#ugh it's just a pervasive standard | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

recordmcqueen · 4 years

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Kay so im gonna start by saying that tumblr mobile is boiled and doing this kinda thing on my phone is a Pain but my moms still asleep n she hasnt taken out my laptop yet so i make do with what i got ig

Secondly, context: so a while ago ashton posted about how ppl tryna cancel brendon urie is dumb and i mean i would agree without even knowing the context bc cancel culture IS dumb gdi but anyway i shot an anon asking like "yooo wassup" n he wouldn't say much aside from "yknow the usual CC argument" blabla im paraphrasing anyway i left it at that uNTIL someone i followed reblogged this post like "if u support brendon urie gtf away from me ugh" and i was like...wot so yknow i asked "what he do" n op replied with a Link to a Thread so being the curious cat i am i went for it

Side note that if u dont know by know, twitter.com and i are Not on very good terms ahahaha thats an understatement but in any case reminder that tumblr mobile is boiled and tumblr replies do not support hyperlinks so i mf typed this entire url out on my keyboard to get to Le Thread which was also ON TWITTER a place that i Prefer to Avoid Whenever Possible anyway all this considered i was expecting some Real Tea yknow?

Instead, i got...this list of, er, "receipts" proving that brendon is, uh, Problematic(TM)

Tbh im actually starting to question the...purpose? Of cancel culture? I understand the issue with JKR because shes in a position of influence and shes actively spreading propaganda against an already marginalized population so ofc the Objective here is to get ppl to Stop Listening to Her ie Take Away the Microphone so she cant spread any more of this bs and keep hurting trans people

But thats an extreme case and while i do think ppl should stop listening to her, i think the more important thing is to Acknowledge the Issues at hand Instead of Focussing on the person behind them. Whats a bigger issue, one writer who peaked in the early 2000s and hasnt been taken seriously since at least 2017, or the genuinely pervasive social institutions of racism, transphobia, etc. Im not saying we should let jkr off the hook im just saying this is less of a "JKR IS PROBLEMATIC!!!" and more of a "JKR is in an influential position enabling her to spread toxic ideology to impressionable minds and thats not good"

After all, no one is perfect. Ik it sounds cliche but honestly if i was Up There n in the public eye where people Care then heck id be canceled 360° within a week tbh. I'm still trying but literally no one Doesnt make mistakes and Hasnt done crappy things at Some point in their life WHAT MATTERS IS THAT THEYRE NOT DOING CRAPPY THINGS RIGHT NOW AND REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT'S WRONG

like what are you fundamentally trying to prove i dont understand?? expose their past mistakes?? call them out for being flawed and Human?? MISTAKES ARE NATURAL - ITS HOW YOU REACT TO BEING CALLED OUT FOR EM THAT TRULY DEFINES YOUR SO-CALLED “PROBLEMATIC”-NESS GDI

the fatal flaw of cancel culture is to hold people to unreasonable standards n put em up on pedestals where theyre expected to be nothing short of Perfect in past and in present and that?? is toxic?? as hell??? its genuinely sickening to imagine these people with too much time on their hands digging through actual deleted posts and videos just to collect dirt on people so they can present the sum of their sins and mark them as irredeemably evil. bro im terrified of fame n i pity celebs cause they just cant catch a break can they??

if youre going out of your way to dig up dirt on celebs from Years ago (one of those links was from 2011,,,) just to expose their mistakes? people change and the thing cancel culture refuses to acknowledge is that Yes People Change!! they Can and they Do!! so why why Whyyyy are you treating them as though one distasteful joke from half a decade ago is a permanent marker of their personality. gee i sure hope they apologized for it in any case, but yall fr need to get a life

#allya squawks #this ended up super incoherent bc i got distracted hhhh #ah whatever

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 4 years

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y’know i like to make out that im not affected by the whole instagram fitness influencer bullshit thing..... bc i don’t have an instagram account..... and that’s because then i can never see many of or compare my body to many of those unobtainable fitness/personal trainer influencer bodies, and/or uber fit celeb bodies; that every young person is supposed to long for and work for.

but in reality, fitness videos and ads from those said influencer fitness trainers like kayla itsines or whoever, appear in my facebook feed anyway... so that every fucking time i do a workout, i look down at my no-abs small stomach and go “hmm yeah. i do need to do more work on that! where did that fat come from?” all bc some fucking dumbass voice in the back of my goddamn mind somewhere is actually comparing herself to a personal trainer’s unobtainable body standard anyway.

and this really sucks bc it makes my depression/anxiety worse, which in turn makes me want not carry on with doing regular exercise other than walking. like ugh. i really hate the pervasiveness of fitness trends and body image lmao.

I also know that people get abs by doing rigid workout routines and dehydrating themselves (i know this bc one of my old uni friends just did a body-building comp with their partner last month.... and wrote a whole d&m fb lost about it lmao and also just generally through reading health advice).... but you still can’t help but compare yourself to those personal trainers and wish that you had the motivation and discipline to look like they do.

like ugh how do i uninstall this feeling and fitness culture altogether???? lmao. why does this happen when i workout??? i bloody hate it and it’s so fucking demotivating 😞.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #ilona whines about her shitty life to her followers lol #trigger warning: depression #trigger warning: anxiety

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years

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people really out here drawing will roland's characters to be more conventionally attractive. like huh? like they think he's not as likable if he's not up to perfect eurocentric beauty standards. draw his nose and glasses and muffin top you cowards! and then they claim it's just their "style" when they're really just refusing to practice variety. and also that's one reason i like your art, you have a nice style that's specific to you while staying true to character design and expressing variety

yeah really like we were just talking about how even when ppl seem to be basing their jared largely on will, it’s relatively rare to see those versions of jared that like....really particularly resemble him or any other actors and don’t change up his features so much that it’s basically just like....sort of nondescript white guy with brown hair and glasses like. whomst.

i mean, there’s the disclaimers like how really there’s no requirement to be basing your design on any actual actor and nothing that says you can’t use actors as just Loose Inspiration and change things up however (though even that’s like, probably you need to use some judgment, i.e. for characters where some aspect of their appearance affects the story/character, and also if you’re gonna do something like make a character played by actors of color white: why) and like a lot of the time you could even invent the appearance entirely from your own imagination if you want

but still most people are obviously basing how they draw jared in the way he appears as the play and like, since will roland did it first and for years and basically the whole costume is just right from his own outfits it’s like........yeah nobody can pretend he’s not gonna impact anybody’s ideas of What Jared Looks Like and, even if they went off and uh Reinterpret the look of the character in another way, he was probably also plenty of other people’s Starting Point in terms of how they imagine jared to look......And Yet so often like. the way people draw jared makes it seem like it might as well have been someone totally different. like yknow feel free to make changes but a) it’s weird that this one character can be sort of detached from any particular Visual Source and also b) okay why is like, everyone deciding to make changes so that Jareds That Look All That Much Like William are definitely in the minority and c) why are the changes being made all like.......towards being Nondescript Conventional Attractiveness

like, the time i tweeted out “is the character sympathetic or do you just consider the actor to be hot” i was entirely thinking of will playing jared and how like, despite all the seniors being super similar and really at least as sympathetic as evan, jared and alana kind of get ignored or even treated as antagonistic to evan and/or less important/complex/sympathetic and like......okay so people don’t think jared’s cute if he looks like will roland and alana is played by a black actress and i’m just taking notes is all....just taking notes.....mm......

and yknow at least with will originating the role like, people seem to be more aware that they owe him their entire lives, but now that he’s taking over a role from a guy that plenty of people Considered More Attractive......suddenly he can’t act or sing and was alone hired for clout which, yknow, we’ve been through dismantling this wild idea lmao but like. if it had been will roland in 1.0 and wconn in 2.0/3.0 we KNOW that there wouldn’t be this contempt over the change lmao we knowwww this

and like seriously there is No Such Thing as any sort of person’s physical features not “fitting” with an artist’s Style or Aesthetic or whatever...it just means they’re unwilling to draw features that look like that. like yeah sure, it’s a factor that you might be more used to / practiced drawing [physical trait] a certain specific “default” way and so if you try something else it won’t be as Good, but that’s like, not an excuse to refuse to draw a certain kind of appearance, Especially if you’re gonna be drawing a specific person/character and then really change up parts of their appearance in a way that just so happens to be more Conventionally Attractive according to the standards of racism and fatphobia and the general shittiness that dictates what’s attractive or not because that’s an entirely subjective thing and the Standards Of Beauty vary a lot from culture to culture and like. changing up traits because you think it’s too ugly as-is is always a crap idea is the point

like, i saw fanart for deh before i actually saw content from the show, and as soon as i hit on some fanart that draw jared as Not actually being all thin i was like oh man this means the actor isn’t actually thin doesn’t it lol....cuz even if it’s just like 5-10% of the fanart depicting him that way it’s like, yeah, okay, that’s the kind of proportion you might expect to see. because like, okay plenty of people are like ugh i don’t wanna draw fat people, but drawing a body type like will roland’s as jared is Really not asking a lot. which like, clearly yknow, plenty of people are like eh it’s not that big of a difference if I Draw Him Lean...which like! yeah exactly it’s not that much of a difference so you might as well draw him with that muffin top 8 times a week spillin outta some fancy emily rebholz-chosen shorts!! i’m sure some people just like, may truly have not been aware of said all-important muffin top because you know. it’s overlookable? but i’m not letting Most Others get away with their conscious slimming down of the character. which nobody has any good excuse for wanting to do

meanwhile his nose gets changed almost as often as in, god it is a beautiful occasion where i see someone draw it at all like william’s like. please. really like this is something that comes up so often where even if people are drawing like, the equivalent of stick figures, i.e. just drawing a Neutral Abstract Person, it’s probably not all that neutral, in terms of like oh everyone has the exact same shape and thickness to their body, and if they’re drawing noses it tends to be like.....the Default is generally this concave-ridged, narrow, pointed deal and it’s like mmmmm. the idea that noses can’t be too wide or long or rounded or anything is definitely Standards Of Whiteness and then how you have the pervasive idea that a downturned nose w/ a convex profile is Ugly and signifies that the person is Bad is a specifically deeply anti-semitic one.....like god that feels like the truly rarest thing off all to see when people draw jared. it’s definitely not that damn hard. why does everyone ever feel the need to change his nose completely!! this is not rhetorical b/c the answer is Known. we knowwww

and then P.S. it’s like hey bastards..........you wanna draw a skinny jared look who’s right over there......why it’s actor sky lakota-lynch!!! Feel Free Anytime

#Anonymous

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notbang · 5 years

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funny when you wager how you feel

nathaniel & heather, during 4x17. inspired by heather’s affiliations in the 4x16 betting pool. also on ao3.

“Dude, I was rooting for you. You owe me five hundred dollars.”

“Excuse me?”

He wants to ask how she even know where he lives, but Heather pushes right on past him into the apartment, not bothering to acknowledge the question or wait for a formal invitation. She makes it over to his bookcase before she spins on her heel to look at him.

“The betting pool? The dates? I emptied both of my piggy banks for you. That was my hot tub savings. You basically owe me a hot tub.”

As she stops to properly survey her surroundings for the first time, Nathaniel feels an embarrassed flush prickle up the back of his neck at the state of his living room. Since Rebecca left he hasn’t exactly been expecting company, but things aren’t anywhere near up to his usually impeccable personal standards, either.

“Wo-ow. So, I can’t believe this is your apartment. Aren’t you supposed to be, like, a fancy senior partner at a law firm, or something? And this is how you live? Is this what you think of yourself?”

He rolls his eyes, swinging the door shut when it becomes apparent she isn’t planning on leaving any time soon. “Ha ha. I suppose I deserve that.”

“It’s just that, I don’t know—people that respect themselves usually don’t usually throw their fast food wrappers on the ground when they’re done with them. Or, like, when they’ve had a single mouthful and remembered they don’t eat bread or cheese,” she amends, nudging the abandoned burger gingerly with her toe. When she glances back up at him her face softens unexpectedly into a sympathetic grimace. “You’re like, really bummed, huh? I’ve seen you throw fries on the floor once before.”

He hand waves the disaster zone. “I started to deal with my very messy, human, Rebecca-related emotions the only way I usually know how. And then I decided I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“Okay,” Heather says, humming, eyes narrowed in playful suspicion. “Then what are you gonna do? Because not to be insensitive, but there may or may not still be stakes riding on the fallout of this whole giant mess, and I’d really rather not wait around until you’re sixty five to find out.”

“Huh?”

“Ugh, don’t worry about it,” she’s quick to dismiss with a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t want to get forced into a forfeit for interference. But for what it’s worth, I lived with Rebecca for two years. I’m not sure I understand the hype, personally. She never empties the dishwasher and she flushes her tampons. I think you dodged a bullet.”

She throws herself down on the couch so forcefully she bounces with the momentum of it, leaning deep into the cushions as if to test them and stretching her long, muscular arms out across the backrest.

“By all means,” Nathaniel says. “Make yourself at home.”

“Oh, I will.” She swings her feet up onto the coffee table, glancing pointedly at the pizza box they’re resting on when he opens his mouth to protest. “Seriously though. Are you okay? I feel like maybe I should ask if you’re okay, since you’re like this brand new person with all these emotions and stuff.”

“Honestly?” he asks, and she gestures in the affirmative. “I don’t know. I’m not really sleeping well. I can’t focus on my work. I thought it was all the indecision, and that it would go away once I got an answer, but…” He massages his forehead. “I don’t think it’s because of Rebecca. At least, not entirely. I don’t know how else to describe it other than I feel… restless.”

“Maybe you should get out of town while this whole thing blows over and people go back to minding their own business. Book a vacation, or something. It kind of seemed like you were always trying to run off to Rome or Hawaii or wherever else it is they have hotels I can’t afford to, like, breathe the lobby air of.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t actually want to go to Rome, or Hawaii. I’ve seen all those places before. I just wanted to be with Rebecca—I wanted to spend time with her.”

“Okay, well, that admittedly very sweet option is sort of off the table now, but there must be someplace you would like to go, or that you haven’t been.” Her eyes widen and her mouth forms an ‘o’ shape that he thinks must be her version of excited. “Do you want to throw darts at a map of the world? I totally have darts.”

Almost as quickly as her interest flared, her attention is back on his bookcase again, and Nathaniel sighs as she pushes up onto her knees, the eyelets of her boots scraping the leather as she leans across the arm rest to reach for a spine that’s caught her eye. She flips disinterestedly through one of his law books before discarding it beside her and replacing it with an expensive pictorial on Cuban architecture.

“When White Josh broke up with Darryl he went to Mexico to, like, hammer out all his feelings,” she says, smoothing out the dust jacket. “And then he came back with a dog. Maybe you should do the same.”

“Well, I do hablo español,” he concedes.

Heather raises her eyebrows. “Enhorabeuna. I also attended high school. Most of the time.”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m… reasonably fluent, actually. A little rusty, probably, but more than enough to get by.”

“Well, that’s a start. And since you clearly don’t have much experience with flights of fancy, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Google.”

“Google?” he echoes, dubious. “I’m not convinced that’s a secret.”

“I’m serious. You gotta start Googling.”

“Googling what, exactly?”

“Whatever pops into your head. Like, after I watched The Hunger Games, I thought about J-Law looking all fine in her post-apocalyptic outfit, or whatever, and I said to myself—I could work a bow. So I opened my laptop and Googled ‘how do I become a champion level bowman in the short period of time before the Ren Faire arrives?’ which led me to discovering the archery unit at my community college, and here we are. It’s kind of like rapid-fire association, but you have to fully commit to going down the rabbit hole. And then you just keep clicking, and searching, and researching things obsessively until suddenly it’s three days later and you have seventy two tabs open and a new Pinterest account because you forgot the password to the last one. It’s Wilbur,” she adds. “The password is always Wilbur.”

“Sounds chaotic,” Nathaniel quips.

“It is, but it’s also very therapeutic.” Heather stretches, catlike, and pushes back up onto her feet. “I want to give you some secondhand advice here, but I don’t want to mention the name of the person it originally came from, because your face is going to start doing the drippy thing again, so I’m just gonna call them… Hebecca.”

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows. “Darryl’s daughter gave you advice?” he asks dryly. “Wow. I wasn’t aware she was forming sentences yet.”

“Uh-huh—she’s super advanced for a baby, and I’m giving my womb all the credit for her infinite wisdom.” She pats her stomach, and he can’t help it—he huffs out a laugh as she carries on. “When Paula was feeling dissatisfied with how things were going down at her fancy new job, Hebecca told her she should ask for more. That she should bet on herself.” Heather’s mouth twists. “You should bet on yourself.”

“I did bet on myself,” he points out. “Both of us did, remember? And we both lost. Hundreds of dollars. Thousands, even.”

She tilts her head at him. “Okay, so I’ll admit that probably wasn’t the best phrasing to use, in retrospect. But I don’t mean, like, literally bet on yourself. I mean, you have to decide you deserve the things you want. But not in a gross, rich, white privilege way—in a way that means you have look inside yourself and make some tough decisions about what you want your life to look like, whether certain people are in it or not. You can’t control what choices other people make. But you’re the one that has to live with yours.”

He glances over at the couch she just vacated, where Rebecca had sat across from him only yesterday, quietly apologetic but simultaneously so self-assured. He remembers the way he’d felt at peace with it before she’d even started speaking. How strangely calming it had been, seeing her settled and suddenly sure of herself, in the midst of all this pervasive indecision.

“That is… a solid assessment, actually. You only get one life, right?”

“For the record, I charge by the half hour and accept payment in the form of hot tubs.” Heather considers him for a moment longer, then crosses her arms over her chest. “Do you want to get out of here? I could take you for a spin in my new Honda Civic. You’re basically its honorary godparent, or something.”

“Like a date?” he asks wearily.

“Ugh, dude—gross, no. I’m married,” she says, flashing her ring finger at him. “You were there.”

He rolls his eyes. “I was being facetious. But no thanks—I’m good. I need to clean up in here. Open some windows.”

“That,” Heather says, eyes sweeping the room, “is probably a wise decision, because it smells like the Home Base back room in here and not in a good way.”

“Is there a good way?”

“Well, yeah. I’m surprisingly still partial to when they’re cooking chilli fries.” She leans over, extending her arms in their entirety and keeping her body as far away from his as possible while allowing her palms to rest on his shoulders. “You are valid, kiddo,” she says, squeezing him awkwardly and thumbing his nose in a way that makes him scrunch up his whole face and flinch. “For things other than your bank account and strong jawline. Just in case nobody’s ever told you that. But also, I will be expecting reimbursement for your romantic shortcomings, so the bank account is a definite plus.”

Once Heather is gone he thinks about the person that never told him that in so many words but certainly made him feel it, and after flicking it open and closed a few times he shuts the ring box, rubs his thumb along the velvety seam one last time and pushes it away.

He pauses with his fingers over the keys, then hesitantly types in animals AND law AND spanish into the text box; just because he’s being self-indulgent doesn’t mean he has to completely abandon Boolean operators.

The returns are fairly broad so after a moment's consideration he amends the search to zoo AND law AND spanish speaking countries.

He hovers the cursor over the link to the San Diego Zoo’s donation page before his gaze catches a couple of results down on a site for zoology and wildlife internships, and suddenly, for the first time in awhile, finally something clicks.

#crazy ex girlfriend #nathaniel plimpton #heather davis #nathaniel + heather #brotp: what are you doing in my house?#my fic #i started this after 4x16 and it was supposed to be more heather dragging nathaniel #but after the finale it went elsewhere #i've totally been avoiding fic lately in favour of art in some weird version of denial :/

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Batman #87

James Tynion IV and Guillem March team up to make me stop buying Batman.

Part of me just wants to write "UGH!" and be done with reviewing this comic book. But another part of me is hungry. But still another part of me, the one that is against just typing "UGH!", is outraged that I just paid five dollars for a regular issue of Batman because of a stupid glossy and thick cover and that part of me demands that I vent more fully. And yet that's not even why I'm fucking livid! That's just my first and most shallow complaint! I'd prefer if DC Comics just gave me a regular issue of Batman with a regular comic book cover and simply printed on that cover, "We know this is the exact same quality comic book that we'd sell for $3.99 usually but it has Batman in it which means it will sell way more copies than the other issues we sell and we want that sweet, sweet extra dollar per issue windfall!"

Complaint #2: The Riddler believes that a riddle without a solution is the greatest riddle.

Never mind that Guillem March drew The Riddler naked while he's thinking about the greatest riddle ever while on weapons grade amphetamines and he has no visible erection. That's a minor side complaint that I simply assume was on everybody's list of things wrong with this issue. But the revelation that James Tynion IV doesn't understand the concept of riddles is beyond criticism. It's post-critical! The entire purpose of a riddle is that it has a fucking clever answer! A riddle with no answer is a mystery and The Riddler isn't called The Mysteryer! A riddle with no answer is something The Mad Hatter might be into but not The Riddler, Mr. Scott-Snyder-Lite IV! And before some Riddler-loving cuck nerd decides to argue that what Tynion meant was that The Riddler loves a super duper challenging riddle, let me say this: "Then he should have fucking wrote that in the dialogue, shouldn't he have? Not that a 'riddle with no solution' is 'a riddle befitting a riddler.' But 'a riddle with a fucking super tough and challenging solution' is 'a riddle befitting a riddler.' Now go jerk off to your tepid Riddler sex role play Tumblr blog." Just an aside about my use of the word 'cuck': it's just fucking funny to use! The only good thing the terrible incel Internet community (unless I mean the MRA community (unless I mean the PUA community (it probably doesn't matter. They probably mostly share the middle area in a Venn diagram))) has done for this world is to bring back the insult "cuck." I don't even care about using it in the historically accurate way! I don't actually care if Riddler fans' spouses have a little extra side of ass on the down low. It's just fun to say! Plus, if you say it to the kind of person who actually thinks "cuck" is a scathing insult, they get super fucking angry when called one! It's Goddamned hilarious.

Complaint #3: Guillem March's depiction of The Riddler.

Yes, yes. March fixes my whole "The Riddler doesn't have a visible erection" problem from the first scan by implying one with his Riddle Wand here. But the main problem is why did March think The Riddler suddenly needed to look like Bernie Wrightson's Anton Arcane? The Riddler has always just been a skinny creep who was so into getting punched in the face by a muscular man in a bat costume that he planted clues that would ensure it happened. But I guess March has decided that his obsession needed to be mirrored in his physical appearance? Or is it a kind of pervasive attitude that Batman is such a scary and serious fucking cartoon hero that his villainous gallery of rogues has to be just as wickedly serious and horrific? Sometimes it feels like fans still feel as if the Batman television show was some kind of pernicious poison that, to this day, needs continual application of anti-toxin. "Batman isn't silly and his villains shouldn't be either," scream the rabid base of comic book fans that take this shit way too seriously. Hey! Fuck you! I'm angry for valid reasons and not stupid comic book fan reasons! Don't try to use my own words against me!

Complaint #3: Guillem March's depiction of The Penguin.

See my previous argument for Complaint #2. Although there's a history of making The Penguin as creepy and fucked up as possible because nobody needs the image of Burgess Meredith playing The Penguin to already come to the conclusion that a short dapper fat man with a bird obsession isn't the most intimidating villain, even with the mob attitude and homicidal tendencies.

Complaint #4: Batman and Catwoman's banter.

My main complaint with this conversation is that Batman and Catwoman never once argue about whether they met on a boat or on the street. I thought that was how they always began conversations! Also, they don't call each other "Bat" and "Cat." I'm sure a lot of people are thrilled about this change. But to me, it's a slow reset to getting them back to a relationship that denies the strength of their love and commitment to each other. They're slipping back into professional modes of communication! Next thing you know, we'll find out that Alfred didn't really die! It was Clayface the entire time and Alfred simply let people believe he was dead so he could have a peaceful vacation for once in his long life of servitude to an obsessed man-boy with too much money. Okay, that's enough poking fun at Tom King and the people who hated Tom King. I'm sure I'll get my fill of the Bat/Cat relationship whenever King's Bat Loves Cat comic book comes out. Let me be serious about my complaint in this paragraph (although not the kind of serious where I'm a comic book fan taking shit too seriously! The kind of "serious" where I pretend to be in an apoplectic rage which convinces a number of casual readers into thinking things like "This fucking Lobo fanboy wants to fuck Lobo in the face" and "Why is this nerd so obsessed with Supergirl's butthole? Can't he get a real woman down at the real club where he probably dances like a fucking dreamboat?"). Batman is supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective and yet he engages in stupid retorts like "What makes you think I don't have that device?" You fucking imbecile! What makes her think that was expressly stated by Catwoman when she said you wouldn't have needed to ask her if she was still with the body! Also, even Batman can't have that technology because it would take magic to use that technology and Batman is against magic which is why he keeps Kryptonite on hand to defeat Superman instead of the Ace of Winchesters. Side Complaint #4: Guillem March draws asses in the uncanny valley. He wants you to know they're sexy asses that do more than poop and fart. But he tries too hard to make them sexy and they fall into the uncanny valley of sexy asses. Those are asses where you go, "No, no. I can see that that ass is sexy but I am not in any way going to put my tongue into it." Complaint #5: The villains' plan is so complex that it relies on things that couldn't have been planned for happening. This is a standard complaint of mine and such a comic book trope that I probably should have gotten over being upset by it twenty years ago. I suppose it's why I stopped reading comic books for ten of those twenty years though. A bunch of assassins planned to get caught so that one of them could escape so that Batman would be distracted by that one while the others escaped. Batman falls for it although this time there's a twist to a plan so well planned that it works no matter what the hero does: this plan was stolen! This plan was originally the Penguin's plan and he recognized it when the first part fell into place: five assassins came to Gotham and were caught by Batman. Yeah, see? That was part of this stupid plan! So at least The Penguin is going to interfere with this awesome plan. Although, being that the plan was so well planned, the person who stole the plan probably planned for The Penguin to recognize the plan and to interfere. So The Penguin interfering is probably now part of the overall plan.

Complaint #6: Batman builds a prison that even he can't get out of which means Deathstork gets out of it immediately.

Every time, right? Every time a hero does something that is super duper foolproof to the nth degree of foolproofness, they get fooled! Fool the DC villains once, shame on the DC villains. Fool the DC Villains twice, and, well, you know what? That's never actually happened because they've never actually been fooled once. They only get fooled in the ultimate issue of a story arc when the hero decides maybe they should redouble their efforts and buck up their willpower and believe in themselves slightly more than they did in the previous five issues.

Complaint #7: A Cheshire-sized clay body double was captured by Batman, hauled into custody by police, and locked up without anybody noticing.

Batman uses the word "clay" so I'm assuming we're supposed to believe this is some kind of non-Clayface clayface body double? Some kind of mindless automaton that walks and moves and blinks and breathes and acts exactly like a living person? Sure, it's not presented in that way. But the audience has to assume some level of intelligent trickery went down here or else they're going to read this and think, "Batman was fooled by a squishy, drippy sex doll? This is worse for the Batman mythos than when Kevin Smith had Batman confess to peeing his pants!" Complaint #8: Both Deathstork and Cheshire tell Batman they're "playing a game." Why do they call their terrible and vicious crimes a game? It's bullshit to make everything the villains do some kind of contest pitted against Batman. It inherently makes super hero comics less about trying to make the world a better place and more about how heroes are the cause of all of the trouble because the villains' only ever expressed motive is to best the heroes. It's lazy and ultimately damaging to the entire medium. Yes, I said the entire medium! That's not hyperbole! But that was facetiousness!

Complaint #9: Cheshire wears see-through undies and we never get to see them from the front.

Okay fine. Not all of March's asses are in the uncanny valley. That one is staunchly in the valley of cans. Sweet, sweet cans.

Complaint #10: Batman kills Cheshire.

Sure, sure. Cheshire is still talking after getting creamed by a semi truck so Batman didn't really kill her. But he should have killed her doing this and the only way we accept that she isn't dead after smashing her face into an advancing semi is because we, the reader, know Batman doesn't kill. Maybe Batman lovers would defend this as an accident brought on by Cheshire herself. But then what is Batman's defense in letting her get smashed by a truck instead of saving her from being smashed by a truck in the amount of time it takes him to smugly say, "Brace yourself"? This fits into my belief that Batman has killed dozens of people but they die later at the hospital after which he can pin the deaths on the doctors who failed to save them from the mortal injuries Batman gave them. Side Complaint #10: Cheshire's last words are asking Batman how he survived her poison. I mean, she's obviously dying here and that's all she cares about? I would think she'd be all, "Tell my daughter I love her! ACK!" Batman #87 Rating: C. I think I made my points. My main problem now is that I've declared I'm going to stop buying Batman but I'm not the sort of person who avoids staring at train wrecks.

#Batman #James Tynion IV #Guillem March #DC Comics #DC

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