#run woman run

[pangur-and-grim]

omg........Pangur got up in the middle of the night to vomit, which freaked me out, so I've been babying her all day (carrying her around, hand feeding her, etc). and she's been acting accordingly helpless and uwu-ing. anyways, I just found the vomit and it's a hairball. she's fine.

[randomrichards]

RUN WOMAN RUN:

Ghost of track runner

Lazy mom in denial

Road to rock bottom

[littlepawz]

“When she applied to run in the Boston Marathon in 1966 they rejected her saying: “Women are not physiologically able to run a marathon, and we can’t take the liability.” Then exactly 50 years ago today, on the day of the marathon, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes and waited for the race to begin. When about half of the runners had gone past she jumped in. She wore her brother’s Bermuda shorts, a pair of boy’s sneakers, a bathing suit, and a sweatshirt. As she took off into the swarm of runners, Gibb started to feel overheated, but she didn’t remove her hoodie. “I knew if they saw me, they were going to try to stop me,” she said. “I even thought I might be arrested.” It didn’t take long for male runners in Gibb’s vicinity to realize that she was not another man. Gibb expected them to shoulder her off the road, or call out to the police. Instead, the other runners told her that if anyone tried to interfere with her race, they would put a stop to it. Finally feeling secure and assured, Gibb took off her sweatshirt. As soon as it became clear that there was a woman running in the marathon, the crowd erupted—not with anger or righteousness, but with pure joy, she recalled. Men cheered. Women cried. By the time she reached Wellesley College, the news of her run had spread, and the female students were waiting for her, jumping and screaming. The governor of Massachusetts met her at the finish line and shook her hand. The first woman to ever run the marathon had finished in the top third.”

[atissi]

who, me?

[yardsards]

someone pointed out that milsiril sniffs the top of kabru's head like parents of newborns do with their babies, and i haven't been able to stop thinking abt it

like. ma'am. that is a wholeass preteen.

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

I am NOT constantly rewatching the sex scene (to think that Vi has gone YEARS without intimacy. She just keeps going in and in and in and taking and taking and taking in this scene because of how much she NEEDS it. And she DESERVES it!!! Vi leads and Caitlyn lets her, laying all the cards on the table and letting Vi just have whatever the hell she wants. Cait goes in for another kiss, but Vi wants to explore her neck. Cait wants to take a second to acknowledge her misdeed, Vi needs to keep kissing her. Cait wants to take care of Vi, Vi just wants to take. Vi is a lover at heart and life HATES that about her but Cait accentuates that in her!!!!!!)

okay maybe just once or twice

[vintage-tigre]

[nicandragon]

More labru yuri. What cute friends they are

[krussyarts]

Me?? Posting three days in a row?? Apparently!!

[casscainmainly]

A Deep Dive Into Why Cass Threw Dick Out A Window

If you've been here long enough you've probably seen or heard of this moment, which is super hilarious and iconic. It's mostly discussed in reference to Dick and Cass' relationship. However, in my opinion Cass throwing Dick out a window had very little to do with her opinion of him, or even of Barbara; it has more to do with her understanding of romance and love. I briefly touched on this in my gender/sexuality post, but I'm going to explain more in depth my interpretation of how Dick functions in Batgirl (2000) as a whole. (This moment is very open to interpretation though, this is just my opinion!). So let's try to answer Dick's question: what was that all about?

Love, Language, and DickBabs

While Puckett's run is notable for not having Cass date anyone, romantic love does play a role in Cass' early understanding of the world. It's the impetus that spurs her to write: in issue 2, she sees a wife read a letter from her deceased husband, and her reaction affects Cass so strongly she immediately starts trying to write. (She also kisses the husband on the cheek earlier, which may or may not be a crush). Romance, and the ability to communicate your love, is a fundamental part of Cass' desire to learn language.

So we have Cass, who has experienced neither love nor language, living with Babs, who's in a relationship with Dick. This telephone conversation in #4 (the issue where a metahuman changes Cass' brain into understanding language) again links romance to communication. Dick and Babs are talking on the phone, unable to see each other but understanding each other perfectly; Cass and Babs, on the other hand, live together and can't understand each other at all.

"She can't talk, so it's not all that different [to living alone]." Babs is telling an eavesdropping Cass that her inability to speak prevents her from love and connection - a love and connection symbolised by one of the first romantic relationships Cass is consistently around, Dick and Barbara.

Dick as an Ideal

There's a debate whether Cass likes Dick or not because half the time they're friendly, and half the time she's punching him or throwing him out windows. This disparity makes sense if you consider that Cass strongly associates DickBabs with communication, understanding, love - very idealised notions - but she does not associate Dick as a person with them. Her interactions with Dick (sans Babs) are cute and normal - Batgirl #29 and Nightwing #81 feature some very adorable Dick-Cass moments, with no real tension whatsoever.

It's only when Cass sees Dick in a romantic light (as in associated with Babs) that she makes him into a symbol.

Cass often tries to copy Babs, thinking it's the 'correct' thing to do - in DC First: Batgirl/Joker, she goes after Joker because that's what Barbara did; later in Horrocks' run she'll wear Barbara's outfit. In a way, Cass' affairs with Tai'Darshan and Kon - as much as I do think Tai'Darshan was genuine attraction - is another way to 'copy' Barbara. In #42, Cass stares at a picture of Dick and Babs while asking if Babs likes boys. Obviously Cass knows the answer is yes, but see what she asks next, and how Barbara responds:

She shifts from 'like' to 'love', and Babs responds that she 'care[s]' about him. For Cass, whose arc in Horrocks' run is about parsing out the nuances of attraction, understanding the difference between like, love, and care is incredibly difficult. She struggles to separate familial from romantic (Bruce in #50) or romantic from platonic (Kon, and in somewhat the reverse way Steph). In this conversation, Cass comes to associate Dick with like, love, and care - DickBabs becomes not just a symbol of romantic love, but of any connection whatsoever.

The Old Costume

I've discussed elsewhere that Cass wearing Babs' old costume in #45 is a representation of her desire to be 'girly', and how she associates girlhood with someone other than herself, discarding her own costume for Babs'. But putting on a costume is not the only prerequisite for being a 'girl'. In Babs' speech to Cass, she emphasises being sexually attractive to men, with her final comment being about this "particular look Dick used to give [her]". For Cass, visual language is incredibly important; putting on Babs' costume is not about being or feeling like a girl, but about being perceived as one. Dick is symbolic of the perceiver: the one who can essentially 'grant' women their femininity.

But Cass is disgusted when Tim calls her hot, which adds to her confusion - why should Dick being attracted to Babs make Babs happy, but Tim (who's not a sibling at this time) perceiving her like that grosses her out? Cass' inability to feel good - to feel 'feminine' - through the male gaze is another sign, to her, of her failure to be a woman.

Which finally brings us to issue 46...

That Ableist Kon Comment

Cass finds out Dick breaks Babs' heart and then starts hallucinating on a drug. One of the things she hallucinates is Kon saying "who wants to date a cripple? Ain't that right, Nightwing?" and Nightwing responding "not me--at least, not anymore."

For the first time, we get to the heart of why DickBabs mattered to Cass: it was an example of a disabled person in a loving, romantic relationship. It goes back to that phone call in #4, where Babs implies that Cass is hard to care about because she can't speak. The Kon comment suggests Cass has carried that with her all this time, trying to find proof that she can be loved, no matter her disability. DickBabs showed her it could be done - the break-up shows her now that it can't be done.

Dick's hallucination mocks her disability: "look at her--she can't even read!" Attributing this mockery to Dick (whose real-life counterpart, unlike the other hallucinations, has never said anything remotely like this) shows that this 'Dick-as-ideal' is intrinsically tied to Cass' self-worth.

Honestly this whole post stemmed from me thinking about this one panel. There is no real reason, from Cass' view of Dick as a person, for her to think he's brave and noble and kind (more so than anyone else). But it's in the DickBabs context - that Dick seemed to love, wholeheartedly, a disabled woman - that makes Cass think this way. And now that DickBabs is broken up, it shows that she, too, is rotten to the core; that someone like her cannot be loved.

And so when Dick shows up, she throws him out the window.

Conclusion

In this moment, Cass isn't just reacting to Dick breaking up with Barbara, she's reacting to what it means to her. If Dick can't stay with Barbara, then that means Cass, as another disabled woman, is also unable to be loved. This all leads up to #50, which features another Cass punch to Dick's face, but more importantly is when Bruce and Cass reconcile through Cass' first language. It's a confirmation that though her verbal skills may not be fully developed, she still can communicate, and she can love and be loved.

I don't think a lot of the ideas I touched on here are fully developed, or conclude cleanly. For example, how does Cass' 'failure' to be a woman relate to her inability to be loved? Is she able to have a stable romantic relationship? There are lots more questions, but the role Dick specifically plays in Cass' understanding of romance is probably not going to develop further. I just think it's interesting how Horrocks uses the Dick-Babs relationship to explore Cass' identity.

[marlenacantswim]

going back to psych season one immediately after finishing the show (or god forbid the movies) is extremely jarring.

who the hell is this toothpick— oh, that's our main character. harrowing! looks like i could throw him like a javelin. lassie's face looks like it's been well-sanded and put through three rounds of industrial buffing. some sinner also removed all the salt from his salt and pepper?!?!?? VICK IS PREGANT??? and then of course jules and gus look the exact same except gus doesn't seem nearly as tired which makes sense bc he hasn't had a gun pointed in his face at all yet at this point.

[imstillalexcomic]

Hey!

@cholerascum had a post regarding the feelings while we get sometimes when looking in the mirror. It's certainly a universal feeling and made me want to share this strip from my old comic.

This strip is actually fairly recent, January 2022. I knew I was trans for over a decade at this point, and I was out to like five or so folks, but I never thought I'd actually make the decision to start HRT when I made this.

The strip itself was more for humor than it was for anything introspective, but no matter the situation, it's hard not to be critical of ourselves when a mirror is in front of us.

[k1ngs0da]

Glynda Goodwitch being Jaune’s Aunt has got to be the funniest headcanon ever. Imagine knowing your nephew damn well did not get trained at all by his parents, and suddenly he’s being accepted into Beacon and just launched at the Grimm. Like you’re watching him bumble around and somehow failboy his way into getting the feelings of Pyrrha-Fucking-Nikos, terrified that he’s gonna trip and die because you know for a fact he did not have aura before initiation. And any time you try and bring these concerns up to your boss he just smirks and drinks his coffee.

Actual maximum stress for her, ESPECIALLY when Ozpin picked Pyrrha to be the Fall Maiden. Glynda had to have been panicking because she would have to explain this to him.

[limbcom]

"Holding your hand doesn't have to mean that I accept your friendship," the liar said to the truthful, trying to lie in front of the only person who understands his intentions.

He knows, of course, that the liar did not lie. For the liar is also the truthful.

[fantastic-nonsense]

about to harness the unholy rage of being a yet-again spurned Wonder Woman fan to rant about the injustice of DC and WB being run by mediocre straight white men who love to hire other mediocre straight white men and refuse to consider that sexism, racism, and refusing to hire competent people who understand and care about the material they're working with is responsible for the millions of fans they've pissed off and the millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time they've wasted and the hundreds of people who are now out of a job because of that mediocrity and incompetence

[chialattea]

It’s them….. the girls…