Batfam Retail and Character Agency

So I've been thinking about how some people take issue with certain ships in the Batfam, especially in fanfic or general fanon. For example, JaySteph and how people will cry "ince$t" when these two or other characters are paired up in a ship.

One, I don't think these people know how biology/ancestry works because the only blood related members of the Batfam are Bruce, Damian, and Kate Kane despite them being called the BatFAM. Two, most of Bruce's adopted children were older or barely interacted in a sibling way as far as growing up together. Sure, they might have a sibling-coded relationship and are legally related, but the best example I can think of in how the Batfam works is not the Brady Bunch or Cheaper by the Dozen, but that they all are or have been co-workers at the same minimum wage retail store. Friendships, drama, dating, rivalries, and other such nonsense is sure to happen. It's called forced proximity and shared experience.

I'm thinking of writing up a humorous parallel of who's who in the retail realm when it comes to the Batfam, but including it here would make this post WAY too long

The other annoyance, that I sort of get IF looked at from the POV of DC editorial or writers (if that's their ill-conceived intention), is the idea that a character, more specifically a female character, is just getting "passed around". Instead, my only guess is that whoever is complaining about this is saying that the male character should be given a new, shiny, fresh off the showroom floor love interest and not some high-mileage used model. I use a car reference here because that's exactly how that female is seen when a person says this, whether they acknowledge it or not.

The female character, for example: Stephanie Brown, is no longer a person with her own autonomy and ability to choose or have agency. She's an object to be owned, possessed, or used for the sake of forwarding the male character's arc or to add drama (e.g. fridging or damsel in distress). To imply that Stephanie Brown (or any other character) is being "passed around" from Tim Drake to Jason Todd is to imply that Steph doesn't have nor did she ever have choice in the matter (again, JaySteph isn't even canon, but if it were to become canon, some people would still have a fit). And yes, these are fictional characters, but in writing them (whether officially by DC or in fanfics) they should be treated as real people with real choices and not some object or virginal "bride" for the male protagonist where you'd retcon past relationships.

Has Stephanie Brown always been treated fairly in comics? No. Has Jason? Also, no. Would pairing these two be some sort of "passing around" or "sloppy seconds" for Jason? If I have to answer that for you or you think 'Yes', then you probably don't see women as people. Canonically, I think Jason has had more love interests so if anything Steph would be the one getting someone else's "sloppy seconds", thirds, fourths, etc.

Again, see the above about retail co-workers. Steph once dated Tim. It was their first job and their first real, young love. It was good, it was bad, they made out in the break room, they broke up in the middle of Customer Service, etc. Former employee, Jason, comes by and picks up random shifts when Bruce is really desperate. Steph and Jason meet and hang-out over a few shifts, even though Bruce doesn't trust either of them and would rather they work somewhere else. Maybe they got stuck working Black Friday and the holidays together and boom, sparks happened. It's maybe weird or awkward for Tim, but Tim fell in love with the snack and soda machine vendor, Bernard, so it's really no big deal.

So if someone can date their co-worker, break-up, and then date another co-worker, it should be none of your damn business (assuming everything is legal, consenting, and above board) if none of those people are you.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

okay i will admit i enjoyed these three in the like. one scene they were actually all on screen together.

sofia voice shut up and get the fuck out goncharov, i’m gonna fuck your wife now.

I cannot express enough that if your reaction, as a hobby artist, to not getting that many notes on your art is to say "maybe I should just stop doing art altogether" you need to stop posting art to tumblr

not necessarily forever, not even for long, but just stop putting your art on here and start doing it for you again, remember why you enjoyed doing art in the first place and stop relying on the attention of faceless people on the internet for your enjoyment of your hard work

believe me, I get it, nothing crushes the artistic soul quite like labouring for hours on a piece only for it to get like 10 notes, so you need to find your own source of joy in the act of creation and a lot of the time that means making art and not showing it to anybody

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

Redraw of my first post on this blog. Oh how far we've come B'*)

(re: sssniperwolf and jacksfilms) It's laughable that she escalated it that hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure stalking him like that is illegal and it's terrifying regardless, but Jack said in a stream (can't remember which one) that he wasn't about bringing up past controversies of hers or cancelling. And now she shows up outside his house (wtf!!!). Like he was willing to only call her out for stealing and freebooting but she's gone and stalked him and Jack doesn't seem like the type of guy to take that shit. Actual WTF moment from her part. wild

omg long post below bc apparently I have opinions: YES!! THAT'S WHAT'S SO INCREDIBLE ABOUT THIS... Jack has been genuinely diligent about keeping things on-topic in his streams, and hasn't brought up any of her other Stuff, or anything Personal. Despite the fact that she kickstarted the whole thing by making it INCREDIBLY personal and attacking his physical appearance... His goal has been to call out and bring attention to content theft, and he's stuck with it. Dude's also cared about this for years, and she's not the first content thief he's criticized. He just hates the way that freebooting has become so accepted-- to the point where youtube praised her for "coming up with such creative video ideas"? Hey! Ew! Dude wasn't trying to get her cancelled though, there was no smear campaign of her character. He's been rallying to get her to CREDIT the creators that she relies on for all of her content. It would set a precedent for all other "react" channels on the platform for one of the biggest channels on youtube to actually give credit where credit is due. Or, god forbid, get permission first? It's not hard. It's already done the job of making some other people who do "react content" self-analyze whether or not their content is transformative, and to maybe care about crediting the creators they rely on for their genre to work. There is a way to make this kind of video that isn't so slimy. And making fun of her lackluster-at-best reactions is so far from even being a big deal. Bc she literally does just sit there and say nothing. Plus, his goal has a clear End built into it: if she started shouting out the creators she takes content from, and put links directly to their pages in her video descriptions, the job would be done! That's what he's asking her to do. Real bare minimum stuff. It legit would have been easy to steer away from the content theft and to also talk about her history of lying to her audience! her ghosting a dying kid with cancer who was a big fan of hers! the fact that she's been arrested for armed robbery! her history of transphobia! He would also get more clicks that way, which is what she claims is his sole goal- to get more clicks. I'll bring it up though! She's been a terrible person the whole time, and has kept a steady course of manipulating her audience of young children and/or, let's be completely honest, simps- into thinking that she's a Wholesome creator. (And now, into thinking she's an innocent victim.) All of the actual effort put in by her has gone toward optics, not the content she puts out. A carefully constructed online persona, for one, but also literal appearances. Jack totally can't say this, bc she already went off the handle and said the only reason he doesn't like her is bc he Hates To See A Woman Be Successful. But I can! That was a cheap shot for her to use that argument when, for once, it's not applicable! Much the opposite, even! Dudes online wouldn't go to bat for her if she didn't look the way she does. And it weakens any case she'd have against him by making baseless claims like that. She banks hugely on being an attractive woman to get her clicks/following. A massive amount of effort is put into her appearance. The makeup, the lip fillers, putting her hair in little pigtails, the chokers and tube tops, the big non-prescription Nerd Glasses, the thumbnails where she has her mouth open in That Expression?

I don't even have to say anything. But making a weird facial expression and putting your hair in pigtails aren't moral failings. Showing up at someone's real life home (whose address you shouldn't even have access to), filming the front of their house at night, doxxing them to your audience of millions of people? Because you were mad at them online? That is fully scary! Yeah girl I'm pretty sure that Jack can press charges! There is absolutely no way to take the moral highground now that she's literally stalked him, and doxxed his home. She tried to goad him and Erin (Jack's wife) out of the house, also, which creeps me out even more-- because what was she planning to do? The fact that she's been arrested for violent crime before does pop into my mind! lmao! Jack was streaming a game at the time that she was outside his home, and these clips of him, his friends, and Erin reacting in real time to what is genuinely a scary situation have been taken down in case he needs to use them in legal action. Shit is legitimately serious!

I have to say, as a full ass adult it is so satisfying to respond with ‘Tumblr’ when asked if I’m on any social media. It’s great. Just a conversation full stop. No ‘what’s your handle/username’ like with instagram or twitter. Absolute roadblock— and usually derails people from the whole goal of getting your socials

(other tumblr users also don’t ask username, but for entirely different reasons)

OVA: it's about Nagito and what's essentially an Izuru adjacent AI. ...oh also Fuyuhiko is th-

Me: OH BOY CONTENT

these scenes >>

You know what's not a hot take and actually really dumb? Saying that people who are invested in the love story in The Hunger Games are just as bad at the Capitol. A lot has already been said about this to show just how dumb of a statement that is, but I want to add something I haven't seen talked about. And that's how the people of the districts were just as taken by the love story as the Capitol. They just understood the gravity of the Games and saw Katniss and Peeta's love as a successful rebellion against the Capitol, which inspired them as well. Katniss acting like a girl driven to madness with love doesn't dissuade the rebellion at all, and in fact she figures Snow put her up to it during the Victory Tour to distract her rather than as a tactic that would actually dissuade the rebellion.

We get little direct contact with the people of the rebellion, but one of the times we get it, during the visit to the hospital in D8, this is what Katniss narrates:

Despite his controversial interview with Caesar, many ask about Peeta, assure me that they know he was speaking under duress. I do my best to sound positive about our future, but people are truly devastated when they learn I've lost the baby. I want to come clean and tell one weeping woman that it was all a hoax, a move in the game, but to present Peeta as a liar now would not help his image.

For the people in the districts, their romance is real, the hope of these two rebels bringing new life to Panem is real, and its loss is a devastation. Are you going to tell me that these people who are literally dying for the rebellion are just as bad as the people from the Capitol?

So the people who compare those who are interested in the romance in THG to the people in the Capitol, get better critical judgement. The fans I've seen who are invested in the romance are far more akin to how the people of the districts feel about Katniss and Peeta. We love their love because it is a rebellion against the Capitol. It is what sparks the rebellion and inspires people to start fighting back against their oppression. And we the readers know everything from Katniss's perspective (which neither the Capitol nor the districts had access to) and there is still every reason in the world to ship these two characters because they looked at what the Capitol was trying to make them do and at every turn and said "I'm choosing my humanity over submission to you." And they did that together every single time.

the thing is, i love The Narrative, but i also absolutely adore a truly character-focused tragedy where everyone’s downfall is caused not by larger narrative forces, but by hundreds of tiny decisions made by characters who, despite their best efforts, just suck.

somewhat kicking a bees nest here, but hear me out-

"homemade and handcrafted goods should cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars" is why attaching a monetary value to esoteric concepts like "time" and "skill" (and, you know, "a human being") is a bad system.

now, before the pitchforks come out, i am not bitching because i want a handcrafted quilt for $20. i do recognize that it would be unbelievably unfair to the quilter. but like...doesn't that sound obscene? that we live in a system where things that used to be pretty mundane are now only available to the upper class, or the creator just fucking dies? where in order for someone to make anything artistic, they need to be independently wealthy or ONLY cater to wealthy people?

again, i am not suggesting that artists should sell me their shit at a horrific loss. im not really suggesting any solution at all here, we're between a bit of a rock and a hard place. but it feels really inherently fucked up to me that the only options are "Artists taken advantage of" and "only rich people get art."

anyways, UBI huh

the mh comics open up such an interesting narrative for our few surviving characters. to them, what happened in the videos was real, but to everyone else its a cool creative web series. when all of that is viewed as fiction, fans have a freedom to speculate about and invade the lives and privacy of real people. and that would be so uncomfortable and terrifying. imagine someone irl having headcanons about YOU. writing fan fiction about you and your real friends. assuming things about you PUBLICLY ! IN MASS!

wouldnt it be so cool to see a character grapple with that in like a self-reflective way? fans asking questions the muse is too afraid to ask themselves. of course, theyre the only person the answer matters to.

Hey, maybe try embracing how weird you are. Your other jokes suck balls but seeing you post how much you listen to Seth McFarlane (that amount being not alot yet still unusually high) is top tier gold but posting a donkey Kong reference so obvious that it makes a Where's Waldo page look like where the fuck is anything that isn't this donkey Kong reference?" immediately followed by an image of donkey Kong posted by you, not a third party that realized the reference, which further drives the reference out of obscurity into broad daylight, cock out, wearing a high vis vest, and constantly blowing a kazoo.

Then you whine when you receive anon hate saying you "fell off" or that you're "unfunny" bitch, we were never laughing with you, we were laughing at you.

Except for the superman stuff, I think we can all agree when I say I wanna fuck superman

come to bed honey

call me crazy... but i think hockey belongs in the desert idk