Zhou Xun photographed by Leslie Zhang for T Magazine (July 2020)

Now you know.

Time meassured in Robins and Commissioner Gordon’s Hair.

Heather Penn  -  http://happydorid.tumblr.com  -  https://twitter.com/heatpenn  -  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/607081461/tea-spirits-2015-calendar  -  https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/happydorid  -  https://dribbble.com/fastbee  -  https://www.instagram.com/heatpenn

Why do I love DC?

someone on reddit asked for people’s answers, and mine ended up quite long, so I wanted to share:

I once read an interesting categorization that said grimdark vs light/fun was a flawed way of looking at comic book stories.  It proposed that gritty vs light-hearted is a different axis than cynical vs idealistic.  And I’d agree.  To me, DC is idealism, and cynical DC stories don’t work very well.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t be dark or gritty.  

It just means that the heroes represent and choose Good even in the darkest of nights. Because of this, DC heroes aren’t just characters.  Done right, they’re icons of something bigger.  There’s a positive virtue that they each embody, rather than a character study in struggling people who happen to have powers.

It’s Superman’s hope and optimism, his adoption and service of humanity.

It’s Wonder Woman’s compassion and love and refusal to stand aside.

It’s Batman’s determination and tireless struggle for justice, and his conviction that every life matters.  He really embodies the teaching in Judaism and Islam that to take one life is to kill all humanity and to save one life is to save all humanity.

All three of them, as well as some others, operate out of a position where they have no outside obligation to help humanity, and all three have plenty of reason to look at the world and say, “No, you don’t deserve my help. You deserve what you do to one another.”  They each have a compelling reason to say no: to rule humanity and force improvement instead of serving it, to abandon Man’s World to its own warlike devices, to wreak vengeance instead of fighting for justice and reform.  But they’re heroes because, as Wonder Woman says in the Jenkins film, “It’s not about deserve.”  Each of their origins is entirely about that question: do you let humanity get what they deserve, or do you devote your life to saving people even though they don’t deserve it at all? 

That question holds the Trinity together, and in doing so, it gives DC Comics a central core that can’t be compromised.  And speaking of religious themes, that one is basically the central tenet of Christianity, too: that God doesn’t go by what people deserve, but by love.  By unmerited grace.  The DC heroes, especially the Trinity but also Dick Grayson, Martian Manhunter, et al, regularly embody that divine aspect, and either you can see that as echoing Christianity or as incorporating that important message without the religious aspects.  Either way, it gives the Trinity a weight that’s really hard to shake.

It’s also, I think, why DC has such strong villains, especially for Superman and Batman.  Because the villains aren’t just there to put up a fight.  They’re there to tempt us into thinking that humanity is bad.  Lex’s greed and callousness.  Joker’s cruelty.  Ra’s’s compelling arguments about humanity’s destruction of the earth.  And the heroes say, no, I’m not giving up on humanity.  Not all of humanity is like this, and not even you, through and through, are beyond redemption.

And then, to add the kicker to it, DC’s legacies are so strong and special (or can be/have been, despite certain efforts).  The sidekicks are almost as memorable and often just as iconic as the original heroes, and hell, DC basically invented the concept.  I got into reading comics because of Dick Grayson, and he’s really kept me invested through the highs and lows.  Dick has all of what Batman has above, while also carrying the positivity and joy of Superman.  And he particularly does something special with Batman in implicitly reminding us that Batman’s fight isn’t going to be won anytime soon.  It’s one that needs to be picked up and continued and passed on, but that doesn’t make it futile.  It just makes that fight all the more necessary to keep fighting.

Honestly, if it were just the Trinity and Dick, I’d still be here.  They’re a core that no other fictional world comes close to matching, in my experience.

But Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Shazam/Marvel, and co, meanwhile, vindicate the Trinity’s belief, by being the kind of humans that are worth celebrating.  Sure, Barry was given a sob story background later, but he’s a hero because it’s the right thing to do with powers, and he didn’t need an Uncle Ben moment to realize that.  Hal is chosen for the ring because he, a human pilot, had more courage and willpower than anyone in the sector.  And they do incredible things that remind us that humanity is amazing and worthwhile, that Superman isn’t nuts to have adopted humanity for himself, that Diana is right to have left her Paradise for the messed up Man’s World, that Batman has a good reason for saving the shithole city of Gotham and refusing to kill even the worst people, because they are still people.

And that’s why I love DC.

add me to the broth

why did i read this in the tune of fly me to the moon

stay cool stay hydrated listen to view by shinee

a work of art

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

I got 100%??? On my GIS test I barely studied for??? And now I don’t have to take the final???? Holy fucking shit this post works.

everybody say thank you shinee for being shinee

you would think this is fake subs but it’s not. thank you taemin