martianmeerkat

[martianmeerkat]

possibly the greatest asoiaf moment ever is when jon gets the letter about bran waking up and mormont expects him to grieve because “sorry kid :( it’s actually bad news :( he’s never going to walk again :(” but jon is all like “my brother is going to live !!!” and then he races out of the room and tells everyone he passes that “my brother is going to live !!!” and he gets back to the common hall and picks tyrion up and spins him around and makes him read the letter too because “my brother is going to live !!!” and he’s so giddy that he befriends grenn and tells thorne to go fuck himself and then everybody laughs and jon is just so happy because “my brother is going to live !!!”

meanwhile bran is back in winterfell listening to robb’s bannermen whisper about how death is a kinder fate than his, how they should’ve just let him die, how he’s too broken to be alive—with no idea that his big brother is out there celebrating because bran is going to LIVE !!!

[martianmeerkat]

Jon Snow by EtceteraArt

[martianmeerkat]

me, posting: Don't do things that don't benefit you. what I meant: If some activity doesn't give you material profit, emotional fulfillment, quality time of rest and recovery, or help you strengthen your ties to your community and loved ones, just don't fucking do it. Stop doing shit that upsets you and harms you and annoys other people for nobody's benefit. Literally just stop doing that. what people hear: Literally kill every single person, animal, and plant whose existence isn't directly and immediately profitable to you personally.

[martianmeerkat]

[martianmeerkat]

The Canon 80s Batman Timeline:

Some core dates for the passage of time for Bat characters in the ‘80s. Since the Bat comics often declined to specify inter-issue temporal changes, I have pieced this together by extensively mapping the passage of time which appears in the New Teen Titans series (1980-1996) and coordinating it with Pre-Crisis + Post-Crisis events.

You can find my issue by issue breakdowns on LOCG here: 1, 2, 3, 4 are completed so far.

Late Spring/Early Summer (Dick is 17), Dick drops out of Hudson U before his first year is finished. He falls out with Bruce.

December (Dick is 18), Raven calls the New Teen Titans together. They have their first encounter with the threat of Trigon.

Spring (Dick is 18, Vic turns 19, Kory was 12 when she was taken into slavery 7 years ago which makes her 19 likewise).

Next June (Dick is 18, Jason is 12 Pre-Crisis but 11 Post-Crisis — this discrepancy can be put down to a changing birthday and/or change of the exact month in which they met), Post-Crisis Jason meets Bruce on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. The Titans have their first encounter with Brother Blood.

July/August (Dick is 18, Jason turns 12), the Titans spend the summer on Tamaran/in the Vega system. By the end Dick + Kory start dating. Meanwhile on Earth, Jason trains to be Robin.

Fall - Terra joins the Teen Titans; she’s almost 16.

On New Years Eve/Day, the Titans deal with the Brotherhood of Evil (who in turn are fucking up the Brother Blood Church of Zandia). Afterward, Kory goes to Wayne Manor to find Dick but is surprised to see just Bruce + Jason inside. Dick’s wiling away his time with Adrian Chase instead.

The following January, Tara has her 16th birthday + the Titans team up with the Outsiders (Batman’s team), where Dick tells Bruce that he’s 19 & no longer a kid. THIS is the moment that Post-Crisis Batman references when Dick has his famous “I’m 19 + not your partner anymore?” speech. It was reformatted from a moment where Dick declares his independence to a moment where he accepts the shove to grow up, + I really hate it. Here, Dick explains that he wants to end the Batman & Robin partnership, + not the Bruce & Dick relationship as Bruce believes he does. Here, Jason asks to become Robin (implying he isn’t yet — which lines up with how he’s nearing the end of his Robin training). Here, Dick tells him that he isn’t giving up Robin, the title he’s had since he was 8. Wolfman will later extensively retcon this figure of 8 to 12/13, so that is the digit I usually follow. But for now, this is how the fallout goes: amicably.

That January (it’s a very busy time), the Titans take on the Brother Blood Church of Zandia, + Dick is made under brainwashing to nearly kill the Titans. Shortly afterward, the Judas Contract begins, which as we know leads to Dick (who’s currently without a mantle) adopting Nightwing. Jason appears at Tara’s funeral in the Robin regalia, so it can be assumed that Dick bestowed him with the suit at this time. Once again, this lines up with the Post-Crisis expansion of events

March - the H.I.V.E. come more to the foreground before their leader awkwardly commits a mass-group suicide.

Spring - 19 year old Donna is married. Bruce talks about Natalia Knight adopting Jason out from underneath his nose (thereby dating the Batman chronology to TEC #543/4 + BM #377/8 at this time). Dick asks why he wasn’t adopted. You’ve all seen the panels.

Late Spring/early summer - Slade is sentenced to a year in jail for gun ownership but otherwise evades legal consequences for the people he’s killed/the Judas Contract. Joey joins the Titans + the Trigon-fuelled Apocalypse arc kicks off. This turns the skies all red across the world, + can be linked to the final Nocturna arc which features a preponderance of red skies. She floats off in a balloon at this time. Meanwhile the Titans emerge as the saviours of New York, but Raven also floats off. That was the done thing.

That July, the Crisis takes place + toward the end, Dick & Kory hit a major relationship obstacle for long-running reasons as well as her getting wedded to another man on Tamaran. Dick turns 20 off-planet sometime in the Fall. Meanwhile, Jason has turned 13 that August + he enters his final year at school.

I would personally concentrate Starlin’s issues here, between the September when Jason goes back to school + his death that next April (e.g. Dumpster Killer / Garzonas’ Case / the Cult).

And so, Jason dies in April whilst Dick’s off planet helping Donna learn more about her Titan Seed heritage. He technically reaches out to the Titans base at this time, + you can decide for yourself whether that was a routine call or a last-ditch request for help before he boarded an airplane out of Gotham. I conclude here by saying that Jason dies at 13 years + 8 months if you opt for him joining at 11. If you insist that 1990-2003 can happen in two years then Jason dies at 14 years + 8 months after joining at his Pre-Crisis age of 12. This latter date means that Tim had indeed—as he claimed—just turned 13 in ALPOD, which takes place a little while after his July birthday.

In conclusion — there is a timeline for 80s Batman, you just have to count every single mention of time passing in the NTT series to be able to construct it. Luckily for you, I am that nerdy.

[martianmeerkat]

author: here is a main cast who are on the fringes of their societies. one is reviled for the nature of his birth, another for being gender non-conforming, another as an exile and slave, and two are shunned for their bodies. they are considered degenerate and monstrous by their societies and themselves, and will face stigma throughout their narratives. all of them have faced abuse, whether psychological or physical. they will have to adopt monstrous identities to find their strength. i hope their stories will teach people about the superficialities of both medieval and modern societies, and that great upheaval is sometimes necessary in the face of injustice.

author’s fans: actually they deserve the marginalisation and abuse. but also they weren’t marginalised or abused in the first place. but if they were they deserved it. because they are degenerate monsters who don’t comply with their society’s laws and expectations and society and the law is always just and fair and have you met this dead character with no lines really fascinating i bet they could be important

[martianmeerkat]

Honestly part of the problem with this obsession with only consuming unproblematic fiction is that people are less likely to acknowledge when something is harmful. If you so much as say hey this one joke in this one episode was offensive fans will write you an essay on why it wasn’t. Because they’ve created a world view where this is basically accusing them of being a bad person who has committed an unforgivable sin.

[martianmeerkat]

my son and my son's son.

[martianmeerkat]

i think the fandom has this mindset over batman needing to kill the joker because red hood thinks bruce should kill the joker, but the point they miss is that jason doesn't want the joker dead because he hurts people, he wants him to be killed by bruce specifically so he'll have proof that he was loved enough to get avenged.

if he wanted the joker dead just to stop people from suffering he would fucking do it himself.

[martianmeerkat]

The way Superman depicted complicit civilians is gonna stick with me.

Because usually when you have your villain, usually the civilians working for them are gonna be largely faceless or cowed. And then when the hero crashes the scene, only the armed goons are taken out while said civilians flee to remove any questions.

In here though, you can tell they all enjoy working for Luthor. The technicians in his hq have fun plugging in directions to Ultraman. And those in the base camp wear tropical shirts while listening to music and playing games on their downtime. Nobody is working with rigid confirmity nor are there moral reservations (the only objection shown was when his obsession almost got them killed).

So when Mr. Terrific arrived on the scene, it is actually fitting that he wiped out the workers alongside the armed goons.

Also the way Superman's fellow prisoners not only attempted to snitch on him but actually tried to out snitch each other deserves a whole other analysis.

[martianmeerkat]

big fan of stories that, while undoubtedly being about the power of friendship, acknowledge that the power of incredible violence is just as important

the love was there. the love changed everything. the crowbar helped also

[martianmeerkat]

When Clark said “he’s not even a very good dog but he’s all alone and he’s probably scared so i have to go get him” I was so happy because someone in that writers room truly understands superman better than we’ve seen in a long time. This is the essence of superman - that every living being deserves kindness and empathy and love simply because they are alive. Clark is the kind of guy who’d cry when he got stung by a bee not because it hurt but because the bee died when it stung him and someone in the writers room knew that and made sure it came through.

[martianmeerkat]

Absolutely LOVE the fact that unlike most superhero movies, Superman didn’t do everything.

It was set up as “oh no Metropolis and Jarhanpur are in trouble! He needs to quickly finish one and then help the other!” But no. Instead he just called his friends and they stepped in where he couldn’t. Even at Metro, he had Mr. Terrific’s help.

This is not a one-god-army kinda Superman. This is a I-could-try-to-do-it-all-or-I-can-ask-others-to-step-in-when-needed and isn’t that the crux of humanity right now? All of us may not be able to go where the problems are happening but we can help those who are there. We can also face the problems happening in our neighbourhood with people who can’t be close but can help in whatever way they can.

Because, sure, Superman could do it all himself. But that inevitably leads to a Superman who is stretched too thin and getting increasingly weary. But having people he knows he can rely on? Well isn’t that the best power anyone can have…

[martianmeerkat]

clark shouting "people were going to DIE" in the face of the "think of the consequences of your actions" argument is so fucking important to me bc it really IS that simple you can't look at a genocide and just twiddler your thumbs bc you're a afraid of the consequences ESPECIALLY when you can do something about it and THATS WHAT CLARK DID. WITHOUT HESITATION. WITHOUT CONSIDERING HOW IT COULD HURT HIM. bc hes a good person and in his brain its really just people were going to die so i had to step in bc what else would it be. superman i love you i love you i love you

[martianmeerkat]

Something I really loved in the new Superman that I haven’t seen anyone mention:

When that building is falling down over the bridge, Superman is saving one woman in a car. Usually in superhero movies or TV procedurals with emergency services, if it’s a woman in a car she also has a child or a crying baby to “raise the stakes” and make you care. But for this Superman, and in the context of this movie, it’s enough to just be a woman alone in a shitty car that won’t start right. She doesn’t need to be a mother for the stakes to be high enough that Superman uses his body to stop an entire skyscraper.

It was small, but it felt really powerful to me the moment I saw it.

[martianmeerkat]

I'm sorry. David Corenswet brought his dog to set in her own Superman costume?

[martianmeerkat]

Its also a point to Martin's writing capabilities that these very same flaws in Jon's capabilities as a leader within the current system are also examples of flaws within the system itself.

The system prioritizes the part rather than the whole, and though the Night's Watch is meant to remain separate from politics, and thus a degree of removal from the feudal system (i.e. they elect their Lord Commander) there is still a clear cut chain of command. The Lord Commander sits above, with his members of his council directly below. (The Head Ranger, the Head Builder, the Head Stewerd, and the Maester just to name a few) tasks are delegated down the chain of command and as such one must be appointed to a higher role. Typically its those of prior highborn status who fill rolls of command, and Jon changing that caused a lot of disruption. Made even clearer by his own unwillingness to put himself above all despite the current system demanding he do so or risk being seen as weak and vulnerable. Made all the more drastic when taken into account what kinds of people he is surrounded by.

We see Jon's constant struggle with the status quo, especially given that it has never been particularly kind to him. Although the status quo is fleeting and ill-fitting due to the nature of having many varying groups of people with vastly different cultures and questionable or changeable moral codes, it's ever more important to maintain some kind of status quo to keep the peace. It's a conflict between what he knows his people need and what he knows he's able to provide.

As you've said, there is a degree of disrespect he is treated with that he is quite accustomed to, and thus is also quite accustomed to biting his tongue against rather than snapping out a retort. This in and of itself is a double-edged sword because regardless of his choice there would be both good and bad results. He is a peacekeeper/delegate/ambassador/military commander all in one. He is the de facto leader of the Night's Watch who gets the final say over its command, even against a King; a delegate on behalf of the freefolk as they consider him one of them and many have sworn to his service either directly or have taken the black, thus they listen to him and take orders; chief negotiator to discuss matters of state and religious affairs with Stannis' Baratheon men and Melissandre's devout believers of R'hollor who give him a degree of deferrence due to currently taking up residence in the lands belonging to the Night's Watch; in addition to the forefront representative of any personnel who find themselves at the wall and of an interest to internal affairs (i.e. the Iron Bank representative Jon snaked a deal out of to gain coin for the Watch). As a result of each of these responsibilities and the authority he represents, he can do both very much and very little. As the one keeping peace between all parties involved, it is necessary for him to keep a level head and not take slights personally in an effort to keep everyone from turning on each other. However if he does nothing, it is like that those loyal to him will act on his behalf. Likewise, if he does not speak out it will be seen as okay to insult him openly and to his face. And yet again, if he acts too harshly he risks being seen as unfit to keep the peace. There isnt really a good way out of that kind of situation, especially seeing as he's 16, bordering on 17 during this.

As you mentioned, his particular failing point and the reason it failed the way it did is a result of his flaws and not just a failure of the system. He is quick to jump to the defense of his friends and cohorts, yet he is slow to defend himself if the slight is seen as only against his self. This is a result of him expecting to be dismissed as lesser and thus he does not correct nor rise to the bait. In some manner, dignifying such comments with a response would seem beneath someone with the kind of authority he has and as such can be easily ignored, except even small slights against his companions do not go unchecked. Even remarks from one party against another unrelated to him do not escape his notice. That is where this flaw starts to seep into the image he presents. Despite his desires to have something truly his own, to belong somewhere, to have glory and be welcomed, he still thinks less of himself as a result of a system that has convinced him he can never have such a thing. It's the entire reason he joined the Night's Watch in the first place, as he believed it was the only place a bastard could become someone worth remembering.

It's one of the reasons I enjoy so much about how Martin writes his characters' flaws. There's a reason for them, an impact beyond a social commentary. And even more so, there are still aspects to those very flaws that with a bit more perspective and experience can be similarly turned into strengths. Jon can still learn to be the firm kind of leader necessary to make the changes he wants to make without sacrificing the humility of his upbringing that hes already made progress on. Despite him being highborn and raised in a castle and as a result being a better swordsman than other recruits, with a little nudge from Donal Noye, he learns that he came from much more than the rest, putting him at an unfair advantage, he put aside his own feelings to learn to be better and started teaching the other recruits instead of just beating them in the yard. He keeps this acceptance of criticism (even when he has a hard time facing the extent of his own flaws, something im sure we can all agree is difficult) throughout the time hes steward under Mormont, and as a result that trait saves his life while with the freefolk. So even though its a trait he learned due to the oppression of the system he grew up in, he in turn has begun turning it into the strength of humility. Something that is necessary to keep power in check and will continue to be necessary to earn the respect of his people. However, he must also learn that there is a difference between being accepting criticism and being tolerant of degradation.

Hes still trying so hard to be like so many of his various father figures that he's forgetting that each of them failed in turn and that if he wishes not to do the same, he has to do something different. Which is yet another parallel to Dany's arc where she's learning that she has to become something more if she wants to accomplish her dreams. To end slavery and to find a place of belonging. Honestly im impressed by the complexity in which Martin writes each of his characters arcs, which focus doubly on the internal arcs (personal flaws and failings, human heart in conflict with itself, dreams and wants and desires) as well as the external arcs (political affairs, social commentary, deconstruction of character tropes, protest of bigoted beliefs by openly displaying the suffering of oppressive systems), there is always something to discuss

Usually I write about Jon's good points as a leader, so today I decided to write about some small mistakes he makes in ADWD JON I. Martin is a great writer because the first time you read Jon's chapter you pay no attention to those little flaws. It's only after knowing how his ADWD arc ends that you realise that the writer had planted the seeds for night watch betraying Jon even since the first pov chapter of his.

Jon doesn't act as the typical Lord Commander. He sleeps in the forge instead of the room of the previous Lord Commander and he rejects having a bodyguard following him.

We get to see Jon's thoughts in his pov, so his actions make sense to us. However, his black brothers don't have the same luxury as us, so for some of them, Jon is a green boy who wasn't ready to become commander.

It doesn't help that Jon simply ignores the southern lords who insult him by calling him "boy". We know that Jon doesn't want to show off and therefore he finds pointless to spar with ser Godry when the latter provokes him, but letting the knight insult him in front of his men without reacting doesn't do him any favors.

And it makes sense why Jon out of all people would tolerate such behavior in his castle. Because he wasn't born with the class privilege to expect that one day he would lead and order others. He was born with the bastard stigma and all his life he tolerated being insulted because of it.

With that being said, I need to state here that I do believe that Jon is doing a good job being elected as the Lord Commander during probably the most difficult era in Night's Watch history. But I also believe that Martin made Jon's ( and Dany's) ADWD arc about ruling so they could learn how to be effective leaders. No one is born ready to rule, no matter how great leadership qualities they may possess ( and Jon and Dany do have great leadership skills). So, I think it's very clever of Martin to also show his shortcomings as a teenage leader because once he'll return to a position of power in the next book(s), he will have both experience and knowledge from past mistakes to do better.