#person: David Bruce

[definitelynotdamiano]

Damiano with Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi at the 2024 MusiCares Person of the Year Gala - 02.02.2024

[kingoftieland]

TRAGEDIES in Bill Bixby’s life impacted the final seasons of The Incredible Hulk! 🥀

[ellieunbroken]

gonna b so real neil druckmann is not the genius writer you all seem to think he is. all of the changes in the show aren’t just for adaptation purposes, they’re set ups to make part 2’s narrative make sense. if the characters feel off, it’s bc part 2 was inconsistent with the story’s continuation.

[postguiltypleasures]

Thoughts on The X-Files as it turns 30 Years Old

I have not written much about The X-Files here because I have not revisited it in many years. The last time I rewatched any episodes was way back in 2015, after the revival was announced. I had no intention of watching  the revival, but I wanted to see how the series had aged. My reactions were kind of mixed. I didn’t continue to rewatch it was that I didn’t feel the spark that I got from it watching during the original airing. The show’s influence is such that there has always been something regularly on air that has been doing what a contemporary version of TXF should do, and doing it without the show’s baggage. And these later shows have all been unique programs that stand on their own. Only now there really is one show that does that I watch that fits this description, Evil. Do to world changing circumstances, including the COVID pandemic and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, it does not air that regularly. So I find myself looking to who is posting about TXF now. What do they think? Do the things that made me not want to watch the revival bother them? How do they relate to the context in which it was made? How is that different for people who did watch it during the original run and bring hindsight vs. those who were too young or not born? What does any of this have to do with a potential reboot?

Much More Under the Cut

I remember TXF becoming uncool. It’s bizarre to me that it has any cultural presence because being disenchanted with it as it lost it’s cool was so painful. That said, I was a teenager at this time, so my emotions around it were stronger than they would be if I watched at another time of life. I am certain of this because of how much I hated the original series finale, and how I have been fine with a lot of controversial series finales since then.

Speaking of endings, these days discussions of television are too focused on ending. The idea that for most of the existence of television, shows were just supposed to go on until they became too expensive to produce and/or lost their audience seems to have vanished from people’s comprehension. This is a result of more television becoming more serialized and with short seasons. When an episode doesn’t work as something self contained, it has to lead to something. While it aired, TXF was celebrated for helping television become more serialized, making bigger, more epic stories. Now when it’s celebrated it’s for some wonderful self contained episodes, the kind they don’t make anymore. Even in 2015, when I had Person of Interest and Grimm satisfying the sci-fi/fantasy procedural itch for me I could see that. 

I know that there is too much tv for anyone to watch in one life time, but many the shows that TXF was compared to in it’s original airing seem notably absent in comparative discussions now. For instance, it was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. The other series nominated those years were NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope, E.R., Law & Order, and The Practice. While there is good reason to see TXF as more closely related to Twin Peaks or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, those fellow nominees provide some necessary context about how TV was made, in particular the alternating goals of making something for the syndication market and making something edgy that could elevate the medium. Also notable, most these shows went through a lot of cast changes over the years. It makes more sense that TXF would try to do that kind of transition in seasons 8 and 9 when you think of the series they considered their peers. 

Also worth considering earlier shows it was compared to, but the producers would likely discourage the comparison. I am thinking of Moonlighting and Remington Steele. At the time TXF aired people still talked about the “Moonlighting curse” as if it was just a given that once the couple on a show where the male and female leads solved mysteries while maintaining a will they/won’t they flirtation, would fail as soon as they got together. TXF writers were divided on whether or not it was a will they/won’t they, and definitely didn’t want to invite comparison to shows that had huge nosedives in popularity during their run. But in a lot of ways that was unfair to the earlier series. It denies how clever, inventive and experimental they could be. It also ignores how much behind the scenes strife contributed to on screen failings, especially on Moonlighting, where that has been better publicized. (And occasionally become newsworthy again such as when creator Glen Gordon Caron was fired from his job as the show runner of Bull.) I think there are episodes of Remington Steele and Moonlighting that are worth watching on there own just to get what the big deal was. But as always, how to bring knowledge of some behind the scenes study to it, is a difficult question to answer.

Another show people associated with TXF probably didn’t want to be associated with is Touched by an Angel. But for a while they both aired on Sunday nights and I know I watched it and TXF back to back a few times. A parental figure would have turned on 60 Minutes, and the ads for TBAA could be very intriguing. Then I’d watch the episode and be underwhelmed, especially because of the deus ex machina resolutions. So I didn’t make it a regular thing. But still as cases of the week that played on the news of the times with supernatural notes, they made an interesting case study.

I also sampled a few episodes of JAG: Judge Advocate General, a different CBS show that was frequently compared to TXF. The comparison had a sort of precursor to today’s periodic “why don’t publications write about shows people actually watch?” flair ups. It often had better ratings than TXF and a lot in common structurally, but had an older audience who was less likely to seek out writing about their show. It had a huge affect on the development of CBS procedurals from the late 1990s on, which is one of the areas where you can (arguably) see a lot of TXF’s influence.

I recently came across a post saying that David Duchovny wanted TXF to move to Los Angeles to facilitate his movie career. This is not true, he wanted to move to LA because he was with Téa Leoni at the time and she was staring in The Naked Truth, a sitcom that was shot in LA. The show was about a news photographer forced to work at a tabloid after an ugly divorce. It lasted three seasons, the first on ABC, the other two on NBC where it was essentially noted to death over two seasons. I am not surprised that it doesn’t have much hold on the cultural memory, but Duchovny was always open about this being his motivation so I am kind of surprised that it has been erased from TXF historic memory. 

Speaking of Duchovny and LA, the current season of the podcast, You Must Remember This, focus mostly on erotic films of the 1990s, but also included an episode about erotic TV from the era that focused on The Red Shoe Diaries, an anthology series in which Duchovny’s played a character named Jake, who was essentially the framing device. I didn’t quite appreciate that for the first four seasons of TXF he was flying to LA on weekends to shoot his parts in TRSD back-to-back. Between that and Gillian Anderson having a very young child at the time, it’s no wonder they developed reputations as cold and standoff-ish. It sounds exhausting.

Other places I have come across TXF referenced lately: 

finally reading Bruce Campbell’s memoire Hail to the Chin in which he declare that it is best to be a guest star in one of the first seasons of a show, mentions that his late in the series stint on TXF the whole cast and crew was tired of it; 

learning that there is a show on the History Channel called The Proof is Out There;

the Only Murders in the Building episode where Mable flashed back to watching the show with her father near the end of his life; 

Maureen Ryan in her Burn It Down reminisced about visiting TXF set in Vancouver as her first trip to a TV set, saying two important people were awful to her, one of whom gave her nightmares;

Some how the show coming up in a lunch conversation at work.

Jennette McCurdy mentioning in I'm Glad My Mom Died that her first job as an extra was on TXF 

Ryan’s book is as good a place as any to segue into discussing the show’s legacy via former writers and producers. It’s worth noting that Chris Carter has been unable to get another series off the ground. While TXF ran he tried to launch three other shows, Millennium, Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen, and only one of them got to a full season. There was an Amazon pilot that didn’t go anywhere. Frank Spotnitz was the writer with the second most credited episodes of the series and most high profile gig since was the not well received Amazon adaptation of The Man in The High Castle. Kim Manners’ time with Supernatural is something of an anomaly, in that it feels directly related to TXF and ran a much longer period of time. (I’ve only seen one season of Supernatural. It was fine, but I was late to the show, felt I’d never catch up and gave up.) Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of my favorite episodes, but between them they have the Final Destination film franchise, some one season series and American Horror Story, which is more attributed to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk than Wong. (I’ve never watched AHS.) Darin Morgan was something of a special star on the show, his episodes being singled out for awards and fan favorites. But he never got this kind of response to any of his subsequent work, including on Fringe where he was a consulting producer early on. The most high profile shows that feature alumni from TXF are the ones that feel most like they were made for a era of television that wanted to distance itself from the procedural aspects of TXF. Among the most famous are Breaking Bad created by Vince Giligan and its spinoff, Better Call Saul, which he co-created with a non-TXF alumn, Peter Gould. Also notable is Homeland, whose creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon worked on early seasons of TXF. Most of the shows that I think of as sharing a lot with TXF in the outline for, don’t have much of a direct connection to the series alumni in writers/producers/directors. 

Earlier this year I briefly wrote about how I liked seeing both William B. Davis and Nicholas Lea in Continuum. While thinking of that series as a successor to TXF is interesting, I don’t generally think of the cast’s later roles as directly related to the show. Maybe this is because I watch so little of what they’ve done since. The greatest impression any of them is Anderson in Sex Education and Bleak House, both of which were pretty far away from TXF. 

When news came out that Chris Carter was working with Ryan Coogler on a potential reboot I decided I did not know enough of Coogler’s work to say if he’d be a good fit, or have any idea what his take on the subject matter would be. But I am familiar with Disney, TXF current owner, and in particular there current “milk all recognizable IP for ever and ever” ethos, so the probability of a reboot seemed inevitable. I mostly hoped the new crew would take the title and try to create something very different under it. Then the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes started and nothing seemed inevitable about a reboot. Hollywood as it’s been known, feels like its ending. All I can say is that I hate the idea of TXF being made with AI, or for that matter, scabs.

When I did my rewatch back in 2015, the episodes included “War of the Coprophagens” and “Syzegy”, episodes that are both are partially about mass hysteria. They’re comedic, but I didn’t find them funny. I thought this is probably something that didn’t age well. In the nineties, just pointing and laughing and people getting upset over stupid stuff sort of felt like enough to defang the danger. By now that seems hopelessly naive.

I know how people are now more willing to say that the plots of “Small Potatoes” and “Post Modern Prometheus” treat serial rapists as sympathetic outsiders, and rape as something to be brushed aside. Neither were part of my 2015 rewatch.

Some of my disenchantment during the original run was that while I was watching I was also becoming more aware of the movies that influenced the show. I hated how Fight the Future made the black oil alien possession turn into something that would claw its way out of the host body, reminiscent of the Alien franchises’s xenomorph. I also hated all of the Mulder and Scully as a couple teases from episodes like “The Rain King”, “The Ghost Who Stole Christmas”, “Arcadia”, et al because it was too much like things I was seeing in romcoms that I didn’t like. (I can’t remember any specific examples of these romcoms while writing this.) Any specificity as to what it meant to Mulder and Scully’s and their relationships at that moment was lost on me.  

I might as well admit, during the shows original run I was a NoRomo. I did not tune in to TXF hoping for Mulder and Scully’s relationship to become romantic, and I kind of hated when episodes explicitly flirted with the possibility. I tuned in because I wanted to have first hand knowledge of what it was like to watch my generations version of The Twilight Zone. (In retrospect, I don’t think its a good comparison.) As the relationship now feels like what people think of when they think of TXF, I have wondered if the show now only appeals to those on the shipper side of the debate. I was really surprised while listening to Not Another X-Files Podcast Podcast when one of the hosts of the TXF Preservation Society admitted to not being a shipper on an episode.

Similar to what I said about being fine with many controversial series finales, I am also fine with many controversial television series couplings. As long as the writing is direct, I don’t really care if the actors have chemistry or if the show “needs” to pair these characters. To the extent that what relationships on screen one likes reflects on what one wants to have in real life, I really want people to be direct with me, and make me comfortable being direct with them.

A few years ago started wondering if it would have been more emotionally healthy if I spent the years I watched TXF watching Beverly Hills, 90210 instead. I started wondering this while coincidentally coming across of couple of personal essays that reflected warmly on watching BH90210 and how it affected the writers at impressionable ages. As someone who doesn’t exactly reflect warmly on TXF, and has a hard time putting how I feel about things into words, I was kind of jealous. I know there was some overlap in the audiences. There isn’t a “If you were a teen in the 1990s you either watched BH90210 or TXF and it affected you in this way…” But coming across those essays does have something to do with why I am writing this now.

Around that time I also started worrying about how TXF’s popularity lead to today’s age of dangerous conspiracy theories. Before I gave up on the site formally known as Twitter, I’d occasionally look at who was still discussing it online with the fear that it’s been used by right wingers looking for ways to justify their persecution complexes. I didn’t find much. There was something of peak in these posts around the time Trump announced that the FBI had been searching for documents at Mar a Lago. This past decade has been wild as far as guessing how things will be read along partisan lines. If anything the posts were mostly about nostalgia and it’s appeal as a brand.

Given that I’m so uncomfortable with that potential aspect of the show’s legacy, a how did I end up watching so many shows that in some way are direct successors to the show? And the answer is, mostly not consciously. I was reluctant to start Fringe and Evil because from the outset their premises looked too much like TXF, though ultimately they’ve gone in directions TXF would never.  I still want something that can excite me, and has hints of the epic. And I am going to seek it in vaguely familiar formats. 

[stabbyapologist]

Titanic II and Why I Hate It

Today, I watched Titanic 2; and I could probably forgive the crapshoot that is this movie if it had outdone everything from the original.

But—

◇ SPOILERS BELOW◇

The CGI was atrocious, compared to the first movie where the water and the ship and the atmosphere felt real. In the sequel, I'm very aware that I'm watching a movie.

Some of the scenes feel copy and pasted—the ship angled with the passengers sliding down the side and falling from the heights, shot by shot; how the main character and the romantic interest almost imitate the conversation between Jack and Rose on the floating door—

Here's one for yall: I could understand the tsunami, and honestly they should have just kept that and left it at that. But having the tsunami propel an iceberg to destroy Titanic II is a little too on the nose for me and it's kind of lazy writing.

The romance in Titanic was developed, born out of a man trying to save a woman from jumping, and then established throughout the journey before the ship hits the iceberg. We actually care about the man, the woman, the people on the ship. We get to know them. In the sequel, I actually don't like anyone; and the romance angle is more or less mentioned (the woman didn't call him back after six months). So I really don't care who lives or dies.

The fact that Titanic 2 is "prepared to take any icebergs" and can go really, really fast is nullified by the fact an iceberg is propelled into the ship and when they're supposed to be flee from an incoming tsunami, they sit still. Seriously, watch that part because the Captain is like "turn them on!" And I'm just wondering why yall decided to just not move.

The scenes in the dark are too dark. I can't see shit. It's like the final season of Game of Thrones, you know the one. Like what am I seeing?

So. Idk. The fact that a motherfucker irl wanted to actually build an actual ship replicated and named Titanic II is stupid as hell.

I mean, look at what had to be said:

[guerrilla-operator]

Finally, a new blog post has dropped. I gotta get back into the regular swing of things!

[methed-up-marxist]

"The study that had the most direct impact on the psychiatric profession— as well as public consciousness—at this time was David Rosenhan’s (1973) classic research On Being Sane in Insane Places which found that psychiatrists could not distinguish between “real” and “pseudo” patients presenting at psychiatric hospitals in the United States. All of Rosenhan’s “pseudo” patients (college students/researchers involved in the experiment) were admitted and given a psychotic label, and all the subsequent behaviour of the researchers—including their note-taking—was labelled by staff as further symptoms of their disorder (for a summary, see Burstow 2015: 75-76). This research was a culmination of earlier studies on labelling and mental illness which had begun in the 1960s with Irving Goffman (1961) and Thomas Scheff (1966). Goffman’s (1961) ethnographic study of psychiatric incarceration demonstrated many of the features which Rosenhan’s study would later succinctly outline, including the arbitrary nature of psychiatric assessment, the labelling of patient behaviour as further evidence of “mental illness,” and the processes of institutional conformity by which the inmates learned to accept such labels if they wanted to have any chance of being released from the institution at a later date. Scheffs (1966) work on diagnostic decision making in psychiatry formulated a general labelling theory for the sociology of mental health. Again, his research found that psychiatrists made arbitrary and subjective decisions on those designated as “mentally ill,” sometimes retaining people in institutions even when there was no evidence to support such a decision. Psychiatrists, he argued, relied on a common sense set of beliefs and practices rather than observable, scientific evidence. Scheff (1966) concluded that the labelling of a person with a “mental illness” was contingent on the violation of social norms by low-status rule-breakers who are judged by higher status agents of social control (in this case, the psychiatric profession). Thus, according to these studies, the nature of “mental illness” is not a fixed object of medical study but rather a form of “social deviance”—a moral marker of societal infraction by the powerful inflicted on the powerless." -Bruce Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony, 2016

[casscainmainly]

My Top 10 Batgirl (2000) Moments

This is my list of top 10 Batgirl (2000) moments!! There were so many to choose from, but these are my personal favs :)). Counting down from 10 to my absolute favourite.

10. Volving

An absolute classic. Perfectly encapsulates what Cass does throughout the entire run, and more writers should play with Cass' use of language like this!

9. Beat Up Every Mob In Gotham

Perfect encapsulation of the early Barbara-Cass dynamic, and one of the funniest moments in the series. Just love the expressions and the way this shows so much of Cass' character.

8. Choosing to Write

The entirety of issue #2 builds up to this heart-wrenching moment. After delivering a dead man's final message to his wife, Cass sees the wife's reaction to the written message and decides to learn to write. A foundational moment for her character, and a nice motherly Babs scene too.

7. Alpha Redemption

Capping off issues 35 + 36, Batgirl unmasks herself to convince Alpha (an amnesiac villain) that he doesn't have to be defined by his past. Brilliantly displays her core belief that people can change, and the fact that her belief pays off makes this moment extremely moving.

6. For God's Sake

Possibly a controversial pick, but I really like this moment because it underscores some of the fundamental conflict between Babs and Cass. They love each other, but they don't always understand each other, particularly in regards to each other's disabilities. A painful moment that should have been explored more.

5. Fight For Your Life

My favourite Stephanie and Cass moment in this run. You can feel Cass' grief throughout this hallucination, but there's also so much hope and love (for Stephanie and for herself). It's an amazing conclusion to Cass' initial suicidal tendencies: instead of desiring death, she now actively fights to live.

4. Darknight Detectives

This interaction sums up a lot of Bruce and Cass' best moments. Cass' unwavering moral beliefs, Bruce's pride, their instinctive understanding of each other; they just get each other in a way few others do. I picked this one instead of the 'instinct/good answer' moment because it also marks Cass' development in her detective ability. From Moment 8 above to here, the confidence in her mental capacities has grown so much. She really volved!

3. Perfect For A Year

I mean of course this had to be here. These lines literally take up 90% of my brain space, it's an incredibly tense moment that illustrates Cass' desire to be perfect, her need to be useful and good. This issue is also just awesome.

2. You're... Not

Another absolute classic. Illustrates Cass' compassion and her belief that people aren't defined by their lineage, which is particularly personal to her, given her own dad. This struggle between good/bad, parent/child defines many of Cass' best stories.

1. Who Do You Think You Are? + Father's Day

What else would number 1 be?? Issue 33 is my favourite in the entire run, and the entire thing is stacked with moments that could fill up this list. I just love 'who do you think you are' because it's all of Cass' rage spilling out, and yet she still loves David Cain in her own complicated way (and he reciprocates, too). Then we have the ending, which is the BEST Bruce and Cass moment ever. The sparse, meaningful dialogue, the expressions, the reveal of the TITLE: comic book writing at its finest.

Honorary mention to the Shiva/Cass fight, which just narrowly missed out.

[deadsetobsessions]

Cassandra Cain knows how to read people. Every twitch, every micro-expression, every sway of their pupils.

She knows people better than they know themselves. She could pick out a person’s life without having to speak or hear a single word from them.

Language, without a sound.

Honesty, complete and unwilling, at her fingertips.

David Cain had beaten it into her; to observe, to read, to kill without protest. She was never a daughter to him- even if Cassandra hadn’t understood what love or being a daughter meant before she met Bruce- and she understood that.

There are scars lining her body, truths carved into her flesh that she knows she could never truly hide. But that’s alright. She’s learned by now that no one can read her quite as well as she reads them. Not even the metas. They notice it, of course, the tells and the twitches. But none of them could flawlessly put everything together like Cassandra could. They focus on the big things, like heart beat or sweat or flickering eyes. Cassandra takes note of the twitching fingers, the stances, the breaths, how lax their legs are, or which muscle groups are bunched up. She figures things out about them far before they even have a hint of her outer workings.

Cassandra Cain knows there is subtle faintness to her frame, a wildness lurking beneath her skin that she’s never going to be able to tame completely, the ways in which she leans that betrays her time as a starved and feral street kid. She also knows that no one will ever know the extent of it unless she allows them to. It’s nice, having that security.

It’s also lonely, that no one will understand her the way she understands everyone else. Well, until Danny Phantom.

Just like how she can see the scars left on him by people he trusted, the marks of crackling electricity behind a boy who should be dead, he also sees her. The training, yes. But Danny Phantom also sees the pavement like side to her where it should have been downy feathers. He sees the wildness prickling at her fingertips, the violence set in her bones.

And he still smiles at her anyways. His acceptance is screamed to Cass, though simply relaxed to anyone else.

Cassandra glides over to place a hand on Danny’s shoulders and squeezes twice.

Yes, she tells him without a word, spoken, you’re my little brother. I am not alone anymore.

Yes, she tells him without a sound passing through their eyes, we will protect you.

Danny beams up at her as the rest of the family relaxes. She still feels a thrill when she realizes (not belatedly, only slow comprehension) that they were waiting for her verdict.

She sighs in relief. Message received. Danny, eyes glowing green, leans back to rest on the couch.

He shrugs at her with a sincere grin.

And he even says thank you.

And he meant it.

[doctorcurdlejr]

mutual 1: i hope every man in the hardcore scene dies

mutual 2: they didn't kill john lennon soon enough. would not have been the case if i was around back then, I can tell you that much.

mutual 3: [gif set of George Harrison and Paul McCartney signing Beatles dissolution papers] George and Paul look so cute here <3 #my silly guys

mutual 4: guys it's so over we're never getting mcr5...gerard i'm lost at sea without you... actually i don't even care like it's whatever... (lying)

mutual 5: if there was a god i'd be able to get bruce springsteen pregnant #sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my skull #personal

mutual 6: the production on taylor's music for the last few years....i need jack antonoff's head on my desk by noon

mutual 7: [image of Bob Dylan stoned out of his mind] he kinda ate here

mutual 8: you wouldn't even know real punk music if it fucking slammed into you like a semi you stupid cunt [KathleenHannaScreaming.jpg]

mutual 9: NEW SABRINA CARPENTER #GIRL

mutual 10: i wish my life was like Crash (1996) dir. David Cronenberg

[ichorkurt]

ficrecs masterlist ii.

welcome to my second ficrecs masterlist! find my main blog @ichorai. find my own fics here.

below the cut includes jujutsu kaisen, lord of the rings, saltburn, the halcyon, marvel, game of thrones, house of the dragon, prisoners, world on fire, dc, doctor who, scott pilgrim, succession, harry potter, the boys, interview with the vampire, and gangsta fics!

jujutsu kaisen.

jujutsu kaisen men in the world of work by @drak3n

ೃ⁀➷ naoya zenin.

only a fool for you by @mochimoshis

ೃ⁀➷ satoru gojo.

luxury & lingerie by @celestie0

ೃ⁀➷ suguru geto.

the guy i lost my virginity to is stalking me by @gorehsk

lord of the rings.

ೃ⁀➷ legolas.

watcher of wanderers by @entishramblings

saltburn.

ೃ⁀➷ michael gavey.

the golden ratio by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

midpoint by @asumofwords

mine all mine by @humanpurposes

the poetry of logical ideas by @sylasthegrim

stick it out to the end by @aemondsbabe

the halcyon.

ೃ⁀➷ billy taylor.

one more tomorrow by @tomhiddleston

marvel.

ೃ⁀➷ kurt wagner.

bamf babies by @bamfkeeper

for love, we sin the most by @larcenywrites

parents by @/bamfkeeper

untitled by @dinogoofymutated

untitled by @dreaming-tonite

untitled by @kayesfanfics

untitled by @sanguineterrain

ೃ⁀➷ logan howlett.

logan's reaction when you wear one of his shirts by @periprose

ೃ⁀➷ peter parker.

untitled by @forever-rogue

game of thrones / house of the dragon.

pregnancy headcanons by @princessbellecerise

ೃ⁀➷ gwayne hightower.

& now i'm covered in you by @swordgrace

ೃ⁀➷ jacaerys velaryon.

hunger games au by @maidragoste

lotus bloom by @hxtd

ೃ⁀➷ jaime lannister.

the best fit by @casterladyrock

war has changed by @villaingaze

prisoners.

ೃ⁀➷ david loki.

blood bond by @davidlcki

sfw alphabet by @charliehoennam

tall, dark, and handsome by @rebelliousstories

world on fire.

ೃ⁀➷ tom bennett.

best intentions by @/ewanmitchellcrumbs

rocking the boat by @ultraintrovertedgryffindor

dc.

ೃ⁀➷ adrian chase.

five times vigilante definitely does not have feelings (and one time he does) by @tropes-and-tales

helluva drug by @lysenfeu

hot venom by @jangofctts

never been kissed by @training4theapocalypse

thirsty by @/training4theapocalypse

ೃ⁀➷ bruce wayne.

clingy mornings by @kurogxrix

ೃ⁀➷ dick grayson.

sunset anew by @/sanguineterrain

doctor who.

ೃ⁀➷ eleventh doctor.

cold feet by @undiscovered-horizon

dangerous habits by @social-mockingbird

a day in by @cloginthedrain

my john by @watchoutforthefanfics

safest place in the universe by @holly-the-trash-writer

set things right by @pastanest

ticking love bomb by @/watchoutforthefanfics

scott pilgrim.

ೃ⁀➷ kim pine.

right next door by @writersbarrierblock

ೃ⁀➷ wallace wells.

untitled by @twiixr4kidz

untitled by @/twiixr4kidz

succession.

their marriage proposal by @romeulusroy

ೃ⁀➷ lukas matsson.

normal people by @the-west-meadow

ೃ⁀➷ roman roy.

baby by @richeeduvie

being roman roy's personal assistant (and his obsession) would include... by @senselessviolets

gossamer by @/romeulusroy

i'm annoying by @bowieandqueen11

movie by @eeveebitches

right where you left me by @aurorag98

smile like you mean it by @cvrnelians

this hope is trecherous by @aprilthearcher

untitled by @/richeeduvie

untitled by @/richeeduvie

untitled by @/richeeduvie

untitled by @/richeeduvie

untitled by @/richeeduvie

wedding prep by @/richeeduvie

harry potter.

ೃ⁀➷ cormac mclaggen.

finders keepers by @/training4theapocalypse

ೃ⁀➷ fred weasley.

anything by @ibbythebee

beloved, besotted, betrothed by @emeritusemeritus

the boys.

ೃ⁀➷ black noir.

i want to f**k you like an animal by @dollerinna

interview with the vampire.

dating headcanons by @tomriddleslovergirl

untitled by @steph-speaks

ೃ⁀➷ lestat de lioncourt.

gold, and gold again by @theawfuledges

gangsta.

initiation by @imperatorkhaleesi

ೃ⁀➷ nicolas brown.

untitled by @dollwrites

[bitterrobin]

you, batman/batfamily fan, can you be normal about parents and their flaws without making them exaggerated abusers?

can you absorb the fact that Jack and Janet Drake were not perfect parents, but they still loved Tim? and that Tim loved them enough that he tried to tear a razor sharp boomerang out of his father's corpse with his bare hands? that the Drakes were not millionaires who forced high society values onto their son for the sake of a public image? (that they weren't even rich for that long of a time?)

can you be normal about how the deep recesses of poverty affect a family unit while allowing a parent nuance? can you write Willis Todd without making him a classist caricature of an abuser? can you write Catherine Todd and Crystal Brown without portraying their drug addictions as fodder for their children's whump? (I added in Crystal bc she canonically suffered from drug addiction, but I haven't seen much of her in fics tbh)

can you accept that as much an abuser David Cain was, he still loved Cassandra enough that he utterly fell apart when she left him? That he was genuinely astonished/proud of her when she spoke to him for the first time even as she threatened him? he still sucks majorly, but you can't deny that he loved her. that's what makes their relationship so painful.

can you be normal about Talia al Ghul? can you write her without making her an ooc rapist or child abuser or cold dragon lady? can you acknowledge that every ounce of her characterization surrounding Damian is vastly different from her original pre-Morrison personality to the extent that og Talia would never even have a child in the League?

can you pick apart when a parents portrayal is out of character, that a writer made them hit or neglect their child because above all else they exist for drama and action? that you can find DC characters who actually had traumatic childhoods instead of grafting them onto a Bat-character? (> this last sentence is mostly about Tim btw)

Exploring a character's parents and how they affected them is always interesting, but I've seen fics that genuinely steer towards character assassination rather than an exploration of events written in the comics. They exaggerate a parent's portrayal not to write about a complicated parent-child dynamic but so they can have Bruce or Jason rushing in to comfort them (yes, this is about the Tim Drake shrimp fic). Idk, I think most of my ire just stems from the fact that content about Mia Dearden or Todd Rice or Grant Emerson aren't widespread, Mia specifically always gets explored in Bat-circles as someone that just adds to Jason's character rather than analyzing her on her own, in addition to the constant hell that Talia goes through in both canon and fanon.

[bet-on-me-13]

Ellie is Cass

So! Years ago, Ellie began to destabilize again. They finally figured out that the reason she was destabilizing was because her Core was too young to sustain a Fully Grown Ghosts Body. The only way to save her was to Revert her to her True Age, so her Core could healthily grow alongside her Body. She would lose her Memories, but she would survive.

But, there was an incident. A Mercenary had attacked the Fenton's Lab one day while they were Babysitting Ellie, and killed both of Danny's parents. Then, that motherf#cker had kidnapped his Daughter.

And Danny searched for her, he did. He searched for Years on End, sent all the Ghost Allies he had to try and find her, got the word out in the Zone that his Daughter had been kidnapped. But nobody could find her.

It was like the Assasin has dropped off the face of the Earth, but even then he had his contacts searching Deep Space and the Zone as well. He just couldn't find her.

Still, he would not rest until he found his daughter. And the one who took her would have more than just Hell to pay.

...

For David Cain meanwhile, he had struck Gold on his most recent mission. He had been hired by the League if Assasins to go and kill a pair of scientists who had somehow managed to get their hands on Lazarus Water. Apparently they had gotten it a while ago, but had somehow gone under the Radar for years.

But while he was there, he came across something Special. A Lazarus Touched Child. One who seemed to be more Blessed than Any Other Lazarus Touched he had ever heard of. And she was just a Baby.

A Baby who could be raised and Moulded into a Weapon, as any Lazarus Touched should be.

So, he took the Baby and presented it to the League. Ra's ordered that he raise the Child as a Perfect Weapon, to be used as his Bodyguard and Attack Dog. And so he did.

For years, he raised the Child in the most Secluded base he could. There was no need for him to teach it Language beyond following orders, so he filled its head with absolutely nothing but how best to Kill.

Unfortunately, the Weapon managed to escape after its first mission. He tried to track it down for Years, but to no avail. He should expect nothing less from a Lazarus Touched who had been trained from Birth to be the perfect assasin, but he guesses he should have expected this.

Still, he will find the Weapon. And he will teach it why it should have never attempted to escape.

...

Cass had been feeling off for a while.

Well, No, that's not right, it's more accurate to say that she had never felt truly right. For as far back as she can remember, since her earliest days of childhood, she had always had a nagging sensation in the back of her mind, telling her that something was missing.

She didn't know what though. Was it an Object? A Memory? A Person? She had no idea.

For some reason, the feeling had lessened a little when she got adopted by Bruce. She felt a bit more whole, like some part of her had found a part of what it was looking for, but at the same time the rest of her still felt as if it was missing something.

And recently it had gotten even stronger. She couldn't ignore it anymore, she needed to find the thing her heart was yearning for.

She needed to feel Whole again. Again?

[beguines]

Yet problems in the legitimacy of psychiatry's vocation have remained, and reached crisis point at the cusp of deinstitutionalisation in the 1970s. At the time, a number of significant studies demonstrated the profession's inherent tendency to label people as "mentally ill," to stigmatise everyday aspects of a person’s behaviour as signs of pathology, and to make judgements on a person's mental health status based on subjective judgements rather than objective criteria.

The study that had the most direct impact on the psychiatric profession—as well as public consciousness—at this time was David Rosenhan's (1973) classic research On Being Sane in Insane Places which found that psychiatrists could not distinguish between "real" and "pseudo" patients presenting at psychiatric hospitals in the United States. All of Rosenhan's "pseudo" patients (college students/researchers involved in the experiment) were admitted and given a psychotic label, and all the subsequent behaviour of the researchers—including their note-taking—was labelled by staff as further symptoms of their disorder. This research was a culmination of earlier studies on labelling and mental illness which had begun in the 1960s with Irving Goffman (1961) and Thomas Scheff (1966). Goffman's ethnographic study of psychiatric incarceration demonstrated many of the features which Rosenhan's study would later succinctly outline, including the arbitrary nature of psychiatric assessment, the labelling of patient behaviour as further evidence of "mental illness," and the processes of institutional conformity by which the inmates learned to accept such labels if they wanted to have any chance of being released from the institution at a later date. Scheff's work on diagnostic decision making in psychiatry formulated a general labelling theory for the sociology of mental health. Again, his research found that psychiatrists made arbitrary and subjective decisions on those designated as "mentally ill," sometimes retaining people in institutions even when there was no evidence to support such a decision. Psychiatrists, he argued, relied on a common sense set of beliefs and practices rather than observable, scientific evidence. Scheff concluded that the labelling of a person with a "mental illness" was contingent on the violation of social norms by low-status rule-breakers who are judged by higher status agents of social control (in this case, the psychiatric profession). Thus, according to these studies, the nature of "mental illness" is not a fixed object of medical study but rather a form of "social deviance"—a moral marker of societal infraction by the powerful inflicted on the powerless. This situation is summated in Becker's general theory of social deviance which stated that "deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label".

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

[jalapainio]

A compilation of my headcanons on each of the public perception of the Batkids:

Dick lives full time in Bludhaven, and is a small-time celebrity there. Every once in a while someone in Blud will be like, “Hey, remember Grayson? Wonder what he’s up to.” And then move on from that. Maybe he’ll get on the news for some sort of stunt (to get someone Nightwing wasn’t able to) or because he was running a gymnastic gym, but more of the “Local gymnast turns out to be the son of Bruce Wayne” fame that disappears in a few days.

Jason is pretty much unknown by the celebrity world as Jason Todd, second son of Bruce Wayne. That being said, Red Hood is well known among the streets, though known for what differs from person to person. Jason rarely stays in Gotham for more than a few months; after this, he and Bruce get into some explosive argument and Jason leaves to cool down.

Tim is one of the more well known celebrities, but only in the Business world. Every CEO in Gotham knows about Tim Drake-Wayne, but other than that, no one really cares about him. That being said, there is a very popular blog or twitter or some kind of social media account that posts wild theories and photos of the various vigilantes in Gotham (secretly run by Tim and Bernard, though no one but Bruce knows about it).

Cass is known only for being unknown. She is the daughter of Bruce Wayne, but never attends any public functions. Every once in a while, she’s spotted at a dance studio or Babs library, and that’s it. Meanwhile, every assassin worth their buck knows that Cassis actually the escaped prisoner of David Cain, trained by him and under the protection of Batman. They all admire Batman’s thinking, placing Cass under the care of the one person who could get Cass a public life, and do their best to not fuck with Cass. As such, any event she is at is never attacked by any type of paid mercenary.

Damian is the most famous of the children of Bruce Wayne, and only because Damian refuses to fall into obscurity. Just like his father, he adapted a personality to use publicly, and it mostly consisted of being a grade-A brat and insulting as many pompous asses as he could without getting scolded. As such, the headlines about “Damian Wayne’s bold statements” run about every other week.

By the time Duke entered the family, the Media paid little attention to another kid joining. However, Duke gets almost as much fame as Damian, and it is not because of an act. Videos of him tearing up his homework in protest, getting into vicious yelling matches with racists folk in malls, or of him judo flipping cops go viral. Bruce sees no problem with this.

Steph and Babs are very glad they don't have to deal with any of this publicity.

[eatmangoesnekkid]

Ladies, if you are being penetrated by him, he must know himself as a God. Even if your lover (no matter the gender) does not say those words or refer to themselves as such, you will be able to sense it in their daily actions. When I speak about masculine energy, that God energy, I'm not speaking about the performance like how a person's postures themselves or their overall banter. When I speak about masculine energy, I am speaking about tactile external structures like what are your lover's main focuses in life? How does your lover treat their body? Is your lover on social media all the time? What is their attention focused on? How does your lover manage resources including their money and "free time" like are they only playing video games, watching TV or sitting around in other ways when not working? I think of someone like Nipsey Hussle, who practiced semen retention, an archetype of human power who didn’t just carry masculine bravado, but organized and directed energy into a practice that procured success, those masters of our time who lived in more elevated ways. Other masculine archetypes I connect to are David Goggins, Joe Dispenza, Bruce Lee, Sun Ra, and many female and male athletes like Angel Reese and Deion Sanders. Too many woman have dead men/masculine energy hanging around their root, which means that they have very weak masculine energy entering their bodies and lives. Weak masculine energy makes you broke and tired because it makes no space for your actual feminine energy to shine and thrive. Weak masculine energy negatively affects your physical structure and taxes you financially and emotionally, like the lack of confidence or willpower you will have to move through discomfort or hard times. You must find ways to exalt the masculine energy within you if you want to excel in the this 3D energy. It is masculine energy that helps you to not only say the thing, but the become the thing. It is this energy that makes you completely comfortable with being the villian in another person’s story and not need to please everyone. This was one of my biggest coming-into-maturity lessons of all time. Goddess energy is lovely, the subtle and internal are deeply essential, but they are only truthful when God energy has been integrated. How can you raise the God in you? This is one major reason that I have been weightlifting nearly every week over the last 20 years. Even when I travel, I also grace the local gym as part of my traveling adventure. It’s the God in me that allowed me to confidently workout at Lee Haney’s gym on Ponce de Leon in Atlanta back in the day in the part of the weightlifting area where mostly big burly muscular men went as they stared at my ass while I squatted. It was a little icky and annoying at times but it was that God in me that mandated me to not tiptoe around or shrink like a little girl and only leave this area of the gym when I was done with what I came to do. Getting stronger not only helped my mental health and made me more confident, it is helped to dissolve a lot of the recurring low-grade depressive energy that was often part of my life. Strengthening my belly, my solar plexus, my sense of self, has been my discipline, one way I exalt the God, H.I.M., the masculine, within me. I never consciously realized that I tend to go into a gym feeling like a God until this morning--like "I can do this; I'm ready,” especially mustering this energy up on days when I don't really want to go, when going to the gym feels hard. Ultimately you can only attract God when you know yourself as a God, not intellectually because you read the Bible (many people who only read the Bible all the time stay broke and broken), but the God living in your own body and treat yourself accordingly. You can’t receive what you haven’t given to yourself. It's simple math. 1+1=2. -India Ame'ye, Author