#in case it's not clear from the images

[identifying-planes-in-posts]

trick or treat!!!

You get:

Nikitin-Shevchenko IS

[jitterbugbear]

centipede, acrylics on gel plate

[welcometogrouchland]

Batman #149 by chip zdarsky is mostly unremarkable, but I'm really fascinated by how it makes a great case for 'good' endings not saving 'bad' stories*. Because there's a lot of interesting concepts in this issue (bruce having to deal with his rapidly aging and decaying clone making him think about his own life, re-establishing a 'nest' so to speak for his family after pushing them away, etc) but bc of the OOC slog that came before it, almost every moment w/ the batfamily comes off as unearned and disingenuous imo.

Like, everything with Damian is the perfect example in this. Because in isolation it's...fine. admittedly it's a missed opportunity to not go deeper into how Damian would feel about a clone of his dad who tried to kill considering Damian's relationships with clones of himself (the heretic rejects and respawn) or with former enemies who wanted him dead but who were manipulated and/or brainwashed (like suren and maya).

Zdarsky doesn't go into any of this but you could maybe excuse it as the issue not being about Damian. However, coupled with the previous bizarre characterizations of Damian in 147 and 148, it ends up not being fine- instead it starts to feel...icky how Damian (who, despite often being drawn and written as white, will never have his connection to the non-white al ghuls forgotten and will always be effected by racism even when not portrayed as a poc) is constantly written as overly violent, uncaring and narrow minded in this run. Coupled w/ trying to recanonize the morrison origin for Damian it's like. OH this is badly written and laden with subtle bigotry, sick**

That's me going into detail on it with Damian but it's applicable to other things in this issue- the way Cass, Steph and Duke have all been ignored or turned into jobbers makes their inclusion in the 'family' here feel hollow instead of satisfying. Bruce proclaiming that Zur was still a part of him and he needs to accept responsibility for his actions (when it means taking in clone son) wrings hollow when just last issue zdarsky was bending over backwards to separate Bruce and Zur bc otherwise the Jason thing would get really awkward. Ends are achieved through means that feel hollow or strange. I'm at my destination but damn why'd the bus have to do all that???

I only really have opinions on this latest arc of zdarskys Batman bc it's the one I've read the closest (bc I'm a hater, masochist and avid follower of even the bad damian storylines) but it's not saying great things.

Bc zdarsky can do one thing good in this book, and it's write Bruce and Tim. And yet this entire story, whether of his own volition or editorial mandate, includes other characters who aren't Bruce and Tim, the fabric starts to unravel in very telling ways.

(p.s, I think pennyworth manor is an interesting idea but I feel like in execution it's just gonna be 'bruce living in a house haunted by the memory of the people he couldn't save' but with a different dead guy this time. Illusion of change and whatnot)

*whether or not the ending is good is up to you ofc, as is your opinion on the proceeding arc! I saw some ppl complain that the ending was too "WFA" for them, which I get even if I dont think it'll literally be the same premise. If anything it's probably a lead into the new tec run. Likewise many ppl who aren't in the weeds of Damian and Jason characterization liked the previous arc! But I have my opinions and rest my case before the bench

**disclaimer, I'm white and portrayals of bigotry in comics are complicated and subjective, but I am basing my point here off what other poc comic fans on socmed have been saying about 149. Also the "sick" is sarcasm incase that wasn't obvious

[puppetdoggy]

And they said bald men with dimples can’t cook 🙄🙄🙄💪💪💪

[sonknuxadow]

epic shadow the hedgehog moment

[batsplat]

deeply compelled by this photo

[marietheran]

Some way or other, the pre-climax of Perelandra is also "Man talking with God," in the fashion of a thousand later bad "Christian Fiction" novels and it makes artistic sense.

[depresseddepot]

trying to determine which parts of my relationship with sex are asexuality, which are trauma, and which are autism is like trying to have a conversation with three people talking loudly and all at once

[foxgonyoom]

Lessons we learned in LMK Season 4:

Episode 1:

Be afraid.

Episode 2:

If your friends get sucked into a nightmare scroll, you should jump in it too.

Episode 3:

If there’s a ghost, don’t fight him. Words are much more effective at making him cry.

Episode 4:

Feeding customers is more important than escaping an angry mob.

Episode 5:

“What are you Thor, the God of Hammers?!”

Episode 6:

Cats are more reliable for bringing your friend back to their senses than motivational speeches.

Episode 7:

We’re pretty good at faking it til we making it so you better start TAKING IT SON!

Episode 8:

Shit’s complicated

Episode 9:

Fuck up that lion man!

Episode 10:

When all else fails, return to monke.

[cjgladback]

For the first time in a long while, I got to go to a white elephant gift exchange this December! We had a low price ceiling and my practically wins out over any practical joke sensibilities every time, so on the designated shopping day I left my local overstock store with a nice chopstick set, some fancy (not at all mess-free) popcorn, and a dream.

When I was growing up, my mom was an intrepid homeschooling parent who loved event planning, valued cultural exploration, and had married into a Japanese family. Multiple times - sometimes in the setting of a multicultural fair, at least once as a kind of class party (with celebratory takeout at the end) - she faced teaching large groups of children how to use chopsticks quickly and with as little cost and cleanup as possible.

Her answer was popcorn! It's edible, so you get the full motion down, and lightweight but large enough for less coordinated sticks to pinch. It has tons of nubbins to grab and widely varied shapes to experiment with. Specifically, we used air-popped kernels, without oil or toppings, so when it gets overzealously crushed or bounces away and gets missed by a broom, it's basically biodegradable styrofoam.

What I'm saying is, this is my mom's fault. Other than the choice to draw so many hands in one afternoon on the same day as the party, while also baking a snack. That's all me. This primer was delivered in the format of a tiny booklet (if you look up an "eight page zine" that's also a method I learned from my mom, to turn single-sided misprints into notepads), with fewer jokes and tips than I'd have liked because I simply did not have time to transcribe a hashi rest fold or hairstyle. But reformatted (for Mastodon) it looks fairly respectable.

Lengthy image descriptions and full poster format under the cut.

[ID: A title page reads "How to Use Chopsticks" in all caps. The words "without too much mess" are between two straight, orange lines, which start with round points at the left, evoking chopsticks, and end in flared shapes of a silhouetted splash on the right. Below the lower line are the words "by CJ Gladback." All the text is in black, the background is white but appears light orange due to a repeating geometric watermark pattern of CJ's logo in orange overlaid on the whole image; her handle on most sites is included once on each of the following spreads: @cjgladback​

Next is the first spread of four illustrations with their instructions. On the left half of page are two line drawings of a right hand holding one and then two chopsticks, with the text, "The first stick rests on the side of your ring finger's nail and the flesh between your thumb and index finger. Your middle finger's pad holds it securely while it can slide against your thumb as your hand changes posture in use. The second stick is held between the knuckle of your thumb and the middle section of your index finger. This is the one you move to change angles; it may touch but doesn't really rest on the middle finger's tip." In orange, two arrows indicate the rest points for the first stick while small hashes emanate from the points pressed on the middle and ring fingertips and under the thumb's joint holding the top stick. On the right upper quadrant of the page is the text "Hold them close to parallel to scoop." A hand holds two sticks poked into a bowl of rice between the viewer and the palm; a series of parallel orange lines emphasize the space between the sticks. The remaining quadrant's text reads, "Press with your index finger to pinch firmly." This hand is holding an indistinct rounded shape in its chopsticks, with an orange arrow indicating the rotation of the index finger's tip to press the top stick's point toward the bottom's.

Next is the final spread of the pamphlet. The upper right text reads, "Practice with something medium sized and low mess like (air-popped) popcorn." A single piece of popcorn is held in disembodied chopsticks above a full popcorn bowl, with several kernels fallen to the surface below it. Text below reads, "Pick up your dishes to bring close to your mouth to scoop the harder to grab foods." An implied tilted bowl of food (fried rice or porridge with diced pieces) protrudes off the page, covering only the lower left corner. Close-up chopsticks have their points buried in the food and their lines fade out toward the right. The final black text, underlined by two orange chopstick shapes, reads, "but most of all, do what feels comfortable and eat well!" In orange in the lower right corner, the parenthetical "(and maybe knit a scarf)" is followed by a small orange drawing of a steaming bowl of noodles and sliced egg with a noodle line trailing toward two upward angled sticks with loopy hashes indicating knit fabric hanging from them.

The final image is the full booklet in its web format, with the three previous images from this post stacked vertically. Some orange lines have been added between what were pages in the print booklet, to aid reading flow. /end ID]

[savefrog]

how to explain to people that while we DO need to desperately dismantle AI’s capitalism-driven rise to prominence in many professional areas especially art because of how it will be used to replace artists in exchange for cheap content and on the back of uncredited artists that came before, and how things can be said about supporting the ai platforms that enable this

that simultaneously using Dall-E mini or Bing or whatever once to make a cat at some nebulous point is not like. It is not like. He did not just shoot an artist point blank out in an alleyway 😭

[sucrecube9]

[snekdood]

Yknow what makes me reaentful? How ive been sexually abused so much growing up, no one did shit besides shove me off to a therapist, ive been promised by feminist spaces that ill have a place to heal within them, and as soon as my abusive ex tries to smear me and project their behavior on to me by accusing me of doing that shit too, all the sudden everyone acts suspicious, and i still dont get any of that promised healing. Its hard not to feel like my ex did this intentionally to prevent me from having a space to heal. And its my issue with the "believe victims" narrative because it seems to me like people dont actually want to believe victims but to believe the victims they *like* and *agree more with politically*. If people can just say whatever about someone and you feel obligated to believe them because "believe victims", its very clearly going to be exploited by abusive people, and while i dont think we should stop per se, we need to have some sort of actual system to vet who is and isnt telling the truth, like a pseudo-courtroom. At the very least let everyone and their side of the story actually be heard. Bc idk how you guys plan to believe two victims at once who are accusing eachother other than throwing your hands up and picking one or deciding that we're both bad, which doesnt seem very fair to me since people seem to looove demonizing me for no discernable reason.

[flygonscales]

PAIN. MUCH PAIN. I was so pleased and happy about my new t-shirt. But then I look closer today and it probably is an AI generated image. FUCK. This company’s (spiral direct) generally been good in the past too! And it’s so blatant! Can’t believe how I missed this. URRRGHHHH. GOD FUCKING DAMN IT.

[shidoukanae]

backtracking through TME again and im still utterly in awe of Helene and her writing

I thought by the time i reached episode 72 that her story arc was mostly cleaned up. We got to learn that she does care about Lyla and that she's basically the asshole with a heart of gold stereotype wrapped in a few layers of pettiness and a faint hint of immaturity on her part.

...But now im realizing there MUST be still a lot to her character to go. There's just no way there's not. Between the missing event that turned Helene against Lyla and the way Helene warned Lyla not to trust or get close to her...not to mention we still haven't addressed the reason why OG!Helene destroyed the world in the first place...man, I LOVE that there's still more to her character to go

Helene is literally everything I have ever wanted to see in a character wrapped into one. I'm still shook she exists, that the whole of TME's plot never forgets her or shelves her potential.

She's a gal who has never gotten the chance to really mature into the person she should be due to Lyla's continued existence. She's petty and mean but her original saintly nature seems to be still intact. She's a walking contradiction: both cruel and kind and brave yet afraid. The amount of complexity and depth invested into her is honestly astonishing. And I wouldn't be surprised if she's heading for a villain arc considering her ties with her mother and the hints that she has a hand in the deaths of the empire's mages.

And I just,,,, god,,,, I want to create characters on the same level as Helene (and as the rest of this cast, actually). And while im currently in a rut with OC stuff due to being overwhelmed (and in a "what's the point" mindset lmao), this manga is SUCH an inspiration for me and all i wanna do is cling onto it and hope it never ends :'D

[sonknuxadow]

he HATES silver the hedgehog

MMY CAT KNOCKED HIM OUT OF MY HAND AND HE HIT THE HARD FLOOR FACE FIRST IM GONNA THROW UPPPPPPP