bat-besties - Tumblr blog

[bat-besties]

actual criticisms of academia:

cost of education acting as class barrier

exploitation of graduate workers

colonialist past and present

ties to military industrial complex

danger of power structure entrenching and justifying orthodox views on social issues

criticisms of academia that get made:

those damn ivory tower academics are wasting money learning about things

[bat-besties]

me going to bed tonight

[bat-besties]

Please be normal

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outcast of the village

[bat-besties]

Mammoth Cube Mammoth Cube Mammoth Cube

Known as the Jarkov Mammoth, this specimen was found in Siberia. The 23 tonne block of mud and ice was lifted to an ice cave where the mammoth inside was recovered and studied.

[bat-besties]

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

[bat-besties]

You ever think it's screwed up how to some people it's not enough for a female character to be just a good person, she has to be actively heroic or else she's immoral and unrelatable? Like, Bayonetta and classic Lara Croft are two characters I would call good people but not necessarily heroes (as in they usually don't set out to help people or make the world better they just do their own thing and usually a save the world plot just sorta happens to them) and I've seen so many people call both of them "morally grey" or ambiguous and it's like... bitch where? Is it because violence is wrong? In which case someone better tell all the men that.

[bat-besties]

Hannah Alexander on Instagram

[bat-besties]

we talk a lot about ohhhh what if my calling is to be the greatest mammoth hunter ever and I'm wasting my talents in the modern era but we never think about what if Thog from 30,000 BCE was the only person ever born who could get a sub-7min Donkey Kong Country any%, and he never got the chance. what about thog

[bat-besties]

duke thomas 😄

& him hanging out with the waynes :)

[bat-besties]

[bat-besties]

ill keep writing about surviving because i don't know what else there is

[bat-besties]

Big stretch

[bat-besties]

Ultimately, can Batman be a sympathetic figure in a narrative that's established the Robins are genuinely in lifethreatening danger every night they go out?

Oh, absolutely. I think you have to file "kid sidekicks" next to "60% of aliens look exactly like humans but maybe with blue hair sometimes" and "glasses are a foolproof disguise" as part of the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy superhero media. Should you let a 12-year-old fight crime in real life? No. Could an ordinary man survive as many head injuries in real life as Bruce Wayne does? Also no! If we can accept the latter, why not the former?

The thing to always remember about kid sidekicks is that they're not meant to be realistic or plausible. They're not even really supposed to be a commentary on Bruce Wayne's (or whoever's) parenting skills or whatever. They're supposed to be power fantasies for the intended child audience. Just because the industry only publishes child-friendly comics under duress these days doesn't change why the character type was created in the 1940s. Kid sidekicks exist to make kid readers feel powerful and cool, just like 12-year-olds are constantly saving the world on their own in middle grade books. That's a good thing.

Also, they're fun.

[bat-besties]

[bat-besties]

‘Jason was Duke’s robin’ ‘tim was dukes robin’ YOURE ALL FOOLS

Steph as dukes most formative robin is RIGHT THERE