#the oracle code

[comical-wheelchairs]

The Oracle Code (2020) (Manuel Preitano) - 10/10

I know the DC graphic novels have a bad rep, but I recommend this one. It was a great read and I'm really happy it was created. Here's what's great about this chair:

The Frame/Chair

It's not a stretch to say Barbara's family has access to money/resources, and this chair is made very well for a person with a spinal cord injury who will be using it full time. It is rigid, making it lighter/better for full time use. The footplate is solid and the casters are small, but not tiny, making them great for things like getting around a city or grassy patches. The push rims are close to the tires, she's got a thick cushion, and even the caster wheels branching out from the footplate is a good call. On an adult chair, the footplate would be lower - but for a pediatric chair, the footplate is higher, which means this artist had a great attention to detail!

The low back is also great - Babs still has full use of her upper body, so she needs less support, and can benefit from having her shoulders/arms freed up for stronger pushes.

The Decoration

Yes!!! She is making that chair her own. Full spoke covers like that are more expensive than most, if not all other decorations, but they have practical and decorative benefits. So often wheelchairs that are depicted in comics have no decorations. I know very few people who don't like a little something on their chair to make it their own. This was a great call.

The Attitude

She can manage! This whole novel does a great job, in my opinion, at depicting internalized ableism and the medical model of disability.

[dykesbat]

The Oracle Code

look at how cutie :')

[wheelchairbatgirl]

Just going to review the mobility aids in The Oracle Code all at once.

Wheelchairs were consistently good through the whole book. There was variety; not everyone was in the same wheelchair. They generally looked pretty active and well-researched.

There were lots of people who used forearm crutches, but I don't remember anyone with axillary crutches (I read this a little while ago and only now found the screencaps on my phone). I'm a forearm crutch user myself and I don't remember if there was any variety on closed cuff VS open cuff (open cuff people, how do you do that? I feel like I use 3x as much energy in am open cuff!). It was kind of fun to see such variety in the wheelchairs and I wish I'd seen that in crutches, too

Anyway, I also really liked the art style, especially how panels would break apart to become transitions.

We do have handles on the back, but this is a whole new time line with different continuity and a different point in her life. Maybe she wanted handles at this point.

My main question is who had to pull what strings to get her custom wheelchair to her after just 6 weeks post-injury.

Anyway, wheelchairs were 10/10. Book was a nice story but, apart from the names, didn't really feel like it had anything to tie it to any existing continuity. Crutches were like 6/10. But we're here to review wheelchairs, so 10/10

[marvelousbelladonna]

I got strong Laudna vibes from this little story from “The Oracle Code”

Story from: The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp

Art by: Manuel Preitano

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

This is a cute Barbara. A great read, I really enjoyed it.

[quotes-and-recs]

"And pretending is a form of grieving, too."

-Barbara Gordon, The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp

[nightwingcouldyounot]

The Oracle Code

So you know how with Shadow of the Batgirl I said how I wished they had connected it more to the greater DC comics lore but recognised that was difficult because of the nature of the graphic novel? This one that disconnect does the story a massive disservice.

Mostly because they never mention that Barbara was Batgirl. Even how she got injured is implied/stated to be because she followed the police broadcast to a crime her father was investigating and got shot by accident. And those two choices I think majorly held the story back because while Barbara mentions losing things and her life being completely changed by what happened to her without her being Batgirl it feels very flat because you don't actually see what she lost. The Batgirl -> Oracle transition is a wonderful metaphor for having to refined one's self after gaining a life-altering disability. In this comic she was a hacker before and a hacker after. Oracle was an inevitability instead of an adaption. Which I personally think was not the best way to tackle it.

I also don't love how they set up the story for why Barbara ends up in the institute but I'm a little bit more willing to overlook that because the story inherently needs it to work and to do it in a better way would require this to be part of a much longer story. Although now I summarised the premise there's some not great implications there.

Barbara's character is probably the strongest thing in this story. She very much feels like Barbara. And I think it saves the graphic novel. The supporting characters are pretty good to.

Should you read it? Because this story is so far removed from almost all comic lore I don't think it'd be a good fit for someone young who is interested in the comic characters. However if you know someone young who is into mysteries and like creepy-mansion stories this might be worth giving them to read. If you're a Comic Book Reader definitively give this one a miss.

[shisasan]

Timothée Mathelin

[dykesbat]

i do think some kids gonna read that and empathize w people ignoring babs because of their own fear though. i think its a really interesting thing to cover actually. i think the metaphors w them as ghosts is also intriguing since its mainly displayed with babs and jena who both went through something and thus became "ghosts" to the world rather than being born with a disability. yk its talking about the way people treat you so differently after youve gone through something, like everything about you has changed and you're no longer the same person.....

[doctorsiren]

he’s mad she ratted him out

[bat-wayne-bruce-man]

Mini lighting practice with some of the girls

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

Maybe I’ll read The Oracle Code.

[modernwitchsguidetolife]

May your week be filled with blessings 💖💁🏼‍♀️👁️🔮📝✨🧿

[nightwingcouldyounot]

Look at me go, I got through Titans United Bloodpact today as well (it was only 6 issues but still).

Next I'm going to do the Batgirl Graphic Novels so that is:

Shadow of the Batgirl

The Oracle Code

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.