Anika Skywalker

Anyway - The man is very obsessed with just how much he hates the Supergirl film, which is pretty much justifying it's entire existence by simply annoying him:

It's kinda the best example of how easy it is to avoid things you don't like and how obsessions with things you hate just make you look unwell.

One more for fun:

So anyway - I hope this 70 year old man who talks constantly about how he hates Muslims and how his wife stole his job lays awake at night thinking about Krypto the Superdog.

So this guy used to work on BIG films, and now occasionally gets a short film or TV job and talks about how his career is over.

(His ex wife now gets hired for the same job instead of him and I think she might be my hero)

He's also got a six month ban from driving, and will not shut up about it.

Anyway - The man is very obsessed with just how much he hates the Supergirl film, which is pretty much justifying it's entire existence by simply annoying him:

It's kinda the best example of how easy it is to avoid things you don't like and how obsessions with things you hate just make you look unwell.

One more for fun:

So anyway - I hope this 70 year old man who talks constantly about how he hates Muslims and how his wife stole his job lays awake at night thinking about Krypto the Superdog.

So this guy used to work on BIG films, and now occasionally gets a short film or TV job and talks about how his career is over.

(His ex wife now gets hired for the same job instead of him and I think she might be my hero)

He's also got a six month ban from driving, and will not shut up about it.

I’ve discussed this before, and it essentially comes down to: “people trained by same man possessing same mantle have similar skills and traits, news at 11”, but seeing as I’ve said all of this before, one thing that does bother me is specifically about the pants.

Sure, you could say that modern Dickbin has been retconned to wear pants as he gets older, thereby making the versions of Dick that wear pants canon. Someone else could say “well that’s also ripping off Tim’s design”, and you could get in a whole debacle about that. I don’t really care who has a patent on pants. What bothers me is when the conversation eventually devolves into “which is better” or “why does your guy suck more than my guy”, whereupon the inclusion of pants is always treated as this kind of objective win. Or the color of the costume, for that matter. As though the leotard and the vibrancy were automatic demerits to Dick, and it’s so obvious that Tim is trouncing Dick style-wise because, come on, pants.

Tim’s costume, and the changes he made, makes sense for him because he’s the normal kid from Gotham. This was a good character choice for him. Character choice. Dick is from a circus. I love the ties to Dick’s circus heritage. I really dislike modern renditions of Dick that add the pants or reduce the saturation of his uniform. And frankly, call me Missus Offended, but I think it’s insulting to Dick’s heritage to treat these things as automatically lesser than the more “normal” look of later costumes. To me it’s almost a microcosm of that era in hero books where everyone got rid of their “cringy unrealistic” uniforms to wear bikers jackets and tactical suits. Except, whereas the public eventually embraced Superman’s trunks or the blue Batman suit again, Dick’s costume — which is arguably the most grounded in who he is and his culture — is not viewed in the same manner. Why are we deploying cringe culture against a teenage acrobat trying to carry some of the legacy and attributes of his dead parents, because “lol no pants”? What about the leotard, besides deferring to “no pants”, is bad design?

Me: 

Tolkien who in his Letters (fn 110) praised the work of British novelist Mary Renault, who at this point in her career had already written the Gay classic The Charioteer. 

Both The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea feature positive male characters who loved and lived with men.

Tolkien who, as a medievalist, was intimately acquainted with legends of intense male warrior friendships, such as the one of Amicus and Amelius, friendships that transcend the distinction between platonic friendship and sexual love. While Tolkien’s depiction of Sam and Frodo was ostensibly modelled on the relationship of a gentleman officer and his batman in WWI (in itself not a resoundingly heterosexual relationship), the theme of the ultimate sacrifice 

points towards medieval models of male-male warrior friendships.

Tolkien who, other than his close friend C.S. Lewis, never felt the need to (however humble) publicly condemn homosexuality.

you’re telling me there was ACTUAL precedence for this panel??

"He misses dates all the time and even when he shows up he leaves early or falls asleep!"

Yeah, and if you date a firefighter, EMT, ER surgeon or any other form of emergency services worker, they're gonna do the same thing. They will miss dates and need to leave early because they're on-call, and they'll fall asleep because they just got off an 18-hour shift but still wanted to see you.

If that unreliability is a deal-breaker for you, fine, you don't have to put up with it. But that means you shouldn't date firefighters. Or superheroes.

Also, by the nature of the medium, we're only shown plot-relevant dates, and dates are only plot-relevant when they're interrupted. We don't get to see the successful, peaceful dates they're presumably having off-panel for the same reason we don't get to see Tim sitting through his normal, uneventful alegbra lessons.

"But he doesn't tell his civilian girlfriends that so they don't know what's going on!"

And that's bad, yeah. But it's also a staple of the genre, so unless you're blanket criticizing every hero who's ever had a civilian love interest going back to 1905 and the Scarlet fucking Pimpernel, it's not fair to lay the accusation personally on Tim.

Also, that's a big-ass secret to expect a guy to drop for a high school relationship that almost certainly isn't going to last. Because they're in high school.

"But that means he's keeping secrets!"

So?? Everybody keeps secrets. If you think your partner isn't allowed to have secrets in your relationship, you are the problem. That's a weird and invasive belief to have! If the secret isn't about your joint finances, dependants, property, health and/or relationship status (ie, affairs or previous marriages), it's really none of your business.

I've never understood this in fiction, where people act like the very act of keeping secrets is equivalent to lying to your face. Everyone has secrets. Everyone has a right to privacy, even in a relationship. If someone shares their secrets with you, it's a sign of trust and you should value that. But you're not entitled to them, you never will be, and when you get upset with the person for keeping those personal secrets, you're just proving why you weren't safe to tell in the first place.

And that all feels like it goes double when learning his secret would technically make you an accessory to his illegal vigilante activities.

.

"But he cheated!!'

Having friends who are also girls isn't cheating. Getting flirted with isn't cheating. Being kissed by other girls against his will isn't cheating. Realizing that he wants to date someone else and breaking up with his current partner to do so isn't cheating, and it's weird that people act like it is.

You know what is cheating, though? Actively pursuing one boy -- as in, insisting that your random meet-ups are actually dates and either forcing kisses on him or tricking him into kissing you and then mocking him when he tells you to stop -- while you are also, actively, dating and sleeping with another boy.

And yet, the same people who call Tim a cheater and a bad boyfriend freak out at the very suggestion that Steph is a cheater and a bad girlfriend. Double standard much? It would legitimately bother me less if people could admit they both fucked up in typical teenager ways instead of laying the blame entirely on Tim.

"But he's sexist!"

More than every other 90s comic in existence? No? So why are you slapping that label on one character? Because then you'd have to admit that [fill in favorite character here] was also sexist at the time, if not still sexist now?

Funny that.

.

"You have to be able to accept the flaws of your favs..."

Cool, so you're also willing to accept that Steph is a bad girlfriend? That she cheated on her first boyfriend to pursue a sexy superhero, refused to take no for an answer, sexistly insulted and demeaned other women, jealousy jumped to false cheating accusations, violated the one boundary her boyfriend set in their relationship, and beat her ex for no reason?

No??? That all "doesn't count" because "they deserved it"??