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It's her. It's literally her

*holding you close as you bleed out*

Yeah man... it was a good bit... it was a really good bit... really funny....

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Absolutely tragic that Mia was trained by Connor and all we got for it was a one-off mention in a training montage. I want to see the Connor & Mia training arc!!! I want a longer training montage that is interrupted by plot, I want to see their relationship evolve under this one on one closeness and the adding of the "mentorship" component to their dynamic Mia spend a whole-ass year training I want to see that 😭😭😭

Also they have the potential to be so comedic

Mia, on her 310th push-up: if... If i get to 400 today... You owe me dinner...

Connor: Mia you're staying at my house I feed you dinner every night.

Mia: *wheezing from effort*

Connor: you keep raiding my fridge in the middle of the night.

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More doodles tonight. Still messy but im playin around with brushes yippeee

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(id in alt!)

mia dearden/speedy for marsbeans6 via @dcforgaza ! tysm, requests close on the 21st!

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TARAMIA !?!? HELLO?!?! HOW HAVE I NEVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE YOU ARE A FUCKING GENIUS. I need to sit down

Oh thank god I can finally talk about these two. It’s the imperfect victim vs. imperfect victim duos that always get to me.

So Tara and Mia manage to be very similar and different at the same time. The main place they intersect is in the people writing them. Mia’s arc is flawed but she’s still consistently treated like a kid and they make a point to say that everything that happened to Mia is not her fault. Tara never gets the same kindness.

(Green Arrow 2001 #2 / Teen Titans: Judas Contract)

Unlike Mia, Tara gets the full villain treatment. Reading the interviews about her, it’s so fascinating to me how Wolfman and Perez really did not care about her! At all!! Intentionally making Tara smoke to imply that she’s “an irredeemable bad girl!” And instead just creating a clearly troubled girl? Check. Tara’s unhinged levels of loyalty towards Slade being used in order to prove that she’s impossible to save? Just giving off the impression of a grooming victim? Yeah.

Interview found here.

Where Mia was able to become a hero, Tara was cast aside as a villain. I think that ideally Mia would hear about Tara from stories by the Titans and the alarm bells would go off. When you are being groomed the person grooming you often makes themselves appear more formidable than they really are either as a manipulation tactic (I can make you feel safe. Let your guard down around me and I will become the true monster) or as a threat. I think that Mia would see this and understand what it felt like to be young and scared.

I wish I could say that the titans would be empathetic towards Tara after defeating her, but that’d be a lie. In their defense: Donna was dating a 29 year old when she was 18-19, she had her own issues going on. While Dick is sympathetic towards characters like Donna (though he has so many problems with his own love life anything he says is lovingly hypocritical) that sympathy clearly does not extend towards Tara. Kory is far from naive regarding relationships but NTT #16 shows that she is also a victim of horrible taste - and an alien. Raven sensed Bad Vibes from Tara and Bad Vibes from Slade but she was also raised by monks. In my heart I know that Vic was fine with none of this. Gar shows the most compassion for Tara - one of his few redeeming traits - but everyone else hates him for that for no fucking reason.

I know almost nothing about Joey.

(New Teen Titans: Games)

Of course there’s more titans by the time Mia joins (Cassie, Kon, Bart, and Tim, sort of Rose) but the narrative hates teenage girls so the narrative of Tara Markov is, how Wolfman and Perez put it:

“Anyone who thought after seeing how truly bad she was that we would find a way of redeeming her was being a little naïve. We wanted her to be as much a viper in the garden as we could.”

How fucked up would this be for Mia and Rose. You see a girl that reminds you of yourself, but unlike you, everyone hates her. She’s a story for new members to gossip at and croon about how stupid the originals must have been to let a freak like her on the team. It was inevitable, really. 

Two things to know about Mia Dearden:

She has come so far in her journey as a survivor. And her openness as sexual assault survivor and as someone with HIV is one of the best parts of her character.

(Green Arrow 2001 #45)

2. The perfect victim does not exist.

(Green Arrow 2001 #11) 

Mia gives speeches to educate people on HIV. She’s too scared to tell the Titans she has it because she doesn’t want them to judge her. Mia’s a rape survivor, and she’s hypersexual as a result - something that is rarely ever talked about despite being extremely common.

Mia’s journey is good because it isn’t linear. Contrast this with Tara;

(Deathstroke 2016 #27) 

Tara’s journey has also never been linear. She was groomed (like Mia) and never truly recovered in the way Mia could. She will always be a warning to do proper background checks, she will always be the villain because she’s “impossible” to redeem. Personally I don’t even think she needs to be redeemed, I just think she needs to kiss a girl and murder Slade. 

This is a long way of saying that I want them to meet. Maybe if Mia got to stay with the Titans for longer she could run into Tara, they learn about each other and it fixes absolutely nothing because Tara is bitter as fuck about why a girl so similar to her was given a chance but she got none of them.

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Some Mia Dearden headcanons that live in my head rent-free (my head is a very angsty place)

Mia who has dating app accounts where she flirts with much older men, sexts with them, may even suggest exchanging intimate pictures, and blocks them in repulsion the second she receives a picture.

Mia who flirts with older men specifically by putting emphasis on her age and presenting it as her greatest quality and feeling an odd sort of reassurance warring along anger any time it seems to work.

Mia who rereads Lolita compulsively in hopes for understanding, for closure, for answers she is never going to find.

Mia who thinks she sees her father in the street and has nightmares for weeks. Mia who wonders, everytime she meets a man, if she knew him on the streets, or with Jake, when she asleep or doped up and she can't remember them. When the faces have all blurred up and she's lost track and she can never know. And she has to deal with the doubt, always.

Mia who doesn't talk about her father. Mia who talks about the streets, the rapes, and hiv without flinching and daring you to look away. Mia who falls asleep in public and wakes up and has a loud, messy breakdown with heaving and sobbing and screaming in front of everyone when she wakes up and doesn't understand why she's so torn up over something apparently so minor.

Mia who knows everything about sex and nothing about sex. Mia who wishes Connor had been her first kiss.

Mia who feels more naked with her hair down than without a shirt. Mia who goes to support groups and does not speak. Mia who wants to face the problem head-on, who decided long before asking permission that vigilantism had saved her and vigilantism would save her, Mia who wants to be seduced and who wants her childhood back and Mia who will never get it back, Mia who is so brave and so scared of being a victim and Mia who is so proud. Mia who is so ashamed.

Mia who isn't a pure, perfect victim, or a rightful avenger, Mia who is messy, Mia who built herself on a perilous foundation. Mia who has to defend, always, that she was right to do whatever she needed to survive, she can fight back, she's a hero, she can take anything. Mia who is so determined to live with it, like she always has, because she has always been, at her core, a survivor.

And survival has never been righteous. Or simple. Or pretty.

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Tbh I really don't know why

But I do want to read an issue where Mia fights a sapient giant polar bear

Like

Her taking joy in fighting, making witty comments and laughing as he snarks back (this is a funny polar bear), performing feats of acrobatics and strength, strategic trick arrow use... I have so many angsty, deep, intense arc ideas for Mia that are so important to me, stories about confronting trauma and healing and the importance of your support system and her relationship to heroism and grief and so much stuff. But also. I'd love stories about Mia having fun and being competent. Stories that don't tie in to her trauma and backstory, stories about her doing detective work and her becoming even better at her job and her enjoying and growing to let herself enjoy the things she loves and I want fans to know her from her epic polar bear fight or the time she was fighting a villain on an iced lake and had to figure out how to not fall in the water or Mia getting involved into a heist leverage-style. I could read so much of that shit

Really I just want to read Speedy versus giant polar bear who can speak

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Mia and Dinah in Green Arrow vol 3 #34

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While I'm still on my "cover art" stuff: when we get deeper into Mia's healing arc, I'm thinking some sort of Samson reference redraw where she's standing between two broken columns and holding the ceiling to stop the building from crumbling over her. And her hair is loose, very long, blonde on top and black in the bottom half- her natural colour showing again after she died it black. And she's stopping the building from crumbling by the sheer strength of her muscles. She's grimacing with the effort, but she's doing it. There are beautiful vines blooming with rainflowers climbing all around the columns, and her bow is lying at her feet, half overgrown with cress.

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opinions on canon mia killing her dad?

Yes

YES

I have a whole story plot around that tbh it's extremely important to me

Imo it should be an avoidable accident, like she was defending herself but also because of the anger/panic she uses way more force than intended. And I think it should be something like using a heavy object to hit him in the head and bashing his skull in. And I think once realising that he's finally, fully dead, she should have a moment of bloodlust with a red background and continue kicking him and stepping onto him and bashing his skull with the object until he's unrecognisable. And then she should come down from that, realize what she's done and fall to her knees in the puddle of blood, and that should trigger the beginning of a long crash-out Mia era where her mental health is at rock bottom she tries to quit both speedy and titans she runs away dyes her hair etc etc. That era would be like a long arc spanning over several titles in GA, titans and more, and then at the end obviously she'd get support and accept it and that should be the beginning of a healing arc (including her going to support groups, etc.) but also, as a new beginning, the start of her own solo Speedy ongoing.

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*sigh* absolutely tragic that I do not have the artistic skill to pull that off but like

The Speedy/Ravager : Swan Lake mini is three issues long, and I'm haunted by visions of the covers inspired by Black Swan posters...

Like listen listen listen

The cover of issue #1 has Mia in this pose/set up:

Her reflection in the mirror is equally faceless and creepy; however, the reflection is wearing this get-up instead of the ballerina costume:

(rest under the cut for length because I am realising that i have post length issues)

Issue #2 has a close up of Rose like this:

(yes I just inverted the poster). However, note that the glass cracks in the mirror are running right through her eye rather than next to it. And yeah, my Rose Wilson has brown eyes.

And finally, issue #3 has them both in the cover doing this pose, with Mia on the left and Rose on the right.

They're both wearing their superhero suits, however the colours have been altered so that Mia is in full black and Rose is in full white. Mia's hair is undone, almost completely loose with the remnants of a bun; Rose is wearing a tight bun and she isn't wearing her eyepatch, her eye socket is empty. The background is a mirror with long spiderweb fractures running through it, the break seeming to originate from a hole in the mirror in a red (perhaps bloody?) handprint seeming to come from the other side of the mirror. The impact point in the mirror fits perfectly in the palm of the red handprint, like a stigmata.

Rose and Mia's suits in the last panel:

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Butch Mia Dearden for @dcforgaza

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Mia dearden deserves everything in the world

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Part one of the Swan Lake Speedy/Ravager mini comic concept

In my heart the art is drawn by Philo Noto jsyk

The story begins with Mia, in civilian, hair up in a ponytail, sitting at the counter of a bar. She's flirting with the barman, fishing for information, and there's a tension here, and she remains in control of the interaction the entire time. She's asking about the disappearance of a couple of girls. Someone bumps into her and slips her a piece of paper. Later, she meets with a concerned young woman, who tells her about the disappearance of her friend Eden, a sex-worker and pole-dancer at a local club. Eden left all of a sudden, stating that she had been recruited by the Everlong Grand Ballet Company to complete her dream of being a famous dancer- which struck her as strange, since Eden might have been great at pole dancing, but she's never done ballet, and never mentioned auditioning anywhere. Despite promising to keep in touch, Eden is currently uncontactable, and has been since she left. Mia agrees that this is suspicious and suspects that the ballet company might be a front for trafficking behind the recent disappearances.

We cut to Oliver arriving home and calling for Mia, only to find a note telling him she's investigating the company and that she'll contact her if she needs help. Ollie calls her phone, but it goes to Mia's snarky voicemail. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to convince himself that it's fine, she's an adult who can do what she wants.

Mia arrives at the EGBC, reflecting on how grand and prestigious everything is. She's aware that though she is good at jazz and acro dancing, she's absolutely not a ballet dancer, but is using auditioning for the company as an excuse to investigate what's going on in the building. She arrives in a black top and loose black pants in front of a panel of judges, including Walkers, the director of the company, and performs a piece of acrobat dancing that includes a number of impressive gymnastic/aerial moves but also is kinda aggressive (the art should be reminiscent of some Speedy combat moves). After the dance is finished, she's shocked to see Walkers smile and say that they might just have found their Black Swan.

Baffled and suspicious, Mia is directed to go pick up her things and then install herself in a private room in the dorm building. As she leaves it's night, and we see her walk in a dark underpass; she passes across a woman with white hair and a white coat. She doesn't seem to notice her, but we recognize her as Rose Wilson, though she seems, strangely, to have both her eyes.

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Love how mia always sits with her knees up to her chest, my girl <3

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Hi there, I was wondering, do you know if Rose can or could know how to dance? Or if she has an ability that could allow her to learn it super quickly ? (Preferably ballet, though I'll take any discipline)

Asking for no reason at all! (<- girl who is definitely not trying to cram all her blackswan rosemia thoughts into a cohesive storyline)

Rose doesn't dance canonically as far as I'm aware but she has enhanced reflexes and she's a "master of the martial arts" so she'd probably pick it up really fast.

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I see your blorbo

You see my blorbo

?

Our blorbos are on a playdate while we sip wine in the sitting room