thefirsttodare:I can’t say how much I love this. How, as an...

thefirsttodare:

I can’t say how much I love this. How, as an insecure woman and awkward women, encouraging it was to see Barbara Gordon - one of the strongest women in all of comics - telling all of those secret hurts and shames and struggles that every girl, in one way or another, can relate to.

(From Birds of Prey 84)

I am going to reveal something weird,  I normally don’t get nervous writing scenes, but in this case, I was completely terrified. It took ages to get it exactly how I wanted, I asked my writer friends about it (which I never do), and I was actually shaking writing it at spots.

It seemed so oddly personal and even invasive of the characters, it was such a little raw nerve. Barbara’s “sins” are pretty minor, but that’s part of why it was so powerful to me to write them, because she would be embarrassed and ashamed of these minor transgressions. So many of us are much harder on ourselves than on others, and Barbara most of all.

Her opening up like that to Helena, who is furious at her already, it felt incredibly vulnerable.

Some scenes fall like water off a waterfall, others are like walking on razor wire barefoot. It sounds silly to say that about this quiet scene in a superhero comic, but if you are truly invested in the work, you can get emotional over a soda commercial, sometimes.

It makes me uncomfortable to read even now, which is as it should be, I think.