#i still have fictional character trauma from 2009

[listening-to-thunder]

Luffy & Oden: Parallels Wano eyecatches 960-965 | 966-971 | 972-976

[cptdark]

reviewing everything starring mads mikkelsen (ongoing)

Mild spoilers warning - I am vague but I do describe endings and progression as negative/positive, so if you don't like knowing what happens at all, beware.

Bleeder (1999)

His character in this is quite endearing. A young movie fanatic, a bit reserved and awkward. The other characters' stories are much more chaotic, so in comparison, watching his perspective feels more safe or peaceful. The ending was a pleasant payoff. Awkward, but sweet in a special way. I guess you could say this movie may have a message about testing your comfort zone in hopes of meeting better people to surround yourself with.

The Door (2009)

The first half of this movie is the better half, and the second half felt a bit absurd or boring for me. I enjoyed that he is a painter, and wish that was revisited more often. I really felt his fall into depression, and I enjoyed the motif of water and repetition of trauma. And then of course, the door is an interesting mechanic. My favorite part of this movie is when he meets himself. Horrific, shocking, amusing, and dramatic. Those were very memorable scenes.

The Hunt (2012)

The scenes involving other characters were hard to sit through, but I felt the discomfort was somewhat justifiably necessary for enforcing realism; it's not meant to be theatric or entertaining. The longer the movie goes on and the more the situation develops, the more it matures like wine, and his' turmoil grips you. All the action he takes are so enthralling. I love the convenience store scene and the church scene (picture above). The conclusion may be beautiful, but the ending is dreadful. I looked up the meaning/interpretation of it, and that rounded my appreciation for this film. It's sociological commentary. Very true message, whether you like it or not: Once trust is betrayed in a community, it can never be completely earned back. There will always be someone who remembers that rumor, and will try to exile you from society. I believe the title only makes sense after the film is over. You could see the rumor as a scar left on him, like a wounded animal, while other people notice it, and like wolves, they will freely decide to exclude him from their pack, leaving him to die alone.

A Royal Affair (2012)

You'll really watch this waiting for his character, and be thankful when he arrives. He ultimately influenced the world and people around him for the better. The development is very interesting, and the pacing feels full. You will suspect specific twists of drama or betrayal to happen, and everything that does happens is very realistic- since it is based on a true story- yet still just as interesting as if it were a fictional thriller. At the scene where the priest fidgets with this cross, I arrived to the same quiet realization soon after he did. The priest is praying for forgiveness in his heart, as well as the cross foreshadowing a crucifixion. I felt heavy even until the credits, though the last scene was fulfilling. I don't know anything about Denmark, but this was a great introduction to the 'most dramatic event' in its history.

Men and Chicken (2015)

This character is very unexpectedly different from his other roles. Regardless of whether the comedy fails my humor, seeing him acting like this is humorous in of itself. I'll write a review after I've finished it.

Doctor Strange (2016)

There's not a mountain of Mads content or his signature charm here, but it's very interesting to see him as a flat antagonist with not much depth at all. His darkness is sickness, like it makes you feel hopeless for him. Dark, as if he has surrendered himself to the drug of black magic. It kind of scared me. Also, the magic distorting and fracturing architecture is beautiful.

Arctic (2018)

This movie amazes me, despite its simplicity. It's pure survival. It's morbidly dreary, but then you see he has it figured out. His system of survival sets you up to believe in him and assume a vicarious spectatorship that is held and tested for a long duration. You're never sure if they'll make it, but you don't want them to give up. There is a lot of energy expended just to survive, which radiates a warmth, a sense of self-fulfilling purpose, with the risk of the cold biting it away into hopelessness and death. I really felt the twists and turns, the decisions and mistakes, all the way through.

Polar (2019)

It's simply satisfying to watch him do what he does, a classic toughguy trope. This is an adaptation of a comic, (which I haven't read) and I enjoy how the style is adapted. The female deuteragonist is precious. It feels as though the movie is split into two sides; a double life, blood versus quiet. Both of the characters can be found in this duality of mental states, trauma and seeking peace for it. They may be similar, yet they are almost polar opposites. I love them. I really enjoyed the twist, a bomb drop after all that painstaking effort to survive, and the conclusion tempts me to know what happens next in the comics (if there is more, that is...).

Death Stranding (2019)

It's been a while since I've sat down and watched through a playthrough, but with that being said, I love this game... because I treat it like a movie. I will say, I like stories that play with mortality and perception. It was very interesting to meet Cliff as a father figure in claustrophobic recordings, and then meet him again as an antagonist with immaculate symbolism and aesthetics. He is trapped in the battlefield, like a dead soldier, and/or a traumatized man. Stasis, incompleteness, and sacrifice would appear to be themes. I really love the nonlinear storytelling. I really enjoyed the twist/reveal. It probably gave me goosebumps when I first saw it.

Another Round (2020)

This is probably one of my favorites. I appreciate a story that serves a thesis to life. I can't say much of my thoughts because I literally just watched it, but I think it executed the idea well. There's a lot of moments of amazing payoff, but you know how much of it may become bad, yet the dread of knowledge doesn't nullify any of what you experience along the way. It also feels rare to see other characters surrounding his character to have such a bond and impact to him. The ending felt so out of key in the perfect way. It's a profound (philosophical) party movie.

Hannibal (2013-2015)

A few years ago, I had watched the first two seasons, and had basically zoned out halfway through S3, then stopped... for some reason that I've now forgotten, after experiencing the finale. It's stuck with me and may for some time. 3rd season is proper good, and gave clarity to the character of Hannibal, and conclusion to Will's relationship with him. It's as though on your first watch you are as blinded as Will, despite knowing as a viewer that Hannibal Lecter is obviously (or very likely) the 'Chesapeake Ripper' in the show. The veil is lifted from his eyes once, but there are still layers yet to peek through, the nebulosity of darkness shrouding the relationship, (for Hannibal intrinsically has a 'dark' mind; seemingly insane by all humane reason) and yet onward do they get to know each other... like any other relationship. Rewatching is very enjoyable, because you can now assume Hannibal's perspective after learning his patterns and values, stripping away the mystery and watching the characters trying to arrive to where you are in understanding. Plenty moments where all Mads gives is a seemingly empty glance, but after obtaining objective knowledge, there is infinite texture to it. Very humanizing, Hannibal almost becoming a bit more alike Mads' other roles, (that of which being protagonists) yet still an antagonist.

[scifihobbit]

Yuletide Letter 2023

I’ve been participating in Yuletide incredibly sporadically since 2009. I love it here! It's such a fun look at what we as fandom care about and such an incredible labor of love from everyone involved.

I'm scifihobbit over on AO3 as well. I am very open to treats. Thanks for reading my letter! (I didn't get this posted in time to include it with my sign-up, but maybe you found it anyway.) We all know the mantra, optional details are entirely optional, so, if you even see this letter, don't feel beholden to it, just use it as a jumping off point if you're so inclined.

I enjoy yuletide for so many different reasons. The gift work isn't the end-all be-all of it. (It's about the friends we made along the way!) So, if you're feeling anxious, know that I'm going to have a great time no matter what, so, have fun with it!

Things I'm a sucker for in general

Character studies

World-building

“There was only one bed”

Found families

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/Comfort

Broken characters finding ways to heal each other in general

Using smarm to hide wildly low self-esteem

Extremely close, to the point of being unhealthily codependent, friendships

Playing with genre conventions. (i.e. Something that couldn’t be easily shelved in a bookstore that insists on having a literary fiction section and a sci-fi/fantasy section and a thriller section etc.)

Canon compliance. (This is not to say that I wouldn't enjoy a story that takes canon in an unexpected or unusual direction. Like I said, throw genre conventions out the window, but I would love the story to have emanated from somewhere in canon.)

Queers and queerness and queering

DNWs:

PWP (I'm not particularly prudish, I just like me some plot, or meandering conversation.)

AUs

1st person narration

2nd person narration

Major character death (that isn’t canonical)

mpreg (well.... Lower Decks pulled it off, but, in general.)

A/B/O

Non-canon unrequested romantic relationships

Rape/non-con

Fandom: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon) Characters: (any combination) Kayshon Samanthan Rutherford Shaxs Dr. T'ana

Request: It is hard to explain how much I adore this show. I was raised on Star Trek and this show never disappoints. Every episode leaves me with a smile plastered on my face basically the entire time. I love the entire crew (and especially the main 4), so I've just requested a FEW of my favorites, but feel free to write about anyone on the Cerritos and mix and match! A few prompts/ideas for my requested characters below. (But really, all of these prompts/ideas could apply to just about any of the crew. I just want to know more about them!)

Kayshon: I am still not over the concept of Kayshon! I love him as an addition to the crew so much. The Universal Translator is a constant source of fascination for me, so of course I love the Tamarians and their whole deal. Anything you want to do to explore that would be amazing. I'm also curious about how Kayshon navigates life on the ship and in Starfleet in general. (I love the little moment where Ransom uses a Tamarian phrase and Kayshon is touched.) What does he miss about Tamarian culture? What is he surprised and delighted by on the Cerritos? How does he spend his free time?

Rutherford: My perfect cinnamon roll of an engineer dealing with more trauma than any everyman ever should! I love his energy and optimism and eagerness, and am of course fascinated by his backstory. (If you want to explore that more you should absolutely feel free! But, also, it is a giant can of worms and if you would prefer not to touch it, completely understandable.) Despite what we've learned about Billups, I won't ever be able to stop shipping Rutherford with him at least a little bit, so, if you want to explore that, be my guest. (At the very least Rutherford has a competency crush on Billups and it is adorable.) Whatever engineering adventures you want to send him on I am thrilled to follow. Whatever downtime activities you want to drop him in I'm delighted to read.

Shaxs: I love Shaxs as grumpy mentor to all the floundering ensigns. I love his one-up-manship with Kira. I'm curious to know about his time in the resistance and what brought him to Starfleet. I'd love to see him interacting with other members of the crew (lower deckers or not.) His speech to Boimler about how security's there to protect the crew's emotional well-being too was so wonderful and I'd be delighted to see more of those "missions."

T'Ana: I love a grumpy doctor! (Bones is my fav. I'll be a Pulaski defender for life.) I want to know everything about T'Ana's backstory and what she gets up to in her off hours. What was her time at the academy like? So Caitians used to hunt Betazoids?? Does she indulge in some "most dangerous game" time in the holodeck? Who are her heroes in Starfleet? Who inspired her to be where she is? (Even if she'd never admit it.) What are her friendships with the rest of the crew like? Just give me T'ana content!

More Feelings: I asked for Lower Decks last year, too. So you can check out my 2022 Yuletide letter if you want even more of my giddy delight. Also, my Star Trek and LWD tags are overflowing on this blog.

In general, Vulcans are not my jam. And I find Jennifer kind of irritating... I'm usually annoyed by the mirror universe and section 31, but if there's any place they could be properly skewered, it's in Lower Decks. My Star Trek knowledge runs deep, but I'll admit I gave up on Discovery around the beginning of season 4, didn't finish Prodigy, and have never seen The Animated Series.

Also, since Star Trek essentially invented the AU, there is certainly some wiggle room here around my AU DNW.

Fandom: Severance (TV) Characters: Irving Bailiff Burt Goodman

Request: Irving and Burt ran away with my entire heart and I want so much more about them. This was one of those rare delightful times where I started shipping something not believing the show was going to go there, and then it did!

I would be happy to read about some of their innie's stolen moments. It would be interesting to know more about their life on the outside. (How did Irving take up painting? What kind of solace does he find in it? Why did either of them decide to go through with being "severed"?)

More Feelings: This show is just so good. I love all its weird mysteries (the goats? the green house?) Its aesthetic. The found family of the MDR division. This is another show where I'm incredibly fond of all the characters, so if you want to bring in more of them, please, feel free! I would love to see Irving talking to someone else in MDR about his relationship with/burgeoning feelings for Burt. Feel free to go wild hypothesizing what might have happened after the terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad cliffhanger of season one, or set things firmly within season one.

Fandom: Oppenheimer (Movie 2023) Characters: Leslie Groves J Robert Oppenheimer

Request: Leslie's fascination with Oppenheimer was so interesting to me. I did not expect to come away from this movie with warm feelings about the military general played by Matt Damon, but man, did I.

Anything you want to write exploring their relationship (platonic or romantic) I'd love to read. They're just such an extreme set of opposites that their begrudging admiration of each other is so interesting. Their dynamic is endlessly compelling. I love how intrigued Leslie is by Oppenheimer. I find Leslie's pragmatism vs. Oppenheimer's naivete fascinating.

What was day-to-day life for them like at Los Alamos? Did they ever run into each other years later? (I'm going to be honest, I know next-to-nothing about the actual history around these people, so feel free to play it fast and loose. But also, if you're the sort of writer who likes to get lost in the nitty-gritty, don't let me stop you!)

(Do I think they had "the world might end" sex before the first test? Yes. Yes I do.)

More Feelings: Are you detecting the theme of incredibly driven, rather geeky people being drawn to each other despite/because of their differences in these requests? (I might have just noticed it myself...) I've had a soft spot for Cillian Murphy for a long time now and he was stunning in this movie. Everyone was. It was incredibly well acted and I just feel like the scenes between Groves and Oppenheimer crackled. (Well, most of the movie did.) Again, thanks for reading this letter! Have so much fun! Happy Yuletide!

[sofarsofastmp3]

hellooooo in the interest of getting my brain moving again and making my hobbies feel a little more concrete, i'm taking the babiest of baby steps and making monthly wrap ups! i read a lot, and eclectically, and i am usually reading like six different books at one time. i like literary fiction/nonfiction and sports nonfiction the most, but how well i'm faring in the brain is almost always directly correlated to how many mass market paperback romances i burn through in a month.

before we begin, i spent like two hours while making this ruminating on my reading month and i won't lie, friends, i feel WEIRD. i want something to GRAB ME!!! if you're still with me, please recommend me something that made you want to run laps around your living room i need to be saved. this does not make the following books bad, the worst of them are merely Fine and i think two of them are Great, but i do think deprivation from lap-inducing literature is dangerous for the heart and soul, especially as we march into summer!

winterblaze by kristen callihan (darkest london #3)

this was an accident. while doomscrolling on hoopla at the end of april, i started what i assumed was a standard, if more darkly toned, stand alone historical romance. it was the fifth book in the series but i didn't think it mattered! because histrom series usually! stand! alone! anyways, due to a really vague blurb, i did not realize it was paranormal (in this case, vampires and elemental magic) until i was in the middle of the prologue. i inhaled it in two sittings and immediately started the series from the beginning. these books do not stand alone. i find they get better as the series goes on, and are a seriously goofy/fun/dramatic time if any intersection of historical romance and paranormal romance is your jam. i did not realize it was mine!

shadowdance by kristen callihan (darkest london #4)

most of the above applies here. for the record, i gave the first four books in this series 3 stars on goodreads (the first book, firelight, was rounded up from 2.5/5. when will that fucking website give me half stars! i beg.)

love at six thousand degrees by maki kashimada

i love tiny weird books! unfortunately, this one didn't totally land with me. the narrator abruptly leaves her husband and child and goes to nagasaki, where she has an affair with a japanese-russian man. it moves pretty fluidly between the third and first person, ruminating on the narrator's current situation and past trauma. it's short, but not rushed, which i really liked. i just felt a nagging when i finished it, like i was missing something. if you like affairs and japanese fiction, i really enjoyed fault lines by emily itami!

evernight by kristen callihan (darkest london #5)

(re read) the one that started it all is indeed my favorite. i went back for context, but i do think it's possible to enjoy this one as a standalone. their story is pretty isolated, and the two main characters don't spend a ton of time together on page in previous books. i only feel comfortable suggesting this because i did it! and i had a blast! sorry for thinking it's a little romantic when two people take turns trying to kill each other. i have never been a vampire girl. i dnf'ed twilight in 2009 and decided they weren't for me! i might be an adult convert.

soulbound by kristen callihan (darkest london #6)

this one is bananas. i was anticipating it because it's teased at the end of book 5, but i made myself catch up before i moved on, and i'm really glad i did. i still haven't started the actual last book in the series because i just don't know where else she plans on going. i can't really talk about these much without spoilers so. this is where i leave you. these books go down so easy, which i do not mean as an insult or to be patronizing. to borrow a phrase sarah maclean uses, they just do the job!

the favourite by alice coldbreath (brides of karadok #6)

i said i read eclectically, but my highest read genre by the end of every year is typically historical romance. i wasn't kidding about it being my "cry for help" media but i do have deep, genuine love for the genre. i love nonsense! and drama! and so many of the biggest writers are so prolific, they really lend themselves to marathoning. all this to say, i irregularly listen to 3 different romance podcasts and have spent some time on the histrom subreddit. take me at my dorkiest or not at all. alice coldbreath came highly recommended, especially on reddit, and i'd seen a few rave reviews of this book specifically. it stands alone, set in a fake medieval kingdom, and i simply cannot tell you if i liked it or not. i partially blame the grating audiobook narrator, so i might give one other book of hers a go via ebook before determining "it's not you, it's me."

london's perfect scoundrel by suzanne enoch (lessons in love #2)

i mentioned loving nonsense and drama. this has both, in a way that is not for everyone. evie is trying to help out at an orphanage, whose board is headed by the marquis of st. aubyn (who goes by saint, which is of course deeply ironic because he is- as the title suggests- a scoundrel). everyone in this book is insane, but not in a way that makes me want to recommend it, especially to anyone new to the genre. i promise i can be a better hypeman for historicals! they are so good! sarah maclean's books are most fun read in publication order, and these are further down the line, but her bare knuckle bastards series has more fun "bad guys" and more bonkers plots.

string theory: on tennis by david foster wallace

i did get challengers'ed. i've been broadening my sports nonfiction horizons for the last few months, but i can't sit here and tell you i finally read about tennis as an accident. i have andre agassi's open on hold at the library as we speak. i added multiple books about federer to my to be read shelf. all this to say, these essays are great, and my favorites were "how tracy austin broke my heart" (because he understands what i want out of sports writing) and "federer, both flesh and not" (for my deep and all consuming love of reading people wax poetic about The Greats and also the beauty of athleticism and sport. i will NOT mention moneyball. shit, sorry).

anything is possible by elizabeth strout (amgash #2)

i read my name is lucy barton sometime last year. i liked it, but didn't love it, so it took me a while to continue. anything is possible is a collection of interconnected short stories about people in and around lucy barton's life, told years after she's left amgash. i liked this collection more than the first novel of the series, and i will be continuing the last two books but i just have yet to LOVE anything from strout. i think what frustrates me the most is how up my alley this series should be. i love sprawl! strout's writing is incredibly direct, and these books are not long, but after 4 books you essentially have 800 pages of lucy barton. i love character study! and community study! but, outside of a handful of great moments, i just feel kind of lukewarm while i'm reading. i think the great moments are what annoy me the most, actually, because it's proof she can get something out of me! i wish she'd do it more.

just for the summer by abby jimenez (part of your world #3)

(book club) i joined a book club full of mostly strangers because i am 24, in need of more human interaction, and so so so brave. i liked this more than i thought i would! a lot of people are complaining about how "heavy" the subject matter in traditionally published contemporary romance is getting, but i'm all for it, as someone who loves to be walloped and delivered a love story in equal measure. mommy issues abound in this one. however, there is a line of dialogue where someone threatens to "unalive" someone and i got so mad i had to stop reading for a little bit. she pulled it back around, but i will never forget, nor will i forgive. grow up. threaten to kill him.

and that's may reads from the most overly verbose girl you know! i'm not sure there is a single coherent thought in here. love you bye <3

[mihrsuri]

Top 5 fics meme

Tagged by my saati @shes-a-voodoo-child which reminded me how good her Lix/Randall in Spain fic is, among others. These are in no particular order except the first. 

1. Such a time as this (The Tudors, Anne Boleyn) this is my favourite thing i’ve ever written. It’s Anne Boleyn as Esther, as a biracial Persian (and Syrian) Jewish woman - inspired by the fact that she had her chaplain preach a sermon about Esther and thinking about anti-semitism, about the way Christianity uses the Esther story. I wrote it despite my terror of getting my own identity and faith wrong - it’s about identity, about being safe nowhere and yet the joy of being Jewish even so. About being a biracial Persian (Syrian) Jewish woman myself, about the power of stories/storytelling and community.  

2. With snow far below (Band of Brothers, Roe/Renee) this fic is from 2009 (it could actually be earlier but it was posted on AO3 in 2009) which means that I remember precisely zero about writing it because uh Trauma Bullshit but this one still sticks with me - Renee is entirely fictional as far as I know but it was very ‘writing about a female character’ feels, especially because one of my history areas of interest is WWI/II and women. I wanted to give her an interiority and a story and I think it really did work. 

3. Monuments, historical and contemporary (Criminal Minds/Pundits, ensemble) this is also from 2009. It’s heroism, how we remember, how we don’t, collective trauma and the ways in which all the ways we do good, do kindness do matter. This one really just wrote itself in a giant flood from the first opening image - it’s set in a friends specific AU verse as well. Also it has what I still think is a very good bit about writers and how they use writing to deal with things. 

4. I am a princess on the way to my throne (Skyfall, Moneypenny/Severine) this one. Because in all honesty so much of Severine’s story was one that I found in mine, because I wanted something different for her ending - much as I loved the movie. I wrote this one entirely for my own joy. 

5. Normality in a post it note cord (Spooks/MI5, Zaf/Adam) this could actually be my very first Yuletide fic (though there could have been an earlier one…) or as I like to call it ‘Adam Carter Is A Fucking Traumatised Mess Send Help. No Seriously, Someone Please Send Help’ and Zaf who is trying to hold it together and kind of is, actually. It’s about identity again as well - the kinds of ways they as spies have one but don’t and the varying degrees of ways that works or doesn’t. 

Tagging (if you want to): @quillington @allegoriesinmediasres @nocompromise-noregrets @captainlordauditor @kawuli @ruffboijuliaburnsides @jackironsides @notabuddhist

[ectonurites]

can anybody please explain the appeal of tim drake because ive been into the batfamily for a while now and tbh im really confused on why people like his character so much compared to the other robins. like they all have their own thing going on and he just... doesnt?

Have you read his Robin solo? Because if not and you want to try to like him but just don’t understand why people do, that’s what I’d recommend. That and like, Young Justice 1998. 

Because Tim definitely... does have his own thing going on. Maybe not in the same way as the others, but like, there’s a reason he has a 183 issue long solo comic that ran for like 16 years: he was fun to read about!

But I will give some more specific thoughts on the subject as a Tim Drake Appreciator™ (this got long im sorry)

The appeal of Tim (especially early on Tim) is kinda the fact that he’s this more normal kid. For a while that is his ‘thing’. He was basically designed to be a self-insert (he definitely became more than that along the way, but from the start he was meant to be relatable) in a different way than how Dick and Jason had been before him. 

Like the role of Robin from the start was this way to create a character young readers could identify with more, could see themselves in more. And Dick and Jason did that, but they still had this element to their lives and stories that was more... unattainable for the average reader. Dick was a circus prodigy, Jason was either also a circus prodigy if we remember pre-crisis or if we go with his post-crisis story he’s this street-wise orphaned kid who had a really tough life but still went on to be a hero anyways. Obviously those lives are relatable for some people, but those’re definitely not as broadly recognized as common upbringings especially not by DC trying to market to the ‘average’ kid/young teen.

But the creation of Tim changed the game a bit. Dick and Jason were these aspirations a kid could look to like ‘wow I want to be cool like that!’ but Tim was a Robin designed for kids to look at and go ‘wow, his problems and civilian life are just like mine AND he’s a hero, I want to be cool like that!’, ya know? Tim was... just a clever kid with an average life who managed to connect some dots and had enough drive to want to fix things he saw were a problem, he didn’t have the same kind of heightened drama backstory the others did. The Robins that came after Tim definitely didn’t have this idea of relatability in mind the same way either. Unfortunately Steph’s time as Robin was much more of a marketing ploy than an actual like... decision to make her Robin, so it’s hard to really fit her into this conversation. But Damian from the start was first of all initially created not to be Robin but just as the son of Talia and Bruce back in the 80’s, but when he was later reimagined into the character that would become Robin he had the whole ‘raised by and is the heir to the league of assassins and is the son of batman’ thing going on still. He just was not supposed to be relatable that same way, he was a character designed with different things in mind.

I really think it was more just DC’s 90′s era younger-audience comics in general that tried to push that relatability thing (like in YJ how Cissie even after quitting the team stays a major character as a civilian throughout, and the civilian aspect that’s super present in Bart’s 90s solo too, etc), but later in the 2000’s that idea was definitely pushed to the side in favor of... putting in even more dramatic superhero-y stuff.

And the other thing that’s... such a more normal thing but it actually made him unique here, was that Tim’s dad was still alive until like 2004 (so 15 years into Tim being around as a character). This gave Tim a lot more typical ‘family school girlfriends normal life etc’ problems on top of/in contrast with his superhero problems. These just manifested in very different ways than they could with the other Robins because of that unique situation with a living civilian parent who doesn’t know about hero stuff (until he did find out which lead to that whole Unmasked thing, but there was only the brief time around War Games & Identity Crisis where Jack knew Tim was actively Robin and he was... still alive) Tim also had his life at school expanded way more than most other Robins, like, he had such an extended supporting cast of civilian friends which is a really interesting thing to read about (and the fact that he hasn’t had that stuff since the New 52 I think really hurts his character)

And then related to that loss of his dad... Personally another thing about Tim that really interests me is how a lot of things were more... his choice. if that makes sense. A lot of characters in the Batfamily were struck with tragedy/extreme trauma before they became heroes and that’s what spurred them into this life of becoming heroes. Tim’s situation wasn’t like that at all! When he first got involved in everything during Lonely Place of Dying, the only tragedy he’d experienced was watching Dick’s tragedy happen. Which sure yes traumatic obviously, but that’s not the same as how pretty much all the other Bats had gone through these very personal losses or other sorts of very first-hand personal traumas that served as motivators. Tim didn’t start to experience those things until after he got involved in the hero life, and aside from his Mom’s death which was more of just an unrelated incident (that technically happened before he was officially Robin but it was during his time training to become Robin), pretty much all these other tragedies and things... would not have happened or been experienced by him had he not become Robin. 

That’s not me placing blame on him or anything like that, because god no that’s not how that works, but it’s very interesting because from his point of view he definitely feels that guilt because he knows him being Robin played a role in a lot of it (Thinking specifically about in Adventure Comics #3 when Kon even says “I know what guilt does to you” to him like it’s... it’s a thing with him!). His dad was murdered because he was Robin. He only met Steph and started dating her through being Robin, and thus he would not have experienced the loss of his girlfriend dying like that had he not been Robin. Tim met both Conner and Bart through being Robin, and would not have had a personal connection to them when they died otherwise. The whole Bruce’s death thing after Final Crisis, like. I could go on honestly, that was only talking about losses not even his own experiences nearly getting killed, but yeah, all these personal tragedies were experienced by him specifically because he chose to bring himself into this life, which I think in turn plays into how throughout his comics you see him go from having this really optimistic view on things and being really hopeful to seeing him at that low point he reaches by the time of Red Robin. (thinking about that one post that points out how Tim started out in the 90′s as an optimist and Steph a cynic and by the time they were Red Robin and Batgirl in 2009 they had switched outlooks...) 

I also think that him having had such a great team book with the original Young Justice can help contribute to people liking him. His friendships with the rest of the core four and that team in general are really compelling. (and that’s something like again when looking at the other Robins, while Dick had the Titans ofc, Jason never really found footing with a team outside of like one mission with the Titans and then We All Know How Damian’s Teen Titans Stuff Went. Steph also only ever really worked with a team outside the batfam on very brief occasions) and even though I’m not as big of a fan of the 2003 Teen Titans run that came after YJ, people who read Young Justice and also that could follow and be attached to those same characters over a pretty decently long period of time. 

Idk man, I don’t really have an ultimate point here i’m just rambling. I can definitely understand not seeing the appeal to him right away (honestly i’ve been into Batfam since like 2013/2014 and Tim did not become one of my faves until 2020) especially if like... idk when you say ‘into the batfamily’ that can mean a lot of different things. If you’re reading more like the bigger events with the batfam sure Tim can kinda fade into the bg a bit, if you’re more talking about fanon the fanon version of him is prettyyyyy uhhhhh not really the same as how he was in pre New 52 canon, if you’re mainly reading New 52 era Batfam stuff then that Tim I also don’t understand the appeal of bc thats Not My Boy, if you’re interested in a different member primarily and only familiar with Tim when he shows up in things focused on that other character then it’s easy to not really understand the appeal right away bc he’s more there to support that character rather than shine in his own right. 

I think it’s also worth mentioning he’s just not everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s totally fine. Like, these are fictional characters and sometimes you just will vibe with a character and sometimes you won’t! idk if this helped at all or even made sense. but yeah. I just think he’s neat 😌

[inevitably-johnlocked]

can we adress how toxic some of these self/harm and suicide fics are?? as someone who has struggled with these issues, treating them as just a way for the two characters to get together, or one character to be the savior who cures someone of their problems? I'm so frickin over it. continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention is a symptom of something major. This is not something i like seeing romanticized. at all.

[CONTENT WARNING FOR ENTIRE POST: heavy discussions of trauma, suicide, self harm, depression, political issue mentions, and eating disorders. Please proceed with care. I am not cutting the post because I think the message is important, so scroll past until my icon disappears <3 Stay safe, My Lovelies.]

Hey Nonny

Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here because you mention you DO have struggles with these issues, so I’m going to state right up front here and say I AM NOT DISREGARDING YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AT ALL. Your view of this topic is valid, and it’s not something I am ever going to say is wrong for you. 

I would like to offer an olive branch, here, Nonny, and give you an alternative take on this, because I’m concerned that perhaps you are still coping with your own struggles and in return, you unwittingly and unintentionally are coming off as unsympathetic to other people’s coping mechanisms.

I KNOW how hard it is to see another view when yours is the only one that seems right, especially after a tragedy or after dealing with heavy things. But all I am asking is for you to temporarily extend some empathy as I discuss my thoughts in this post, and I apologize in advance if I come off as dickish, because, again, it’s hard to see past your own feelings, and I tend to give a “firm but understanding” approach to asks like this. It’s NOT meant to call you our personally. Just asking for an open mind.

I will tackle this ask in a similar fashion to this post here, which talks about shipping vs fetishization so CW for that, as well as like this post here, where we discuss pet peeves. My assumption here is that Nonny is unsure about what “romanticizing” actually entails, and how much this ask is basically Gatekeeping Fiction 101, a thing that’s been going on since the beginning of storytelling. The ask is perceived by me to be emotionally unaware of how unsympathetic it actually sounds, and in turn can unintentionally upset people who engage in these stories.

First thing’s first, Nonny, and I said it before, I GET IT. I understand what you’re going for here, why you feel it’s toxic, and why you think it shouldn’t exist. Here’s the thing, though: what you’re ACTUALLY calling for here is censorship and gatekeeping because YOU PERSONALLY take issue with something, want the fandom specially curated just for you, because it PERSONALLY OFFENDS YOU. And that, it itself, is what’s really toxic, here. Just because YOU are offended, does not mean that it’s not helpful to SOMEONE ELSE, and it’s selfish to make such a demand of people.

Let me explain.

As I mention in the link above re: shipping, many people read and write fics to cope with the reality of their own experiences. Nonny, your experience is NOT the same as someone else’s. Your pain is NOT universal, and you DON’T KNOW what that author has been through; for all you know, they spent 6 months in-hospital after attempting suicide, and they are now simply processing their trauma through storytelling. 

Or, “continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention” ? It’s a VERY REAL THING that ACTUALLY happens in real life, and perhaps it happened to that author, or they want to write an alternate ending to their pain.

Or, “one character to be the saviour who cures someone of their problems?” is something a suicide survivor WISHES someone did for them. Because they feel alone in the world and don’t want to be alone anymore.

These stories are simply escapism for people, either to learn about or share what these mental illnesses do to people, or are the “fantasies” of survivors, of their ideal outcome to their own tragedies. Coping with guilt over the loss of someone they feel they could have saved. The brutal truth about realty.

And sometimes, it is because some people need a good cry and a feel-good happy ending, because real life? Well, it rarely has those happy endings and so few opportunities to let us cry, and sometimes life is just easier when we view it through the eyes of fictional characters. Do you not want someone to save you sometimes Nonny? And I mean metaphorically here, too. Someone to just take all of your hellish burdens off those shoulders for one day. Someone who will come in to save you from yourself. I know I do.

And, well, sometimes, Nonny, it makes people feel less alone in this socially distanced world.

They’re not glorifying that issue Nonny. They’re telling their story.

Here are some thoughts:

Romanticization: Some trendy teen outlet selling a shirt with “mentally diseased” written across it.

NOT Romanticization: A character in a story coming to terms with a diagnosis of mental illness and learning ways to adapt. Their partner is involved 100% and they learn together.

Romanticization: Sherlock merchandise being sold with “I’m a high functioning sociopath” (not mention ableist as all heck)

NOT Romanticization: A character self-harms because of depression, and character B helps the character through their pain and together they get proper therapy and treatment.

Romanticization: Calling yourself “OMG I’m so bipolar!” because it’s trendy.

NOT Romanticization: A clinically depressed author, who survived a suicide attempt, wanting to tell their story through characters the world is already familiar with, and one that a touchy subject can be expressed and understood by other people, because they’re not ready to write the “real” book. Fandom is a safety net for them.

See what I mean Nonny? We don’t KNOW what kind of pain these authors have PERSONALLY been through, and to censor them from having their voices heard and their stories told is just not on for me.

And let me be clear: YES OF COURSE romanticization happens EVERYWHERE. I am not denying that. But your ask is coming off like EVERY STORY EVER WRITTEN is glorification of something. By your logic:

Disabled people shouldn’t write about their disabilities because they’re romanticising themselves.

The authors with medical degrees shouldn’t write realistic med-fics because some where in the world, ONE person MAY HAVE had a similar experience as Character A and B.

Someone broke their foot in ballet so they shouldn’t write a story about a ballet dancer who broke their hip because it may offend ONE ballerina SOMEWHERE in space and time who got sideline at the prime of their career? 

Stories about LGBT+ people shouldn’t be written because homophobes think it’s icky.

We shouldn’t write about wizards because it offends high school catholic pastors (an actual thing that happened)? 

How about cancer stories because kids die of cancer all the time? 

Non-fiction autobiographies about holocaust survivors is not okay.

Science books offend flat earthers, so we shouldn’t write those.

Books about the Big Bang and a 4.5 billion-year-old earth offends creationists, so burn those.

A now-adult child rape victim writing their survival stories to help get their often-in-power abusers behind bars are taboo.

True crime stories from detectives on those cases shouldn’t be told because they weren’t the victim.

Non-fiction in general because someone somewhere may have had that one singular thing happen to them.

How about coping with grief over a parent’s sudden death because I personally might find offense in that since that was a horridly traumatic experience in my life?

Do you see how progressively out of touch this argument is? (the answer to all of these: authors should be allowed to write them, because stories make us human). Your argument leads down the very dangerous path to censorship of books, the internet, and history... to have people only read and learn what someone else dictates, leading to... well.

I’m not trying to be a dick here, Nonny, I’m really not. But I think you’re really missing the entire point of fiction and story telling. I feel you’re failing in the empathy game here, and failing to understand what romanticizing really actually is. 

Whenever I get asks like this, I always feel like the Nonnies don’t really know much about pre-Ao3. I come from “early internet” fandom age, and I’m talking before tags existed. Back when I had to go buy a book at Coles and guess what was in it based on a cover description. No “amazon reviews”. No “harmful content warning” stickers. You just picked up that book, and sometimes you get a sweet story about a friends exploring an alien landscape, and other times WHOOOPS ACCIDENTAL ALIEN SEX I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR. And sometimes, it ended with a dark story about death, and the reality of coping with it.

Twenty years ago, books on the shelves at bookstores and libraries were the only place you could do your reading and they certainly do NOT have tags on them... Modern tagging of stories are a REALLY recent thing introduced probably no less than 15 years ago and was perfected by Ao3 (which was started in 2009). 

These days, there is no excuse if you only consume fanfiction on Ao3. Fics are tagged with proper possible-trigger tags 90% of the time. They have a VERY METICULOUS filtering system. You aren’t being forced to read the fics, you don’t have to read the fics, so use those tag filters, they exist for a reason.

So, with that in mind, I genuinely DON’T GET this attitude about people wanting everything sugar coated and saccharine by default. Especially when you can LITERALLY CURATE YOUR OWN CONTENT. Life isn’t sugar coated. And fiction shouldn’t have to be either. People tag fics with triggers for a reason.

As they used to say back in my early internet days: Don’t like it? Don’t read it. Don’t comment, skip, next story.

And to put this ALL into perspective, so that you don’t think I’m talking out of my ass, I’m going to reveal something here: Do you know what fics I can’t read, Nonny, because they trigger me? Eating disorders. That’s self harm, Nonny, in a very different way. But you know what? I know that those fics DO help other ED people so I’m not going to sit her and tell people NOT to rec or write them. And some of those authors who write those stories are processing their own ED through those stories, healing in their own way. And you know what I do when I see one of those fics? I don’t read them, move on, next story.

I’m sorry if you perceive this as me being harsh with you here, Nonny, and you DON’T have to agree with me and you can block me and never talk to me again, and I’ll understand. As I stated at the beginning, I’m offering an alternative perspective, and helping you to see that some people take comfort in these types of stories.

I think what this all boils down to Nonny, after all of this, and rereading your question a final time to see if I missed covering anything, is that (and feel free to shit on me if I am wrong here) I’m getting the impression – as an unprofessional outsider looking in – that you’re still struggling with your inner demons, whether you realize it or not. The tone and brashness of your ask has me believing this... It feels like it was written after a trigger-moment and you needed to vent AT someone because you are alone, and that hurts my heart so much. I truly hope you find peace in your mind, soon, and I hope you have someone to talk to professionally, or at least a friend. (tw under link, suicidal ideation discussion and links to phone numbers that can help you). I only wish the best for you, my Nonny.

Anyway. I welcome other people to chime in here, respectfully, and let me know if I have the wrong take here. Because I genuinely don’t think I do, but I am not a professional, so my entire thing that took me 3 hours to write here is probably moot. I’m especially interested (on anon in my asks if you’re not comfy with revealing yourselves) on thoughts from other people who have survived the original topics here, as well as any therapists and authors as well.

Take care of yourself Nonny. And please curate your own content for your mental health. Ao3 has an “exclusionary tag system” as well, please use it. *hugs*

[liquidstar]

I'd love to hear some of your recommendations! And I'm good without any content warnings, but since you're posting this for all your followers to see probably best to add them

Alright sure! I’ll be general then and since you’re just starting out this will sort of be bringing up a lot of really popular ones, the really good ones where the general consensus is “you gotta see this!”, but I’ll also try to give ones from different genres so you have a variety of things to pick from, so this isn’t really a list of personal favorites but I’ll throw in a couple of those too lol, but generally think of this as a handy beginners guide with just a little personal bias.

I wrote a lot so I'm gonna put them under the cut here.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a franchise that’s considered a must-watch, it takes place in a world where alchemy is a borderline magical power, but is considered scientific in-universe and follows scientific laws, namely the law of equivalent exchange. Something can’t be made from nothing, to gain something of equal value must be lost. The story follows the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at the ages of 10 and 11 committed alchemy’s one and only unforgivable sin, human transmutation, in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. As a result, one brother lost his arm and leg and the other lost his entire body, leaving his soul bound to a suit of armor. However the brothers are resolute to regain their original bodies, and the older brother, Edward, joins the State Alchemists, a branch of the military, to try to gain access to research materials to help them achieve their goal. But was that really such a good idea?

Fullmetal Alchemist can be a bit confusing to get into due to the fact that there are two series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009). The latter is a reboot with a different story that follows the original manga. They both have the same beginning, but diverge paths and tell very different stories. My recommendation for how to watch this show is: Watch 2003 first, and Brotherhood second. Everyone has a different opinion about which is better, but everyone agrees that 2003 has better backstory but a contrived ending, and Brotherhood has a rushed beginning (Because it works off the assumption that you’ve seen 2003) with a great and fulfilling ending. If you can’t do both I say just watch Brotherhood because it will leave you more satisfied and you don’t have to watch 03 to get into it.

For both series the biggest trigger warnings are: Parental death, child death, pet death, war, genocide, dismemberment, religious themes, and miscarriage. For brotherhood specifically: on-screen suicide, and for 2003 specifically: rape (not on-screen) and pregnancy from it. The 2003 series is also a lot darker than Brotherhood which has a more optimistic tone, so that’s worth noting too.

Soul Eater

A show I think is incredibly fun, and a good one for an October watch if you wanna save it. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to transform into weapons, and they team up with other people who become their meisters. The characters often travel around, but the main setting is Death City, a fictional city in Nevada based off of Las Vegas but with a huge Halloweentown vibe, and a school right at the top of it called the Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) where a bunch of kids that turn into weapons learn how to hunt down witches and kishins (Beings that consume human souls). The school, of course, is run by the grim reaper, Lord Death himself.

Our main characters for the series are a group of 7 students. Our protagonist Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul “Eater” Evans, a scythe. A loud mouth assassin named Black✰Star and his weapon partner Tsubaki, who has many weapon forms. And the son of the grim reaper, Death The Kid, and his two weapon partners Liz and Patty Thompson, who are twin pistols. There are also a bunch of really lively colorful background characters and antagonists, and the cast of the show being as insane as it is really makes it, on top of the great atmosphere and of course the plot, which just builds more and more as the series progresses. Also Crona is there and we all love Crona.

Trigger warnings for this show include: Child abuse (Mental and physical), manipulation, snakes and spiders (The motifs of two major villains), some very surreal moments that can verge on unreality. Also, in the dub and most subs: misgendering of a canonically trans character. Crona is a character who is non-binary, but the dub and subs use gendered pronouns for them due to general ignorance about neutral pronouns in 2008, though this isn’t the fault of the original series and falls on the translators hands.

Also it’s important to note: that the first 3 episodes are prologues and they take themselves less seriously, there’s more fanservice in them than there is in the rest of the series (Except for Blair she stays the fanservice character :pensive:)

Zombieland Saga

Idol anime is really prevalent as a genre, the most popular being Love Live, but my personal favorite is Zombieland Saga. It’s an idol anime, but it’s also a comedy about zombie girls who become idols. It sounds ridiculous but there’s an insane amount of heart in it regardless, it wasn’t a show I expected to get emotional at but I did! It also made me laugh a lot too. The series itself can serve as a bit of a subversion on what idols are, not just because they’re literally zombies, but because of who the characters are.

Sakura Minamoto is a character who starts off as a more typical idol, a peppy pure girl, as the series continues her struggle with depression gets highlighted. Saki Nikaido serves as her initial foil, a delinquent girl with a criminal record who subvers the idea of pure perfect idols. Ai Mizuno, a former idol who has since undergone severe trauma (The way she died). Junko Konno who has ideals that seem very different on what idols “should” be due to the time period she died. Lily Hoshikawa, an explicitly transgender idol. Yugiri nolastname, a former high ranking courtesan, subvering the pure image of an idol by being a sex worker. And Tae Yamada, a completely nonverbal idol who’s still treated with the same amount of importance as the rest of the team. The premise here really is just that these girls don’t fit the incredibly rigid mold of what idols should be and yet they still all deserve love and they gain a fanbase by being their earnest selves.

Trigger warnings for this series aren’t incredibly severe but since they’re zombies there’s still talks about death and they way they died (Including motorcycle/car accidents, plane crashes, getting struck by lightning, and a heart attack), there’s also comedic dismemberment, as in their arms just sort of pop on and off and stuff like that. The most notable thing is the deadnaming of Lily, the trans idol, by her father, but it doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way.

Note: this series is in the middle of it’s second season right now, if you want to wait until it’s over it should be 12 episodes long and just aired it’s 3rd, so about 9 more weeks.

Death Note

This is also absolutely another series that gets recommended to people right off the bat, and for good reason, this show is an intricate game of chess between a serial killer and a detective trying to catch him, and it’s incredibly easy to get super invested in the suspense of what happens next. The story begins when a shinigami, a god of death, drops his “Death Note” into the human world out of pure boredom. A Death Note is simply a notebook where if you write someone's name in it… They die! And who better to pick up such a powerful object than Light Yagami, a prodigy praised for his genius and academy accomplishments as well as his charm and popularity, and with a very strong but juvenile black-and-white sense of justice, likely due to being raised by a cop.

So naturally Light begins his power trip as soon as he finds the notebook, he intends to “fix” the world by cleansing it of all the bad people, but truly he intends to become the world’s new god. Or the “God of the new world” as he puts it. But there’s one thing standing in his way, a detective resolute on catching him with the codename L. The series entire crux is a game of cat and mouse between these two, as they try to outsmart each other and the murders continue, Light loses more and more of his humanity, L becomes more resolute on catching him. There are more twists and turns than a cheetah race, and it’s honestly pretty addictive to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings here obviously include a lot of death and murder, including suicide, but in some cases it’s a forced suicide at Light’s hands. Also abuse, as Light loses his humanity he isn’t above manipulating and discarding people who love him. And one instance of near-rape on screen fairly early on, but the purpitrator dies before it happens and the victim escapes.

K-On!

Slice-of-life is an incredibly popular genre, and K-On! is the quintessential example of it. It’s a series that not everyone will like, because not a lot truly happens, and it can be overly saccharine or “moe” for a lot of people, and that’s fine. But I personally think that despite not a lot happening, the story has genuine substance, more than you may gather at first glance. It’s true that not much in the way of big plot really happens, it’s mostly life events, that’s why it's a slice-of-life. But it’s not about nothing. The real theme of the show is the fleeting nature of youth. It’s about how important the friendships you form at that time are, how they’ll stick with you for a lifetime, and how everything comes to an end. It’s sweetness even becomes a little bittersweet because you knew their after school tea time would end come graduation, and as they realize this it breaks their hearts a little, but they continue on, because they’re still After School Tea Time!

The series itself is simply about 5 girls in a band, Yui Hirasawa on lead guitar, Mio Akiyama on the bass, Ritsu Tainaka on the Drums, Tsumugi Kotobuki on the Keyboard, and Azusa Nakano on Rhythm Guitar (Who shows up later). They’re in a club at school called the light music club where they waste a lot of their time just drinking tea and eating cake, but they’re having fun and that’s what counts! The series has a lot of really great direction and expressive animation despite the fact that a lot of it is just sitting around and talking, it’s incredibly visually interesting so you don’t get bored.

I honestly don’t think there are any big trigger warnings I can give for this series, maybe that Sawa-chan can be a little too forceful when she wants to dress up the girls in cute outfits sometimes but it’s usually not presented as too creepy especially after season 1 where they tone it down due to straying from the manga.

Mob Psycho 100

This series is an absolute love letter to the art of animation as a whole, the artstyle itself may not seem like much to look at but the animation is some of the most expressive, fluid, creative, and vibrant out there right now, it’s the type of series that you can tell was made with a real passion for its medium and it’s story. It’s protagonist is Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob”, a term that literally means “Background character”. Mob is a middle school kid and an incredibly powerful psychic, like, insanely overpowered, but he’s currently working part time for a shady conman, Reigen Arataka. Though it may seem as if Reigen is just using Mob for his powers, their bond is actually a very sweet one and you can tell they care for each other, it’s a very important one at the heart of the series.

The core themes of the series itself are what really make it shine, it’s message is stated as clearly as possible in the opening songs, “your life is your own” and “if everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”. Put simply, you’re the protagonist of your own life, but the other important message of the series is that all the supposed background characters are just as important. The friends you make, the connections you have with other people and the way they impact you, they’re what make you strong. No one is born special, everyone is just a normal person, and everyone deserves kindness. It’s a series that I recommend incredibly strongly for just how powerfully it portrays this message.

Trigger warnings for this series include kidnapping, possession, a scene with a “man in a dress” joke, and a racist design for a background character. Also (spoilers) a scene where it seems like a child was murdered and a scene where it seems like Mob’s entire family was murdered.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War!

Hey, speaking of amazing animation, Kaguya-Sama is a romantic comedy series centered around the premise of two incredibly arrogant people falling in love. Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are the vice president and president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchi'in Academy, they eventually develop feelings for each other but they’re both simultaneously too proud and too insecure to admit it, so the real crux of the series is the 3D chess they play with each other to try and get the other to confess first. Along with the scatterbrained secretary, Chika Fujiawara, the treasurer in desperate need of Prozac Yu Ishigami, the cast is incredibly fun and they all fit into the comedy great. Every single little game of “do you like me?” that they play is written like the most intense thing in the world, the insane animation absolutely adds to it, making it seem almost like a psychological thriller, the comedy comes from the absurdity of just how much they hyperbolize it.

It’s not pure comedy though, due to a lot of the series being set up around mindgames, the characters are actually fairly psychologically complex with a lot of genuine development stemming from their childhood to explain why they are the way they are. The series may be about mindgames, but the actual narrative frames them as a juvenile way to go about relationships, a way to try to protect yourself from getting hurt because you’re afraid to trust. The entire core theme is that communication in relationships of any kind is the most important thing and you cant replace it with clever little tricks, so the main pair only ever make actual progress when they’re actually upfront with each other. Even if it’s scary to be that vulnerable with someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past like they have, the relationships you build off of mutual trust and openness will be worth the risk, and they can help heal you. And one of the things I love about the series is that this doesn’t just apply to the main pair, but it places equal emphasis on the importance of friendship. All the characters' relationships with each other are unique and interesting and they all develop the same way, with trust and openness, and they become better because of each other.

Despite being generally a comedy, a lot of the characters deal with some really heavy things too so trigger warning for: child abuse (not on-screen), child abandonment (again not on screen), anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal ideation- initionally played off as a joke but it becomes very obvious the character in question is legitimately suicidal and in the manga he nearly attempts it but is stopped, this plotpoint will most likely be in the anime at some point as it’s also not complete.

Your Lie In April

Alright I gave you a funny show now I’m going to make you cry. In fact it’s hard for me to type this synopsis because I’m an absolute crybaby and thinking about this show gets me, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out because it’s a very beautiful sadness. Your Lie In April is a series that follows the stress and trauma young musical prodigies face in their lives, as well as the people around them, and it’s a series about the beauty of music and art, and just how much it affects people. The music in the show is absolutely gorgeous, the way that they convey emotion through it is so beautiful and intricate that it just sticks with you. You feel the music, and you understand.

I’m actually going to give the trigger warnings right now instead of at the end because in order to explain the plot I’ll have to talk about them so tw for: Child abuse (phsyical and mental, on-screen), terminal illness, death, in depth depictions of PTSD, vomiting, panic attacks, the works.

The series follows Kousei Arima, a formal piano prodigy who hasn’t performed since the death of his mother two years ago. Kousei's mother was terminally ill, but she was also incredibly abusive. Kousei has incredibly complex feelings about his mother because of this. The trauma she instilled in him is severe, but because he was a child, he still is a child, and he loved his mom a lot, as any child would, and he didn’t want her to die and he blames himself for not being good enough. He wanted to make her happy, and the only way he knew how to do that was to play the piano. So he played and played and practiced until he was perfect, they called him the human metronome. But he would still get severely punished for being anything less than perfect. He had lost all the passion he once had, and after his mother died it was the final nail in the coffin, his trauma manifests now in a way that makes him unable to play. But all that changes one day in April when he meets a violinist named Kaori Miyazono, a girl full of life and passion for music, she’s someone who according to Kousei “Exists in springtime.” and she’s going to help him play again and refined that love for music whether he wants to or not! Teen drama happens of course, but there are much bigger roadblocks ahead.

Assassination Classroom

This series is thankfully generally more lighthearted… Most of the time at least. The premise is pretty simple, but incredibly ridiculous. An incredibly powerful octopus-like creature is the teacher of a classroom of middle school students tasked with the assignment of assassinating him in order to save the world. The series starts off very slice-of-life as it focuses on introducing the very large cast of characters inside of Class E, also known as the “end class”, but it quickly gains traction and gets a lot more intense as time goes on.

The octopus creature in question, Korosensei, is actually a very kind and genuinely good teacher to all his students. The real crux of the series is that it’s sort of a critique on the educational system, the students in the end class are there because they’ve been ostracized from the rest of the campus, far away in the mountains, to be made examples of. Why? Because they’re students that are considered worthless, instead of getting help they’re only pushed back further down in the system and left to struggle within it fruitlessly. They’re given up on, despite being children with so much potential, because they don’t fit a very rigid mold. That’s what Korosensei wants to help them with, and they’re able to grow as people together. As the series progresses you feel such a great sense of unity for the class, they’re like a family, they stick together and it’s very heartwarming. And watching them work as a team of assassins is so fun!

However the series can get heavy at times too, it doesn’t stray from heavier subject matter at all and i found myself incredibly shocked by it a few times, so trigger warning for: Child abuse (on-screen and off), both at the hands of a parent and a teacher and in one case a parent who is also the principal, misgendering of a character, sometimes as a “joke” but other times played dead serious at the hands of his mother, child death- specifically suicide, a successful one as well as 3 assassination attempts that doubled as suicide attempts by the main 3 characters (weird parallel they all got there huh)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Honestly this is a series that is good to go in blind for if you need to tws, it’s a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but if you don’t want to know more than that you can stop reading here. If you want to know more, it’s a series that starts off very light-hearted and in tune with typical magical girl conventions at first, however by episode 3 it’s made painfully clear that these girls are being led to sign up into something they shouldn’t. It’s heavy, though not incredibly so, but it’s also a lot to explain in a summary. Madoka magica is… It’s Faust with magical girls.

I’ll explain as much as I can without giving too much away. The story begins when Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a creature who calls itself Kyubey, who says it can grant a wish of theirs and in exchange they have to become magical girls and fight witches. Both the girls are hesitant, but Sayaka wants to wish for her childhood friend’s injuries to be cured so he can play violin again, while Madoka is content as she is and can’t think of a wish. Luckily they have a mentor, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe who helps introduce them to everything. However something is stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, a mysterious new student who is also one herself, Homura Akemi, is resolute on keeping Madoka from becoming a magical girl by all means possible, for reasons Madoka doesn’t understand. Things get even more complicated when a rival magical girl shows up, Kyoko Sakura, who becomes Sayaka’s new rival. As things get more heated between those two they discover a terrible secret about the nature of magical girls, and what they truly signed up for.

Spoilers ahead but trigger warning for: Child death, parental death (backstory only), decapitation (off-screen), needles, incredibly surreal imagery inside the witch’s labyrinths that may feel unreal, mind control, suicide, depression and despair expressed by young characters. Also don't bother with Magia Record

The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K.

Alright something lighthearted now, there are a lot of comedy anime I enjoy, a lot of series that have made me laugh, but none has made me bust a gut like this series has, it’s absolutely hilarious. It follows the life of a boy named Saiki Kusuo who has psychic powers. His powers are incredibly overpowered, and he absolutely hates them, in his eyes they cause him nothing but trouble. There’s not much in the way of a plot to describe, because there isn’t any, the series is comprised of 5 minute segments surrounding Saiki and an incredibly vast and colorful cast of characters that are just all completely insane, many serve as parodies as types of anime tropes because the series as a whole is very self aware and doesn’t shy from breaking the fourth wall a lot, but the characters surrounding Saiki are what make his life… Disastrous.

Like I said there’s not really a plot to describe but like FMA people may get confused with this one, there are 3 seasons but one of them is titled “The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K: Reawakened” as is a continuation of the first two with just 6 episodes in it. Also for some reason only the second season isn’t dubbed so if you’re planning on watching it that way you’d have to either stop or switch to subs for season 2

The only major tw I can give here is an ongoing joke about a character being into his sister, he’s treated as disgusting for it of course because he’s a parody of that trope but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, luckily he doesn’t show up much.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia is a series I personally just adore, it takes place in a world where witches are common and well-known among the people, but the era of witches is over and magic is dying out. However that doesn’t mean passion of magic doesn’t exist, the protagonist is a young girl named Atsuko Kagari, or Akko for short. She’s resolute on being just like her icon, a witch known as Shiny Chariot, as she attends the same magic school: Luna Nova! Unfortunately Akko isn’t exactly a magical prodigy, in fact she can’t even fly a broom, but that’s not gonna stop her, nothing will. Just like Chariot said, believing in yourself is your magic.

Once at school Akko gets into all types of crazy shenanigans with her with her two roommates, Lotte Yanson and Sucy Manbavaran, and occasionally her rival, Diana Cavendish. Akko still struggles a lot in school, in fact her inability with magic is pretty explicitly handled as a metaphor for a learning disability, and though this makes it harder for her she’s still resolute. Though the series is generally episodic, a concrete plot starts to form by the second core. Along with the help of her guidance counselor, Professor Ursula, Akko learns that she needs to unlock 7 “words” to bring magic back to the world, each time she learns a new one it comes with an important lesson to her and ultimately relates back to each of the core themes of the series

The series is pretty lighthearted so the biggest trigger warning I can give is one for bullying, two characters in particular tend to target Akko for not being a good witch and it can really sting to watch. Other than that none come to mind

[cervidaedalus]

Oh man the history though. I think I was like... 7? When I made up some sort of Disney-like Tiger thing but I have no recollection outside of that. Then the hardcore escapism years happened. I was actually never really into fandom to the degree of making self-insert OC's outside of this one SANIC forum "Shadow of a Hedgehog" (established long before the character), and that's largely because everyone had their own sprite-sheets and it was a phenomenon there. I started out as basically some sort of Tikal recolour and slowly goth-ified over time because this was the zenith of my cringe years at 12-13. Eighth grade was when I got REALLY into making my own stories and characters and because it was pretty much necessary at the time due to the mountains of social, academic, and other growing forms of abuse and simply not having much money to *afford* fandom for kids my age or it was just... a pier of Ships and the foghorns were too loud (by which I mean all the people arguing over minors' romantic lives squicked me out). Every year there was another new world, new plot, new set of characters and while some definitely did pull influence from other things, nothing was actually tied to an existing franchise. I think one of my best moments was in a summer program after eighth grade, where I got to actually get all the other kids super invested in one of my worlds and was like, assigning people their own characters on request. I don't know, that still kind of sticks with me because it was one of very few instances where I felt that my creative investments were really, truly enjoyed and I was seen as influential rather than an outcast and for all the right reasons. And it wasn't until after the trauma of the illegal incarceration and institutionalization at 14 that I really started getting deeper and deeper into these fictional worlds and created many of the characters for that novel... thing... I still hold dear. At this point it was more than just a little bit of escapism, it was unhealthy but at the same time cathartic. I could REALLY create these worlds that felt "better" than my own and went even so far as to essentially create a lot of Queer identities before I even knew they were a thing. I had trans characters, I had non-binary characters, and it all stemmed from world-building rooted in the question, "What real-world concepts can I pull apart in order to create a world that truly feels different from ours?" I had worlds very personal to me and my traumas at the time, and I had worlds more rooted in social commentary, like the one brought on by my mother and my participation in anti-war protests. But as I grew older a lot of them felt really fragmented and juvenile, so many just kinda... fell to the wayside and their characters forgotten, but I recall old notebooks where I attempted to try and catalogue every single character and I was clocking over 200. /vaguely gestures at my 30 FFxiv characters I think the last time I created any world with a degree of investment and passion was 2009, shortly after my mom's death, when a friend invited me to write for a game he and his friends wanted to make. I got the "Why is the main character a GIRL, is it because YOU'RE a girl?" and the other two wannabe devs at each others throats over EVERYTHING so I just pulled away from it and moved all my files. Then, for some unknown reason, I just shut everything away. No one in my life whom I'd met after High School really knew about any of that even though I still worked on some of the remaining universes behind closed doors, hoping to make something of it one day. I think part of it was fear of judgement, like, these weren't just things I'd written, they were things I'D written. They spawned from some of the most traumatic influential years and they were almost all I had. Any sort of harsh judgement would be taken personally. These were my identity but not in the self-insert sense. I poked my head out of that hole a little bit when another friend who went to school for game development wanted to start a studio in 2011. Problem

was, all my ideas were way too ambitious for where indie game development was at the time - but they were liked. I started (privately) investing in them more. I stopped jumping between nine different stories and instead, picked out the ones that I felt could really go somewhere and began trying to iron out what at the time was nearly decade-old plots and backstories written by a depressed and anxious teenager. In 2015 I "met" my friend Zaid (I put that in quotations because There's Some Backstory There, but it's irrelevant). He wanted to be a writer, too, though he was more into writing personal, real-world stories with very flowery prose reminiscent of a lot of the ways classical Arabic poetry is. Still,he was the first person I felt comfortable sharing such a deeply personal thing with, and I guess I did the same for him, for reasons I'm still not entirely sure of. We gradually distanced over time and I've tried to reconnect and look out for his name in publishing ever so often, but we clashed in a lot of personal ways since he was very rigid in his ways and I have always been a lot more free and experimental. I really poured myself into on story in particular - and at the end of 2016 I jumped into the FFxiv community here after lurking it for a few months. I wanted to learn how to write characters better, and how to connect with them in a more meaningful way, so I thought writing characters for this videe gaem would help. But there were a lot of little explosions here and there in the community and eventually, I got hit. It really made me pull back and not want to engage with the community. I kept writing my little dudes, but I felt like I was wasting my time and energy and getting caught up in social conflicts when I could be putting that into writing my own worlds, characters, and stories. So after the Mountain of Bullshit and losing all my hard-earned stability at the end of 2018, I dove face-first into that project. I wrote and I wrote and I WROTE. And I got... Nothing. Maybe a note or two, I think I got a few notes on some art of my deaf character and I had one old mutual who'd Like in support. It was just the polar opposite of what I'd experienced after eighth grade, and it just dug into me. Like, these were more personal to me than any of my XIV characters could ever be, but because they were MINE and it wasn't like people were opting in to read anything about them like they would be if these were published books someone was seeking out, no one but me really had any connection to them so it was just... stuff on a Tonglr dash. And that was really the last time I had any energy to invest into these worlds and characters. I tried at the start of 2020 because I was banking on the stimulus being used for publishing costs (until all grocery stores were closed and I needed it for food), but shortly after I set up a Carrd and made a collage of character portraits, I got really sick and I just haven't had the energy to really commit to it again, especially with the struggles and anxiety of it "failing".

[animeman08]

Wolverine

Wolverine (birth name: James Howlett; alias: Logan and Weapon X) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, mostly in association with the X-Men. He is a mutant who possesses animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, a powerful regenerative ability known as a healing factor, and three retractable claws in each hand. Wolverine has been depicted variously as a member of the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Avengers.

The character appeared in the last panel of The Incredible Hulk #180 before having a larger role in #181 (cover-dated Nov. 1974). He was created by Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, writer Len Wein, and Marvel art director John Romita Sr. Romita designed the character, although it was first drawn for publication by Herb Trimpe. Wolverine then joined a revamped version of the superhero team the X-Men, where eventually writer Chris Claremont and artist-writer John Byrne would play significant roles in the character's development. Artist Frank Miller collaborated with Claremont and helped revise the character with a four-part eponymous limited series from September to December 1982, which debuted Wolverine's catchphrase, "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice."

Wolverine is typical of the many tough antiheroes that emerged in American popular culture after the Vietnam War; his willingness to use deadly force and his brooding nature became standard characteristics for comic book antiheroes by the end of the 1980s. As a result, the character became a fan favorite of the increasingly popular X-Men franchise, and has been featured in his own solo comic book series since 1988.

He has appeared in most X-Men adaptations, including animated television series, video games, and the live-action 20th Century Fox X-Men film series, in which he is played by Hugh Jackman. Troye Sivan portrayed a younger version in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The character is highly rated in many comics best-of lists, ranked #1 in Wizard magazine's 2008 Top 200 Comic Book Characters; 4th in Empire's 2008 Greatest Comic Characters; and 4th on IGN's 2011 Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.

Powers and abilities

Wolverine is a mutant with a number of both natural and artificial improvements to his physiology.

> Healing and defensive powers

Wolverine's primary mutant power is an accelerated healing process, typically referred to as his mutant healing factor, that regenerates damaged or destroyed tissues of his body far beyond that of normal humans. In addition to accelerated healing of physical traumas, Wolverine's healing factor makes him extraordinarily resistant to diseases, drugs and toxins. However, he can still suffer the immediate effects of such substances in massive quantities; he has been seen to become intoxicated after ingesting significant amounts of alcohol,and has been incapacitated on several occasions with large amounts of powerful drugs and poisons; S.H.I.E.L.D. once managed to keep Wolverine anesthetized by constantly pumping eighty milliliters of anesthetic a minute into his system.

A study by the University of British Columbia states that Wolverine's healing factor resembles the axolotl's ability to regenerate lost limbs. It suggests that a novel protein—which the study's authors dubbed Howlett—found in tissue samples taken from him, and which resembles the Amblox protein found in axolotl but is much more efficient, is responsible for Wolverine's rapid regeneration. His healing factor is facilitated by artificial improvements he was subjected to under the Weapon X program (in later comics called the Weapon Plus program), in which his skeleton was reinforced with the virtually indestructible metal adamantium. While the adamantium in his body stops or reduces many injuries, his healing factor must also work constantly to prevent metal poisoning from killing him. When his healing powers were rendered inactive, Beast synthesized a drug to counteract the adamantium poisoning.

Wolverine's healing factor also dramatically affects his aging process, allowing him to live far beyond the normal lifespan of normal humans. Despite being born in the late 19th century, he has the appearance, conditioning, health and vitality of a man in his physical prime. While seemingly ageless, it is unknown exactly how greatly his healing factor extends his life expectancy.

Although Wolverine's body heals, the healing factor does not suppress the pain he endures while injured. Wolverine also admits to feeling phantom pains for weeks or months after healing from his injuries. He does not enjoy being hurt and sometimes has to work himself up for situations where extreme pain is certain. Wolverine, on occasion, has deliberately injured himself or allowed himself to be injured for varying reasons, including freeing himself from capture, intimidation, strategy, or simply indulging his feral nature. Though he now has all of his memories, his healing abilities can provide increased recovery from psychological trauma by suppressing memories in which he experiences profound distress.

Depictions of the speed and extent of injury to which Wolverine can heal vary due to a broad degree of artistic license employed by various comic book writers. Originally, this was portrayed as accelerated healing of minor wounds, though Chris Claremont, head writer of the X-Men comics from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s increased Wolverine's healing factor substantially, though not nearly as much as later writers would. During the 1980s, Wolverine's mutant healing factor is depicted as being able to heal massive levels of trauma, though his recovery time could extend to days, weeks or months before fully healing; often depending upon the severity of the injuries, their extent and the frequency with which they're inflicted. Wolverine has also stated that his body actually heals faster when the injury is grave or life-threatening. During the 1990s through the modern era, other writers have increased Wolverine's healing factor to the point that it could fully regenerate nearly any damaged or destroyed bodily tissues within seconds. Among the more extreme depictions of Wolverine's healing factor include fully healing after being caught near the center of an atomic explosion and the total regeneration of his soft body tissue, within a matter of minutes, after having it incinerated from his skeleton. An explanation is given in a recent mini-series starring Wolverine for the increase of his healing powers. In the series, Wolverine is referred to as an "adaptive self-healer" after undergoing numerous traumatic injuries to test the efficiency of his healing factor. Wolverine has endured so much trauma, and so frequently, that his healing factor has adapted, becoming faster and more efficient to cope with increasing levels of trauma. The Xavier Protocols, a series of profiles created by Xavier that lists the strengths and weaknesses of the X-Men, say that Wolverine's healing factor is increased to "incredible levels" and theorizes that the only way to stop him is to decapitate him and remove his head from the vicinity of his body.

It is possible to suppress the efficiency of Wolverine's healing powers; for example, if an object composed of adamantium is inserted and remains lodged within his body, his healing powers are slowed dramatically. The Muramasa blade, a katana of mystic origins that can inflict wounds that nullify superhuman healing factors, can also suppress Wolverine's powers. It has also been noted that Wolverine needs protein for his healing factor to generate tissue, meaning that if he was seriously injured and malnourished, his body might not be able to repair itself. His healing factor has also been turned off using nanites.

It has been suggested that Wolverine can be killed by drowning. He has said that he is not particularly fond of being in the water, due partially to the weight of his adamantium laced skeleton, and that he can die if held underwater long enough - his healing factor would only prolong the agony. The two-part story arc "Drowning Logan" finds Wolverine trapped underwater for an extensive period of time. The second part of the story arc hints that this experience weakens his healing factor and future health. Following "Drowning Logan", Beast reveals that an "intelligent virus" originating from the Microverse has shut off his healing factor, though not before it purged his body of the virus, leaving him as susceptible to injury, disease, and aging as any ordinary human.

Wolverine vol. 3, #57 reveals that when Wolverine is injured so seriously that his body actually dies before his healing factor can repair the damage, he returns to life by fighting with Azrael, the Angel of Death, while trapped in Purgatory because Wolverine defeated Azrael in real-world combat during World War I. However, after Wolverine's resurrection and brainwashing by the Hand, he made a new deal with Azrael that repaired the damage to his soul, negated their previous arrangement, and weakened his healing factor slightly - and the next time Wolverine sustains death-inducing injuries, he will remain dead.

Due to a combination of Wolverine's healing factor and high-level psionic shields implanted by Professor Xavier, Wolverine's mind is highly resistant to telepathic assault and probing. Wolverine's mind also possesses what he refers to as "mental scar tissue" created by the traumatic events of his life. It acts as a type of natural defense, even against a psychic as powerful as Emma Frost.

> Other abilities

Wolverine's mutation also consists of animal-like adaptations of his body, including pronounced, and sharp fang-like canines and three retractable claws housed within each forearm. While originally depicted as bionic implants created by the Weapon X program, the claws are later revealed to be a natural part of his body. The claws are not made of keratin, as claws tend to be in the animal kingdom, but extremely dense bone. Wolverine's hands do not have openings for the claws to move through: they cut through his flesh every time he extrudes them, with occasional references implying that he feels a brief moment of slight pain in his hands when he unsheathes them. During a talk to Jubilee, Wolverine reveals that there are channels inside his forearms through which the claws move when he extrudes them and that he unsheathes the claws a few times a day to keep the channels open, similar to pierced ears.

Wolverine's senses of sight, smell, and hearing are all superhumanly acute. He can see with perfect clarity at greater distances than an ordinary human, even in near-total darkness. His hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing him to hear sounds ordinary humans cannot and also hear to greater distances. Wolverine is able to use his sense of smell to track targets by scent, even if the scent has been eroded somewhat over time by natural factors. This sense also allows him to identify shapeshifting mutants despite other forms they may take. He is also able to use his senses of smell and hearing, through concentration, as a type of natural lie detector, such as detecting a faint change in a person's heartbeat and scent due to perspiration when a lie is told.

On more than one occasion, Wolverine's entire skeleton, including his claws, has been molecularly infused with adamantium. Due to their coating, his claws can cut almost any known solid material, including most metals, wood, and some varieties of stone. The only known exceptions are adamantium itself and Captain America's shield, which is made out of a proto-adamantium-vibranium alloy. Vibranium alone is not comparable in terms of durability with adamantium and has been broken by Colossus. Wolverine's ability to slice completely through a substance depends upon both the amount of force he can exert and the thickness of the substance. His claws can also be used to block attacks or projectiles, as well as dig into surfaces allowing Wolverine to climb structures. The adamantium also adds weight to his blows, increasing the effectiveness of his offensive capabilities. His adamantium skeleton makes him highly susceptible to magnetic-based attacks. According to Reed Richards, Wolverine would be unable to move without his enhanced strength due to the additional weight of the adamantium bonded to his skeleton.

Wolverine's healing factor also affects a number of his physical attributes by increasing them to superhuman levels. His stamina is sufficiently heightened to the point he can exert himself for numerous hours, even after exposure to powerful tranquilizers. Wolverine's agility and reflexes are also enhanced to levels that are beyond the physical limits of the finest human athlete. Due to his healing factor's constant regenerative qualities, he can push his muscles beyond the limits of the human body without injury. This, coupled with the constant demand placed on his muscles by over one hundred pounds of adamantium, grants him some degree of superhuman strength. Since the presence of the adamantium negates the natural structural limits of his bones, he can lift or move weight that would otherwise damage a human skeleton. He has been depicted breaking steel chains, lifting several men above his head with one arm and throwing them through a wall, lifting Ursa Major (in grizzly bear form) over his head before tossing him across a room, and hauling a concert grand piano, and the platform it rests on, via a harness, while climbing a sheer cliff. Colossus and other allies use Wolverine's endurance and strength when throwing him at high speed in the Fastball Special.

During and after the Return of Wolverine, Logan has showcased a mysterious new ability where the adamantium in his claws can heat up to incredibly high, yet undisclosed, level of temperatures. The mechanics of this power have yet to be revealed; whether it is a Secondary Mutation, latent Weapon X faculty making itself known or a new power gained upon his resurrection is unclear. What is extent is that it's related to the berserker side of his persona, his Hot Claws as popularly noted being tied to Wolverines rage. This new power comes with the drawback of weakening his healing factor, however, as after using them to ward of the X-Men who came looking for him, he lost consciousness for a few weeks time afterward.

> Skills and personality

During Wolverine's time in Japan and other countries, he became proficient in many forms of martial arts, with experience in many different fighting styles. He is proficient with most weaponry, including firearms, though he is partial to bladed weapons. He has demonstrated sufficient skills to defeat expert martial artist Shang-Chi and Captain America in single combat. He also has a wide knowledge of the body and pressure points. Like many of the X-Men, he is trained to pilot the group's SR-71 Blackbird supersonic plane. He is highly skilled in the field of espionage and covert operations.

Wolverine will sometimes lapse into a "berserker rage" while in close combat. In this state, he lashes out with the intensity and aggression of an enraged animal and is even more resistant to psionic attack. Though he loathes it, he acknowledges that it has saved his life many times, it being most notably useful when he faced the telepathic "Mister X", as X's ability to read his mind and predict his next move in a fight was useless as not even Wolverine knows what he will do next in his berserk state. Despite his apparent ease at taking lives, he mournfully regrets and does not enjoy killing or giving in to his berserker rages. Logan adheres to a firm code of personal honor and morality.

In contrast to his brutish nature, Wolverine is extremely knowledgeable. Due to his longer lifespan, he has traveled around the world and amassed extensive knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. He is fluent in English, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Spanish, Arabic, and Lakota; he also has some knowledge of French, Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean, Hindi, Telugu, Persian, German, and Portuguese. When Forge monitors Wolverine's vital signs during a Danger Room training session, he calls Logan's physical and mental state "equivalent of an Olympic-level gymnast performing a gold medal routine while simultaneously beating four chess computers in his head." Much to Professor Xavier's disapproval, Wolverine is also a heavy drinker and smoker; his healing powers negate the long-term effects of alcohol and tobacco and allow him to indulge in prolonged binges.

Wolverine is frequently depicted as a gruff loner, often taking leave from the X-Men to deal with personal issues or problems. He is often irreverent and rebellious towards authority figures, though he is a reliable ally and capable leader, and has occasionally displayed a wry, sarcastic sense of humor. He has been a mentor and father figure to several younger women, especially Jubilee, Kitty Pryde and X-23, and has had failed romantic relationships with numerous women (most notably Mariko Yashida). He also had a mutual, but unfulfilled attraction to Jean Grey, leading to arguments with her boyfriend (and later husband), Scott Summers. He also married Viper as part of a debt, then later divorced her. It has also been implied that he and Squirrel Girl had a relationship at some point in the past. Wolverine has had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with longtime teammate and friend, Storm.

[olderthannetfic]

It’s International Fanworks Day and also the 30th and final post in this series. If you follow my tumblr, you know that my true fandom isn’t buddy cops or Highlander or any of those things. No, my true fandom is...

WANK

No matter which bitchy piece of fujo-course nonsense you’re looking at on tumblr, no matter which debate about WNGWJLEO or women in slash or fanfiction vs. media you're reblogging, your grandma was having that fight in a zine somewhere in 1985 and at Escapade in the 90s.

Here’s a vid review from 2002:

"History Repeating," [...] was an Amanda vid. In-fucking-credible. Who knew? Who knew I could like Amanda? Who knew there were fresh HL clips I hadn't seen a thousand times before in HL vids? (Of course, as someone pointed out, she had her own spin-off.) This rocked--sharp, fast cutting and pretty, pretty shots, with a hot bisexy vibe running through it. And, you know, people like to say that there's all this self-hating misogyny in fans--you know, that women hate shows about women, hate women characters breaking up the OTP, etc. But when you see a femme-centric vid like this bring down the house, you really have to wonder. Is it misogyny, really, or is just that we usually see a bunch of crap representations of women in media and resist them?

So on the theme of There Is Nothing New Under The Sun, here is a selection of past Escapade panels on gender, representation, and problematicness:

1993 - Anti-Feminism in Slash Fandom (Or, how 'it was never this good with a woman' syndrome... where are the women, and why do we care?)

1995 - Why Lesbians Read Slash - (What's the attraction? Why do they care? Why do they write it?)

1996 - Character Bisexuality: Convenient fiction or character trait? (Is this a good compromise between "We're not gay, we just love each other" and "I was gay all along and just faking it with women"? Or is this too easy? Special mention for the stereotypical bisexual villian who's evil, sexy, and can come on to everyone.)

1996 - Female Heroes: Female Empowerment, or male power in women's bodies? (Give a woman a gun and make her really tough. Wow, cool! yes, or no? Are we celebrating women, or are we merely putting breasts on male action heroes? Heroines under discussion may include (but not be limited to) Sara Connor, Ripley, Vasquez, Thelma & Louise.)

1997 - Gender Astigmatism (The Gender Continuum: in what we read, in what we write, and what we are, there is always a connection with a point on the gender continuum. How do our definitions of "feminine" and "masculine" influence our creativity? Where do bisexual characters fit in? (besides there, you dirty-minded person!)

1998 - Xena: Does Girl-Slash Get Us Going? (Xena is the first show with a feminine couple to be really popular. What kind of slash fans are interested? Does gender orientation matter? Or do slash fans love slashy couples regardless of their gender? Can m/m fans be 'converted' to f/f fans?)

1998 - Bastards & the Women Who Love Them (When Methos says, "you live to serve me," any normal '90s woman says, "I don't think so!... or does she? A happy contemplation on the virtues of handsome thugs.)

1998 - Slash: a Continuation of Women's Writing, led by Constance Penley (In case you didn't know, in her recent book NASA/TREK (yes, the slash is intentional), she addressed slash as a continuum of women's writing, combining women's romance, and the male quest romance. Join her for a discussion of slash -- where it was, where it is, where it might be going.)

1998 - The Trauma of Slash Fans in Het Fandoms (Or, what to do when find women doing all that cool, tough-guy stuff you love.)

1999 - Male Slash Fans - Welcome Voice, or Infringement? (Slash is written by women for women — or is it? The Internet has attracted new fans, including the "male slash fan". Who is he? What does he think of what "we" do? Do we care?)

2002 - Femslash (General discussion on female/female slash fiction. If Buffy wanted something cold and hard between her legs, why didn't she just choose silicon?)

2003 - Slash: Feminist political act or really good porn?

2005 - Where have all the lesbians gone? (When some slash lists explicitly state m/m only, where do you go for femslash? Are there any hot femslash couples? Pimp your femslash fandom here, or bemoan the lack of strung female characters in the current conservative social climate.)

2007 - Femslash: The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Femslash. It's a work that makes some of our hearts leap for joy and inspires complete and total disinterset—or even dislike and disdain—in others. Where can we find the good stuff? What makes it good? And what's up with the haters?)

2007 - SGA: The Women of Atlantis (What do we like about how the women of SGA are written and portrayed, and what makes us wince? What do we think about how their issues are being woven into the show's narrative?)

2008 - Gay is Not Slash (...even though slash is sometimes gay. The current argument about m/m romances by women as taking recognition *away* from male gay writers, depends on m/m writing being intended as gay lit. And slash, for one, isn't, even if there can be overlap. What overlaps? What doesn't? What examples do fans like?

2009 - Female Character Stories: Halfamoon, Full Moon or Just Moony (F/f slash, and other stories centered on female characters, are gaining visibility in fandom. Are there things fens will write about women that we won't about men? (Given MPreg, *are* there?) Should f/f be like m/m, or is it unavoidably different?)

2011 - My ***** is Not Ideologically Driven, But is it Homophobic (Slash fandom often sees itself as a mostly liberal community. IDIC, right? But recently there's been a slash backlash: it's anti-feminist, a 'symptom' of internalized misogyny. We're 'erasing' the women characters after all. Is slash homophobic? Does slash fandom appropriate gay culture? Is it awesome and ennobling as it makes us happy in our panties, or is all that self-hatred bubbling just beneath the surface of our porn?)

2012 - Natural Woman (We've lamented the lack of strong, believable female characters (who dress appropriately). But now we have them: Gemma Teller and Audrey Parker; Salt and Haywire; we've got Bechdel-passing women who look like they can throw a punch. Still, most of them are in the sci-fi or action genre, so are we really seeing progress? And what are we doing with them, as fans?)

2012 - Don't Call It a Bromance (It's Just Canon) (TPTB are increasingly aware of slash, and bromance is regular fare on TV canon these days. Does overt bromance make the fic and art hotter or just vanilla? Is there an anti-slash backlash in our shows? Is the emphasis on men's relationships making women disappear? Inquiring minds want to know. If you have answers, theories, or just want to squee, join in the fun!)

2014 - (The End of?) Ladybashing in Slashfic (Slashfic used to regularly feature bashing of female characters. Now, blatant bashing seems less fashionable. If you recognize this trend, let's talk! Were most ladybashing fics ones for juggernaut pairings in megafandoms, or were they everywhere? What's causing the change: more women in leading roles/ensemble casts, fic writers being more conscious to avoid bashing ladies even if they're not their favorites, more willingness to blame show writers' bad writing (instead of the character being just bad/evil/stupid) for bad female characters, or something else entirely?)

2015 - Fifty Shades of Fandom (Fifty Shades of Grey has become the representation of fan fiction in mainstream culture. It’s bad fan fiction, and it’s being used to ridicule women while making millions off women readers and viewers. Can we connect with these women: proto-fans who would love to read, and maybe write, great fan fiction if they found it? Can we use the FSoG phenomenon to expand our community? Does keeping our doors closed and our mouths shut perpetuate both monetization of our fan culture and misogynist scorn?)

2016 - Who Are We? (How do we define ourselves in this age of so many OT3s and team orgy pairings? Does m/m/f count as "slash"? Is slash-only space slipping away? (And would that be bad?) Do m/m and f/f belong together more than they do with m/f? Is "Media Fandom" a valid term any longer? Who are we if we start shipping het?)

2016 - Ladies Loving Ladies. (There would seem to be enough queer women in fandom to write/want more f/f. Do lesbians write f/f, m/m? Both? Do straight women? Or are we still missing the iconic female characters and relationships that create a great slash fandom? Did they figure out the answer to this question at TGIF/F and if so, what is it?)

2016 - By Us For Us (Fic, even kinky slash, is practically mainstream these days. The ebook revolution puts publishing within reach of almost anyone. Sundance hits have been filmed on iPhones. So why aren't fangirls making more media? Or is it happening right under our noses? Is this a place where our women's gift economy does our community a disservice? Discuss what's out there, what we'd like to see, and what's holding us back.)

2017 - LGBTQIA+ in Slash Fandom (Queer fans have always been here. In a subculture often defined as "for" straight women, what do we as fans have to say about non-straight, non-cis, and non-conventional sexuality and gender in fanfiction, in fandom, and in the larger culture?)

2018 - Confronting the Tensions Between Slash and Queer Representation (Slash fandom thrives on homoerotic subtext. Many queer fans are unwilling to settle for this quasi-representation. Part of every slash fandom seems loudly invested in their ship becoming canon. Some are queer fans who want actual textual representation in their favorite shows, and some are fans using queer politics to fight ship wars. Then the “slash is not activism” posts make the rounds. Is slash activism? Is advocating for slash ships in canon the same thing as advocating for queer representation?)

2018 - Representing Slashers (What does "representation" in the media mean to us? We know what more gay or POC representation means, but what about slash fandom, which is largely female and focused on bodies that don't resemble our own? Would better female characters in media better represent us? Or male characters written for a female audience? Come talk about the intersection of slash, personal identity, and media representation.)

2018 - Anonymity in Slash Fandom: Choosing to Hide (Why do the majority of slash fans hide their hobby? Is it fear of blackmail? Embarrassment? Fear of losing employment? How does this affect your happiness? How does this affect your security? What would an ideal world look like? Who would/have you told about your interest in slash? Who would you never, ever, tell?)

2019 - Fandom Post-Slash? (In an era of "ships" and #pairing #tags on Tumblr and AO3, has the "slash" label lost its meaning? Same-gender pairings are as popular as ever and fans still ID pairings with a virgule between the names, but how many fans still call m/m and f/f slash or femslash? How many fans identify as "slashers?" Het and slash were opposing binaries which few fans crossed. Are these barriers breaking down? What purpose has the term "slash" served? Has fandom moved

past it and, if so, what does that mean?)

[scrumptioushottubinfluencer]

Er Emergency Room Season 1

Susan Lewis, MDFirst appearanceSeptember 19, 1994 (1x01, '24 Hours')Last appearanceApril 2, 2009 (15x22, 'And In The End')Portrayed bySherry StringfieldDuration1994–96, 2001–05, 2009In-universe informationNicknameSusieTitle

Resident (1994–1996)

Attending (2001–2005)

Chief of Emergency Medicine (2003–2005)

OccupationEmergency PhysicianFamily

Henry Lewis (father)

Irene “Cookie” Lewis (mother, deceased)

Chloe Lewis (sister)

SpouseChuck Martin (ex-husband)Significant otherDiv Cvetic (ex-boyfriend)ChildrenCosmo Martin (son, with Chuck)RelativesSuzie Lewis (niece)

Emergency Room

Hospital Er Rooms

Susan Lewis is a character as played by Sherry Stringfield, on the fictional television show ER. Sherry Stringfield is one of ER's original cast members, portraying Susan in Season 1 as an eager resident. Stringfield left the show, the character was not recast and Susan left County General Hospital and the series in Season 3, but. ER Confidential November 17, 1994. Season 1, Episode 10. November 17, 1994. Cvetic (John Terry) struggles with a growing sense of hatred toward his patients; Hathaway faces an ethical crisis.

Dr. Susan Lewis is a character as played by Sherry Stringfield, on the fictional television showER.

Sherry Stringfield is one of ER's original cast members, portraying Susan in Season 1 as an eager resident. Stringfield left the show, the character was not recast and Susan left County General Hospital and the series in Season 3, but Stringfield and the character returned five seasons later as an attending physician in Season 8. Susan Lewis eventually checked out of the ER for good in 2005, at the beginning of Season 12, having been passed over for tenure in favor of John Carter by Kerry Weaver. She was offered a tenured position at a hospital in Iowa City.

Development[edit]

During the third season of the series, actress Sherry Stringfield left ER for the first time. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Stringfield explained that having a family was one of the primary reasons for her to leave the show.[1] According to Entertainment Weekly, Stringfield's decision to quit angered the show's executive producer John Wells, because she left just as Dr. Lewis got embroiled in a budding romance with Anthony Edwards' Dr. Mark Greene.[2] Stringfield revealed it was not a pleasant situation and said: 'The producers were in shock. They tried to talk me out of it. It took a long time to get out of my contract.'[3]

However, by the time of the eighth season, her schedule allowed her to return to the series. Wells said they were 'delighted to welcome her back as a series regular and can't wait to work with her again.'[1] Stringfield remained in the main cast for four more seasons, until August 2005, when she announced that she would be leaving ER again and stated: 'I am extremely grateful for the time I spent on ER,' Stringfield explained. 'It is a wonderful show, and there are so many people I will miss. But I'm ready for new roles and new challenges.'[4]

Character history[edit]

Seasons 1–3 First Departure (1994–1996)[edit]

In Season 1, Susan is a second year resident. She is shown to be an eager and competent young doctor working in the emergency department of County General Hospital. She is good friends with Nurse Carol Hathaway, Dr. Doug Ross and especially Dr. Mark Greene, who is her best friend.

Though an extremely capable doctor, Susan is initially seen to have problems asserting herself. This is frequently taken advantage of by the senior and more forthright doctors in the hospital, such as Dr. Peter Benton and particularly Dr. Jack Kayson. This leads to several confrontations, and animosity worsens when Kayson discharges one of Susan's patients, failing to notice the severity of his symptoms, which ultimately leads to the patient's death.

Kayson tries to deflect the blame onto Susan and her competence is questioned. Her superior, Mark, is forced to monitor her every move and their friendship is put under strain as a result. During the case review, however, the board rules in Susan's favor and reprimands Kayson—much to his chagrin.

Shortly after, Kayson is rushed into hospital suffering from a heart attack. Despite their past disagreement on the issue, Kayson opts for Susan's non-invasive form of treatment against the advice of a senior doctor, who (like Kayson) is an advocate of surgical angioplasty. Finally asserting herself, Susan stands her ground and refuses to allow Kayson to be treated surgically. Following his recovery, Kayson shows his gratitude by asking Susan to be his valentine date, which she awkwardly declines.

Susan's personal life is far less settled than her professional one. In Season 1, she is seen to have a brief relationship with psychiatrist Div Cvetic, who ultimately has a nervous breakdown and disappears. Susan later learns that he married someone he met through a dating service, run by a taxi driver from his cab.

Most of her problems, however, are family-related. Susan's parents, Cookie and Henry, are shown to be flighty (her father is jokingly referred to as a test pilot for Barcalounger) and difficult to talk to. Her older sister, Chloe, is the source of most of her distress, with a seemingly never ending series of problems with alcohol, drugs, men, and money. Chloe eventually has a baby girl, who she names Susan ('Little Susie') after her sister. During Season 2 however, Chloe begins to use alcohol and drugs once again. After deciding that she cannot look after her baby, she leaves Chicago, abandoning Susie on a flustered and overworked Susan.

Susan as she appeared in 1996.

She struggles to be a good mother to the child while completing her demanding residency. Already overstressed, Susan clashes with the new Chief Resident, Kerry Weaver, numerous times, forcing Mark Greene to step in between them. Animosity between Kerry and Susan lessens over time, but never goes away completely. Realizing that Chloe may never return, Susan considers giving Susie up for adoption. She gets as far as introducing the baby to potential adoptive parents, but cannot bring herself to part with her niece, so she decides to keep her and adopt the child as her own.

Susan grows extremely attached to the baby, but she gets a surprise when a reformed Chloe reappears later in the season and tries to reclaim 'little Susie'. Susan can't see past Chloe's mistakes, regardless of her recent turnaround and new responsible boyfriend. Desperate to keep the baby, Susan attempts to fight Chloe for custody, but is forced to reconsider when the judge warns her that she would lose. Susan begrudgingly reaches an agreement with her sister, and after regaining custody of 'little Susie', Chloe moves her family to Phoenix, Arizona to start a new life.

Susan struggles to cope with the loss of her niece and goes through a period of grief and counseling. She throws herself into her work to escape her feelings of loneliness, which manages to impress Weaver and, with Mark's encouragement, Kerry agrees to offer Susan the position of chief resident (she promises to support Susan's promotion if Mark recommends her as County's new attending physician). Much of the ER staff hoped Susan could achieve that title, but Susan turns the position down, later telling Mark that there is more to life than work.

Setting up Sherry Stringfield's departure from the series in Season 3, the beginnings of a romance appears to develop between Susan and Mark, or more to the point, they are shown to have problems identifying their current relationship as friendship. Both seem timid and cautious around each other. Initially more upfront about the situation, Susan invites Mark to join her on holiday in Maui, Hawaii, but is embarrassed when he appears hesitant, and later retracts the offer, feeling she overstepped a boundary.

Fearful that he may have missed his chance with Susan, Mark attempts to convey his attraction towards her upon her return, though he cannot find the courage to follow through and is left perplexed by Susan's reticence. It transpires that Susan never actually made it to Maui, she instead visited her sister and 'little Susie' in Phoenix as she could not overcome her fear of flying. Mark helps her overcome this fear in the following episode ('Fear of Flying'), supporting her during a helicopter flight rotation where they are called upon to treat victims of a serious motor accident.

As they grow closer, Mark finally plucks up the courage to casually ask Susan out, however she declines, telling him that they 'need to talk'. Shortly after, Mark witnesses Susan in numerous secret talks with the ER's chief of emergency medicine, David Morgenstern, and concludes that they are seeing each other. He confronts Susan, but she reveals that Morgenstern was merely helping her to transfer her residency. Desperately missing her niece, Susan had made the decision to move to Phoenix to be near her sister's family.

During a hectic last day for Susan at County's ER, Mark struggles with her imminent departure, but still finds himself afraid to admit his true feelings for her. The hospital staff arrange a leaving party for Susan, but it is canceled due to an influx of critical patients from a motoring accident. Susan leaves the hospital unable to say goodbye to Mark, who was busy working on a trauma patient. He manages to arrive just as her train is about to depart (episode 'Union Station). Mark pleads with her to stay because he loves her. But Susan doesn't see a future in Chicago or with him. She kisses him and says 'I love you, too' as the train departs.

Seasons 8–12 and second departure (2001–2005)[edit]

Susan returns during Season 8 as she left, shown to arrive on a train into Chicago to interview for a job. Susan visits County General for the first time in 5 years and sees the hospital has changed as well as the faces. She meets Mark for coffee and reveals that Chloe has moved on to another city, and she has decided that she can't follow her sister's family around forever. Mark offers her a job as an attending physician at County General, despite Kerry Weaver's reservations – the two never got along when they worked together before.

Susan returns to County (2001).

During Season 8 Susan has a brief relationship with Dr. John Carter after they both admit that they had a crush on each other when he was a medical student and she was a resident – it doesn't last, as Susan realizes in the episode Secrets and Lies, that Carter is really in love with Abby Lockhart. She then tells Carter to 'tell her' about his feelings. The two both break up on good terms and remain good friends throughout the rest of her career at County. Her problems with Chloe resurface when her niece Susie goes missing in New York after leaving a distressing voicemail message on her aunt's phone. Susan flies to New York (in a crossover with Third Watch) and discovers Chloe doped up, sleeping rough. Towards the end of the season, Susan faces one of her most difficult story lines, as her best friend Mark Greene reveals to her that his brain tumor has returned. The two rekindled their close friendship as she helps him come to terms with his diagnosis. Susan is alluded to in Mark's goodbye letter in 'The Letter' when Mark comments that he had to leave the way he did, even though there were things of a more personal nature to say. After her best friend's death, Susan warmed up to other friendships in the ER with Abby Lockhart and Elizabeth Corday, and was able to work better with her old colleague Kerry Weaver. Dr. Romano, who actually respected her (he once told another doctor to get Dr. Lewis when he had a medical emergency, calling her 'the least annoying person down there'), also promoted her to Deputy Chief of Emergency Medicine much to Kerry Weaver's dismay.

Into Season 9, Susan meets a flight nurse named Chuck Martin (played by Donal Logue) on a plane to Las Vegas. They both get drunk upon arrival and end up getting married in Vegas. They quickly have the marriage annulled once they return to Chicago, but eventually start dating again, and Susan becomes pregnant. She is finally promoted to the position of Chief of Emergency Medicine after Robert Romano dies in Season 10. While other pregnant characters had given birth on the show, at the time, Susan's was the first major birth offscreen, with her giving birth sometime between Seasons 10 and 11 (and being placed on bedrest amid concerns of preterm labor). Chuck ends up caring for their baby boy Cosmo as a stay-at-home parent while Susan works.

Into Season 11, Susan begins to build some anxiety about the upcoming tenure offer. It ultimately goes to her friend John Carter, due to her lack of grant funding, finally leading to her final exit from the series at the beginning of Season 12 in the episode 'Canon City'. Susan is offered a tenure track position at a hospital in Iowa City, Iowa (presumably University of Iowa). Technically, Stringfield was the first and last original cast member to leave the show. (Being the first to leave in 1996, then in 2005 after the rest of the original cast left.) This was later bested by Noah as he returned in the final season of E.R in 2009.

Season 15 Return in The End (2009)[edit]

In the season 15 episode 'The Book of Abby', long-serving nurse Haleh Adams shows the departing Abby Lockhart a closet wall where all the past doctors and employees have put their locker name tags. Amongst them, the tag 'Lewis' can be seen.

Dr. Susan Lewis returned for the series finale titled 'And in the End...',[5][6] returning to Chicago for the opening of The Carter Center. During evening drinks with Peter Benton, John Carter, Kerry Weaver, Elizabeth Corday, and Rachel Greene, Susan is heard confirming to Dr. Corday that she still lives in Iowa. Additionally, she states that she and Chuck have split and she is now dating again. She eventually returns to the ER for the last time in the series with Rachel Greene and Carter, where she visits and jokes with the staff, much to the annoyance of Dr. Banfield who interrupts the talk by asking Susan who she is.

Reception[edit]

Sherry Stringfield's decision to leave ER was a 'shock wave through Hollywood.'[7] According to Entertainment Weekly, people called Stringfield 'nuts' for leaving 'the hottest show on TV for some investment banker in New York.'[3]

Other officesPreceded by Robert Romano Chief of Emergency Medicine 2004–2005Succeeded by Luka Kovač

References[edit]

^ abVanessa Sibbald (2001). 'Why Sherry Stringfield has returned to `ER''. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2019-07-11.

^Kennedy, Dana (1997-10-17). 'Why I left ER, by Sherry Stringfield'. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2007-02-24.

^ abKennedy, Dana (1997-10-17). 'Sherry Stringfield, the Goodbye Girl'. Entertainment Weekly.

^'Sherry Stringfield quits 'ER' Again'. Digital Spy. 2005-08-06. Retrieved 2007-04-12.

^Mickey O'Connor (2009). 'Sherry Stringfield Returning to ER'. TV Guide. Retrieved 2019-07-11.

^'Sherry Stringfield is Back!'. TV Guide. 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2009-02-12.

^'STRINGFIELD YEARNS FOR `NORMAL LIFE''. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 1996-11-22. Retrieved 2012-03-28.

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Susan_Lewis&oldid=992148957'

Doug RossFirst appearanceSeptember 19, 1994 (1x01, '24 Hours')Last appearanceMarch 12, 2009 (15x19, 'Old Times')Portrayed byGeorge ClooneyDuration1994–1999, 2000, 2009In-universe informationFull nameDouglas RossNicknameDoug, DougieGenderMaleTitlePediatric Fellow (1994–1998) Pediatric Attending (1998–1999)OccupationPhysician, PediatricianFamilyRay Ross (father; deceased) Sarah Ross (mother)SpouseCarol Hathaway (wife)ChildrenKate Ross (daughter, with Carol) Tess Ross (daughter, with Carol)Born1962[1]

Dr. Douglas 'Doug' Ross is a fictional character from the television series ER, portrayed by George Clooney. George Clooney's removal from the main cast opening credits was in the 16th episode of season 5.

Plot[edit]

Doug Ross was raised by his mother, Sarah, after his father, Ray, abandoned their family. In Season 1, Ross revealed to a patient that he had a son, and he tells nurse Wendy Goldman that he doesn't know his son's name as he's never seen him. Not much else is known about Doug's past. Despite his jumbled personal life, Ross is a dedicated ER pediatrician. He has always been committed to medicine and children and to helping no matter the rules or the consequences. During Season 2, Doug rescued a boy trapped in a flooding storm drain during a rainstorm. His heroic efforts were filmed on local television, making him a media star. This event helped him earn back his job at County, because his supervisor in pediatrics originally wasn't going to renew his fellowship due to his disrespect for authority.

During Season 2, Ray tries to reconcile with Doug, who has difficulty reconnecting with the man who abandoned him and his mother. Ray owns a ritzy hotel in Chicago, and Doug lets his guard down a little but is disappointed when his father offers to take him to a Chicago Bulls game and then stands him up. Ross later reveals that he and his mother were abused by his father. Doug later has an affair with Ray's girlfriend, a woman from whom Ray stole money, but ends the relationship when it becomes clear that she has many problems.

Ross is a womanizer who dates and leaves many women throughout the course of the show. His womanizing days abruptly end after a one-night stand with an epileptic woman who hides her condition and dies in the ER. Ross learns her name only after she dies, after which he stops dating for a while until he gets back together with Carol Hathaway, the head nurse of the ER at County.

Warner Bros. Television, the studio which produces ER for NBC, kept secret from NBC Dr. Ross' cameo in 'Such Sweet Sorrow', which promoted the episode as Carol Hathaway's goodbye, with no mention of Ross' appearance. The original version of 'Such Sweet Sorrow' that Warner Bros. sent to NBC ended after the scene where we see Hathaway on the plane to Seattle. At the eleventh hour, Warner Bros. sent an 'edited' version of the episode by messenger to NBC headquarters in New York for broadcast. NBC was miffed that it was kept in the dark as it could have generated valuable ad revenue if it had aired promos that the episode marked the return of George Clooney. Clooney cited the fans of the show for his reason for making the cameo (he wanted Hathaway's and Ross's characters to get back together, which many fans hoped for). Clooney reportedly only asked to be paid scale for the cameo.

In the season 15 episode 'Old Times,' Ross is working as an attending physician at the University of Washington Medical Center. He is helping a grieving grandmother (Susan Sarandon) whose grandson was gravely injured in a bicycle accident. He talks to Sam and Neela after finding out that they are from County, asking them whether any of his old colleagues still work there. Doug and Carol are responsible for getting the kidney for Carter and a heart for another County patient, but they never discover who receives the organs.

Career[edit]

In the pilot episode, which takes place on St. Patrick's Day 1994, Ross is brought into the ER not long before his shift, to be 'treated' for drunkenness by his longtime friend, Dr. Mark Greene. Throughout the next few seasons, Ross is shown to be compassionate, though not always using the best judgment. His love of children is best seen during darker situations, such as when a child is in danger. When Peter Benton talks about how surgeons deal with emotionally charged cases and ER doctors have it easy, Ross leaves him stunned into silence when describing cases that include a young girl who beat her mother to death, a kid who is going to lose his leg to cancer and another kid who is dying from a life of homelessness. His lack of judgment leads him to assault abusive parents in the ER, but his counseling in that case just consists of the shrink telling him not to do that again.

He is a passionate doctor who puts the welfare of his patients, especially children, above his medical career. In one episode, Dr. Ross saves a young boy who is drowning and is flown in to County General using a news helicopter. This garners him much attention, earns him an award, and saves his job. Ross doesn't handle authority well, even when Mark is his boss. He is a pediatrician, but in several episodes performs medical procedures on adults, usually when the other doctors are busy.

In another episode, he tries to do an ultra-rapid detox on a drug-addicted baby without the mother's consent. Hathaway assists, but when Greene and Weaver discover that the procedure is being done in violation of hospital policy and the law, Doug is punished. He is left on probation for 30 days and is supervised by Dr. Kerry Weaver and Dr. Greene, who have to co-sign his charts. Doug's attitude toward patient treatment often has consequences for his coworkers and supervisors, who have received reprimands from their superiors for Doug's actions.

He vies to be an attending physician for emergency pediatrics. He eventually gets the job, even though doctors Greene and Weaver oppose his promotion because the position isn't necessary and the funds are needed elsewhere. Greene is ultimately happy for Ross, but Weaver is aghast and campaigns against his new position.

He resigns in the aftermath of a scandal in which he shows a mother how to bypass the lockouts on a DilaudidPCA, enabling her to give a lethal dose of medication to her terminally ill son. Ross had earlier stolen Dilaudid from a pain- medication study and given it to the mother, only to be discovered by Weaver and Greene, who reprimand him but kept the incident private. The incident prompts the closure of Hathaway's free clinic in the hospital, since it supplied the PCA to this mother, and Ross faces suspension from work and possible criminal charges. A friend of Ross, who is the Chief of Genetics, stands up for him and the charges against him are dropped, but Ross resigns from the hospital and moves to Seattle. When Ross leaves, he and Hathaway are on poor terms until she discovers that she's pregnant with his twin girls. Her clinic is later re-opened, but she has to report to her former assistant there.

Ross was written out of the series because Clooney wished to focus on his expanding film career. He also said that there wasn't any strong story in place for his character after Season 5.[This quote needs a citation] He appeared at the end of the penultimate episode of season 6, when Carol leaves Cook County to reunite with Ross in Seattle. He was reportedly asked to return briefly in season 8, to make an appearance in Anthony Edwards's last episode during Greene's funeral, but Clooney declined because he did not want his cameo appearance to overshadow the departure of a beloved character on the show.

Clooney returned to ER for its 15th and final season in 2009 in a story arc beginning with Episode 328, titled 'Old Times', with Julianna Margulies also returning as Hathaway. The two are now married and work to help convince a grieving grandmother to donate her grandson's organs. During the process, Doug talks with Neela Rasgotra and learns that nearly everyone he knows has since departed County with Anspaugh being the only one left. At the end of the episode they receive word of the success of their efforts, unaware that the doctor who got the kidney was their old friend John Carter.

Development[edit]

Casting and creation[edit]

George Clooney did not receive a casting call for the television series. He received a draft of the script from a friend; he read it and became interested in the part. He said: 'I like the flaws in this guy. I can play him.'[2]

Neal Baer who worked on ER was inspired by his personal experiences to write storylines for the character of Doug Ross. He did his residency while he was on ER and became a pediatrician, which helped to 'draw on really complicated ethical dilemmas.'[3]

Characterization[edit]

The character was described as 'a complicated children's doctor who could be self-centered quick-tempered and giving, hitting the bottle to avoid dealing with consequences of his actions.'[4]

Reception[edit]

In 2004, Ross was listed in Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters.[5]Entertainment Weekly placed Ross in its list of the '30 Great TV Doctors and Nurses'.[6] The character was included in Fox News' list of 'The Best TV Doctors For Surgeon General' and in Philadelphia Magazine's 10 Best Doctors on Television.[7][8] Ross was also listed in Wetpaint's '10 Hottest Male Doctors on TV' and in BuzzFeed's '16 Hottest Doctors On Television'.[9][10] His relationship with Carol Hathaway was included in AOL TV's list of the 'Best TV Couples of All Time' and in the same list by TV Guide.[11][12]

For his work on the series, Clooney received two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series in 1995 and 1996.[13][14] He was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1995, 1996, and 1997 (losing to co-star Anthony Edwards).[15][16][17]

References[edit]

^Mimi Leder (director), John Wells (writer) (1996-02-22). 'The Healers'. ER. Season 2. Episode 16. NBC.

^Keenleyside, Sam (April 1998). Bedside Manners: George Clooney and ER. ECW Press. p. 51. ISBN978-1-5502-2336-1.

^Tate, Nick (January 11, 2015). ''ER' Producer Dr. Neal Baer Turns Lens on Poverty, Education Reform'. Newsmax Media. Retrieved August 15, 2015.

^Potts, Kimberly (September 1, 2011). George Clooney: The Last Great Movie Star Revised and Updated Edition. Applause. p. 51. ISBN978-1-5578-3785-1.

^'Bravo > 100 Greatest TV Characters'. Bravo. Archived from the original on July 17, 2007. Retrieved November 11, 2006.

^Wilkinson, Amy (June 15, 2009). 'George Clooney – Paging Dr. Feelgood: 30 Great TV Doctors and Nurses – Photo 12 of 28'. Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'The Best TV Doctors For Surgeon General'. Fox News. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^Palan, Erica (October 11, 2011). '10 Best Doctors on Television'. Philadelphia Magazine. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^Martin, Rebecca (December 21, 2012). 'The 10 Hottest Male Doctors on TV'. Wetpaint. The Cambio Network. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'The 16 Hottest Doctors On Television'. BuzzFeed. September 28, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^Potts, Kimberly (February 11, 2008). 'Best TV Couples of All Time'. AOL TV. Aol, Inc. Retrieved September 24, 2012.

^'Couples Pictures, ER Photos - Photo Gallery: The Best TV Couples of All Time'. TV Guide. Retrieved June 25, 2012.

^'Primetime Emmy nominations for 1995 - Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series'. Emmys.com. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'Primetime Emmy nominations for 1996 - Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series'. Emmys.com. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'The 53rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1996)'. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'The 54th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1997)'. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on May 21, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

^'The 54th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1998)'. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

Emergency Room

External links[edit]

Bio at TNT.com

Official ER website at NBC.com

Hospital Er Rooms

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doug_Ross&oldid=991497793'

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Regarding Vulcans and autism

Since why the hell not make it a series with recognizable titles that will make it easy to look up and create links for if I ever make enough of them for it to be worth it. Disclaimer: it might be hard to understand what I’m getting at without reading the other posts since this isn’t supposed to be, like, a comprehensive analysis on how one is like the other.

Thing is, as an Aspie woman, I can see perfectly well how Vulcans expressing nothing but neutrality gets twisted in reception and interpreted as smugness/disdain, and autism (or at least Asperger’s, I am sorta more knowledgeable about one than the other) does tend to include self-awareness issues that leads to feelings of superiority and/or inferiority, and with the most recognizably “autistic” (either explicitly or through coding) being the Sheldon Coopers and the BBC Sherlock types, the assumption that anyone like them in some ways will follow in others (heck, might be why pop culture has accepted Holmes as an asshole at all, since he wasn’t that bad in the stories but he WAS smart and eccentric and every once in a while disdaindful of the people whose jobs he did better than them) is not unexpected.

The problem’s not really there because I actually have faith that we could have talked about it and raised awareness of not only this case, but also made people question why seeing a smart(er), seemingly cold but all-around just neutral characters or races made everyone raise their hackles to such a degree, assume that they’re actually mostaken about their skills (literally have seen people go “but what if Vulcans only think they’re some of the best scientists around bc they’re supercilious assholes and it’s just not true”)and wrong about life in general. Don’t get me wrong, I do get the impulse ever since Star Trek (2009), but, well, that’s just the thing, that’s where the problem is. Because we could have talked about it in fandom and be friends about it, but now there are TWO official canon sources that depict the Vulcans as intolerant, xenophobic, racist, ableist hypocrites, and not only is it harder to argue with actual canon telling you that you were right about your worst assumptions, but now you’ve seen them be actually WORSE than you first thougt, and to your faves, and in such a way that none of their positive/redeeming qualities (say, being all of that stuff sorta kinda messes up the whole IDIC thing, but it wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t doing it out out of malice, but out of ignorance and genuine misunderstanding, and if the only members who were shown to be sorta kinda decent weren’t at least partly from a different species (u.s., uh, I mean, us) and/or implied to have been influenced by a different culture) were shown. In fact, those good qualities, such as their pacifism, reverence for life, belief and respect for diversity, their curiosity and constant push for knowledge that probably wouldn’t let them just let a kid fall by the wayside becuase he was dyslexic (“there is no other wisdom, and no hope for us, but that we grow wise”), their deep attachment to their morality that’s even more important to them than to be liked by the other members of the Federation COUGH COUGH AUTISM MUCH COUGH COUGH were the first to be dropped in favour of what’s anathema to all of this, the last one in particular was turned on its head so it wasn’t that they used their logic to arrive to the most compassionate and fair choice, and it had to be logic since emotion would resist a sacrifice in a way logic won’t, making logic the compassionate choice (as they saw it, I don’t think it’s universally true, but also not universaly false), but that they were mich more willing to let people suffer and to look the other way and not be affected at all because, I don’t know, they mistook logic, which is a tool, with efficiency, which is a goal, I’d guess.

They lost the best things about them because freaking J J Abrams decided to make movies about a franchise he didn’t even like and then, even though all of it could have stayed in a parallel universe were, as many have proposed, Vulcans were worse because the Kelvin accident led people to know what Romulans looked like earlier so THEY were worse and everyone was just an asshole to each other, but then Discovery took a leaf out of his book and used his version of Vulcans and even changed old characters to fit this new version better (Sarek doesn’t disagree with Starfleet because of its bellicosity [you can’t even argue that he still disaproves of violence because he spent the worst part of the war following General Cornwell around and idk commiting mind crimes] or because he sees it as a rejection from Spock [since he says he’ll keep his distance because it’s what Spock would want and what the fuck even was that?] and he’s a cold bastard who’d take a child to a completely different culture than the one she’s used to purely for superficial beliefs and even then he’ll still prioritize his more Vulcan son, Amanda doesn’t think Vulcan’s is a hard but better way [and honestly she wouldn’t be justified to] so since she can’t be staying because of her children since they’re being mistreated, she must be doing it because of Sarek which is just so feminist, you guys, and ok, I better change topics before this becomes an “everything that’s wrong about Disco with a sidenote of everything that’s not objectively wrong but I still didn’t like”, but also, Vulcan brains can literally lobotomize themselves while dealing with trauma, don’t you think they’d take mental health seriously?) so now it’s canon in the original universe, too. Even with Enterprise (which, to be honest, I haven’t watched, I’ve only learned what was going on with Vulcans from Memory Alpha and the recounting might hace left events and/or the essence and implications of the plotline out), the tomfoolery was supposed to be Romulans infiltrating the government and twisting Surak’s teachings, all of this is supposed to be how things vecame after they got his katra back and went through the Reform.

And this got long, but the thing is: it’s not just about the Vulcans. It’s about the fact that some of the worst assumptions made about them were recognizable at least by this one Aspie as, among other things, a neurotypical’s response to an autistic trait and a long history of negative autistic coding, and now they’ve been confirmed by canon, so instead of having a nice discussion and maybe a bit of disk horse about this, we’ve gotta deal with the fact that now some people feel legitimally repelled by and resentful of Vulcans (insofar as any emotion applies to fiction) because they are now the bigots and oppressors - now it’s not a one episode race of black&white and white&black people ridiculously pointing at the obvious differences between each other, but Vulcans who have said and done bigoted things many people have been exposed to during their lives, and if they were ever willing to give them, and by extension us, a chance, now it’s ruined. I am not, of course, saying that if you hate Vulcans, especially now, you’re ableist, or that making them the Asshole^tm will turn people ableist. Just that it would have been nice to see people like me who didn’t end up justifiably despised.*

*Especially through character assassination, couldn’t you have at least made them unlikeable from the start?

[helenbeligirl]

“You can be freed from one thing, but that only puts you in a tight spot somewhere else. Understand?”

Shanghai Girls, Lisa See (2009)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Read this if you like historical fiction with a sister-bond focus. (Don’t read this if you’re not a fan of wartime fiction).

Books like this: My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2018), Sister of My Heart (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 1999).

TW: Rape (I explain the chapter with spoilers at the end of the review)

Encompassing a span of 20 years between 1937 and 1957, Shanghai Girls takes its characters from Shanghai, to Hong Kong, to the United States. It follows two sisters Pearl and May and their complicated relationship through wartime, internment, and racism. At the outset, both sisters are modern and carefree, but are soon sold into an arranged marriage to pay off their father’s debts. They are inseparable during the most harrowing of experiences, but their own insecurities and jealousies threaten to shake the foundations of their relationship.

This book explodes with detail in the best of ways. The settings are vividly and beautifully described, and great care is taken into placing the story into the time period. I love history and historical fiction, so this was an absolute treat for me in regards to the way everything was described. Lisa See’s done an incredible amount of research into this time period and the people that lived these lives, and that much is clear to see in the novel.

The protagonist is the older sister Pearl, who’s more practical and book-smart than her younger sister May. As the novel unfolds, readers begin to see that Pearl’s practicality and realistic point of view aren’t exactly completely practical or realistic. I liked seeing how her flaws unfolded throughout the book. She develops a bit of a cynical outlook as the narrative progresses but keeps strong despite it all. I liked Pearl because she felt real to me in a way that fictional protagonists sometimes don’t. She is dealing with significant trauma from everything she’s had to endure, and she copes the best way she knows how, though her best isn’t always the most effective.

Pearl’s sister May is much flightier and more idealistic, but just as with Pearl, the novel allows for an insight into her stronger and more admirable characteristics. In the end, May becomes just as realistic a character as Pearl, flawed in many ways, and completely human (which puts some reader’s off, so if you prefer characters that are less flawed and more inspirational, this might not be the book for you).

The rape scene in the book is very difficult to read, and it can be very triggering as well. It caught me mostly unawares, though there is sort of a lead up to it, and I still can’t get it out of my mind. The traumatic fallout from the rape is dealt with quite deftly in my opinion, which is one of the things I liked about this novel, but it’s devastatingly tragic and skipping won’t take away from too much of the story as long as you know that the rape happened. If you want to have a spoiler-y explanation, it’s at the end of this review. 

Shanghai Girls also explores the concept of belonging, and what it takes to make a home in a hostile place. It touches upon the deep traumas of losing the place you were rooted in, and being unable to forge an identity in the places you once called home. Pearl and May try their best to deal with their new lives, but being in circumstances completely different to the ones they grew up in requires a great deal of adjustment, and eventually becoming people that they didn’t expect to become. It’s a picture into what growing up is like – albeit with the very real threat of war and systematic racism.

The end is left hanging, but because there’s a sequel, it ends up being a bit of a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ scenario. If you’re the type to enjoy a narrative with closure, read the sequel as soon as you finish this one. If you don’t mind things left hanging (and I didn’t mind the way this book ended), you don’t have to pick up the next book. If this is all you read, the ending might make you feel a little drained, but perhaps also a little hopeful that the uncertain future will bring healing.

I was in two minds about the book when I finished it. This isn’t a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time, I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone. Like I said, Lisa See’s research comes through very well, and as a historical novel, it’s pretty good. As a narrative from the perspective of a non-white woman, there’s something inherently inauthentic about Pearl’s voice that I can’t pinpoint. Three pages into the book, I had a funny feeling this wasn’t an own voices novel, and I was kinda right. Something about it just felt white to me. The author is one-eighth Chinese, but she’s white passing, so make of that what you will.

Even though I enjoyed this, I would recommend reading an own voices novel. I felt like Pearl’s voice just had something missing, something you might sense if you’re not white yourself. Technically speaking, it was a good piece of work. Personally though, I’d say you won’t be missing too much if you don’t pick this up. Also mind you this book is extremely sad, like, never ending tragedy, so it might be hard to take)

[SPOILER]

The rape scene happens in Chapter 6: Soaring Through the Night Sky. Pearl, May, and their mother are walking to the Grand Canal to try to find a way to get to Hong Kong, with the aid of a wheelbarrow pusher. They find shelter in various shacks with families, but one night while they’re at an empty shack, the Japanese find them. They murder the wheelbarrow pusher and then come inside. Pearl and May’s mother tell them to hide and she faces them herself, but Pearl leaves their hiding place to defend their mother. Both Pearl and her mother are sexually assaulted. It’s devastating and horrific and even though it’s not exactly graphic, the allusions are bad enough. If you’re triggered by this kind of content, please give this chapter a miss.

[END OF SPOILER]

[scriptsandlattes]

Sherlock Holmes and Fanfiction: A Study in the Development of Humanity

August 17, 2019

           Along with having a Zygoma that would make a cheese knife jealous, Benedict Cumberbatch marvelously portrays the fictitious, and often socially blind, detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is brought up as one of the many iterations of Sherlock Holmes. Whether you prefer the serious only-time-for-fun-when-I-drank-to-much, Cumberbatch and Freeman as Sherlock and Watson respectively, or favor Robert Downey Jr. and his Watson, Jude Law’s more comical approach, you have seen at least one version of the duo represented on-screen that is different from their literary counterparts; Which is anything but surprising, as it is a series of shorts that were written in the 1880s. Some laugh at the idea that fan-made fiction is an artifact of pop culture, but every story is inspired by another story. Even the original stories are often based loosely, stiffly, or satirically around witnessed events. Fanfiction is a study in humanity, and it's social and historical developments. It also brings out creative thinking, individually and collectively.

What makes writing stories using Sir Arthur Doyle’s characters on a platform such as Wattpad (or Tumblr) less accepted than a BBC or Hollywood production? It does not matter where the source material comes from; the original idea will be spun into someone's inspiration. The amount of research and work that goes into a good fanfiction should be commended as well, as writers can spend hours researching methods or mental incapacities. Then again, "good" is a subjective term, and you can often tell when something isn’t thoroughly researched. Even with films, tv shows, and big, commercially marketed books, there is an argument over whether the story is good or bad. While some consider fan-written fiction lower than kitsch, being a mimic is a skill. Yes, some of the characters are already established, but the writer still created an original character- or characters- and plot ideas, which means the story already has a new element added and they now must create interactions with the pre-established characters without disrespecting the constitution of the original characters or their creator. Whether the original creator would accept the fans version of the story matters little, as both versions are the author’s head canon. As with any form of art, kitsch or not, it will enviably cause controversy.

Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is the updated inspiration presented by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. To be more relatable to a broader audience, Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty are younger, and electronically inclined but still clever enough to keep the “old-timers” interested. As times change, more ideas are allowed. The mental health of it all has developed as well; the more scientists learn about mental wellness and the human psyche, the more we can be algorithmic with how characters will or won’t react to different disorders. Sally Donovan calls Sherlock a freak, John Watson rolls with it, and Detective Lestrade sees Sherlock’s potential.

While there is little exploration as to why Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes is the way he is, looking at it from a psychological point of view, we can identify the adolescent issues that caused Cumberbatch’s Sherlock to have grown into the man he is. Nothing sums up young Sherlock’s development more than “the mind is inherently designed to understand life as a narrative.” (Borges, 1962) Even Sigmund Freud agrees that the psyche reshapes the conflicts revisited in narratives as a way to cope (Danesi, 2019). In Gatiss’ version, the Holmes brothers have a younger sister. She was closer to Sherlock’s age and began to feel ignored and jealous of Sherlock’s relationship with his best friend Victor, so she shoved Victor down a well and refused to tell them where he was. It is not until after she burned down the family home and is sent away that Sherlock rewrites his memories, forgetting his younger sister and making his childhood friend his childhood dog, (that never existed), Redbeard. At one-point, Mycroft tells Sherlock he is the man he is because of the memory of his sister.

The same events also lay the foundation for understanding Mycroft as well. The human psyche is a precious thing. Where Sherlock forgot his trauma, and his brain seems to have rewritten the way he reacts completely, Mycroft lives with the guilt of knowing what he did. He knew the Eurus was locked away and did not die in the house fire she set, as he told his family. Perhaps his internalization of emotions is how he lives with the guilt, like a self-inflicted punishment. The more you pay attention to Gatiss as Mycroft, the more you can tell he truly cares about his little brother, but he is afraid to look weak, so he instead acts like he does not and allows the hostility.

Inspirations grow with the times. More ideas are accepted, and technology is upgraded. While Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes occasionally falls back into archaic tendencies, he uses modern technology such as keeping a blog and texting. Downey Jr. offers us the closer to the original version with telegram communications. Setting aside the Abominable Bride episode which is meant to take place in 1895- it is likely that if the two versions were to switch places, they would not be able to do their job as efficiently, if at all. They wouldn’t have the technology they know how to use; one would have the advanced tech while the other would think waiting for, or writing, a telegram is tedious.

When studying Pop Culture, we must recognize that linguistics and logistics have changed to sate modern speech and society. “The game is afoot” becomes “the game is on.” Texting and calling someone on their mobile phone became the new telegram and messenger correspondence. Phrases like “brother mine” and “blud” are granted between the Holmes brothers to show affection, even if it is sarcastic. There is a scene between Detective Inspector Lestrade and John Watson where Lestrade tells John that Sherlock is a great man and that maybe one day he will be a good one. (Moffat et al. 2010) Which implies that Sherlock is good at what he does, but not the kindest person. It is this scene that tells the viewers that if Sherlock were less talented but compassionate, he would be a good person.

The good man speech is alluded to in the third episode in the fourth series when Sherlock shows genuine concern for his brother and even addresses Lestrade by his correct first name, indicating character growth. That humanizing character growth is what gives Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock an appeal that Robert Downey Jr.’s version does not have. It also suggests that Cumberbatch’s Sherlock pays attention but chooses to goad their disdain deliberately, thereby making moments like that more precious.

What was it Carl Jung said about mischief? “In every person, there exists a predilection for puerile mischief.” (Dansei, 2019) So In a way, this incarnation of Sherlock Holmes is The Hero and The Trickster. He also has more than one form of the shadow he is dealing with- the shadow within himself, and the shadow that takes the form of cases and enemies. When considering Sherlock, a “trickster,” we must look past the usual villainy that is partnered with the mythology. His trickery comes from his lack or denial of social skills. In the second episode of the first series, The Blind Banker, Sherlock allows himself to be contradicted to move his case along. He also tends to use physically harmless manipulation when a case is involved. In that same episode, there is a scene with Molly Hooper that illustrates this action. Though non-cannon to Sir Conan Doyle’s original work, she is a specialist registrar, (intern), in the morgue at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital that Sherlock flirts with Molly to gain access to bodies in the morgue without having to go through official channels. He recognizes her affection for him and manipulates that. However, he has never intentionally been cruel to his tolerable affiliates. That is where he differs from the usual trickster mythologies.

When Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat created their version of Sherlock Holmes, it was not your twelve-year-old-girl-who-doesn’t-understand-the-dimensions-of-the-characters, fantasy. They cared about the characters and enjoyed the adventures of the detective so much growing up they wanted to create their own version., and that admiration demanded the creation of a beautifully magical world that transcends the archaic and challenges the archetypes. There are even liberties taken with John’s wife, Mary. As she does not have a detailed back story in the original work, she is probably the most natural character to build around. She could have been a ‘villain’ or ‘the wise old Oak’ that helps John in ways Sherlock can’t. Which takes us back to the role’s women play throughout history and anthropology.

Pop Culture can be considered an experiment and expression of postmodern democracy, and as with any other viewpoint, it is not shared universally (Dansei, 2019). This democracy and societal growth are evident in the way BBC’s Sherlock portrays Mary Watson as a strong, independent, and charismatic woman who enjoys the eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes. She even understood why he faked his death. Since the beginning, she has been in his corner and pushed the relationship between John and Sherlock to stay the same. It was not until later in the series that we find out why she is so accommodating. Where Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes shows us Mary Watson as ‘John’s soon-to-be-wife, who happens to be a governess,’ Sherlock shoves the progression in our faces.

Historically, women have been submissive; to be seen and not heard. 2009’s Sherlock Holmes movies played by Robert Downey Jr, there is the implication that women are second-class citizens and not often taken seriously, which allows the deception between Ms. Adler and Mr. Holmes. While she was using him for information, he was using her for creature comforts. It was not proper to openly discuss sexuality or lack thereof. The audience doesn’t even know how or when Sherlock Holmes met Irene Adler in this ideation. However, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat challenge their audiences with a polar opposite character in their version of Irene Adler. She is an open and marketed Dominatrix, which accepts that women can take charge of their own life. In the wake of movements like #HeforShe and #Mettoo, Laura Pulver gives us the power to challenge inequality and harassment.

As previously mentioned, Molly Hooper is a character of merit in the BBC world of Sherlock Holmes. However, there is no place for her in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. The idea of women being in a power position like that was outside of comprehension in the 1880s. There is some subjugation with Molly accepting the way Sherlock treats her, but she is smart and influential and respected. Her education in the medical field illustrates how society has grown.  Women can study more than the necessities for being “Susie Homemaker.” Molly is Sherlock’s access point to bodies and labs in the hospital. Her allowing him access to the hospital helps him solve the crimes without breaking more laws himself by breaking into the morgue. He will never admit it, but she helps keep him human and occasionally inspires ideas with her medical perspective. It also helps that she is not “a complete idiot.”  

While the drug use seems to be a staple in the Sherlock Holmes lore, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock doesn’t drink eye drops to get high when he can’t find substance. He also isn’t trapping flies under a glass container and plucking the violin to observe their reactions. This version of Sherlock Holmes also portrays scientific advancement outside of women now contributing. It is mentioned in the show the Sherlock is a graduate chemist, and he is often seen appropriately using a microscope and slides when testing drops of blood and chemical compositions. There will always be new scientific methods and discoveries. The microscope and sterile slides are scientific improvements that were needed to help science move forward. The best science starts with a sterile environment. Sherlock even enjoys experiments with microwaves and refrigeration, implying that he is monitoring the viability of a subject in various temperatures, and the bacterial reactions as well. Though there were refrigeration units, the microwave experiments would not exist unless he was to first invent a unit to conduct and control microwaves.

Some of the experiments are used to solve current cases, while others are entertainment because he is bored. He is meticulous with his work and can even identify 140 different types of tobacco ash. Another thing that has grown with over the years is the knowledge of chemical reactions. The scientific advancements shown to audiences with any Sherlock Holmes variation seem to live with the memories of Sir Conan Doyle’s own growing up in the era of scientific change. Some, such as BBC’s version, highlight the advancements, some stay stagnant, but the impact is still there, whether it is a history in science lesson or scientific progress that inspires new ideas. Each version of Sherlock Holmes has a certain cleverness to it. New ideas in science, intelligent women, even annoyingly clever criminals. Every release is another piece of the puzzle, a collaborative art form that feeds on societal growth, innovation, and invention while somehow keeping our history present.

In general, Sherlock on the BBC gives more humanity and dimensions to the characters. Character building is a skill that many take for granted. World-building is two steps beyond that. But to take old-fashioned characters and throw them forward in history is taking that challenge and upping the ante. Both versions illustrate how much humankind has changed over the years, but also how we stayed the same. We’ve always been creative beings, and while Robert Downey Jr. was not afraid to don a dress and bonnet (which offered him anonymity as a woman), Cumberbatch takes a different approach to the “hide in plain sight” idea. Creative difference, but just as effective. Whether our creativity comes from something manmade or our own ingenuity, we never grow out of it, just develop it.

[morebedsidebooks]

15 Years Later Batman: War Games

I’ve considered myself a comics fan from the time as a little girl I received hand-me-down superhero comics from one of my older brothers. I spent a good deal of my childhood wrapped up in various tales published by DC comics mainly but, also other American creations as well as those from Asia and Europe. Lately I’ve been diving back into some of those DC comics. One character from Batman, Poison Ivy has remained one of my all-time favourites. But I’m not going to be writing about Pam today despite her being a recent topic of conversation. The reason being, during my trip down memory lane I was reminded of another contentious event in DC comics history. The October 2004 issue of Detective Comics #797 included the first part of “Low” a three-part story about Poison Ivy and the Riddler. However, that issue also started the first Act of War Games, an event which with prelude War Drums added in engulfed Batman comics for 10 months beginning earlier in March that year.

War Games, where a hypothetical stratagem Batman devised against Gotham’s underworld is put into action with disastrous consequences, can be memorable for several reasons. I remember it because of another beloved Batman character to me who played a major role Stephanie Brown, aka the Spoiler and for a short time also the fourth Robin among other designations. (She was however not the first young lady Robin if one includes The Dark Knight Returns which is outside main continuity.) The treatment of Stephanie, in War Games is the reason that I took a break from reading DC comics for a long time. 2019 marks 15 years since those events. So, with DC once again facing criticisms about how it wrangles philosophy and portrays violence, trauma and death I think it is time to revisit some of Stephanie’s history too.

Stephanie Brown was created in 1992 by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle debuting in Detective Comics #647. A teenager from some difficult circumstances with a criminal dad and mother with a prescription addiction.

She becomes a vigilante named Spoiler to thwart her father, eventually gaining allies and older mentors, also dating Tim Drake the third Robin.

Stephanie like those around her is not a perfect character having her share of mistakes and tribulations but, she also strives to improve and works towards making some difference in the world that isn’t as it should be. The Robin comic was particularly noteworthy for chapters featuring her teen pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend and the decision to put the child up for adoption. (Robin #65, 1999)

As well as in another powerful issue her confiding about an attempted rape at age 11 by her father’s friend who was left to watch her during an effort at rehab for her mother. (Robin #111, 2003)

Through it all she had a perseverance and resilience that became inspiring and her efforts and convictions led to her becoming a part of the Bat-family. So, it was quite a development when unable to stop the sudden murder of a key ally Orpheus (whose bloody body would be featured across pages to come as well) she was extensively tortured by the villain Black Mask, leading to a likewise incredibly difficult death scene with Batman by her bedside at the end of the third act of War Games in December 2004. Orpheus became a martyr figure (currently his last appearance which feels like a waste, along with the causticity  of killing off a character that talked about representation) and characters mourned Stephanie too, with a whole host of emotions as fans tried to come to terms also.

Not to be outdone though some months later when questions arose in War Crimes, the situation around Stephanie’s fate would get even worse with another principal character Dr. Leslie Thompkins given some of the worst (and out of character) motivations for not properly treating Stephanie, betraying her profession and the people close to her.

After Thompkins’ clinic becomes ground zero for the casualties in the massive gang war it’s an absurd decision to send a message to Bruce and young protégés about their actions. Not the first time the heartbreak would be used in such a manner either. It’s not all happy endings. It would be almost four years before DC returned to Stephanie’s fate retconning, revealing the truth of her death as a deliberate falsehood. (Robin #174, July 2008)

However, pouring more salt on the wound those years were a period during which she was also disrespected in death, an executive editor saying Stephanie was never a true Robin despite that going against Batman’s own words written in the comic on more than one occasion. Unsurprisingly behind the scenes editorial decisions about torturing and killing a 16-year-old teenage character apparently did not sit well with all the writers either. Stephanie taking on the Robin role was some small bright point of achievement to be wrestled before the horrible events to come, but also working as a ploy readers would fall into. When Tim’s father has it out with Bruce to put it mildly after discovering their vigilante personas, the developments of a new Robin (a position Stephanie held story-wise only 71 days before Batman fired her) did reportedly boost sales.

But she further had to die as Spoiler because another dead Robin is too much, for Batman. Young as I was in 1988, I too remember the spectacle death of Jason Todd the second Robin whose memory looms from the start in the prologue War Drums.

DC wasn’t done with him either. Reading stories of Jason, some that felt like the material I’d been craving for a long time, nevertheless always make me wonder where we’d be if the vote on his survival all those years ago had been different. A Death in the Family would seem to be a culmination after other titles usually on one’s lips around the experimentation of the late 80s less of interrogation and maturity perceiving a world growing darker inside and out but, the one question of what is too far to come back from.

And 16 years after it, well a dead Spoiler tortured and gone was too much for me. After nearly just as much time again today in 2019 marking the 15th anniversary of War Games I’m surprised in fact at how much the story even now hits me right in the chest. It’s been a long time with many, many people creating countless more titles at DC Comics. Including stories featuring Stephanie Brown who has gone on to take the mantle of Batgirl at one point (that same executive editor finally acknowledging how she connected to a portion of the fanbase and Bat-family in 2009) and likewise been reimagined through the reboots of the comics. (Stephanie in Rebirth’s Victim Syndicate in 2016 was particularly striking to me.)

Yet, I remember most clearly the earlier Stephanie perhaps by virtue being a teenager back then too. Or maybe in a similar fashion as impressionable of a moment as the comics I first received from one of my older brothers, as a young adult War Games seared into me a visual of a brand which gives its characters direction from bad places, hope, lets them rise and then to paraphrase it as a writer once did crush them like a bug. As a young child I could say wow Robins can die. Older, I could ask so what does it mean.

There are all kinds of stories, and what they offer to people as diverse as humanity itself. The ugly, tragedies and heartbreaks are important too for many reasons. I could write instead about such examples I’m fond of or, respect. Pieces of fiction that dance that line of examining and representing truth, little windows maybe the glass becoming a mirror that’s more painful because it is so familiar or, cuts when it breaks. Superheroes don’t live in the real world. But there is a very real world we live in where there are people that have and are growing up with no trust in authorities, screwed up parents, losing parents, becoming parents, facing sexual assault, abuse, gang violence and schools becoming yet another killing ground among other challenges. These sort of wars that are fought can leave a host of scars and casualties. Whether those 18 years or so are good or bad we’re lucky if they are only a small part of a larger life. Too often that’s not the case. But still, I have to ask when I pick up a comic and seem to find the same over and over, as time marches on what about this common story of harm and death has changed and what is its legacy?