thinking about my great grandparents in romania, raised in a land colonized by the same empire that sent them to the balkans, still working as tailors and butchers like their ancestors had for generations.
thinking about them stowing away on ships to america so their children could live to see adulthood.
thinking about how many other five foot two bookworms have been in my family. i know i’m not the first, and i certainly hope i won’t be the last.
thinking about how many seders my family has held throughout history, how many “next year in jerusalem”s were shouted. it hasn’t happened yet, but maybe it will.
thinking about the women who passed down kabbalah to their children while witches burned in the next village over. how many mothers kept literal magic alive.
thinking about how every single person that lived before me, every branch of my family tree, had to choose to survive. living has always been in the present progressive for Jews; every breath they took was a choice to fight just a little longer.
i come from people who survived the spanish inquisition, the soviet union, the Shoah, the judeo-roman wars, ottoman imperialism, the rise and fall of so many empires i cannot name them all, and the only uniting factor is them. they taught their toddlers the sh’ma and lit candles and read books and sewed clothes and spun linen and cured meat and davened and smiled and laughed and they did that for two thousand years. ten years ago i became the first bat mitzvah in my family line. the first woman in my family to read from the torah.
i hope they’re proud. i hope i was worth it for them.
A canon compliant guide of Bruce Wayne’s officially adopted children
I noticed there has been some confusion about who all in the BatFam is actually legally adopted by Bruce Wayne so I thought I’d try and help clear some things up.
(Full disclosure you can of course headcanon whatever you like, I made this is strictly to help newer fans know what is actually canon💕)
Dick Grayson: Adopted
(Batman: Gotham Knights #17 and Batman #600)
Many fans argue over whether or not Dick is officially adopted, many saying it was never official and he is still just his ward.
Though he does admittedly usually spend the majority of his actual childhood as a ward, Bruce ends up officially adopting Dick as his son(as I have explained before here)in multiple timelines
Barbara Gordon: Not Adopted
(Batgirl and the Birds Of Prey Rebirth)
There was never a need for Barbara to be adopted because she still has a Dad. She is however still very much in the BatFamily and has trained under and with Bruce
Jason Todd: Adopted
(The New Titans (1988) #55 and Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying)
Now I couldn’t track down a comic where we actually get to see Bruce adopt Jason, but there are plenty of instances in which his adoption is referenced -including but not limited to these two- throughout several timelines and reboots
Cassandra Cain: Adopted
(Batgirl 2008 #6)
Now this one is a bit more debatable as aside from this one instance, Cass’ adoption is never really mentioned again even after the timeline gets rebooted. Still the general consensus is that Cassandra’s adoption is considered canon.
Tim Drake: Adopted
(Batman #654 and Red Robin #4)
Though Tim declines Bruce’s offer of being adopted at first, we get to see Bruce adopt Tim as his son about a year or so later. His adoption is also referenced across multiple reboots
Stephanie Brown: Not Adopted
(Batgirls #13, Robin (1993) #174, and Robin (1993) #126)
Now the main reason Stephanie is not and probably will not be adopted is because both her parents are alive. While her Dad is a villain and out of the picture, her mother is a nurse and fully capable of taking care of her.
Bruce does however train her during her brief stint as Robin and much like Barbara she is no less apart of the BatFamily, she’s just not in the Wayne Family
Duke Thomas: Not Adopted (technically)
(All Star Batman #1 and Batman & the Signal #3)
Now Duke is never officially adopted because technically his parents are alive just insane due to Joker’s toxin of which there is no cure. However Bruce does take him in and let him stay at the manor and it is heavily implied he becomes Duke’s foster parent so do with that what you will
Damian Wayne: Not Adopted/Biological child
(Batman and Robin (2011) #0)
Damian is Bruce’s one and only biological child -of the main canon- and therefore does not need to be adopted because you don’t need to adopt your own child
And that’s all of Bruce’s official and unofficial children in the main canon!💕🖤
Stormclan is pretty cool, I’m glad they are a direct result of the clans and not Rouge Group 255674385 that pops up like Minecraft mobs at night
Didn’t ivypool kill beetlewhisker? Will they remember it
The mental image of playing minecraft and Darktail spawns on your roof like a spider, refusing to leave in the daylight and making annoying chittering noises, is magical thank you.
Anyway nah, that was Brokenstar. Ivypool killed Antpelt, not Beetlewhisker. I have doubts they're going to remember that though, and if they do, it'll be one of those "don't worry guys we TOTALLY remember the events in our series!" throwaway lines we've been getting recently. The type that's thought in her head or thrown out in passing, but doesn't significantly contribute to Ivypool's emotional struggle.
I think Ivypool's actually the part of this SE that I'm most apprehensive about, funny enough. StormClan's got me pretty excited, but my hopes kinda started falling when I found out Dovewing was going on the road trip. I do not like the story that the Erins tell between the sisters, and I feel like they keep getting forced together to "reconcile their differences" when it would make a MUCH more effective story for the two of them to not do that.
See, what I like about Ivypool is that she's grudge-holding and spiteful. I LIKE that she tried to leverage her sisterhood with Dovewing in ASC to try and make her manipulate her husband. I find the fact she tried to sabotage SkyClan's chances at the lake back in AVoS to halt Dovewing and Tigerheart's relationship, slighting her apprentice in the process, to be COMPELLING.
I ENJOY reading about Ivypool being nasty. Both a victim of the Dark Forest who was targeted because she felt alienated, and yet, someone who has found a way to use Clan culture's most unfair aspects to her advantage. She'll NEVER see herself as the bully she actually is, because in her eyes, she's permanently the underdog.
so... I just have absolutely no desire to see Dovewing and Ivypool be "close."
Every time it happens on the page, it feels like it's Dovewing desperately wanting her sister to not treat her poorly, or believe in her, or just stop actively sabotaging her life. Then, Ivypool realizes this after a while and displays emotional intelligence that feels unfitting for her character, and apologizes.
It feels forced.
Like it's just happening because the authors know the fans want it, and not actually what these two characters would do. You get me?
I don't want to see them reconnect. I want more bittersweet examples in WC where family members have irreconcilable differences, but now and then, there's that little twinge of love, that old spark that you pray, THIS time, could become a fire... but it doesn't. There's just nothing left to burn.
TL;DR I'm feeling overall meh about Ivypool's Heart but looking forward to seeing what StormClan's all about.
How do you pick your colors? Your art style is so cohesive and i love the palettes you use!!
thank you! im a very intuitive artist, i think i draw frequently enough to know my preferences pretty well lol, but recently I’ve been enjoying working with somehow complementary colors?
like these don't look that similar but i did use the same 4 colors or so! i like to complement yellow/orange (skin) with teal (most of the clothes lol), I think they make each other pop rlly well
i also keep my palettes very minimal, i used the same blue hues for bokuto's hair, outfit, and the pigeons, too! same with deku’s outfits and hair, it’s the same color in different hues :)
i keep my palettes very minimal in general, i think its easier to create a somehow cohesive/harmonious palette and illustrations if you limit yourself :) as you can see, the colors I predominantly use are all hues of green and yellow, I let the overlay balance it all out and make it look less harsh I guess
also i don’t limit myself to fixed color palettes, i just use the same base color and overlay layer for most illustrations, I think those bring everything together even if I dont really know what I’m doing, i hope this helpssss
horror being very specific with table manners and he berates people (dust and killer) for eating like fucking pigs
i think it'd be morbidly funny that because there was no food in horrortale but the cutlery and stuff was all there that maybe he would pretend to eat with no food on the plate. it was in a satirical way that he would joke maybe around horror paps or alone where he would pretend to eat and have really good table manners but then the satire joke became REAL and now horror is incredibly specific about how to eat food
you MUST hold the fork in the left and knife in right says horror. no killer you can't duel wield the fucking knives this is a table not a slaughterhouse. dust pick up your elbows off the table. actually how about you get your entire upper body off the table tf why are you SLEEPING ON THE FOOD??? killer's sitting fetal position in the chair because of course he wouldn't sit normally like the idiot he is. dust is forced to put his hood down and reveal his face no more mysterious shadow style because it puts horror at ease. they cannot have a single peaceful meal because once they get past the table manners phase it then becomes a completion to see who can eat the least (because they suck at everything including eating)
even if i didnt love botw as much as i do, totk drives me nuts bc, similarly to pokemon, this series is so SO SO full of potential, they have so many games they can pull from, theres so many themes, characters and worldbuilding thats just left to rot, you dont need to connect anything with a chain to old titles, you dont need to bring back any things that already had their ending, but PLEASE harness at least a fraction of all this!!!! and they just refuse to do it beyond shallow references
totk jsut drives it all home to me, bc this isnt just the next game in the franchise, but a DIRECT SEQUEL no 10 years apart from botw, yet they cant even, they REFUSE to even keep the continuity with its OWN lore it established in botw together, and that, i think, is what truly makes me so insane (derogatory) about totk
it PROVES they do not care, they dont care to build on anything of the lore of old titles beyond references in form of amiibos or whatever, they dont even care to make a sequel to their most successful game in the franchise coherent with its own lore
botw established a captivating detailed world full of potential, while lacking in active storytelling, it had environmental storytelling, characters and ideas that were the perfect ground to build on-
and then they do away with it bc idk .. they want you to build mechs and make videos of it that go viral and thats all they care about or something
shiekah tech? forget that existed
character being the character you know? act as if you are seeing them for the first time just like they are
lame story? dont think about that just be distracted by the epic presentation of it
lore the previous title established? forget that, all that matters is what is here and now
beloved character from old games beign brought back? hes a new guy and has no background and no lore and just sits waiting for you at the end to have a flashy fight with
references from old titles and their lore? just here for nostalgie bait, dont you remember? you LOVE this series, now give me 70 bucks for a glorified DLC that ruins what you loved about the series and makes you realize that nothign matters and nothing is interesting anymore
you are supposed to take it all at face value, to not think about anything, to see a character say something and just go with it, and forget it the second its over, be distracted by good music and pretty visuals, but dont think about, dont think about anything but what is directly said to you like you have no critical thinking skills, forget there was a game before this one, only the one you play matters, empty your skull and dont let yourself feel anything but what the game tells you to feel
if they dont even care to make the sequel to their most successful game actually build on the previous title, dont even care to keep their continuity of two games supposedly directly happening one after the other in tact- maybe they never cared, and all the meaning we thought we saw them build into their games was all accidental and meaningless
and that is absolutely soul crushing for fans like me to discover
its a game.
its not a story, its not a world, its not themes, its not characters, its not lore.
its a product made to make you pay money, not to make you think about anything.
it just really breaks my heart that most of the discourse has to focus on dying children in order to humanize palestinians as if fully grown adult human beings don’t also deserve your attention, empathy, respect, and care
okay what I've learned from this semester and this round of grading is that if I ever use an essay prompt about premodern women again (extremely likely) I'll have to say "you cannot talk ONLY about how women were oppressed by the patriarchy or I will fail the essay" instead of "talk about the ideal woman of [insert historical time period + geographical location] vs. the reality of women in [time period/location] based on the evidence that we have" (obvs it was better phrased than that on the actual prompt and it would probably be different in another context).
I...I restructured the entire class so that we'd be able to talk about stuff Greek women actually did based on the evidence. thanks for showing you didn't come to class that day, look at the powerpoint online, or do the reading.