Part 7!

Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

(when boromir is thinking of how he can use the ring to defend gondor, when aragorn is thinking of how it brought down proud isildur, when elrond is holding council and gandalf is thinking of how twisted he would become, if he ever dared—)

but then there’s frodo, who desires nothing except what he has already left behind him, and says, I will take the Ring.

it is an offer made out of absolute innocence, utter sincerity. It is made without knowing what it will make of him—and frodo loses everything to the ring, he loses peace and himself and the shire, he loses the ability to be in the world. It’s cruel, the ring is cruel, it searches out every weakness you have and feeds on it, drinks you dry and fills you with its poison instead, the ring is so cruel.

and frodo picks it up willingly. for no other reason except that it has to be done.

(the ring warps boromir into a hopeless grasping dead thing, the power of the palantir turns denethor into an old man, jealous and suspicious, it bends even saruman, once the proudest of the istari, into a mechanised warlord, sitting in his fortress and bent over his perverse creations—all the best of intentions, laid waste)

but there’s a reason gollum exists in the narrative, which is to show—well, to show what frodo might have been. because even as frodo grows mistrustful and wearied, as the burden of this ring grows heavier and heavier, he is never gollum. he is gentle to gollum. he is afraid—god frodo is so afraid for 2/3 of these books he is so tired and afraid, but he keeps moving, he walks though it would pull him into the ground, because he asked for this, he said he would.

someone else could have carried the ring to mordor, I suppose. the idea of a martyr is not dependent on the particular flesh and blood person dying for some greater purpose. but such a thing has to be chosen, lifted onto your shoulders for the right reason, the truest reasons, and followed into the dark, though it would see you burnt through and bled out.

I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.

I would love it if after Mikey brings Raphie over to the Rise universe, CJ sees him and shouts "Grandpops!" At the top of his lungs(or great uncle Raphie but Grandpops has more oomph) and Raphie face just gets stuck on this weird strangled smile as he tries to figure out what exactly Dee has been doing since he got sent home

lol yes! Raphie's just sitting there like "yes i have a grandchild!" but also like "It's only been two years. how did i get a grandchild?!"

Though, i will say this, it would be pretty cute if, in the apocalypse timeline, Future Dee was the one that adopted baby CJ (similar to how FW has Raph adopting him.) Cass would still claim CJ first, but since Dee is probably one of the few in their group with even a little bit of Tiny human experience, He'd probably end up taking care of CJ a lot and accidentally adopting him along the way. It would be a very adorable way of Dee following in his pop's footsteps : ) (and would give CJ a very good excuse to call Raphie Grandpops)

Thank you!

no one here to talk about how raph’s sense of self-preservation vs self-sacrifice is directly tied to how it affects the safety of his family and i resent that

leo gets dropped off a building, raph all but throws himself after him to catch him, no real plan, just desperation.  shadow of evil, he sees they’re way outnumbered, he literally picks his entire family up and runs.

battle nexus new york he posts himself over donnie as a personal shield against shredder

shreddy or not, not only is he the second mvp of the initial brawling (gram gram is of course biggest mvp) putting it all on the line THROWING HIMSELF at shredder, saving bacon left and right with like zero regard for his own safety. he then has to buckle down and make the choice to get his brothers to safety TWICE while leaving people behind in the span of a couple of minutes, and he looks so absolutely torn up about it

in the movie, he’s the one who sees them getting their butts handed to them in the first kraang showdown and calls for the retreat/escape pods! and then he puts himself on the line saving leo’s life, getting hurt in the process, then getting leo out safely and being captured in the process.

and i think it’s so interesting that like. when he knows his family made it home safe in one piece, when he’s alone in enemy hands and sister kraang is straight up like “let’s kill him already he won’t tell you anything,” raph is just like. “yeah, she’s right.” no trying to stall for time or argue back. 

like his sense of self-preservation and i think overall worth really is SO so directly tied to his family’s safety. which makes it hurt even harder to see his mind and autonomy get violated and used to hurt them imo

Jason: “They’re children, Bruce! They shouldn’t be soldiers in your crusade!”

Bruce: “The children, Jason. They yearn for the capes.”

like okay im just going to be real right now. do some of you not understand that children grow into adults? like seriously. because the way some of yall talk about them makes me feel like you think of children as an entirely different species and not people who in 10 years will be expected to function and understand society. were you cloned? do you come from a tube? did you jump out of the artificial womb as a fully formed 25 year old

I noticed some parallels, and decided to spend hours and way more effort than necessary turning them into a drawing! Because of course I did

A lot of people don't seem to understand what Barbara actually did as Oracle, so let me clear up some misconceptions. Oracle is first and foremost an information broker. She's a data nexus, a living hub of information that crimefighters around the world could reach out to for assistance and mission coordination:

"So how'd you become the data nexus for every costumed crimebuster in the world?" "That's gonna have to remain off the table too."

Yes, that role centers her gift with technology, computers and hacking, and that is the area where Babs most often shines. And yes, those tech skills are incredibly formidable and absolutely vital to her work! But the TECHNOLOGY isn't what makes Babs special.

Babs' tech skills positioned her as one of the most prominent fictional women in STEM in the 90s/early 2000s and gave her the ability to do things like build a VR fighting simulation room (eg, a Star Trek-esque holodeck) from scratch:

"Maybe we should move back to Greenie play level." "But you designed this game, Babs. And this incredible virtual reality projection room." -Birds of Prey (1999) #19

However, those skills are all ultimately secondary to her real gifts, which are her eidetic memory and her ability to gather, analyze, synthesize and distribute information to people:

"What I believe happened to Batman is too important to rely on my photographic memory..." /// "Having been blessed with photographic recall, I studied a dozen newspapers, four dozen magazines, and my main haunt: the computer bulletin boards." -Showcase '94 #12 /// "I was nine when I realized I could ace any test without really studying. The photographic memory thing." -BOP (1999) /// "My memory is eidetic (i.e. perfect). It's my greatest asset." -Batgirl (2011) #35

Oracle wasn't just a glorified hacker. She was the crimefighting community's living computer and central information hub:

"There is little she doesn't already know. There is nothing she can't find out. If knowledge is truly power, Oracle is one of the most powerful people on the planet. Despite having her spine shattered by the Joker's bullet, Barbara Gordon refused to give up. Recognizing she could no longer be the kind of superhero she had been, she instead devoted all her time to developing one of the world's most complex and powerful computer systems and set to work accumulating information, renaming herself 'Oracle.' Blessed with a photographic memory, Barbara reads dozens of the world's top newspapers and magazines daily. She's also constantly gathering information from other, less public sources, such as the CIA's mainframe, not to mention the data networks of the FBI, NSA, and Interpol (all without their knowledge or consent)." -Secret Files and Origins (2000)

"Now as Oracle, she uses information as her weapon. With her vast computer network, Oracle is linked up to every hero on the planet and is always ready to help." /// "With a photographic memory, Oracle is considered information central in the superhero community. She's a computer specialist and expert hacker--and she has files on every villain and hero."

"But Barbara invented a new life for herself as Oracle-computer master and undisputed sovereign of data collection and dissemination. There is hardly a crimefighter on the planet that has not come to rely on her skills and dedication."

"I'm keeping the secret identities and home addresses of every superhero in the world from being stolen. Think maybe that's a little bit important?" -Countdown #39 /// "Oracle: The Living Mind of the Justice League. Oracle monitors and records the worldwide flow of information. She Analyzes. She Interprets. She Calculates."

It's part of why "Cop!Babs" is so insidious as a profession DC keeps pushing onto her, because Barbara Gordon is, at her core, a librarian. As Oracle, she gathered information and valuable resources and then coordinated with crimefighters around the world to help them access and utilize it. Her day job became her night job:

"From my days as Gotham's head librarian, I knew how to find out whatever I needed. If I could do that for citizens, I could do it for colleges, non-profit corporations, private investigators...and superheroes." -Showcase '94 #12

She's not "just" a tech geek; librarians are trained to have specific sets of research, information analysis, and communication skills that others don't have. And those are skills she has that the other Batfamily members do not, and they are skills she has regardless of whether or not she can walk:

"I was tired of being a victim. I had skills and abilities long before I was Batgirl. It was time to make them work for me again. It was time to stop being afraid." -Oracle: Year One

This skillset also served her well as the co-founder and leader of the Birds of Prey; contrary to semi-popular perception, she's not just the Birds' 'Guy in the Chair.' She's the Birds' Leader and Mission Control. She tells them where they need to go, what they need to do, and how to achieve their goals. To put it into James Bond terms, she's their "Q", but she's also their "M."

So if you look at Oracle and you only see "hacker and tech specialist," you are seeing a very limited picture of who Barbara is, what her skillset is and how she uses it, and what her role in the crimefighting community was.

Takeout and Reality TV Concept stemmed from the idea of April texting Draxum that her folks are out and she's ordering Chinese food and does he want any, which results in them eating takeout together while watching bad reality TV. What better way to surrogate father/daughter bond?

honk if you love the monstrous and feminine