#i am the middle manager of oracles

[svere-online]

A friendly family game of dodgeboon

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Found this while going through my fanfic files, and i absolutely had to share.

Danny: i want in

Red robin: …what?

Danny: your bat family. I want in.

Red robin, blinking in surprise: i dont know what you think you know about my associates, but we're not-

Danny: dont be obtuse. I know youre the smart one. And i also know that your all one big relatively happy family. I want in.

Red robin: …why?

Danny: because you guys are the first people ive found that are wealthy, intelligent and powerful enough to take on my fruitloop godfather and win AND are decent enough human beings that i can be assured that when all is said and done, my well-being will remain a top priority.

Orphan, appearing out of nowhere: new brother!

Danny: *stares in shock*

Danny: *sudden uncanny grin* well that's one convinced. How do i win over the rest?

Orphan: no need. New brother!

Red robin: *pointed glance of betrayal* fine. Who is your godfather?

Danny: vlad masters. He's a fruitloop.

Red robin: for real? B's been investigating him for years! Tell me everything! *genuinely excited for a new lead*

Danny: well, he's tried to murder my dad and marry my mom, gained his wealth illegally, committed voting fraud to become the mayor of my hometown, has a secret underground lab where he does unethical experiments, and he's abducted me more than a dozen times even before my parents disowned me to make me his evil apprentice or whatever. Now that im homeless, he's literally out to get me. Oh! And he's cloned me too! She's cool though, we're buddies now.

Batman, who just arrived but heard everything over comms: hn. (Translation: who are you?)

Danny: my name is Danny. No last name anymore, but im hoping itll soon be Wayne! *winking suggestively*

Batman: hn? (how much do you know?)

Danny: enough to know that youre a much better alternative to vlad.

Batman: …hn (i dont know anything about you. What if youre a spy for vlad?)

Danny, giving his salesman pitch: i was a teen vigilante in amity park before i had to run away from home for my own safety. Vlad is one of my rogues. I know how to fight and defend myself, how to minimize collateral damage in a fight, and ive gotten really good and escaping kidnapping attempts. Ive also managed to reform and/or make allies out of approximately half of my rogues and can talk down about 30% of all rogue confrontations before they turn into a messy fight. The other things i can bring to the table are: one, i can teach all of you guys proper liminality self care; two, i can probably minimize and possibly cure red hood's anger issues; three, i can get along with stabby robin because i consider fighting a friendly social interaction - he can even stab me and i wont be injured by it; four, i can be your go-to guy for supernatural cases so you no longer have to deal with that sad trenchcoat man; five-

Red robin: *blurting* youre hired.

Batman: hn (i am deeply concerned)

Danny: if youre concerned now, wait until i tell you about the anti ecto control act

Nightwing, who showed up in the middle of the sales pitch: ive never seen anyone crack B's grunt language so quickly

Danny: grunt language? He's just using ghost speak - which will be covered by the liminality self care lessons

Robin, who arrived with batman: what is a liminal?

Danny: all of you, of course! Otherwise you wouldnt need to learn about it, obviously

Robin: and why would we trust you?

Danny: did i mention i have a pet ghost dog?

Robin: …you drive a hard bargain

Danny, fist pumping: yes! That's three!

Nightwing: four, you got me when you could understand B's grunting

Red Hood, arrived with nightwing: five, assuming you arent lying about the pit rage

Danny, hand to his chest: i would never!

Orphan: honesty. Earnest. New brother.

Oracle, over comms: six. The anti ecto acts are legit and im terrified for his safety, assuming he's phantom, who is the vigilante of amity park

Spoiler, arrived with orphan: seven, as long as youre down for a few pranks

Batman: hn (ive been outvoted)

Batman: hnn (i dont wanna hear any jokes about adoption habits when you all forced my hand)

Batman: hn (that said)

Batman: welcome to the family

Duke, the next day: man, i miss out on everything exciting.

Duke, blinded by danny: and who the fuck told bruce he could adopt the fucking sun?!

[cosmic-ghost-hermit]

What animal do you most resemble and why?

So just so yall know before you go to your piles. The animals in the pictures might not be the creature that you most resemble. I am using the Untamed Spirit Animal Oracle in this reading. Please take what resonates and leave the rest behind but always be open to new perspectives about yourself.

_________

PILE ONE

Astrology: Pisces, Sagittarius, Aries

Song: all i ever wanted by Mazie

Vibes: 🖤💙🔭✈️🕷🦋🕶🎓🐾🌏🌊🫐🍙🧊🎧♟🦽💎⛏🛋📘✒️💤♿️🔊♠️🏁

Cards: Lion, 5 of Cups, 7 of Wands, The Void, Karmic Relationships

Hi, pile 1! Welcome. These cards tell me you look most like a lion. I can see some of you have prominent noses that make your face very lion-like. All of you have the most piercing fierce eyes. I also see you have soft hands and nice nails that you probably get done regularly. You are legit gorgeous and you have this extensive hair routine you do almost every day. You might wear a bonnet to sleep or you have a silk pillow case to protect it. I can also see you are surprised by these compliments. You have some self-esteem issues that frustrate you a lot. These beliefs you have about your physical appearance are built around the opinions of others. First off, they only shit on you cus they are jealous. These cards have a weird undertone of relationships so I think maybe you had a partner at one point who was SUUUUPER jealous of how beautiful you are. Wow, they are pressed about it. They probably said some extremely mean things to you about your appearance that stick with you even though it doesn't look like they are around you anymore. I hear them saying you have RBF or something. You have literally nothing to feel insecure about my dear.. Like you complimented yourself in the mirror around this person and they like immediately tried to knock you down a peg. Dude, that person is SO ENVIOUUS. Don't listen to their words. You need to see through their words to the true emotions behind them. Don't let these jealous people dim you light, girl!!! Their words are not based on reality. It is distorted by their emotions. Just know when they look in the mirror all they hear is their momma tellin them they're ugly as fuck. They were just projecting their insecurities, baby.

PILE TWO

Astrology: Taurus, Leo, Aquarius

Song: Body Talks by The Struts, Kesha

Vibes: 💛🧡❤️💙🎁🧿💰🌅🏖🚦🚚🚎🎯🎭🏅🍹🫐🍂🌊🌈🌏🍁🐠🫂🤖🥶😰

Cards: Badger, 7 of Pentacles, 5 of Wands, The Seven Star Sisters, Jump In

Hey there, pile 2!! You have such an interesting energy. The animal you most resemble is the Badger. So from what I'm reading from the other cards this is less of a physical resemblance and more of an attitude resemblance. The way you hold yourself is like you do not give a fuck what anyone thinks about you. You had many people around you growing up who were considered "conventionally attractive" and for a long time, this bothered you. I think sometimes it does still bother you but you have grown your self-esteem a lot since you were little. You got tired of fighting for attention real quick. You realized how dumb the competition of appearance is and began to explore your expression more for fun rather than to fit in. You have a unique way of expressing yourself, especially with your make-up. Dark eye shadow is your signature look. It makes your already really unique eye color pop like nothing else. You dress very alternatively compared to your siblings and/or friends. The style does have a touch of whimsicalness to it too. I see some of the people who picked this pile have a curvy body type. You keep your hair short for the most part because it's easier to manage while short. You truly have such a fantastic head-turning style. I really do love your energy, my dear. Like, wow you are fucking awesome. I would have looked at you as a kid and wanted to look like you so bad.

PILE THREE

Astrology: Scorpio, Libra, Gemini

Song: The Middle by Jimmy Eats World

Vibes: 🤍🖤🔎🖋🧷📓🩺🔬🔌📷📼🎥🎹🎼🎤🎧🎬🌪🐚🪨🐇🕊🦢🐈‍⬛🕸🐰👟

Cards: Toad, Fox, 8 of Swords, 2 of Wands, Double Mission, Deep Cellular Healing

Oh, pile 3. This is gonna be a kind of shadow work-y kind of reading so just be prepared to be called out okay? Trigger warning for SA. You make yourself ugly on purpose. You hid your beauty from yourself. I dunno exactly what you do to hide it from others but I see you wearing clothes that keep your shape a secret. You do your make-up in a way that accentuates the dark cycles under your eyes. You make yourself look sick and dying. You force yourself to believe you resemble a Toad. I don't blame you, my friend. You went through something truly terrible that made you feel ugly so you express it outwardly constantly. You believe you are ugly because of what happened. What they did to you didn't taint your beauty, homie. You aren't dirty. You aren't hideous or unattractive naturally. You are so scared of what happened, happening again. It makes you put up these defenses in-order to feel safe. My friend you are already safe without these defenses. You might be doing way more harm than good, my friend. If you stopped hiding your true beauty from yourself, you would more resemble a Fox. These cards are encouraging you to heal from what happened to you mentally. Your reaction to what happened isn't wrong but you shouldn't destroy yourself because of how others treated you. You are stunning and so naturally gorgeous. I hear you saying that your feelings about what happened don't matter. That is a lie you tell yourself. That is a lie someone else told you. What happened to you was truly awful. What they did to you was disgusting but it doesn't make you disgusting. It makes THEM disgusting. What THEY did is disgusting. You are beautiful. You are so drop-dead, star-struck glamorous! You aren't a toad. You are a fox. Please embrace your authenticity because you deserve to feel good. You deserve to see your body for what it truly is.

PILE FOUR

Astrology: Cancer, Capricorn, Virgo

Song: Honey And The Bee by Owl City

Vibes: 🤍💖💛🦦😜👄☀️👟🐁👙👑🎂🐱🐻‍❄️🌙🦭🌸🌼🍣🍰⚾️🎗🎟🎲📿

Cards: Otter, Queen of Cups, The Well, A New Earth, Called

Pile 4. You are so fucking cute. Like so cute. Like I feel your energy and all I feel and think is "Awwww~ What a cuuutie!". You most resemble an Otter. Which in my opinion, ARE SO FUCKING CUTE!!! I see you like to color your hair in pastel colors and it's SUUUPER long. Like you have been growing out your hair for a while now. You have this cute little button nose and these super pretty dark eyes. Ohmygods you have no idea how much I think brown eyes are the prettiest eyes. You put a lot of creativity in your outfits so you always look so snatched and dolled up. You like the long flowy dresses and shirts that billow in the wind. They make you look like a fairy. You always smell like incense and sea salt. You probably love swimming or surfing or some kind of sport you play in the water so you are very lean. I see you might be pursuing some kind of profession in the beauty industry. Either that or you just look like a model and people think you are one. You wear these pretty flowers in your hair that give you this gorgeous halo of lavender. You have been absolutely blessed by Lady Aphrodite. She loves you like her child. She blesses you with fashion sense and soft features.

[whetstonefires]

I was really enjoying the recent 'Amanda Waller vs the Entire DCU' Justice League storyline, because Waller is one of my favorites and this story just kind of pulled out all the stops on her.

Sad her Brainiac Queen Oracle-bot 'daughter' didn't get a longer run; kind of like Slade Wilson the fact that Waller is a middle-aged parent who has not done any actual parenting for a long time informs her character in fun ways imo, so the superbot calling her 'mother' was great. Waller is so much fun, and very like with Lex Luthor it's always a delicate balance between letting her be cool and letting her eat absolute scenery. (Before inevitably eating floor.)

Her premise is very much like. What if Batman was just some guy, where 'guy' is gender neutral, and the terms are set that by 'just some guy' we don't mean sane and normal, we mean not in a position to become a fulltime superninja.

Her chosen weapon instead is bureaucracy.

Her backstory, which as far as I know is still current, is she was a normal middle-class citizen whose husband and one of her kids went out one evening and got shot to death in a Random Gun Crime.

To which she responded by going back to school, getting a doctorate in Political Science, and seeking employment with the federal government. Because this trauma led her to crave access to power.

(Because she spends so much time mixed up in questionable scientific research etc you'd think her 'Doctor Waller' was because she's in STEM, but no. Polisci.)

Also more like a normal person and less like Batman, she is not particularly hung up on protecting other people from suffering the way she did, except on the most abstract level where if the world is reordered to her schema, this will stop the Bad Things.

I love this. I love how much of a brass-bound bitch she is. How impossible she is to intimidate or convince to look 'up' to anyone ever. Every time we get to see Waller up against some objectively more powerful baddie and she cleans their clock or just ruins their day I am hooting and hollering. She's fantastic.

But. Just like with Lex Luthor, it is very important that she also sucks. She's selfish. She overreaches herself. Her plans get the people who trust her killed; she cannot resist taking advantage of her position for personal advancement--never anything as trite as embezzlement, either, it's always about power.

She has taken the Suicide Squad down with her so many times and yet she keeps getting appointed to head it up again because she Has Experience (and other people who try to do the job tend to rapidly get eaten by a sharkman or whatever), which is not exactly realistic but it's an exaggerated parody of how management positions do tend to work, so it feels believable.

She has so much contempt for supervillains, and yet whenever it comes down to the punch she falls into the lure of that same megalomania, and then things blow up in her face.

Is there something distinctly Problematic about the character whose destiny is to be repeatedly destroyed by her own hubris in seeking access to specifically institutional power a black woman? Little bit, yeah. But it also works so fucking well specifically because her lack of perspective about when she's gone too far becomes so much more sympathetic, when you know just from looking at her how many bullshit barriers she had to burst through to get where she is.

Anyway I always get excited when she's in things.

[svere-online]

[aprillikesthings]

I only ever watched the first twenty minutes of this a couple of years ago so I'm watching this today (yes, for my fic ahaha) and will note my thoughts:

"they're AGAINST so many things but are they FOR anything?" I mean, ....some of them were

The opening scene where he's walking down the street and a bunch of hippies start walking with him and grinning is hilarious

There's a shot of a young woman who is supposedly having "a freak out" (a bad trip) being dragged into the hospital by cops, and she sounds somewhat lucid to me ("do my friends know where I am? where are you taking me??? where am I??") but also, I don't think putting her in a cop car and dragging her to the hospital was likely to improve her mental state. (All they can do is give you a bed, keep an eye on you, and maybe sedate you; tho I suspect they also just restrained people sometimes.)

they interview a doctor who says "there's no way to predict who will have a bad trip [on LSD]" but we sorta did know how to prevent them?? Set and setting was talked about for years already. That said: a lot of people of that era did in fact use it very irresponsibly, or did stupidly high doses, and even gave it to people without their consent.

"They try to live without money but still beg" I mean. yeah the problem is that you can't live without money. But some of them were trying to make money obsolete to some extent (like the Diggers).

Watching a scene recorded at the offices of the San Francisco Oracle, I can't help thinking "man those would be worth money now" (I checked ebay just now--actual print copies of original issues are in the $100 range)(I have scans on DVD, which is by far the cheapest way to own/read it)

They interview a guy working there and he says "life should be a joy, and it's a drag!" and he talks about the "absurdity" of people driving to work every day in metal boxes by themselves, and like, he's not wrong. He also mentions the "alienation of middle-class life" which again: not wrong, especially at the time. Suburban life was just so much more stifling.

"They want a group of mutual support and affection to belong to" Well yeah that's. a normal human desire?? Does Harry Reasoner think that's a bad thing?

Oh hey they cover the Diggers feeding people in the Panhandle once a day: "This feeding typifies the hippie ideal of standing apart from society by means of mutual help and love. It contains its own ironies, for the daily feed is itself dependent on the food being offered by the very society that is being rejected" jfc so much of this just has big "And yet you participate in society!! Curious. I am very intelligent" energy lol

Okay so a doctor dude calls out how hippies say they love everyone in a very general sense but are incapable of loving another specific person that "might make demands of them," and tbh I think that was sometimes true. He also talks about how many of them seem to be using LSD because they struggle with managing negative feelings (especially anger), and again: not entirely wrong. (It's worth noting that in interviews with people who'd been teenagers during the Summer of Love, there were a LOT of stories of people escaping abusive homes, including numerous accounts of CSA, which imho puts the "they do LSD bc they can't deal with negative emotions" in a very different light)

A couple of hippies point out: Y'know we do drugs in part just to increase our sensory experience, right?? Like it's great listening to music on it. You know that, right????

"LSD will damage your chromosomes!!" Thankfully, that one was disproven.

So they interview a young guy in a psych ward about his experiences with LSD, and this poor kid describes what was obviously severe social anxiety, and that taking LSD a few times cured it--he was no longer anxious that other people would reject him, because LSD gave him that (very common on LSD) effect of feeling "at one" with all people/living things/the universe, and instilled in him the concept that all humans are beautiful. "I'm not afraid of people anymore, because even if they reject me, they're still beautiful." Harry Reasoner is like "but it's fake" my dude shut up. oh my god. Harry: "but what about dangerous people?" Kid: "yeah, there's dangerous people, but they're still beautiful." Harry' just like "okay but you SHOULD be afraid of other people" and the kid's just like. Nah.

Like, they're researching using hallucinogens for treating things like anxiety NOW. Because it sometimes works!

Tbh this kid seems pretty lucid and smart. And the reason he's in there is that he "talked about God too much" so his mother had him committed.

Harry: "So tell me what God's like." Kid: "First of all God is everything, so he's like everything. He is everything. There's nothing that he isn't." This kid doesn't seem crazy to me. He's saying shit tons and tons of people have said!! Someone give him a copy of Julian of Norwich's "shewings." He's not alone.

Holy shit they interviewed this kid's mom and wow. Yeah she's just. Refusing to actually validate anything her son has said to her. "I can't describe to you the feeling that it gives you when your son says to you, 'Can't you feel it, God is everywhere...' But I told him, 'You don't see God until you die!'" Your son is saying the same shit mystics have said throughout history, lady; and he's expressing himself very clearly for a teenager. I'm not going to quote all the bullshit she says but she clearly just has a very sensitive son who had anxiety, and LSD gave him a sense of wonder at the universe, and she thinks that means he's crazy. (She does mention that drug use should be a medical issue and not a criminal one, so points to her for that; but based on what they showed, her son shouldn't have been locked up.)

They also interview a teenage girl who is there after multiple suicide attempts. She was on LSD when the people she was with sexually assaulted her, and shortly after she first attempted suicide. And again they interview the mom...who describes a textbook case of major depression after a traumatic event: "She lost interest in herself, she was very lethargic. She didn't want to do anything, even things she used to do." The girl attempted suicide two more times. Mom is trying to do the right thing, here. But again, this wasn't the fault of LSD?? It's the fault of the people who assaulted her?

God, this is heartbreaking: "When I found out, I didn't know what to say. And she asked me, 'Are you angry at me?' and I said, 'Why would I be angry [at you]?' I just didn't think this would happen. I wanted something better for her." ;_;

They bring on some doctor of neuropsychiatry who says absolute word vomit ("This is really a very serious malignant form of modern civilization which means that we no longer have the stamina to really hassle with our youngsters in a purposeful way of learning," and he keeps going! Sir, are you DRUNK?)

They go to a crash house run by the Diggers and act like giving homeless kids a place to sleep and food to eat is harming them. But you see this even NOW in cities with high homeless populations--the idea that housing/feeding them is only enabling them. (Don't even get me started that shit it makes me furious.)

They admit the hippie movement sounds real attractive to young people and openly list the reasons: "The way they dress, the way they advocate love as opposed to hate, peace as opposed to war, self expression as opposed to inhibition. All these things put them in the role of courageous and warm-hearted rebels against cold stiff square old-fashioned authority." I mean. Yeah????? I know people hate on boomers a lot, but for real, they were rebelling against pretty hardcore "conform or die" messaging from the 50's, plus the Vietnam War.

"Doctors see a universal danger in use of LSD: they feel that normally rebellious young people may be turned into emotional cripples. At a time when they should be meeting and solving problems of sexuality and personal identity, they deaden their drives with a magic pill which solves nothing. They may never grow up." This is at least half "suffering is good for you" rhetoric. Also by "sexuality" they don't mean "figure out if I'm gay" lol they mean "realize you might want sex, and therefore get married and have children."

The talk to a few people at one of the Digger crash houses. One of them is like, "I like it here. I have my own room and I cook food for everyone." She literally just....found a sense of meaning by helping people out and being around people with the same ideals as her. This is not a bad thing.

BAAAHAHAHAHA THEY GO TO THE GRATEFUL DEAD HOUSE

They admit plenty of the hippies are hard workers trying to create a better world--but because that better world is at least partially inspired by their experiences on LSD, those ideas are completely dismissed.

Look at this BABY-FACED JERRY GARCIA

Anyway the members of the Grateful Dead talk about how they do want a more peaceful world and a simple life (hahhhhh) and that, yes, most people decide to be hippies after doing LSD, but that plenty of people do it a few times and stop, because they've learned what LSD had to teach them.

They show people at a rock show, dunno where, but there's a liquid light show projected onto the stage and people are dancing, and ironically this is SUPER useful for my gd fic because I couldn't find any CROWD SHOTS from the original Fillmore or Avalon! Anyway apparently said theaters didn't sell alcohol, useful to know.

More scare-mongering about bad trips--which they admit could be brought on by being hungry and sleeping outside. (but giving them a warm place to sleep and food to eat is bad??)

OH HEY they talk about the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. (I looked it up and TIL: They didn't close until 2019.)

Some discussion of how other drugs were starting to come onto the scene--and they show a guy slumped over on the couch at the clinic. (On a related note: for real, heroin is bad. Like the anti-drug people are actually right on that one. Don't do heroin.)

The guy who started the clinic said that a lot of the older doctors who volunteer there, themselves have kids who are hippies. So there's this need to understand their kids better and a drive to help people like their own children. "The attitude [towards hippies who need healthcare] of 'let them die' changes when it's their own kid." Yeah I bet it does.

More from the guy who started the clinic: "One thing that people don't realize is that the Haight-Ashbury is a symptom, not a cause. And that the kids are attracted to the Haight-Ashbury because of some deprivation, primarily intellectual deprivation, in their former mode of life. And I think this is why [kids from] the middle class are so intensely involved in the Haight-Ashbury: because it is a product of the middle class. It's not a peripheral movement, it is a direct reaction against the forces that control the United States. And it's not an anarchist movement*, the hippies aren't interested in any philosophy, including communism! They just want to live their own life."

(*Some of the Diggers might disagree on that one lol)

Back to Harry Reasoner: "The way the hippies want to live seems in the end to consist of childish postures. They claim they want to be left alone, but they are masters at setting up public occasions which are bound to draw attention if not interference. Just as an unruly child will act up in a way that attracts adult intervention, and then complain about it." LOLOL this is literally just "they're having fun in public and it's not to my tastes, so I don't like it." Like their example is a band playing on a fire escape and people on the street dancing. That's Wholesome, my dude; you just don't like the music or the kind of dancing. But they BLOCKED TRAFFIC OH NOES. The cops show up, the band stops, the crowd starts singing "God Bless America" at the cops, lolol. Oh and then the Grateful Dead announce they're gonna play in the Panhandle, so the crowd wanders off. The Dead then play Dancing in the Street, which even Harry Reasoner admits is funny.

"They object to the ills which beset society: social hatreds, money-grubbing, spiritual waste. But their remedy is to withdraw into private satisfactions." ....okay he's not entirely wrong there. Like, it's difficult to talk about hippies as this monolithic group that all want one thing, because that absolutely was not true. But for plenty of them, the goal was just to have a good time.

Finally, he lays out his theses:

"You can say three things about them. They, at their best, are trying for a kind of group sainthood. And saints running in groups are likely to be ludicrous. They depend on hallucination for their philosophy. This is not a new idea and it has never worked. And finally they offer a spurious attraction of the young: a corruption of the idea of innocence. Nothing in the world is as appealing as real innocence. But it is by definition a quality of childhood. People who can grow beards and make love are supposed to move from innocence to wisdom."

I.....what does that mean. Why are saints in groups "ludicrious." When was it tried before that didn't work. How the fuck does this guy define innocence and wisdom and why are they mutually incompatible??

And boy oh boy would he hate to find out that a very common idea among these people's kids/grandkids is going to be "I'm allowed childish pleasures and whimsy, as long as I pay my bills etc., if they make me happy and I'm not hurting anyone." Like, I watched this thing because I'm writing fanfiction about a cartoon (theoretically) aimed at children. Daci is downstairs playing a video game. This house has dozens of stuffed animals in it. We go to comic conventions.

Harry Reasoner would be so mad at us for doing all that stuff, instead of doing the marriage/kids/house in the suburbs thing ahahahhaaaaa

In this case, sir, the hippies won. Sorry.

[svere-online]

Oh hey btw if anybody from supergiant is tracking tumblr rn lemme just shout out there that if y’all wanna reference a dodgeball with Apollo at any point in the game please go for it consider this my blessing

[havendance]

Batgirl, for the latest ask game?

Ranking for all the Batgirls I've read even though, as is about to be clear, I am biased.

4. Bryan Q. Miller and Gail Simone -- Both of these suffer from the fact that they are not Cass. Sorry. See note about me being biased. I think think I like Simone better as a author than Miller but the fact is that Milller has Barbara as Oracle and Simone is making me read way to much about James Jr.

3. Adam Beechen -- I will defend this book! Yes, it's not the level of Batgirl (2000) and it has its rough spots but it's got it's good points too and I liked seeing Cass wrestle with everything that had happened.

2. Horrocks and Gabrynch -- Another tie because I feel like I've revisited these two runs much less. Gabrynch might inch ahead of Horrocks on regency bias because I reread the last bit of Destruction's Daughter recently for the Orpheus Cass fic, but he also had that bit in the middle of his run that really kind of dragged and while I don't remember Horrock's run as well, nothing's also sticking out to me as particularly bad.

1. Kelley Pucket -- do I need to elaborate? This is the era of Batgirl I love the most. It feels so her in a way that other runs don't quite manage.

[lfthinkerwrites]

*spins wheel* Penelope Young and... *spins wheel* uh, Stephanie Brown. Huh, this'll be interesting.

That is interesting!

Stephanie wasn’t sure how she felt about Penelope Young.

Sure, she was doing a lot of good work trying to stop Strange, and sure, everyone deserved a chance to be better, but this was still the woman who had created the TITAN drug. Hell, this was a woman who still fell in love with Edward Nigma. There kind of had to be an upper cap on just how good a woman like that could be, right?

Ok, maybe that was a little unfair, but still.

Everything Oracle had told her about Dr. Young suggested that she was a cold, calculating professional. Someone who was always put-together, always in control. Someone who was as close to an opposite to Stephanie Brown as one could imagine. The woman Stephanie had dealt with in the hospital however? It felt like Babs must have been talking about another Dr. Young.

Dr. Young was a constant presence in Edward’s room. She was always sitting in a chair next to his bed, her eyes never leaving the comatose man. She never spoke. Stephanie wasn’t sure she slept. The only time she would seem to come to life was when Stephanie would bring Ellen into the room. Dr. Young would try to smile, ask Ellen about how her day at school was, but it never sounded convincing to Stephanie. She doubted Ellie was convinced either, by the way the younger girl would shoot concerned looks at her.

Today was no different. Two weeks since Edward’s coma, since Dr. Young had returned from Arkham City, and there was no change. Edward was still in a coma, and Dr. Young was like a ghost haunting the room. Ellen had walked out to use the bathroom, leaving Stephanie with the doctor.

Dr. Young's face fell as soon as the door shut, her eyes dropping down to the still form in the bed. She gently placed a hand on Edward's face, brushing his now long bangs out of his face. It was an intimate moment that Stephanie felt awkward seeing. She let her eyes drift to the floor, trying to give her as much privacy as possible.

"Thank you."

Stephanie blinked. Had Dr. Young just spoken to her? "Huh?"

Dr. Young was looking at her now. Her face was blank. "Ellen's told me how you've been looking after her. Thank you for that."

Stephanie rubbed her elbow. "You're welcome." Dr. Young gave her a small nod, then turned her attention back to her comatose lover. Had Edward ever told her who Batgirl really was? Stephanie doubted that. Ellie certainly didn't know, and if Edward would tell anyone, wouldn't he tell her first? The room felt too quiet. Stephanie spoke again. "She's a good kid."

"Yes," Dr. Young agreed without looking up. "She doesn't deserve-" her voice caught in her throat. "It's my fault," she managed to choke out. "I brought Edward into this."

Stephanie wasn't sure what to say. "Don't blame yourself," she said finally. "He wouldn't want that."

"Edward never cared about reforming Arkham," Dr. Young continued. "He only started opposing Strange for my sake, and he was almost killed because of it. And now Ellen's in the middle of this mess too."

"Strange had already come after him before. They were going to face off no matter what. And Ellie..." God, Ellie. "She was the one who sought him out," she said. "Edward chose to have a relationship with her." Dr. Young looked up sharply. "I'm not blaming him for anything," Stephanie said quickly. "It was just...really, really bad timing." Way to go, Steph.

Dr. Young's shoulders slumped. "What am I going to do?" she murmured. "How am I going to keep Ellen safe? Even if Harley keeps her word, Sharp won't hold back forever. And Ellen has so much anger...I'm afraid of what she'll do."

Stephanie narrowed her eyes slightly. First Selina, now Dr. Young...didn't anyone have any faith in Ellie? What exactly did they think she'd do? "I think she has a right to be angry," she said. "And even if she's angry, she's a good kid. She's not going to do anything crazy." Stephanie took a breath. "Look, I've been thinking about-"

Dr. Young's eyes hardened. "I know what you've been thinking about," she said. "Selina told me that you're considering training Ellen. The answer is no. I won't let you."

Stephanie felt her own resolve harden. "No disrespect, Dr. Young, but that's not up to you. You can't speak for Ellie."

"I can speak for her father," Dr. Young responded. "And he didn't want that. He has never wanted that. He went along with Batman's plan to infiltrate Arkham to make sure she didn't get a chance to put on a costume again! I can't pretend I understand why you put on a costume, whether it was out of some sense of obligation or just for the thrills, but you are not dragging Ellen into that lifestyle."

'Lifestyle'? Really? "She's already halfway there, and she got there long before I came into the picture," Stephanie argued. "I'm the one who found her on the streets wearing a homemade costume and hitting punks with a hammer!"

"And if I remember correctly, you took a bullet for her. She watched a man die. She almost died. Twice. Why do you want to expose her to even more trauma?"

"I don't!" Stephanie shouted. She took a quick breath to calm herself down. "Believe me, I don't. I wish she could go back to just being a normal kid, but she can't. Not as long as Strange is around. And I think deep down, you know that."

Dr. Young didn't answer. Instead, she looked down at Edward's body and reached for his limp hand. This wasn't the cold professional Babs had told Stephanie about. This was a grieving woman trying to hold on to what she had left.

[explode-this]

Let’s try something: no more ghosting in 2024!

First, let me clarify that I’m not talking about anything where discussion/argument/confrontation would put you in physical danger. Gauge your literal in-the-moment safety as much as you have to and be careful; sometimes you do have to pull up stakes and leave in the middle of the night to prevent further abuse. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about when it’s hard, or awkward, or you feel like hiding away. Yes, anxiety can be a physical experience (boy howdy), but you can work on it. It will respond to practice. With time and determination, you can actively communicate your needs and wants, tell your friends that you feel sad/anxious/not in a great place to communicate but aren’t running away forever, or politely inform a new dating interest that you don’t think it’ll work out but you wish them well—or someone you’ve been seeing for a while, if it’s not working out. (I understand this can be compounded by a partner’s own issues and perhaps tragic events, but it’s not fair to either of you to stay in a relationship just because you don’t want to add to their woes.)

Think about what scares you and why. Interrogate it. If you’re not much of a diarist, start. Writing with pen or pencil or typing things down will give you a physical way to think through your problems—“thinking by hand.” Then you also have something to look back on (to see how you’ve grown/changed/found other ways to deal with stuff), or alternately, something to destroy (like burning an unsent letter if you’ve gotten out a bunch of things you never want anyone else to read). It doesn’t have to be pages upon pages, or formal, or neat and tidy. Maybe it’s just a few sentences or you make a collage or pull some tarot cards or something. Whatever works to keep a record of yourself.

If therapy helps you, great, but sometimes you get a therapist you don’t vibe with/can’t afford to see regularly, or they don’t set any kind of “homework” to help you apply the talk-therapy to the outside world, or you sort of outgrow the need to have someone talk you through your stuff on a regular basis but haven’t been left with any tools for working on your own. I am only one person and I’m only sharing my own experience, so do what you know works for you, but for me: keeping a daily journal (google docs and/or paper), shuffling tarot/oracle cards and seeing what pops out, setting small manageable goals in my hobbies/interests and human connections (some examples: read 10 pages of any book; make a new art thing; text a friend), and keeping a daily to-do notebook really help. I even put the names of the people I want to stay in contact with regularly on my list so I don’t forget they’re there—I may not remember to text them that day, but it keeps them in the front of my mind. This is probably an ADHD helper for me, so if that’s not your problem, don’t worry about it! These are suggestions, but ultimately, it’s about you and finding what helps you stay in touch with yourself and others so you are less likely to quietly scamper away from connection and leave people wondering if it was something they said.

Treat people how you’d like to be treated. Be kind and considerate. This isn’t always easy! Like I said up there, it takes practice. Your mind and spirit require just as much work as physical muscles do. It might feel awkward to talk to people, but find what works for you. Maybe it’s sending some memes or a song or a video. Maybe you’ve been out of contact with friends for a while and feel like it would be weird to come back. That particular muscle ache will go away, you just have to get going. Now, the brutal part of this is that you might risk rejection or a harsh response. But getting through something like that can increase your capacity to face down interpersonal conflict.

This is not an edict. It’s not a total solution or a scientifically proven answer. It’s just some ideas and I’m just one person on the internet. You don’t have to listen to me. If this isn’t for you, you’ll know it. But if even one suggestion helps you connect to yourself and others, awesome! Make it your own. The power is inside of you; you just have to find it.

As far as we know, we get one life. Don’t be a ghost here on earth. You’re worth more than that ♥️

[spoocyshrub]

*It has been silent within Allervale. No major events, no attacks, no word from the Brood Father. Many of the mudokons enjoying the peace they have. As the mudokons go about their day, Afareet slips out of the village. He heads for the fishing pond and makes his way to the abandoned cave that was used by Jeni to show the past to Abe and his family. The lord of the dead silently stood within the cave, searching for something. That Something soon made his presence known.

*An abnormally large Glukkon. Holding a black cane with a green swirling orb. Unlike most glukkons, this one had feet. He was dressed in dark robes and green jewelry dangling from his person. The Glukkon exchanged a smile and a warm chuckle as Afareet stood in shock at the presence.*

“It has been a long time since we managed to speak in person, Afareet. I am glad you could make it.”

“Noddaba…? How did you escape the Brood Father’s hold?”

*The glukkon gave an amused laugh. His voice was very gentle, almost like a grandfather’s amusement of their grandchildren. His smile held and he seemed unburdened with worry.*

“I am able to permit myself some freedom. I can only do this for a short time before he notices. It is not easy, but this is the first time I’ve managed to escape without being noticed. I wish to speak with you urgently.

Afareet, I cannot share the full details, but I foresee major events happening in the upcoming battle with the Brood Father. Ones that will greatly affect minor outcomes in the future.

I see one soul that will escape your chains of death; I see a presence black as night torn from the child of light that will seek your mercy; and I see the presence of a mudokon long dead…his fate being held in the balance of mortals.

Afareet, if you are not prepared to break your sacred vow you have the oracles uphold, I will do it myself. You know I have never been the type to follow the rules when my family’s happiness is at stake. Or have you and Oddalynne been robbed of that memory as well?

Things need to start changing in this family if you and Oddalynne value your sons above all else. Because so help me, Afareet…

If you and Oddalynne keep neglecting your sons like Astara and I have witnessed you both doing, Mark my words, Umbriel’s threat of him taking them from you will be the least of your concerns. You will have to worry about your sons possibly latching onto us once this mess concludes.

Do I make myself clear, Afareet? You may be the feared lord of the dead, but Astara and I can both be forces to be reckoned with, especially when our godchildren are in the middle.”

*Afareet’s eyes were wide, but the god swallowed back and nodded to the elder god. Noddaba gave a heartfelt chuckle and nodded back, followed by a “good, very good.” Noddaba then tipped the circlet on his head and walked past Afareet. Summoning the lord of the dead to his side as he made his way out of the cave. The two stared at the pond for the longest time before Noddaba scooped a small pebble into his hand.*

“Now. I want to spend what time is left of my freedom peacefully. Can you teach me about this “Skipping stones” game I heard so much about?”

[svere-online]

I’ve already reblogged this but someone reminded me I can do this

LMFAOOOO ELON MUSK JUST GOT STABBED BY AN EX TWITTER EMPLOYEE

[lucky-strike-14]

I got a letter from the Bad Detox today. It's a written record of the shitfuck meeting I had with them, where they called me a liar & told me they would put up some posters, basically so future clients won't do such a poor job detoxing as I did. I knew it would be bad before I opened it, & I did everything I could to prepare myself: put my favorite Krishna chants on the stereo; lit the candles, butter lamps & incense; changed into pajamas & robe. I didn't meditate, but I watched the birds at the feeder & breathed for a while, as the water was heating for a cup of decaf tea.

I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it would upset me. I used the best tools I have. That's important. It shows I'm growing, or learning, or both. I didn't just charge into something I knew could enrage me, & when I read the letter, I did get angry, & I'm still angry. But I'm not enraged.

I knew the letter would be bad, but it manages to be worse than I expected. They're denying everything, of course, hiding behind their shitass, possibly false, certainly copypasta'd recordkeeping. They can't verify what they never wrote down. Conversely, can't say something important didn't happen if they just keep recycling a report saying it did. But they manage to be even more condescending in writing. They really do all but call me a liar directly. They even -- get this -- suggest if I'm dissatisfied with their service & their response, to call some fucking community health network, presumably for addiction care(???), when my original complaint included the fact that I had to go to a real rehab, because the way they treated me was so fucking awful that I relapsed on the fucking drive home. Like, it's really fucking sick the way they're handling this.

And no one with any power to do anything seems to give a shit.

It's hard not to sink into "everything is hopeless" mode when I really am let down over & over & over again, but I'm trying not to, because it's important in order to heal. There's a middle path between Fight Forever, & Let Them Turn You into a Round Peg. I can't see it, but there is one. I'm trying to walk as close as I can to it, without looking at what's on either side. Like the first gate Atreyu has to cross to reach the Southern Oracle, I guess, kinda.

I also learned today that the investigation I initiated with my state's Department of Health is concluded, & the investigator never even attempted to talk to me. So, fuck this state, I guess.

[starfriday]

***

Augnito Appoints Hamza Moftah as Associate Vice President of Sales to Accelerate Growth in the GCC Region

Mumbai – 6th June 2024 - Augnito, a leading provider of multi-lingual speech recognition, generative AI, and natural language processing technology, is pleased to announce the appointment of Hamza Moftah as Associate Vice President of Sales. In this role, Hamza will leverage his extensive experience to augment and lead Augnito's growth in the GCC healthcare ecosystem.

Hamza Moftah brings over 18 years of private and public sector digital health transformation expertise across the EMEA region. Built on the bedrock of nearly a decade with Oracle Health (Cerner), his career spans management consulting roles at prestigious firms such as PwC and EY, as well as significant positions in leading regional digital health and MedTech startups like Brighter and Okadoc. Hamza's specialties encompass a wide range of areas, including Digital Health Startup Partnerships (B2B2C), Consumer Digital Health, Virtual Care, Health Information System/Electronic Health Record Implementation, and IT Strategy with Roadmap.

Rustom Lawyer, Co-Founder & CEO of Augnito, expressed his enthusiasm for Hamza's appointment, stating, "The GCC region is of paramount importance to us as AI innovators. Hamza's deep understanding of the digital health landscape and his ability to drive impactful change will be instrumental in our mission to empower clinicians, ensure the highest levels of quality and precision in documentation and administration, and improve patient outcomes in the region."

Piyush Arya, Chief Growth Officer at Augnito, highlighted Hamza's potential to drive the company's business growth: "Hamza's extensive experience in digital health transformation, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE, makes him an invaluable asset to our team. His past work experience and strategic acumen will undoubtedly accelerate our growth and position us to carry out our mission of improving documentation quality, reducing claim denial rates, and improving revenue cycle management for enterprises and clinicians across the GCC."

Hamza expressed his enthusiasm for the new role, stating, "I am delighted to join the Augnito team and contribute to their vision of transforming healthcare through intuitive voice-based technology solutions. I firmly believe in Augnito's potential to make a significant impact in the global healthcare market, and I look forward to leveraging my experience to drive the company's growth and success in the GCC."

Augnito's recent partnerships with leading healthcare institutions in the Middle East, such as King's College Hospital London (Dubai), Cloud Solutions (HMG Group), Prime Healthcare, Dallah Hospitals, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, RAK Hospital, among several others, have showcased the company's commitment to driving innovation and creating significant impact for the region. Augnito's software is built-in compatible for native Arabic speakers (language and accents) and offers seamless enterprise IT solutions coupled with a differentiated approach to customer success.

With Hamza’s appointment, Augnito is well positioned to accelerate its growth and strengthen its presence in the GCC. The company is committed to providing state-of-the art voice-based solutions that empower healthcare professionals, improve the quality and efficiency of clinical documentation, and ultimately enhance patient care

[hydralisk98]

What is F(L)OSS about really? (Preview #1)

What is licensing, ownership and rights about?

I often describe such throughout the software domain but can easily be applied almost everywhere in society, like in hardware and culture. If I am not mistaken, it pertains to what you actually is your own, either it is home, furniture, computer hardware, software, artistic media, equipment, et cetera. Licensing is similar but has a more autonomous / shared ownership meaning applied.

And the reason why I believe that matters so much is because while the majority (of the human bell curve of demographics*) oftentimes ignore and brush off their personal agency on the wider scale of human planetary affairs, that attitude of distributing their energy & efforts towards current grand managerial bodies like big corporations and big governments is a quite short-sighted perspective and has a quite negative impact in our present day and potential future(s). It is not exclusively negative one-sided story but still, profiteers are not providing enough value for what you invest into their zone of control, monetary or otherwise... and that is very concerning considering the current global society context and the decisions made by such staff of managers & "drones".

The non-profit organization that is Creative Commons as well as my provided hyperlinks across this article should give you a decent insight into matters...

Spectrum of licensing paradigms

Copyright, the large landlords & proprietary ownership models pertain to the old Liberalism way of thinking (at least if we are to follow it under late-stage capitalism, liberalism and the philosophy of contemporary feudal US law). Not always bad and could really be better implemented as seen in the centuries prior to now.

(I mean, when things were less... structured, competitive, authoritative and rigid in the West and elsewhere, the autonomy and liberties allowed by such a paradigm of a abundance of workforce & income was nice to have and use, but not without some costs even then. Compared to now where things also have costs but as those grew for the low & middle classes and were not compensated by such rigid old models by the aging rich baby-boomers population yet, which is a shame considering all sides really could use a update / upgrade in their to persist in profits and long-term positive legacy.)

But as of today, it is so often misused and taken to extremely abusive extents as shown by the actions of major corporations going all over with massive-scale spying (look at Oracle data tracking record of like 5 billion people and growing), malevolent compliance (look at how both Apple and Microsoft comply heavily with US governmental guidelines for data collection, either by on-chip spyware or otherwise...), critical citizen censorship (like in Continental China, Russia and even the US of A as demonstrated by Edward Snowden's), corporate cooperation & corporative law-craft evils (Valve & Nintendo implicitly agreeing to shutdown Dolphin emulators on Steam, the way Microsoft-Mojang Minecraft falls apart over 1.19 update matters and how major corporations overall back each other up knowing their days are counted), vendor lock-ins, big tech oligopolies and marketshare dominions, expensive prices for very low value provided even for corporate agencies, too much managerial staff oversight control on decisions over workers, failing advertising economy, low-security bottlenecks with malware + botnets (thanks for the "infinite" loop of "security" with leaks, major failures & bulk password breakers trade market against consumers being traded against the will by black hat hackers & operatives that get paid by every irresponsible hidden or not governing bodies autonomously in lawful impunity, that unofficial though-police & cultural choices fails the potential of us all and will accelerate much the descent to further of a societal collapse that is entirely unnecessary if we are to rise to the stars on-time for the dream we were sold to in life), overstaffing & underpay (Amazon & every other mainline corporation abusing his employees for quicker short-term profit, paying very often low-as-in-slavery wages and Amazon taking full control of their employees' communication channels for drone promotion), menial purpose-less tasks and walled garden policies (looking at Apple's overpriced options being less competitive than the value and price paid for such, as well as the hopefully not soon Microsoft going onto such a exclusivity market that they alienate the best in their customer base into migrating away to non-exclusive environments like Linux), along many other situations / issues as revealed by information leaks & literal living in this global culture, both in explicit and implicit forms.

Copyleft, open source, free culture and library economy are the basics of our best bet to solve our current state of affairs, at least compared to what late-stage capitalists offer to us. Not the best thing forever more, but something quite more competitive and more appealing both short-term & long-term to the other corner in the licensing spectrum for the next few centuries, (or until the copyright catches up in given value to the customer and ethics to the lower classes fast but that's very unlikely due to the current rich folks' greed & ideology...) After all, today's enthusiasts, indie artists and modders are tomorrow developers, maintainers and architects.

Permissive licenses, public domain, and third-way alternatives?

~

Nuances on licensing

~

I have a fairly specific example in mind over one thing we should do better for despite the prejudices ill-fully distributed concerning AIs androids and other smart instruments. You see, as a sapient-kind that most likely desires progress and growth for yourself and potentially other individuals, we have a strong responsibility to cater and take care of both ourselves and every single thing we have agency over (to an agreeable extent ofc, not zealous over it) for both autonomous GAI agents and our current clade / species of humans alike... (there are likely aliens and further future humans species awaiting to be born from our efforts this century, unless the meta history is exclusively a job for some other elder sapient species coming before ourselves, which is extremely unlikely)

Seeing how the current mainstream APIs (even OpenAI and Stable Diffusion's) and datasets available for generative AIs, machine leaning models and other such autonomous agents are quite unethical / illegally acquired and heavily biased against a few core values we share instead of promoting the better parts of our psyche and species, I wanted to point out and encourage the independent & humanist re-developments of such technical promesses before the time when we might lose fully those freedoms / rights to develop the very basics of such future-oriented infrastructure.

After all, if we desire to make sure of both growth, progress, autonomy and abundance for us and our species now and onwards, we need to make sure that we get the rightful tools for stellar expansion on-time. And among those Quality-of-Life things that will help us by far for such a purpose and more will be a benevolent GAI (modular?) system. And that takes initial efforts and gentle caring humane guidance to show and bias such a GAI module into the brighter futures that we aim for really. Also, we should not screw up the future of our species (and other sapients') seeing how grand, and magnificent those futures are really headed towards. (See Stellaris, Isaac Arthur, melodysheep and Kurzgesagt)

That being said, I design my constructed world for multiple purposes including to emulate / simulate history, learn & develop my skills, advocate for my worldview and show to each and everyone why how and what matters for the prosperity of the whole species.

~?

Of course, here is the not-so-surprising cliffhanger twist ending of how all of it relates to (Woodrow) Wilsonism, global politics, socio-economics & the last half-millenium of historical patterns...

But that's for a later article. So take care and farewell!

[svere-online]

If you choose to complain about running out of things to watch because of the strikes your options are either I cave your face in with a lead pipe or you sit down and watch One Piece.