#TPB DOWN!!!!!!!!

[sprout-battlecats]

bone

[martyrbat]

okay mutuals. you're reading a 1970s/80s comic. the original issue has darker, richer colors but clear aging and the lines/details are fuzzy. the tpb has sharp and clean lines but the colors are flat and dull. which are you reading?

[julians-muscles-and-tits]

🥰

[cryptid--bunny]

her names juliet. his names julian. they both have a boyfriend w a weird pompadour hairstyle.

[the-owl-tree]

interesting detail i like: adderfang switching from snorting at goosefeather's visions to demanding others respect him when he says something that supports adderfang's desire to retaliate against windclan

chapter 2

versus chapter 7

with adderfang being consistently portrayed as more of the battle-ready clan-first type, this feels intentional. he'll take whatever leverage he has to get pinestar to act.

[nyerusnova]

nevermind i saw the leaks, i was right lmao.

jason is fine and they just coordinated to trick failsafe to get it to frazzle out afaik.

that makes sense considering the entire point of #147 was bruce deciding to work with his family despite his growing paranoia over their safety, etc. given that zdarsky has been trying to explore bruce's mental state, it would have made no sense for him to immediately validate that paranoia, instead.

[yj-98]

oh should i maybe do a full city boy review when its like. over. go through and break it down. obsessively reread it again maybe.....

[posebox-guide]

Sims 2 Transitions Poses Box by LILDIVA3229

Look Down

Look Up

Look Left

Look Right

These poses are overlays.

[luciferinn]

2000 AD's Silver is only 2 chapters in but i'm really enamored with it.

[celaenaeiln]

I always assumed that from the comics I've read dick seems to have a somewhat complicated relationship with his own gender/sexuality/sex status, etc.

Anon!! You can't just drop this on me and leavee!! I need to hear more!! LEMME HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS!!!

Ok so this is gonna be like three different things so I'll make subcategories.

Gender

Of the things listed. I think gender is the one thing Dick is rather set on/secure about. He has some feminine or softer traits which typically would not be associated with a male character such as empathy and caring to an overemotional aspect -

Joker: Last Laugh Issue #3

Nightwing (1996) Issue #86

Nightwing (1996) Issue #139

Being overly kind to an unappreciative and toxic girlfriend is one thing, but as a brother hugging and kissing a brother? It's a little softer than how people usually write male heroes.

He's male and I don't think he's considered switching to the female side because he's comfortable with his masculinity.

Does he do things like this -

Nightwing (2016) Issue #38

sometimes? Yeah. He takes the female role in his relationships with others such as Bruce and Barbara but he still very much sees himself as masculine. Like I said in another post, Kori asks him to be a male consort to her Queen because she was forced to marry a royal Tamaranian Prince. While male consorts are not unusual in history, they typically embody the female in a stereotypical relationship. (On a separate note, did you know Chinese emperors took on male consorts? It is circumvented when speaking about in the present and laters days but it's officially written down in the books).

But overall, Dick is very much a masculine male with feminine qualities.

Sexuality

Ok so the thing about Dick and sexuality is that Dick Grayson is a very, VERY old character. He's been there since the beginning of DC to the point that he was the third DC character created EVER. Clark, then Bruce, then Dick, AND THEN Wonder Woman.

So with a character this old and with a topic as controversial as sexuality, DC is not going to ever explicitly write Dick as gay or bi or whatever. Why? Because Dick is an icon.

When someone says "Batman and Robin" - EVERYONE knows who Batman and Robin is. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. They've existed forever and are the kingpins of DC alongside Superman and Wonder Woman. Whether that person is in the fandom or not, they know who Batman and Robin are. Within the fandom, people know there's more than one Robin (several) but talking to someone outside the fandom, someone who enjoys DC casually, only thinks there is one Robin. And you could tell them that there's this many robins, some have been girls, there's this many timelines and etc (which is actually a really embarrassing convo if someone isn't in the fandom OMG and how I wish I could take that back and erase it from BOTH OF OUR MEMORIES) - but they're not gonna care. Because for them, there's only one Robin and that's Dick Grayson.

So with something like that, DC cannot have Dick Grayson be anything but straight because it would cause too big of an uproar. So he can't be. Explicitly. People have written him as having an ambiguous sexuality though. I actually wrote this specific POST a long time because someone wanted to know more.

Instead what you'll have is a BUNCH of BROMANCES. His Nightwing authors have wanted more male/male sexual attractions with him and other characters and some of them have admitted that openly even if they were not allowed to write. So if you're reading a comic that has him and something seems SUS, well it might just be.

So like with all things, I cannot say anything for certain unless there is evidence of him engaging in a romantic relationship with someone who isn't a woman, but given the homoerotic tension that exists between him and other characters such as ROY -

Outsiders (2003) Issue #11

Teen Titans: Silver Age TPB 2 (Part 4) Page 16

Nightwing (1996) Issue #114

WHICH IS ODDLY SIMILAR TO THIS -

Nightwing (1996) Issue #138

I'd say he's bi-curious at the least.

Sex Symbol Status

-this is my previous post which goes a little into the sex symbol thing

Anon, holy crap I have an ESSAY for you. It's in my drafts because it's wayyyyyyyyy too long and I'll definitely exceed the image limit but holy crap.

Here's what I will say about it though. The world REVERES Dick for his looks and body. The amount of attention he gets for his beauty is ridiculous. Even Green Arrow's half-sister - WHO'S MUCH YOUNGER THAN DICK AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF DICK MET - dreams about him romantically.

Green Arrow (2016) Annual_1

Because of course. Villains are going out of their way to compliment him on his looks in the middle of a fight - Bane, Bludhaven villains, civilians (MALE) coworkers - it's literally insane.

So Dick is clearly the hottest and most gorgeous thing to ever exist in the entirety of DC. There's also a panel from a comic where Dick becomes Talon AND SOMEONE STILL CALLS HIM THE PRETTY BOY TALON LIKE WTF??? THAT PRETTY BOY TALON CAN RIP OFF YOUR HEAD IN A HEARTBEAT! He's a talon, too! Clearly death does not hinder his looks in any way.

But Dick himself is VERY uncomfortable any sort of bodily attraction. It's not just the comments that gets him but he, who everyone claims has the body of a god, doesn't feel good about his own body.

The New Titans (1988) Issue #71

He's really conservative. And in another comic when Tim comments on how the the Nightwing suit is really a babe attractor, Dick is uncomfortable going 'I didn't make it for them'.

Like even looking at this comic pic where Dick is in disguise and he and Kori are just walking down the street, they both still attract the entire street's attention. It must be so uncomfortable.

Here's my thoughts on the sex symbol status. Yes, Dick is a sex symbol. That's just fact. But here's where the issue is. People can be sex symbols without it affecting their personality because that status, is something given to them or bestowed upon them by another person.

I'm leaning a little into my post in the drafts but Johnny Depp, Marylyn Monroe, David Bowie, Tom Cruise, Cleopatra - they're all so vastly different on their opinions of sexual liberty and yet all of them as considered sex symbols.

So what does this mean for Dick? Nothing, really. It just means the world takes one look at him and wants him but he is under no obligation to follow through nor does he. He's not a slut for sleeping with the people he likes and no one thinks of him that way either. He was slut-shamed after his rape by Pantha who always has some harsher opinions because that is her personality. She literally says the meanest things about everyone because she's a rough and tough character and she finds humor in being mean because she is who she is.

For Dick himself, it means nothing. He doesn't view himself as attractive which ironically is also what celebrities who were interviewed about the sex symbol status said as well, such as Johny Depp.

The problem with being beautiful though is that people brush you off. Certain girlfriends of his do it. They see him as just a pretty boy and writers of certain comics *cough* Batgirl comics writers and Tom Taylor *cough* throw his skills and talent down the garbage disposal so he can act as a dumb pretty boy toy for his girlfriend. His personality is degraded to a bland white paste and his intelligence and power and pain are thrown out the window.

(This POST gives some examples of when writers do this for Dickbabs)

Like this is a serious problem! I read this article some time ago -

Here are the main highlights:

There isn't a problem with Dick being ascribed a sex symbol status and to his great benefit most people don't treat him like this but some do! LIKE HIS GIRLFRIEND.

In summary, and I'm gonna borrow a lyric here to quote -

"It's hell on earth to be heavenly Them's the breaks, they don't come gently"

I think the problem is, instead of focusing on how beautiful Dick looks, I really feel like DC and the fandom should analyze how uncomfortable Dick gets, how certain comics force him into relationships when others clearly show he wouldn't be interested in a parallel situation, and mostly how Dick Grayson is robbed of his personality, identity, and beliefs all because of how people believe he should act due to his beauty.

I'm honestly tired of the equation that Dick's status as a sex symbol somehow reduces him to a slut. He is not. Instead we should focus on how his beauty is weaponized against him. He was born with those looks and complaining about them is useless. That's his mother and father-given appearance. It's his genetic inheritance. It's as much a part of his as his grace or his unyielding kindness.

The real issue isn't DC’s acknowledgment of his beauty—it's the utter failure to dig deeper. Instead we should explore how Dick deals with it. How does he carry the weight of being constantly objectified? What does it do to his relationships? How is he coerced to do something in a relationship because it is expected of simply due to the fact that he's beautiful? We should explore how people (even the batfam sometimes) only see his smile or good-natured humor while his complexities - his pain, his resilience, his brilliance - are shucked aside? He's constantly diminished by the fandom and canon because of his cheery personality and good looks just to fit a particular character's narrow view of him.

Call him pretty! Dick legit doesn't care if villains call him pretty or someone calls him that because what they're really focused on when they call him that, are his skills. He doesn't mind being called pretty, beautiful, gorgeous - as long as he's valued for his talents and efforts and skills.

(Here's the pretty boy post for my lovelies. Part 2 in the making)

The issue, once again, isn't his sex symbol status or his looks. It's literally everything else. Dick Grayson is not a reflection of what others project; he is a someone who stands apart, vibrant, and irreducibly whole. Which too often gets lost underneath his looks.

[canmom]

"don't post links to pirate sites" as a security through obscurity strategy seems... weak. if a pirate site is so obscure that almost nobody can find it, it's also essentially pointless.

but yes, if a pirate site is common knowledge, the feds will be working on destroying it. so the idea is i assume to achieve an intermediate level of obscurity, where you have to have a certain amount of talent for asking the right people or searching the right things to find it. but... whatever capacity for research you are asking people to have on that front, the feds are equally capable of it, and they have a whole lot more time on their hands for tracking down pirate sites! security through obscurity is a losing game for piracy. the perfect sweet spot where people can find your pirate resource but the feds cannot is something of a mirage.

if not that, than what?

the current piracy system involves a few different tiers of accessibility, and various components that are more or less decentralised.

torrents are the most resilient tech because to stamp out a torrent (with DHT enabled) you have to suppress every seed. so, you have big public torrent trackers like TPB; these are well known and rely on hopping domains and redundancy for security. the ratio of seeds to leeches tends to be low, but the number of users is large enough that there will be at least a few seeds out there for most stuff. torrent clients have gotten a lot better at seeding strategies that take into account your seed ratio and what's currently available in the swarm, so if you just leave everything on seed and open your torrent client fairly often (use a VPN though lol), you don't really need to think about it.

then you have private trackers; these operate on an invite basis. the problem with this is that when the pool of users is so small, the odds of a given seed being online are also small. to prevent torrents dying, they gamify it: you get points for seeding and if you don't have enough points you can't download anything until you seed more. to help people get back in the game there will be 'freeleech' events. being active on a private tracker takes a bit of work.

and of course you have to get in in the first place, which tends to require a proven track record of seeding on other private trackers, and some kind of interview with the operators. getting involved in private trackers is a much bigger ask, you have to figure out where to get your foot in the door, and work your way up to the more insular trackers. it's like a mini subculture. it's valuable, but not scalable.

at the top level of inaccessibility is the warez scene. this is a whole subject that i'm not even gonna get into, go read wikipedia. historically this is where the files actually come from, before getting distributed on public trackers, usenet etc. but good luck getting in there lmao, they are understandably quite paranoid.

of course, for stuff to get on pirate sites you need somebody to go the effort of ripping and encoding it. this is where a major point of failure exists. when RarBG went down recently, the biggest loss was not the existing archive of torrent links, which can be backed up - it was that they were very active at converting scene releases into torrents with a decent balance of file size and quality, which then filter out into the various public trackers. that is much harder to replace! but what killed RarBG wasn't even suppression by authorities - according to their statement, it was a bunch of the admins getting covid or dying or fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war, which made the whole operation impossible to continue. so despite the thousands of people who download RarBG torrents, this single point of failure was overstressed and broke.

as far as the ethics of spreading links to pirate sites go... if it's something like a mega drive, yeah, the chances of a takedown are pretty high if it gets noticed! no question. but those things are by nature short-lived; if you want to use that for archival you're building on sand. there's also databases like emuparadise, but there was no saving that through obscurity, it just took Nintendo a minute to bring the case.

in this kind of centralised case, the clock is ticking from day 1. what we want is to maximise the number of people who are able to save copies while it's up, and then some of those people can put it up again somewhere else and keep the authorities playing whack-a-mole. (for a small collection of files, a sensible measure would be to make a torrent and a mega drive side by side, so that people can download the mega drive and then add the torrent to their client to seed if it gets nuked.)

as for torrent sites, the thing is that torrents rely for effectiveness on a swarm that is either very large or very responsible about seeding. if it's a public tracker, it has to be well known or it's pointless. instead of security through obscurity, the form of security for these sites is try to make the resource itself hard to take down - operating the tracker/archive in countries that don't have copyright treaties, maintaining mirrors, and of course distributing as many seeds as possible so the torrent can stay alive even if the site goes down.

the major problem with a dead torrent site is discoverability. if it's harder to find the torrent, fewer people will download it, the existing seeds will gradually go offline, and of course you can't download a torrent that you don't know exists. and while you could imagine a system of broadcasting metadata about a torrent (title, encoding etc.) in a DHT-like way but that would be so vulnerable to fakes and spam. maybe some kind of cryptographically signed 'this torrent is good' declaration is possible? I know certain torrent clients tout discovery features, but honestly I don't know how well they work. I'm sure there are projects that are way ahead of the game than me on this question.

but yeah anyway trying to browbeat people into not sharing links to pirate media is 1. futile, by the time you see it the cat is out of the bag 2. not a sustainable strategy for security. if you wanna lecture people, 'use a VPN and seed your torrents' is evergreen ;p

[tawked]

Space Ghost: With Only Ghosts to Comfort Us.

Doubling down on the "Space Ghost is Batman in space" concept by making Jace and Jan his Dick and Jason lol.

I think it's a cleaner narrative, but like...

Yeah, it's a written-for-the-TPB mini.

[troutfur]

Do you have an au where Firestar dies like in a mutual destruction fight with Tigerclaw / Scourge? Sandstorm is pregnant so Squirrel and Leaf are still around. I felt like this is the kind of story you would like but then I was like actually maybe it's an au he already has??? It sounds familiar but idk. But like. Literally growing up in the shadow of this mythological figure who is now perfect because he is dead and has no flaws. Idk who would be leader though.

Oooooh!

Not quite! My musings on Firestar as shadow haunting the narrative are more centered on the Po3 kids. In my personal rewrite AU thing (haneossia) which I likely will never write out in full, but which I do think about a lot and sometimes mention bits and pieces of, the very first arc is The Power of Three and Firestar is already dead by the beginning.

Brambleclaw hesitated a bit too long at the fox trap so he lost the last of his nine lives. This is a secret that eats at him and which he intends to bring to the grave, and it later intersects with the whole dark forest training thing as Hawkfrost and Tigerstar are very much the literal ghosts of his past come to haunt his family in more than just a figurative sense. Jayfeather and Lionblaze becoming closer to their father and scorning their mother and her ancestry as a result of the secret reveal and this leading them into the claws of the DF is a big plot thing for haneossia OotS, perhaps the most consequential change as it builds on the tension canon Po3 introduced regarding the powers of the three being an ambiguous amoral force.

This Firestar is one who was mythologized very quickly, his every rough edge and unpalatable-to-Clan-culture trait sanded down. The reader doesn't even get to read from his perspective ever. TNP and TPB are prequels, and TPB particularly is written from Cloudtail's perspective, and looking from that PoV his uncle is an antagonist who is trying to muzzle his free spirit into an obedient little conformist who earns approval of the Clan by keeping his head down. Cloudtail's ultimate happy ending is spearheading his own way to live with a paw in each world, something Firestar was drilled down early was impossible.

So yeah, not the same, but beginning the mythologizing at the TNP generation is also juicy. I'mma chew on this.

[angronsjewelbeetle]

WUABAAAHHEHDTKSKGF NELIIIIII (if I may call you that)

@qcontinuumumum

Fun fact I've never drawn Ferrus Manus before. Or Alpharius, for that matter.

[greenarrow-core]

HE'S BACK BABY

Green Arrow #17(b) and Green Arrow #18

So, in williamson's story in #17, we get Ollie letting go of money. FINALLY. He's not supposed to be rich.

Now I classify Ollie giving away money in two levels, the gold standard, which is when he donates it(Green Lantern(1960) #87, barely has anything, donates what he can; Green Arrow(1988) #6, donates a money he got that if he spends, it compromises him, he donated it anyway; Legends of the DC Universe #9, sold the company and donated all his money).

The silver standard is when he does get rid of the money, but it ends up being just switching one rich person for other. That's Green Arrow(1983) #4 and now, Green Arrow(2023) #17, since he gave his money to Connor.

In this backup story from #17 we get Ollie going to his new apartment. And as of issue #18, no mention of any job. Is he really jobless? I would like him to get some job. Back to columnist would be great.

In #17 we get our first connection to the 1983 series. Horton Chemicals is mentioned, it's the company he gave to Maxwell Stein. The former CFO of Horton Chemical, Donald Sherman(new character), is killed by this guy who's killing people related to shit the company is involved with, dump sites and poisoning people, y'now.

Back to #17, Batman breaks into Ollie's apartment. Not the first time he has done that at night. Look back into Legends of the Dark Knight #127.

They have an interesting argument, Ollie stands his ground very well and doesn't let Bruce have anything.

Also, Ollie calls Batman this:

He did that in Detective Comics #559. And Chris Condon already confirmed that's the issue he toke it from.

I love this scene. There's this vibe, he recognizes how he doesn't get respect, and then makes a baddas pose. He's standing up. He's not letting it put him down.

Oh, yeah, we get more clear shots of the costume in #18.

I like it. Certainly better than the previous one. I like the opera gloves without any hole. The little cape isn't great. The rest is okay to me.

We get this crazy shot:

Now, notice in the last panel, there's a weird circle line there. I think it's part from the balloon that they forgot to remove in the editing. Wonder if they will pick up on that and fix for the TPB.

Now, for something that really got me.

Ollie and his not giving a shit about the law, baby, yeah.

Of course, I'm not gonna go over the million times he expressed his disdain and not giving a shit about the law. But he did use the word "damn" with "law" before.

Legends of the DC Universe #9

DID YOU READ THIS CONDON? I fucking hope so.

And yeah, I cut off Hal's nonsense from this panel.

Back to the scene, Ollie is on fire. He calls a senator a war criminal to his face and refuses to shake his hand.

Beautiful Ollie.

In the end of the issue we get the cop who's gonna be working with him in this story. Let's hope for heavy conflict, like between him and Cameron.

She throws a flashlight at him.

Anyway, that's it. Great issue, the epilogue was great too.

Ollie's back in high force,(yeah not full force)

And PUT HIM TO WORK, CONDON.

[chimken-nugget]

not trying to turn this into a warrior cats blog but i have to say, one of my favourite pieces of warrior cats media has to be the Cats of the Clans Field Guide.

Genuinely, this field guide acknowledges some of the biggest gripes I've had with the warrior cat series (and through the perspective of Rock !!).

Also, it's just super well written (imo, at least) and the art is gorgeous ????? The idea of the reader being in the perspective of 3 starclan kits talking to Rock is actually so peak.

Of course, we have the usual continuity errors that appears in almost every book post-TPB, and some stuff did not age well lorewise, but i don't think the writing team ever really thinks that far ahead for the lore to be properly coherent anyways.

I'm just going to share a few of my favourite things about this book, though i do recommend reading it yourselves.

Warning: Massive wall of text below

- Rock being unbiased towards any clan. One of the few books where I didn't feel like it was leaning towards one clan more than the other. Having each clan be represented by the 3 straclan kits (mosskit for river/thunder, blossomkit for shadow, adderkit for wind) is such a smart move. Any biases are portrayed through the kits themselves.

- Rock has these moments where he openly criticises the clans for the way they tend to consider themselves better than non-clan cats. He says that there have been better cats to exist who were never involved with clan life. It was honestly so refreshing to see this weird supremacy stuff get acknowledged.

- Rock also acknowledges that starclan is flawed. Throughout the book he wonders whether they have biases and mentions how strange it is that shadowclan keeps getting messed up by starclan (e.g. the nightstar situation). He also mentions how faith in starclan isn't everything.

ALSO ALSO, quote from the book: 'For once I believe Starclan has acted in every Cat's best interest'

"FOR ONCE",, I love Rock.

My only wish is that leafpool getting doomed by starclan (and the narrative) could've been acknowledged. However, this book was pre-OOTS perspective, so leafpool had not yet reached fully doomed status.

- Rock wonders whether tigerstar ever looks at hawkfrost and remember his persecution of halfclan cats (this drove me insane while reading TNP i am so glad it has been pointed out here)

- Something that stood out to me so, so much as well is the way Rock points out, and criticises how overlooked Sandstorm is and how she tends to be reduced to simply being the mother of Firestar's kits. Rock is a no. 1 sandstorm fan, and i agree with him.

- Rock's disdain of spottedleaf being in Firestar's business is so true. Thank you Rock for speaking on what the authors would later forget.

- Rock calls Tallstar's last-minute deputy change foolish. Tallstar is one of my favourite characters, but even I have to agree with this.

- PRINCESS SITS ON THE FENCE AND STILL WONDERS TO THIS DAY WHETHER HER KIN ARE SAFE

Genuinely, what ?? Did the Erin Hunter team actually just decide to sit down that day and properly (kinda) consider all the flaws of the characters they created.

idc what anyone says, i consider majority of what this field guide says to be canon LOL