mysterycitrus - Tumblr blog

[mysterycitrus]

Quick question about how you decide what comics to care about? When it comes to characterization?

I know there’s comics that are generally considered ooc and no one really incorporates them into their characterizations. (Eg: I skimmed All Star Batman and Robin for fun. I now understand why people call him Crazy Steve, and I’m obviously not going to be taking this particular iteration of Batman and Robin into account when characterizing them.) But other than these really obvious instances, how do you deal with it? Like, I know fans of pre-N52 comics avoided a lot of stuff during that time? But now that we’re in Rebirth? I know that characterization in comic fandoms is always a bit thorny because of comic books as a medium, with all those different writers, timeline resets, etc… But you seem to have a really good handle on that, cause whenever I read any of your stuff and then read a comic, I’m usually like, yeah, same person here. Which I think is a feat! So, do you sort on vibes? Writers? Another metric? Case by case? TLDR: How do you deal when a character canonically says/does something that makes you go, “he would not fucking say that?”

Love your blog! And your writing!!!! Thank you!!!!!

ahh, crazy steve. what a guy (derogatory)

hmmmmmm for me personally if im writing a character i generally identify a “core” comic, regardless of retcons or conflicting characterisation, and then go off that. im reading a lot of bart allen atm so i focused on mark waid and todd dezago and completely ignored everything geoff johns has done with the character. for dick, scott snyder and judd winick are kinda the benchpoint for me, and then i kinda pick and choose (from wolfman, dixon, higgins, etc) what i think fits with that character. jason is easy cause he’s only had two comics worth anyone’s time. weirdly, some of roys best comics are written by devin grayson. so on and so forth.

wrt “he wouldn’t fucking say that” disease of which i am a chronic sufferer, I look back on dick (as an example) and his legacy characterisation, and whether or not it would make sense. not all legacy characterisation is good, mind!! but it’s generally easier to get a good benchmark if u go off a period when writers weren’t terminally on twitter. a lot of it is case by case, and i just map that in my brain

idk like SO much of it is just vibes and trying to create some internal consistency. like u said — there is so much conflicting characterisation and plotting and events that it can be very difficult so u just kinda have to trust ur own intuition. when i first posted persephone and got positive feedback for how i wrote dick I was kinda surprised — cause how i write him tends to clash with his popular depiction in both fandom and many modern comics. ig my real advice if ur writing (or reading) about these characters is to not fear complexity, and be conscious of exactly how racist most comic writers are.

[mysterycitrus]

Some of the responses to your dick social media post are so… like I can buy that he might have social media accounts on like twt/ig for himself but they’re so dead. Their main purpose is to have grabbed his name to prevent an impersonation issue. At most he occasionally posts about whatever the latest WE charity effort is but I think even that’s a stretch given how much he refused to publicly associate himself w Bruce in NW96; an argument could be made that it’d be impossible to do that now given the Internet but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I could also see him having a NW twitter for similar reasons but again, v dead. It’s exclusively (extremely rare) PSAs, but nothing abt specific people or groups or anything that could encourage outside interference on a case or anything. No pics of him, all extremely impersonal. Definitely no thirst traps or regular funny posts or anything, because Jesus Christ he’d never do that.

people reading that post apparently:

[mysterycitrus]

drawing a flying graysons group pic ft. the somersault and feeling a little unhinged

[mysterycitrus]

I love you Black lesbians. love you Native and Indigenous lesbians. many kisses for my Hispanic and Latino lesbians. lots of love for every Asian lesbian out there. i love every lesbian poc you're all amazing and deserve to be acknowledged this lesbian week of visibility<3

[mysterycitrus]

why does jason use the elephant to represent himself? i assumed it was to represent dick until i think you mentioned somewhere that it was him as robin, which i was kind of confused about. is it because he was fulfilling dick's old role as robin? or a callback to his original origin? i reread wolf king and got really curious

the elephant is for dick — jason constructed the altar in remembrance of himself as robin by honouring those he thinks grieved his passing. u are remembered by the people who knew u, and all that, so the reasons for the altar are less linear and more nebulous;

although jason can’t quite vocalise the significance of the elephant, even in his own head —

i thought how everyone subconsciously associating dick with elephants to the point of emotionally spiralling was fun. then in turn, jason gives the elephant to a freshly seventeen year old dick grayson, a sign of mourning for a boy who no longer exists. etc etc.

the altar was originally gonna stick to just the people at the funeral (babs and jim, particularly) but then it broadened a little to include more people jason knew in his first life. there were some people i cut for simplicities sake (nocturna and rena as examples) but yeah. bruce is excluded for obvious reasons. it also means that when dick gives jason a bluejay figurine in return, it’s literal a call and answer.

like, a small token representing dick’s own grief. and jason, in return, cannot bare to look at it for long

[mysterycitrus]

it burns like fire

[mysterycitrus]

lucky last

when i finish my deaged!dick grayson fic that engages with the traumatic legacy of the robin mantle…… and the ghost of mary grayson….. and bruce waynes violent relationship with loss…… then my vision shall be realised

[mysterycitrus]

add some visual distinction between the wonderfam by having them embrace specific mythological motifs — donna should lean into the moon + stars and cassie should have some sky and lightning symbolism. diana is more grounded comparatively to reflect her commitment to love and the people of the world

[mysterycitrus]

sometimes you have to search up a character on your own blog just to see what a real one is saying about them

[mysterycitrus]

it’s soooo interesting how dick graysons oversexualisation coincides with the retcon that he’s now a romani man — a demographic that has always been oversexualised and dehumanised. it’s soooo crazy the thrice survivor of sexual assault keeps getting ugly covers all about his ass. its wiiiiild how bruce wayne— a character whose alter ego is purposely sexualised — is never treated this way. damn, can’t imagine why

[mysterycitrus]

TWO HOURS AGO: an incredible photo taken by a ut austin student capturing something deeply poetic in my opinion, a line of state troopers eagerly waiting to arrest student protesters standing just behind a sign that reads "what starts here changes the world. its starts with you and what you do each day."

[mysterycitrus]

tim drake trying to explain something complex but he keeps changing the subject mid sentence and taking ages to circle back to his original point and the only ones who can follow the conversation are kon (used to bart), dick (used to wally), bart (used to tim), steph (also yaps), and babs (autism)

[mysterycitrus]

while dick grayson is notoriously hyperfocused on work and will stay at a computer terminal for days at a time (re titans 99) i do think in his civilian life he’d be a bit too fidgety to sit and be like…. a voracious reader. like he definitely enjoys it but there’s always something else to do. his leg goes to sleep and he takes a walk around the apartment and then gets distracted reorganising his gear, etc. with that in mind i feel he’d be super into audiobooks. he’d use the shit outta libby. he’s a huge fan of those big cast performances, like they did for sandman or any graphicaudio production. i do feel he is a calvin and hobbes fiend, however

[mysterycitrus]

my arc as a nightwing fan is complete (got blocked by tom taylor on twitter)

[mysterycitrus]

also thinking about dickroy as two people with absolute faith in the other + dick being allowed to step back from the spotlight around roy + roy trusting that someone will always be at his back my beloveds

[mysterycitrus]

if given the chance bruce and talia could have such an incredible dynamic in comics if only writers stopped being incredibly racist to talia

if dc somehow refrained from being racist about talia for a single second and embraced the fact that bruce waynes autistic swag is like catnip to hot women with complicated pasts we would literally witness the love story of a generation

[mysterycitrus]

bruce and talia’s relationship defined by distance — distance between their goals, their philosophy, their conversation, the physical distance between gotham and the rest of the world. their son is a bridge of conversation, with talia’s smile and bruce’s nose. when they speak, it is of constructed metaphor several layers thick. her blade is sharp, her gaze gentle. when they meet he presses a kiss to the centre of her palm. she cups a hand to his neck, his cheekbone, his eyelid. then she leaves, and does not turn back.