#nitpickrider

[cripplecharacters]

Alright, I'm just gonna bite the bullet. Worst that can happen is I make a fool of myself. I've been working on superhero stories, versions of the same universe since I was in 8th grade and what I want more than anything is to modernize superheroes, create a world where they act for all people's social good and take representation to the highest level I can think of. From your position of expertise, what can I do with the creation of disabled characters that would buck the trend, do some good, and show a good side. The non-prosthetic and non-corrected for disability rep in the genre is basically nil, I have no ideas and nothing to draw on. I guess I just wanna know what disabled audiences might like to see for once in their lives.

Hello!

Disabled superheroes are awesome. There's really few of them but the ones that we do have are often really important to us - you can look at the reactions to Sun-Spider being first introduced to the Spiderverse, back then I couldn't open my fridge without seeing that one panel where she explicitly says she has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos.

Here are a few suggestions of what I'd like to see in the superhero genre:

Superheroes with facial differences. Comics love to use us for their ugly disfigured evil villains but not much else unfortunately. I'd kill for a superman type hero who saves people with a smile and a facial difference on his face. Especially for superhero stories that are geared towards kids and teens, we just desperately need something to help with shifting the public perception of people with facial differences from "evil and ugly" to "people that can be awesome". A hero with burn scars, with Treacher Collins syndrome, Bell's palsy, neurofibromatosis... anything.

Superheroes who use disability aids (and still need them when doing their job). Sun-Spider is an awesome example, she swings from her crutches and has a spider wheelchair. That's cool as hell. But even a less in-your-face aid would be great. A superhero flying above the city with her ankle-foot orthoses visible would go really hard. Also, superheroes who are concerned on how much these things cost and try their best to make sure they're still functional while they save the city.

Heroes with different causes of their disabilities. The vast majority of morally good disabled characters were involved in An Accident or some sort of Attack that disabled them. That's not bad or wrong at all, but I think in media is kind of oversaturated with this specific portrayal when a lot of people have progressive or congenital conditions. We need more stories that show those who were born disabled as heroes equal to those who were born abled and spent most of their lives abled. Superheroes with cerebral palsy, chromosomal disorders, congenital rubella, achondroplasia, all the disabilities that tend to get ignored despite so many people having them. Same for really common chronic illnesses, diabetes or COPD are criminally underrepresented.

Disabled superheroes that aren't saints because of their disability. This is the whole "disabled person can do no wrong" trope that appears sometimes. I'm mentioning it since superheroes are more "perfect" than most characters in other genres, so try to not make it so the disabled ones can do no wrong. Disabled people can still make mistakes that are their fault, make poor decisions, or just simply be angry sometimes.

When there's no active superhero action going on, show the normal human parts of the disabled experience. Depending on the demographic you're writing for it would be different things, but there are some fairly universal concepts like inaccessibility, microaggressions, or just boring things like the prosthetic leg no longer fitting well after the character gained some weight. If your characters are from the US, don't be afraid to mention that their insulin costs are barely affordable with their superhero pay. Show how the common everyday kind of ableism affect them when they're in civilian mode. This will make it much more authentic to disabled readers.

These are my suggestions, and I hope they are helpful. My last advice is to have multiple disabled characters, and in different roles. Maybe a character with ALS can no longer do superhero fighting, but he can still be a wonderful parent. Maybe the character with Usher syndrome is more interested in the hero than being a hero themselves (disabled heroes in relationships!). Maybe the character with phocomelia can't be a hero yet because she's six, but she can train hard to be one when she's older. Keep it varied, have them come from different life situations and have different goals just like abled characters do.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[edenfenixblogs]

How strange. YOU were the one born and yet WE were the ones who ended up with the gift <3

😭😭😭

This is so nice!!! This is so incredibly kind! I just want to make my little corner of the world better. And if that’s how people think of me, that’s the best gift I could ever ever ever receive.

Thank you so much. I am grateful for your friendship today and all days.

[tunemyart]

Ok but we HAVE disowned Hercules right? Like I'm totally up on watching Xena (wish it was actually AVAILABLE places but that's neither here nor there) Kevin Sorbo can just kiss my ass, is my point.

Oh yeah. Sorbo can fuck all the way the fuck off.

I’m not a Hercules fan aside from the very iconique moment of Empress Xena pulling Gabrielle up by her hair in that one AU episode and the fingers in mouths moment that followed (do I keep screenshots of these on my computer for the express purpose of throwing friend chats into sudden horny disarray without warning? Yes I do), and even that is due more to Lucy and Renee making excellent acting choices and my interest in how it reflects back on the (actual) Xenaverse. Hercules is just nowhere near Xena’s caliber in terms of scope/ambition, narrative, themes, and - ofc - its legacy to queer media. But the first three in conjunction with the last are honestly why it has such a grip on my heart.

It is SO unfortunate that Xena has been removed (for the moment) from just about every streaming platform, but I continue to cross my fingers that per the nature of streaming, it’ll pop back up somewhere soon.

[docgold13]

I hope that the next cinematic iteration of Superman finally understands that the character is essentially Mr. Rogers with super powers...

Taking advantage of Superman's constant fear of inadvertently hurting somebody. Dick move.

The LEGION specifically taking advantage of knowing Clark personally to screw with him. DICK. MOVE.

[vo-kopen]

You know what makes little sense? I love the idea of alternate universes, so I have a real fondness for the what if comics. I also have yet to read a single what if I liked, or even read a synopsis of one I liked. Same with the marvel tv show, I only watched the first three episodes of season one because I didn’t care about the other premises, and the first two did not click, while the third was good but was resolved poorly later in the season. (Where the frick did the Chitauri come from? Loki’s occupation force was made of Asgardians) There are a few from season two I meant to see, such as the 80s Avengers team, but I just haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it. And the what if novels that came out recently just don’t grab me.

The classic what if that came closest to clicking with me is the one where Steve Rogets was unfrozen decades later and in the meantime the fifties Cap pushed America further into authoritarianism. It’s well done and very relevant, but it’s a struggle to read because of how dark and “real” it is. It’s just “oof.”

It’s just funny that I like the genre and the concept of what if, but don’t actually like any of the specific ones. The recent mini series were particularly unappealing to me, the first was just “what if some decades old marvel arcs went in a darker direction,” so it’s not exactly relevant to me as a reader who started in the 2010s, and based on the issue I read the scenarios are just overwhelmingly grim. Meanwhile the second most recent mini was just “what if *popular marvel superhero* became Venom instead of Brock,” and the third is coming out now and my suspicions is it’s just “what if Galactus made *popular marvel superhero* his Herald.” Those last two minis feel especially lacking in depth. Their premise is just “what if big IP was a different IP.” And maybe I am unfair, I didn’t read either mini, but the core concept utterly failed to grab me.

Again, I think what ifs are interested, but like no canon ones interest me. Maybe it’s because I started out reading Avengers Academy, I now get drawn to “unimportant” characters, and they aren’t the ones who get to star in what ifs.

And then you get the Spiderverse and Venomverse anthologies which sometimes have actually compelling premises (makes sense, anthologies are always going to have some hits) but they only are setups to big events where the multiverses is threatened and those new versions of characters are almost guaranteed to get murdered. It’s like, I just want a fun little what if anthology where the fate of reality is not at stake, and instead the books discuss “what if this character’s life went differently?”

Like “what if Finesse, Mettle, and Haxmat did sacrifice themselves to take out two of the Worthy,” or “what if Laura and Jeanne’s falling out got more violent?” Again with the Avengers Academy

Anyway it’s just funny that I allegedly like what ifs, but I only like them in theory not in practice.

@thefingerfuckingfemalefury @nitpickrider @majingojira @akirakan how about y’all? Read any what ifs that clicked with you?

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

@nitpickrider Sasha from Casually Comics asking the most important question of all

I guess you could say....

[pythi-the-drawing-writer]

Welp here we are I guess... @nitpickrider requests a sacrifice of a penny's worth of thoughts and the appropriate amount of digital ink spilled in exchange for the knowledge I have been gifted and who am I to turn down a fair trade. So come one come all to witness my first full effort into the world of Comic Books and without further ado

Let's Talk About:

Giant-Size X-Men; Issue #1

This is... not at all gonna be structured, I'm just gonna ramble off with some summaries, thoughts and pictures soooooooooo.

We're starting off with individual introductory bits to various X-Men. First with Kurt Wagner chased around town by a fairly classic angry mob, pitchforks, torches and the like. The chase leads to them burning down a whole building to try and kill him and in response he stops running and well

Leaps right into the mob, ready to brawl for his life. Which... Might be something to note later. He's got the superior movement, he could probably just run far enough out of town to the point they won't bother chasing him. But instead when reason fails he leaps straight in. Is it recklessness, adrenaline, an attempt to die on his own terms maybe? Once again might be something to note.

But anyways, the fight goes on and Kurt is pinned, the civilians full on plan on using a stake on him like he's some kind of vampire which... Maybe got a morbid chuckle out of me. Although they are quickly halted through psychic power by Charles Xavier. And this is a small bit that very quickly caught my attention

This tiny part of the exchange just kinda hits me as someone who has a few disabilities under my belt. The very first question of "can you help me be normal" is.... Far too familiar to me personally. And Charles quick response essentially being "look at what 'normal' people do to people like us, would you truly want to be like them?" And then of course followed by that conviction of "then how do I be Me" it's just... Something that's very familiar and really really caught my eye. And maybe I wanna bring some attention to that too.

But next up we move on to Wolverine, comic doesn't even tell us his actual name, just Wolverine. This one's honestly fairly straightforward. Xavier just shows up to the secret military base they have Wolverine stashed away in and says "hey wanna join me where you can be free?" "Sounds cool sure" but there's two details that caught my attention, and I'm a sucker for details

Wolverine uses his claws on the guy that tries to stop him from leaving, however no cuts are made. If you look you see he used the back of his claws, the blunt side. Which is a really cool detail to me and it just makes sense. Dude knows his way around these claws and this one panel and detail is a swift little demonstration.

And the other

Xavier is obviously moving, there's motion lines and everything. But his hands are still on the arm rests and obviously no one's pushing him. So he just uses psychic powers to push his chair around I guess. And I think that's pretty cool.

Next up The Banshee, no real name given yet again.

And here it is

I'm not even kidding. It's just these two panels. Not even half a page which is just humorous to me.

Next up is Ororo. This one's interesting because it's something I probably wouldn't at all think of but it makes so much sense. In her homeland Ororo is Revered as a literal god

And it makes sense, with total control over the weather itself what could you call an ability like that other than godlike. And for her we get to see that on display in full force, lighting, wind and rain crashing down as she commands so effortlessly yet with tremendous force. And then... Xavier makes an offer

And once again my eye was immediately caught. I think a lot of us can relate to the whole escapism of fantasy and all. Hell it's part of why people would read comics like these after all. And it's especially appealing for people who just aren't "normal" the fantasy of a world where not being "normal" puts you above everyone else, makes you important, makes you loved. And this little exchange is such a simple and efficient comment on that, the fantasy is captivating but limiting and it can blind you to the wonder of the world that truly exists.

Next up is Shiro Yoshida... Who's also only 2 panels long. Nothing really special here other than he's the first one so far who we learn both the real name and the superhero name, Sunfire, immediately.

Next up is Peter Rasputin and tbh the first thing I have to say is damn what a look

I adore the way they draw his metallic body like this, the harsh white light reflecting off of it, contrasted by the equally harsh shadow where the light doesn't quite reach. Just damn.

But anyways for the recap. Peter's working on a farm near lake Baikal in Russia (btw I accidentally went down a whole rabbit hole on that lake a bit ago, it's a weird ass place). A runaway tractor threatens to flatten a child playing in the field and he runs in front of it, the tractor smashing into pieces against his seemingly indestructible body. Xavier of course shows up and makes the same offer he always does. But this time Peter decides to ask his parents what he should do, his heart tells him to stay on the farm but his conscience says that he needs to go. And this has very quickly endeared me to his character. Sure others have already had more interesting little relatable or thought provoking moments but something about Peter's short bit just speaks to me.

And finally for our introductions, John Proudstar.

There's really nothing special to comment on here. Tbh I'm not even sure what John's mutant power is supposed to be ^^; sooo yeah... But this marks the end of chapter one

Chapter 2 will be it's own post because I'm hitting the image limit oops

[gallopinggallifreyans]

Y’all found a cool bird 🥺🥺🥺 it’s so pretty

Is John C Mittermeier related to Cristina Mittermeier? There are so many Mittermeier’s in conservation/ecology :O

Figured out why I feel like shit and it’s because I am completely utterly depressed

[krinsbez]

Another Random Assortment of Cartoon (and Cartoon Adjacent) Intros

So, you may or may not recall that, I decided to share a bunch of old cartoon intros with @nitpickrider t'other week. Well, ever since, I've been thinking of ones that I missed, so. What follows is more in this vein. Gonna try to avoid ones I'm reasonably certain would be known do to Pop Culture osmosis. Going to randomly mix together shows from the '80s, '90s, and '00s, shows that I watched and shows I didn't. Probably gonna be mostly '90s and '00s, since I'm a '90s kid who kept watching cartoons longer than most of my peers.

As we do so, a game for those of you not familiar with these cartoons (and some live action shows that went for similar vibes); which do you think you'd enjoy?

Aaand that is apparently the limit.

[thegayhimbo]

🙄 @erictyberiusduckman Bro, you didn't disprove anything. You came, peddling a conspiracy theory about October 7th (while providing zero evidence to back up your claim), spewed a bunch of other antisemitic garbage, used your "Jewish family" (whom I doubt would be impressed with how you're acting right now) as a shield from any criticism (which still doesn't make any of what you said less antisemitic), got called out on your bigotry by multiple people, including @edenfenixblogs and @nitpickrider, who both did a thorough breakdown of everything wrong with your comments. And instead of listening to anything they've said..............you're sitting here behaving like a condescending douche. The only measly thing you've done at this point, in a pathetic attempt at hiding your hypocrisy, is change your username after getting called out by @tikkunolamorgtfo for initially naming your blog (@iblewrichardspeck) after an American Mass Murderer and Rapist.

Let's be honest: You weren't interested in having a good-faith discussion. You wanted to ragebait. Now that you've accomplished it, you're crawling back into your hole like the cowardly worm you are. You have nothing meaningful to contribute to the conversation about Israel/Palestine beyond spreading hatred and ignorance.

Get a life.

[mamawasatesttube]

https://www.tumblr.com/nitpickrider/757619106154479616/you-are-going-to-learn-that-a-thoughtful-gift-goes?source=share

FREAKY NASTY CLOIS!!!! THE TWO OF THEM ARE SOOO GROSS FOR EACH OTHER I LOVE THEM

reminds me of these panels too skdjfh i love them.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Please know if you are my tumblr mutual, someone I follow, or just someone who likes or shares my posts, I will do deep dives on your blog and share many things in short order, whether that’s posts or tags.

@cryoverkiltmilk, @nitpickrider, @thefingerfuckingfemalefury, and @tumbleaboutit can attest this.

You have activated My Interests (tm).

There will be no escape.

[allthegoodbobdylanlyricsaretaken]

Rules: Answer and tag 6 people

(thanks for tagging me @merbear25!)

Favourite colour: carmine red

Last Song: Jose Cuervo (Shelly West)

Currently reading: A Sicilian Romance by Anne Radcliffe

Currently watching: The announcement board in my doctor’s office

Currently craving: a toasted roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich

Coffee or tea: TEA o_o

No pressure tags: @varenychenko @ichhabeeinekleinepapagai @nixie-dantes-belvedere @timidusnix @honest-moth-of-silver-grove @nitpickrider

[nitpickrider]

"Nitpickrider, why didn't you annotate anything from Action Comics 184?"

Can you say "Violently uncomfortable Native American stereotypes"?! :D

Action Comics 184

[dcoasis]

15 Questions for 15 People

Thanks for tagging me homie @nitpickrider

1. Are you named after anyone?

My middle name sorta is after my dad (Brian, Ryan).

2. When was the last time you cried?

I was actually crying from laughter yesterday because of a YouTube video.

3. Do you have kids?

Fuck NO. I like babysitting every so often, but I haven’t the patience for a full time kid. And I am absolutely NOT pushing a baby out. Maybe adoption when I am older and wiser.

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

I don’t play any currently but I have played tennis, and a bit of basketball.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Wouldn’t YOU like to know…

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Their ability to hold conversation. I cannot hold conversation. If you can lead then we are solid. If you cannot then we are sinking faster than the titanic.

7. What's your eye color?

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Scary movies. I used to be terrified of them but now I love the suspense.

9. Any talents?

Storytelling. At least I hope I’m talented at it. Also autism. I’m slowly gaining the ability to name every single DC character I see. I will be watching a movie or show and my parents will say “who is that” and I’m like “yeah, that’s Matter-Eater Lad 😌”. I’m very proud.

10. Where were you born?

The great state of Missouri in the US of A.

11. What are your hobbies?

Reading, writing, drawing, baking, watching random YouTube videos. Recently I’m working out more and trying to self-teach martial arts.

12. Do you have any pets?

No, but I want a dog. Too bad I’m broke.

13. How tall are you?

5'4. But if anyone asks I’m 5’8.

14. Favorite subject in school?

Science!

15. What is your dream job?

An indie comic book writer. I used to be very wary about that profession. It’s one of those starving artist jobs that I always leaned away from even though nobody told me that I couldn’t.

One day I read a book called My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness (highly recommend, especially if you are a lonely lesbian and an adult) and I got to the part where the main character was looking for a job. She was being interviewed, and the interviewer asked what she liked doing. She went on and on about manga, to the point that the interview stopped and he told her that her eyes were lighting up in a way that their job couldn’t make it. He encouraged her to go for what she was passionate about, and she woke up to the reality that you don’t have to be miserable just because you are an adult. That really resonated with me.

I don’t think it has to blow up and reach millions of people, I just want to make something I’m proud of and have the courage to share it with others. Moral of the story: reach for your dreams.

@memengwaans @gothamcityneedsme @brucetalias @bi4bi-wallinda @fatheriimaginedyoutaller @aliteralchicken @jessechambers-ass @tatsujeff @ormymarius @reverseflashes @nyxqueen97 @strawberrytalia @fancyfade @antifa-terra @funnefatale

[anhilliator1]

Nine.

These are really the types of people y'all wanna be associated with, huh?

Making assumptions based entirely on what media one consumes.

@nitpickrider

Funny how just a few moments earlier they actually changed their stance on nuclear energy because someone provided a logical argument, but a few minutes after I follow this happens.

How interesting.