#and boy do i miss early 2000's writing

[wantdead]

dean will tell you "you can't cheat death" and then proceed to play, hustle, and evade death in every possible way.

[roosterforme]

Covering the Classics Part 19 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: When Bob is away, Anna can feel his absence everywhere. But nothing beats a perfect reunion. 

Warnings: Angst, fluff, adult language, mentions of smut, 18+

Length: 2000 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more!

Months later....

Sitting in the coffee shop alone after visiting so many times with Bob truly made Anna sad. She was so used to sipping her coffee while he drank his hot tea, and somehow the scent always clung to his hair for hours afterwards. She'd bury her nose against him when they got home, and he would laugh when she told him he always smelled good.

But now he was gone, and she couldn't do anything about it. She accidentally burned her mouth on her coffee, and after that it tasted disgusting. She got herself a croissant, but they were better when shared. Tears stung her eyes, and she had to take a deep breath and convince herself that it would be over soon. Then she focused her attention on her computer as she worked through some more of the changes she wanted to make to her manuscript.

After three more paragraphs, it was no use. It wasn't even ten o'clock in the morning yet, but she gave up and switched to the notes app on her phone where she had been adding ideas for Jessica's bridal shower and bachelorette party. Physics jokes about the laws of attraction? Designer lingerie shop in LA? Can you make a math equation that looks like a penis?

She would defer to Advanced Calculus for that last item. With a sigh, she was about to close her computer, buy another croissant for Suzanne, and then head out when she saw a new email notification.

"No way," she gasped as she tapped on it and stared at her computer screen.

Sky Writing has posted a new, original work! Click the link below to check out the subscriber that you follow!

Anna's heart started pounding erratically, and her fingertips felt numb. Anticipation and confusion mingled together as she opened the link. It was difficult to read as she tried to take a deep breath, but she wanted to consume Bob's words as quickly as possible.

I can see the dusky outline on the horizon,

But the California coastline isn't enough.

I need to be at home.

I need my bookshelf.

I need my books.

I need your books.

I need my Anna.

I need to see you in the next two minutes,

Because twelve weeks is way too long.

"The next two minutes?" Anna mumbled to herself as she read the last lines over again. "Two minutes?" She was out of her seat immediately, neck craning around the crowded coffee shop, looking in every direction. And that's when she saw him stroll inside in his khaki uniform and silver glasses with the most handsome smile on his face.

"Bob!" she cried out, nearly tripping over her chair as she left her stuff behind to get to him as quickly as she could. He was home. He was home early from his deployment. Communication had been a little spotty, and there was so much she wanted to tell him, but he was finally home.

"Anna," he murmured as she threw herself at him, knocking the wind out of her own lungs. His arms were wrapped around her as soon as her lips met his, and she didn't care if there was a whole shop of people watching them. He was finally home. Somehow he still tasted like tea, and he smelled so good, she buried her nose against his neck as he chuckled.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked, kissing him just above his shirt collar.

"Jess told me," he replied easily.

She kissed her way up to his ear as he started to slowly walk her backwards to the small table where she'd been sitting. "Why didn't you call me? I could have picked you up. I missed you so much."

"I just wanted to surprise you," he whispered, claiming her lips again as they stood next to the table.

She looked up at his pretty eyes and said, "This is a wonderful surprise. And I have one of my own."

"What is it?" he asked softly, his fingers tracing the freckles along her cheek and chin as she grinned up at him.

"I'm divorced."

His eyes went wide, and a sound of pure excitement escaped him as he scooped her up into his arms. "You're divorced?"

Anna laughed as she told him, "Finalized ten days ago. Fuck Kevin."

"You drove my truck here? Let's go," Bob said, immediately carrying her toward the exit.

"Wait, I need my stuff!"

"Oh. Right," he replied, suddenly very flustered as he helped her shove her computer and phone into her bag.

"I was planning to get a croissant or something to take to Suzanne," she said as he practically dragged her outside and down the street to his truck.

"Well, I was planning on taking you back to the bookstore to pick out something we could read together tonight, but this is even more important."

Anna ended up with her back pressed against the side of the truck while he unlocked the door, and she pressed her lips to his Adam's apple while she tried to hold onto her bag. She wanted to taste him everywhere. "Going right home actually sounds like a pretty good idea."

"That's exactly where we're going," he promised, tossing her stuff onto the seat before helping her in as well. The six seconds when he was walking around the truck and she couldn't touch him were miserable, but soon enough, he was kissing her while he started the engine. Then she had her fingers wrapped up with his while he started to drive. "I love you, Anna." He kept his eyes on the road as he made his way through Coronado, and she felt warmer than she had in twelve weeks. "I love you, and I would never pressure you to do anything you didn't want to do."

She turned to look at his handsome profile. "I know you wouldn't. That's why I love you so much."

She watched as he swallowed hard before saying, "I know we talked about our future, but it was always kind of ambiguous while we waited for your divorce decree."

"It's not ambiguous anymore!" Anna cheered as they neared his house where she had been living for months. "I'm ready for the future. The future is here. The future is now."

She was all smiles as he parked the truck with an anxious look in his eyes. "You told me you wanted me forever," he whispered, and Anna couldn't figure out why he looked so nervous. 

"Of course I want you forever," she told him once again. She'd made it as clear as she could that she was done running. Kevin and New Jersey and everything that could have broken her but didn't were all left in the past. She was moving on a little bit more every day with Bob and her best friends and her tenure track teaching position at San Diego State. She was unashamedly taking excellent care of herself, and she never stopped Bob when he told her she needed to take a break and that he'd handle something for her. She wasn't going anywhere ever again.

"I want you forever, too. And we can go slow, or we can go fast. Or you can tell me you don't want what I have to give you, and that's okay too."

"What?" she asked, her heart sinking in her chest as he parked and climbed out. She wanted everything Bob had to give, and she wanted to give him everything, too. They even talked about getting married someday after he initially got over his nerves enough to bring up the topic. She had assured him that he was exactly the only person she would do that with after her disastrous first marriage. Why would he think she didn't want what he had to give?

"Bob?" she asked as she climbed out as well and met him on the sidewalk. "Why do you look so concerned?" He didn't respond. He only led her up to the porch and unlocked the door. "Bob!" she complained when he scooped her up and carried her up the stairs, going two at a time until his breath was coming in shorter gasps. Instead of turning toward their bedroom like she expected, he went into the guest room and dropped her onto the futon.

She rarely came in here. It was almost funny that Bob planned on sleeping in this room when he insisted Anna come home with him after Kevin figured out where she lived. And now he was on his hands and knees, crawling under the futon as she asked, "What in the world are you doing?"

He hit his head and grunted in response, but a second later, he emerged with his hair all messed up and something in his hand. "I got you a ring."

"A ring?" she asked, realizing he was holding a small box. A jewelry box. She looked at him where he was kneeling in front of her, cheeks turning pink. "What kind of ring?" she whispered, hopeful yet needing to be sure.

Bob snapped the box open, and all Anna could see was a beautiful diamond. "An engagement ring. But only if you want it. I know you probably need more time. I don't even need an answer right now, I promise," he told her earnestly as she scooted a little closer to him. "You were still married two weeks ago, but I wanted to give it to you now anyway. You can wear it or not wear it. We can wait a while if you want. I just... wanted you to know it's all yours. I'm all yours."

She hadn't worn the rings from Kevin in over a year and a half. She pawned them with no remorse before she left for California. "It has been a very long time since I was really married, Bob." She took the box from his hand and looked at the ring. She couldn't stop smiling, and the tears in her eyes made the diamond look all blurry as she asked, "Do you really want to marry me? I'm a mess."

He grinned at her. "You're really not, Baby. You're smart and beautiful and funny and kind. You're a fighter. Of course I want to marry you."

Without another word, Anna took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. She'd known Bob long enough to be sure that his words were honest. She was willing to throw it all in on Sky Writing. "We can take our time," she whispered, leaning down to kiss him. "There's no need to rush. But I definitely want to wear this ring."

They made a long, luxurious stop in their bed where Anna almost lost her voice from the number of times she called out Bob's name, and then he made her lunch before the two of them made their way to the living room bookshelf. 

"We didn't make it to the bookstore to pick out anything new to read," she mused, brushing all of the colorful spines with her fingers.

"Maybe we could read the first book you ever recommended for me. Together this time," he replied, his hands settling on her hips as his chin rested on her shoulder. 

Anna smiled as she reached for A Room With a View, remembering so well the day she started to fall in love with Bob Floyd. The book still looked practically brand new even though he'd already read it, and she grinned as she said, "I can't wait to dog ear all your pages."

"I will gladly let you."

---------------------------

The End! Thank you for reading another adventure in the Sugarverse! I hope you learned that even when you're a mess and barely holding it together, you're still worthy of friendship and love. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

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[amiiancasselmanyet]

Fix Me is a Mid 2000's Classic, You're Just Not From Canada

before I start this essay series, I would like to clarify that this is NOT a series of reviews but just me genuinely expressing my feelings I have towards the albums in question because I’m a highschool dropout…bon appetite or whatever

also tw for eating disorders, self harm, general mental illness and addiction but this is fix me, you probably knew that

When most people think about early to mid 2000s rock albums that became staples and bands that became household names, there's a few that genuinely come to mind. Let’s get the “emo trinity” out of the way; From Under The Cork Tree was Fall Out Boys sophomore album from 2005 that is still widely loved for good reason. The songs are good and the lyrics hit when you least expect it. Every. Single. Time. Then, of course, we have The Black Parade. I cannot express my love of this album enough, it is quite literally my all time favorite and while Three Cheers has a more solid concept (man kills other men to try and get his lover back, homosexual antics ensues), there's a reason it’s arguably their most well known and beloved by the kids who used to bully you in middle school. Of course we have A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out coming in right after this, there’s not much I can say since this album truly deserves it’s own essay that I won't manage to write (Ryan Ross please come back the kids and I miss you) but, like the other albums, it's a STAPLE at Emo Nites and Emo Nite knockoffs (shout out to Sneaky Dees in Toronto). There is, however, an album among them that's a hidden gem due to the fact that . Fix Me was the debut studio album from Marianas Trench, arriving in 2006. This album stands out from the others in a lot of ways, its sound, its vulnerability and its general lack of a concept. This album was a shot in the dark and a testament to taking chances. Let's talk about it. 

If you’re even a little bit familiar with Marianas Trench (you definitely are because you are on a blog dedicated to the drummer, my beloved bias Ian Casselman), the sound you’re used to most likely isn’t here. This album is gritty, it’s production is grungy. When you look at the other albums at face value, it stands out as nothing like the rest. If you dig deeper, however, you realize that this album truly was the foundation of what was to come. The guitar heavy sound continues throughout the discography, even if it feels less clean than its successors. It adds to the aggression a lot of the songs have, it makes the lyrics hit harder. It was too rock for the pop charts but too pop for the rock charts.(I’m pretty sure Josh said that but this thing isn’t getting a bibliography, this is a more sophisticated shit post on a blog that, again, focuses on the silly drummer with mutton chops) While the sound is incredible, the true core of the album lies in its vulnerability.

Fix Me is essentially an auditory diary, with each track feeling like a new entry. There are themes focusing on the actual struggles Josh Ramsay dealt with at the time. There’s a lot about addiction (specifically heroin), self harm, eating disorders (specifically bulimia) and general depression. It's angsty. It's difficult  to hear at times. You're not supposed to get personal during essays but this is literally on a blog where I refer to the followers as “casselman nation”, it’s a lawless land and fuck you I’ll do what I want. This album, at its core, felt like it was almost a diary entry from a younger me. 

14 year old me was very different from the current me, I had a different name entirely, a different outlook on life and a lot of things that shaped me today had not happened yet. I was unmedicated and everyone else's problem. If you ever scroll down on the personal tag of my main (you WILL NOT, you DO NOT need to see my digital footprint and angst), you'll notice that there's a lot of themes on this album that pertained to me at that time. I was VERY depressed, undiagnosed bipolar 2, bulimic and…doing things in school bathrooms I shouldn't have with items from my art class I shouldn't have had access to in that state (not going to elaborate, I’m sure you get where I’m going). When you deal with those things head on, you tend to, from experience, seek out public figures, whether it be musicians or celebrities or youtubers (shout out to Dan and Phil lmao) who have similar experiences that you had. For me, a big one from the get go was Marianas Trench. There’s something oddly comforting in not only knowing you’re not only alone but that you’re ALSO going to survive. I truly wish I was able to hug 14 year old me but I also know that they’d be proud that I DIDN’T do the thing I wanted to do before I turned 17.

There’s another reason Fix Me is truly removed from other albums and it truly feels like the biggest component; there's no concept. Fix Me has its own identity but it's not through a story or through successful singles, it's through the fact that it has none of it. It shines through its simplicity, its impact is through the way it can stand alone. It’s an album by the band that could be, and should be at times, put on shuffle. It’s an album where you can pick any song, off the top of your head, and listen to it when you’re feeling angry or sad or full of unbridled angst. Sure, you CAN listen to other songs on other albums one at a time, Masterpiece Theatre is the first on I can think of off the top of my head, however, would you want to? Would you want to listen to The End of An Era and have it followed up with a song like This Means War? It 100% kills the immersive nature that the band has carefully crafted over the last 20 years. (yes they’ve been a band that long considering the fix me bsides are from 2001, yes it makes me feel geriatric) I think the biggest reason that it personally hits every mark imaginable for a grungy punk record is the fact that there is no secret meaning hidden in each song, its open and honest from the get go. It’s raw, real and does exactly what it needs to do.

Through its sound, its ability to be honest and vulnerable in its writing and the easily accessible material, it's a staple. Shake Tramp belongs in an Emo Nite just as much as something like Sugar We’re Going Down and more than Welcome to the Black Parade (I love that song but it doesn’t fit the vibe as well as House of Wolves or The Sharpest Lives, Emo Nite is just catering to the normies and preps). Decided to Break Its video should be as beloved as I Write Sins Not Tragedies. Marianas Trench deserve their flowers for being such a staple in the lives of canadian teens who are struggling, the adults who want to comfort their inner teen selves and those who, in general, are feeling small.

[thewardenofwinter]

Writeblr Introduction | Morana Warrin

I have finally created a Tumblr for my writing. I haven't been on here since I just got internet access (around 2013 so you can probably guess the things I saw) but I need a place to throw all my ideas at a wall and watch as they trickle down into a puddle of lost nights of sleep and aesthetic pinterest boards.

▸ About

▸My name is Morana, I would prefer they/them pronouns but, to be frank, I do not care what you refer to me as. I have been writing for a long time (too long if you ask some people) but in the past three years, I have been taking the profession much more seriously in hopes of starting a career. Besides being a writer and a threat to modern society, I also dabble in drawing/graphic design and character design.

▸I adore 19th-century Russian literature (Mikhail Bulgakov is my personal favourite) and absurdist texts. There isn't a moment of my day when I'm not listening to some sort of music, I do not discriminate genres in the slightest but I am partial to rock and its many subgenres. I love any 90s and early 2000s movies, early Hollywood horror flicks, and Soviet films from the 80s.

▸ Current Projects

(I am horrible at summaries so please take pity on me. also check TWs)

The Resurrectioners

You only live twice.

(TW: Mentions of s*icide)

After the deaths of her two sisters in a car crash, twenty-seven-year-old Samara Dombroski decides that her life is no longer worth living and makes a successful attempt at her own life. Only there's one problem:

She doesn’t stay dead for very long.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Samara wakes up in a strange, vast estate plagued by visions of the past that she can’t control. She learns that this place is run by a man known only as The Resurrectionist, a necromancer armed with a group of assassins possessing strange abilities called Resurrectioners, an eclectic group of individuals who all share her story: people who found death by their own hand or by some other tragic means.

Now a resurrectioner herself, Samara must repay the debt of her second chance at life to The Resurrectionist by disposing of cadavers for him: violent, ghoulish beings that result from misused necromancy who feast on flesh and bone. Once she has killed enough to satisfy The Resurrectionist, she will be released from the estate she is trapped in and free to live the rest of her life.

genre: dark fantasy, thriller

What We Undertake

Some things are better left undead.

Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak meets Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in this paranormal mystery and gothic romance set in the late 19th century.

Our tale follows one Dolores Clive, resident medium and the daughter of the late Warren Clive, Boston's most beloved undertaker. After her father's death and subsequent take over of the family business, Dolores has become a recluse haunted by ghosts of her past and near future which all comes to head when her step-sister arrives in town with her newly acquired fiancé and his rather strange but beautiful brother in tow following a string of murders.

Genre: horror/supernatural fiction, gothic fiction

The Stray Girls

It's not drugs that are killing these teens.

(TW: Mentions of drugs and alcohol)

Set in the fictional city of Maynard, The Stray Girls is a retelling of The Lost Boys centred around a cast of troubled teen girls set 10 years later in 1997'.

After once again deciding to move across the country with her daughters, Magdelena's mother decides that cheap rent is worth more than her daughter's lives when she moves to Maynard, Washington— which currently boasts the largest missing girl population in the country. While settling into their new home, Magda notices her elder sister Roxanne is beginning to act strange: leaving the house in the middle of the night, wearing sunglasses indoors, and sleeping all day. First suspecting it to be drugs, Magda thinks nothing of it, but as time goes on and her sister's personality makes a sudden shift in the wrong direction, she can no longer pretend like everything is alright. Meeting the group of troubled girls that her sister now calls 'friends' slowly leads her down a path of crime, thrill and peer pressure. But it's not booze that these girls are drinking: it's blood.

Genre: Teen Adventure/Horror

▸ LINKS

pinterest // spotify // instagram

Though my aesthetic and writing style may scream morbid academic pretentiousness, I assure you my online presence and writing greatly contrast with my personality (and looks for that matter) so please do not be alarmed by my frequent buffoonery, general bastardness, and bombastic vulgarity.

Thank you for reading! (or skipping to the end)

— M. Warrin

[mzminola]

Trying to figure out why the fandom meme that Tim is misogynistic bothers me so much, beyond my usual kneejerk response to perceived inaccuracy, and I think the key is that it feels like fandom is lying to me.

Specifically, lying about nearly all the other characters.

That I am being taunted with some theoretical Less Sexist 90′s Comics that don’t actually exist.

Sexism is one of the reasons that I never bothered to seek out superhero comics when younger. Our town didn’t have a comics shop, which sure put a damper on it, but I didn’t bother looking for collected volumes when venturing into regular bookstores, or the occasional trip out of town to places with huge bookstores. I flipped through enough and heard enough chatter to know I didn’t want to put up with the sexism. Scans Daily on Livejournal sure had plenty of supporting examples.

Reading 1990′s & early 2000′s comics now, I can confirm this was the right choice on younger me’s part. There is a lot of sexism in that era, and unlike with prose books by a singular author, it’s much harder to ditch wholesale. I’ve got a lot more analytical reading under my belt now, so it’s easier to roll my eyes at the bullshit and focus on what is enjoyable than it used to be. From the later 2010′s comics I found at the library, things are improving, though still stumbling.

So yeah, Tim does sometimes say sexist crap. But as I devour comic after comic, so far, he isn’t saying or doing anything more sexist, more frequently, than any other character, including the gals. It’s almost like it’s a writing problem, not a character problem.

As far as I can tell, from what I’ve read, which includes all of Batgirl 2000, Young Justice 1998, and nearly half of Robin 1993, Tim is less sexist than the adult men he’s surrounded by, and no few of his fellow teenage boy heroes.

Maybe I’m missing something! But gender doesn’t seem to come into his treatment of Gotham vigilantes and YJ teammates? The most it comes up with his civilian peers is that, typical for the time period, girls are treated by the narrative & characters as potential romantic options and boys aren’t? Tim talks to Callie the same way he talks to Ives & Hudman? He and Ariana both make relationship mistakes, but in ways that are pretty normal for a 13-14 year old’s first romance?

So when the fandom keeps making ‘misogyny’ Tim’s distinguishing traits from the other Bats, or other YJ members or Titans, it implies that reading comics focused on other characters would have less sexism, but when I do read other comics, that’s not fucking TRUE.

Where are these magical less sexist Bat comics?

Who are these heroes fandom claims are less misogynistic?

Because it’s not Nightwing. It’s not anything Bruce takes center stage in. Barbara is fine in Batgirl 2000, but in other comics she’s written as cattily jealous and tears into other women. It’s not Stephanie, as we saw with Batgirl 2009′s treatment of Jordanna Spence.

Batgirl 2000 does pretty good, but that’s the only one I can think of, and fandom singling out Tim makes it sound like it should be all of the others.

Fandom likes to say Jason drinks his Respect Women Juice, but when I read Under the Red Hood and Lost Days, they felt about the same level as Tim’s comics. And I keep seeing examples from Jason’s Robin days of him admiring women or learning from them or teaming up, but I also get that from Tim’s comics.

Before he even had a long running solo, Tim’s Robin mini’s got a crossover with Huntress, in which he respects both her skills and her secrets, and argues with her about as much as he does with Bruce. Tim supports Cassie winning leadership of Young Justice, he supports Cissie’s decision to do what she felt was most responsible. He apologizes for avoiding Cass after finding her intimidating and goes on to work well with her.

I like Tim. I’m mostly enjoying his comics. They’ve got less sexism than I expected of the era they’re written in.

And I hate that fandom’s running meme about him makes it feel like everyone else is making a joke at my expense.

[qcomicsy]

I was going to reblog with a comment but that post is already super long. But so true ! Like the ninja assassin thing with Dick is a modern retcon something that would be a Tim Cass or Damian thing to do. But writing a flashback for an adult Dick in the 2000s would be weird. By the 1960s he was firmly in canon 18 and in college. How are you gonna go back to the era of goofy and be like this is Dick’s angsty teenage years involved getting turned into a vampire and fighting Bruce over dating Talia. It just doesn’t make sense with how Long comics keep going. 80 years of comics and he’s only what 28. Like it’s very hard to keep a consistent character when everyone wants to make Dick Jason and Bruce new characters every few decades

Absolutely!

My personal view about how they kept retconning Dick's personality as a child and his relationship with Bruce is that it's a mix of complex things and bullshit.

The complex things is yeah, Dick and Bruce had their share of problems when Dick was growing up. They did start bumping heads a lot, but it was more like "this kid is turning into a man and is starting to clash views with his father (who is already someone who's not easy to deal with)" and "that's the part where he starts to develop who he is as person" (I won't get much into that because I haven't read many comics regarding Dick transition from Robin from Batman & Robin to Robin from Titans until Nightwing in the pre-death of the family era.) than the borderline abusive and toxic relationship they started to introducing in the late 90's to early 2000's portrayals of them.

It's complex because after rebooting everything it's hard to introduce such a long and gradual process that took almost ten years of development that is Dick's emancipation not only from working with Bruce but also following his every step as boy wonder. Specially if we think about the huge fall out they had right after Jason died.

It's bullshit because they started with those retcons when we had that long and embarrassing period of Super-hero history (late 90's to early 2000's) where everyone was trying to make super-heroes popular again but following alongside with a palpable embarrassment and self-conscious shame regarding any silliness and/or whimsical side the superhero universe. Like "we're making superheroes stories but this is for adults, this ain't for children 😡😡". Nobody wanted to be the "60's Batman TV show everyone makes fun of" and everybody wanted to be Alan Moore.

We had all this writers who grow up reading "Death of the family", "The Killing Joke", "Batman Year one" add were dying to recreate the 80's dark period glory, even if they didn't had the same writing skills for that.

I mean hate the Killing Joke all you want (I know I do), it has a shit tone of good writing.

It's bullshit because everyone was still sore about how Batman turned into a joke in the 90's after that one movie and for some reason everyone blamed Robin. It's bullshit because comic books are always influenced by the popular media around them, and while 40's Batman had the American Way and American Family Values™ 🦅🦅🦅, 80's Batman has Scarface, Taxi Driver and long urban tragedies.... 90's have Die Hard and every extra power macho fantasy under the sun.

I mean... This was 90's Nightwing.

he's so big and so stupid and one day I'm gonna top h–*gunshots*

No one wanted to see "good father" Batman, hell no one wanted to see any emotional shit in comics? Emotions??? In my manly comics??? Miss me with that gay sit emotions is for girls 😡😡 I wanna see big buffy man making his enemies cry 🔥⛓️☠️💪☠️😡⛓️🪚🔧

So you reach early 2000, everyone kinda hates or is kinda embarrassed of Robin, Batman is a former shadow of the man and the father he used to be. But you still wanna introduce new readers to your character (Dick Grayson) that (for better or for worst) is loved but only by the people who already know him, you're still embarrassed of his silly origins and the whimsical part of it.

So what do you do?

Personally I think writers thought Dick had it too easy as Robin, personally I think they were obsessed about making it real, personally I think everyone was obssessed and trilled with the idea of being the next Tim Miller and making their one fresh real edge introduction of the boy wonder. Personally I think this is all the new 52 was absolutely on for the Batfamily.

Personally I believe (and this is more a optimistic take) some writers were creatively trying to tie Dick's anger issues as Nightwing to his origins as Robin.

You have this chance of one in million (at te time) to reintroduce Nightwing (reintroduce Robin), now you can make it as real as gritty and as edge as you want. You can make it Robin cool again, you can introduce in a way that will sell well the dark story you where preparing for this character. And you also can deny any father and son relationship he could had have with Bruce Wayne and keep the big beef strong man without feelings reputation that people have been manufacturing by choice into Batman from ten years by now.

And what is more dark and character building than an abusive father?

I think writers thought that making Bruce abusive towards Dick and Dick resentful towards Bruce was the best way to launch this new universe as realistic and grittier. Not only making Dick's Robin introduction (and origin) more "real" but also separating Bruce even more from a emotional and father like figure that for some reason some writers (and fans!) despised to much.

Killing so many birds with one stone might as well call yourself David from the Bible.

And they were so certain this direction would be a success that the just notice their mistake now.

Anyways... A load of bullshit.

I personally don't mind Dick's Robin having anger issues, I think it's a natural progression from his first real serious introduction from back in the 80's, I also think it adds more to his character tying up his first trauma along with a long life of others and the result of having to deal with a frustrating job (that is vigilantism is) since literally ever. I like the idea that the perfect Robin wasn't perfect all the time and he also had (and has) other side of his personality that isn't as nice or likeable as it should and that's a thing he consciously have to work on as a person since he was a child.

However I also think writers did took to far sometimes and Dick history and specially his relationship with Bruce suffered from it. And I also agree that if everyone tries to reboot, retcon and fucking "subvert" a character every fucking ten years you won't even have a fucking consistent character to begin with (gestures vaguely to Jason Todd, Deadpool and now poor fuckin Damian and their wreck of comic book history).

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Episode 4 ("The Road Trip To Harvard") Aka JessMas Eve This episode makes my list of favorite episodes. On that list of episodes, only two of them don't include Jess (the other being Rory & Paris' super gay spring break trip). So I guess you could say I enjoy the episodes where the characters manage to escape The Hollow for a bit and visit The Real World™. I already reviewed Jess' debut in the next episode ahead of schedule (which you can read here), so next time you see me post it will be Season 2, Episode 6. You can read the rest of my reviews here. I'm going to enjoy these last gasps of breath before Jess shows up and the agonies begin. Until then, let's pack our shit, print out our Mapquest directions, drag out the giant binder of compact discs, and get on with the road trip. Let me just say I admire Lorelai's ability to self reflect and admit to herself that she wasn't ready to get married and that Max wasn't the right person for her.

Rory: What did that sign say? Don't? Or Death? We're doomed. Lorelai: Wrong. We're being guided by fate.

Same things I'm saying as I await Jess Mariano's arrival.

I love Rory's disdain for all the late 90's pop music that I cherish so dearly.

Is that the name of the local asulym in The Hollow?

Debatable. Lorelai: I hope you didn't get too far on that cake. I know the kind of work you were gonna put into that cake and I'd just kill myself if you went crazy for nothing.

"Oh sure, don't worry about it Lorelai. It's not like I poured blood, sweat and tears, dozens of man-hours, and expensive ingredients into this god damn monstrosity just for you. I'm not going put you in a chokehold the next time I see you or anything. I'm Sookie! I'm too cute and quirky for that!"

"Here's what I think about your cold feet, Lorelai. " *grabs knife*

Awww Sookie, you're too kind. Thank you. I... don't understand Lorelai putting down Bed and Breakfasts. Doesn't she literally manage one? I suppose there is some minute difference between a charming, small town, New England "inn" run by quirky characters, and a charming, small town, New England "Bed and breakfast" run by quirky characters? Lorelai at the Cheshire Cat B&B: We can't stay here. Rory: Where are we going to sleep then? Dying of exposure in a car is my worst nightmare. Rory when she saw Jess dying of exposure in a car:

Lorelai: We found the only room that would have made Liberace step back and say "Wow, step back, no one's that gay!" Early 2000's tv writing, everyone! Lorelai: Are you hungry enough to risk having to answer 100 questions about Chilton, your life in a small town, and your hunky hunky boyfriend? No matter how far from home she strays, Lorelai's's thoughts are never far from Dean. Handsome, tall, beautiful, hunky hunky, 16 year old bag-boy Dean Forrester.

Rory: What do we do now? Lorelai: Go to sleep? Rory: It's only 8:30. How about we talk?

"Please say Dean, please say Dean, please say Dean..."

"...Damn it."

This screen shot has so many potential uses for future reviews! I will be stealing it. Thanks Lorelai! #Yoink Lorelai calls Sookie again, who is just chilling at Luke's instead of at the Inn for once, honestly kind of an unusual sight that threw me off. Earlier in the episode, on her first call to Sookie, Lorelai asked her to have Miss Patty spread the gossip that the engagement was kaput, but we learn that news has not yet reached Luke, who is in the middle of trying to throw Kirk out of the diner for ordering 8 refills of his coffee and occupying a table for too long. Kirk: I've been trying to figure out the tip, I'm not good at math. What's 6% of $4.43? 8 cups of coffee for under $5? 55 cents a cup? Good deal. See that Gilly Girls? Someone who pays Luke for their food and even leaves a tip! Granted, he's only about to leave 26 cents but at least it's something. Learn from this man. I know Lorelai eventually begins to pay Luke back with Nature's Credit Card (booty) but that's still a few years off. Sookie breaks the news to Luke, and the Grinch's heart grew 4 sizes that day. In light of the bad news, he decides he won't charge Kirk for his (now 9) cups of coffee, forgoing his 25 cent tip, and also gives free coffee to everyone else in the diner, plunging himself even deeper into debt. Anyone else ever think about poor Jess waiting tables, depending on tips but knowing that R&L never tipped him? And Rory would never even tip him with Nature's Credit Card. Shame, that.

I recognize the woman on the left from an episode of The Golden Girls and the guy in the middle from an episode of Seinfeld (Fun bit of trivia: Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson both made appearances on Seinfeld!)

Sorta kinda. And now for easily the best thing ever spotted in the background of a tv show.

Wanted: SAT Instructors? No, that's not it. Conference on Voting Modernization. Hmm, not quite...just move up a skosh there... Affordable Spanish tutoring? No..

Rory, you desperately need a job and I notice you're not jumping to sign up for this easy gig. I think this would look impressive and really stand out on your college application and you may learn a thing or two. Dean and Jess would be very appreciative. Sadly, even with my good vision I can't make out what the rest of the tiny writing says except "Gay and straight" and that the last line is some pervy perv's email address.

"Hey baby, you signing up for the Porn Watching job too?"

Sounds like a good place for getting paid to watch porn. I think Jess would have loved college, and in my headcanon he definitely gets his GED and goes to college in his 20's. The WB network basically made a show about it. It's called The Bedford Diaries. Or as I affectionately call it "Jess Goes To College". The GillyGirls commit some light breaking and entering and walk into an open dorm room.

I just wrote a song, want to hear it? Here goes: Vintage computers, oh so cute, early 2000's I love youuuu!

I know this was 2001, but Lorelai thinks it costs $100 to take a class at Harvard.

How do you know you're really at Harvard? Everyone wears sweatshirts that say "Harvard" on them. Rory tries to sneak into the class unnoticed but drops her coffee which causes every single person in the room to turn around and angrily glare at her and she gets reprimanded by the professor for not sitting in a seat. My heart breaks for her pathetic self. But if it's any comfort to Rory, in The Real World ™ I can promise you nobody in that class would give a shit about you or your coffee.

♫ I'm at a payphone, tryin to call Luke, I never pay him for his food ♫

The two women next to Rory are rolling their eyes so far back in their heads they're going to make a full rotation and come back out the other side.

Oh hey I know that guy in the red shirt! A time traveler from the distant year 2006. He didn't stick the landing, had to re-live 9/11 a month earlier and now he's being forced to listen to Rory Gilmore's thoughts on philosophy. That was a Heroes joke. That's the guy who played Hiro on the tv show Heroes. He could travel through time.

My man in plaid here has fallen into a coma.

Out of Context Gilly Girls Lorelai comes home and forces her mother to watch slides of their trip. Emily to Lorelai: Why would you go out of town right before your wedding? Wouldn't your fiance mind?

Heh heh, woopsie daisy! Emily thinks Lorelai eloped and flies into a rage but Lorelai tells her what happened. Emily's only response is that she's returning Lorelai's wedding gift. Lorelai once again swallows and represses her ongoing trauma and instead grills her mother on what the gift was, but she won't say. Doesn't Lorelai recieve an ice cream making machine in the mail with no return address a short time later, or was that just a fever dream? Ah, I suppose we shall soon find out. And now for the Relevant Stuff That Happens In The Last Three Minutes: Lorelai & Luke have a very sweet conversation where she decides to keep the chuppah and turn it into a positive instead of a painful reminder. Lorelai asks Luke if he will give her guidance on owning a business and he accepts. She wants to begin the process of opening an Inn with Sookie. Lorelai opens her flip phone and thank god she's just calling Sookie again and not Christopher. And Lane escaped from Korea. Good for her.

Tomatos Sign: Spotted.

[youngpettyqueen]

What other shows are you into, if any? 🥰

hi Ally <3

so besides MASH im into tons and tons!! ill just list some off the top of my head-

Cowboy Bebop: just finished rewatching this one, I wanted my dad to watch it. im a big anime fan, this one is high up on my list of favourites, its a classic! I even recommend it to non-anime fans because the gorgeous animation, compelling characters and story, and unique world building are just soooooooo good

Mob Psycho 100: hey. hey wanna watch something truly fucking bizarre and unique. wanna watch something that feels like going through therapy. want to cry your eyes out to the most unexpected anime dude of all time. boy do I have a show for you. MP100 makes me unreasonably emotional and I think everyone should watch it

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: my favourite anime of all time nothing else comes even close. I could write an essay on why FMAB should be required viewing. I wish everyone could experience watching it as a kid and going back to it as an adult and having your entire perspective and understanding shift because suddenly youre older than the main characters and shit is so much more horrifying than when you were the same age/younger

Gargoyles: what im currently watching. also a big cartoon fan. Gargoyles is such a wonderful product of the mid-90s and I adore it. I grew up on 80s and 90s cartoon so everything from the lore to the character designs is very nostalgic to me. I need to watch the last season still but I keep putting it off cause I know the quality dips

Avatar the Last Airbender: next show im picking for my dad and I to watch. I unironically consider it to be one of the best stories ever written, with some fantastic characters and what continues to be one of my favourite redemption arcs of all time

Batman the Animated Series: best Batman. no question. I do not accept criticism. I did watch Justice League + Justice League Unlimited with my dad recently and I quite enjoyed those, but nowhere near as much as I enjoyed BtAS. Kevin Conroy I miss you every day nobody understood Bruce Wayne like you did

Doctor Who: both Classic and New Who. we have a free streaming service with a Classic Who channel, and we've had the DVDs for New Who playing lately. my favourite show of all time! meant the world to me as a teenager and got me through a lot. I have a tattoo of 11's sonic and bowtie <3

Smallville: my dad did a rewatch of this recently and I was around for most of it. and listen, ok, Smallville is a cringe fest a lot of the time. its an early 2000s CW show. but its ironically still my favourite depiction of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, and honestly probably my favourite Lois Lane

Star Trek: various Trek shows. TOS is currently playing a lot in the house, which I have seen all of and adore, but im also a huge TNG fan even though i. havent finished it. haha. Ive also seen most of Voyager and quite enjoyed it. at some point ill get to DS9 probably

The X-Files: another one I havent rewatched in years but think about often. X-Files truly had it all. not a day goes by that I dont think about Jose Chung's from Outer Space. this was the first show to make me physically grind my teeth and scream into a pillow over a slowburn

I have more but these are what I can remember off the top of my head and what I would rewatch! im big into shows and movies so I watch a lottttttt. shoutout to some other shows ive loved like Lucifer, the Mandalorian, Kenobi, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series, Schitt's Creek, The Owl House, Violet Evergarden, and others im sure im forgetting

[revenantghost]

HI sorry to dm you out of the blue but i tried posting my post on WEDNESDAY MORNING and the first time i deleted it after 12 hours of it being up and still not in the tag, my second attempt is still on my blog because i sent support a ticket about it (i deleted the book club tag off it tho), my third attempt, which is what's in the tag, was literally me copypasting the html into notepad, making a mostly blank post, adding the og post piecemeal, and seeing if it disappeared from the tag or not. it seems there were a few specific images that were the problem, two of which i deleted and the third of which i just used a different crop of the page and it worked. i don't know WHY those images were a problem but hopefully support will shed some light on it if they get back to me?? i saw you had trouble with your vashwood post so i wonder if other bookclubbers are having the same issue and i'm afraid i'm missing posts because of it v_v

also re: your other tags YEA i agree abt the DID rep, i'm familiar with it bc i used to be close to someone who has it, i dont see it a lot in media to begin with but i've DEF seen worse from media that's much more recent than trigun lmao. also- yes razlo is there in the scene but my question is more abt his /degree/ of involvement like. did he convince livio to join eom/plant the idea in his head/tell him ww was there/etc... because "wanting to follow ww" as a motivation def comes from livio not razlo.. IF that even makes sense sorry i am half asleep rn. ALSOOO PLEASE DONT APOLOGIZE FOR THE RAMBLING OMG.. i love your tags sm and look forward to seeing them on my posts!! i love the rambling it's delightful.. i should be the one apologizing for sending a wall of text in your askbox LOL

Oh man, no worries! Yeah I had the same thing happen with this post, to the point that I had to eventually remake it without any images (which were kinda core to the post, thanks Tumblr!!!) and for some reason that worked??? I even reworded the whole thing multiple times, but nothing! So I'm gonna tag this as bookclub so it shows up and folks know that the tag is being stupid from time to time. This is also happening to posts in the "Trigun" tag and search function, and someone I know had an issue with blocking the other day, so I think Tumblr's probably fucking with the code

Seriously, kudos to Nightow for writing this in the early 2000's (when I assume this volume was probably initially published as chapters in its magazine) and doing better rep than every single horror movie out there. Even if it's magical fantasy grow-a-third-arm DID, it's so much better than most rep :')

OHHHHH I see what you mean!!! That's definitely the angle that Tristamp seems to be leaning toward, but it would be VERY interesting if Trimax Razlo hunted down big brother Nico and wanted Livio to join him. That's obviously pure headcanon, but I think I'll tuck that nicely into my own personal headcanons

ASKJNALSKJ OH THANK GOD, I don't always have the spoons for rambling BUT WHEN I DO... BOY I GO OFF. So it's nice to hear it's not annoying :'D And you're totally fine yourself, no worries!!! <3

[gothamslostboy]

Hey there! Can I please get a matchup for both The Lost Boys and Scream please? (If not no worries!)

Im a 5'2" female with a very pear shaped body. I have neck length pink hair and blue eyes. Despite my pink hair I usually wear a lot of black and gray with a small hint of pastels. A lot of my outfits actually consists of boots, fishnets, or chains. However I also wear a lot of Hello Kitty and early 2000's cartoon shirts!

I am pansexual, but have a male lean, so I'm fine with whatever character you want to match me with! As for my hobbies I'm very big on writing and reading, dancing, and collecting dolls. My favorite animal is 100% a raccoon though! I actually used to feed and name the ones outside!

I have a hard time deciding if I like comedy or horror movies more, but I do enjoy both feelings. Despite looking edgy and coming off as cold (I'm just really awkward and shy) I'm very bubbly and can definitely be a people pleaser. I love making people laugh but I constantly worry if I'm being too annoying when doing so.

I suppose I should add in that I'm neurodivergent as well and have some slightly annoying stims. I actually got yelled at at work for one of them last week 🙃 They're usually just me air punching people, rocking, or repeating different phrases but they do annoy others sometimes. However I am also extremely forgetful and a bit ditzy, I won't lie.

I hope I'm not missing anything! Thank you:)

Hey anon, I just wanted to say really quickly that I’m sorry you feel like you annoy ppl. From this little description I think you’d be really cool:] I’m also neurodivergent and funnily enough, we share some of the same stims! Don’t worry, you’ll find the ppl who you can be yourself around eventually. hope you’re having a great day🫶

I ship you with…..

SCREAM:

Stu Macher! I hc him with autism so he understands and emphasizes with having “annoying” stims. He won’t judge you, hell he’s probably gonna develop them as his own stims.

You guys are both bubbly people, although he expresses it very obviously, and will probably spend most your time making eachother laugh. He’s also a very blunt person and will tell you straight up how he feels about anything, and prefers if you’d do the same. This makes people believe he doesn’t care about others or their feelings, but he actually cares very much for those close to him. He just needs directness to understand and problem solve.

He’s gonna fidget with your chains and fishnets when cuddling or sitting close to eachother, unless you ask him to stop. You might have to remind him again if he does it subconsciously. He adores ppl with colored hair, and will definitely match with you at some point. He loves your style and will let beg you give him a makeover at least once.

He tries to sit with you to feed raccoons, but he has to much trouble staying still and quiet enough to get close. So instead he just watches from the window smiling and making lil comments to himself like “ooo that’s a big guy”

He’s not a big reader or writer but loves to lay his head in your lap and let you read aloud to him. Any time any song comes on, he’s dragging you to the dance floor, or just on your feet to move. If you don’t want to dance with him, he just dances next to you. He looks at all your dolls and lets you rant about them, but he’s watch Child’s Play one too many times to actual hold or touch them.

You’re in luck bc Stu’s favorite genre is Horror Comedy! Any movie involving either genre is enough for him to watch it at least once or twice.

THE LOST BOYS:

Dwayne! I had a harder time picking one for TLB, but I figured it out in the end. Dwayne is an extremely patient person, especially if he cares about you. The reason Paul and Marko target David for jokes is bc it’s impossible to get a decent reaction out of Dwayne.

He loves how your styles kinda match and buys two matching chains, with little charms representing you two.

He also comes off as cold at first, but once he warms up to you he’s just a protective, sweet guy who wants his loved ones to be happy.

If anyone says anything about your stims, they’re getting hit, and an ass beating if they’re not close to him.

He likes to compare your thoughts on books together, followed by recommendations for eachother. He’s anxiously awaiting for when you finish writing, want to read it as soon as possible.

He won’t initiate dancing, but is more than willing to if you ask. He also buys accessories for your dolls, and ends up loving them almost as much as you do

[galaxofmuses]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG ! )

NAME: Astra

PRONOUNS: They/Them Xe/Xem

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: I don’t mind ims, but if you want full conversation I prefer Discord

NAME OF MUSE(S):  Sonic”Sky/Skyler”, Miles “Tails” Prower, Knuckles, Ace Cooper

EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): Oh boy uhhh for a very long time like since early 2000s??  19 years....dang man.

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: AOL Ims, Livejournal, Gaia Online, Tumblr, Discord. I’ve been through everywhere! :D

BEST EXPERIENCE: Already said this before, Meeting my whole MMX rp group crew! I honestly don’t regret nothing!  

RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: Gosh uhhh honestly passive aggressive ooc posts like that’s just gaslit bullying and that just leads to either lack of communication, or something is a miss. Communication is heckin important and especially when it comes to this collaborative hobby.

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT:  lmao smut is rare for me and uhhh I don’t do it cuz I’m horrible at it and i’m heckin selective on who. Fluff and Angst are my absolute jam! I always love sad moments that blossom into fluff or other way around! It’s always so fun for me!

PLOTS OR MEMES: Why not both? Both of them are great ice breakers for me! 

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Depends on my mood honestly, unless if i’m really passionate about a reply, but heck sometimes I write too fast that I notice my mistakes too late lmao, but I don’t mind either. 

BEST TIME TO WRITE: Morning and sometimes Night! 

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): Sonic? Man I wish I was free-spirited with no worries, but competitive side? maybe slightly on that? Compassion side? oh yes absolutely I can vibe with that! Dunno about being short tempered like Knuckles tho yet ahfjksd.  Tails? Oh my glob absolutely! I connected with Tails since I was a kid in the 90s and his personality is quite close to home for me. I just wish Sega would stop going backwards about his development, but hopefully Frontiers would make up for it. I’m still working on the game on my streams! 

tagged by: I got tagged from the lovely @earthssprout​! Please do check her out! If you love nature and a cute wholesome muse! <3

tagging: ANYONE!!

[corgibardballads]

I have a very relevant story to add to this that may shed some… perhaps unfortunate light on the continuing stagnation of game design internal culture with new devs. I received my BS in Game Design back in 2017 and have some experience in this mess. While in college our professors all had tangible experience in game development or related fields so they had a decent idea of things we would see and what it was like, all the things you expect. In my graduating class there was only two female students, me being one of them, and none of the instructors were female (at the time).

Every week we had a discussion board we had to do, just typical writing requirement stuff. Then we had to reply to a post. As per usual… no one ever really read anyone’s posts and everyone’s replies were always as generic as a Hallmark movie. Our prompt was something to the effect of, “changes in the way games are made or portrayed and how it has affected you playing them.”

Now I can’t remember word for word what I said, but I’ll summarize my thoughts. I do want to preface this by saying that I wrote it in a VERY positive tone and was not at all condescending of games that didn’t meet my ideal, just that I was happy to have games that DID fit my ideal at all.

I started out by saying that when I was growing up in the 90s, games were very limited when it came to characters and stories. There was an emphasis on the belief that only boys played videogames and that was heavily portrayed in the games themselves. Finding a game that allowed you to make a character was almost non-existent (prior to the early 2000s you maybe had a tiny handful of games like the late 1980’s DnD one, I can’t stress how recent this shit is), let alone having a female character. Including Samus Aran and Lara Croft, you were looking at maybe 5 out of 100 games having a female protagonist and that is being generous in some years. Games that did have a narrative storyline generally always focused on a young male who becomes a hero.

And honestly as a kid, I didn’t think anything of it. The majority of the media I consumed targeted “boys” and therefore I was used to not seeing girls represented almost at all. I didn’t even start questioning it until the Rise of the Spice Girls and the battle cry of Girl Power circa 1996/97, but that’s a whole nother story. Anyway, I loved games and I didn’t SEE the fact that I only had male options because I was led to believe that I shouldn’t have been playing games AT ALL (despite the fact that my mother was and is an avid gamer since her childhood). But it wasn’t perfect.

I’m not a guy and while I could empathize with them, I can’t understand them because they live a life and in a world that I, as a girl, experience very differently. So while I loved the games and characters and world, I wasn't and could not be 100% invested. But in the 2000s we started to get more and more RPG’s with this “character creator” type of content. Dungeon Siege II, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins, on and on. I found that suddenly I didn’t HAVE to play a guy. I could play a girl and not only that… people treated me as if I wasn’t any different. I had the same quests, same options, same bad guys. And it started to change the way I viewed games in general. I started looking more for these types of games, period.

Long story short, here in the 2020’s we have so many games that let me play as a female character that if I see a game that doesn’t have that option, I do not feel compelled or forced to have to play something I don’t really want too. I don’t feel I’m “missing out” or that I “made a mistake” because for every one great game I didn’t play because the character was male, there are 100 more that could be equally good where I have a choice. So I wanted to thank the games industry for letting us all experience these worlds and adventures with a character that we feel strongly attached too and that represents whatever self we wish to present.

Yes, I praised the games industry for becoming more inclusive over time and my post went over well and we all moved on. Except that didn’t happen, obviously. I woke up the next day and found my notifications flooded…. All on that post. It was a shit show. I was told that my take was “exactly what’s wrong with female gamers” and that “it’s ridiculous that I would not play an incredible game just because the character is male” and “well guys play Tomb Raider so obviously my point is invalid” and my personal favorite, “this is such a sexist take and looks bad on female gamers everywhere”. One of those was even from the professor.

I even had a few personal DM’s about how “sexist” a take it was and that “it doesn’t matter because statistics show that females only play mobile games by and large (which is 100% inaccurate and we literally just had a class that talked about Game Theory and statistics but he said it anyway)”. The Tomb Raider one is a favorite of mine because apparently playing 1 game with a female character out of 100 games of male characters is perfect equality. Anyway my point with this wall of text is… these people ARE game designers. This is the “new” generation of game designers and how they think. Still 90% male and still doesn’t see how much value 50% of the gaming market places on simply being to play a female character. So for all the advancement we have seen in gaming, we still have a long way to go and it has to start with more of us getting into MAKING the games. And if you wondered if there was any female sisterhood rara solidarity from the other girl in my class: She was the only one who DIDN’T comment on my post. So there’s that.

I wish I could tell you my experiences in the game industry and world around it only got better. But there is a reason after 6 years of having a degree in Game Design, I now work at a hospital instead. (One of them is pay, I will say that) And you know, that's partially on me. I wasn't strong enough. The disparaging comments, the blatant sexism, the dismissive remarks. They broke my resolve over time. I did work on numerous games that unfortunately never got the funding to see through to release and personal projects that just ran out of steam, but in the end I gave up on my dream. I let my dreams go to survive.

a helpful flow chart for all aspiring game devs out there

[paulagnewart]

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 9/12: Livin' on the Hedge!

Sonic the Hedgehog issue 3 AU Publication Date: 24th September 1993 Price: $2.25

There's something wrong with the world today, and it's not just like a case of deja vu. September 1993 was immensely important for the enduring success of everyone's favourite blue boy over in the Land of the Free, but how did Australia stack up by comparison?

The ongoing adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog were far from many a mind when the late Juan Antonio Samaranch infamously proclaimed "The winner is… Sydderny!". Thousands packed Circular Quay in celebration of securing the 2000 Olympics bid. Pre-dawn fireworks swept over Sydney Opera House for lucky locals, while the rest tuned in early on Channel Nine for overnight coverage, then Channel Seven's afternoon recap. Or at least when they weren't watching the premiere of 'Stay Tooned: The History of Tom and Jerry', a half-hour feature promoting their grand cinematic outing which opened a week prior.

For those with kids or simply being kids at heart, the morning was instead another romp on Agro's Cartoon Connection. Having gnashed his teeth in the late 1970's, everyone's favourite talking bathmat underwent an extensive rework come January 1990, now joined alongside youthful cohost Ann-Maree Biggar. This dynamic duo were by 1993 indomitable, winning the nation with their two and a half hours of animation, antics and a rambunctious live studio audience.

Not that it stopped other networks attempting to muscle in on their success. Launched on the week of Christmas 1992, Channel Ten attempted to fight back the timeslot with 'The Big Breakfast'. Hosted by equally youthful larrikin Tim Bailey, their prime directive focused on quantity over quality, airing upward seven different cartoons a week. For that day, sandwiching the penultimate episode of all-new 'Capitol Critters' were repeats of 'Bionic Six' episode 'Ready, Aim, Fired', and 'Speed Racer' episode 'The Desperate Desert Race: Part 2', the latter ironically stolen from their competitor.

Speaking of fight backs, the conservative branch of Australian politics were in shambles after their centerpiece policy failed to swing voters. At 650 pages, the highly contentious Fightback! manifesto offered among other things higher tax cuts for the wealthy and striking a proverbial axe to low income earners. Riding off the back of "A Recession that Australia Had to Have", the mainstream media months earlier declared the left-leaning Labor party's chance of retaining power an "unwinnable" prospect. But they did, and Prime Minister Paul Keating was on top of the world. Plus leaving his mark on the world, that month exchanging pleasantries with US counterpart Bill Clinton while pushing for Australia to officially sever constitutional ties from the UK.

Yet there was an even larger development which swept Aussies off their feet. More than Meat Loaf ruling an unopposed 8 weeks with his megahit "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)". Higher than Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg's adventure some 65 million years in the making which sent Harrison Ford tumbling off the proverbial box office dam. Enticing thousands more than the launch of Australia's first ever Toys R Us at Belconnen, complete with Sonic mascot greeting visitors at the door. And yes, arguably even more than The Dinky-Di's potential animated film and guaranteed tax write-off Mephisto's Web. All those and more paled in comparison to the rise of the Internet.

Once the experimental plaything of Melbourne university students back in June 1989, technology had become more widespread and affordable for the common layman. Internet Service Providers sprung up, ready to compete in the inevitable web wars while fans across the land stretched their fingers, ready to type away to complete strangers about all the important information of life, like commenting and speculating over whether or not a storehouse in Toronto housed a horde of missing Doctor Who episodes.

As for the Blue Blur, it's hard to gauge a consensus on this and numerous other early issues as the organized Archie Sonic fandom was by that point nonexistent. Granted the comic sold thousands of copies across multiple nations, but it would take more time for fans to escape the confines of playgrounds and mingle over his monthly adventures online. As far as then-Hedgehog enthusiasts were concerned, Archie Sonic was but a supplement for his new cartoons. And it's through the likes of early fan pioneers like Ron D. Bauerle, David DeSimone, Serinthia Kelberry, Lindsay Cibos and Dan Drazen the success (or lack thereof) of Sonic's formative years are measured.

"If you read the comic book put out by Archie Comics, the characters featured there also come out in the series." One early reviewer commented. "They have Princess Sally, Bunny Rabbot, Antoine, Tails and of course Sonic. Being an animation fan and having seen DIC's earlier derivative works(there are too many to name), I expected it to be a hodge-podge of scenes/situations lifted directly from the video games(As DIC did in "Captain N", a lame lift from Nintendo). Actually, this show introduces some new, interesting characters, allowing for more original stories. Instead of ripping off the game, this show expands on it. The voice characterization is good,too(cast includes voice veterans Jim Cummings and Charlie Adler). So if you're a Furry, a gamer, or just can't get a chance to see ANIMANIACS, give this one a try."

"I think it's one of the better NEW Saturday morning 'toons, and probably the best thing I've seen from DIC in years." More swiftly agreed. "Anyone who's seen the weekday versions of Sonic would probably agree with me that the weekday episodes have nothing on the Sat AM ones.", or how "I've seen the daily Sonic show (TAOFSTH)… and I can safely say it's poorly animated cartoon swill.". Yet a few treated it with trepidation. "While not great, it's better than the Bonkers dreck. I had decided to skip it, but saw the ABC preview last night and there were some cute-looking furries in it.".

But as the weeks progressed, a divide slowly formed between cartoon and comic counterparts. "It is true that the television show derives from the Archie Comic, but from what I've seen in SEGA VISIONS, the cartoon's artistry and storyline is MUCH better than the comic. Besides, the Furries ARE neat, and the voice characterization is well done". Future long-running debates were born including "The editor of the letter column in Issue #5 of the Sonic comic says she's a squirrel, but I don't believe him - not with a short tail like that. I still favor chipmunk myself.".

It drew new fans like "Sonic's superspeed is interesting (but then, I liked "The Flash"). Jaleel White does an adequate job of voicing him, Kath Souci does the princess, and Christine Cavanaugh (Gosalyn from Darkwing Duck, I believe) does the bunny. Does anybody have a better explanation of the basis of the show? How about the video game? (About which I know nothing.) I'll keep watching for the furries, if nothing else…". Praise was short lived however, and by the conclusion of its first season, "These stories are really going downhill. Where did all the light come from in that underground world? And sorry, but I can't believe in any magic fertilizer water that makes trees grow instantly. I'd rather have seen a continuing story than all of these disjointed lame ones. E.g., are we ever going to find out what happened to Sally's father? Probably not, with only three more to go.".

Sonic the Hedgehog fans. Fawning over the female cast, criticizing plots and bashing the Archie series since 1993.

Time changes, and yet some things never change.

[geekgirles]

Something that’s always caught my eye and, more importantly, impressed me about Danny Phantom is how consistent they are with Sam being an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian. 

I know, I know. It was used as a major plot point in the very first episode, so of course they had to stay true to that aspect of her character, right?

But I mean they really made an effort to always portray Sam as ultra-recyclo-vegetarian, no matter how subtle that representation was. Sam was always eating nothing but vegetables and tofu. If my memory doesn’t fail me, they never messed up on that, not even once. 

And it could’ve been so, so easy to miss that when drawing the scenes or coming up with new plots. Even The PowerPuff Girls, another incredible show, made that mistake: in one episode, Bubbles claimed to be a vegetarian, but in another she was eating a hamburger.

Danny Phantom never had that problem.

Even if Sam’s preferred diet wasn’t a plot point like it was in Mystery Meat (and it never really was after that episode, unless you somehow count Urban Jungle), it was a consistent side of her the animators never failed to portray. 

These two screenshots are from Parental Bonding, the very second episode lof the show, and despite Sam’s being an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian having nothing to do with the plot, there she is; eating a salad. 

Then there’s Attack of the Killer Garage Sale. When she’s asking for a pizza for her and Tucker, she explicitely says “half pepperoni, half veggie.” And, again, it would’ve been so easy to forget those two extra words and just go “Yup, one large pepperoni pizza.” But that never happened! 

And it doesn’t stop there. 

Oh, no. 

This aspect of Sam’s character extends to everything she eats!

Here they are. Team Phantom in the flesh! But can you see what’s so peculiar about their lunches?

Yup, you guessed it! Not only is Sam eating her usual greens, but she’s drinking water! And you might be thinking, “But Geeks, what’s the big deal with water? Everyone drinks it!”

And you’re absolutely right. Everyone drinks water. Except, in this particular scene, Sam is the only one drinking water! Danny and Tucker both have milk instead. And why’s Sam the odd one out? Well, duh! ‘Cause milk is an animal product and Sam just doesn’t eat or drink anything with a face. 

And you know what else the animators do right in keeping Sam consistent? 

Ice cream. 

No, I’m serious. Again, it’d be so easy to just slip up and have Sam eating ice cream with the boys. I honestly wouldn’t even fault the animators for making such a mistake. After all, ice cream (and more so in the early 2000′s) is very clearly a dairy product. 

But what do they do?

Tofu ice cream. 

They deliberately gave Sam some tofu ice cream in My Brother’s Keeper. 

*Chef kiss*

These are all instances of Sam’s character being consistent and respected, even when the plot doesn’t immediately gain anything from it. The animators and the writing team were just very devoted to keeping this side of Sam’s character intact. Even when it was irrelevant for the plot. 

In fact, I’d say Sam being ultra-recyclo-vegetarian became pretty much irrelevant to the story after Mystery Meat. Let that sink in for a minute, okay?

Out of 52-53 episodes (I don’t remember the exact amount and I’m too lazy to look it up rn, sorry), Sam’s ultra-recyclo-vegetarianism was only important in one (1), and that was the very first episode of the show. 

Now that I think about it, the only time I can recall right now that Sam not eating meat had any sort of importance for the plot was back in Double Cross My Heart. And that was only because Gregor/Elliot was using that to come up with a persona that would appeal to Sam after seeing she was eating a Tofu-Soy Melt sandwich.

And yet, they kept working and making efforts to ensure the audience never forgot that about her. Why? Because being unique and progressive (with varying degrees of success seeing as the main writers were all middle-aged white dudes) is Sam’s character.

Danny Phantom may have its flaws (especially when writing its female characters), but nobody can take away from it that, at the very least, they were remarkably consistent.

[octaviasdread]

any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles 

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

[firefly-fez]

Cannot stress enough the recency of ADHD research as a reason for an uptick in people seeking a diagnosis.

ADHD has been theorised about, first seen as a ‘moral deficit’ in children, for about 100 years. All that early theorising was done into young boys.

The earliest writings on ADHD date back to 1902, when paediatrician Sir George Frederic described it as “an abnormal defect of moral control in children”.

It was first suggested that medication might be helpful for patients with this “defect of moral control” when Dr. Charles Bradley discovered that patients taking Benzedrine had a improvement in behaviour and school performance. In 1939.

The FDA approved Ritalin for treatment of ADHD in 1955.

It was first characterised as a moral defect, then reclassified as a “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood”, which is what it was listed as in the second edition of the DSM-V. (It did not appear in the first edition). The term ‘ADD’ was first used in 1980, which classified ‘ADD’ as having two types; with hyperactivity and without hyperactivity. The revised version of the DSM-III (published in 1987) changed the name to ADHD, and did not distinguish between subtypes. The subtype diagnostic system we use today was introduced with the DSM-V in 2000.

These are recent discoveries.

We have mischaracterised ADHD as a moral failing. We have developed our entire understanding of how ADHD presents from the perspective of how burdensome children with ADHD are on their caretaker, and we’re only just starting to realise the effects of that bias on limiting our understanding of ADHD. We’ve been using a completely biased sample size for most of this time, and we’ve only VERY recently done research to address that.

Please note that this history is exolained in a bit more detail here,

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/history#1990-s

but bear in mind this is a western history and very simplistic (ADHD and race has been very understudied too, and a person’s ethnicity can also contribute to a delayed diagnosis — did you know Asians are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than Caucasians, but also have lower diagnosis rates than Hispanics and African-Americans??)

We’ve missed several generations worth of people with ADHD because of an understanding of the disability informed by prejudice about disability, gender, and race. With recent research addressing these biases, and better access to information surrounding ADHD, we’re experiencing a social reckoning — a social reckoning with this disability and what it truly is that has been a long, long time coming.

And - I cannot stress this enough - You don’t get to blame that on TikTok.

People look for help on social media because the internet is accessible and the healthcare system isn’t. Yes, that leaves them susceptible to misinformation. No, they don’t deserve to have their concerns dismissed out of hand and no, they aren’t gullible. Because guess what? That was your job, scientists. Providing the public with reliable information on ADHD was supposed to be science’s job, and what did we do? We characterised it entirely around our own prejudices. We missed several generations worth of people, and now they’re looking for help somewhere else because we failed them. You don’t get to use TikTok as a scapegoat to ignore the stuctural failing at fault here.

I’ll say it again. People look for help on social media because the internet is accessible and the healthcare system isn’t. I know, it’s very difficult to compete with the accessibility of the internet. But if you were willing to advocate for improved access to healthcare instead of gaslighting your patient base into thinking they’re gullible for asking for help at all….maybe you’d make a little more progress 🤷‍♀️

Why do more people have ADHD now?

(It's not just TikTok's fault)

ADHD prevalence is estimated at 5-7%. That seems low, but consider the global population.

A huge aspect of ADHD is dopamine deficiency. Nowadays we have these convenient little mobile phone devices that constantly supply dopamine on demand. I'd argue that probably leads to ADHDers being online more creating an over-representation.

There's a lot of evidence that ADHD occurs genetically. As the overall population explodes, so will the amount of ADHDers.

We're living in a world with increasing stimulation and distraction, attention being demanded by more and more things. There are way more chances for executive dysfunction to occur. Exercise is specifically helpful for burning off energy, and manual labour is becoming less common, with many careers forcing someone to sit still all day.

Women in particular have traditionally been socially engineered from birth to be more subdued. As this happens less and less, ADHD is way more obvious. There's also more understanding of inattentive type which women and afab tend to fall into.

More scientific study.

We have the language for ADHD now. It is astonishing that people don't realise how recent this actually is. I'm talking outside of the US, most countries didn't start seriously discussing it until the 90s.

More representation of ADHD, good or bad, has created more overall awareness. Now parents are more likely to take a kid to the doctor rather than writing it off as "misbehaviour". The Internet has also provided access to self education for those who weren't so lucky. In the UK especially we're seeing long lines of celebrities who are getting diagnosed age 40+.

Don't get me wrong, I do think there are some people who are following a 'trend' and it is dangerous to completely rely on self diagnosis (if you have an option to see a doctor). There's a tricky line between identity and disability, though my personal belief is that the concepts can coexist.

That being said, we need to not create an ADHD culture war. There are reasonable explanations as to why we're seeing a greater amount of ADHDers (especially in online spaces).