Do you like cosplay? Do you like the Magnus archives? Then, Help me out here with my sketched designs of cosplay ideas I’ve currently started workshopping! Things to add, things to take away, things to ponder on, whatever fits your fancy!
Some things I’ve been debating on have been what shade to get Martin’s wig in, how do I want the door purse to open, and how to make my 5’ self look long and lanky. Any and all comments are welcomed, art by me. (NOTE: this is not to criticize the art itself, rather, the costume concept!)
Right, response to this comment cus I just HAVE to yap about it I'm sorry. @never-rub-another-mans-rhubarb
So Catwoman right? I've made a little post about her before talking about EXACTLY this. She has her own comics, I'm aware of that but I'm never talking directly about her character unless specified. SPECIFICALLY when she features in a Batman story she is ALWAYS made to he a love interest. I understand it, they're popular, good chemistry but whyyyy is she always just a love interest to him? I have never ever seen something that didn't at the very least allude to their romantic relationship/feelings toward each other and I just don't see why it's needed every time? People talk about the Joker being overused and while I agree with that sentiment to a certain degree, The Joker is a multifaceted character . He does things to prove a point, and generally he just feels like a much more natural and interesting foil to Batman and that's even without explicit romantic subtext!
If you're saying that Joker is overused then so is Catwoman, I'm sorry but I'm also really not, she is sooooo overused and her character stays relatively the same throughout the majority of the adaptions she is in (alongside batman). Unlike the Joker, Catwoman is reduced to 'goonerbait' or a sex object to be a little less gross about it. This is absolutely not a new rhing, women have been and will be sexualised til the end of time, but why am.i supposed to like Catwoman? She likes cats, cool, I like them too but what about her character? With everything I have seen her in, games, comic books, films, I don't feel like anything actually delves into her character and makes her feel like an actual person outside of Batman. I don't care to look into her solo adventures because why should I? I've been introduced to her character through Batman and when she is portrayed almost exclusively as 'dominant, sexy, sassy love interest' I don't really WANT to learn anything new about her. She had a troubled past, yeah cool, so did the other batman villains, they have backstories, they have external motivators that, even when rooted in financial gain, has another point to it. Harvey Dent, he robs banks a lot, he was also a revered district attorney and now blames batman for his disfigurment which is why he will go to lengths to fight batman + Bruce because he partially blames both of them for what he has become. He also has the gimmick of his fate and chance thing. He's unique, he isn't copy pasted, he isn't reduced to a charming character just because he was attractive before his accident. He has motivations outside of financial gain, it's the same with penguin. He is massively motivated by money but he also wants to reclaim what he believes Bruce's family took from his. There are personal stakes to go alongside the superficial which is why he can also have interesting conflict with Batman/Bruce (with him and Bruce specifically I think they were really well done in the first telltale game, not to mention Harvey who was also in the first game).
Now, apply this to Catwoman. She is financially motivated, I'm totally fine with that but what else? What else drives her and her crime? What drives her and Bruce's relationship? It's for this reason that I actually really like Catwoman in BTAS, she cares very deeply for animals, she steals from a big organisation in hopes of building a sanctuary for lions or something. Now that is a Catwoman I can get behind, she's sassy, she's intelligent, she cares about animals and commits crimes to fund it and ail organisations that's want to do the opposite of that. She feels real and she actually does have good chemistry with Batman, she's beautiful but not sexualised and their chemistry doesn't solely rely on their back and forth. As always there's the conflict of 'I'm batman, you're a criminal' but it feels more dissapointing because their relationship is a bit more rooted in actual chemistry and compatibility on both ends. IMO, they make Catwoman very surface level to the point where I don't want to look into her character because it doesn't look like there's much to find beyond sexy female character which we see Everywhere. Especially in DC . Imo, if Harley can become a character of her own beyond joker AND be in stories with the Joker and stay that way, why can't Catwoman? You're saying to me that in EVERY single universe they just have to be together or have some sexual tension? Um I think the fuck not. If you can have a film (as bad as it was) where Batman and Batgirl have sex then you can absolutely have a film or game or whatever where Bruce and Selina work together and are friends, or just enemies, or just partners in crime and treat each other as coworkers rather than anything deeper than that.
I dunno man it just annoys me because Harley of all characters gets a redemption arc + shows + films (in which she is alongside the Joker and Batman/Bruce) where she kinda evolves as a character (whether it's good or bad is up to you, I personally think there was no need to evolve her character because now she's fucking everywhere 😭) but not Catwoman who is literally a main love interest. You can't have one thing where the main purpose of her existence is not to be the source or sexual tension or romantic conflict? (or to be ogled and yes I am looking at you A Death in the family and Arkhamverse Catwoman)
Desperately begging everyone online to listen to this conversation asap. It covers trans rights, yes, but more broadly discusses the creation and perception of political discourse online vs. irl. Specific to the US but applicable to so many other contexts in the digital fundamentalist age we’re all living in. It’ll only be free for less than a week from now before it goes behind The NY Times subscription paywall, so I recommend diving in today if you haven’t.
Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 06/17/2025 · 1h 35m
SM: We forgot that in a democracy, we have to one, grapple with where the public authentically is, and actually engage with it. And I think, you know, and part of this is fostered by social media, we sort of decided that we now have to say and fight for and push for every single perfect policy and cultural norm right now, regardless of whether the public is ready.
And I think it misunderstands the role that politicians and frankly social movements have in maintaining proximity to public opinion, of walking people to a place. We should be ahead of public opinion, but we have to be within arm's reach. If we get too far out ahead, we lose our grip on public opinion and we can no longer bring it with us.
And I think a lot of the conversations around sports and also some of the sort of cultural changes that we saw in expected workplace behavior, et cetera, was the byproduct of maybe just getting too far out ahead and not actually engaging in the art of social change making.
The position for more maximalist demands is one that you need to be in a hurry. Trans people are “dying now, suffering now, and that there isn't time for decades of political organizing here. And also that maybe it works, right?
EK: Or maybe there's a reason to believe it works. So you've been in more of those spaces than me. How would you describe how this sort of more maximalist approach in culture evolved and why?
SM: Well, first off, I think you're right. It is understandable. I mean, this is a scary moment.
I'm scared. As a trans person, I am scared. And I recognize that when the house is on fire, when there are attacks that are dangerous, very dangerous, that it can feel like we need to scream and we need to sound the alarm and we need everyone to be doing exactly that.
I get that instinct. I understand that people would say, if you give a little bit here, they'll take a mile. We're not negotiating with the other side, though.
In this moment, we have to negotiate with public opinion. We shouldn't treat the public like they're Republican politicians. When you recognize that distinction, I think it allows for a pragmatic approach that has the best in my mind, the best possible chance of “shifting public opinion as quickly as possible.
It would be one thing if screaming about how dangerous this is right now had the effect of stopping these attacks. But it won't.
EK: You call it a sort of abandonment of persuasion. It became true across a variety of issues for progressives, also for people on the right. And sometimes I wonder how much that reflected the movement of politics to these very unusually designed platforms of speech, where what you do really is not talk to people you disagree with.
SM: It's talk about people you disagree with, to people you agree with, and then see whether or not they agree with what you said. And there's a way in which I think that breeds very different habits in the people who do it.
I think that that's absolutely right. I mean, again, we're not in this place because of our community or our movement, but clearly we weren't in this place because we weren't shaming people enough, because we weren't canceling people enough, because we weren't yelling at people enough, because we weren't denouncing anti-trans positions enough. I think the dynamic with social media is that the most outrageous, the most extreme, the most condemnatory content is what gets amplified the most.
It's what gets liked and retweeted the most. And people mistake getting likes and retweets as a sign of effectiveness. And those are two fundamentally different things.
And I think that whether it's subconscious or even conscious, rewarding of unproductive conversations has completely undermined the capacity for us as individuals, or politically, for us to have conversations that persuade, that open people's hearts and minds, that meet them where they are.”
From The Ezra Klein Show: Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights, Jun 17, 2025
Yuzuriha’s venom is more purple/luminescent in the manga. I wish the anime went with that instead of just making it…white
Besides the obvs reason- it would look a lot better too. The purple matches the colorful background art mappa did. If gabimaru’s ninjutsu gets to be bright and pretty then yuzuriha’s can too 😤
PSA: Genshin Impact and games from the same development team employ indoctrination to levels rivaling that of Hitler Youth
I genuinely wish I was exaggerating. I wish I was joking. But no, you look deep enough and find that it's colorful Nazi fantasy.
For those unaware, indoctrination is the gradual process of instilling an ideology into a person without encouraging the use of critical thinking and analysis. It used to just be the word for education, but as time passed, it ended up with a connotation like that of the word brainwashing.
Indoctrination is in a lot more settings than people seem to realize as it's usually the leading factor in mob mentality and groupthink. Nobody questions the information everyone else has been getting etc..
It's how previously innocent children were inducted into Hitler Youth and their discriminatory behavior.
In Genshin Impact and its sibling games, Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero, players are presented with colorful characters and digital worlds in a medium that would fool the average person into seeing as "art". It's not art. Genshin Impact will use native art from all over the world and cultural names with centuries of history and then stick it all onto some half naked woman(or muscular and dressed man) in a manner that has the indoctrinated audience hooked.
Honestly were it not for the environmentally harmful aspects of AI art I’d say Hoyoverse’s creations tend to be worse for the world and for people and their cultures.
Honkai: Star Rail has made a planet cognate with a slur so every kid who learns to say the planet will say the slur. And that’s just in English. In Chinese and Japanese, the planet and it’s people are the slur. They then make fun of real groups targeted during the holocaust. Once again the indoctrinated audience sees this as “lore” or “complex storytelling”.
As somebody who was once somehow mesmerized by their colorful characters and storytelling a few years ago before gradually being sickened by their inability to positively portray cultures outside China, I find that it’s overly taxing to attempt to break the imprinting and brainwashing done by these games to somebody that is not part of a marginalized race or culture. That is not to say you should give up on a friend like that who may be manipulated by these games, but know it’s difficult to get them to understand the real world.
Before anybody even starts, indoctrination cannot be present in a positive light. Ironically those indoctrinated will probably spin this into something positive because they don’t know any better.
I warn people who consider starting any of their games or those who have friends inducted into these games NOT to even waste the energy engaging with deplorable celebrations of degeneracy. They just teach people that racism makes a better world and occasionally genocide is forgivable.
I can’t actually say much to those already brainwashed because I concede they likely don’t know any better but to everybody else: DONT. PLAY. GAMES MADE BY HOYOVERSE. and arguably go back to bullying people out of playing them they need to take in the real world.
Further reading:
the previous posts on this blog
2,704 Followers, 15 Following, 12 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from wet_socks 🍉 (@squabill)
The infographics on this account:
Read “Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and the success of creating more Neo-Nazis“ by Ian Abayomi on Medium: https://medium.com/@clear131sky/genshin-impact-honkai-star-rail-and-the-success-of-creating-more-neo-nazis-100ce96ff8fe
Whenever I see a post of a stupid reply with the url cropped, it always skeeves me out how many people in the tags seem annoyed that the OP left out the url.
Like do you want to harass people for their shitty fandom takes? Do you really want to go out of your way to make someone’s life a waking nightmare because they said something stupid on the internet?
merlin is an experience bc when you start watching it you think, "this is a funny show, it's relatively light-hearted with a nice undercurrent of drama!" and as you keep watching and it gets more depressing with every passing episode you retreat into yourself and when you watch season 4 you can feel your soul shrivel up and die and by the time you reach early-mid season 5 the episodes are literally painful to sit through and you start wondering what you did in your life to deserve this. and still there are genuinely funny moments each episode, like little rewards for sitting through 40 minutes of characters riding full-speed to their dooms and you think that this can't possibly be the same show you started watching but then you realise it was actually always horrifying, you just can't ignore that fact any longer. i am changed.
