#and is certainly a factor

[tacosaysroar]

Three different boys like Adelaide right now and they all play on the same basketball team together.

Boy drama.

[homoquartz]

a show doesn't necessarily have to be ABOUT queerness to BE a queer show. it's a cultural dialect that cishets don't quite speak.

edit: i gotta clarify that the shows do indeed still have to have actual queer characters in them to count

[blue-wolfe]

I did the first table read with Vance, Jedidiah's new actor, tonight! Went very well. Incredibly cute voice.

The whole time we were reading I kept thinking "awww does he want a pup cup?" So I think we're in for a sweetiepie supreme!

[newttxt]

i was talking extensively with a friend about reiju’s delicate balance of caring/emotionless and her relationship with sanji

[heroesriseandfall]

Introduction to Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying, April 1990

Introduction by Dennis O'Neil for Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (1990 collected edition)

Transcription below the cut/readmore.

INTRODUCTION by DENNIS O'NEIL

Robin was gone. We needed a new Boy Wonder. There had been two previous Robins. The original first appeared less than a year after a new costumed hero called Batman made his debut in DETECTIVE COMICS #27, to instant success. Some time within the next eleven months, his creators, artist Bob Kane and his writer-collaborator Bill Finger, decided to give their dark, obsessed hero a kind of surrogate son, Robin, who was hailed on the cover of DETECTIVE #36 as “the sensational character-find of 1940—Robin, The Boy Wonder.” Over the next 40 years, Batman’s fortunes varied: always, however, Robin was at Batman’s side.

He served a couple of functions. If Batman were real (and it may shock some of our more avid readers to learn he isn’t), and if he were the grim, obsessed loner he is often portrayed as, Robin, with some help from Batman's faithful butler Alfred, would keep him sane; a man whose every waking hour is focused on the grimmest aspects of society, who is unable to release the effects of seeing his parents murdered, whose life is an amalgam of sudden violence and lonely vigilance, would soon skew into a nasty insanity if he did not have someone to care for, someone to maintain a link with common humanity. But Batman is, of course, not real. (My apologies to avid readers.) He isn’t exactly a fictional character—more on that shortly—but he does not and could not exist as a living, breathing human being. That doesn’t make Robin any less useful: he serves the same functions in the Batman stories as Watson served in the Sherlock Holmes canon and the gravedigger serves in Hamlet: like Holmes’s faithful doctor, Robin is a sounding board, a person with whom the hero can have dialogues and thus let the reader know how brilliantly he’s handling matters and like the gravedigger, he occasionally provides a bright note in an otherwise relentlessly morose narrative.

Which is why I was a trifle uneasy when we—the editorial staff of DC Comics—decided to let our audience decide whether he would live or die. It came to be known in our offices as the “telephone stunt.” We had a character, Robin, the readers didn’t seem terribly fond of. This wasn’t the original Robin, the “character-find of 1940”; that Robin was Dick Grayson and he had graduated from sidekick to bona fide hero who fronted a group of evil-fighting adolescents, The Teen Titans. In 1983, it was decreed that Robin should grow up and assume a crime-fighting identity of his own—become his own man, as befitted the leader of the mighty Titans. He left Batman’s world to assume the name, costume, and persona of Nightwing. Gerry Conway and Don Newton replaced him with a second Robin, Jason Todd, whose biography was virtually identical to that of Dick Grayson. Why not? Gerry and Don were not trying to innovate, they were simply filling a void. The assignment they were given was simple: Provide another Robin. Quickly and with as little fuss as possible.

In 1986, Max Allan Collins inherited the Batman writing assignment and told his editor he had an idea for an improved Jason Todd. Make him a street kid, Collins said. Make his parents criminals. Have him and Batman on opposite sides at first. Sounded fine to the editor and, since DC was in the middle of a vast, company-wide overhaul of storylines anyway, Collins was told to go ahead. I was the editor; I did the telling. And I’d do it again, today. Collins’s Robin was dramatic, did have story potential. But readers didn’t take to him. I don't know now, and will probably never know why. Jason was accepted as long as he was a Dick Grayson clone, but when he acquired a distinct and, Collins and I still believe, more interesting backstory, their affection cooled. Maybe we—me and the writers who followed Collins—should have worked harder at making Jason likeable. Or maybe, I guessed, on some subconscious level our most loyal readers felt Jason was a usurper. For whatever reason, Jason was not the favorite Dick had been. He wasn’t hated, exactly, but he wasn’t loved, either. Should we write him out of the continuity? It didn’t seem like a bad idea, and when we thought of the experiment that became the telephone stunt, Jason seemed the perfect subject for it. The mechanics were pretty simple: we put Jason in an explosion and gave the readers two telephone numbers they could call, the first to vote that Jason would survive the blast, the second to vote that he wouldn't.

It was successful—oh my, yes. We expected to generate some interest, but not the amount or intensity we got. As soon as the final vote was tallied—5271 for Jasons survival, a deciding 5343 against—the calls began. For most of three days, I talked to journalists, disc jockeys, television reporters. We got a lot of compliments. They ranged from a critic’s liking our stunt to the participatory drama of avant garde theater to the brilliant comedy team of Penn and Teller expressing mock envy that we beat them to “the kill-your-partner-900-number scam.” But then came the backlash, ugly and, to me at least, totally unexpected: one reporter claimed that the whole event had been rigged—that, in fact, we had decided on Jason’s demise ahead of time and staged an elaborate charade; a teary grandmother said that her grandchildren loved Jason and now we’d killed him; several colleagues accused us of turning our magazines into a “Roman circus.” Cynical was a word used. And exploitive. Sleazy. Dishonorable. Wait a minute, I wanted to reply. Jason Todd is just a phantom, a figment of several imaginations. No real kid died. No real anything died. It’s all just stories—

I would have been wrong. Batman, and Superman, and Wonder Woman and their supporting casts are quite a bit more than “just stories” if, by “stories,” we mean ephemeral amusements. They’ve been in continuous magazine publication for a half-century, and they’ve been in movies, and television shows, and in novels, and on cereal boxes and T-shirts and underwear and candy bars and yo-yos and games—thousands of ventures. For fifty years. Fifty years! Although the circulation of our magazines is relatively modest, these characters have been so enduring, so pervasive, they have permeated our collective consciousness. Everybody recognizes them. They are our post-industrial folklore and, as such, they mean much more to people than a few minutes’ idle amusement. They’re part of the psychic family. The public and apparently callous slaying of one of their number was, to some, a vicious attack on the special part of their souls that needs awe, magic, heroism.

We had promised to abide by the telephone poll, and we would. But within a few days, it became apparent that we’d have to begin growing another Robin. We had forgotten that Batman exists outside the pages of our comics, is not the exclusive property of DC’s editorial staff; because he is both popular and imperishable, hundreds of others have some legitimate interest in him (not the least of whom are the readers who, for one reason or another, had missed the voting.) Our medium may have kept him alive, but others have added immeasurably to his success. When we began hearing from them, the consensus was that a Batman without a Robin wasn't quite a Batman. I wasn’t surprised. Nor did I disagree, particularly. So our problem became: how to create Robin III without generating the hostility that plagued poor Jason. Dick Grayson was the answer. If, as we thought, readers felt Jason had somehow usurped Dick’s place, then we should link the new Robin to Dick—give Robin III his predecessor’s stamp of approval. One writer had done almost all of the Dick Grayson material DC had published for a decade: Marv Wolfman, co-creator (with George Pérez) of the New Teen Titans. That made Mary the first, and really only, choice to undertake the task of giving Batman a new helper. And if we were using Marv, why not have some of the story happen in the pages of THE NEW TITANS, which he was already writing, and thus be able to take advantage of the very considerable talents of Marv's collaborator on the Titans, George Pérez? George volunteered to co-plot the story with Mary and do layouts on the TITANS episodes, and editor Mike Carlin enlisted Tom Grummett and Bob McLeod to complete George's graphics work. I asked the regular BATMAN artists, Jim Aparo and Mike DeCarlo, to handle the BATMAN issues. Finally, we chose a name for Robin III—Tim Drake—and, after a couple of editorial conferences, six gifted gentlemen retired to do what they do best.

The result seemed worthy of being collected between one set of covers, to be read as a graphic novel. We decided to do that and you’re holding the result. I hope you enjoy it. But please don’t think it’s the end of the Robin III saga. Dick Grayson’s lasted 50 years, after all, and Tim Drake does have his blessing.

Dennis O’Neil

April 1990

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At the start of this project all I wanted was to 'learn how to draw' using comics as a medium and the MDZS audio drama as inspiration.

I've come *very* far from making simple, 3 panel black and white comics, and I truly do intend to go even further. Thank you to everyone who cheered me on throughout 2023, it has been an incredible year in so many ways I never could have imagined. I look forwards to drawing throughout 2024 B*)

(2024 summary here)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[akiizayoi4869]

I really do miss the old animation style of Detective Conan, the newer style just doesn't have that same creepiness factor like the old one did.

[thebramblewood]

The night where it all began, part two.

Previous / Next

Caleb, telepathically: That was the last I saw of her until morning, and by then she was far too delirious to explain anything. For years, I only vaguely knew what’d happened. It wasn’t until I was turned that she finally showed me what she remembered — or at least as much as she could bear to. It brings me no pleasure to dredge it all back up, but we’ve already come this far.

-

[distant wolf whistles and lewd shouts]

Man 1: [in mocking sing-song] Princess Vatore! Slow down, sweetheart. [to second man] You’d think she doesn’t want us to catch up.

Man 2: She’s up too high on her throne to even deign us with a response.

Man 1: Is that it? Are we too common for your taste, Your Highness?

Man 2: Awfully rich of her to cast judgment on us. [spits forcefully] Jezebel.

Lilith: [with false bravado] You’d both do well to shut your mouths and stumble on home now. Filthy, stinking drunkards!

Man 2: You think you’ve got the right to talk to us like that?

Man 1: Don’t you run away! These jewels look expensive. They’ll certainly serve as a fine reward for our troubles.

Lilith: You can have them! Just please don’t-

Man 1: Don’t tell me what not to do, girl.

-

[men groaning faintly]

-

Helena, telepathically: God. That’s awful. I can't begin to imagine how that must have felt.

Caleb, telepathically: Something in her broke the second those men lay hands on her. She gave up on humanity, not all at once but gradually, until she finally wanted so little to do with it she resigned her own. She turned herself into an impenetrable fortress so she would never be vulnerable again.

Helena, telepathically: Those men were monsters, clearly. None of it was her fault. Or yours, for that matter. I can tell what you're thinking.

Caleb, telepathically: [deflecting] You're already getting better at this. Of course she didn't deserve it. No one ever does. And she didn't deserve what happened next either — though it is the only reason she survived.

[thatrandombystander]

I do think it's rather reductive to say Trump's actions caused the landslide victory for Labour in the Australian election, the same way he impacted Canada's election, but it is fun to suggest it

[autism-swagger]

I think it would be nice if more people (DC included) remembered that Steph has a mom. Like. She's not Bruce's kid. She has a mother. Where did she go. ​Crystal come back I miss you and your questionable parenting.

[rozzywell]

hey what if in the acid pit scene in junk yard dog KITT was still checking how Michael was doing because he was showing signs of distress

Aough. Thinking about him monitoring Michael's vitals and such via the comlink specifically. I'll be real I don't remember if it even works like that but I don't care. "I need your help and am calling out for you and doing the closest thing I can to physically making contact (essentially grabbing at your wrist) but neither of us can actually do anything and the only thing my readings are telling me is that you're just as scared about it as I am." OKAY!!!!!

[trysting-foes]

I thought of something while commuting from uni. It's not fully fleshed out but I have to write it down. I was thinking about drivers who quit the sport in not the best of conditions (like being not on good terms with other drivers or their team). I was thinking mainly about Daniel and Nico and their presence (or lack thereof) in the paddock after their retirement. And I pinned the fact that they returned to the paddock or not down to one thing : whether the person they liked/loved the most on the grid is willing to see them outside the paddock

[roydick]

Is this ooc or have I just nailed down the connection yet? Who would've guessed that the silly one-shot would be my ultimate downfall, I've been battling with this for over a week now and I'm losing my mind.

[silusvesuius]

n*loth not being able to bag anyone over the (human term) age of 25-30 at most is the only logical and real conclusion to me because it can be just explained away as him wanting to prove and control everything and anyone (Cus he's a man!) but being stuck in that demographic because his unbearable and vile personality is a force that nobody can look past once they've outgrown the possible fear and idolization period of anyone but also n*loth in particular.

[wackywatchdotcom]

one of the first few things i remember noting about the show when i watched it all for the first time (i dont quite count when i initially watched the pilot a yr ago cus i dont think i was giving it enough attention) was the idea that a person adapting fast to the circus is Weird. like it doesnt mean that the person likes it so much as it implies the person either 1. is just adaptable, thats a factor, or 2. they already are used to awful situations and adapting to this one IS still likely a challenge, but their ability to slot into the setting can sorta imply a person was already used to despair or fear, potentially to an extreme. and i remember noting how pomni adapted fast. like she definitely hasnt fully gotten used to it and i think that will take a Long While. but i think her ability to treat it as Life, her ability to give up on leaving so fast speaks to the idea that i feel like she gives off that she was absolutely miserable or had a history of being absolutely miserable before the circus....