August 2012
This is gonna be me whenever my school catches on fire
via sodamnrelatable
Unfortunately…. I’m in college… which means I’m paying to go to that school…
July 2012
“Pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”
—Prof. Harold Hill to Marian Parro (The Music Man)
A Honey-Drenched Home: Honey dripping from above—a sweet fantasy? Not for this Ontario family, who inadvertently harbored 80,000 bees nesting in two colonies within the first-floor ceiling of their house. According to homeowner (and new dad) Kevin Yates, honey began to slowly drip from newly emerged cracks in the living room and kitchen ceilings; a cascade of honey even blew a light bulb after filling it half-full of honey.
This is equal parts terrifying and awesome.
“If you can make pie you can do anything!”
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— Darla, a blogger who won a 1-year membership to the America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School. See her blog post here. (via americastestkitchen)
That’s encouraging, especially considering the first thing I ever made almost completely independently was a Lemon Meringue Pie completely from scratch at the age of about 12.
I’m gonna be really upset if we can’t be friends anymore. Yeah, I made a mistake by going to the top, but you should have listened to me and stopped being an asshat and actually talked to me when I needed to talk to you.
Your friendship was and still is one of the most valuable things that I got out of these internships. I’d hate for it to have gone to waste due to miscommunication.
“Are Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain *really* toxic for the DCU?” (A Question and, hopefully, some Answers.)
The news that Steph Brown was to be replaced at the last moment as Batgirl in an upcoming arc of Smallville was a very heavy blow to her fans, but nowhere near as heavy as the one that came shortly after it: The leaked information that she and Cassandra Cain were considered “toxic” by some higher-ups in DC and were therefore very unlikely to be used in any meaningful way for the foreseeable future. This was, naturally, met with anger and dismay. After all, to be told that a character you hold dear has no place in the current plans of the company is disappointing. But to be told she is “toxic” and therefore never will be is downright crushing.
Perhaps even worse however, was the lack of any official explanation or even any further information on why the company had taken this truly peculiar stance towards two of it’s own characters. Unfortunately, this kind of unhelpful silence is something many of us have come to expect from DC Editorial. None the less, it’s a question that needs answering and, in the absence of an official statement, I’m going to attempt to do just that. So, our question is:
“Are Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain *really* toxic for the DCU?”
Firstly, in the spirit of fairness, we should make sure we know exactly what is meant when a person or character is described as “Toxic”. Sources vary, of course, but according to my copy of the O.E.D there are three accepted definitions for the word toxic. They are as follows:
1 “Poisonous.”
2 “Of, relating to, or caused by a toxin or other poison.”
3 “Capable of causing injury or death.”
Fairly clear cut. What I’m going to do is take a look at each of these definitions in turn and see if they could, fairly, be used to describe either of these characters. Then, after summarising my own thoughts and opinions, I’ll return to the original question with, hopefully, something like a definitive answer. Here goes:
Very nice, thought out article, but ‘toxic’ means that no one at DC is allowed to touch them.
Which is a shame because I would really like to be able to get into some Steph Brown stuff that is new, because I’m starting from scratch. I feel like she’s a character I can identify with, if nothing else because of looks and personality.
