#and making... odd decisions...

[erinwantstowrite]

my dream job is to write a cartoon show for the batfam (and other misc characters). twenty five episodes per season, a coherent storyline of events that lead up into an overarching storyline throughout the show, proper character development for everyone as they enter the show that doesn't get stomped on for no reason, beautiful art, encapsulating the weird quirks of Gotham and the cast,,,,

[notbecauseofvictories]

it is interesting and terrifying to talk to my mother about aging.

she, my uncle, and my father all help take care of my grandparents, and during our call she flat-out told me that, at some point, my siblings and I will likely need to move my parents out of their house into continuing/graduated care. That step would have been so beneficial for my grandparents---for the aging parents of many of my mother's friends---but that generation seems so resistant, so stubborn; they want to age in their homes even if said homes have stairs, sharp corners, haven't been properly cleaned in years. "I am going to try and be more open to change," my mother said with a slightly-embarrassed laugh; we as her children just might need to remind her sometimes.

meanwhile I---a thirty-year-old woman who previously would have described her overall posture on aging as "that's a future problem!!!"---am quietly freaking out.

[pepperf]

Pop quiz, hotshots! Which would you rather have:

A relationship that, when it goes wrong, you can tell the other person that you need a break to reassess your relationship, and they will discuss this calmly, let you go, and then go away and think about what you said, agree that they were in the wrong, and start working on ways to fix their own behaviour;

OR

A relationship that, when you want to leave, they tell you that you don't really want to go, that you're happier with them, that you should isolate yourself from your family and friends so you can stay with them - and when you disagree and tell them the relationship is just a matter of necessity, they start in on your other relationship (which they have apparently decided is the reason you're going back, despite you making no mention of it), telling you that it's broken, that you shouldn't go back to him - and when you tell them to butt out of your personal business, they tell you they're entitled to have an opinion because you've been stranded alone together for a long time...

Is that or is that not what happened? Because I remember Lila making herself pretty clear on these points, but apparently a bunch of people think we should disregard a woman's expressed opinion about her own life, and go with what she's being told. Because Five knows best, amirite? Gosh he's so smart and clever! And he deserves this - he deserves Lila, no matter what Lila herself says. He's owed it by the universe, because he had a bad life.

Lila did have another relationship like that, where she was told what to do, kept in the dark, told that the other person knew what was best for her...and it wasn't Diego.

[agnesandhilda]

I get why nobody really asked about it considering Everything Else that happened in blue lock chapters 260-262 but what is kaiser's legal situation vis a vis ray dark and bastard münchen. does his father still have legal custody of him? it's possible that he's still kaiser's legal guardian but has in practice left him to be a ward of bastard münchen. but if that were the case wouldn't kaiser make some reference to it? kaiser very much conducts himself like an emancipated minor imo, and there's no indication that he's not getting every cent of that paycheck, and even an arrangement where his father is no longer physically in contact with him has potential for coercion (child prodigies are famously never financially exploited by their parents /s), as he needs to approve kaiser's status as (at some point) a working minor. but if he doesn't have custody of him, how did he lose it? by all accounts he has never given a shit about providing for kaiser, so it's possible he transferred custody over to someone else (and who would that be? ray dark? some third person who in practice will approve anything ray dark wants?) with no fuss, but it's equally likely that the guy who had been coercing kaiser into stealing from a young age to support them both would want to profit from his son's athletic career too. did ray dark have to sue? in which case kaiser's dad broke that bottle over his head in front of the police, so there's irrefutable evidence for a child abuse case, and they've got all the money of the bllkverse's fifa-analogue on their side too.

[weirdphilosopher]

i sent something into contact us about the scar and lolita policies for hatchling skins, hopefully they give some attention to the implications they have. 1, why are they acting like kids cant have scars or like its a graphic thing when there are literally scar apparel items ingame? 2, why are they acting like kids cant wear lolita?? it is not "adultifying" or sexual for a kid to wear lolita, its used to reclaim femininity and dress for yourself?? if this is because of the book of the same name thatd be so embarassing because they are not even related. this is just wild i feel like both of these policies are stereotyping these things as "adult content not safe for kiddos"

[shorthaltsjester]

being a huge fan of tlou but also like. thinking that certain stories are built for certain mediums. like the entire theme of tlou2 is grounded and fresh because it’s a railroad/story video game that still affords you mechanical choices in how you navigate the world. i just don’t have a lot of confidence that presenting that story in a tv show with the minimal adjustments that they did in s1 will be fulfilling or compelling in any comparable way. because with tlou1 some of the like. beauty of that story was simply that it was such an emotive story contained in the medium of video games. and some of that was retained just by hitting similar or expanded emotional beats in the show, like the episodes that expanded on the life of the characters and the realities of that world. but truly so much of tlou2 emotional depth and ‘why does this story matter’ rests in the fact that’s it’s your hands on the controller, continually choosing to go forward in the story and have hope that it will work out in your-as-ellie-or-abby-or-somehow-booth’s favour. and you simply cannot get that in a non-interactive medium like television. like i do think tlou2 is a good story but it’s a good story because of the investment required by the player to keep pressing buttons and keep returning and to feel the adrenaline like responses of high intensity moments and be jarringly shifted into backstories that only increase the frustration. in general i’ve been thinking a lot about cross-medium adaptation and on the one hand i am glad that season 1 makes the story of the last of us more accessible to people who wouldn’t pick up a video game but it’s also like. maybe instead we can destigmatize video games as this inaccessible and dangerous medium a bit more instead of just . implicitly agreeing . like no maybe your mom won’t pick up a video game controller and play the last of us . but maybe you can play the game in the living room. sometimes the mediums that stories are told in aren’t just important but are actually foundational parts of how the information of a story is conveyed and that’s not only okay but is fucking fantastic. we should be happy actually that there are so many ways to collect a bunch of themes and ideas and put them together and hold them out to someone else and say “won’t you consider this with me. won’t you feel these emotions and care about these characters with me.”

[sonknuxadow]

im so tired of exclusives like in general actually. its like You wanna play this game? well you have to have this exact device to play it sorry. yeah we know that the ones you already have would be able to run it just fine and theres no logical reason why we couldnt put it on there too but we just dont feel like it sorry. Oh you wanna watch this movie too? Well theres like 500 different streaming services out there and only one highly specific one has it . please give us your money now . its so annoying everything i like should always be available on the exact devices and services that i have forever

[leafbreez]

Why are Angel's symbols closer to Alastor and Husk's closer to Lucifer? Wouldn't it make more sense if Husk's were closer to Alastor? Unless maybe it could hint to something, Alastor having his past and rivalry with Vox also allows him to know more of the Vees, imagine Alastor helps in a way to free Angel from Valentino, and what if Lucifer and Husk become good friends and maybe Lucifer helps him to be free from Alastor.

I think I'd be more likely for Husk and Lucifer to become friends, and the rest? Maybe I'm just going a bit crazy over details.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

I passed a very agitated night; my mother, returning to the house, had spoken to my father of the conversation she had just had with M. Le Bas; I admit to my shame that, from a room next to theirs, I heard their conversation. My father seemed happy; but my mother still wanted to marry off my sisters before me. Finally, I heard my father call our good friend: he was so good that we loved him better than a brother. My father informed him of the subject of the conversation and told him: “My friend, it’s our Élisabeth, our scatterbrain, that M. Le Bas is asking us in marriage.” – “I congratulate you on it,” he replied, “so much the better. Élisabeth will be happy; my dear friend, don’t hesitate for a moment: Le Bas is the worthiest of men by all accounts; he is a good son, a good friend, a good citizen, a man of talent; he’s a distinguished lawyer.” That good Maximilien seemed happy to see me asked in marriage by his compatriot and pleaded in our favor with my parents; he added: “This union will, I believe, make for Élisabeth’s happiness; they are in love; they will be happy together.” He praised me and my good friend; my mother made a few more objections on my distractedness; but our friend assured her that I would be a good wife and a good housekeeper. It was almost one in the morning when he retired to his room, wishing my father and mother a good night. I then heard my father say: “There is no reason to hesitate after the way Robespierre has just praised his friend.” Our good mother loved her children equally; she feared, in marrying her youngest daughter first, to harm the eldest; my father thought otherwise and said: “If they are in love, must we delay their happiness! No, wife, we must put prejudice aside and consent to this union.” My good mother appeared disarmed then and said to my father: “Well then! My friend, until tomorrow; he will come to ask for your consent.” I heard no more speaking and went to bed, but quite sadly, for I feared that some difficulty would arise. I did not sleep much, and that night seemed very long to me; I awoke before daybreak. At nine o’clock precisely I saw my friend arrive. God! How my heart pounded! I was at that moment ironing in the dining room. He passed close to me and said, taking my hand and holding it tenderly: “Courage, my friend!” He entered the salon where my father awaited him. I heard only these words: “You know, citizen, what brings me the pleasure of seeing you. You will have been told of my wish to enter your family; you know that the one I love is the last of your daughters; if not for a long illness from which I have just recovered, I would have asked you sooner. Having had the occasion to meet your daughter several times, I believed from my observation that she understood and shared my sentiments; but, having fallen ill, I could no longer see her. Judge of what I must have suffered during almost two months of absence.” After a rather long conversation, the rest of which I did not hear, my father called me to him and said to me severely that because of my lack of confidence in my mother, he would never consent to my marriage; he gave me a long lecture until I was sobbing. At last, my beloved came to me and told me not to make myself ill, to console myself, that my good father would pardon me and that my dear parents had consented to our union. Judge my happiness! I could not believe it; my friend was so good, so sweet-tempered, so caressing, that my father told him: “Well then, I want to make for my daughter’s happiness; I give her to you with all my heart: she’s a good little girl; she will make you happy, I hope.” What joy for my friend! We ran to embrace my father and my good mother, who cried with tender feeling. The good Robespierre came to share our happiness; that good friend said to me: “Be happy, Babet, you deserve it; you are made for each other.” Then my father, Robespierre, Le Bas and my mother took chocolate together while I returned to my work; the conversation lasted until after eleven o’clock.

Memoirs of Élisabeth Le Bas (1843)

Wow, you’re a real jerk here, Maurice.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Okay so....there was a post about Barbara Gordon and visible vs. invisible disability floating around on here awhile back. And someone wrote an excellent response already (thanks so much to @dilfdoctordoom for pointing everything out that they did), but I wanted to add my own two cents onto it because I felt there were some unaddressed issues...only when I finally got around to actually responding to it, I found out I was blocked by the OP (because tumblr is a hellsite that doesn't actively tell you you're blocked until you try to hit "post"). That's all a preface to say: this is a response to that post, and it's largely responding to the OP's comments about how the current depiction of Babs' disability is "great, actually!" because it provides representation to people with invisible disabilities.

Which...first it needs to be said that the OP is using "invisible disabilities need rep!" to excuse visible disabilities being erased and minimized. Because this isn't a situation where people are looking at a character who's always had invisible disabilities and going "they don't count." This is a character who for thirty years was disabled in a highly visible way and promoted as DC's most prominent physically disabled character...and a character whose existing physical disability (complete spinal cord injury leading to paralysis) was then erased, changed, and continuously minimized to justify making her a walking Batgirl again. DC also did this while erasing two other female characters (one of whom, Cassandra Cain, was disabled herself and actually is an example of someone with an invisible disability).

Barbara's disability, by its nature, is not one that should be portrayed as invisible. She was shot in a way that completely severed her spinal cord and shattered the surrounding bone structure. That was always her disability and despite the spinal chip magi-cure it technically remains her disability. Even if she can walk, she should still either be an ambulatory wheelchair user or using a cane/forearm braces, on the page, consistently. Her disability should be visible; that was the intention of her creators (one of whom was a disabled woman) and that was the representation she provides. She's also worn glasses since her introduction as a character, a disability that was also erased in the New 52/Burnside era via editorial mandate (and one that we have only recently won back post-Infinite Frontier). I find it interesting that OP chose not to comment on that.

Cassandra's disability, however, is invisible and always has been. Her struggles with speech and language are not ones that can be seen just by looking at her. She's been an incredible avenue of representation for people with learning, speech, and language processing issues for 22 years. And yet she got first character assassinated, then pushed to the sidelines, and then erased from the universe entirely because DC couldn't bear to have a disabled Asian woman wearing the Batgirl mantle instead of Barbara Gordon.

And while Stephanie isn't relevant in a conversation surrounding disability, I would like to point out that she became Batgirl largely by accident due to being resurrected at a time when 'who should be the new Batgirl?' was a topic being hotly debated. Babs was as close to being magi-cured and Batgirl again in 2009 as Dick was to being killed in Infinite Crisis (which is to say, pretty damn close). Steph becoming Batgirl only delayed the inevitable, which was a coordinated multi-year editorial effort to push Cass out of the cowl and Babs back into it.

So if people like OP want to talk about the representation of visible vs. invisible disability, I think we should talk about how making Babs a walking Batgirl again erased representation of both types of disability in the process. Because it was not a decision made to give representation to people with invisible disabilities. It was a decision made because Dan Didio and a small group of similarly powerful old, white, male, able-bodied managers wanted the Batgirl from their childhoods to be on the pages again, and if they had to erase two disabled characters and multiple female characters entirely to make it work, they were willing to do so.

Nearly all subsequent writers have effectively erased her disability by omission via giving occasional lip service to it-occasional comments about the chip, the back brace, the cane-and then disregarding it entirely whenever it suits them to do so (repeatedly showing Babs in inaccessible living and working environments, having her continually suit up as Batgirl despite saying it should be an "emergency only" thing, constantly showing her standing/with her legs crossed/in weird positions when she is sitting like there's an editorial mandate on artists to remind people 'she's not paralyzed! she can walk now!', etc).

And those creative and editorial decisions need to be talked about when discussing the treatment of Babs and frankly all of the Batgirls since 2011, because it's objectively ableist writing and it's frankly incredibly tiring to have to continually point this out despite the well-sourced and thorough discussions Babs fans (both abled and disabled) have written on the subject over the past 11 years.

[jaybybyby]

I don't think Sera is a villain. She's just doing her job.

i think sera and emily are actually decent examples of good female characters, but it sucks that sera is still an antagonist. especially with that scene during that one shot in "you didn't know" when she was smiling and had the fire in her eyes, they 1 painted her decision as a sort of "doing bad for good" one and 2 played it up for her to be a villain anyway with her shot in the trailer

[evillandscaper]

hello everyone!! i just wanted to do a quick survey since i'm writing and really want to know everyone's opinion on something since i've seen people do it and wanted to gauge opinions

okay!! so imagine this odd squad wise, with the characters as is, no aging up, as canon

if you could reply/reblog with reasons for your choice, that'd be greatly appreciated!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Where The River Meets The Soul

cosy-ish fantasy, romance

follows a herbalist who decides to find a magical bloom with healing properties which has become rare in recent years, after her sister is diagnosed with a terminal illness

she travels to the city, and along with a friend and an heiress, discovers that reuniting two reincarnated ancient soulmates will restore the bloom

but when she encounters corruption and betrayal, and finds herself getting feelings for one of the soulmates, things get more complicated

ace MC, genderfluid LI

[fulcrum-art-fox]

Baylan be all like “oh yeah you’re on a different path to me Shin so now we part ways. You go your way and I’m going to go mine” and then he literally doesn’t leave? He just hangs around and watches?? Has time to fight Ahsoka??? What happened to following your own path Baylan you’re just standing around watching wtf man

[sorrowingsoldier]

I can’t help but feel disappoint that 911 decided to go through with a completely unnecessary cartel/coyote (they are not synonymous but 911 seems to think so) plot line during the most recent episode. Especially using the very real experience of migrants as a plot point to show Bobby help two brown people, to later save a Black man, and really toe that line of white savior. They could have so easily done without it seeing as Bobby’s backstory presented in the show and Amir’s character were rich enough, as is. They could have easily achieved the same tension in an LA setting. It just felt really out of place and has me wondering if this is going to be another show using a cartel plot line that inevitably becomes a caricature of Latinos.

[just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi]

I have aged. Am 25 now