#Stanning people with disabilities being capable and forces for change <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[chiropterx]

“I see” (Matt)

Send me “I see” and I’ll tell you how my character perceives yours

"Mr. Murdock is truly an inspiration to look up to! Whoops, I mean... pun totally not intended, but come on! He's an exceptional lawyer, and pro bono? What's not to like about somebody like that?" Kirk can't help but feel a little excited when talking about the man. They might not have shared the same disability but Kirk had always been impressed by how others not only managed to succeed in a world made for those without impairments but thrive. The fact that Matt Murdock was not only an inspirational figure but cared, really cared about his work was impressive. The richest could easily hire him on to get them off the hook but the man did no such instead, instead taking on even the most difficult cases when others were unable to pay for such work. It was hard not to find such qualities admirable after living in Gotham for so many years - the number of times he'd read about the wealthy practically getting away with murder was depressingly common, and the injustice of at all stung. Kirk frowned as he pondered further about the lawyer of Hell's Kitchen. Had Murdock ever sought a cure for blindness? Or was he content to live as he did? Kirk couldn't help but feel a rush of guilt through his admiration, that even without the possibility of a cure, Murdock put everything on the line to bring justice to those unable to seek it themselves. He sighed. To think he once had a low opinion of lawyers but Murdock had proven those negative thoughts wrong. If they ever met, Kirk wouldn't mind buying the man a drink sometime and maybe something more.

Man-Bat can't help but hiss at the man's scent. He knows this one, the one who looks a little like the other bat but without the broken wings. Not having them didn't stop him from seeming like he could almost fly, his body so swift and strong it felt as though he could. The man could hit hard with those sticks of his too, Man-Bat had found to his greatest displeasure upon finding it damn near impossible to sneak up on his foe. This man was no prey but an equal, another hunter of the night who flew without wings.

[bigskydreaming]

Can we just talk about all the age reversal aus where Robin is still a thing before Dick comes around??? It makes no sense!!!! Ik you’ve done a post on the importance of Robin before and it just really ticks me off!!! Like, if Damian is the oldest, why would he go by a bird name when he works with Batman? It would make more sense to be like ‘Shadow’ or ‘Shriken’ or just plain ‘Batkid’ but all these authors use the name Robin and then show Jason being resentful when Dick takes it over. Just wtf?

Tbh, I don’t have a ton to say on that particular subject other than I agree with you on it not making a lot of sense, because I just don’t really tend to read age reversal AUs anymore. They’re just not a premise that draws me in, y’know? I have issues with the way Dick’s status as the oldest brother tends to lead to him and his own problems being taken for granted at times, but the solution to that which I’m looking for is to have that addressed, not to have Dick just not be the oldest sibling anymore. I like Dick the way he is….I’m as fond of AUs as the next person, but ones that kinda alter the core of him just aren’t for me.

Like….how to put this…..from my perspective, I’ve noticed that outside of fics by authors who consider themselves Dick stans first and foremost out of all the characters, there’s three distinct tropes in the vast majority of fics where Dick plays a major role, and is regarded sympathetically rather than being in the way:

1) Fics about Tarantula, 2) Fics where Dick is a Talon and 3) Age Reversal AUs.

And the one common element in these tropes is they’re most commonly utilized while depicting Dick as particularly vulnerable, to the extent that he’s like….dependent on the other characters.

In the vast majority of Tarantula fics - majority, not all, there are exceptions of course - but the common thread is Dick tends to have very little agency in even the aftermath of what happened with Tarantula. He’s usually not granted the right of disclosure….people find out despite his wants there, and often despite his attempts to keep it from them (huge pet peeve just btw…..people, disclosure is a HUGELY big deal to survivors, because its one of THE single most powerful ways in which survivors take back control over their lives….they might not have control over what happened, but they can control who they tell about it and when. The tendency to write fics about survivors but displaying no real thought towards the fact that many survivors NEED agency over who they disclose to and when, is part of why I tend to rant about people kinda….commercializing this particular trauma even while saying they do so in the name of spreading awareness or healing or stuff like that….because they’re not actually like….thinking about things from the viewpoint of the survivor. In many instances, stealing a survivor’s right to disclose at the time and place of their choosing can be massively retraumatizing in its own way. And again, please don’t talk to me about how I’m generalizing or insisting there’s only one right way to write survivors…I know I’m generalizing, I’m talking about TRENDS, not specific fics, and I’m not saying its NEVER okay to write things this way, I’m simply commenting on how often things ONLY seem to be written this way).

But anyway, point is, a common theme throughout these fics is that despite Dick being central to them, its a story ABOUT him and what happened to him, rather than actually being HIS story. He himself has very little role in many of these stories, they’re more about what the others do to avenge him, or to take care of him, etc…..which is great in principle….I just can’t help but note the emphasis on him being dependent on others throughout it.

Which brings us to number two, fics where Dick is a Talon…..I’ve talked before how I just kinda can’t, and back out of fics where Dick remains a Talon or altered by the Talon process, because I think most people do that as kind of a metaphor for a disability and finding ways to live with a disability, but to me it will always read as body horror, because this isn’t so much Dick being disabled as it is him being altered head to toe in very deliberate ways by his abusers with the intention of making him something other than he is, and something he never ever chooses or wants to be. And the fact that there’s no need to write stories with disability metaphors, you can just write a character having a disability, so it always kinda feels unnecessary to me, personally, and an inherent tragedy because this was DONE to Dick, and thus is a permanent reminder of his abuse at the hands of his abusers….which is not inherently the same thing as adjusting to life with a disability, though there can be overlap, obviously.

But the other tendency of the Talon Dick trope is how often this results in him being mentally altered. And not just in a brainwashed kind of way, as many of these fics have him raised as a Talon since his parents died and then rescued by the Batfam….but his entire mentality, personality and way of processing things and even speaking is altered….and the thing that bugs me about this is…..why? Why is this choice so prevalent in these fics, when there’s literally nothing innate about the Talons in canon that says the Talon process mentally changes their minds and personalities in this kind of way? Most of the Talons we see don’t speak….because they’re intended to be seen as mindless minions, a force of nature rather than people….its meant to add to their mystique, their threat, their legend….largely on orders of the Court, who thrives on those kind of things. But who is the Talon we see the most of in canon, the Talon that we’re specifically told time and time again the Court means Dick to replace, be the heir of? William Cobb. 

And William is nothing like the way Dick is depicted in most Talon fics. He’s the same as he was before he was changed, just with the changes to his biology now. Mentally and personality-wise, he’s still the same as he was before it. And even in the recent Nightwing comic where Ric was finally brainwashed into being the Talon the Court has been manipulating him towards becoming throughout this storyline…..obviously, the Talon process hadn’t occurred yet, but even with the brainwashing, Ric mentally was still himself in the sense that he could process things, make decisions, speak all just the same as he did before he put on the brainwashing goggles….he didn’t speak most of the time because again, Talons are meant by the Court to be mostly silent enigmas….but when pressed, he was absolutely still capable of it, the same as before.

So again, the question is….why this particular choice, with this trope? To have Dick so radically altered not just in body, and with the emphasis rarely even placed on his bodily changes, as usually they come up with some tech disguise for him or use makeup to make him appear the same as he usually does, at which point his changes aren’t mentioned all that much other than to display his healing factor. No, the emphasis by and large is to how different he is mentally….even though there’s literally nothing about the Talon the Court wants him to be in canon, which dictates that he has to be in any way mentally altered by the process of becoming one. It isn’t his mental faculties the Court has a problem with, its his morals. No other brainwashing or mental conditioning method in comics or fics places such a strong emphasis on limiting the person’s mental capabilities rather than just altering their morality and way of thinking…so why is it different here, with Dick’s stories? And the only common result I can ever find is that it diminishes Dick’s autonomy and makes him vulnerable in a specific way where he’s dependent on the others to a huge degree, due to being less socially capable or even just mentally capable on his own.

And then finally we have the reverse ages AUs, in which Dick is still himself as he was as a young Robin in canon…..just the baby of the family, doted on and protected by his family, who are all fiercely defensive of him and in many of these stories, drop everything to rush to his aid when he’s in danger and rescue him. Which again, is perfectly fine in theory, but the thing this raises for me is…..how distinct this is from Dick’s actual time as Robin, where the actual emphasis was on how capable he was despite his young age, how autonomous and independent and competent even when face to face with villains twice his size and three times his age. 

Situations like with Two-Face were the exception in his stories, not the norm…..much like the later Robins, like Jason before his death, Tim for over a decade in comics, Damian to this day….all roughly the same age Dick is in these reverse Robin AUs…..but when has Damian ever been depicted as that vulnerable and in need of his siblings’ protection, in canon? When was Tim? And in Dick’s own time as Robin when he was actually that age in canon…..how would he have ever lasted as Robin without all these older siblings in canon, let alone managed to become the inspiration for entire generations of other child heroes….if he weren’t as capable of protecting himself as he was…in actual canon?

Again, the focus of the premise, like with the other two tropes, often seems geared towards emphasizing a vulnerability that is kinda just…chosen for Dick, rather than being an inevitability of that trope, and results in him being particularly dependent on the rest of his family.

Understand, I’m not saying this to say oh these fics are all bad and shouldn’t exist, lol, I’m just expressing the common element through all of them that’s why they don’t appeal to me in particular - because as I’ve always emphasized in pretty much all my posts, one of the greatest appeals to me about Dick Grayson, and one of the things I love about him most, is his fierce independence, his commitment to being his own person and standing on his own two feet. And its why I have an issue with the common thread of infantilization that runs through a lot of the fanon tropes that treat him as though he’s incapable of feeding himself, clothing himself, or even cleaning up after himself or conducting himself in public without the help of others.

Because my issue isn’t that these things exist, its that I’m always going to want to know WHY.

Why, when Dick’s core characterization has always revolved around his insistence on his own personal agency and autonomy…..do so many stories revolve around…..denying him this, or stripping it away?

Why is it that he’s most appealing to many people when he’s not just dependent on his family, but forced to be dependent by the very premise of a story, with no choice or alternative in the matter?

What makes that such a common trend, and with his character in specific, as opposed to Jason, Tim, Damian, etc….none of whom display similar trends in their stories or most prevalent tropes?

[novantinuum]

jen’s doctor who s11 review

On the whole!

I really enjoyed series 11 for its nice change in pace and especially the relationship built up between Graham and Ryan. I really liked how many of the episodes were lighter and kinda more adventure-y in nature than in past, instead of constant “the world is gonna end” danger. Like I love those kinds of episodes, believe me, but the lighter tone is very welcomed after many series of heart wrenching angst ahahahah! 

I loved how they handled the historical episodes this series, and really dug into the truth of human condition within those time periods, and took risks there. I actually learned a lot about the time periods they visited- for example, I never really heard much about the Pakistan partition in school. 

Thirteen is precious and I want to hug her. She’s so full of hope and that makes me so happy! :DDD I love how she’s a sciency tinkerer and likes cobbling stuff together out of whatever loose ends she can find. I’m still waiting for her to snap, though- maybe that’s just me as an angst lord talking, but I want to see her super super angry. The scene in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos with her sternly disagreeing with Graham was very good though. But anyways, I love her positivity and her quirky alien charm, and her character feels like a natural progression of where the Doctor left off at the end of Twice Upon a Time. The Doctor has gone through a lot of healing since the Time War, a lot of self reflection and forgiving themself, and Thirteen is absolutely a product of that and it shows. It’s so nice to see them back on their feet, unshackled by that guilt finally, just wandering about the universe like they always did. 

Yasmin is so sweet and so loyal, and h o h boy if there’s anyone I can see sticking with the Doctor until the bitter end out of this crew it’s her. (*nervous laughter*) Out of all the crew she’s the one who’s had the least development though, so I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes as a character moving forward. Also, I hope we see her family more, I like them! Maybe in the New Years special, we’ll see. I’ve absolutely hit the “ADOPT KID” button on Ryan, the more I think about him the more I love him- just, all this time he’s been looking for belonging, for people who aren’t gonna leave him behind like his dad, and he had that with his nan Grace- but he didn’t know if Graham was gonna be the same or if he was only there for him bc of association with Grace. But now through all these adventures through space and time he has absolute proof that Graham will be there for him, and so he’s made the conscious decision to make Graham his family. And Graham, hhh... his grieving throughout the series, while not acting as a shadow on it, was always woven through and it’s nice to see both him and Ryan actually make peace with things through seeing Tim Shaw again and giving him his humble pie. 

In the end when it comes to this series, I love the strong found family vibes it gives. Graham and Ryan and Yaz, they all knew each other in some way before, but they didn’t truly know each other. And through being thrown together with the Doctor, entering her wild adventurous life, they got to grow closer as friends, but more importantly, as a family. The whole series the Doctor was looking for a word to describe her little ragtag group, and she wasn’t exactly sure if “fam” was the right one, but in the end it’s what she settles on because this has become a family. 

Now, what I’m hoping to see more of in the future! 

1) I’d love to see more extended domestic-y TARDIS scenes! We’ve got a lot of pre/post endcap TARDIS scenes, but I’d love to see more small little convos between characters on the way to their destinations, in between, etc. For as long as these episodes were I feel like so much time was spent providing exposition and story for the plot, but I’d love to see more fun nonsense. More glimpses at what they get up to in between, if that makes any sense. (As an example of what I mean, we got a bit of this in The Tsuranga Conundrum, at the very beginning when they were just poking about a junkyard planet, and I quite liked that.)

2) As the characters keep developing I’d love to see more conflict arise between them to test their friendships. We saw some good moments of this with the Doctor telling Ryan to stay behind with Hanne in It Takes You Away after he made a kinda narrow-minded comment about her disability, and when the Doctor flat out told Graham that if he killed Tim Shaw he wouldn’t be traveling with her anymore in the finale. I’d love to see more of this.

3) This may just be because I’m really queer, but I want the Doctor to snap and yell and get really angry at something. That’s the ONE thing that felt entirely missing from this series. In the end I get the sense that this Doctor has a far greater reign on her emotions and self because she’s healed quite a bit, but I still know she’s capable of that righteous anger and I’d love to see Jodie show off her full range with a scene like that.

4) We’ll probably get this in the New Years special, but I’m super anticipating Thirteen facing the Daleks. This is a quintessential thing for every Doctor, in my opinion, and I can’t wait for when they (hopefully!) eventually do that.

5) More of a plot arc. I definitely know the lack of a tight plot arc was because they wanted it to be more accessible for people to just tune in and watch without context,, as they’re gaining some new fans, but I hope that there’s more of a return to an ongoing series plot arc with this next series since everything’s been established. I personally really like those, because I get to be a plot arc detective! I will say that I’m very pleased that Tim Shaw was brought back for the finale, though- that acted as a very nice bookend and helped tie up all the emotional threads.

6) Also not exactly anything I can fault this series for, because I can tell one of the points/themes of it was “not everything is what it seems on the surface” and “sometimes the real monsters,,, are humanity” and I very much respect that, but I do wanna see some more just... alien baddies who ARE baddies and not misunderstood. Listen,, I’m a simple minded person. Love me some monsters! 

My rankings! 

For context, I’m generally very easy with my ratings. I’m not rating them on how critically perfect they are as plots or anything, this is purely based on how much I enjoyed them. I’ve only actually rated nine episodes of Doctor Who 2005-present with scores of 6 or below.

10- Absolutely SUPERB  9- Excellent! 8- Great! 7- Good 6- Okay

1) Demons of the Punjab    (10) This ep made me cry more than any episode of Doctor Who has in a very long time. Incredibly poignant, stunning music and cinematography. Taught me a whole lot I never knew about the partition and how it affected everyday people. I liked how the Doctor assumed the whole time that these aliens were  A good Yaz centric ep, too. It ranks 7th in my list of all-time favorites.  

2) It Takes You Away   (9.5) Wowee, another very poignant one! Some FANTASTIC acting from Jodie in this ep, and a very trippy concept with the sentient universe. Loved getting to see each companion getting a good role to play. ALSO CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I STAN THAT FROG??? AND THE DOCTOR SEDUCING AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE???? B R U H. Hanne’s actress did a wonderful job too! 

3) Kerblam!   (9) What a heckin fun episode! This one will definitely become one of my comfort eps, I can already tell. The secondary characters were all lovely, and the bots were delightfully unsettling too! I spent the whole thing going “wow I totally experienced this working at Amazon” and I thought that was pretty funny. Also, I might highlight all the wonderful Graham snark we got in this one. 

4) Rosa    (9) Gahhh this was a hard one to watch, but very truthful in its depiction of the time period, and a lovely tribute to an incredibly courageous woman. Shout out to how the ep forced Graham to recognize and accept his white privilege (and the Doctor too for that matter), the scene with Ryan and Yaz discussing racism they’ve had to endure, and also for the scene with the Doctor making jokes about Banksy. That made me laugh. “Banksy doesn’t have one of these! Or do I?”

5) The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos    (9) I was VERY glad to see Tim Shaw return for some finished business, and how it allowed Graham and Ryan to finally get a bit of peace for what happened to Grace because of him. This was a solid ep, with some SOLID character moments between Graham and the Doctor and Graham and Ryan. The Ux were interesting, too.

6) The Woman Who Fell to Earth    (8.5) Solid, fun episode. It wastes no time in setting up who Thirteen will be. Still one of my favorite scenes in this whole series so far is when she builds her own sonic screwdriver- GOD the music there is so damn iconic. And gahhh I love Grace so much. How dare they make me love a character so much and then let her die? Rude. That’s homophobia. XD

7) The Witchfinders   (8.5) The Doctor gets dunked in water and has soaked hair. Dare I say more? No, but I was glad to see an ep with an alien danger that actually IS an alien danger that seeks to destroy and conquer, I always love those- and this one, with weird sentient mud that can fill corpses, was delightfully grim. Willow was a great secondary character, too- loved her especially. 8) The Ghost Monument   (8) Okay so I really loved how slice-of-life this episode was? We actually got to know our secondary characters Angstrom and Epzo and I appreciated that. The bit with the Doctor thinking the TARDIS was gone forever at the end... hhhhhhng... that was such a good scene. You could just see the hope drained from her face, and then to see it all rush back as she finally found her?? W o w I’m so emo, y’all ;D;

9) The Tsuranga Conundrum  (7) So I enjoyed this one, but there were some kinda oddly phrased bits of dialogue in it that marks it down for me. The Pting is a delightfully weird and cursed creature, 10/10, would yeet out of a spacecraft. I already mentioned this, but I LOVE the scene in the junkyard and how slice-of-life it was. I also appreciate how someone called out the Doctor on being selfish during this. 10) Arachnids in the UK   (6.5) So this episode was riding right on the edge of “ehh” for me, but it still has some great moments in it, with the Doctor awkwardly interacting with Yasmin’s family and all those heckin spiders bee-boppin down the hallways to the tune of rap music. XD I can’t exactly pick out why it was an “eh” for me, but it just didn’t click. Maybe I was just hoping it’d be an alien thing and was kinda left wanting with the way the episode felt kinda... unfinished. Like, there’s still a bunch of giant spiders? They didn’t solve that. They just- trapped them and left. I dunno I was left wanting with this ep.