i just realized why steph never feels like a fully fledged robin to me- and it's not because bruce doesn't share his identity with her.
dick never acknowledges steph as robin, he never talks to her about being robin, there isn't any moment where dick gives his approval to steph while steph is robin, on panel.
i'm not making any claims as to whether he would or would not have, there might be a piece of dialogue or internal monologue somewhere where he thinks about it, idk. and in his defense, he was dealing with...a lot while steph was batgirl for 72 days. maybe he wanted to make the time but couldn't.
to me, that stamp of approval from dick is what solidifies the individual as robin. because that's his mantle. it's more than just a superhero persona. it's so much more.
idk, maybe it's silly. and i'm not trying to claim steph wasn't robin- she was. but i've finally figured out why, despite enjoying her very brief time in the traffic light colors, i never mentally think of steph as a robin
i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.
EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt
Funny things I found out playing with language setting in Netflix while looking episode 15:
Chilchuck's scream sounds HAUNTED in brazilian portuguese. Give it a try if you can.
In spanish dub, Senshi says: "tocó mis senos de hombre", which means "he touched my man boobs" in Spanish. And I think that's the best dub line one so far.
because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
FYI every purchase of any of The Adventure Zone music on Griffin McElroy's Bandcamp will be entirely donated to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund for the rest of 2023. His music is set at 'name your price', and the McElroys are also going to match the donations.
If you've listened to even a bit of any TAZ campaign, you surely know what a fantastic musician Griffin is, and there is no better time to purchase his music than now.
"why should I get invested in shows if they'll just get canceled" I was deeply invested in Heroes (2006) and it was not canceled, it just got really terrible. I also got really invested in the sandwich I had a few weeks ago despite it only lasting like 15 minutes. You must embrace the ephemeral. You must be willing to love things that may not love you back, that might betray you, or that may die an untimely death. As the great philosopher Mr. Mitchell Lee Hedberg said "I'm not gonna stop doing something because of what happens at the end."
i'm very picky about tv shows, but my pickiness has only an incidental relationship to whether or not a show is "good". it needs to scratch a particular itch in my brain at the right moment. do i know what the right moment is? no. do i know what the itch is? also no. i can be relied upon to get instantly bored of 85% of tv shows and then turn the remaining 15% into a central facet of my personality for 3-5 business months and even i am incapable of predicting which one it'll be ahead of time.