since it was designed around running on 1500 V DC, the lowest voltage it took.  Newer trains tend to be mostly designed for modern AC lines and are notably less powerful on DC.

 The main difference would be… being more “digestible” for DC-motored trains?  Tech limits made converting AC to DC difficult in the early 20th century and being able to process it more efficiently was a huge step up.  Musically I think DC power would be more associated with Western convention since it mostly developed in the US and western Europe, and player piano ragtime is basically the default trolley/interurban ambiance music.  

Another more abstract, but interesting direction for DC mode would be the “ever onwards” mindset electrification has to have when faced with the back and forth of political will… kind of like how a rectifier “straightens out” forward and back AC to DC

AC- ALTERNATING CURRENT

is usually described as “like rising and falling tides” or “a reciprocating pump pushing water back and forth” in the water analogy.  

Transformers are the main reason why AC is so dominant in powering trains (and electricity transmission in general).  They can “step down” very high voltages, which are more efficient for transmission than lower ones.  Basically, it’s easier to deliver more power to trains and requires fewer, cheaper substations. The main issue is converting that AC to a usable form, and technology limits related to that have had HUGE impacts.  

Early AC trains often had “universal” AC/DC traction motors that required unusually low AC frequency to run, 25 Hz or less, which is too low for residential use and needed specialized equipment for generation or conversion.  It also requires heavier transformers in trains, but this isn’t as much of an issue since especially in the modern day, electric trains tend to be too light if anything.  Airplanes often use 400 Hz AC for the opposite reason though, they need the weight savings of the extra light transformers.  Around the mid-20th century, rectifiers became practical and it became feasible to use 50/60 Hz mains frequency for trains.  Most lines built after that have been that way.  But a lot of those earlier lower-frequency lines still exist due to the hassle in changing all that equipment vs just making dual/triple/quadruple voltage trains.  It’s like making tilting trains for old, winding rail lines vs building new straighter ones.  

Which is why being able to change frequency is an important feature for Electra!  Going over/under design frequency will damage equipment and trains will stop if they detect it.  Which is why I say that Electra and basically all other AC trains notice the frequency of light flickers and have perfect pitch because being able to detect exact frequency is like telling if food’s gone off for them.  

Musically I want to associate AC trains with Serbian music as a reference to Nikola Tesla and because you sometimes get some vaguely similar fluttering, bagpipe-like sounds from AC motors.  Balkan folk music is a fascinating rabbit hole in general and was popular in the prog rock sphere for how it sounds so alien to western audiences.  

AC vs DC: TRACTION MOTOR EDITION

Oh great, another layer of complexity with the AC vs DC thing, because this is also important.

AC motors are superior in basically every way and DC motored trains aren’t made much anymore.  Many of those that remain have been rebuilt to AC motors.  They’re lower maintenance and more efficient and powerful.  But before semiconductor technology, it was hard to control AC vs DC motors, so they didn’t become more widespread until the later 80s.  You’ll see some very old mountain drag freight electrics (N&W electric engines, PRR FF1) with three-phase AC motors that could basically just go one constant speed, which worked for that job and not much else.  They are about the peak of being “big dumb lugs” for lack of a better descriptor.  Universal AC/DC motors were also common in the early 20th century.  

DC motors have brushes that are more hassle to maintain and run hotter.  As said above, they are easier to control with older tech though.  It’s done by varying voltage with a combination of resistors and running motors in series vs parallel (look into Frank Sprague’s work on trolleys for details).  Regenerative braking isn’t possible on engines with AC/DC rectifiers since they’re a one-way device, so many have dynamic brakes. Dynamic braking is done by just sending that excess electricity through a huge variable resistor, like a giant toaster or space heater.  And that’s why DC-motored trains often have infamously loud fans (see the BR Class 91).  It’s pretty much fact that Electra would sound like an overheating computer as an 80s-era locomotive.  I see Electra as at least initially DC-motored and maybe converted to AC motors in midlife, around 2000.  

Bonus: AC motors after the 90s or so are controlled by variable frequency drives and make lots of fun noises depending on tech.

MODEL TRAINS

The line between how model trains work and full-sized electric railways is… surprisingly thin, especially early on.  Toy trains with onboard batteries have been a thing for years, of course.  But because electric toy trains existed before household electrification was prevalent or standardized, many of those had separate battery packs that powered the track vs plugging into a wall.  Not unakin to how some early electric railways were run.  Two-rail electrification (one rail positive, one negative) used on many model systems was used on some very early tramway systems, though it was vulnerable to being shorted by kids placing rods across it or frying women in long, soggy skirts and didn’t last long.  

Lionel uses a third-rail system similar to that on subways and commuter lines, though with a centrally placed rail.  Märklin has stud contacts for similar purposes.  Both are the big, weird exception to all third rails being AC- the vastly lower voltage remove the voltage issue.  

Two-rail systems can be DC or AC (usually for DCC).  DC has similar issues to voltage drop as on full size lines.  It was also the standard for years due to ease of control, varying the voltage on a controller changing the speed of the locomotive and flipping the positive/negative reverses it.  DCC is used for more precise control of multiple locomotives today.  Compatibility between the two is an issue, trains can be converted to work on the other system but running DC motors on AC only works when done a specific way, and if left to idle for long they’ll just go back and forth and burn out.  

Building tiny catenaries for model trains exists and is incredibly fussy and niche.  Model with functional pantographs are common, but making and running the actual system is often very frustrating even for experienced adults so it’s rare to actually use. It’s something I’ve even seen people who work in actual rail electrification balk at because of the tiny scale of it, but it reportedly has similar issues with pantograph contact and pressure and wires breaking, with the bonus of way more derailing and corrosion issues that require frequent cleaning to prevent due to the tiny contact area

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Here’s a relevant news story that’s got… battery and non-battery electric locomotives AND EMUS AND bimodes, and five seperate electrification systems ft. several different DC third rail and AC overhead voltages/frequencies.  All it’s missing is DC overhead, which I don’t think even exists in this region anyways. 

So go forth and use some of the more unique tendencies of electric trains.  If you do it on even a surface level you’ll be ahead of 90% of the rest because this stuff is just ignored or batterywashed SO much in Anglophone media.  I was going to include a section on power electronics evolution in regard to them but that’s going to go in a separate post.  They’re important to why use of AC power was limited 

Main sources: William Middleton’s “When the Steam Railroads Electrified” and this video by a longtime Amtrak employee.  

Also see above article for more sources on the northeast US and lots of specific numbers.  And anything by Clive Lamming is great for personifying this topic, especially if you know French.

[kookygobbledygook]

Okay, I am about to piss off both sides of the debate.

I believe Cassandra shouldn't be articulate.

On one hand, yes, Cassandra Cain is infantalised by the fandom and that is in part due to her start in comics with being non-verbal and neuroatypical due to David Cain's training. It is rooted in ablism, racism and misogyny.

HOWEVER, as not only a person who has worked for over a decade in group homes for disabled people, but as a neuroatypical woman who grew up with multiple speech impediment, a stutter, and who had to do so much speech therapy as a kid that it ironed out my Australian accent, I hate that the discourse seems to be divided down the line of non-verbal, illiterate Cass is infantilising and verbal, literate Cass is empowered.

When you work in disability you soon learn there is a wide canyon between having an intellectual disability and being stupid. I have worked with dozens of people with intellectual disabilities over the years. None of them had been stupid. The most significantly disabled person I worked with never learnt to talk, needed help feeding himself, with personal care and almost all aspects of his daily life. He was also stubborn, cheeky, funny, impatient, enthusiastic about life, and had the best bullshit meter on the planet. He knew if you were there to help him or if you weren't worthy of his trust and that trust was hard earned. He was a fully fleshed-out, complete, adult man, with likes and interest and opinions which he couldexpressvery clearly. He passed away a few years ago and I miss him daily.

And he wasn't stupid. You see what I'm getting at?

So to loop back around to Cass, it annoys me that some people seem to think that Cass needs to be as articulate as an average person or write and read at the same level as her peers, to have her character progress. Why can't she improve and these areas still be a struggle for her? Why can't she be a bit underdeveloped in these areas not matter how hard she tries? To me it's like how there are people who learn as second language and are easily fluent, while there are other who will always struggle with articles, or tenses or the order of words or the use of plurals. That's not a sign of intelligence, why should it be that way in Cass' case?

I know people have shown examples of Cass speaking in lengthy sentences in the comics as evidence that Cass is articulate now and... yeah? But I kind of hate it? To me it's like the writers have given up on trying to depict what someone who struggles with language sounds like and have just ignored it, and treated Cass' dialogue like anyone else's. It makes her a flatter character imo.

One of the reasons I was drawn to Cass as a character was because she was so unlike me in many respects but in others so similar. The difficulty in articulating myself was a big one. And I hate that's been slowly wittled away by the writers at DC and now the fandom.

I still have a stutter. It's not a typical st-st-stutter. My brain blocks of the word before I even start to say it. But most people don't notice because on a completely subconscious level I search out synonyms. It's weird because if you got me to read out of a book, I would end up saying different words to what are written down, but they would still mean the same thing. And I don't even notice I'm doing it! Brains are weird. They compensate.

BUT I still have a stutter. Just because I work around it, and just because it's invisible in most situations doesn't mean it's not there.

We rail against other media when they find a magic cure to someone's disability. Hell I remember the outcry when DC decided to get Bab's out of the wheelchair. But because Cass' disability is invisible and more complicated to convey, we seem fine with it being watered down and framing that as character progression.

I want to see a Cass who is disabled and also an adult:

A Cass in speaks as much as she can in short clipped monosyllabic sentences because it's easier for her

A Cass who uses gestures and face expressions more often if she can

A Cass who struggles to find the right term sometimes and comes up with something left-of-field like people who have english as a second language calling a slug a "snail with no home" or calling raisins "elderly grapes"

A Cass who takes photos of crime scenes instead of writing down clues

A Cass who listens to audiobooks because physically reading is so much effort it takes the joy out of the story

A Cass who uses voice-to-text on her phone, but if she does resort to physically texting, she uses emojis

A Cass who struggles to hold down a typical job, and knows she's not built for university despite her intelligence because the type of intelligence she has is not valued or accommodated for

A Cass that leans more into the vigilante side of her life because this is the area that she is undisputedly a genius and where she doesn't feel as vulnerable

A Cass and a Babs who love each other but get into conflict because Babs does value the more typical hallmarks of intelligence as a computer genius librarian

A Cass who struggles with bills and banking and paperwork because it's deliberately set up to be labyrinthine to people who don't struggle with reading and writing. What chance does she have?

A Cass who not only has to deal with ablism but the intersection of ablism and racism as well as ablism and misogyny

A Cass who needs help with this stuff but is too afraid to ask for it because she's worried she'd be judged or looked down on or patronised

A Cass who IS judged or looked down on or patronised - even by people close to her, because even people we love have internalised ablism

A Cass who, in spite of being quiet is not stoic or shy, but acts the way she actually is. Funny, sharp, cheeky, cheerful, feral and kind. It's just her words are carefully selected precision strikes that can take down the other Bats in a single word.

That's the Cassandra Cain I want to see. And unfortunately I don't think I will, even in regular DC comics or in fandom spaces.

Because the idea that someone can struggle with developmental disability and also be smart is too much for people to wrap their heads around

[zeroducks-2]

DickWally hate tends to be "HE HAS A WIFE!!!" and about removing Linda and JayRoy is either age gap or stealing Dick's friends or removing Jade from the equation. Actually most of the M/M ships I've seen people able to ship with no issues are canon gay ships, popular ones all tend to just get sneered at. I like an unpopular character who I want to be gay, and fandom insists that I have to ship him with his canon gay friend/enemy/acquaintance (all his other friends are married to women and husband theft is illegal), but also if you ship the canon gay outside his canon boyfriend you get harassed.

It might be people insisting on canon to the detriment of everything else, or it might just be homophobia being covered by the fact that the characters are canonically straight, but it's definitely making fandom worse.

I KNEW IT. I fucking knew that the whole "If you divorce the M/F canon ship it means you're sexist and a misogynist!" was being crafted by antis for antis, and yes anon, it ABSOLUTELY is a homophobic thing.

These fuckers love to hide behind a righteous cover and this is only the last one they cooked up. Like imagine pretending you're doing activism while harassing someone because they don't ship the canon ass heterosexual relationship, which nine times out of them is boring as fuck, done VERY POORLY and with no respect for the female characters who are treated like pretty potted plants to keep in the background (no hate towards RoyJade or Wallinda in particular, but it happens MANY TIMES that the female character isn't really a character but just a love interest with the depth of a cardboard cutout).

Fandom has always been about deviations from the canon. It's always been about "what if these two characters with lots of romantic and/or sexual tension did something about it", about "what if all this queerbaiting actually went somewhere", about queer folks being able to explore their identities and kinks with the safety of a space in which they aren't treated like freaks.

Fuck these people. If they care so much about how female characters in medias, I invite them to go yell at DC for how it attempted to erase Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown from the main comicbook continuity post reboot, for how it treated (and keeps treating) Barbara Gordon by infantilizing her and stripping her of all her hard fought victories as a disabled vigilante, for ignoring Wonder Woman and not giving her satisfying plotlines, for treating Starfire like a dumb slut in Lobdell's run, and I could go on and on and on but the truth is - truth that we all already know - these people don't give one single fuck about female characters or women in general and they only care about finding new and convoluted ways to push other (queer!) fans out of their safe spaces, policing their behavior and erasing queerness from fandom in general in the name of "protecting" the sanctity of fictional fucking characters.

I am going to start blocking people who keep reblogging the whole "if you divorce the m/f ship you're sexist" parade because I'm really tired, and I hope everyone else quickly catches on and blocks these assholes too.

[i-dont-know-how-to-name-things]

I just finished reading the last couple of issues of Batgirl (2016-2020), and I have some thoughts to share with the class. Specifically about the short comic at the end of #50 because it is bringing up some strong feelings I have regarding how babs is being treated in recent comics, and I feel emotional.

I'm always needed in someone elses story when there are things in mine that need attention.

It feels good to pay attention to my own story.

It's time to stay in my own story.

With my own enemies to fight.

A rouges gallery I can handle myself.

Let me start by saying I love babs so much, though that much isn't a surprise to anyone. And I hate how in recent years, it feels like her whole character has been watered down to being Dicks girlfriend.

Putting aside the fact that I personally don't ship Dickbabs. I feel two characters should be allowed to be in a relationship (whether it be platonic, or in this case romantic) without it becoming their whole personality. And Dick has his own things outside of their relationship. He leads the titans, has his own missions, his own villains, ect- (I feel I should say before people come after me, I love Nightwing, he's one of my favorite DC characters, and this is nothing against him.)

But since they got together, and honestly even before then, babs has had no storys of her own that don't involve helping Dick, or being Dicks girlfriend. I can't remember the last time she appeared in her own comic, without Dick.

I hate seeing her character get diluted like this, because she is so much more. She is batgirl, she is oracle, she is a disabled icon and a leader who built herself back up time and time again, and I wish DC would stop forgetting that and trying to erase all the things that make her, her.

[godza]

my opinions on every bat. batfam doesnt work because i dislike forcing them into family some of these bitches hate each other and thats okay. my opinions on the fandom is for another time you people are idiots and also 13 years old

bruce. such a good character at his core but its like nobody knows how to write him. hes not a good father, but hes not a bad one either. ultimately he is still that scared little boy in an alley thirty plus years later. he needs to get over himself but if he got over himself thered be no story to tell

dick is mid to me honestly but thats prob bc i havent read any nightwing focus comics. i think he has good character and is fascinating i just prefer other characters. hes super interesting but in a i dont need to figure it out way

jason is jason. i like him but hes so overhyped. i saw a figure of him in the store today and got excited. nobody can characterize him right except for the utrh movie that was peak. i dont think he needs to reconcile with bruce i dont want him at family dinners i want him to live his life away from the bats doing his own thing for gotham

tim. hes like my second fave robin i guess when i think of robin its him. hes a really good character but fandom has made him into a completely different guy. im glad he has that boyfriend but hes honestly kind of a little bitch. beefing with a ten year old but with good reason i guess

damians my fave. i want to take him out of dc and keep him safe. can he please be a normal kid. please. i dont want him to be robin i dont want him to be a vigilante i want him to go to art school and hang out with his girlfriend. i could fix him. im also pissed about how people treat talia you just hate women. you can disregard important character details but you cant get another damian origin story than the first bad one. its been rewritten please be nice to my boyyyy

steph i love steph so much. batgirl 2009 my beloved. i dont want her to be part of the "fam" i want her as a strange employee and family friend. i want her to show up for five minutes at christmas to give people novelty socks and then go home to her own family. you people have forgotten she has a whole mother. bruce will never ever ever be a father figure to her you are insane

cass i love cass. i never finished reading her batgirl i started it when my hyperfix was dying down. but i still love her and think shes awesome shes the next batman. that panel where everyone just accepted that batman had transitioned still makes me giggle. i want her to live her best life i want her to find joy outside of vigilantism i want her and steph to be gay tbh

duke. i miss duke. hes such a cool character thats often disregarded. he has powers man thats so awesome. i need to read more of him because hes such a ray of sunshine (lol) and a great guy. finally someone with a helmet and proper armor! i like that hes a daytime hero gothams such a shit place they need it

babs. i like babs. you should not make her batgirl again or erase her disability every author who does that needs to be killed. she is a wheelchair user you dumb fucks how can her paralysis be magically cured and she can be as flexible as she used to be. no you fucknuts she is even cooler in her oracle role. her and dinah have something yuri going on can dinah divorce ollie

[fancyfade]

Invisibly disabled characters? Multiple with mental illnesses. Batman and like, three Robins suffer depression. (Erased in Dick's case.) Roy's an addict. Joey and Rose...well, their disabilities were also erased. It's like WB and Dan Didio don't like disabled people. (I hate to paraphrase Kanye in 2022, but there you go.) Toss in paint-by-numbers characterization and, yeah. Some of this isn't new; I maintain that DC spent the late 90s wallpapering her being a compassionate foil to Waller.

look NGL, I do agree that DC has some canonically invisibly disabled characters. Joey is mute, you mentioned Roy being an addict, Rose has 1 eye...

but I don't really count characters who are frequently headcannoned as mentally ill, but not stated to be so in text, as invisible disability rep. even if the headcanons are getting something from somewhere, like this character is clearly traumatized and exhibiting symptoms of PTSD... if the writers don't commit to it, it's hard to tell how much is intentional VS reader extrapolation, and people ALWAYS are way more ready to diagnose their faves which is fine -- i have more headcanons about my faves too -- but that's also the fans putting in the work, not the writers.

So Bruce isn't invisibly disabled rep, Dick isn't (anymore), Tim isn't, whichever Robins you were thinking of... Tim's depression was not really medical and more related in a response to a temporary situation. Dick's depression did not get erased if it's just a fan-headcanon. his traumatic brain injury did (was the depression like? associated with that? IDK I didn't read the Ric arc)

anyway sorry if this comes off as harsh, I just do sometimes think that fans get so wrapped up in our headcanons that we forget what is actually canon. like I think that Damian, Babs, and Cass are all autistic, but Cass is the only one who has been treated as clearly neurodivergent by the text, and IIRC word of god said she was neurodivergent in rebirth, even though there are things Damian and Babs do that read as very autistic (and in Damian's case, very 'kid with C-PTSD') to me. So a writer writing him differently is boring, and I hate it, but it's not really ableist or erasing a disability, and it is not a good idea to conflate fan-headcanons no longer having as much of a potential-base due to the characters being written differently with erasure of canonically disabled characters.

[yaraflors-archive]

Hello! I was just curious of what you'd have to say in terms of criticism of Tom Taylor's run on Nightwing. I read through it as it came out myself and while I note 'able-bodied Oracle' as a con, as well as the overall 'safeness/no-risks-taken' nature of the storyline, I wonder if there was anything else I may not have picked up on at the time. It's been kinda hard for me to find proper written critiques of the run outside of Tumblr that isn't just blind praise.

hi!!

I also have strong qualms on how dick has been written in general? I think everyone loves a good “sweet boy” dick grayson. However the way Taylor has written him to be almost?? Unaware of his previous upbringing?? Is odd. Like, example, he makes dick say this whole “I have privilege and money” spiel (super weird and performative btw. very reminiscent of the performative stuff that happened in the last year.) almost as dick would not have prior knowledge to being?? Poor? Like he spent some time in a not great boys home, time on the streets, and even it’s been expressed that in halys he and his family were really just getting by. I think this is sadly a pattern in new dc writers where they seem to ignore a characters previous established story beyond the basics? Idk it just feels like there are moments where dick seems to be unaware of his own past?? If that makes sense? And I think it’s a huge disservice to his character to make him seem so detached from the people?? Like his whole “giving back” speech.. it makes it seem as though he was not already a spider-man type hero (hero of the ppl etc). When he was!!! he wanted to give back and be a hero that was there for people personally.. he has stated this in different ways many times?? And it makes me sad that it’s like.. being seen that this is the “first time” he’s helping the people.

Also to touch on babs. I hate how they gave her an explaination for removing her disability as a catch all. Like ok so they made it so she can walk now(🙄😪).. but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have chronic pain?? Or stiffness or even exhaustion surrounding her back and legs. As a person who DOES have chronic back and leg pain, would benefit from a mobility aid, and also has a metal rod in my back.. i can attest to the fact that this pain would not go away. This to me just highlights that they do little to no research on disabled people and they care very little about babs. They don’t want to give her character development and they treat her like dick graysons cute plush keychain. They act like her disability is just POOF gone.. also that she was so “held back” from her disability + wheelchair.

I just feel like in general these story arcs and character developments lack meat. And for this deep in dicks story he deserves something more. Thank you for asking me this btw!! I’m glad someone cared about my opinion enough.

[hadesisqueer]

How do you feel about Yang and how she’s summarized in Vol. 8 as suspicious and emotional?

Late, but better late than ever. I've been waiting for this one. It's probably the longest because as I said, I make either two lines or just an entire character analysis lol. And I'm going to do it properly this time.

Okay, I straight (gay) up don't know where to start. I love Yang. I truly love Yang. She's not perfect, she has many flaws, but that's what I like the most about her. I can't help but laugh when some people say she's a Mary Sue.

Childhood, first volumes.

Yang starts the series as the funny blonde hot girl that goes around punching people. And I liked that, but I also like how she wasn't just that, as I said with Nora being the comic relief. Like, there's so much more in Yang than that, just like Weiss turned up to be much more than just the bratty tsundere.

Yang's mother abandoned her. Her other mother disappeared. Her sister was a toddler that didn't really get what was going on except her mother being gone, and her father was so depressed that for a good while, he wasn't even able to raise her daughters. Can you imagine being in that situation? I imagine she was, at most, six when that happened. She was forced to become Ruby's mother figure at six. She was forced to become the fucking adult in the house at six.

Damn, you can even see the difference between how Qrow talks to Ruby and how he talks to Yang, at least at the begining. He talks to Ruby as her uncle, as her mentor. He may tease Yang a little because she's still his niece, but when he talks to her, he always talks like she's an equal. Like, Tai still considered Yang a kid, but Qrow treats her like an adult, and knows and expects her to be the mature one. Because he saw her all those years, being forced grow up so fast. He trusts her to protect and take care of Ruby, and she trust him to protect her as well.

And damn, all of this really explains her behaviour when the series began. As Ruby got older and started to be able to take care of herself, and Tai eventually started to be functional again, Yang had more freedom. Her personality and eagerness for adventure and parties and all of that - is just her trying to make up for her sacrificed childhood. But even then she still was, out of all the girls, the most mature and nurturing of team RWBY. She is the party girl, yes. The hot headed one that will break legs. But she's still the adult of the group.

And then volume 3 happens. She gets framed in front of the entire world, two of her friends die, Beacon falls, she loses her arm in the most traumatic way possible; Weiss, her friend, is basically taken away from her and Blake -her partner, the girl she probably already had feelings for at that point- left, triggering her abandonment issues. And of course, PTSD, because she isn't fucked up enough already. She's so fucking destroyed that she can't even talk about Weiss, about Blake, about what happened. She doesn't even want talk to Ruby, because she can't stand the thought of her little sister seeing her at that state. She is not used to be the one people have to take care of, and it becomes more and more obvious in the next volumes.

Disability, recovery, abandonment issues

I like how volume 4 treats her recovery. I mean, I wish her storyline was longer, but I also like the DC comics. Now, the thing is, she isn't really recovered. In vol 4, she learns to live with her disability, she learns how to use her new arm, she learns how to fight better than she ever did before. It's about physical recovery. But is she okay? No. She hates being taken care of. She forced herself to be okay, or at least pretend she was, so Tai would let her go with Ruby. And in vol 5, she's anything but alright. She is pretending to be for Ruby's sake, because she is her mother figure and Ruby can't see her like that. She has to face her abandonment issues, she still has PTSD, and she is just not okay. Weiss notices right away, and tells her that it's okay if she is not okay. She noticed how hurt she was about Blake leaving. She just could see through the façade because if Weiss knows about anything, is about loneliness and pretending.

Her conversation with Raven at the end of the volume is just one of the best scenes, because you can just see how much Yang has grown. That scene deserves a post of its own because it's just amazing. But she finally faces one of her fears -her own abandonment issues, though they probably will always be there- and sees right through Raven. Because just like her, Raven just puts a façade to hide her own fears and insecurities, and the moment her own daughter isn't just taking any of that shit, she just starts crying. Because Yang is right. And deep down, she doesn't want to let Yang take the lamp, but she isn't just strong enough. Deep down, she wants to be in Yang's life, wants to protect her, and I think Yang knew that. But it was just too late.

More abandonment issues and relationship with Blake.

Now, to Yang, Blake coming back was huge. Not only in the terms of shipping, but as a whole. In her mind, Blake left her, just like Raven, just like Summer (though Summer didn't do it in purpose), and technically, just like Ruby, though she knew why Ruby did it and understood. But she's probably wondering “what is wrong with me that everyone always leaves me”. And she always has to be the one looking for the person who left her.

Not with Blake. After that talk with Weiss (bless the wingwoman), Yang was able to understand Blake's perspective better. But she didn't think Blake would actually ever come back, because no one ever does. But she did. Not only did she come back; literally, all Blake cared about once she entered the room and saw Yang was her (for once, someone is prioritizing her). And later, she was the one to walk and talk to the team, and tell them she didn't plan to leave again if they accepted her back. She didn't have to look for Blake because she was already looking for Yang. She was the one who made the effort, not the other way around. And to Yang, even though they still had issues to work through, even though she was still afraid at that moment that Blake would leave and break her heart again (All That Matters), that was enough to forgive her. Or at least give her another chance.

Now in volume 6 they clearly have issues. Like, Blake is very nurturing to the entire team because she feels like she has to make up. But mostly, she is trying to make up to Yang. She still feels guilty because of Adam, and she knew that Yang had already abandonment issues before she left and she probably made them worse. She was just trying so hard to be there for Yang so she could understand that she would never leave her again that she made things awkward. Yang is used to be the one who takes care of people, not the other way around. She thought that Blake “protecting her” was her seeing her a weak when actually, it was just Blake just genuinely caring about her but with the wrong words. Blake understood after that, and she changed the phrasing in the fight against Adam. Protecting each other. Equals. It really applies to the Bees relationship as a whole. “You're taking care of me, yeah, but I'm going to take care of you as well, no matter what”. For once, Yang is allowing someone to take care of her (well, except Tai, but again, she wasn't completely sincere with him, so technically she wasn't really allowing him to fully help her). And that's what I love the most about their dynamic, and why I ship it.

PTSD

Now (I'm sorry I'm taking so long), I've seen many, many people saying that Yang's PTSD is poorly written, or that the writers messed it up in the fight against Adam. Now, I have to ask those people: what the fuck do you think PTSD is?

If a Great WriterTM reads this and tries to tell me I'm wrong, or that I don't know what I'm talking about and I don't know anything about good writing and blah blah blah: I have PTSD myself. Diagnosed. So yes, I acknowledge there are many things I'm ignorant about, but I'm quite familiar about this topic. Yang's PTSD is, at least by my point of view, very well-written. It isn't perfect, but it's still far so much better than most PTSD portrayals I've seen in TV, along with Korra's. And I've seen people saying that Korra's portrayal was so much better. Well, let me tell you, it isn't, or at least I don't think it is. It's just different, because the worst thing about PTSD (and what makes it harder to treat) is that it's different for every person; sometimes it can be really severe and obvious, sometimes it seems “light”. Damn, sometimes it doesn't appear until years after the event; mine didn't trigger til I was like sixteen, and the event took place when I was around five or six. And yes, sometimes I have nightmares or flashbacks about it if something triggers me, but it isn't the whole time like some of you apparently think it is. I'm not scared 100% of the time, what the fuck.

When it comes to the fight with Adam, saying it didn't affect her: did you watch the fight? First of all, at that precise moment, Yang was so full of adredaline and too busy keeping Adam from killing Blake that I don't think her brain even realised he was the cause of her PTSD. Second of all, when he triggers it, it does affect her; she starts shaking, he's able to land hits on her that he couldn't before. But PTSD is different in every person, and is a defense mechanism, not a freezing mechanism as some people think. If I see the cause of my PTSD in front of me trying to hurt me again, I'm not gonna freeze; I'm gonna do whatever it takes so they don't ever hurt me again. Same goes with Yang: some people think she should have completely freezed during the fight, like “oh my god this guy fucked me up really bad and now he's gonna do it again and there's nothing I can do oh my god”. No. As I said, PTSD doesn't work like that, at least not always. She's not thinking that, she's thinking “alright this guy really fucked me up once but there's no way I'm letting him do that again”. Again, PTSD is a defense mechanism. A fucked up one, but it's what it is. And the writers handled very well.

Yang being suspicious and not completely trusting someone.

Now, I'm not lying when I tell you that I have no idea about what this could mean. Well, it could be her disagreeing with Ruby and having a bad argument, and that would really break my heart because I just love those two sisters so much. It could also be about Ozpin; she's teaming up with Oscar and hearing Ozpin is back could bring some problems. Or maybe Raven just appears there and she's like Hell Naw. I have no idea.

Conclussion.

I love Yang. She's not perfect at all. She's a bit of a hypocrite with the whole Ozpin thing because she's keeping Raven's identity as the Spring Maiden a secret as well (or maybe she did tell them off-screen? Honestly clear that up already). But she's over all a really good friend and person, an amazing older sister and just one of the most inspiring characters in the show. I see part of myself in her, and I don't see that often in a character. I just love her.

Damn, sorry I wrote the Bible but my girl deserved that.

[hellyeahheroes]

What I’ve read: Batgirls backup in Batman #115. Only the backup, I literally couldn’t bother to care for the garbage main story if you paid me.

WhatI expected: A Batgirls story

What I got:

Seriously, this entire story sounds like an excuse to just make the villain monologue. I couldn’t give less shit about DC’s latest attempt at demonizing Oracle and try to make us hate her by slapping her name on a villain. And besides, this whole Seer couldn’t have wasted my time more. PAGES long rant that says literally NOTHING AT ALL! I ended not learning anything about the Seer or any reason why I should take this crap seriously. It was a bunch of empty platitiudes and cliched threats with no weight in them. 

I did learn one thing - that Seer is full of shit. And I do not think it has anything to do with what the story wanted to say, more with the fact it feels Seer’s stupid speech was ghostwritten by a shitty editor to “move the plot along” way before it was clear when it’s gonna be put in the story. Especially when some things sound like Seer completely forgot what is actually happenning in the story, like dropping a line how Steph and Cass are running “with no care in the world” after having framed Cass and being made aware the two are running to save Barbara. It does not feel like an attempt at villainous quip, just like if this speech was written for another moment enteirly. On the same note, yeah smartass, you sure are making such a big threat revealing secret identity of Cass, a person who multiple times has showed she doesn’t care for it, up to storming CIA headquaters unmasked. Oh wait, that was in old continuity, when Cass was actually written by people who cared about her and didn’t treat her as a prop. 

Which is another issue I have with the story - Cass ends up not amounting to anything and I do not think the story cares for her at all. It’s “ONE TRUE BATGIRL THE GREAT BARBARA GORDON andher plucky, incompetent sidekick Stephanie Brown who is never gonna be as good at her but provides comic relief” show with Cass only getting to fight lame mooks (a.k.a. this part of the story you could remove without actually changing anything) and aside of that isn’t treated like an character but accessory for Steph. This still is better than godawful stories from last several issues of Urban legens, which did everything to shit on Cass, from erasing her disability and making her boring “responsible Asian friend who doesn’t want to be a hero” racist crap to make her a coward who runs away from fight and needs Batman to save her to make her cry and need to be saved by Batwoman (which now feels redundant when this story covered the same plot points anyway). But it still feels like the story couldn’t give a shit about her, that she isn’t treated as a person, jsut an accessory in white women show. But if this is supposed to make me wanna buy Batgirls, it did the opposite of that.

-Admin

[pappywankenobi]

My thoughts, 8/29/2020 This year....has been the most confusing and frustrating year I have ever had. Let's roll back time and start at the beginning.

I grew up during the space race, a war, and the bicentennial of this country. Living on the east coast of Florida I watched men go to the moon....and then as a teen a movie came along and changed my life. Star Wars....and the dreamer in me saw so many possibilities. Growing up I wanted to either be a pilot ( planes or helicopters ) or an astrophysicist. Strange but yes if i couldn't fly among the stars I wanted to fly around this planet.

My influences were obviously my parents ,family, and the things you could do at the time which were books and comics. My love for the military came from my family and parents. My faith ,and wonder for the possibilities the world offered came mostly from comics....some DC but the majority was Marvel. Stan Lee and the tales he told subconsciously taught me about respect and love for my fellow humans. Trust me growing up when I did things were very angry....people were not happy with the Vietnam War, race relations especially in the south were very contentious.

So my great escape was reading, whether it was learning about the universe and the technical aspects of flying the best place I was able to find balance was comics. Batman was a double edged sword, I understood the need for vengeance but also saw the repercussions of seeking it. Loving archery Green Arrow was the same as the Bat but also a bit of a Robin Hood tossed in. My favorite though was the Flash. I loved to run....so yah he was cool. Now on the Marvel side let's start with Spiderman...he was a kid with great power thrust upon him...who looked for glory but found out that ignoring the responsibility of how you lived your life could come back and destroy you.

So I grew up with love in my heart, seeing people not color, gender, religion, or country of origin. At times I paid the price for this from family, and friends. I kept myself closed off. It was at this time in my life that my world took an unexpected turn, my parents divorced, and my father who was always my hero was going to be able to spend more quality time with me. My sister moved out with my mom and I felt like this was a chance for us to really connect. But it wasn't to be as a few months later he remarried. That year I went to my mom's for Christmas and never left. I was 15. Many strange things and events later I was 16,disillusioned, and was mentally done. I took my high school equivalency test,passed it and moved out on my own. At 17 I was working full time and taking care of myself and paying for rent and everything that came with being a grown up. Then at 21 I found a job where just under 20 years I grew and had a good career. I was married for 10 years,but was not happy and not wanting to be like my father I just accepted my fate.

Video games became a big source of escape, and one game in particular was huge source of fun. Our clan was Boba Fetts, and we had shirts made. While in the local mall a young man approached me and asked if I was a Star Wars fan, laughing i assumed he noticed my shirt and replied of course, he guided me to a web site Yahoo World of Star Wars , a place where you could hangout, discuss and write about the Star Wars universe. I loved to write stories so I looked it up and it would wind up changing my life forever.

It was during this time of being around people with the same likes and beliefs i had,opened my eyes. These people were more family to me than most of my blood. So big changes occurred, I told my father I was done with him treating me like a kid, after all I had retired from a job with just a few months away from 20 years so yah I was a man thank you very much. I also told him my issue with him was that not once in my life did I ever remember him ever saying to me I love you son. All he had to do was say those 3 words and all would be forgiven. He couldn't bring himself to say it, his loss in the end. So emboldened I relayed my feelings about my marriage and was told that I should give up the things that I enjoyed, but my spouse could still do whatever she wanted and quit being dramatic. I had at that moment had enough and began the process of getting a divorce and moving away from my home state. On a whim I had a friend in Michigan that suggested I come stay with them, it was the best choice I ever made. We became close and 2 years later we were married, a few years later our son was was born, and a few years after that our second son was born. Life was good, I had a decent job and things were great.

Then two years ago my life changed forever, while at work I lifted a box and stacked it on a pallet like I had done many times before but had a terrible pain in my shoulder. Turned out I tore my rotator cuff, during the time I waited for surgery it became worse and I suffered tremors. Surgery was done and it was pretty much significant damage, a 90% tear and the detachment and reattachment of my bicep. During rehab, I still suffered tremors, fearing it was nerve damage I saw a neurologist and was hit broadside with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. I was devastated. I was moved to a job that was less physical but I still suffered from pain and tremors to the extent that my doctor prescribed the highest level of medication for the treatment of the tremors and short term disability to give me a chance to heal and get my body in a place that allowed me to get back to work. So I returned to work, but I just couldn't keep up at the end of each day I was in pain and by the weekend I was useless. This year in March I went back on short term disability, and 1 week later Covid hit, and the world turned upside down. Here i was at home, understanding i was in bad shape and with my sons out of school and asking all kinds of questions and trying to answer them without scaring them. Now I'm sitting here, getting ready to transition to long term disability,becoming a stay at home dad, teaching my kids at home this year because of my health, including the fact I have type 2 diabetes along with my others issues and my kids are afraid that if they go to school they may infect me and I will die of covid, thank God school is offering virtual learning, then last night, one of my favorite comic characters, who was perfectly portrayed by Chadwick Boseman, T'Challa, The Black Panther has passed away at 43 of cancer, 11 years younger than me....has hurt me to my core. Not to mention the fact that 40 years later since Star Wars came out and my feelings that we are all humans and that race would not be an issue anymore sitting here seeing no change has led me to one hope, hope we can end the hate, end the fear,become the caring,loving, people not only that we can be but have to be. The sooner we put away our fears and accept that we are one people, humans of earth, and realize that 98% of us are good and that no matter what 2% of us are bad, but the good ones of us are the majority and we have to stop letting those that are the minority stop controlling us and say we are not taking it no more, the sooner we will be the great people we can be and this world will be a better place.

[theclaravoyant]

What do you mean by “persistent rejection of nonviolence in media” I mean I understand media as a whole but this is a superhero/spy/action-adventure show where taking about. It wouldn’t be any of those without “violence” persay, we’ve seen superhero shows without “violence” normally aren’t popular DC’s Powerless for example

Hi there! Thanks for the ask (regarding this post). My feelings on that are a bit complicated and gets into a lot of philosophy and stuff but I’ll do my best to explain what I meant by that particular line in that particular context.

So, re the violence and genre thing, I’m actually on the same page! I’m not expecting violence to completely disappear from our screens, or even decrease that much. I’m not opposed to it as a concept and in fact, I actually like it! I love this genre. I really do. I love kickass fight scenes, I love how visually satisfying they are, and I love MANY examples of violence and badassery being liberating and powerful. I’m not opposed to the existence of violence in media at all, even though it is glorified to some extent and blah blah blah, that’s a Whole Thing. What grates on me is how often nonviolence is thrown under the bus. Not the absence of violence, I mean nonviolence, eg, forgiveness, redemption, and restorative justice (that is, healing through coming to an understanding and fixing a situation, rather than seeking vengeance or punishment). (and which, imo, are especially important in these kinds of genres).

Characters’ willingness to forgive is very often treated as naive, or weak, and all the characters who ‘recognise that the world is a terrible place’ are the ones that know better. We can see this very clearly with Fitz eg at the end of Season 1 where everyone is warning him about Ward, for example. This willingness to forgive is often trained or drained out of a character as a series goes on and characters lose their innocence. Typically there will come a point when it’s Really Important that this particular bad guy dies, rather than being stopped any other way (said other ways being rarely discussed, and sometimes other perfectly good options eg ICERs are taken off the table for no reason) and the ‘naive’ character ‘steps up.’ Sometimes, a character will demonstrate forgiveness only for the bad guy to throw it back in their faces and for something to immediately happen (typically, they fall off something and die) that means they meet their violent end anyway but the hero’s hands are clean. (this happens a lot in Disney, and Doctor Who). That’s a little closer to the nonviolence I’m talking about but because of how common it is as a narrative device, I still consider it cheating: it’s a way for the writers/narrative/moral to be violent and punishing without the character having to take the blame.

Willingness to forgive is also often treated as unjust. People who have been wronged, abused or oppressed in some way are expected to want vengeance on the person who wronged them. Fighting back, injuring or killing one’s enemy is portrayed as a powerful, freeing move. I’m not saying it can’t be - I love me some vengeance/emancipation stories - but what I do not love is when a character (especially the victim) says “hey, maybe we shouldn’t actually kill the person who wronged me” and other characters, and/or fans, respond with cries lamenting their naivity, or Stockholm Syndrome, or other ways of expressing concerns that basically say “aww, poor baby doesn’t want to kill their oppressor? that’s okay we’ll do it for them / coach them through it” or “how can you not want to kill them, something must be wrong”. Again, we saw this with Fitz re: Ward, and also when he hesitated about killing Aida. Jemma noticed this hesitation, but her reaction was not clear. Many fans, however, went nuts going “omg!! he’s still the Doctor, he’s still in love with Aida because he doesn’t want to kill her!!” when really he might just… not want to further the saga of horrible things with another murder? when what Aida wanted was actually quite simple? maybe he thought that the situation could be resolved without anyone having to die?

(and this was another one of those times, though not so hypocritical and slightly more literal than usual, when a mysterious force of divine judgement took Aida out rather than any of the heroes, let alone Fitz, having to do it. also note that Jemma’s visually satisfying but in the end meaningless (”I just really wanted to do that”) violence against her (by shooting her indestructible body multiple times with a machine gun) has been endlessly praised, while Fitz’s hesitation about killing her is treated as naive and part of his victimhood, and is also often used to ship them rather than like……… in regards to him simply being a good and compassionate person who doesn’t want unnecessary death).

Nonviolence is often portrayed poorly too, which doesn’t help. It’s almost always raised, but often in a way that it is designed to be shut down. For example, “we don’t kill people, unless it’s REALLY important, like now (and that time, and that other time, and-)”, and don’t forget the good old “if we kill them, we’re just as bad as they are” OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE FREAKING NOT. so another character comes along and talks the hesitant character out of that funk, or takes care of the danger for them, because don’t be ridiculous of course X bad guy deserves to die (and/or because the Good Character believes they are protecting the victim character by taking the blow to their own soul or whatever by ‘doing what’s necessary’ kind of thing). Another one of these that shits me is blood-family obligation. “of course they did all these horrible things to you, but you have to forgive them because they’re family”. That’s shit. as is “forgive them because you don’t actually have the power to fight back, so you might as well.”

Basically what I’m saying is, I’m all here for what can be a powerful and freeing experience of violence and even revenge. I’m not opposed to that existing. I’m opposed to alternatives to those kind of stories, and characters who don’t want that, being constantly shut down, punished and infantalised. Forgiveness and redemption (*real, earned redemption, which a lot of TV also fails hard at) takes a lot of courage and compassion and I hate seeing it treated so badly. If characters can free and heal themselves through violence they should be able to free and heal themselves through peace too. What I’m sick of is violence being treated as the only or the best way, and for learning violence to always be seen as an empowering character arc, even when it is not.

We can see this again with Fitz, in comparison with his fellow agents. Daisy, for example, became an agent as part of finding her place within Shield, and her powers help her to do that role even though she could if she wanted to be quite violent with them. Notably, her powers are also emphasised as a positive and powerful part of her identity, and also being capable of creating beauty as well as used as a weapon. This is a storyline where accepting violent or potentially violent elements into her life was empowering and/or brought with it other empowering elements such as her found family. Jemma also, while she has less of the identity aspect going on, somewhat willingly picked up a weapon when she was feeling defenseless and wanted to stop needing help. Though she was reaching out from a dark place, she is now better able to protect herself and the people she loves and she did it by making a choice. While less positive than Daisy’s, this is also a storyline where she has grown in some way through learning violence. (and notably, by choosing it - at least in-universe, though because violence is so favoured by stories and genres like this it was unlikely to go any other way in the grand scheme of things).

Then we have Fitz, whose current noticeably-high levels of violence (he did have some violent encounters etc beforehand, but these are repeatedly identified as more severe/brutal) come directly from his experience in an alternate universe of sorts where he was abused as a child, raised as a violent and ruthless man, and became a top hydra scientist/torturer. He had no agency in that storyline being done to him, with his memories and the love of his life replaced and his entire life trajectory forcibly rewritten. He had no agency in his escape, or determining what he took out from it, he simply remembers that life as well as his real one. The best he has in terms of agency in dealing with it is “learn to use it to your advantage/under your control.” Currently, this is being treated as an empowering thing - he has a tool now, and it is great when he uses it properly. However, given the origins of this violent side, and the fact that the best anyone can do is say that he should make use of what he’s been left with from a horrific experience they otherwise haven’t dealt with much (they’ve dealt largely with his guilt, not with his trauma), to me that is not empowering. To kill Aida before Fitz, her main victim, could decide or verbalise what he wanted to do about her is not empowering. To have the level of brutality of his violence repeatedly shock and worry other characters who know and love him, and yet for the characters and narrative to insist that it’s part of his character now and that he should accept it, is not empowering. (particularly given the uncomfortable parallels between this and his disability acceptance/~recovery arc earlier in the series). This is an example of a storyline in which I believe nonviolence can and should be explored, but because nonviolence is consistently undervalued and poorly treated I don’t think that’s going to happen and that frustrates me.

That’s… basically what I meant. Hope it helps!

[dexi-green]

THE LAST JEDI SPOILERS!!!

I saw a lot of hate for The Last Jedi before I went to go see it. A lot directed at the misuse of Rose and sympathy for Kylo, but knowing tumblr I didn’t take it to heart, and went to go see it. Coming out of the theater I loved it. Yeah sure it was different, surprising, and I guess there were a few moments that weren’t my all time favorites, but i loved it (am I just blinded by my love for star wars so I can’t see flaws? maybe...I mean I love the prequels, and apparently you aren’t suppose to like those...) But when I came back and went on tumblr and twitter to see peoples responses now that I can look and not worry about spoilers, i still don’t get it.

Star Wars isn’t the pinnacle of Representation. Not by a long shot. But I think that it deserves more credit than the internet is giving it. So I’m just going to give my personal opinion on some of the criticisms I’ve seen.

Rose is a Rey Replacement/Meant to break up Stormpilot, Finn/Rose/Poe are treated badly, Poe becomes an angry latinx sterotype, Tries to make us feel sympathy for Kylo:

First off, my personal motto is to not go into movies (especially big franchise films like marvel/star wars/dc/harry potter) with big expectations especially regarding ships. The filmmakers do not care what you ship, and it’s highly unlikely they will be canon. LGBTQ+ representation is something that is desperately needed especially in big blockbuster films, but with the current state of Hollywood, you are just setting yourself up for disappointment if you expect it to play out. Also if it isn’t outright stated, I tend to try not to think of any relationship as romantic (I’m not a big shipper anyways).  I’ve just learned that if you want to come out of these movies happy, don’t bring your ships/headcanons in the theater.

Rose is a strong character on her own. She has a lot of potential that they can cash in on with the next film. I would say that she may be a Rey replacement or treated terribly if she would’ve actually died. Then she would’ve just been a placeholder until Finn and Rey reunited. Then she would’ve died with little growth (I say this because episode IX has (like I said) the potential to continue her character arc even more). Within this film she goes from being a maintenance worker, mourning her sister, looking up to the heroes, to becoming a hero herself. Sparking hope in the future of the resistance/jedi (you go Temiri). Infiltrating The First Order and sacrificing herself and delivering one of the most important lines in this trilogy imo “That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.” 

I personally feel that saying that all of that is undercut by the fact that her and Finn “fail” or that she is made to kneel in front of a galaxy Nazi or that she got critically hurt at the end, is...saddening. She IS still a strong woc. The fact that she goes through that pain, or fails, shouldn’t take away from the good she does. Same with Finn and Poe. They get thrown around and kicked through the dirt, but that doesn’t make them any less of heroes. Like Yoda said “The greatest teacher, failure is.” and that is what this movie is about. That hope isn’t lost because you fail or make mistakes. That you get up and keep going, learn from what you did wrong and do better.

All writers know that the best way to find your characters true selves is to really push them. Right to the edge. Put them in the worse situations because then they really have to make honest decisions and show who they really are. It makes the audience feel bad, and sympathize for the heroes. It’s the difference between a Superman “I’ve never done bad in my life” type of hero and a Batman/Captain America “I’ve been to hell and back and I’ll fight for what I believe” hero. How interesting would the story really be if the heroes always came out on top in everything they do? The heroes were really on their last leg throughout this entire movie. All of them. Forced to do what they needed to survive. And that makes it that much better when they do pull through. Yeah it sucks to see Finn get berated by Hux/Phasma, so when we see Phasma fall down into that pit of fire, Finn standing over her, You feel that gratification. In TFA when we see Kylo interrogate and manipulate Rey, it makes me feel sick, so when she absolutely destroys him in the battle on Starkiller, I’m so proud and happy. Thats what its about. The triumph of good. But if there is no evil, if there is no bad guys, or no pain, what is there to overcome? What is the point? How do the characters grow?

That is on reason why I didn’t see Poe as an angry latinx stereotype. Because despite some people having a somewhat calm demeanor, everyone else was in the same place as him. He just showed it. I didn’t even seen him as angry/hotheaded. I saw him as frantic. He was scrambling to try and find a way to save everyone. He didn’t want to back down. Holdo/Leia were just calm, and tried to think of other ways. He is standing up for what he believes. And people get angry/upset/loud sometimes. There isn’t anything wrong with that. Not to go into it to much, but I think that is a problem with some people on the internet. They want representation, but get mad if the character isn’t “perfect”. But people are flawed. People get mad and loud, no matter what their race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality/etc. I feel like he would fall into that stereotype if he had...i guess, refused to help Finn in TFA, or anytime throughout that film (where he seems to be smiling in every scene he’s in??)? If he had absolutely flipped on Leia for slapping him or demoting him (and I mean got more than a little loud). If he had been angry for Holdo/Leia for not doing his plan, not because he thought it was the right course of action, but because he wanted to do what he wanted to do and nobody was going to tell him he couldn’t.

Going along with the, push characters to the edge to show the real them, thing... I am 100% not for a Kylo redemption. I can see them doing it, but I say he is a great villain so let him stay a villain. When they were teeing it up, with Rey and Snoke, I wasn’t too happy (But the battle with the Praetorian guards was cool so I was okay for a bit) I did not want him to go to the light side. I was sort of relieved when it was revealed afterwards that he still just wants to rule the galaxy, but is still sort of set in the Sith way of “I’ll have power, and I’ll get it however I can.” So not exactly “good” in that classic sense. With all that being said, I don’t see much wrong with how Kylo is shown in this film.

Rey is manipulated and obviously has her own conflict of light and dark (a bit) so her sympathizing with Kylo isn’t exactly “good” sympathizing with “bad” (especially since this new trilogy seems to want to blur the lines between the two more so, (and hopefully give us a Grey jedi Rey)). And the audience doesn’t have to feel bad for him. We were just given a bit more of his story, and like with the other characters having flaws, the villain is allowed to have nice qualities as well. A lot of popular villains are charismatic, and amazing people persons. They have an alluring nature. A lot do bad because of bad done to them, and are on the edge of being Robin Hood types. A lot of villains aren’t textbook evil 24/7. When we feel bad for villains or antagonists, it adds to the story (i guess maybe just for some people). It causes us to talk and think about them and the story more because we can relate. It allows the messages to resonate deeper with us, and makes us look inside ourselves. In the case of TLJ, How would you let your or someone else’s failure influence you? Would you be like Kylo and seek revenge, power? or would you be like the Resistance and let it motivate you to do better?

I very much agree with people online. The Star Wars franchise, and Hollywood in general can do so much better with Representation. There is many things they could fix. Add in more POC, LGBTQ+, especially main characters. Make them complex and realistic. I know it hurts to see the one character that you see yourself in go through pain, but (and I know i’m going to get hate for this) thats a part of life, and a big part of dramatic action movies like Star Wars. Star Wars isn’t exactly a nice family sitcom. If you go into expecting no one to be hurt, then, you’re gonna have a bad time. I can’t seem to find it but there was a nice post about how every piece of media that tries to have representation doesn’t need to be “THE ONE”. Not every piece of media with a black man is going to have every single black man relate to it. Having more representation isn’t about it being perfect, it’s just that, having more. A straight, white, man can sit down and start watching a film, and if they don’t connect with the story they can turn around and go to something else. That is what we are trying to go to. Have so many different representations of LGBTQ+, or POC, or disabled, etc. communities, so we don’t all have to hang on to the same one. So we can find something we personally connect to. Just because you don’t connect or like the characters in SW, doesn’t mean no one else does. There are soooo many little boys who look up to Finn and Poe and see them as a heroes. Or girls who look up to Rose. They don’t see the negative bits that you might. Even if it is Rian Johnson’s goal to slap around the POC characters as much as possible, a lot of people, outside looking in, don’t see that. If enough people are looking up to these characters as heroes, and more people (the actors, writers, fanartists, comic writers, etc.) get their hands on these characters, does that intention even matter anymore? If we create a supportive community, what does that matter? I know we want representation but to make that a reality people have to stop berating and negatively judging every single bit of representation we get. There is plenty we can attack.So we have to be supportive and critical. Say “I’m so glad that star wars introduced a WOC. Though I think in the next movie, I would love to see her hold her own a bit more.” instead of #star wars hates poc. Otherwise the only thing those big hollywood exec’s are gonna see is negative backlash to their attempt at representation, and they will just crawl back to their straight, white, male, comfort zones. You know how many times hollywood has used the excuse of a film or show with a diverse casting not doing well so they wouldn’t have to do it again. How many times they have manipulated it to be that way? (e.g. The Catwoman and Elektra movies did badly (also got bad advertising) so they avoided making another female led superhero film for a long time.) With overall negative reviews. Then there are things like Saban’s Power Rangers in more recent years. Not the best of the best, but good and entertaining, with a diverse cast, but it did badly and you don’t see marvel or dc picking up a superhero with autism. They look at each other’s numbers, look online and see what kind of buzz it gets, and decide from there what things succeeded and what didn’t and put the good bits in the pot for the next film. So when they see people trashing the representation, guess what part they aren’t going to pick out and use again? I’ll stop now. Edit: I also want to add that I am completely open to talking about this. I do want to hear people’s opinions on why they might have felt uncomfortable with certain things, and what they think should be changed in future installments. I’m open to civil discussions, with people who respect other points of view.

[safitheartist]

-Somehow knows the Al Ghuls have "chinese herritage" while knowing nothing else about them

- Including the fact that said herritage was added haphazardly to excuse their orientalism and not to genuinly give more chinese rep.

- or the fact that's like most likely not even canon anymore? Like they literally just added it as a excuse to be more racist.

-Find every excuse in the book for Damian being two shades lighter then a piece of paper

-Only know Damian's 1 white friend

- It's either Colin who hasn't been around well before the nee 52 and really wasn't as important to Damian as people make him out to be

- Or it's Jon

-Both are made out as more innocent and naive then their actual comic portrayl and Damian needs to protect them UwU

- Ship Damian with either of them, again ignoring the fact that Colin literally is a character who like only appeared properly twice and Jon literally is a 10 year old

- Lots of hcs that are of questionable nature

- makes and or reblogs very suggestive if not boarderline pornographic art of them.

- "It's okay and not creepy if you age them up :))))"

- "Billy Batson is now a close friend of Damian because most of Damian's actual friends are poc and I can't have that in my dream team trio"

- Colin "fans" use his disability and phobias for "cute comfort fics uwu"

- Colin's disability gets grossly misrepresented.

- They forgot Colin has mental disabilities because they don't view him as anythinh other then a white boy to ship Damian with

- Batfam shippers.

- "they aren't technically related"

- Cass, if not being only there to comfort her siblings or not show any emotion resolves all her issues with violence.

- Cass is capeable in everything and fails at nothing ever.

- Cass's disabilty is ignored or grossly misrepresented.

- They claim they like Harley and Ivy.

- All their hcs about Harley and Ivy revolve around Harley's past abusive relationship with the joker. None of them are about their actual relationship.

-"Selina stans."

-They actually know next to nothing about her other then that she likes cats and jewlery.

-Probably think Tom King wrote the Batcat parts in his story well (lol he didn't and I will never forget how he literally stole a character atribute of Talia, her devotion to the idea of Bruce as Batman (something most writers used as one of her flaws might I fucking add), gave it to his glorified wifu version of Selina and literally used it to 'prove' that Selina is the better love interest)

- Cat puns.

- Damian and Selina bound over cats or Bruce because that's the only thing they could bound over, it's not like they are both abuse victims.

- Again general Talia hate.

- They don't read comics but they kiss every writer who validates their terrible fanon on the ass cheek.

- "Well, I don't think it's racist-"

- "When X was in Gotham Academy-" has never actually read Gotham Academy because it has too many poc I guess.

-Or they are talking about young justice

- "Steph was never actually Robin"

- "Duke was never actually Robin."

- Damian should be Batman or Nightwing when he grows up. Fuck giving him his own identity.

- Claim to hate DC pretending Damian is special because he is Bruce's "blood son"

- Literally are obsessed with Damian as a sort of legacy holder.

-Damian hates everyone in his family except Dick and his dad maybe ocassionally.

-Damian is needlessly mean/agressive

- But it's okay because he is just a assassin baby, he's allowed to act like a sociopath UwU

- If they remember Duke exists by some miracle his personality is being the judgemental black guy who can't deal with the white nonesense and never actually is treated like the other bat kids. Nevermind the fact that he literally chosed to be there after finding out what he would get into

- Sexualized art of the Robins

- probably also don't know what is so bad about Yaoi/fujushi culture.

- They have a nsfw tag full of borderline child porn that isn't illegal due to a technicality.

-Probably know more about Harper Row then Cass somehow.

-Somehow still don't know she has a gay brother nor that she is bi

I'm gonna stop, all the salt is making me thirsty.

How to spot one of those batfam stans

Tim lives on coffee. He doesn’t know other drinks exist

I don’t read comics but

Dick is just so smiley and happy! Ray of sunshine, trying to keep his bwothers fwom fwighting :(

They get Jason right actually, he is just an edgelord who fucks guns

Tim has never slept in his life! Except for when he falls asleep on top of the fridge or some weird shit!!

Cassandra who? No personality. Don’t talk abt her at all. Bc to talk abt someone. U have to know even cursory information

And you’d have to have read a comic

They have never read 1 comic

D??u?ke??????

Damian is dick’s real son uwu

Bruce looks into the distance like he’s on the office XD

Often followed by “I hate all of you”

Bruce goes baby shopping! Just picks up random kids! Instead of forming meaningful relationships w kids who need help

Instead of being selfless and kind and empathetic, seeming himself in kids, wanting to help them turn out not like him

New kid every week!! Quirky!!

Alfred is there and says something cringe

Literally just. Just says cringe things. He’s British not an alien.

They’re just a big happy family!! No complexity!! 2d!!! Boring!!!! UWU

[dceufandomhatespeopleofcolor]

I love Lindsey Morgan and I hope that she does star in a superhero movie because she would kick ass but I was really hoping that they would have oracle Barbara and that they would actually have disability representation after demonizing wheel chair users in btvsm . I would prefer it if Lindsey was Stephenie as bat girl and they got a Latina wheelchair user to play her mentor Barbara .

Lindsey as Steph is my dream tbh, but I’m not holding out hope since everyone seems to have forgotten anyone besides Babs was ever Batgirl since 2011 and flashpoint. Which I hate because Babs is great, but she’s great as a mentor figure and an older heroine.

I also kinda doubt they’ll go with Lindsey though, because Commissioner Gordon has already been cast as a white dude and I don’t think Lindsey is biracial?

I also just really want Cassandra Cain to be involved (she’s my favorite DC character), but I’m terrified they’ll whitewash her given how Hollywood has been treating Asian characters lately.

[fancyfade]

ATM i’m thinking about comics (everyone act surprised) so I’ve been thinking about Babs as Oracle and Batgirl.

Now, despite what people may think I don’t actually *dislike* babs as batgirl. when I read her or see her, I generally like her. The reason why I dislike the new 52 stuff is not because the plot sucks, or I hate the character, but because magicuring is an ableist trope that implies the only happy ending for disabled people is being non-disabled (or dead), and because it took one of DC’s few (only?) wheelchair using superheroes away.

With that out of the way.

I love how in The New Batman Adventures, she is smiling a lot when she’s Batgirl. We get the idea she’s having genuine fun being a superhero, and I think that’s an interesting difference she has from the rest of the batfam at this time (most of them being defined by tragedy or people they lost). She gets in because she wants to do it, and as we see in Batgirl: Year One, also because her dad is overprotective and she can’t really do what she wanted to do. Batgirl is like her outlet where she can do stuff w/o worrying about her dad being worried.

From my understanding, she’s got a little less training than some of the other characters, because she’s doing this on her own. Like she took martial arts, but as someone who has taken martial arts (for years before getting crippled) let me tell you it doesn’t auto turn you into a badass. it probably gives you a good foundation and muscle memory and training, but not like... “here’s your superheroeing certificate”. Also unless you are sparring with assholes, you’re not getting hit like you actually would. (I did though. I was sparring and got kicked in the head w/ a concussion. an accident but still :P So now I can say how I would fight with a concussion the answer is horribly. I was slow and confused)

anyway

and we saw some of this in Batgirl with Cassandra Cain, where Cass was super disappointed that Batgirl wasn’t hugely badass but instead solved things by thinking quick on her feet, which kind of reminded me of Stephanie in her batgirl run a little. Not like I don’t think each of them *don’t* develop very good fighting skills over the course of being superheroes, but they didn’t get as much training before *starting*. which lets you tell some interesting stories IMO.

Anyway so

Babs as Batgirl has always struck me as a little bit more impulsive and improvisey, and younger than Babs as Oracle (even in New52 stuff, when she is clearly older).

In Birds of Prey (both the TV show and the comics) we see Babs gets annoyed when her AB friends/partners/whoevers jump into danger without thinking. In the first team-up issues, Black Canary turns off her comms multiple times, leading to Babs saying she’s not sure if their team-up can work. I think in some ways, she *has* to be less impulsive than Batgirl. Oracle can’t run away. We see how heavily fortified her bases are (in Nightwing comics... 38 or 39?, the intro-BOP, and the BOP comics with Desmond going after her). I feel like part of this is definitely because she was attacked in her own home earlier and doesn’t want that to ever happen again, but part of it because she knows that because she is physically disabled, she has to plan more in advance for a combat encounter. Evacuating requires more planning than evacuating an able bodied superhero, who can just jump through windows and run or w/e. Oracle is by necessity a more careful planner than Batgirl. However, that makes it a bit baffling to see her just rushing into situation as Batgirl after magicuring, as if her character development had been wiped clean. Hence why she reads as younger there, even when she’s not.

But she also feels a bit older as Oracle because we get to see herself established more independently. In Oracle: Year One Born of Hope, we see her calling out the shitty batman writers who treat Batgirl as just a smaller, weaker version of Batman. After making Oracle, she has an identity which is her own, and not based off of someone elses. Now, I’m not opposed to legacy superheroes and I obviously like characters like Batgirl as a concept. But I feel especially with how Babs being caught in the crossfire of Batman’s war thing w/ joker, she’d want some distance.

And

it feels like for Oracle, the stakes are a little higher. I imagine the funness chilled down a little during her years as Batgirl as she trained, saw bigger threats, and got more serious, but Oracle is dead serious. She’s seen what happens if she’s not prepared.

Oracle also... pushes people away a lot I feel, when she’s in sad or in a bad place. In Birds of Prey: Metropolis or Dust, she pretty much isolates herself in her room while trying to figure out the bad guys plan and doesn’t really contact the rest of the Birds. She’s pretty snappy with Misfit.

I don’t know if that’s a trait for Batgirl too, because I can’t remember her doing it but I might just have not seen it.

Either way

Just some character comparison notes. May refine them later.