maybe you did do something wrong. maybe you hurt someone. maybe you have said awful things. maybe you were just as bad as them. maybe. but what matters is that you move on. you have to try. you have to wake up and be kinder. you have to learn and listen and grow. maybe you did do something wrong but that doesn't mean you have to keep doing that. as long as you are alive, you can change
I have this idea for a video game called Are You Out There? where two players control two different alien civilizations and the goal of the game is to invent spaceflight and then manage to find one another in a ginormous universe. You can try to leave signs for each other to find, or send out probes and radio waves, or colonize many systems so you're a bigger target, but its hard because the universe is really big.
i genuinely can't fucking deal with the larger internet anymore holy shit what the fuck are you people TALKING about. i am at my limit with this stupid bullshit. who the fuck cares if a man is hired to draw medical diagrams for young girls jesus christ we're pearl clutching about medical illustrations now? next you're gonna tell me male pediatricians shouldn't advise parents on their kids' vulva issues? male surgeons shouldn't be in the room when performing a procedure where a woman's breasts or vulva might be exposed? male researchers shouldn't conduct gynecological medical research? sure. better for men to live in ignorance and NEVER ally themselves with us to expand access to sexual education and reproductive healthcare i fucking guess. Twenty thousand likes. i hate it here KILL ME
THIS is the post that got me my first ever anon hate. i'd like to thank the academy tbh
also not related but can ppl on this post being like "yeah STOP being mean to men!!" pls stop cuz that's not the point of what i was saying 💀 i'm not mad bc someone was mean to a man i'm mad bc feminism is being hijacked by bioessentialist conservative Christian moralist bullshit where the goal seems to be the complete and total segregation of women from men instead of like, the material improvement of women's lives. i don't care if some intsta commenter is mean to men i care that feminism is culturally turning into Nu Conservatism
The other day I told a friend of mine that I never forget to take my ADHD meds because I fucking love my ADHD meds. I'm in my late 30s, I didn't finally get a diagnosis and meds until less than two years ago, and they have changed my entire life.
And he raised his eyebrow at me. We'd been discussing addictive medications a few minutes before, like the Tramadol I finally got from the pain specialist to take once a week or so to give me a break from my chronic pain, so I reassured him that methylpenidate (Ritalin/Concerta) is not addictive (at least not in people with ADHD).
His response? To raise his eyebrow even harder and say "Well it sure SOUNDS like it's addictive!"
And I had to explain to this man - who works in a healthcare related job by the way - that just because medication makes you feel good and helps you, just because you look forward to taking it, that doesn't make it addictive or dangerous. And he wasn't convinced.
The simple fact that I was excited to take a daily pill that has literally changed my life, after decades of fighting to get that medication, made him think I shouldn't be taking it so often. That it must inherently be dangerous.
I'm not even in America, but I'm pretty sure this attitude began there and then spread over here to Europe. This Puritan idea of "if something feels good, you must beware of it. Pleasure is dangerous, it is sinful, it is addiction, it is evil."
I know too many people who subconsciously believe that pleasure = addictive = dangerous = bad. Joy is a slippery slope to hell.
So here is your reminder for today that you don't need to be afraid of feeling good. If something improves your life, use it. Even if it is addictive - learn what that addiction means, whether the addiction is inherently dangerous or not, and whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and risks.
My ADHD meds are, in fact, not addictive. But I will take them every day because they make my life orders of magnitude easier. I will enjoy them every time I take them.
My tramadol is addictive. I will still take it. I will keep it on a schedule to avoid becoming addicted, primarily because addiction in this case would mean reduced effectiveness. But I am not afraid of my painkillers. They are life changing.
Take your meds, everyone. Don't let anyone scare you away from doing something that improves your life.
I think the harm of denying people the right to control their own bodies is so, so much worse than the risk of people regretting the decisions they make. Regretting something you decided to do is a much healthier pain than the pain of regretting that you didn't get to have a choice.
If you regret a decision you made, you learn from it. You grow. You learn what you like, what you dislike, what impulses maybe need a bit more thought, etc.
All you learn from being denied a choice is helplessness. "I wanted that, but, alas, there's nothing I can do . . ."
Denial of choice doesn't save people from bad decisions. It just primes them to accept garbage treatment and a lack of choice in the future.
I think the harm of denying people the right to control their own bodies is so, so much worse than the risk of people regretting the decisions they make. Regretting something you decided to do is a much healthier pain than the pain of regretting that you didn't get to have a choice.
DDLC is not like my favorite game of all time but the fact that Google thinks its too dangerous to keep up after ten years is insane. Horror is typically the next to be sanitized because moral panics about horror are incredibly common.
You cannot establish a world with justice or equality in it by asking for everything that makes you uncomfortable to be censored and removes from the public. This is what practically every content ban within the last five or so years has been. "This makes me uncomfortable, it should be gone".
When Innocence Is Not Enough by Thomas L. Dybdahl - about false convictions.
Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Justice System - uncomfortable look at how comfortable lawyers are in the current system
DUPED - Why Innocent People Confess -- And Why We Believe Their Confessions: have used this book as a source in cases before
Secrets of the Killing State - about the death penalty and all the things nobody in power wants you to know about how horrifying and mind-bogglingly plagued by incompetence and suffering it is
Courtroom 302 - Acquired in college, so this one's old, but it's probably one of the bigger books that sought to demonstrate to the public how courtrooms are not a search for justice but a processing line in a factory
Just Pursuit - black woman is a federal prosecutor, cannot reconcile her participation in the system with the pursuit of justice
Cross Examination of Witnesses - old ass book, hilarious, whole chapter on women and most of it is about how women can cry on command so you better be CAREFUL
**Trial Techniques and Trials (Manet) - best. My only keepsies from law school.
Juvenile Lawyer Books
*The Rage of Innocence - by a DC Public Defender Service attorney, extremely good interweaving of narrative and statistics.
The War on Kids - about us locking up SO many children
The Evolution of the Juvenile Court - fairly dry and historical book about why we are where we are w/r/t the juvenile court
*Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison: currently missing from shelf, true true true, great book if you want to know all kinds of things to shut down assholes who think they know what they're talking about with juvenile justice
*A Kind and Just Parent - ok ok the book itself might not be that much of a banger but it's personally signed to me by the author when I lost my first signed copy in a flood. By former domestic terrorist William Ayers who became an educator and juvenile activist. And the book is pretty fuckin good
Juvenile Other
How to Talk So Teens Will Listen (& Listen So Teens Will Talk) - great book, I should listen to it more
Age of Opportunity - about the science of adolescence, have referred to it in court many times
The Connected Child - part of my journey into social worker books
How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes - hilarious
A Child's Journey Through Placement - a good in-depth look at kids placed in the foster system and what they go through, meant to help social workers. I think it's a little dated but it helped me see some different perspectives.
The Foster Parenting Manual - again, part of my journey into social worker/foster care related books
Multisystemic Therapy for Children and Adolescents - highly technical, probably not of benefit to most people. MST is a therapeutic method that's gaining popularity because it's got a large dose of common sense problem solving in it and I like it.
Pop Lawyer (Like Pop Science) Books
Ghettoside
The New Jim Crow
Poverty by America - Okay tbh this and the two before it were a little obvious to me but they seem to have affected a lot of people, so I guess they get a bold.
*The Color of Law - Bonus points for the most banger cover on any book on the shelf. It just looks good. But this is a wonderful historical look at how white people have used law to make housing inaccessible to black people.
*Evicted - Not so much history, more about how the brutal cycle of probation and eviction keep people poor.
So You Want to Talk About Race
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: In Her Own Words
*Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis (yes)
Management/Office Books
Managing to Save the World - it's by the AskAManager blog author, and honestly I found the blog more digestible and interesting.
*The First 90 Days - Genuinely great book about how to Start as a manager in a new job. I think this really helped me get going when I had no idea what I was doing.
Getting to Yes - negotiation stuff
Beyond Reason - negotiation stuff
***Nonviolent Communication - life-changing and communication-changing book that should be read by everyone
Addiction & Psychology & Trauma
Treating Addiction
Undoing Drugs
The Heart of Addiction
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - ok in the end I think I don't really like Gabor Mate but this book is haunting.
Chasing the Scream - if you want to know why the War on Drugs ended up this way, and you're interested in also why Reagan did what he did, learn who you should REALLY hate! Surprise, it's some guy who ruined everything for all of us right after Prohibition, like in the 1930s!
The Gift of Fear - interesting exploration of how to trust your instincts and stay alive.
What My Bones Know
*Trauma & Recovery - about trauma. Like, what's happening in trauma. What's the science and the history.
**The Body Keeps the Score (currently missing) - obvious rec is obvious
Healing from Trauma
The Body Remembers
**No Bad Parts - the basic book on Internal Family Systems therapy, which I think kicks ass
Should I Stay or Should I Go by Lundy Bancroft - spoiler alert, if you're asking yourself this you should go
The Verbally Abusive Relationship
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Unmasking Autism - a soft book which left me with both more and less idea of what autism is like
Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate again, I don't like this one
Delivered from Distraction - dated book on ADHD
ADHD 2.0 - extremely interesting book on ADHD by the same authors as Delivered from Distraction
The Deepest Well - this is the book that details the studies behind the ACE scores, or Adverse Childhood Experience scores.
It Doesn't Start with You - creeped me out, implied that epigenetics can contain too much memory and I don't like it
**Why Does He Do That - obvious rec
**How He Gets Into Her Head - this book is a little harder to get a hold of and a little more triggering than Why Does He Do That. This is about purposeful offenders and it has some devastating insights that have proven extremely useful in my practice.
Writing Books
***Story by Robert McKee - how to build a story. Like, architecturally. How to construct it. What it is made out of. There are no writing books like this and this one is the only one that gets it right.
***Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger - idk I just love it, I've read it like 5 times
***Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott - writing. feelings. god.
***The Art of Description by Mark Doty - this, combined with characters and story above, are the only books you ever need on writing.
Other?
The Secret History of Kindness: Learning from How Dogs Learn - kind of overly intellectual and hard to parse at times, but great great insights
The Many Lives of Mama Love - strong story about drug addiction, probation, and overcoming what is an impossible set of obstacles for many people
Aaron Burr's treason trial transcript - this was a FRAME JOB. thomas jefferson had NO EVIDENCE aaron burr was INNOCENT
having being anti death penalty as one of my core beliefs is fun because it really makes me realize how even progressive people want soooooo badly for there to be a category of people they can kill. I'm sorry but "group of people okay to kill" does not exist.
I literally do not care what the Bible says about any political issue. I am not Christian. Christian scripture should have zero effect on my life or my personal freedoms.
project hail mary is like i'll make you believe that friendship will save the world. i'll make you remember that our society rests on the backs of teachers and scientists. i'll make you see that even the most cowardly can be brave. i'll make you horny for sandra huller. thank you greatest scifi film of the last 10 years
"Oh, you like presumption of innocence? So you want all rapists to just be out on the streets?" To be clear, your argument is that
It is impossible to secure a rape conviction to a reasonable standard of evidence
The only options are "all rapists are free to rape as much as they want" or "anyone from one of the many marginalized groups that routinely get stereotyped as sexual predators can be imprisoned for rape based on vibes" and the second option is preferable
When I was in law school, I did a term paper on the catastrophic state of forensic science (it's very bad!) including DNA, and when I presented in class at the end of the semester, I chose to end with a policy proposal, which was: I think there is a good case for the categorical exclusion of all forensic evidence, except for some situational use of a few specific techniques, and even then, as exculpatory evidence only.
I received a lot of push-back on this, which I expected, but the push-back was... strange. I had assumed that the main issue would be that people would believe on faith that there must be ways to improve the scientific methodologies for things like eg. fingerprints, and would therefore feel that declaring the entire field essentially not worth salvaging would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. By and large, however, no one thought that, except for DNA, which I'll readily admit is some of the least bad and pseudoscientific forensic evidence we have. The case against eg. bite mark analysis, fiber analysis, hair analysis, fingerprints, bullet casing analysis, etc. was simply too damning; overall everyone agreed that these were not reliable forms of evidence and that some of them weren't even really science at all.
But when I made the final logical jump from "if it's not really evidence, then we should exclude it" a lot of people got really, really uncomfortable. "How can we possibly prove guilt without any of this?" Simple: motive, means, and opportunity. "But I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable convicting someone on just that..." WELL BESTIE THAT'S A PROBLEM because you already are. You are already convicting people based only on motive, means, opportunity, and unscientific CSI: effect vibes, and you agree that the unscientific vibes aren't actually helping to determine guilt... and yet you're uncomfortable that I want to take the vibes that you admit aren't actually helping to determine guilt away, leaving you "just" with the foundation of all criminal convictions before forensic science ever existed. What???
If you GENUINELY feel like we cannot secure convictions of guilty people based on real evidence, then I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you also definitionally believe that we cannot secure convictions of guilty people at all, because bunk convictions secured with bunk evidence are bunk. Thinking otherwise is some "line go up" bullshit, just applied to criminal law instead of applied to stonks. It does not matter if big number is bigger if it's all fake.
DNA is a rapidly growing field discovered very recently on a scientific scale, and we are far from understanding all of it, so I definitely see how there would be room for improvement there. But also, it seems like fingerprints in particular would be a good candidate for some kind of analytic ai or other computer matching that could improve over the current state of “well this thing looks like that other thing to my human brain and eyeballs” (which seems to be the common factor in most bad forensic evidence) so I’m curious if that’s being explored by anyone reputable?
Part of the problem, which I went into in detail in the paper, is that even for techniques with a comparatively sound scientific basis, such as DNA, juries believe that forensic evidence conveys a level of certainty which isn’t just not true to the current reality on the ground, but which is actually scientifically impossible. It’s not just that the scientific validity of fingerprints is over-stated at present – although that is certainly also true. The larger issue is that juries simply do not understand what error bars mean, and it is impractical to teach a jury an entire college-level course in statistics and data analysis during a trial. We can’t bring fingerprint analysis up to the level which jurors expect, because we can’t bring anything up to that level.
Some of this could be remedied by tightening up the restrictions on what expert witnesses are permitted to say. For example, it is patently absurd that an expert witness can call a 9 point fingerprint match “a 90% match”; that’s actually just not what a 9 out of 10 point match means. But at the end of the day, expert witnesses are still always going to be asked the big central question: “In your expert opinion, is this the defendant’s fingerprint/blood/handwriting/etc?” And I believe that, given what we know about how jurors understand expert testimony regarding forensic science, there is fundamentally no way that an expert witness can answer that question without biasing the jury to a degree that is completely out of wack with what it is scientifically possible to know.
…But again, interestingly, the argument never really got there. I thought I’d get pushback on “can’t we make the science better?” In fact, I instead got pushback on “how can we possibly keep securing convictions, if we exclude the evidence that we know is bad?”
That makes a ton of sense actually, thank you- the idea that the issue is at least in part with jury psychology and the layperson’s understanding of stats definitely makes it a much harder problem to handle. And it’s absolutely wild to me that “we need the bad evidence to convict people” is a position that enough people got caught up on that it fully stalled the discussion among people who are supposed to know better! (And I appreciate your willingness to explain your conclusions to laypeople on tumblr lol)
For sure, happy to do so. And also, I realize that I should probably clarify another point of nuance, because it’s something that is understood to be a given in a legal context, but might not be well-known by people out of the field: the exclusion of evidence at trial is not the same thing as the exclusion of evidence during the investigation. What I was proposing was not the complete elimination of the use of DNA evidence; I was proposing that, although DNA evidence could still be used to aid in an investigation by pointing detectives in the right direction and narrowing their suspect list, the state should never be allowed to present at trial DNA evidence that “proves” that a person was at the scene of a crime (and then, as they usually do in such cases, largely forgo other evidence that might show that the person in question was there, because the DNA is enough for the jury). If a person really was at the scene of a crime, it’s fairly likely that there is more evidence that places them there than simply “we have a sample from the crime scene which is probably their DNA, with the following error bars”. And since juries tend to treat the DNA evidence as ironclad evidence of presence even when it is not, letting the state present DNA evidence in lieu of a complete investigation is dangerous and irresponsible from a legal perspective.
This is a big part of why exculpatory and inculpatory forensic evidence are different, and why I argued that they should be treated differently. In a case where you have DNA evidence + extremely weak and circumstantial other evidence which would not stand on its own, presenting the DNA evidence is putting a thumb on the scale in a major way, because juries are very bad at understanding that DNA analyses can be wrong, that DNA contamination at the crime scene is possible, etc. On the other hand, if you have strong circumstantial evidence of presence + DNA evidence that fails to show a match, that’s two factors pointing in different directions, and juries are much more likely to be able to weigh them reasonably. “There’s no evidence that he did it and there’s no reason that he would, except for the fact that his DNA is all over the murder weapon” should probably not result in a conviction. In contrast, “There’s reason to think he might have wanted to do it, and he was in roughly the area at the time of the murder with no alibi, but none of his DNA was found at the scene of the crime, and some other guy’s DNA is all over the murder weapon” probably should result in an acquittal.
The other problem with this is that witness testimony, which is what else trials usually concern themselves with, is possibly even more unreliable than forensics. Not even taking into consideration the motivations for informants and various other involved people to lie, the very fact that human memory is incredibly fallible and malleable is a HUGE PROBLEM. (And it's something I know more about than DNA, for example.)
So you end up in this very uncomfortable place of...well what CAN you reliably use to base removing someone's freedom and potentially very life on, and the answer is NOT A WHOLE LOT.
And possibly the entire system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be reworked from starting principles, but yanno good luck.
(Also expert witnesses are A SCAM. People can be paid to say anything. Also also even an honest witness can only give the information they are asked for. I personally have testified and I know for a fact my testimony was misleading but I only could answer the questions asked and the defense attorney was focused on the WRONG THINGS (like trying to get my testimony thrown out on spurious legal basis and not actually trying to find out the details of what I knew.) Also being on the witness stand is one of the most anxiety producing things I have EVER done. Do not recommend honestly.)
Guide to Stephanie Brown's Major Appearances in comics pre- Flashpoint
Have you ever wanted an exhaustive list of all of Steph's major appearances put in a reading order that makes the most chronological sense for story events? Well, this is the post for you.
The Steph wiki has a complete chronology of all the issues Steph's appeared in here, so that's the best guide for a completionist (the links for each issue often include a summary and/or scans)
However, publication order sometimes means you'll be reading events out of order--for example, a major thing will happen between Batman and Steph, but the fallout of that thing was actually published a month before that because comics are weird. So this list is trying to put things in an order that makes sense the best it could. The Wiki also includes a lot of one panel/one page cameo type appearances so this timeline leaves those off so you don't have to sort though it all.
Steph is straightfoward in that her major (preboot) appearances are mostly contained to Robin (1993), Batgirl (2000) (Cass' series) and Batgirl (2009) (her own series). If you cover those, you've basically got the scope of her. (And I rec just reading Cass's entire Batgirl series even beyond Steph appearances since it's a great comic)
However there are some one shots and side appearances to check out, and some of her appearances are more minor than others, so hence the point of this guide-- to help with all that. I also include some alternate continuity recs at the bottom!
A blanket warning for sexism, particularly in comics by Chuck Dixon (most obviously in how Tim treats Steph in early Robin comics, though she often calls him out too) and Bill Willingham (Robin 121-27). There's also a few surprise/nonconsensual kisses from both Steph's side and Tim's in the 90s tropey way, racism, and some very clumsy handling of social issues with Dixon in particular. It's kind of typical stuff for Bat-Comics of that era. I'll include more individual warnings for certain arcs.
Steph's debut in Detective Comics #647-649 is, obviously, the best way to start with her, though I also really rec reading her full backstory which you can find in:
Secret Origins 80 page Giant, in a short story titles "Daddy's Little Vigilante". (This summarizes her first appearance quickly and also goes into her childhood and backstory in more detail)
Robin #3-#5 (Steph's second major appearance, establishes a lot of things about her) Robin #15-16 (a nice little follow up to this arc).
Showcase '95 #5 "Uneven Parallels" short story (first solo story, major turning point)
Robin #26-27 (A school shooting PSA story that's fairly racist, but thare are some good Steph moments at least.) Robin #35
Robin #40-41 (clumsy handling of sexual assault trauma in the non-Steph parts of these) Robin #43-44
Robin #45 (3 page appearance, not major)
Robin/Argent Double Shot (Tim might be at his most insufferable towards Steph in this lol. Trademark Dixon misogyny in his depiction of Steph's ~jealousy~ too. Features chatroom antics that are pretty funny though)
Robin #50 (minor appearance, 2 pages, great sass toward Batman though)
Batman: Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma
Robin #54 (follows up on Huntress/Spoiler)
And now we get to Steph's first big arc, and one of her most famous. Her pregnancy arc, taking place from Robin #56-#64.
Unfortunately, this arc is written by an out-of-touch conservative and a lot of it is bad. Features anti abortion soapboxing and self loathing from Steph the writer clearly agrees with, but which I, as a normal person, find it in-character for Steph's terrible self esteem and read that way. But there's no shame in skipping most of this arc. If you want to avoid the worst parts, I recommend reading:
Robin#56 and #57 (the leadup, Tim and Steph's relationship begins, cute stuff)
Read the first three pages of #58, which I have on the wiki here (There is a hint of abortion soap boxing , but you really need those pages for context. Don't read the last two pages because it gets much worse, and is unneeded!)
Robin #59, 3 page appearance (Steph and her Mom do frame the pregnancy like Steph did something wrong (with her Mom blaming herself rather than Steph), but it's largely sweet and supportive, and I think important to get Mom's reaction.)
There's a sweet part in #60 with lamaze class
Robin #62- (two page appearance, skippable but sweet, Steph's VERY insecure about how she looks in a realistic way for someone her age though, so some fatphobia, Tim reassures her)
The last three pages of #64 here (skip the first two pages to avoid annoyance)
#65 (she has the baby, it's actually kind of well written and pretty heartbreaking)
Robin #68 (minor two-page appearance, leadup to next issue that is skippable)
Robin #69 (more major appearance, don't advise skipping)
Robin #71-#72 (minor 2 page appearances following up on 69)
Batman Chronicles #22 "Cry, Uncle" (cw: Steph's uncle is clearly a predator, but doesn't get farther than hitting on her, there's comeuppance)
Robin #74, Robin 80 Page Giant (my best guess for where the Giant makes sense timelinewise), Robin 75 (minor appearance)
Young Justice #30 (sexist 'girls fight over Tim' plot, but has some good moments and Peter David does a good job with Steph's voice)
Robin #80, Robin #82-#84, #87-88 (Steph's next important arc I really dislike #82-#83 because I feel it dumbs Steph down to make the plot work, and think those issues are skippable, but it's up to you)
Robin #92-94
Joker: Last Laugh #3, Robin #95 (both semi-major apperances) Last Laugh #6 (minor appearance) (pretty mid crossover, so you can skip it if you want, hard to place in the timeline too)
Batman: Gotham Knights #22
Green Arrow #5 (four page appearance, enjoy it a lot for Steph roasting Batman but not essential to her arc)
Robin #98, Birds of Prey #39 (minor appearance)-40, Robin #99
Young Justice #49-51 (VERY minor appearances, but she gets to be part of a big teamup!)
Batgirl (2000) #20-21, #26-#28 ( Some of my favorite writing for Steph! Cass and Steph's friendship is one of my fave relationships in comics. )
Batgirl #32-33 (On the other hand, I'd advise skipping this filler two parter by Dixon. Incredibly mediocre and acts like Cass and Steph aren't friends. I'd have to put it between after Robin #88 but before Batgirl #20/21 to make sense of it, but why go through the effort)
It's time for Jon Lewis' run on the Robin title, also some of my all time favorite writing for Steph! I really suggest simplifying just reading #100-#120, it's all great character work for Steph and Tim. Onto the chronology:
Robin #100-105 (Robin #101 is part of the World Without Young Justice crossover ft. StephRobin! Reading the whole crossover isn't necessary, but the list of issues are here if you do want to)
Young Justice #54 (minor appearance but follows up on #30. Young Justice is another comic I just recommend the entirety of!)
Birds of Prey #43 (minor 3 page appearance, very perfunctory about booting Steph off the team. Skippable)
Robin #106 (Big conversation about events with Steph but she's not in it. But uh. this is really contradictory timelinewise to Gotham Knights 37 no matter what order you put things in. Since GK going first would spoil (heh) a bigger twist in 107 though, I’d suggest using this reading order)
Batman: Family (good little miniseries, Steph appears in #2 and #8)
Robin #107-111
(content warning for Robin #111 for a backstory involving an adult attempting to sexually assault a child, not shown, handled fairly well imo (especially for comics), with the psychological impact fully explored)
Gotham Knights #37 (This is a great issue if you want to despise Bruce Wayne, but if you don't feel like seeing him be horrible and crush Steph, you can skip it, they basically covered what happened in Robin.) (Again, this should not go here timelinewise But if I don't put it here, we spoil the events in Robin #107-111.)
Robin #112-113 #116, #119, #120 (Again, I suggest just reading 100-120 to simplify)
Batgirl #38
Robin #120-#125 (these aren't especially good comics, so you can skip if you feel like it, but it is leadup to Steph's tenure as Robin. Speaking of which...)
Steph as Robin:
Robin #126
Batgirl #53
Detective Comics #796
Teen Titans #13 (more minor appearance, could be skippable)
Solo #10 "Second Chance" (published way after the others, but it's great)
Robin #127-128
Batgirl #54 (minor appearance, but heartbreaking)
Then we have War Games, in which Steph is sexualized while being brutally tortured and then dies. Don't read this, it's bad. You just have to know she dies.
Batgirl #61 (minor, one page)-62, #72 (one page but what a page)-73 (ghostly appearances by Steph)
Robin #170-#174 (Steph's return-from-the-dead arc)
(Steph is also technically in the Gotham Underground series, but it's very confusing, contradicts stuff in other comics as well as logic, features no real character development and is totally skippable).
Robin/Spoiler Special
Teen Titans #66 (cute but not essential)
Robin #175-#183 (Not good imo, just very forced drama that's ooc, so I'd skip it, you just have to know that Steph and Tim have a falling out)
Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? and Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? (not essential, but it's decent stuff I guess)
Red Robin #2 (minor appearance that's mostly Tim yelling at Steph, but it does really impact her emotionally in future issues)
And finally, we get to Steph's time as Batgirl, and her critically acclaimed Batgirl series!
Red Robin #9, Batgirl #8, Red Robin #10-#12 (crossover with Red Robin, Tim's title at the time)
Wonder Woman #600 (VERY minor appearance, but it's so cool to see her team up with Wondy! And it means she gets drawn by George Perez!)
Batgirl #9-14
Red Robin #15, #20 (both minor 1-2 page appearances)
Bruce Wayne- The Road Home: Batgirl #1
Batman: The Return (minor, 2 page, super skippable)
Batgirl #15-#24
Batman Incorporated Special #1
And that's it for preboot Steph. I am not an expert on her appearances after this era.
I'm not going to list all the alternate continuities she appears in, you can look around the Steph wiki for that, but here's some recs:
Batgirl: Futures End #1 "Darker in the Soul" (Potential Future where Steph is part of a League of Batgirls)
The All New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13 (time traveling Robins teamup featuring lots of Steph)
DCeased: Hope at World's End (Steph suits up as Robin for the zombie apocalypse)
Future State: The Next Batman #2, #4 (Almost entirely for edgy future Steph w/ her gay haircut and eyepatch, but also some nice StephCass stuff and drama etc)
She's also in the webtoon Wayne Family Adventures--it's all ages and tonally different, so Steph is flattened a bit and some Steph fans don't like it, but I've seen it be an entry point for a lot of new Steph fans and tbh, I just think it's cute and like seeing people actually be nice to her for once.
Tiny Titans #33 and #45- Steph features in the Robins and Batgirls issues, extremely cute and light.
A few months before he passed away in 2003, a 74 year old children’s television host sat down in the same studio where he had filmed 895 episodes over 33 years and recorded one last message. It wasn’t for children. It was for the adults who had grown up watching him.
Fred Rogers hosted Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on American public television from 1968 to 2001. For over three decades he walked into the same set, changed into a cardigan and sneakers, looked directly into the camera, and spoke to children as if each one of them was the only person in the room. He never raised his voice, never talked down to his audience, and never rushed a single moment.
In that final recording, he looked into the camera one last time and said “I’m just so proud of all of you who have grown up with us. And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead. But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger. I like you just the way you are.”
He passed away from stomach cancer on February 27, 2003. He was 74.
do you have Amber’s full ‘hot to go’ gala performance? I can’t find it anywhere online and it’s like your (very well done!!!!) gif set is the only proof of its existence!
HIII!!! FIRST OFF I APPRECIATE THE COMPLIMENT SO MUCH!!! 😭🥹💖💖
SECONDLY!!! the only footage i know of is on the ISU’s official YT channel (im in the us but have a vpn which is how i watch it online), so i recorded this one for skatingblr!!! unfortunately i had to trim it down to JUST the skating bc otherwise it would’ve been too big for tumblr 😭😭 BUT HERE YOU ARE!!!
AMBER GLENN | “HOT TO GO!” Exhibition Gala at the 2024 Grand Prix de France
Microwaves are designed to be used at a broad range of power levels. If you're getting bad results reheating your food, and you're doing everything on full blast, try a lower power setting! 50% power for twice the time, just give it a shot. It gives the heat time to spread evenly, and prevents overcooking of parts that are exposed to more radiation.
People complain about reheated pizza a lot -- that's bc overheating the crust makes it tough and chewy. I usually do pizza on 30% power for THREE times as long because it's especially vulnerable -- and my crust always comes out nice and tender.
I think there's a good metaphor for Came Back Wrong here too: if you actually take the time to do your necromantic ritual and/or unholy experiment right, and don't rush it at 100% power, you're likely to get better results.
