whenits--notreal

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TIL that Gothic literature makes a distinction between “terror” and “horror.” Terror is the sense of dread and apprehension that precedes an experience, horror is the sense of revulsion after an experience.

via ift.tt

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You forget the frustration of it until it happens again.

In my case I made a template for new fics with a space for summary, chapter text, and notes each filled up with place-holder text so that when I have something to write I make a copy of the template and edit it rather than writing from scratch. I find that helps with the more fleshed out ideas. When it’s something vague or just an outline, I have a checklist doc with random word vomit/ideas which I tick off once they’ve been written rather than deleting them and making the doc smaller.

Works for me most times ig, I hope youse find something that works for you.

do you ever just … picture a whole scene, a whole fanfiction in your head, you know how to place every single word of the english dictionary that you need (or your language dictionary), you know how to structure your sentences, you know just what your characters are going to say to each other and then… and then you just open microsoft word.

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I, like most people, haven’t read all of the Batman comics so I haven’t seen all of the Clayfaces.

Imagine my surprise when I find out that one of the Clayfaces was called Todd:

“Todd Russell was once a soldier until he suffered massive disfigurements caused by an explosion. Russell was sent to the DEO where he was treated with a compound similar to that of Clayface.” - Comic Vine #9

Coincidence? (Probably)

I think not!

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My dumb ass read that as "My Brother in Christ, Frankenstein" is the title of the book.

ultimately the truth about frankenstein is that we are all grotesque amalgamations of the best and worst parts of everyone who came before us. and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us because of and in spite of this will not. and we can kill them with hammers for that. and i think that’s beautiful

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I will forever be mad that Morrison's Talia al Ghul wasn't a new character or something.

I absolutely love the idea of a eugenicist cult leader mother of Batman's creepy designer son concept.

I love it because Batman is, when written well imo, in conversation with the concept of policing and societally accommodating disability, particularly mental illness, while having a psychosocial disability of his own. Y'know,

lol.

Writers have diagnosed Batman with a billion things over the years, most obviously PTSD, but they don't even feel that's enough. I've seen Batman diagnosed by writers with everything from obsessive-compulsive disorder to autism. All of his villains have similar disabilities. His world is known for Arkham Asylum far more so than Blackgate Penitentiary. It's all draped in the aesthetics of social dysfunction and gothic "madness."

Slotting not just a eugenicist, but a kind of pro-natalist, designer baby eugenicist into that as not only a villain, but a villain who has used the bat-cum to bioengineer a perfect baby, who she now shunts onto Batman to raise not as a son but as an heir, as a designed being with a specific purpose in mind, held to impossible standards and for whom failure is not so much a reality of childhood but a defect in a design, is such an excellent concept.

It's all very... Elon Musk and his test tube children, y'know? It's all very, the wretched vibes of the modern "we must outbreed the lesser people" pro-natalist test tube baby movement Elon Musk is discretely a part of.

This is a very real, real-life villain movement that actually exists, has existed for decades, and is extremely solid material to pull from if you want to focus on a disability context for these characters lol.

But it's not Talia al Ghul and the fact that it was never Talia al Ghul meant that DC was simply never going to follow through with this concept once the book was out of Morrison's hands.

It's sort of an impossible situation if you want to tell that story (and you should want to because it's a good story) because women in Batman comics, even femme fatales, often aren't provided that level of depth and complexity. Or weren't at the time. Like yes, okay, Pamela wants to do plants on people because she's mad about the brozone layer or whatever, but they wouldn't really backfill her humanity until Gail Simone got hands on her. Who are you going to use? Nocturna? No. Lady Shiva? Actually fuck off.

But if you use an OC, idk, you don't have that spicy drama of the fact that it's Talia, she's back, and she's acting batshit crazy and out of character.

Maybe this all would've worked if Talia wasn't glocked upside the dome at the end. They could've played it off as her going nuts with a combination of Nyssa torturing and Lazarus Pitting her, decades of cult programming and the horror of getting cult brainwashed into fempregging herself. I dunno.

idk. I have this ongoing frustration that I love what Morrison was going for disability-wise, but the path taken was very silly.

Oh also all the bizarre anti-Asian racism in Morrison's run kinda sours all the conversation about eugenics and disability stuff. What the fuck was going on with The Great Ten? Why was this Chinese lady's power having a lot of babies during the One Child Policy criticism era? Why were all their superhero names bad wuxia title translations? Why the fuck did Morrison thing they were the one who could reintroduce Egg Fu and pull that off in a non-offensive way?

idk man.

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I love Batman so much when I engage with him, completely separate from the relationships he has built and destroyed with his children. Like he's so fun when he's this, hyper competent, neurotic, freak who solves crimes, but the moment one of his children is introduced, my eye starts twitching and I can't even be in the same room as him.

me when Batman alone: Oh, cool, this dude is so cool, he's my favorite character

me when literally any of his children appear: I have to skin you alive or the world will never be balanced again

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I think every Jason Todd fan has atleast one big idea about how to completly rewrite nearly every apperance he's ever been in

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Bruce, sitting through the mandatory psych eval he created for the Justice League that Clark is also making him take:

Hal Jordan, underlining something on his clipboard: “Name a weakness.”

Bruce: “All of my questions sound like insults.”

Hal:

Bruce:

Hal: “…can you give an example?”

Bruce: “Can you not think of one yourself?”

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Jason as Robin wasn’t really any more dramatic than any of the other Robins. If anything, Tim was probably the most dramatic Robin.

Having said that, what if the Red Hood’s flare for dramatics and refusal to exist quietly is actually because he hates the idea of being mistaken for an assassin because of his training with the league.

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Can we please stop pretending that it’s easy for Jason to kill people. Like he just does it because can.

Apart from the fact that he has repeatedly and explicitly stated that he kills because he feels he has to, it’s quite clear that he feels remorse for his murders even when he thinks it was well deserved.

Jason is both an emotional and methodical character and we shouldn’t understate either of those two traits.

His conclusion that a permanent method is needed to stop crime stems both from the rational, thought-out point of view that the people of Gotham are still being hurt by the same people as well as the more emotional/personal experience of his death and his anger at it having changed nothing.

He kills because he thinks he needs to in order for Gotham to change and he’s angry that Gotham (and Bruce) have not changed; not the misinterpreted he kills because he’s angry at Gotham and Bruce and everything in general.

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I was so confused thinking he meant the search engine Yahoo! (-_Q)

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Dick the Robinterpreter

I have ideas I can't put into words, so I'll just leave this here until I come back to it...

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So I see you all are exhausted by streaming services effectively recreating cable. I see you’re all tired of ads. Pirating is a great alternative, but I have another fantastic option for you all!

I live in Seattle. And in Seattle we have America’s largest physical media store, Scarecrow Video. They are a non-profit that has pretty much any film or tv show you can imagine. Like, everything. So much so that one of our local cinemas does a program with them called “Unstreamable” where they show a film from Scarecrow’a archive that you can’t access anywhere online. It’s a bit overwhelming to go to their store, which is two levels of every program under the sun.

ANYWAY, I bring this up because they recently started a Rent-by-Mail program. It’s pretty similar to what Netflix used to do. You can rent up to six titles (barring their super rare stuff and pornos) and they will ship it to you, then you return it in the included pre-paid envelope.

Why does this rock? Sure, you still have to pay money, BUT you are supporting a non-profit that is dedicated to preserving media instead of some corporation looking for endless profit. They can also expand your palette with their vast selection. And if you have a favorite piece of media, you never have to worry about it disappearing! All their stuff is there in perpetuity.

So this is all to say, now that Scarecrow has expanded their reach beyond the Greater Seattle Area, I implore you to check them out. If you don’t want to rent right now, the could always use donations to keep them afloat.

You can check out their catalogue HERE!