YOU GUYS NEARLY 11,000 OF YOU PUT UP WITH ME ON A DAILY BASIS. You guys listen to more of my crap than my own boyfriend generally does. That deserves rewarding. So this is an extra SPECIAL tea give away, and there will be THREE winners. Oh my god. Want a chance to become one of those lucky three people? Read on and follow directions.
THE PRIZES:
- First Place Prize: A set of all seven Sherlock Shipper tea blends [Sherlock/Moriarty, Sherlock/Irene, Moriarty/Moran, Mycroft/Lestrade, Lestrade/John, Lestrade/Molly, Molly/Moriarty]
- Second Place Prize: A set of all four* Avengers Teas [Thor, Loki, Steve Rogers, and Coulson *and possibly also Tony Stark if I make a tea for him soon]
- Third Place Prize: A set of all three Doctor Who Teas [The TARDIS, Amy Pond, and Rory]
- IN ADDITION TO THE ABOVE PRIZE PACKS: Each winner will get ONE blend specially created for them. It can be a character or ship or show or book or whatever that I haven’t done that they’d like me to do. It can even be a blend made based on THEM. Whatever the winners would like. They each get to request one, and they will receive it with their other teas.
I MIGHT ADD TO THESE PRIZES. If this gets reblogged like, a lot, or something, I might lose my head and also send the winners mugs to go with their tea. Or a book. WE’LL SEE.
THE RULES:
- Anyone ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD can enter EXCEPT AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND!! I am SUPER sorry for my followers down under because not only do you have to put up with terrifying wild life, you can’t even allow tea to be imported to help comfort you. Sorry, there’s like, crazy laws and stuff.
- You do not have to be following me to win, but it might be helpful to keep track of updates or changes (if any). Plus I plan to make some blends for other fandoms in the future, so if tea is your thing, it might not be a bad idea?
- Only two reblogs a day allowed.I did not realize how often people would reblog my last big give away soooo I’m going to enforce this LOL. You can reblog on as many days as you’d like, but yeah, only 2 reblogs a day please. I’ll be checking.
- LIKES DON’T COUNT. Sorry! You have to reblog!
- The give away will end and I will choose the winners on FRIDAY JUNE 1ST. I’ll probably do the drawing late at night on that day, so I’m going to say I’ll stop counting reblogs at 10 p.m. EST. Winners may not be announced until the next day or so, just to be aware!
- Here’s how the winners will be selected: Just like all of my other give aways, I’ll compile a spreadsheet or numbered list of all of the reblogs, and I’ll use the number generator on random.org to chose a number and find the corresponding username on the list. The first number I draw will win the first place prize (or, if they are more into Avengers or Doctor Who, they may chose one of the other prizes). Second number I draw will win the second place prize (or a choice between whatever two packs remain), and the third number drawn will receive the last prize!
[5/20 UPDATE] Dudes you guys are on a ROLL with this! I promised that if it hit 25k notes by the end of this weekend, I’d add another prize pack and, well, it happened. So now instead of three winners, FOUR people will win a prize. Same rules apply as before. The first place winner gets first choice of the prizes, then the second place winner, then so on. So what teas am I adding? CABIN PRESSURE!
The Lemon is in Play, Ottery Kisses, and Polar Bears are BRILLIANT!
And of course this prize pack will also come with a customized tea blend of the winners choice as well <33Thanks so much everyone! You guys seriously are just the best, and odds are, I may end up adding another prize pack at 35K or something if it actually gets to that o_o
[5/21 UPDATE] DANG GUYS. ANOTHER ADDITION ALREADY!
Not another prize pack, per se, BUT, I am possibly doubling the number of final winners. Basically, when I draw names for the prizes, the people that the winners reblogged the contest from will ALSO win the prize that the person drawn chooses. If the winner reblogged from me or themselves, they’ll still only get one prize. And I’m not going to win a prize in my own contest so….
Anyway, I guess this is a good reason to encourage your followers to reblog the contest from your blogs or something 8D;
genderqueer hipster jane is my favorite jane
she hand-rolls flavored clove cigarettes. the recipes are closely-guarded and the taste is to die for.
the mustache is not ironic and the suspenders mean she means business.
sassy pansexual femme dirk was kind of an afterthought but
im glad i afterthunk
“the mustache is not ironic and the suspenders mean she means business.”
:)
Scourge sisters for a bunch of Anons!
There’s still a lot to fix but I decided to just stop and post it before I drop it entirely :<
terezi riding vriska’s thigh? vriska still wearing everything but her pants while pulling down terezi’s underwear? yes. yes, i’ll take that. thank you.
My other secret stoner entry. I freaking love these three together. In a crazy tangle of limbs.From: mulattafury (art blog)
To: gamzee-makara
Title of Work: BUDSMOKERS ONLY
Rating of Work: NSFW/ explicit
Pairing/Characters: Tavros/Gamzee/Roxy
Substance(s): marijuana
welp! this is nice. yes. i really love roxy’s expression and gamzee’s thumb on her clit.
Help I can’t stop drawing scarred Ancestors
wow I declare myself captain of this pirate ship
toot toot
i really love all of mindfang’s scars and her deeply bored expression as she loftily ignores all of this nursing she’s getting. plus, y’know, pirate queen.
I don’t think that alot of people realize that alpha Dave and Rose were like about 50 when they faced Condesce…
i love how they look like they’re about to bring all of the old-fashioned violence down now.
wonder woman and wonder girl
daniel krall
Beautiful Amazons art is beautiful.
wow! yes indeed. i love the low-key colors and the bloody uniforms and the casually tough looks.
A little under a year ago, DC announced that Barbara Gordon would be returning to the Batgirl role.
In the time since then, many, many people have written eloquent and convincing posts about why this decision was a bad one. This article by Jill Pantozzi is one of the very best.
The post I am about to write is not another one of those articles.
That isn’t because I don’t have strong feelings on the issue. It’s just because, when it comes to simply explaining why Babs was better off as Oracle, everything there is to be said already has been, and far more eloquently than I could have put it myself.
So, this post is something else. This is a post about some of the most common arguments I’ve seen for why you shouldn’t prefer Babs as Oracle, and my response to them. In discussing the subject (which, as you may be able to tell, is near and dear to my heart) with fellow fans, I hear the same responses over and over again, telling me that I’m wrong for not being happy that she’s Batgirl again, that I should be happy about it. This post is my response to those arguments.
Argument 1: “But if you were a real Barbara Gordon fan, you’d love her no matter what role she was in!”
First of all, I AM a real Barbara Gordon fan, thank you very much. Second of all, I DO love Babs as Batgirl. Babs as Batgirl was AWESOME:
The point is not that I don’t love Babs as Batgirl. I do. But I love her as Batgirl in the past. I love her as Batgirl the same way that I love Dick as Robin: She was awesome in the role back in the day, but that doesn’t mean I want her to go back to it. Because simply put, Babs had outgrown being Batgirl. She was an adult woman in her 30’s, the leader of her own team, and a resource that the ENTIRE superhero community relied on. While Batgirl was never exactly a “kid sidekick” role, it’s still a pretty major step down from the place of maturity and authority she occupied as Oracle. The fact that DC felt they had to de-age her in order to make her Batgirl again only proves my point. Making Babs Batgirl again is not a logical extension of her character development. It doesn’t “restore” her to her former glory, it just moves her backwards.
Does that mean I don’t appreciate her past as Batgirl? Not at all. That history is awesome. But I love the character development that Babs went through after she became Oracle MORE.
Argument 2: “But aren’t you basically defining Babs by whether she’s in a wheelchair or not? That seems like a pretty offensive way to look at disability.”
The wheelchair is only part of the issue. As I said above, Babs had outgrown being Batgirl. This would have been so even if she had never been paralyzed. In fact, what many people are unaware of is that Babs already had stopped being Batgirl before the Joker shot her. She officially retired from the role in Batgirl Special #1, which was published several months before The Killing Joke. Now, it’s fair to say that maybe she would have reconsidered and returned to the Batgirl role if she hadn’t been paralyzed, but certainly, by the time of the reboot, her Batgirl days would have been long over.
Barbara’s character growth as Oracle wasn’t just about learning to fight crime without the use of her legs. It was also about coming into her own as an adult hero. And in my opinion, she came into her own pretty darn magnificently. Oracle was one of the most powerful and unique heroes in the entire DCU. And, yes, the fact that she got there without the use of her legs makes it all the more impressive, but that character development stands on its own. She grew up, wheelchair or no wheelchair.
Secondly, there is a difference between defining Babs by her disability itself, and by the character development which came as a result of her disability. One of the major themes of the Batfamily in general is that the way we cope with loss defines who we are. One can choose to give up when faced with adversity, or choose to become angry and embittered when forced to cope with loss. The Batfamily are heroes because, when faced with loss, they do none of these things, and instead become even stronger from it. It isn’t the losses themselves that define them. It’s how they cope with those losses. I didn’t admire Oracle because she was in a wheelchair. I admired Oracle because she was in a wheelchair, and she didn’t let that or anything else stop her from being the hero that she needed to be. She was an incredible symbol of resilience and empowerment to me (and, of course, to a whole lot of real-life disabled people, which just makes magically “healing” her all the more disrespectful) because of who she was. Because of HOW she dealt with her challenges in life, NOT because of those challenges themselves. There is a crucial difference there.
Argument 3: “But Barbara’s time as Oracle is still canon! So the character growth hasn’t really been undone, right?”
Yes and no. It’s true that Barbara’s time as Oracle is still canon to some degree, but exactly how much remains unclear. Her time as founder and leader of the Birds of Prey, for example, seems to have been completely re-written out of history. And that was a HUGE part of her character growth as Oracle. She’s also been de-aged, and, as I said, simply returning her to the Batgirl role is regressing her character since she had CLEARLY grown up and developed beyond that role. So it’s not as simple as DC saying her time as Oracle is still canon and that automatically making everything OK. The place Babs is in now does not flow logically from the place she was pre-reboot. It does not make sense that she would go from being an adult hero and the leader of her own team to being a glorified sidekick again. And it’s clear that much of her history as Oracle HAS been erased. So, yes, character growth definitely HAS been undone.
Argument 4: “But Babs is the most iconic Batgirl! Isn’t it only right that DC should put her back in her rightful place?”
Sure, Babs is probably the most iconic Batgirl. Just like Dick is the most iconic Robin. I don’t really see why that justifies making bad decisions in terms of character development and undoing decades-worth of growth, though.
The other issue with this whole “most iconic” thing is: That’s simply NOT how the sidekick roles work. Like, Bruce will probably always be Batman, because he’s the most iconic and the role will really always belong to him no matter how much people loved DickBats. The same is true of Clark as Superman, or Diana as Wonder Woman, and so on. These are roles which really do belong to one person, even if someone else temporarily takes over from time to time.
But that is simply NOT how sidekick roles work in the DCU. They don’t belong to one person. Instead, as one sidekick grows up, they are replaced by another. Dick became Nightwing, and was ultimately replaced as Robin by Jason, Tim, Stephanie, and ultimately Damian. Donna became Troia, and was replaced as Wonder Girl by Cassie. Wally became the Flash, and Bart replaced him as Kid Flash. It is no different with Babs and the Batgirl role. She grew out of it, and passed the mantle along to Cass and later Steph. It’s a perfectly natural progression. The fact that the originals are probably the most iconic versions of these sidekick roles does NOT mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to grow up and form their own adult identities. I think Marv Wolfman pretty definitively established that in New Teen Titans, and that’s been DC’s modus operandi ever since. Character development is more important than status quo.
Argument 5: “But aren’t you excited that now Babs can be out there, beating up the bad guys and being kickass again?”
I would certainly be excited about that, except for the fact that she never stopped beating up the bad guys and being kickass:
I would also point out that there are many ways of fighting bad guys and being awesome, and not all of them involve physical strength. Check out this scene:
“That world? I own it. Your world is getting smaller by the second, and you can’t hide anywhere from me.” Those words still give me chills, every time I read them. Babs was THAT powerful. So what if she couldn’t kick a guy in the face? That isn’t the only kind of strength there is in the world. Babs is arguably far weaker and LESS powerful now that she’s been returned to the Batgirl role, legs or no legs. If you can’t see that, I think you’re defining what strength is in pretty limited terms.
Argument 6: “But if you REALLY love Babs, shouldn’t you be happy for her that she can walk again?”
OUCH. This one hurts the most. Because the truth is… you’re right. I love Babs, and that means I want her to be happy. If this was a real-life situation, there’s no doubt that I’d be thrilled for her.
But the thing is… it goes back to what I said before about the way we deal with challenges in life defining who we are. Yes, part of me wants Babs to be able to walk again and not have to cope with the challenges of being in a wheelchair. Just like part of me wants Bruce to get his parents back and never have to deal with the pain of that loss again. But as much as it hurts me to see these characters in pain or dealing with difficulty, the way that they cope with that is a big part of what makes their characters so heroic. Loving a character is different from loving a real-life person, because what’s best for them as people is not necessarily what’s best for them as characters. Sure, a part of me would love to see all of my Batfam babies have all of their problems magically solved and all of their scars healed, and let them just be happy forever. But that’s not how good storytelling works, and it’s not what’s best for them as characters. Overcoming challenges leads to character growth, and I don’t want to see that character growth undone no matter what.
The fact is, from a character-driven point of view, Babs was better off as Oracle than she is as Batgirl. She created a new life for herself, one where she was able to save the day using purely the power of her own brains and determination. She went through an experience that would have broken a lesser person and she came out stronger than ever. That made her an incredibly unique and compelling character. And I think that was worth keeping.
In summation: THIS is the woman that I miss.
Babs THRIVED in her role as Oracle. She became the heroine that she was meant to be - a heroine who was complex and unique in ways which the reboot, sadly, has taken away from her. I love her character regardless, but I can’t help mourning the person that she used to be.
Everything about this is perfect. PERFECT.
Robins I - IV: vindicated (yes it’s a dashboard confessional song shut up) a really old vid i made in 2006, back when DC comics and i had not split acrimoniously because they are the worst boyfriend. I found it again recently and it still holds up pretty well!
also known as Audrey Has Lots Of Feels About The First Four Robins
(and here is a direct link for downloadin’)
oh, wow. i love this vid! it’s such a perfect song for the robins, and it does indeed bring Lots Of Feels. especially that beautiful tim/jason case/tower juxtaposition at the very end! and pretty much all of the stephanie feels even now.
(also, good goddamn, my original copy of this vid is dated 7/15/2006. have i seriously been in this same fandom for six years? that’s practically a lifetime in internet years.)
