never you mind

it says so much. like you have this arc designed to rip every part of selina’s status quo apart. to test the allies and and bonds and friendships selina has build up. to put pressure on the concept of “vigilante catwoman. protecter of the east end” and to see if it breaks.

and the final issue? were we see the horrors that happened to selina’s family? watch previously young and innocent seeming characters like holly being pushed to the brink? were selina faces the threat of black mask after everything he did to maggie? the cover is this.

i truly do not have words. its feels like someones sex fantasy. even the position selina is put in thats similar to this in the comic is not this gross.

it reminds me a lot of how steph is also drawn later when she is also tortured by black mask. just so unnecessarily gross in framing. this cover did not need to be this sexy. it, considering the contents and mature themes of the arc should not be. and yet.

Coffee shop AUs are, like... fine. They're not my thing, but they're hardly going to end the world. We don't need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I'm also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.

However, I do think it's interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.

The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista's wages; we don't see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers' aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.

The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.

Individual people liking cutesy fluff? Not a problem. Thousands of people insisting that fluff is the only acceptable option and if you dare make them think and consider, you're the problem?

That's a Problem.

It's the shifting of norms in culture, and fandom is not an isolated bubble--it's a representative of larger trends. And the trend right now in our larger culture, especially in America, is authoritarianism. Authoritarianism that has gone past "creeping" and is now "prancing", "dancing", "galloping", or dare I say goosestepping. Of course that's going to have an impact on the cultural scenes, including fandom!

And there's a correlation in societies that want saccharine fluff and their own authoritarianism. I can point to numerous examples--Victorian England with the censored stories for children. The USSR with an entire kitschy style of stories and art. The USA before the rise of Trump with Thomas Kinkaid's art. And that's just scratching the surface.

Obviously, the presence is easier to spot—you can actually see something that is present, but you can’t directly see something that’s absent—so it makes sense that this is the first piece of evidence in building this critique, but the critical thing that makes this an issue is the absence of engagement with challenging works, not actually the engagement with unchallenging ones.

most sane group of dc siblings

(alt. version below)

Bear and bare. Their and there etc.

That day's which word was "one" and "won" and the kids were looking at me like. That's not the same. And I'm like. I know. But this is what the government is telling me to teach you. We were used the govt backed little handle scheme, which I loathe anyway for it's hatred of HoH people. But won and one are not homophones. Unless I've been mispronuncing one of them all of my life???

Bear and bare. Their and there etc.

That day's which word was "one" and "won" and the kids were looking at me like. That's not the same. And I'm like. I know. But this is what the government is telling me to teach you. We were used the govt backed little handle scheme, which I loathe anyway for it's hatred of HoH people. But won and one are not homophones. Unless I've been mispronuncing one of them all of my life???

for reference, comics I place in this category are Batgirl 2000, Huntress: Year One, and Absolute Martian Manhunter