#but I just kinda ranted lol

[deadletterpoets]

Whenever I hear some talk about really loving Barbara Gordon or her being their favorite Batgirl for nostalgia reasons I just know that there’s going to be something about the writing that ends up…just not right. And I am saying this as someone who has loved Barbara Gordon as Oracle but also appreciated her era as Batgirl, but doesn’t want to see her in that Batgirl role in comics or film ever again. Even in that era when she was introduced as Batgirl her personality wasn’t very…cutesy I guess? There is a certain era of Barbara’s period as Batgirl that does feel like this woman would later become the Oracle we end up knowing in comics. I feel like when she came into The Batman Animated series and later Batgirl: Year One she suddenly was written more cutesy and it has followed her ever since when writers write her as Batgirl or look to writing her as Batgirl or are fans of her as Batgirl and in turn it has affected the characters who have been in the role after her. Barbara’s tenure as Batgirl wasn’t very long (she wasn’t even the original) and her popularity died with the audience which is why she was so easy to discarded for them when they wanted to get rid of her. And I don’t feel like Batgirls is doing Barbara any favors in Batgirls either even if she is the one that the writers know more of. Because yeah these character (Cass, Steph, Babs) are getting introduced to a new audience but when it feels like you can just swap all their personalities with each other like it’s not good? It’s like loving a character but loving the most shallow aspect of them and focusing on the most shallow aspect of them. I remember the editor (who is currently also the editor of Nightwing) talking about how they wanted this book to be like Spider-Man into the Spider-verse but it feels like when you try to force something to be something else you aren’t being true to like what should come naturally. The same editor as said similar things about Nightwing and about it being a book they wanted to enjoy which is yeah… But Shadow of a Batgirl is a great example of writers writing with love and who weren’t forcing something to be like something else, and it actually came out great.

Yeah, I tend to focus on Cassandra Cain specifically, but I don't think Batgirls has written any of the characters well I just don't have as much knowledge for Steph and Babs to proclaim it every time. For me especially with Babs there's been a consistent want to keep her from progressing as a character. Her new progression went Batgirl ->Oracle->Batgirl and they saw no issue with it and many new fans came in during that time so when people were asking for Oracle proper and either Cass or Steph to take the reigns back as Batgirl it was met with heavy resistant from DC and fans. Hell I still see people calling Cass Orphan and Steph Spoiler. They'd rather nobody be Batgirl than it not be Babs.

Anyway, I'm aware of the editor. I didn't hear the Spider-Verse part, but I do know that she was a HUGE Burnside fan and basically wanted Batgirls to be for Cass and Steph what Burnside was for Babs, which IMO fucking sucks, but also based on the reaction they are succeeding.

Also it's weird to me cause Batgirls is clearly meant to be a book that's supposed to be for a casual/new audience, but it doesn't read well for a new audience cause for the first few issues you had to have read Fear State and they barely went into who these characters were, not even caring to actually *introduce* them and a quick summary of their origin or their journey to being a hero and Batgirls. So it only worked if you'd been following these characters for a long time. Idk it was weird to be told Batgirls is on "Best Comics of the year" list, but I think ppl assume cause I talk about how much I don't like it I'm part of some bigger group of people, but in actuality I'm in a small circle and Batgirls is somehow continuing to succeed despite no one involved seemingly caring about these characters.

And yeah Babs wasn't the first Batgirl and I remember ppl kept asking for Bette or even Tiffany or Kate to show up in the book and honestly, people after reading a few issues I think wanting them to poorly write more of the Bat women in this world just seems cruel.

READ SHADOW OF THE BATGIRL

[greensaplinggrace]

i'm sorry but i'm a buffy apologist at heart y'all are wild if you think her reaction as a literal teenager to faith's accidental murder of an innocent was in any way wrong or bad. in what universe.

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[charmac]

I hate to defend Rob but seeing Sunny teens on Twitter try to speculate he isn't "speaking up" about voting because he's hiding being a secret Trump supporter is so insanely ridiculous when campaign contributions in the United States is public information:

(Yeah. That's a $100,000.00 donation to a grassroots victory fund, on top of a ton of donations to swing states.)

It's almost like making public political statements on social media is heavily advised against when you're a showrunner/employer to hundreds of people.

[raticalshoez]

i'm having hyperfixation drought so i did what i did best and created a crossover episode

[dotoil]

Nutcracker came up with that idea so quickly he prob thought about it before

[lionfission]

Happy one year Anne-iversary to the end of Amphibia!

A fantastic finale to an unforgettable show. I'll always remember watching "The Hardest Thing" at 2 am with my siblings and crying my eyes out :'))

[moryyteks]

yeah i really dont know

[fablexdreams]

Did what Theresa said when you would select Reaver's fate card in the menu of Fable 2 stick with anyone else the way it stuck with me, or am I simply insane? Cause for some reason, I think of it on a daily basis. "I see choked weeds and water," "He lies just out of reach." The description, as well; "The Thief is age, which robs us of our strength and looks. -It is the worst in all of us. It is what we must all fear." Like?! Something about the word choice, something about the tone of voice Theresa takes on, something about the silence after, something about his card image being a mirror with blood and a rose, something something something. It all gets me. It all haunts me to this very day, over a decade later. Its just…something. I hope whoever is responsible for it has cool pillows on both sides at night.

[nordsea-horizons]

da for my normcore island petrichor💛🪴

[rollercoasterwords]

like sorry but if ur actually seeing an increase in students using chatgpt 2 write essays 4 ur class why is ur first thought "oh they're being lazy" & not "have i structured this class in a way that makes this student feel the need to rely on chatgpt?" especially bc the majority of college students are overwhelmed taking multiple classes working part-time jobs caring for family dealing with health issues etc etc like there are soooo many reasons a student might decide to use chatgpt that are not just "laziness"!! consider:

the student didn't have time to complete the assignment without chatgpt -> have you created an environment where students can ask for extensions without judgment? do you only give out extensions for "emergencies" or "valid reasons" (<- subjective measure)? if so, why? what purpose do these strict deadlines serve? [think about how this overlaps with students who may have "had time" but were overwhelmed for other reasons; what kind of environment have you created for these students, and does it best serve their learning?]

the student didn't feel they had the ability to write an essay of good enough quality to receive a good grade without chatgpt -> how are you grading students' work? what grading scales have you utilized that made this person feel as though they're incapable of succeeding? do those grading scales prevent them from succeeding? if so, why? what educational resources did they or did they not have access to before entering your class? how might that change considerations about how you grade? [think about how this overlaps with students completing coursework that is not in their first language and whether your grading standards are truly equitable for these students]

the student didn't feel that they could understand the material and therefore couldn't complete the assignment -> again, have you created an environment where this student can come to you for help? how are you presenting and explaining material? what opportunities have you provided for students to seek out additional resources and support with understanding? is this assignment and its correlated grading scale designed to accommodate a variety of skill levels, or is it designed with "the best student" in mind?

the student actually just doesn't care about this class and doesn't want to do the work -> why don't they care about this class? what other classes or work are they prioritizing, and why? to what extent are you willing to accommodate students who simply will never view your class as a priority, but need to complete it to earn a degree--and how is that need tied structurally to a university that serves primarily as a class barrier? what role do you play in that university structure, and is it a role you want to play?

at the end of the day if your goal is 2 prioritize student learning that means being flexible & adapting your grading scales, assignment structures, class policies, etc. to accommodate students at their level of learning for their own purposes. like if the choice is between having a student get a zero on an assignment for "cheating" versus working with that student to create an alternative assignment which they can complete & which engages them with the course material on a level they can manage then to me it seems like a pretty clear choice between "no learning" and "some learning."

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

When I see stuff like this I kinda want to bash my head into a wall:

To start off, I’m not sure whether this person was commenting on book or show Cersei, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because she’s so much more than the ‘ambitious villain’ or the ‘murderous girlboss’ tropes in both the book and show.

(Of course, I do have my issues with the way Cersei was written in the show like most people but this is simply a rant post so I’m not going to go through the differences of Show vs Book Cersei)

Cersei is a female character who was shaped by her environment, who’s insecurities were created by her environment, and she’s a woman who’s idiotic mistakes can be traced back to how her environment shaped her. She’s much more than a murderous girlboss, she’s both a victim of the system and also a beneficiary of it, while also acting as an agent of it to keep the status quo while also desiring what the system denied her.

Cersei is NUANCED and complicated and even now people hate that about her and want her to have been a purely evil woman handcrafted in a vacuum, ignoring the context of her life because readers would rather not engage with Cersei’s victimhood and nuances because that ruins their idea of: She Was The Problem and Always The Problem. (People would rather say that she deserved her walk of shame instead of interacting meaningfully with the theme of systematic gender-based violence that is so prevalent in Cersei’s story. The exploration of patriarchal violence in Show Alicent’s story is done so horribly in comparison.)

And what really pissed me off about these tags is that this person has clearly decided that they don’t care to interact with the nuance of Cersei and are fine with flattening her, and yet they shit on others for not liking Alicent.

Because of the way Alicent is written in this show, she almost always has a ‘woe is me I can do no wrong’ attitude, which of course drives people away from the character (woe is me I deserve to take a child’s eye 🥺). However, what actually annoys me is how she’s made out to be stupid, foolish, ignorant, and inconsistent due to the horrible writing of this show, all of which are deviations from her book characterization. Also, I despise it when people want me to support writing decisions and changes made in adaptations that are downright misogynistic and are meant to attract the male gaze.

But what pisses many people, including myself, off is how the changes made negatively impacted many other characters. Alicent’s terrible characterization is like a black hole that distorts and warps the whole story! It’s annoying af!

So when people like this say: ‘She’s nuanced and people just can’t handle it 🙄;’ I say: No. She’s horribly written and a different character from the book and people have a right to be critical about these changes that stripped a female character of 1) her agency and 2) her intelligence!

And the thing is, there was little reason for the writers to have made all these changes to Alicent’s characterization! In the book she is an interesting character with clear motives and understandable reactions. She’s cunning and ambitious and acts the way a noble lady who became queen would. And despite her clear ambitions and dislike of Rhaenyra, she still makes a comment wondering about who would protect the Princess from Ser Criston, and yet she then takes Cole into her service after his falling out with Rhaenyra. That’s a perfect example of nuance! Show Alicent could never compare to book Alicent’s clear moral values and consistent disregard of said moral values in pursuit of power.

And because of this, Book Alicent isn’t easy to stomach. It’s hard for most people to come to terms with a character like her and it’s even harder for people to feel sympathetic for her at the end when she went mad with grief.

On the other hand, Show Alicent was designed in a way to garner pity, and when the writers felt like her current arc wouldn’t be enough to garner the specific reaction they wanted they would then throw in a time skip and suddenly she’s completely different and yet still Thee victim. She’s designed to be as sympathetic as fucking possible! The camera angles, the background music, and the lighting is set up in a way to make sure you the viewer feels pity or sympathy for her! Cause that’s her role in this series! She’s thee Ultimate Victim!

But too bad for the writers as many people are fed up with this kind of inconsistent writing. Even when the writers created a whole new challenge for Alicent where she’s shitted on by the green council and forced to face the beast she helped to raise, I and many others could never feel any satisfaction as it was clear that once again Alicent was being made to be Thee Ultimate Victim who was just led astray by the patriarchy and was a victim of it and was only just realizing it so don’t you pity her don’t you feel sad for her and now she’s trying to do the right thing so pls pls pls pity her 🥺~ So it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are annoyed by these eNLiGhtEnEd changes that have led to a complete deviation from the source material.

To summarize: Cersei is an excellent fucking character who’s by no means easy to stomach, and because she’s not easy to stomach she’s often reduced to annoying ass tropes by dumbasses who are reading above their comprehension level. But when you actually try to understand her, you can easily see why she turned out the way she did and you can feel sympathy for her while understanding that she’s both victim and perpetrator! On the other hand, Show Alicent is a mess and HOTD is trying to make her serve a different narrative role than she did in the books so ofc people are going to be unhappy with the changes as book readers are once again faced with the annoying reality that the writers don’t give a fuck about the source material.

[official-time-loop-posts]

love a good timeloop-by-choice. you just can't leave until you get it perfectly....you could move on at any time, but you won't. trapped their of your own accord. never growing old and never getting it right

self-inflicted time loops my beloved <3

[amiizuki]

it will be forever funny to me how the flashback portraits of Wittebrothers made Caleb seem like he's had packing peanuts for a brain

(this post ended up becoming quite lengthy, and so did the tags somehow, because I kinda devolved into a rant closer to the end of writing this whole thing, so bear with me here)

so we know that Philip and Caleb became orphans when both of them were still kids. after that, they ended up in Gravesfield and, to fit in with everyone else who lived there, picked up witch hunting and started thinking that witches are pure evil. Caleb knew perfectly well that he's the only family Philip's had left and that he even may be his his only friend, since, judging by the portraits, they've only ever hung out with each other and we don't know if those two ever made any other actual friends.

until one day, during a witch hunt he and Philip were both a part in (something Caleb seemed happy to do, judging by his smirk there), he met a witch – Evelyn – someone he's been taught to hate and want dead by the townsfolk. someone who, again, in his mind, should be evil.

but he just suddenly does a 180 and goes "damn, you can make fire with your hands, you're actually pretty cool"

and then a few days (?) of talking to her later, he's running off to live with her in the Demon Realm, while simultaneously not giving a single fuck about the brother he's abandoning.

(he even runs off with a smile, with a literal :D face, I fucking can't lmao)

Philip ends up seeing Caleb get dragged off through a weird portal and later follows along, thinking something like "no, my brother wouldn't just up and abandon me without saying anything. he probably got captured by that witch we saw together that one time! she probably used some demon magic to bewitch Caleb and took him through that portal to kill him or worse! I gotta go save him!". and, after spending god knows how long in that realm, searching endlessly for his missing older brother, he eventually finds him. but he also finds that Caleb is not only perfectly okay and not hurt in the slightest, he's also peacefully walking together with the same witch who "captured" him, even holding hands with her.

and when enraged Philip tries to attack Evelyn, to protect Caleb from the witch who took him from his home, from his brother, still thinking that Caleb's under her control, Caleb just... gives him a hug and goes on to introduce the witch as his new wife to him (I'm assuming that portrait is the same day as the other three, if not the same scene), also adding on top of that that they're having a child. all as if nothing happened. treating the whole thing like everything's perfectly okay and just another normal day, fully ignoring the fact that he threw his brother away with no care or thought, leaving him completely alone, a full orphan, now with zero actual family left (in TTT, during their backstory, it's said that "Caleb did his best to take care of his younger brother", meaning that either they never got adopted in Gravesfield, or whoever adopted them didn't give a shit about the two, so they still mostly had to fend for themselves), all to go smash some random 5 out of 10 witchussy he talked to, like, 3 times. no fucking wonder Philip killed him!

(btw, jokes aside, it didn't seem like he intended to kill Caleb, because in that portrait where he's ready to kill with a knife in his hand, he's facing forward, while Caleb is actually to his left. so it just looks to me like Philip was gonna try to kill Evelyn again, and Caleb either jumped in front of her to protect her and got accidentally stabbed or he attacked Philip back, to, again, protect Evelyn, and Philip ended up winning that fight. but that's just my theory)

my brother in literal christ and literal titan – why in the FUCK are you just hugging it out with a smile on your face??? you ran off while giving absolutely no warning to anyone, especially your younger brother! why do you think he's here and actively trying to attack you and your new wife? you're not even trying to address the fact that you left him! at least when Luz ran off to a different realm without warning, she had a "I'm still at the camp" cover, so Camila wouldn't worry that much about where her daughter is, and even then she still felt bad for leaving her mother and planned to go back home once summer was over. this chucklefuck, on the other hand, just permanently portaled away to the Boiling Isles, knocked up a witch and fully settled down there, walking around with a big ol' smile and no care in the world. "Philip who? never heard of him"

the only thing that would sorta make this situation seem better (as in, not make Caleb seem like an overly naive ignorant brick), in my opinion, is if they added one more portrait – after the one where he meets the witch, but before the one where he leaves. in that portrait, Caleb would look like he's trying his best to convince Philip that witches aren't actually evil, and perhaps even try to get him to go live with them in the Demon Realm, all the while Philip's looking at him with either disagreement/disappointment/disgust or just rolling his eyes and full on ignoring him, while sharpening his witch hunt tools or something. then it would look like Caleb at least tried to make his brother change his mind, like he tried to offer him a chance to go with them. but no. with the way the portraits look in the final version it just seems like Caleb was fully on-board with killing witches since he was young, even pulling his younger brother along to think the same way, Philip also thought that Caleb was perfectly fine with killing witches, but once he actually meets a real witch (assuming they've never met one before) he instantly pulls an uno reverse card and just runs off with her, without so much as telling his brother beforehand.

I'm not trying to say that "Belos should've been redeemed, because he's the victim here and Caleb is bad and it's all his fault". he still murdered his brother and went on to manipulate everyone on Boiling Isles for centuries, with his end goal being the death of all witches, while simultaneously being stuck in the loop of "denial" and "bargaining" stages of grief – repeatedly trying and failing to recreate a perfect copy of Caleb, but also killing each one that came out wrong or went against him. Belos not being redeemed in the end was the right choice (ignoring the "Belos was always le bad" from King's dad), I agree with that. frankly, if he actually got redeemed in the end, I'd probably be seething for the next 3 to 5 years, like how I did after the Diamonds' "redemptions" in SU (yes I'm still pissed about that lol). I'm just saying that, from what was shown to us, Caleb didn't seem like that good of a person either, not as bad as Belos ended up being, but still not that great. and, once again, seemingly had a raisin for a brain.

(off topic, but during Masha's retelling of Wittebane's backstory, their "sounds like big bro got a hot witch girlfriend and little bro got upset" line was so fucking cringe, it gave me a fever for 3 days the first time I watched the episode)

k, rant over, I dunno what else to add

TL;DR: I think Caleb was dumb as a brick, because, from what was shown to us in their backstory, he seemed to have run off to Demon Realm and abandon Philip without telling him anything beforehand. when Philip came to BI to look for his brother, who he assumed was under control of the witch who "took" him, since he thought his last living family member wouldn't just abandon him, and when he eventually found him, and it turned out he wasn't in any danger at all, Caleb just brushed the whole "I left you for witchussy" thing under the rug and pretended everything was and is perfectly fine, even though it clearly isn't. rip bozo

[camellcat]

just finished crush on my s5 rewatch and oh my god I NEED to know what the general opinion was when that episode first came out. how did y'all og buffy fans react to that??

[thisismeracing]

can you please write about Mick getting carried away making out with you in his drivers room

hi, nonny, since you did not specify I went for a small blurb, I hope that was ok and hope u like it 🫶🏾 here you go.

pairing: reader (no pronouns used!) x mick schumacher

wc: 0.5k

warnings: suggestive language, mentions of crazy places to have sex, dry humping, not proofread. +18. Minors DNI!

It was a bit after quali, the atmosphere hectic in the garage since Mick got P6 to start the next day, but he was just happy you could make it the whole week with him after struggling to match both of your schedules. So after talking with everyone and basking in the happiness of a good, almost incredible, position, Mick went to his driver's room to get back to himself, breathe, drink his water, and eventually change from his race suit.

Both lying on his couch, half of you draped over his still fireproof suit-clad body, you were lazily running your nails on the nape of his neck and even threading your fingers through his short hair. Mick was anxious, but a good kind of edgy, more relieved after all the stress, but he was happy with the fact that he had you around to pamper him. The truth was, he missed you like crazy.

So when his hands tightened around you and his lips found yours in a heated kiss, you were not even slightly surprised. He surprised you though when he moved his body to have more access to you and pushed your dress higher exposing your thighs and panties.

“Mick,” you breathe, trying to catch up with both: the fact that he doesn’t usually make out like this outside your house especially not at his driver's room where god knows anyone could walk in, and the fact that his kisses were hungry, taking everything he could. Curious, but precise, hands wandering around your torso, or legs.

“I just- missed you so much, and I am so relieved I got a good start for tomorrow,” he mumbles against your neck, lips biting and kissing your flesh and consequently getting a whimper out of you.

He hardens against your tighs when he hears and feels how your body answers to his. It’s just a beat before his lips find yours in another kiss, and his fingers brush against the inside of your legs nudging them apart and fitting his body there. You moan when your most intimate parts brush together and Mick swallows it grunting and smashing your bodies even closer.

“Fuck, Micky, you’re making me horny,” you hiss, grinding your pussy against his hard cock, still covered by his race suit.

Schumacher smirked against your lips, biting your chin and kissing your jaw, his hands starting a path to your chest, he was well aware of how hard your nipples were against the fabric of your dress, however when he was almost there, finally on the verge of throwing everything throw the window and fucking you on his driver's room couch, someone knocked on the door.

“Media duty again in 15, Mick!! We will be waiting.”

“Scheiße,” he cursed, dropping part of his weight deliciously on top of you.

You giggled, bringing his body closer and hugging him.

“Guess we won’t be able to tick driver's room from the crazy-places-to-have-sex list just yet,” you joke.

“Well, we still have 15 minutes,” Mick grins suggestively.