#YJ reviews

[threewaysdivided]

awwww 😭😭😭😭

Did you write a review on the legendary teen Titans series? (Aka what young Justice could have become if they weren't overly ambitious)

What's your opinion on Paul Dini as a writer?

(Follow up to these two previous asks)

Sorry nonnie! 😅

It seems that we both tripped down a rabbit hole of doughnuts.

I assume you’re talking about the Teen Titans 2003 Animated TV Series?  In that case, you might be thinking of another user – I haven’t personally written any reviews for it.  I do have a lot of fond feelings towards the show, though; it was my first real introduction to DC Comics alongside the Justice League/ JLU animated series.  My Tumblr has a Teen Titans tag where I share art, meta etc. and I do have some thoughts about specific plots or narrative elements – you might also see me make occasional reference to it as an example on some posts in the writing advice tag.

Just for the sake of expectation management, I should explain that my Tumblr isn’t really a traditional “review blog”.  And yes, I know that probably sounds a bit crazy considering the frankly unhinged amount of YJ analysis I’ve written, especially since I’ve been blogging less about other stories in the last year. Burnout, what can you do? 

Really I’m more of a writing/ story-analysis blog.  Sometimes I might write a semi-review style post where I try to break down and articulate a particular technique/ element/ execution/ implication of a narrative in order to understand what it’s doing well or why something isn’t working.  As I said in the very first Frustrations with YJ essay, I think storytelling is fundamentally about communication and understanding.  I got into fandom as a fan-reader turned fan-writer (AO3 wink wink), and before that I worked as a casual English tutor.  I want to learn from the ways different narratives succeeded or failed at communicating their stories within the restrictions of their medium(s) so that I can better find, discuss and even tell stories myself. 

Because of that, I’m also a big proponent of the Death of the Author approach to media analysis.  Let me copy the definition over from that first essay real quick:

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR This theory posits that, because commercial art is created to be consumed, not just created, the audience’s interpretations of a work should be considered as just valid as the creator’s.  The work must stand on its own and creators cannot micro-manage their audience’s response to it. 1.  A creator’s intentions and biographical facts (political stances, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining the validity of an interpretation. 2.  Save for re-releases/reboots or new entries, the creator cannot and should not attempt to retroactively insert information or interpretations that were not present in the original text.

I generally don’t look too deeply into or follow the specific people behind (non-fan) works.  This isn’t always the case – if I like a specific author’s style I might look up their body of work to read more; some stories are clearly rooted in their creators’ specific opinions or experiences, which makes for interesting context; and sometimes I like to learn about the behind-the-scenes methods/techniques/production woes of a bringing a specific story to life – but mostly I put the priority on what I can learn from the final product.

As I’ve said before, commercial storytelling is the result of more than just one person.  Under the right conditions I think a rank amateur or complete hack could produce something amazing and, if faced with enough production headaches, a usually-excellent creator could end up outputting utter drek although I expect that drek would at least be creatively interesting.

The questions that interest me more are: what was this narrative trying to communicate?  what techniques were used/ creative choices were made?  how well did it succeed?  could a different approach have been used? and, what restrictions/limitations/priorities could have led to the final creative decisions?  To me, information on a creator’s circumstances provide context for narrative analysis.  Since I generally don’t know them I try not to postulate their actual intent too much, only the potential intent suggested by the story.

SO WHAT THE HECK WAS I DOING WITH YJ, THEN? What happened with Young Justice is actually an outlier for me in both regards because of how baffling flawed the series ended up being.  Back in the pre-revival days I paid a lot of attention to the textual canon of Season 1 because I had started writing a fanfic based on it and wanted to do the story justice (heh).  The result was I went into the later seasons with a lot more awareness of the canonical details and storytelling techniques – and (like I said in the final Invasion case-study) I ended up being blindsided by how instinctively bored and annoyed I became just a short way into an attempted Season 2 rewatch, despite the fact that I was actively trying to study it. 

The reason I kept coming back with more and more posts is that I never felt like I had successfully grasped or articulated why I had such a strong and unexpected negative reaction.  I think it’s a similar impulse to what Dan Olson cited as making the Nostalgia Critic’s Parody of The Wall so weirdly compelling: there's a confusing contradiction between the level of work required to implement the sheer amount of stuff that Young Justice tries to include, and the absolute thoughtlessness of how sloppily that stuff was actually executed. A multi-season, multimedia story like Young Justice is a long-term project: there are too many layers of production involved for the end result to be made in a brief flash of impulse or accident. It needs some sort of sustained creative motivation to drive it… but I could never find a coherent creative intent that would satisfyingly explain the decisions on display.  Never before or since have I seen such a promising launch be followed by sequels so fatally flawed as to strip away every component of the original’s creative identity.  There’s a reason I subtitled that masterpost A Massive Failure of Narrative.

This is also why I went after lead-showrunner Greg Weisman a bit, despite not usually doing that.  The choice to exclude (or consciously excise) over 70% of the critical narrative substance and sequester it away in non-textual social-media /ask-blog retcons means that you cannot escape engaging with Weisman when trying to engage with the later seasons at any level of depth.  As a Death of the Author proponent this ticked me off just on-its-face, but it also meant that he and those seasons are inseparably intertwined.  Regardless of whether it was a conscious choice arising from his sense of creative entitlement, or simply a case of narrative incompetence self-selecting for a primary audience with a high tolerance for media-illiteracy Nigerian Prince Email Scam-style, the end-result is the same: Weisman gouged holes his narrative and left it to suffocate while he sucked up all the oxygen in the room.   Then, later, as I encountered people from other fandoms whose narratives had been similarly decimated by Weisman, it became impossible to ignore how inseparable his personal flaws are from those narrative failures.  As I alluded to in the last ask, you can separate the original seven Harry Potter texts from their author: Joanne Rowling and her politics could evaporate tomorrow and it wouldn’t change people’s ability to enjoy the story as a standalone work (in fact, the absence of her modern politics might make some of the more unpalatable flaws easier to accept as honest oversights rather than ominous foreshadowing).  Meanwhile, Young Justice is such a disaster because the later seasons stop being about the original story and increasingly become about Greg: his failures at basic storytelling, his disinterested misunderstanding of his own characters, his weird fixations, his patterns of reactionary prejudice, casual double-standards, deeply disturbing attitudes about consent and power, and a self-righteous entitlement that resents being held accountable.  Unlike Harry Potter, you can’t put Young Justice S2+ in a bubble. The problem at the root of every other problem with Young Justice is that it doesn’t have an actual narrative... and in the absence of a coherent central narrative, the text itself has become the story of Greg Weisman's terrible creative choices. His self-indulgent proclivities pervade every step of the later seasons' broken theming, bad pacing, warped characterisation, contradictory lore, intra-textual hypocrisies, over-stuffed cast and weird fanservice: baked-in at a level that cannot be ignored or rationalised away.

It makes me empathise a lot with how Hbomberguy said he felt on discovering the recent James Somerton stuff: it’s not fun to stumble down a rabbit hole of learning that a prominent figure in one of your communities is sucking up air via association with work from their less-credited colleagues, then using that air to present themselves as an ally, dominate the narrative and delegitimise valid criticism, all while spreading their own prejudiced agendas, refusing to change their behaviour and continuing to profit.  That’s why I felt the need to explicitly point out some of the clearer patterns of reactionary bigotry and hypocritical non-apologies in Weisman’s work – I wanted to make sure the evidence was at least available somewhere outside of Weisman’s carefully-filtered reputation-protecting PR statements.  People put pieces of their lives into communicating something that will hopefully be worth the pieces of life their audiences invest in return -  I find the idea of someone exploiting that trust for gain to be deeply disgusting.

Now, with that exceptionally-overlong context provided: Paul Dini. 

The disappointing but predictable answer is that I don’t really have an opinion on him as a writer.  Having looked up his credits, I recognise a lot of works that I personally enjoyed (including the cancelled-after-one-season Tower Prep).

I really like Batman: The Animated Series, both for the human element it brought to heroism and the tone it set for the following DCAU (colloquially Timm-verse) generation of animated series.  Justice League was one of my first introductions to the main DC roster, so that set a lot of my core understanding of their characters.  I find Harley Quinn, especially her early B:TAS/ DCAU story-iterations, to be compelling in a way that’s equal parts fun and tragic.  There are some parts of the DCAU that I find a bit silly (a couple of background ‘ships that make me go whaa?) but I think I was really lucky to grow up during a time when the DCAU and second-order series inspired by its tone and storytelling ethos (e.g. Teen Titans 2003) was the childhood DC experience for kids my age.

That said, I don’t know enough about the story behind the works in Dini’s credits to feel confident in speaking about him as a writer.  Just looking at his resume, he certainly seems like a passionate and prolific creator who did a lot of very influential work.  At the same time, however, I don’t know how much of that was Dini himself, how much was his frequent co-creator, Bruce Timm, and how much his works may have been adulterated by the influence of other, less-visible members of the production and editorial teams who worked alongside him.  It can be convenient to elevate one or two prominent members to Great Man status as an easy shorthand for discussing works they’ve been involved with, but that can come with the risk of crediting or platforming the wrong people through mis-attribution or just plain projection. 

I’ve learned my lesson on blind-lionisation after being thoroughly let down by all the Weisman nonsense, the same way others have learned from being let down by creators they previously idolised (Supergeekmike did a really good video covering this which also includes discussions of Death of the Author and Authorial Intent).  Without doing proper research into and comparisons of Dini’s work, I wouldn’t feel confident making an assertion about his personal skills as a creator.  I greatly enjoy many of the stories he’s been credited on, and can recognise the influence those stories had in shaping a generation of DC fans (and writers)… but while I’m happy to talk about the writing of those stories, it feels a little irresponsible of me to talk to the character or intent of a real person without knowing more about them.  I’m not making that mistake again.

In the meantime though, I do want to talk more about actual writing.  I’ve been taking it easier this year lockdown and job burnouts finally caught up to me and it suuucks, man but I'm hoping to pick back up in 2024.  I want to finally get back to working on my main fanfic so I can share the companion meta without spoiling people.  I have thoughts about some possible meta-textual metaphors in Across the Spider-verse.  I might do a case-study piece exploring why the years-long timeskip in Arcane Season 1 worked really well while others haven’t.  And there’s an ask about a canon-divergent-post-Season-1 Young Justice episode premise that’s been burning a hole in my inbox for at least 5 months now.

So yeah.  More writing breakdowns to come.  In the meantime, I previously wrote a Frustrations With analysis of how My Hero Academia’s story struggled following the Hideout Raid Arc if you’d like to check that one out.  There’s also this big compilation of links to my Young Justice and Danny Phantom meta (plus recommendations for fanfics and other stories), and you can check out the writing advice tag for general storytelling discussions.

Hopefully that makes up for the drought of Teen Titans content!

[pepprs]

a little inappropriate to say perhaps given how unfathomably her character is suffering but. sophie nelisse your big (fake.. sigh) brown eyes and rose petal lips hath bewitched me mind body and soul

[mamawasatesttube]

hmm hhmmm hmmm 🐰 to 🐭 i think<3 like... im always a Little intimidated talking to people for the first while but you are so sweet <3 honestly pretty early on i got over it + especially now bc we've chatted more ... hands u a 🍊

Send 🐰 for barely intimidating Send 🐭 for slightly intimidating

awww thank you :D yeah i get that, broaching conversations for the first time can always be a lil nervewracking. but thank you for the 🍊 i would love some fruit... yum ♥

[youngjusticeslut]

I haven’t written a review since Kaldur’s arc for, uh, ✨reasons✨ but your girl is back with her thoughts on “Rescue and Search”! Solid episode, made me happy, excited for more. And will be stuck on review duty for the forseeable future 😁 

[darkeraven22]

Yen Press (JY) Disney's Big Hero 6 Volume 1 Review Part 2

Karni, Ignorant To The Bitter EndSo Hiro finds out that the girl he replaced as his college’s wunderkid, is also in hot infatuation with his heroic side. As such he tries to beg her to not reveal his secret udentity… Except he almost blows his secret identity by thinking she knows his hero identity. To be fair to Hiro? How exactly is she ignorant of his identity! His hero helmet is a simple…

[mapofthesoul20]

Absolutely losing my mind to the GBGB Japanese Ver mv, please send help

[thatsnotahoodjason]

i need something where the batfamily find out what tim is actually like when he's with the yj (not steph or cass as they'd already know),, idk how they'd find out,, maybe they see a video of the core four or tim is actually sleeping for once and bart and kon try to prank call bruce and just end up talking for ages and the other batfam members are listening in as bart and kon tell them stories about tim. and they're just. in shock. because they know tim as this teen detective who spends all his time on cases or wayne enterprises and doesnt really do anything outside of that. and they find out tim is a gamer?? and goes off-world all the time?? and is still into photography?? and isn't actually the leader of young justice?? and actually has a sense of humour and plays pranks a lot?? and made out with kon?? and actually likes tea more than coffee but drinks more coffee to stay awake?? and makes jokes about dick's name?? and has a blog about indie film reviews and world issues?? and has a huge cd collection of 90s music??

and the next time tim goes to wayne manor,, dick gives him some of his old cds out of the blue and alfred buys a large assortment of different teas, and bruce asks if he wants to watch the seventh seal with him, and damian actually talks to tim and asks him to join a game tournament against jason and roy,, and tim is so so confused because when he goes back to the manor and the batcave its always just for work. he never really interacts with his family outside of vigilante related stuff, that's just what he's like with bernard and his friends. but now the bats are actually actively trying to spend time with him outside of work

just,, the batfam not realising tim is just acting like he's at work with all of them all of the time and never showing them what he's actually like or interested in outside of that

[fwoopersongs]

[Book Rec + Reaction/Thoughts] The Lantern and the Night Moths 灯与夜蛾 by Yilin Wang

An anthology of translated poems by five modern or contemporary poets and accompanying essays by the translator, @yilinwriter.

You can find the pronunciation guide and list of corrections here!

The cover art, a beautiful expression of the tone of this collection, is by Taiwanese artist Ciaoyin (check out her gorgeous insta!). I'm looking forward to the arrival of the physical book as my tab absolutely does not do it justice xD

Anyway! The official release date is 02 April 2024 though there have been some very thoughtful reviews by early readers already. Here, here, here and here.

(It was an ARC that I received too… though in the time it took to put this together, the ebooks have already gone out to readers >.< typical snail yj!) 

Instead, I’ll tell you who I think would be interested in this book or might benefit from reading it, then share things that are cool about it from the perspective of a bilingual hobbyist translator + lover of ancient poetry and lyrics.

Who should read it?

If annotations, translator’s notes and reflections spark joy for you...

If you’ve ever read poetry translations and been intensely curious about what goes on under the hood...

If you’re a translator yourself wanting to hear another voice...

Definitely check this out!

Also if you’re CN+EN bilingual and have ever read something in English that references Chinese terms and concepts etc. except ONLY in English, pinyin or wade-giles and been utterly frustrated by the ensuing guessing game (like me) Fear Not.

That will not be a problem here.

I really appreciate how Chinese words are used naturally where needed for concepts and quotes - they are also translated for those who can't read Chinese so no one is left out. It made this book of and about translation (and more) super comfortable to read! The solution is so simple, so direct, so rarely used that I am amused.

Oh, but do note that the Chinese characters are in simplified though!

The poems are organised by their writers who are listed here by order of birth year, not appearance in the book:

秋瑾 (Qiu Jin, 1875 to 1907)

废名 (Fei Ming. 1901 to 1967)

戴望舒 (Dai Wangshu, 1905 to 1950)

小西 (Xiao Xi, 1974 to _)

张巧慧 (Zhang Qiaohui, 1978 to _) 

Altogether, that covers nearly the last 150 years up to now. I’ve never really been into poetry by poets in such relatively recent times, in part because I’d been holding on to this stereotype of them spurning Classical Chinese and ancient poetry in the first half of the 20th century (not entirely true, as I came to realise xD). It made sense and was understandable, but felt sad.

Yet am I the target audience for this book?

Very much so.

In ways I didn’t think I would be too! It was so much fun to experience this both as a reader and a translator that I thought I’d share it here, where we are appreciating Chinese poetry together.

If you didn’t think you’d enjoy modern Chinese poetry, hey, give it a chance!

Oh yeah - on the way home a while back, I was talking to a friend about translation and was surprised to hear that her impression was that it ought to be a straightforward process. Like isn’t it a 1:1 conversion? At some point, ‘what’s the difference between something google translate might return, and how you would say it?’ was asked, and oh that was a delightful question to my ears! I showed her one of my comparison sheets where an original text is laid out alongside multiple translations line-by-line, briefly explaining some common and unique choices and how the people who had translated those probably arrived at the various interpretations. She was pretty amazed to see that the answer to her question was: very different. Hey, it’s a complicated process!

But there’s only so much one can explain in the space of a train ride. That’s why The Lantern and the Night Moths is a book I would also rec to someone like this friend of mine - open minded and curious but never having the chance to think about or encounter the craft of translation.

Like Yilin says, ‘the meaning of a word cannot be fully expressed in one single translation, nor through a series of translation attempts’. She then explains why with great attention to detail and some solid examples from one of the poems with word choices loaded with subtle connotations :D

What's interesting about it?

Okay, for one, Yilin shared a playlist of music that she listened to while working on this book. Here is the link to the spotify one and the one on youtube. Check them out! They sure put me in the mood to read xD (favs: 别知己, 小神仙 & 去有風的地方) Afterwards, this made so much sense like - ah! an audio moodboard.

She's also putting together these adorable mini profiles of each poet along with a cmedia and tea rec to match their vibes. Go see them on her instagram xD

Now to business...

structure

What really helped keep the reader’s focus was the way each section is organized, how the poems and accompanying essay were presented and finally the short bio of each person right at the end. 

The poets are first introduced through five or six of their poems, works well suited to this purpose. Their voices, distinct through the vision, ambition and emotion of their words, are brought across by Yilin’s sensitive, thoughtful and poetic translations into English. These translations were also creative and transformative in a way that made so much sense after reading one of her reflections on the process, how she ‘must guide it with gentle hands to ensure its spirit is kept alive and intact during this transformative, and often excruciating process’. A rebirth into another language!

Personally, I’ve come to think of reading translations as looking at a work through another’s eyes. So it’s delightful when the translator’s presence is discernible, and even more so when the reader is given insight into their intention and process via commentary. 

Yilin’s essays coupled with the poets’ bios at the end provide a means to go back and appreciate their works in context of their circumstance and inspirations. Similarly, to read the translations with a changed perspective.

I don’t know how much of a thing this is with translated poetry anthologies in English - can count the number I’ve read with both hands lol, and they’re all of the ancient chinese poetry variety - but I really like this design.

drawing on poets who came before them

Remember how we’re always recognizing traces of inspiration from ancient works (to them) in poetry of the various dynasties? 李商隐 Li Shangyin of Tang for example, was influenced by 楚辞 Verses of Chu and folklore and mythology such as that in 山海经 Classic of Mountains and Seas, 李白 Li Bai frequently references poets and history of the 魏晋 Wei-Jin era, and 王维 Wang Wei was clearly familiar with Buddhist scriptures which were translations themselves! 

Just like the late Táng poets whom he praised for boldly deviating from the voices before them, Fei Ming used popular references and tropey shorthands ‘in contexts utterly different from the original, reimagining them anew’. Dai Wangshu, too, ‘boldly re-envisioned what modern poetry could look like by revisiting the classics’. In fact, in his very relatable ‘To Answer the Visitor with Classical Imagery’, I see Li Bai’s 春夜宴桃李园序, Qu Yuan’s 离骚 and lots of - as the title says - classical imagery, as if pulling out painting after painting to describe a feeling.

And Dai Wangshu’s faith in the translatability of poetry, that ‘poetry isn’t what is lost in translation, but rather, what survives it’ reminds me of what a friend, @xiakeponz, said that I agree with so much - because readers can ‘experience something in their own individual way through (your) shared humanity rather than language alone’.

poetic tradition and beyond

Between the lines of contemporary poets Zhang Qiaohui and Xiao Xi, I can really see the charm of plain vernacular, how it can be beautiful, incisive and clever in turns. Even as it seems to have moved further than ever from the structure and language of literary Chinese, the themes that inspired common motifs remain a part of life. Mother and divinity, homesickness, finding oneself, tributes to admirable spirits and the issues that trouble society - just in a new form and with different ways of expression.

Qiu Jin

So many FEELINGS about what Qiu Jin was doing - ‘I awaken the spirits of women, hundreds of flowers, abloom’. I would love if she could see the world now. So many things for her to rouse and fight against, but at the same time just as many to be proud of. I am so in awe of her, but now hearing her loneliness and struggle there is a soft spot in my heart for those too. 

conclusion

So so so…

Qiu Jin’s admirable fire and lonely resolve. Zhang Qiaohui’s precious ability to express beauty in the mundane and in pain. Fei Ming’s utter delight! He is having so much fun and when* I’m vibing, I feel it too. Xiao Xi’s critical eye and keen observation of the world. Dai Wangshu’s whimsical charm and passion for translation. Finally, Yilin Wang, the connecting thread wound through them all, bringing them together so that we may be acquainted. 

*Reading his poetry is like unwrapping a seamless, many layered present. A gift that keeps giving - if only you have a key 😅 Fortunately, Yilin has halved our struggle 🤣

I’ve had such a great time with them all. And if you come, I hope you will too!

[threewaysdivided]

as a fellow painfully slow writer, i'd just like to say—i feel you; i understand you, and you are not alone atop the Word Glacier. stay strong, and if it comes down to it, don't be afraid to rant to the wallpaper! it can't exactly talk back, but i've found getting spoilers into even just the open air can help soothe the ache—either way, i wish you an untroubled pen.

(referring to this post)

Aww, thanks anon! And all the very best with your project as well 💜

I suppose this is the double-edged sword of the planner-writing style.

On one hand, having the story already planned out in depth is great! The path is already there so I don't have to stress about pantsing myself into a plot-hole I can't get out of. I can look ahead and remind myself of future things I love (and know that I've already done some of the prep-work for them when the time comes). I can move up and down the timeline to work on future scenes if I'm not feeling the immediate upcoming chapter (I've been playing around with some Conner stuff recently). And sometimes I can take a break from the storytelling altogether to play with thought-exercises and meta-analyses (hence those posts about The Light and Martian Prejudice). NGL I would love for Deathly Weapons to get a TVTropes page once it's a little further along, so I can see what other people are making of the meta-side. It's fun to be able to plant foreshadowing when I know what it's pointing to - both a little secret for me to enjoy now, and a treat for other people to find later.

But on the other... they say "write for yourself", and in some ways for me this story has already been written. I'm still relishing the details and having fun tinkering around adding new flourishes, little elaborations and rediscovering things in my upcoming notes, but most of those big emotions and moments of discovery are experiences I've already had in planning. It's not in prose, but most of the substance is already there for me - if someone asked me to make a Deathly Weapons wiki, I could probably do that and do it faster than actually putting chapters out. You can probably tell that I usually engage with fandom via meta and reading more than writing. I’m proud of what I've made and I want to get it written up and posted, but the experience of discovering what that story is is definitely something I'm creating to share with others.   DW started out as the fanfic I wanted to find but couldn't, and as the one writing it I can never experience what that blind-read would have been like - it's why I love it when commenters/ reviewers stop by and give me a glimpse of their experiences with it.

(Also, let it not go unsaid: I massively overcommitted with this one. Deathly Weapons has 11 planned missions alongside intervening character chapters. I think YJS1 captured lightning in a bottle and I wanted to reflect some of that in Arc II, but amidst the throes of creativity I kind of jumped in feet-first and ended up setting myself the task of solo-writing a half-season as my first major fanfic project. Whoops.)

Besides that, I think fandom is a very community experience. I got into writing fic through reading it and finding fanart (which I think is the same for a lot of people). I don't really like the word "engagement" these days because of how overused and corporatized it's become but there is something to be said for reciprocity - being part of that shared community and creative energy. It's kind of like mutual gift-giving but the main gift is time.

Being a slow creator is kind of hard in that space because fandom is so ephemeral. There are some series which have unusual staying power (A:TLA and B:TAS are considered classics for good reason and Danny Phantom is infamous as the fandom-which-does-not-die) but most of them will ebb and flow, and age out and sometimes haemorrhage when canon backflips off a cliff over every shark in existence and fanworks are kind of at the whims of that. It's the price we pay for piggybacking off someone else's work and audience. I thought I was safe, I thought I had picked two series which were finished or at least over but nooooo...

It's one of the reasons I'm incredibly grateful to have found some discord friends who were willing to let me share major DW spoilers with them, as well as to @cryxdraws and @doodly-doop for making and sharing their lovely DW art pieces. Not only was it really generous for them to give me their time like that, it's been amazing to know that there are people out there for who this little hobby project means something, and who also think it's worth seeing through to the end.

So, until then...

[jesncin]

I'm thinking of writing up some media crit essays here (or on cohost as I've already done a few there) because story analysis and review is just what I like doing! And with the DC fixation I'm on I've been itching to write some thoughts. An impressionistic list of topics:

Ma'alefa'ak character retrospective, all his different iterations and how his character evolved in recent years. I feel his character is easily dismissed as "the messed up cultist" but it's more complicated than that! I might have to watch YJ to make this a thorough retrospective though,,,

Asian Lois Lane retrospective! A comparative study of the 3 times Lois has been asian in media (maws, american alien, girl taking over) and how effectively cultural identity is considered in each reimagining. I don't really see much Asian perspective on these takes of Lois, so I think it's valuable to share my perspective here! Asian Lois Lane means so much to me,,,

An analysis on the depiction of race in MAWS. I had a fairly thorough conclusion on my thoughts over how characters of color are handled in MAWS in my insta story review, but there are details I completely missed out on that I feel is still worthy of discussing! Especially in regards of the optics of Superman being reimagined as a redeemed colonizer. And Thanksgiving. Something about Thanksgiving.

Yeah that's my brainstorm for now! If you want a taste of how I write these things, have a sample! "Lois Lane, Power Girl, and the fear of exceptional women" is up on cohost~ I just like writing, fellas. It wakes my brain up

[shaunamilfman]

insp from this. had to type this up real quick after seeing it.

shauna shipman would so have one of those broody poet Tumblrs where she posts like original writing and reblogs angsty quotes from like wuthering heights and shit. she has an Instagram and a Twitter but mostly because Jackie made her. all of her Instagram is just posts of Jackieshauna or like books in coffeeshop type vibes. her twitters pretty empty she just replies to her friends posts. she has a tiktok but only so Jackie can send her stuff.

Jackie Taylor queen of Instagram. she'd have a lot of those like layout ones with the 3x3 grids. tons of pictures of jackieshauna or just her alone. she has one picture of her and Jeff from like 3 years ago but that's it. she has a Twitter but it's just to stay up in everybody's business lmao. she follows shauna on Tumblr but that's it. she's super into tiktok but doesn't post all that much. she used to make shauna do all the dance trends with her in middle school and it makes her wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it.

Van Palmer has a Twitter solely to post links to her letterboxd reviews and retweet movie announcements and shit. she has like 3 posts on Instagram and she's only pictured in 1 of them. she mostly uses it to comment 😍😍😍 on all of Tai's posts. Van was a big Tumblr user in middle school but def grew out of it. Van is strangely big on tiktok for someone who almost never posts. she has a sense of humor though that would do numbers on tiktok for sure.

Tai Turner is a big Twitter user. she's super into like politics and stuff and gags the hell out of random politicians in the quote tweets. she also retweets all of Van's letterboxd reviews. her Instagram is a bunch of pictures of her, her and van, and the other yjs. she tries to keep her Instagram professional but Van's commenting 🍑🥵 a little too much for that lmaooo. never had a Tumblr. has a tiktok so van can send her stuff.

Mari is big Twitter user. she will use it to stay up in everyone's business and gossip. so many private quote retweets lmao. big Instagram/tiktok user as well. she tried to hard to be an influencer though so it's mostly embarrassing. has a Tumblr that she solely uses to comment insults on Shauna's Tumblr poetry. don't ask her how she found it, Mari knows all.

Lottie Matthews gives me technophobe vibes for some reason. she's def out there like "kids these days 🙄. always on their phones". she'd have a huge following on Twitter though and would predict celebrity deaths/divorces.

Nat Scatorccio had a not like other girls phase where she thought she was too good for social media in middle school. she's embarrassed about it but unfortunately has no idea how to use most of it now. has a Twitter and an Instagram only. she does numbers on Instagram though let me tell you.

Misty Quigley has Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, Tumblr, etc but she only really posts on reddit. She's big in a lot of reddit circles and people like @ her specifically for stuff. I think she'd do numbers on like true crime tiktok though. Mari has a burner account just to comment hate on Misty's tiktok lmao. On everything else she follows like 3k people and is followed back by bots and Jackie.

Laura Lee would have an Instagram that she posted Bible verses and encouraging quotes on. She has a Twitter where she comments "disappointed 😥" whenever someone uses religion to be homophobic. her parents only let her use the internet for an hour a day though so she doesn't post super often.

[skye707]

If Riddler titties are valid then who has the biggest, asking for a friend

1 being A cup titties, 9 being jugs

Gotham

2. Unburied

3. Telltale

4. BTAS

5. YJ

6. Arkham

7. BTAA

8. Dano

9. ZY

No, I will not be asking for peer review.

Thank you.

[dbgdbw]

235-237

235

slipping out of mindiva’s quarters, yoojin hunts down 2/5 of the linked handlers (1 D-rank, 1 C-rank) black widow style, staging their deaths so that it looks like a spider-type monster had managed to break into the facilities; returns to mindiva’s room to use ‘we were drinking together all night’ as his alibi. v sexy ruthless/competent yj action sequence.

236

(enter SIGMA)

(they lock eyes, and the SEEKER’S CHAINS smash into the wall above YOOJIN’s head in a pseudo kabedon)

yj: (lies) i can explain

sigma: first, i have someone i’d like you to meet

(YOOJIN comes face-to-face with the dummy that has his appearance, still perfectly preserved past its one-day expiration date, now dressed in different clothes)

yj: (internally) wtf wtf this psycho kept it??? …as evidence…right…? right…??

yj: (externally) so what do you want

sigma: you (leers)

yj: you must be out of your goddamn mind

yj: anyway. if you’ll stay out of my way until i’ve freed alpha, i’ll let you in on some Very Important Information

sigma: hmmm

yj: it’ll be fun

sigma: yeah alright

[reward(s): (1) contract ]

sigma: so what’s your name anyway

yj: han yoojin

sigma: i see, han yoojin

yj: …you’re looking at the doll right now

sigma: i’m aware, c-rank

237

- prompted by a tip from ‘newcomer’, yj goes to rendezvous with some AVALANCHE-style resistance fighters, who are hoping to pull off a coup d'état against the oppressive city defense force

+ vitera (S), younger sister of white-haired S-rank

+ gnosi (?), ex-DA personnel who left after shifts in power structure

- list of grievances include veritably state-sanctioned kidnappings from age 5 to bolster combat force

- reveals lanchaea’s lambda is secretly assisting the resistance in the bg

- yj and co hatch a plan to bait the linked s-ranks plus others out of the DA (hence why the arc is named ‘fishing 1-3’), using pre-existing animosity between vitera & iriko(이리코)+couvils(쿠빌스) 

- proceeds to bait & switch w/ 3(!! jackpot) SS-rank monsters 

- ‘but really, how was this possible?’ ‘through the power of love and friendship and hope’ ‘...pardon?’ ‘just some bullshit’

- [ ★ 사랑과 우정과 희망으로 S급 다수 퇴치 성공!＾▽＾ ☆ ]

- surprise!! it turns out the real treasure (giver) was the sung hyunjae who’s supposedly ‘infiltrated the System’, all along

-

w/ my turnaround time effectively bumping back up to 5-10 days/ch ish, in the ‘spirit of self-care’, i told myself i’d only work on chs when i’d had at least one sclass interaction with another person that day, someone leaving their reactions to a ch, etc.. and that’s the story of how i went a week w/o doing any translating :) bc i have zero ppl who talk abt sclass w me

instead of serializing, i’m contemplating switching to just doing the chs i think are interesting as i go, with occasional requests maybe; atm, i haven’t been reading ahead because i lose interest in doing filler chs when i already know what happens, but tbh reading the reviews on hosting sites has been more fulfilling ‘fandom interaction’ than i get otherwise, despite most of my free time going to tls.. like what am i even doing here anymore 🥲 

[kidflashimpulse]

i'd like to shout out Chris Jones, the artist for YJ Targets, for not drawing Bart weirdly skinny. Chris drew him to basically be on par with Tim, and his legs are the most muscular part of him (he has thigh muscle. i salute Chris). and the comics are more on model than the show so i'm just glad to see that's what he's SUPPOSED to look like (also: love the confirmation that Bart's built heavier than Ed. personally i don't think Ed is THAT skinny, but i still take the win)

for real, shout-out Chris Jones!! MVP

i totally get you anon, like HOW do you have a hero who’s whole thing is LITERALLY running and not have their thighs built/toned/thick af, it’s literally illogical otherwise. like i get their speed relies on their metagene but… they literally need to use their muscles for it and speed-metabolism or not, their legs get worked tf out lol

the same goes for ass too like when i read fics and my guy gets described as flat i’m like… are we talking about the same character here?? sdfghjkl /j /srs

in terms of him in animation, i think S4 generally has superiority with more consistency though not by a huge margin, S3 also had its good moments . (New Genesis episode, Illusion of control, Fighting Granny episode) His scene in his backyard with the legion is personally gold also because he generally looks great there in a way that it looks like how he’s SUPPOSED to (this is more in terms of face and in general lol) so that singlehandedly carries the season for me my only thing for both 3 and 4 are when his upper body feels a bit disproportionate to the rest of him (like u said, the legs should be and ARE his strongest muscle, anything else just doesn’t make sense). But whenever that happens it’s usually cause u can tell he hasn’t been drawn with as much care as when he’s a bit more of the focus. So i don’t get too fussed over it. When he’s in civvies he’s also generally drawn better so it could also just be the build of his suit, who knows. Point is, animators r doing their best with the time/money they’ve been given, so this all isn’t at all on them and just on us being crazy lol It’s nice though to see him and all the other characters drawn in a more consistently balanced way in the comics !

id tag chris to express our gratitude but maybe it’s not best to tag him under the context of a thicc thighs appreciation post LOL

but in the meantime, let’s enjoy a collage of our guy (who might I add is getting nerfed like crazy here, literally all his falls shouldn’t be happening but i’ll just pretend bro isn’t even trying too hard and taking it easy lmfao)

ALSO in general, his bart art is SO GOOD like look at these, amazing:

I love how he draws his smile in these lmfao

So if possible, please support Chris by buying some copies, they’re great to have as a collection and reasonably priced as well, here’s a link for those who may be interested:

(u can change the location i believe it should have global availability idk why it’s set to canada lol)

i also totally get you about Ed like… i’ve mentioned this ages ago but for Ed’s own sake he better have gotten way stronger by now (and considering how he ate that fight with Tim and Looker it’s pretty promising) so i also don’t think he’s supposed to be as crazy skinny as some of his animated moments might have him but yeah, Barts been in the game for so long now so it makes sense .

[isfjmel-phleg]

I'm reading negative reviews of the paperback volumes of YJ and am much amused by the critiques from readers who clearly missed the point. The complaints tend to be variations of:

it's too goofy

it's too cheesy

it's too young

there's too much humor

how dare this series written in the 90s be like something written in the 90s

the art is bad

this is dumb because responsible parents/mentors wouldn't let kids be superheroes in real life

the girls are pointless/badly written

there are six kids on this team but the only one I will acknowledge or care about is Tim

the characterization is one-note, unlike the sophisticated characterization in Johns' 2003 TT series (no seriously, someone said this!)

the beginning is all just boring set-up, so I'm going to write off the entire series, which I haven't read any further

the animated show did a better job with the characters (…despite not actually portraying most of them in major roles)

they ruined Superboy because he's not the brooding clone of Clark and Lex like in the show

why isn't this more like the animated show

[thrakaboom]

tagged by @elvain

20 Questions for Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Combined pseuds and all fandoms, 48. Just for thrakaboom (again, all fandoms) 37

2. What's your total AO3 word count? both psueds: 75,802. thrakaboom only: 56,640

3. What fandoms do you write for? these days mostly just marvel and occasional, but I have also written for DC Comics, the YJ tv show, and Circle of Magic. I also occasionally still write Sidleterra stuff.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Thud / R. / Witches in Gotham / I Love You, I Love You, I Love You Too / Everyone Loves Roy

the only one I really still like of these is "Everyone Loves Roy", lol. I hate "Thud" and "R." now.

5. Do you respond to comments? i do because i like when other writers respond to my comments, lol

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? "o, golden muse" which was a DC based vent fic published on my pseud about child grooming and in the end Bart doesn't tell anyone what happened. Published on my main, probably "Dear Baby", which is about fears of miscarriage

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I feel like it's probably "like dewdrops in sunlight" for marvel (warning for kink porn), and "Everyone Loves Roy" for DC

8. Do you get hate on fics? i used to, back in the old days. but not anymore. not publicly, at least.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i do! in fact it's my bread and butter. I've written m/m and m/f and am plotting an f/f fic for mermay.

10. Do you write crossovers? occasionally! I only have one published crossover, which is a Sandman/Sidleterra crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? yes, i have! I often write with @mutantdilf and I started a project with @marvel-and-moor that never got off the ground

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? to write? probably ricstar

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? my ricstar bath fic is not quite abandonded but i don't have the motivation to finish it right now, haha.

16. What are your writing strengths? i have no idea, haha. I'm pretty good at purple prose I think

17. What are your writing weaknesses? anything longform or multi-chapter! ...yikes!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I haven't done it before, but I like seeing it

19. First fandom you wrote for? blues clues! if anyone is interested I can see if I can dig out my very first work of fiction "Blue's Birthday Party". I had my dad write it down what I said and I did all the pictures. Published? HP.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? "Milk, Turpentine, and Honey" but since that's published on my pseud, i'll say that my favorite published on my main is either þrek (noun n.) 'courage, strength' or Review of 590 Fifth Avenue (50th Anniversary Edition)

tagging @marvel-and-moor @mutantdilf and @abyssfemme