#…​the very concept that Dick Grayson could be a victim in that way…

[benbamboozled]

I’m just gonna come right out and say it…

Dick Grayson, on a character level, did not need a “fix-it” for the original Nightwing #93 arc—ESPECIALLY not one that was just a shallow retread but now with extra 0 emotional stakes, 0 build up, and a pastede on yay happy ending.

[the-woker]

The whole Jason Todd is girl-coded debate thing admittedly just rubs me the wrong way.

I understand that there are people who consider gender as a concept and there are other people who consider gender to be something very real. Both are correct and very valid statements of expression, but someone who is genderless and has a heavy respect and fondness for the feminine and people with such experiences, I feel like what we are declaring 'girl-coded' should probably be a bit more analyzed and taken with more care.  

I have no ill-will to any of the people who post about this, they all seem like kind people, and everyone is entitled to their opinions and to posting them.  There is nothing wrong with projecting onto a character, identifying with their struggle and using that to cope with your trauma.  As someone who’s favorite character of all time is Jason Todd, and enjoys gender-weirdness,  and has been severely mistreated for being perceived as feminine before, I understand entirely. 

But there's a point when I can't help but feel uncomfortable with assigning being violent, a victim, “hysterical angry-like a girl”, expressing rage via screaming, and looking up to women in general as 'girl moments' and explicitly stating these as the reasons a male character is girl coded. And those have been the very specific points I have seen cited as what traits Jason has that make him "girl-coded."

I'm putting this all under a read more since this discussion is really not that deep, nor is it really relevant to the average Jason Todd tag surfer. It's just something I keep seeing talked about in the past few months.

Admittedly, just to begin with, the argument that what makes Jason ‘girl-coded’ is the fact that he is a victim in general, has strong connections with women, tends to like strong and muscular women, and has been vitriol in his screaming matches with other characters simply does not sit well with me as an explanation for what people are associating women with.  A female character can indeed do everything Jason did in a comic story, and I would enjoy it greatly, however staking these specific traits of his as the “feminine” ones is treading into a dangerous territory.

Especially since I’ve seen a few times now that people are claiming Jason and Batman’s fight in UTRH to be a Patriarchy metaphor and how Jason represents women’s struggles. The first problem I have with that claim, is very simply that Jason and Bruce’s fight is explicitly not about Bruce being a system that failed to protect Jason.

Nor is it about a pressure for Jason to return to conforming to Bruce and his rules.  Bruce wants him back with him, because Bruce loves Jason, but at no point does he attempt to force him to return to him, nor does he even force him to stop killing.  He certainly gets in the way and he prevents several of them, but when given the direct choice to either kill or force Jason to stop killing, he simply walks away and only intervenes after Jason attempts to kill Bruce himself. Calling this an analogy for women fighting against oppression by an organized system designed to exploit them, is not an apt metaphor, as likable and sympathetic as it is towards Jason, and I’d personally recommend avoiding it.

In general, on that topic.  The argument could be made for other male members of the Batfam (take Dick Grayson’s constant sexual harassment for being a ‘pretty boy’ for example.), but Jason is also simply just not a victim of the Patriarchy.

Unlike Stephanie Brown, Jason was accepted immediately by Bruce as Robin and as part of the family.  He was murdered by his mother for being an obstacle in her operation of stealing from starving people, and by a madman who killed him for being one of his nemeses.  His murder was upsetting but had nothing to do with him not presenting himself as society claimed he should, nor for not obeying said society's customs and arbitrary rules.

Under the Red Hood is a fascinating, engaging, philosophical, and extremely emotional piece of media and it’s a favorite for many people (including me) for a reason.  Highlighting Jason’s actions as being a ‘girl moment’ when he is intentionally trying to push past Bruce’s only boundary, however, is an uncomfortable idea to proclaim. Especially considering when and how Bruce tries to negotiate and reason with Jason. Jason quite literally holds their relationship, and his life, over Bruce in an attempt to get him to behave how he wants, claiming that he does so as an expression of femininity has horrible implications. Jason is entirely allowed to do what he wants (I enjoy it greatly. His violence is very sexy and honestly we should bring it back) but that is a gender neutral choice, and I wouldn’t say that this run nor his backstory have much in common with women’s struggles to label them as “clearly being such”.

Additionally, The narrative is also not portraying Jason as “hysterical”; this was his first proper return to comics after 20 years. The intention of the narrative is to challenge the morality of Batman and to open an in-universe line of discourse for a discussion that for years, has been, and still is relevant in the comic community.  

Jason’s death was notoriously the moment that Batman got closest to breaking his rule and so they brought Jason back to be the character who pushed him on why he maintained it.  They made Jason angry and violent to raise the stakes of what the Joker did to him, and to raise the question of if there was a crime so horrible that it was a moral failing to continue the pacifist approach to criminal reform.  Jason is being treated in a significantly kinder light than most of the characters we would traditionally see doing these actions.  We all agree Lock-up was a bad guy, we can agree that the League of Assassins is wrong, but we’re given a chance to take Jason at face value and are not immediately told how to feel despite the narrative showing us his violence in a raw and uncut way. Killing a bunch of drug dealers while rising in the ranks of the drug trade yourself is hardly a selfless act of good after all. 

Disclaimer 1:  I don’t think Jason is entirely wrong about many things.  But I simply do not believe Bruce “owes” him killing, and that it is wrong of Jason to demand this of him or anyone for that matter. Nobody owes you their innocence and you aren’t entitled to breaking anyone’s boundaries. 

Disclaimer 2:  I cannot stress enough how much I like Jason.  This post is not meant to make anyone feel bad, or make Jason seem like the “bad guy” of the fandom.  It’s simply a disservice to his character to write him off as nothing more than an angry victim and call it an expression of femininity, and a reminder to be a bit more careful when labeling and assigning traits. 

[0pin0n-custard]

Harley Quinn Season 3 Episode 2 and DC’s Refusal to Address Harm

**TW Discussion of Sexual Assault, Victim Blaming, Mental Health Issues, and Suicide**

Please note that I am writing this as a survivor of rape, and as someone who suffers from PTSD and dissociation

Hearing that Nightwing was making an appearing in Harley Quinn really got me excited. I wanted to see how they’d depict him and what they’d do with his character.

Overall, my feelings are mixed. And it’s all because of one line.

Yep. The “I let Vigilante kill Blockbuster” line that had “I let Tarantula kill Blockbuster” in the closed captions.

I could get on my soapbox for hours about Nightwing 93 and its absolutely abhorrent handling of rape. Devin Grayson did a fucking horrible job, and her victim blaming commentary did nothing to help her cause. She’s since addressed this, but I personally can’t bring myself to forgive her for the genuine harm she caused.

As an aside, please don’t go harass her. That isn’t ok. You don’t have to like her; just don’t harass her.

Back on topic, DC handled Nightwing’s rape by pretending that it never happened. Nightwing 93 isn’t in print and the assault was never addressed in the comics again.

So you can imagine my genuine shock when the I was watching Harley Quinn (with subtitles on because auditory processing is a bitch) and I heard/saw that line drop.

I want to make one thing very clear. I’m not opposed to DC acknowledging its fuck-ups. They made Dick’s rape canon, so it’s better to address it and handle it in a proper, respectful manner than to just shove it away and hope no one remembers.

But the way that it was handled in the show frustrated me for two reasons.

1. The lack of acknowledgment (again)

Yep. DC really fucked up in that regard. No surprise there.

The people behind Harley Quinn all collectively decided that mentioning Nightwing 93 was a good idea.

And I agree! Harley Quinn has plenty of moments where they address serious subject matter (like… ya know.. how the Joker treated Harley.) They managed to pull that off in a way that kept the humor, set the stage for the show, but also remained respectful towards survivors of domestic violence. It’s a perfect platform for the long-ignored assault to be processed.

But then they pulled a Devin Grayson (although to a significantly less harmful degree) by simply not acknowledging it.

Dick wasn’t upset because of what Tarantula did. He was upset that he let Blockbuster die. Just like in the comics.

And to make matters worse, somewhere along the line, someone had the bright idea that “hey maybe we shouldn’t mention Tarantula because of what happened.” And the voice line got changed to “Vigilante.”

This doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. Nightwing 93 is infamous in the fandom. You mention Blockbuster’s death, and fans are gonna know exactly what event is being referred to. You can’t just bring it up and change the name around. We all know what happened, and, to me, it feels like the show erased Nightwing’s trauma (again.)

Not to mention, the subtitle wasn’t changed. So… that was kinda a dead giveaway.

Either the creators realized midway through development that mentioning Tarantula would be a bit ~controversial~, had Nightwing’s VA do a quick redo, and then forgot to change the CC, or the DC higher ups weren’t too happy that Tarantula was brought up, told the Harley Quinn team to change it, and they did but also kept the CC the same. Idk which.

Not to mention, the fact that it was changed somewhere along the line means that DC recognized that Dick had been raped in Nightwing 93, and made the deliberate decision to silence him once again.

Either way, DC fucked up the soup by sticking their toe in it, then trying to pretend like they didn’t.

2. Dick Grayson’s Characterization

Harley Quinn is a dark comedy. It pokes fun at its cast all the time. Dick being dramatic and trying too hard to be like Batman is a really funny concept; I like how the show ran with it. Dick being overly confident and fucking up the chess? Honestly, pretty damn hilarious and a good in-character caricature.

It’s his subsequent breakdown that I take issue with.

Because despite someone’s best efforts, Tarantula was mentioned. And as I said before, almost every DC fan knows what Tarantula did to Nightwing.

The moment that the Blockbuster incident was brought up, Harley Quinn’s version of Nightwing became a survivor of sexual assault. You can’t separate the two incidents; trust me- DC has tried.

And so, Dick’s breakdown in the escape room gained a new, darker context. Dick’s emotional instability wasn’t just due to his allowance for Blockbuster’s death; it was also because he’d recently been raped.

Dick’s suicidal behavior wasn’t just him being overly-dramatic. And that scene became significantly less humorous with the added context of Nightwing 93.

The resolution felt really half-baked as well. Even putting the rape aside, Dick was still really traumatized by what happened with Blockbuster. His fear over his family’s reactions wasn’t addressed. The ending felt rushed and, to a degree, unsatisfactory.

I know that some of you might be saying that I’m looking too deep into this, and that it’s just a TV show. But to me, it’s not.

I have wanted DC to actually address Nightwing 93 for years. Dick Grayson has been the victim of several instances of abuse, assault, and rape. The character has endured so much trauma, and yet DC ignores it; they allowed it to happen, but they refuse to give him the time of day to actually address it.

I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve seen made by fanboys about how “lucky” Nightwing was for being raped by Tarantula and Mirage. About how his relationship with Liu wasn’t statutory rape. Etc. etc.

It’s fucking disgusting, and DC is partially to blame. By continuously making Nightwing the victim of sexual assault, and then never addressing it as such, they are sending out a very harmful message.

By never acknowledging the trauma, they’re implying that it wasn’t trauma. By ignoring the rape, they’re leaving the door open for assholes to say that it wasn’t rape to begin with.

This has real world consequences.

Male survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, abuse, rape, etc. are constantly invalidated and ignored by society. (Non-male victims are ignored and invalidated as well; I’m just specifically discussing male victims right now.)

Boys are called lucky if their female teacher rapes them. Men are called weak if a woman rapes them. Men are emasculated if another man rapes them.

Even “safe” spaces aren’t safe for them. Most survivor resources use female-only language, thus making many men and gender non-conforming people feel unwelcome. I’ve experienced this IRL.

By never addressing the harm they caused, DC has allowed Dick Grayson to become a symbol of a silenced victim, never allowed to share his story or process his trauma.

But despite all of that, many survivors, myself included, have found comfort in Dick Grayson.

*just a warning for some trauma dumping from my own life, but it’s relevant to the topic at hand i promise*

In 2020, I moved to a new state (I live in the U.S.) I was all alone; my entire support system was over 500 miles away. Only a few weeks after I moved into my new apartment, I was sexually assaulted only a block away.

When I called my mom, she blamed me and took the time to shame me for being on testosterone. My (now ex) boyfriend blamed me and refused to visit me. My friends were only able to offer surface-level support. I was completely alone.

When I say that Nightwing saved my life, I genuinely mean it. For years by that point I’d been processing my trauma and life in general through the lenses of media and fanfiction. Reading fanfictions that actually addressed and expanded upon Nightwing 93 became my primary coping skill. I can’t thank the fanfic authors enough tbh. I projected myself onto Dick Grayson. I, a man who survived sexual assault and dissociation only to be invalidated, saw myself in that fictional character. He was more a hero in my eyes than ever before. Nightwing got me through that shit. Fanfictions that actually addressed and handled Nightwing’s trauma got me through that shit. Was that entirely healthy? No. But I didn’t have many options at that point. They kept me alive. That’s all that matters.

*ok trauma dumping is over sorry about that.*

I wish Harley Quinn had been different. I wish that the show had been the one to finally give Dick a voice in DC. I wish that it hadn’t censored out Tarantula’s name. I wish it had handled it like it handled Harley’s trauma. I wish it had given me and other survivors representation.

I wish that it hadn’t subsequently turned Dick into a suicide joke.

Approximately 33% of women who are victims of sexual assault contemplate suicide. 13% of them attempt it.

I’d give you a statistic based on male victims or a non-gendered sample, but such a study hasn’t been published. (At least, not based on 20 minutes of searching both google and academic articles.)

I understand and fully embrace that Harley Quinn is a dark comedy. It makes dark jokes, and a lot of them get a laugh out of me. But given the context of.. everything, that scene just felt in poor taste. Especially since his suicidal behavior wasn’t addressed again.

Thankfully, Harley Quinn isn’t over yet. I’m really hoping that DC will actually explore Dick’s trauma and give him a respectful, kind, long-overdue resolution to Nightwing 93.

But based on DC’s past and current behavior, I’m not getting my hopes up.

And please know, this whole rant is not me saying that Harley Quinn is a bad show or that the creative team is like Devin Grayson or that they need to be cancelled or anything like that. Not at all. I’m still going to continue watching and enjoying the show. I think it’s really good, and I love what it’s doing for Gotham characters. I blame the DC higher-ups wayyyyy more than I would ever blame the Harley Quinn team.

I just wanted to put my thoughts and frustrations out into the universe, because I’m very tired of survivors (regardless of gender) being silenced, ignored, and mocked.

[navree]

how would you write Jason and the Batfam in the ASOIAF Universe 🤔👀

Ah, the two Great Interests (at least in terms of this week and what people want me to talk about)

The big thing is that I think Jason should get a dragon. You may be asking why Jason should have a dragon, and the simple answer is that I like dragons, and I like Jason, therefore Jason should have a dragon. This isn't even ASOIAF specific, if the main comics gave Jason Todd a dragon that he used to fuck shit up and murder all the various people who have victimized him over the years I would never speak a negative word about DC ever again for the rest of my life. #GiveJasonToddADragon

In all seriousness, Batfam can actually work in that sort of environment (which is why there are a LOT of medieval/fantasy AU fics out there for them) because they don't fall into the traditional format of the nuclear family, which is only a concept that really developed in the mid-20th century. Families in the times that ASOIAF pulls from, and thus ASOIAF by extension, are a lot more fluid, and so is the Batfam, for all that they are an actual family. I may have mentioned this before, but there are really only three of the kids that have actually considered Bruce as "Dad", no ifs ands or buts, from start to finish: Damian, as Bruce is his biological father, Cass, because David Cain is a piece of shit, and Jason, either because writers make Willis abusive to the point where Jason wants nothing to do with him, or even because he'd already been out of his life so significantly at such an early age due to jail-time and was unlikely to re-enter it so Jason just didn't really have space to view him as a father at this point. Everyone else has significant relationships with parents, particularly fathers, that's important to their characters (Steph's father is why she become a vigilante, Tim was actually really attached to his parents and has spent more time identifying primarily as a Drake than a Wayne, John Grayson's murder is a very significant and impactful event in Dick's life and someone he continuously honors for the rest of it, Barbara's dad is literally alive and present in her life and a good parent and Bruce's fuckin friend), so it does fit more into the fluidity of a world where warding and fosterage exists as part of the family dynamic, like how Ned spent more time in Eyrie with Robert due to both being fostered by Jon Arryn, and the bonds that creates.

So when it comes to Batfam, I could see, for example, Tim being the son of a more minor House being fostered by Bruce, especially if he's, like, the liege lord (and given that even in the main comics Bruce is basically more famous than God, him being a Lord Paramount of one of the Kingdoms would track), and eventually developing a bond similar to what we saw between Ned/Robert and Jon Arryn. And given that there was a tendency for brides to live among the groom's family during the betrothal period, if you wanna add some TimSteph, then that's a way to do it too (plus given the sexual mores of Westeros, you can even keep Tim two-timing both Steph and his girlfriend at the same time like in the comics! ok sorry that's the only bit of Tim-bashing you'll get I don't hate the little guy but he did do that). If you want to hew close to the comics and thus explain, for instance, why Damian wasn't raised by Bruce from the getgo but kept away for the first ten years of his life, you could have him be a bastard (from an Essosi noblewoman) that Bruce only finds out about, explaining why he has non-biological children/heirs as well. With Dick, I'd imagine him starting out not as a foster situation the way that we'd make Tim, but maybe a squire or smth while Bruce was pursuing knighthood when younger (to pull on how Bruce is significantly closer in age to Dick than his other kids and was a lot younger when he took him in) who takes on a more and more familial role as his parents die, given that young squires aren't out of keeping (Dunk and Egg, for example), and if Batman is The Dark Knight, what is Robin if not the squire?

For Jason specifically, I think you can keep a lot of his original backstory. If we assume that Bruce is lord paramount of a Kingdom with a big urban center, for instance, or even just plainly the king and thus has lands that include the largest urban center in Westeros, King's Landing, you can keep Jason's background as the child of an underprivileged family who eventually has to live on the streets and do a lot of unsavory things to survive after his parents are no longer able to take care of him. How he'd come into contact with Bruce is a bit more of a question, but as HOTD has shown us, half of these noble fuckers like to spend their time sneaking out of their castles and prancing around in hoodies to mingle with the commoners, and Jason in any universe is going to catch Bruce's eye because he's just that special (my favoritism is showing I'm aware but I don't care). And if Bruce is a lord/monarch who is unmarried and without children, and thus without heirs (especially since his family is small as Hell, Kate and her immediate fam are basically his own blood relatives until Damian comes along), then adopting a child to be his heir isn't as hard a sell (not to mention it is a common fantasy/mythological trope, to say nothing of how the Romans did this all the time).

One big change is that Jason probably doesn't die. Resurrection exists in ASOIAF, as we see with Beric Dondarrion and Catelyn/Lady Stoneheart and are likely gonna see with Jon Snow if George finishes TWOW before the 22nd century, but it operates on a much different level than how DC does it. Resurrection is an arduous, heinous process, deeply rooted in magic, and what gets brought back is never entirely the person who died. Beric doesn't remember a good chunk of his life before dying by the time we see him, nor does he really act like a human being, and Lady Stoneheart is of course entirely different to Cat, not to mention still physically quite dead due to the time that elapsed between her murder and being brought back. DC doesn't do that, resurrection doesn't have these heavy consequences for the resurrected party, as seen with Jason. Because Jason did not, in fact, come back wrong, he came back changed, and that change would have existed even if he survived, because Jason's change in morality and motivation is heavily influenced by his suffering at the hands of the Joker and the failure of those around him to prevent that or otherwise save him from it. So Jason in an ASOIAF verse likely doesn't die, but probably has something closer to the Arkham games/my theory on Rhaenys the Conqueror during the first Dornish War, in that at some point he is missing and eventually presumed dead, and likely not in a good physical place for a good chunk of time, before he somehow ends up far away from home to recuperate (in Essos? since we made Talia an Essosi noblewoman and she's key to his regaining faculties in the comics).

There'd also be a lot more social consciousness as it relates to oppression in Jason than we see in most ASOIAF characters. Jason as a character is someone who is defined by injustice, injustices done to him and injustices done to others (it's why, if I ever get a genie wish and am able to make the Batman show I literally have in my head, a lot of the focus of Jason's Robin tenure would absolutely be on how he wants to make his vigilantism something that does significantly help underprivileged communities that Bruce and Dick previously ignored because neither of them had to live on that side of the line, I have a lot of thoughts on that). So I could honestly see him inhabiting some kind of role similar to Dany, someone who focuses on liberation and equality once in the position and means to do so, because they remember what it's like to be subjugated. And honestly, if we make Bruce the King of the Seven Kingdoms, then rather than Jason's "lost days" being about him traveling the world to learn how to kill before coming back to hone the Red Hood plan in Gotham, he can actually have a sorta similar arc to Dany, though less white savior. Moreso Jason, as he travels through Essos, continues some socially aware tacts that he already had in Westeros (I'd see baby Jason under Bruce's care trying to do a lot of Rhaenys the Conqueror/Good Queen Alysanne proto-progressive movements and reforms in Westeros), repeatedly ends up joining in and helping out already existing struggles, and kinda accidentally developing a cult of personality because OMG, it seems like everywhere the masses rise up against the oppressors there seems to be this guy there helping out, let's find out who he is and band together. And then rather than Red Hood, he does his thing in Essos and invades Westeros to make Bruce's life super difficult.

Two things I'm not sure how to translate from main Batfam to ASOIAF would be 1) the women's roles, because Westeros is intensely patriarchal and deeply misogynistic in a way that the DC world isn't (it's still got a shitton of sexism, cuz our real world does, yes, but not on the level of Westeros), though I'd absolutely keep Bruce and Cass's intense connection and Barbara's disability 2) vigilantism. Bruce's, and by extension the Batfam's, vigilantism exists due to a set of circumstances that don't exist in an ASOIAF AU. Batman exists because Gotham has a structure of law and legal enforcement that is thoroughly inadequate to the point that actually using it is basically futile, so someone needs to operate outside the law to actually do anything to help people. This doesn't exist in ASOIAF because the ultimate arbiter of law in Westeros is the king and then to a lesser extent the lords paramount of each Kingdom. There is no police force or broader legal system that can so utterly fail that outside intervention is needed, there's just one guy, who is possibly even Bruce himself. He's the judge and the jury and the police and the court system all in one go, he wouldn't need Batman. So that element of it is likely removed, for more of a focus on familial intrigue and drama and dynamics.

Those are just some basic thoughts based on what started bouncing in my head when I saw this ask. I hadn't thought too much about this beforehand, so this was a fun little thought exercise! If anyone has any thoughts on expanded roles for other people I kinda brushed past or didn't mention or plot stuff, by all means feel free to add them or chitchat! This was cool!

[stxleslyds]

MY THOUGHTS ON TITANS’ RED HOOD,

BEFORE WATCHING THE LAST EPISODE.

I will start by saying that I haven’t been able to watch the show, these are my thoughts after reading a very well-written and detailed review of the last episode. The review is also written by someone that enjoys the show, this is important because my thoughts don’t align with theirs.

I understand that Titans is known for being garbage, I know their writing is messed up, and I had no hope whatsoever for them to actually write a good Jason Todd/Red Hood story. I would also like to make clear that this post is in no way hate towards the actor playing Jason, this post is just my thoughts on Jason’s characterization.

What I really don’t like is these shows/movies taking the names of loved characters and making an “original character” out of them. Yes, there are different takes of the character and you can build their story differently but I do feel that what they did with Jason is beyond all that. They twisted every concept from his origin and his story, nothing really fits, but someway, somehow, they still managed to push all the wrong narratives when it comes to Robin Jason.

Two of the most horrible narratives that DC has decided to push are “Robin Jason was reckless and a troubled kid that never did what he was told” and “Jason Todd is to blame for his death”.

The show does push the one where Jason is reckless. Jason is consumed by fear, and Bruce Wayne pays attention to that but he doesn’t only do that, he also offers comfort and help, he tries to make Robin Jason go to therapy.

This is huge, they build up the perfect scenario for Jason to not become the Red Hood. But for some reason, they decided to make Jason reckless and too eager to prove that he didn’t need that kind of help. And then they didn’t help Jason’s case because they wrote their Bruce as a caring father that does not want to see his son get hurt or end up dead.

This Bruce Wayne is doing everything that comics Bruce Wayne didn’t. This Bruce cares, so once more, one would think that this Jason wouldn’t become the Red Hood. But, surprise! Jason Todd doesn’t take well the news of him not being able to be Robin anymore.

Here is the thing, if you were Bruce in this situation, would you let this Jason continue to be Robin when he is a danger to himself? I know I wouldn’t.

Here is where Titans’ terrible writing reaches its peak. They have a vulnerable and reckless Jason try to prove that he can still be Robin by working on *something* that can take his fears away. Jason Todd wants to make a drug, let that one sink in.

Jason Todd wants to make something that is basically a drug. Did Titans really erase the fact that Jason’s mother overdosed? Because that’s one of the most important things in Jason’s life and that built up his hate for drugs and what they do to people. His mother was in an abusive relationship and that led her to do drugs and later led her to her own death.

This might not sound too important to other people but to me, it’s something that has always been important to Jason’s character before and after his death.

Going back to the actual show, Jason goes to Scarecrow, willingly, and asks him to make him a drug that will make him don’t feel fear. I know that this Jason is vulnerable and that he probably thinks that therapy isn’t working for him, but why on earth would Jason think that making Scarecrow make a drug for him would be a good idea?

How does that make sense? The show is basically telling us that Jason had a support system and that he was going to therapy because Bruce wouldn’t want to lose his SON. Why does this show go far and beyond to make Jason look reckless and dumb?

This is not me comparing Comics Jason to Titans Jason anymore, this is me finding Titans’ logic unnecessarily stupid, they really went out of their way to write pure stupidity.

Why would they write Bruce as a caring father and as actively working so Jason can be in a better mental state so he won’t lose him as his son if they are also going to write Jason as an incredibly reckless man? Are we supposed to be on Bruce’s side? Because as of now, Bruce is the only one with brain cells.

There is absolutely no way to compare that to comics because in comics Bruce neglected Jason’s needs and refused to see that Jason had different morals even back then, and that neglect was key in Jason jumping onto the idea that he needed someone that he could call family and actually care for him. He wanted love and attention from a parental figure because he didn’t feel like he had one. Robin wasn’t everything that Jason was, he was also a kid with normal needs.

So, you build that completely different and actually give Jason the support that he also wanted in the show but for some reason, he is fiercely attached to Robin even though his fear comes from the fact that he almost died for being Robin. There is no logic to this Jason’s actions and that isn’t on Jason it's on the writers’ incredibly garbage writing. It is like they come up with ten different ideas and they put all of them but none of them are actually solid and well-developed concepts.

And you can’t tell me to get over it because “Titans has always had bad writing, there were two seasons of bad writing”. Listen, if you are happy to consume media that is badly written then that’s on you, Jason is one of my favorite characters, I don’t want him to be written badly just because that’s the show’s style. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with me wanting writers to actually care about the characters they are writing for, all three seasons have had different writers, is it really so far-fetched for me to want one of these people to write something that makes sense?

Jason's death was tragic in both comics and the show, and he was a victim in both of them, yes. But the show really pushes the limits of that, Jason wanted to take something to make him not fear, he looked for Scarecrow (not Dr. Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow, and he was an already established villain) to make him this drug when he couldn’t make it himself. He trusted Scarecrow (for some weird reason) and then as a test he went to fight Joker? It’s tragic because it ended with Jason dying but it's also tragic because the writing is just bad. It just is, and that is a problem for me.

From then on, we have the “big connection” to comics, the Lazarus Pit! Wow, you guys did it, yeah, everyone loves the Lazarus Pit, every time I think about Jason, I only think about that one time in which he was thrown in a Lazarus Pit to recover his mental injuries or all of his injuries after he came back from the dead.

This Jason has no training, there is no Talia, no League of Assassins, no Ducra or All-Castle, there is only Scarecrow and his new puppet, the Red Hood.

It changes everything and I don’t like it. Once again, I understand and know the concept of the multiverse, the various earths, and the Elseworlds, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like this take on Jason Todd/Red Hood along with its horrendous writing.

I don’t have to like it, just like I understand that others do like it because it is their first contact with the character or because they are fine, as fans of the character, with a new take. I am not gatekeeping Jason Todd or Red Hood; I am just saying that my being angry at this version and absolutely hating it is just as valid as liking this version of Jason.

Red Hood in Titans is just Scarecrow’s puppet, that’s how things are, and I just think that it is too big of a change from the original reasons for Jason to become Red Hood. And I will never get tired of saying this, Red Hood wasn’t only all about the Joker killing him and Batman not killing the Joker. The Red Hood was Jason’s way to make things work, to prove to Bruce that Batman wasn’t enough for Gotham. Red Hood came back to Gotham to stop bad people from introducing children to drugs and to make Gotham’s people feel safe.

He thought that Red Hood was the better version of Batman for Gotham and its people.

But I am not blind, I can see how Titans can twist it again to give us Red Hood as a protector of children and Gotham in general. I can see the “I used to do drugs and now I will fight so no other person goes through the same”, I see it and I am aware of it but it does also bring me to my other problem with Titans and DC in general: story swapping.

Story Swapping is something that DC loves to do, they thrive when they make change people’s origins for others and when they take character traits from one character to another.

And Titans’ Jason Todd is just that, he has characteristics and plot concepts from Dick Grayson and if what I just predicted happens then he will have some of Roy Harper's characteristics. And that is exactly what Lobdell did, but somehow, they managed to get different results. I cannot praise Titans for giving us a new Red Hood origin because they made his characterization with the help of other character’s origins and/or stories.

This is the first time that we see a live-action Jason Todd/Red Hood, was it really that hard to just stick to his origins as both Robin and Red Hood? There is so much to explore from Jason, there is so much between his death and him becoming Red Hood, from both before and after New 52.

Jason becoming Red Hood under the influence of Scarecrow in moths is lazy, bland and an insult to Jason’s character. They could have done things by the book and then explore things that we have never seen before in a show or movie.

Jason has had so much training outside of Gotham, why did Titans think that they could do acceptable work at bringing this amazingly complex character in a show that has nothing to do with him.

They could have had him killed in the Titans show and then wait and make a Red Hood show to actually tell a good story. What is Jason Todd doing in a show that is called Titans? Where are the Titans? They chose the most recognizable Titans’ line-up and they are not using it. They butchered Garth and Donna and for what?

DC gets away way too much with selling their stupid shows and movies by telling us that x character will appear but then when you watch the thing for that x character, they are nowhere to be seen. That’s exactly what they did with Cassandra Cain and what they are doing with Red Hood.

I don’t know how this tv show is doing, I only know that as a non-American that pays the same money for an HBO Max subscription, I don’t get to see any Titans content, not even a miserable trailer.

But I know that if non-comic readers are watching it, they will love it and if they actually were to start reading comics because of the show, then they wouldn’t find that Jason there. So, either that leads to Jason’s characterization being messed up even more within comics or it does nothing for Jason or comics.

To end this post, I just want to bring up the animated movie Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010).

That movie was widely praised and loved by critics, comic readers, and non-comic readers. It was fantastic, the story was amazing (even though it had differences with the comic, one might say that the differences improved the story), the voice acting was phenomenal, everything was done beautifully. Do you know what made it that way? The writing.

And you know who wrote the animated movie? The same person who wrote the comic the movie is based on, Judd Winick.

With that I am not saying that Titans should have had Judd write for them, what I am saying is that given the fact that they are using a pre-existing character they should chat with the Red Hood’s creator or even the writer that wrote for him for ten years after the character came back to comics.

This show obviously didn’t do that though, they preferred to write Jason Todd/Red Hood as if he were a Titans original character, but the thing is, from where I see it Titans didn’t give us an OC, they gave us an OOC.

-

So, to sum it all up, I hate Titans’ version of Jason Todd/Red Hood, I think that it is not only badly written but there is also no real logic to what they are trying to do so far. I am also tired of their bad and lazy writing in general. And I would have liked the Titans’ writers to actually respect the Red Hood lore because if they had I would have actually been excited about a Red Hood spin-off show.

Using the material that is available to you isn’t a crime, building from that material is the best thing that they could have done, but all they really wanted to do was use Red Hood’s name to get more money from a dying show.

It makes the show look cheap and actually not interested in giving us good stories, and no, I wasn’t expecting Captain America: The Winter Soldier levels of good writing or good changes to a very loved story/characters, I was actually expecting some Lobdell writing level and the way I see it we ended up getting something worse.

These are all my opinions. You can like, love, or dislike this version of Jason and the show as much as you want but you won’t find any form of love towards the show in this blog, at least not right now.

-

MY THOUGHTS ON TITANS’ RED HOOD,

AFTER WATCHING THE LAST EPISODE.

Well, I will start this part by saying: Sorry. I am sorry that I believed that Titans’ Red Hood was bad, it is actually worse than bad.

I was so wrong on many things, that review really made me think that things weren’t that bad but I still hated what I read. Now that I have watched the episode because I wanted this post to be extra honest and to stop myself from saying stupid stuff, I can also say that I hated what I watched.

This show really validates the two most horrible narratives that DC has been pushing for Jason: “he was a reckless Robin that didn’t think about his actions” and “he was to blame for his own death”

Jason Todd wasn’t a victim of Scarecrow, this Jason Todd took every single bad decision that he could, and those decisions led him to his death. No sympathy for this man.

Also, this Jason is like 19? He doesn’t look younger than that, but that’s not the point, what I am trying to point out is that this Robin is extremely underprepared, he lacks training and the mental capacity to stop acting like an edge lord every time he opens his mouth. He is annoying.

And I was wrong about Titans erasing the plotline of Jason’s mother dying of an overdose, she did die that way and this Jason spoke of her as if he hated her. What is going on? This Jason really doesn’t make me feel an ounce of sympathy for him. This attitude of “no one understands my pain” when everybody is trying to help you doesn’t make you look cool or anything of the sort, it makes you look annoying.

It is even worse because this Jason is so immature and reckless that he made his friend Molly (that is just a normal teen with no training) go after a thug with him, while he was not mentally well. He made that decision for them and put himself and her in danger. If that scene had gone any other way, then Jason could have been guilty of getting his friend injured or killed.

Jason Todd is so incredibly dumb; he is not a child but he acts like one every step of the way.

Nothing makes sense in his whole ass interaction with Bruce in front of the theatre, it’s like Jason refuses to listen to what Bruce tells him, well not that he refuses to listen it is more like a “Telefono descompuesto” I don’t know if you guys have that game but you basically have to tell something in someone’s ear and then the person repeats what they understood to the next and so on, what you said is heavily distorted by the end of the game. In this scene that is exactly what happens but it’s between two people.

When Jason accuses Bruce of not taking away Robin from Dick, Bruce says something along the lines of “I learned from my mistakes” and Jason says “so, I am a mistake now?”. Jason, use your ears, if Bruce says that he learned from his mistakes when talking about Dick, then his mistake was what he did with Dick. The writing is so bad, it's actually painful and it is even worse because the acting is bad, but I can’t blame the actors, it must really be hard to make a scene work when the writing is that bad. (Also, the unnecessary pauses, and the sounds that they play after they say something stupid, it is too funny).

Do you know what made me cringe? When they were having the chat in the theatre, in my mind all I could hear was “if you are nothing without the suit then you shouldn’t have it”, not me quoting Tony Stark in my head! I haven’t even watched that movie! But it fits perfectly for that scene.

The interaction with Scarecrow was more than dumb, if Jason was already acting like a child, now, he is basically acting like a toddler. Scarecrow saw right through him in seconds and just as fast decided that he was going to have fun with his new toy. He gave him a formula that wasn’t quite correct even though it looked like he knew exactly how to make the reverse version of his fear gas. This Jason has zero detective or survival skills but we already knew that when he made himself get captured and tortured by Deathstroke.

Anyway, all the interactions with Scarecrow were allowed to happen because this Jason can’t put two and two together. He convinces himself that everyone is out to get him, dude, Bruce is a detective and he also has eyes, Leslie didn’t tell him anything. If I were Bruce, you wouldn’t be able to be Robin anymore either.

I understand that Jason is not in a good mental place and that he wants to make his fears go away, but he had support, people around him were trying to get him help, trying to make him understand that he was hurting himself. His over-the-top anger and recklessness are unjustified when you refuse to take the help that is being offered to you.

He made terrible decisions for selfish purposes and that got him killed.

This is one of the last things I want to say, Scarecrow either didn’t need Jason at all to get out of Arkham or the writers made an oopsie because at the end of the episode he had someone helping him put Jason in the Lazarus Pit and then he was out of Arkham and he had a suit ready for Jason and everything. How did he manage all that? No idea.

The Lazarus Pit, yeah, I am sorry to be that person but the Pit can’t bring back people from the dead, it can only restore or heal physical and mental injuries (however grave they were), but Lobdell messed that one up already and Titans really didn’t have time to write a single good scene so what was I expecting?

Anyway, the last thing I wanted to say is that I know why Jason or Red Hood seems to not be affected by the drug when he sees Molly at the end of the episode, it is because the executive producer of the show is Geoff Johns! He loves making Jason fall for girls and get all mushy and dumb, do you guys remember how dumb he got when he left with Rose?

Jason being written as the kind of guy that acts like a love-sick puppy with a girl but also screams at her when he gets mad is peak Geoff Johns. So, if you were wondering where that came from, well, there it is.

Yeah, that is all I had to say, honestly if you have read this whole post then you are one strong individual, I am sorry I put you through all my thinking and rambling. You didn’t really deserve that.

I didn’t want to delete the first part of the post because I talked about so much more than the show and my thoughts before watching the episode still stand. I hope this post isn’t too confusing. As always you can think the complete opposite of me about the show or anything, I am just writing my thoughts.

Having said all that, I hope all of you, Titans’ lovers, haters, and people that simply do not care, have a wonderful week!

[iidiotkid]

Okay I kinda wanna talk about Tim because this is my account and I do what I want

On one hand, I understand why people hate him. He’s a Rich White Sad Boy, and we have plenty of those, but like,,,,,, I think Tim as a character is a pretty interesting move for the batman universe. At least in concept

He’s written to be a self-insert. It’s obvious. He’s a boy with a neglectful family life (which is far more common than the other batkids), who gets noticed by the heroes he adores and they think he’s smart, who has very little personality traits other than that, etc

But that’s exactly why I think he’s interesting. Because a lot of the things interrelate and if they had actually been explored it properly it would have been so cool.

To start off, the child neglect. This is a kid who has had limited social interaction his entire life. The two people who are supposed to love him the most didn’t care enough to even call most of the time, and most of the kids that talked to him would have been doing so because of his parents, how would that affect a person?

He, like many batfamily fans, fixates on a family situation he perceives as healthy. He follows them around, watches the Robins and their interactions with Batman, takes pictures of everything and keeps them in a scrapbook like someone would do their own family photos. He projects himself onto them, pretends like he’s a part of them, wishes that his own life could be like that...

But then something happens. Jason dies. The only true family he’s ever known, even if they never knew him, is fractured. Dick stops coming by as often, Bruce starts getting suicidal. Everything’s gone to shit and he’s desperate to fix it. He knows what’s wrong and, after a lot of convincing, he manages to get Bruce to let him correct it.

Which means he’s officially a part of the family he’s always wanted to be in! The childhood dream that he never fully dared to allow himself to wish for has come true! Sure, Bruce is still a little hesitant about him, but he’s officially Robin!

Now what?

Now he hits a problem. Everything he defines himself with are mostly just his status — he’s the heir to Drake Industries! — and that’s all. But now he isn’t really a Drake anymore, he’s spent more time with Bruce in the past few months than he has with his biological parents since he was a baby. So, who is he?

Robin, of course! He can’t call himself Bruce’s son, the man hadn’t adopted him and it felt a bit like he was betraying the Drakes by considering himself that, so he latched onto the only other thing present. He was Robin.

And this made him fear losing Robin even more. Because, if he wasn’t Robin, then who exactly was he? He knows he wasn’t chosen, that Dick and Jason were and he WASNT, he’s so painfully aware of it. Bruce didn’t want him, not really.

And that was fine, he was used to people he loved not wanting him around.

In fact, this situation was even better than the usual. At least Bruce was willing to deal with him! Of course, he doesn’t know how long that’ll last, so he tells himself he has to work hard. If he messes up too much then Bruce will realize he’s more trouble than he’s worth, just like every parental figure always realizes given enough time, and he can’t deal with that.

Obviously, he becomes a perfectionist. He had already been pretty obsessive, this was almost inevitable. Late nights poring over files, unfocused in his classes, but a he’s damn good Robin. And Bruce is noticing! He’s praising him for figuring things out so fast, he’s thanking him for his help!

But Tim is a growing boy, and growing boys need their sleep. Poor reflexes, stunted growth, gradually declining ability to think... all bad things when you’re Robin. And Bruce is noticing, because of course he is he’s BATMAN, but he hasn’t said anything yet so it’s fine and really Tim can just deal with it —.

Enter one Dick Grayson. He sees this kid take a pretty bad blow in a fight, sees this kid in the Robin suit nearly die while he’s unable to do anything, and all he can think about is Jason dying alone in that warehouse while he was unable to do anything in space. He couldn’t save Jason. He can save Tim.

Visits from Bludhaven become more common despite all the tensions between Bruce and him. Tim doesn’t know why Dick is suddenly so interested in him, hardly anyone ever is, but he is more than happy to accept it for now.

Dick takes him out to see Gotham, not as vigilantes but as civilians. Tim has never seen Gotham like this, not really. His parents had never been all that interested in showing him, and school field trips are always spent bitching and moaning about how boring they were or stressing out over worksheets, so he hadn’t had a chance to really enjoy Gotham for what it was. A gorgeous place despite the circumstances.

He starts spending more time out in Gotham simply for himself, even when Dick wasn’t around. He starts meeting new people. He learns that he’s a listener. Watching people talking about things they loved, seeing the way their faces light up and their hands move around wildly in their excitement, it becomes one of his favorite pastimes.

And, of course, they make life sound like so much fun. He starts doing even more. He visits the arboretum, the planetarium, the zoo, he loves them all. Nature was so gorgeous, and in Gotham it was such a rarity to see any of it that every time he visited he could feel the breath catch. He wants to make Gotham better. He knows not everyone can afford to go to these kinds of places all the time, so the only solution is to try and better the city.

He’s no longer Robin for the sake of being Batman’s Robin, he’s Robin to help Gotham.

He’s doing it purely to be helpful, because he genuinely likes helping people now. He’s seen their smiles, he’s heard their stories, and he wants to protect them.

But he can’t do that if he keeps working himself half to death (literally), so he starts allowing himself some proper rest. He is surprised to learn he’s actually doing BETTER as Robin now. He’s a better fighter and a better detective, sure, but he’s also more concerned about collateral damage in fights and he’s better with victims.

And Bruce notices. Of course he does, he’s Batman, but he doesn’t say anything again. Tim is doing well, and he was usually quiet about most things so he can leave him be.

Or, at least, that was the plan until a particularly adamant Dick drags him out of his brooding to talk to Tim. Bruce, however awkward and stilted, asks how his day went.

So Tim tells him that he doesn’t have to do that, that they don’t have to force a relationship. They were Batman and Robin, and that was enough for him, they didn’t need to be Bruce and Tim, too, if Bruce didn’t want it to be that way.

Bruce’s breath catches just like Tim’s does when he sees the stars and the plants and the animals as they truly are. And then Bruce slowly draws him into a hug, it’s painfully awkward and a little uncomfortable with all their armor, but then Bruce says that he does want it. That he wants Tim.

And Tim realizes then, with his face buried in Bruce’s cape and promises of a better relationship with Bruce, that he isn’t Robin. Because Robin was little more than an idea.

He was just Tim. And maybe Tim was enough.

[strawberrycamel]

Fic Writer Review

tagged by: @aj-itated <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 30!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 46,254 words

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? based on my Ao3 and my old ff.net account: 3 - Fairy Tail, BNHA, DP (though I haven't written for Fairy Tail or bnha in years)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? in order, that would be How to Take Out a Ghost by TooFineFoley, Bad Luck Tuck: The Sequel, ignorance is your new best friend, What Could Have Been, and, surprisingly, A Connoisseur of Fine Art (all DP or DP crossover fics)

5. Which of your fic do you want more attention for? both they're siblings, your honor and Big Boy Tucker. i can't choose, they both need love

6. Do you respond to comments, why or why not? i used to respond to them as often as I could at the start, but i kinda slacked off sometime around the beginning of summer classes. I used to respond to them because they made me really happy and i wanted to let the commenters know I did actually read it and am very grateful for their comments, but after a while it became... idk, draining? I felt bad about leaving the same response to each commenter and got caught up in my own head so I just kinda,, stopped all together. I wanna start responding again at some point, but uh, probably not anytime soon.

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

oh definitely One More Time; I think that's the only fic I've written without some kind of happy ending (anything in the Not Your Son series doesn't count since it's not finished yet :3) and I can't tell you how much it pained me not to make it happy. Don't get me wrong, I loved writing that for going angst week but hole-y shit did it fuck me up

8. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you’ve written? I do write crossovers! The craziest, I think, is my Strange vs. Work: Wife Swap AU, it's not done because I'm seriously stumped for it right now, but it's essentially a DP Marvel crossover where Clockwork and Dr. Strange are forced by a TV host ghost to switch bodies and mentor the other person's 'apprentice'. Peter and Danny have to help them get adjusted to their new environments/bodies and they all have to figure out how to turn things back to normal. This whole series is meant to be based off the show 'Wife Swap'. I have fun making Stephen suffer >:)

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic? not that i can remember? like i think it was more grammar and dialogue punctuation nitpicking on my old ff.net fics, never hate

10. Do you write smut? if so what kind? not really, but i have a singular wip that im working on that's definitely spicy

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no? (i was working on something a while ago but we havent finished so, I'm going with no)

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i don't think I really have one. Usually I just read whichever fics have cool summaries or tags and just dive right in, ships be damned. Lately I've been reading a few TimKon fics and I've been thinking about Dark Ages, UFS, and Gray Ghost stuff a lot over the summer

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? oh, oh god. I'm going to say it and I'm going to feel real shitty about it because it's such a good fucking concept, but I can't bring myself to write anything more than what I already have written and all the notes I just randomly add onto it every once in a while. It even has a title: "Ectoplasmic Pudding".

It's a DP DC crossover fic wip and the plot is about Danny being called by Batman to help with a kidnapping case he suspects to involve ghosts; he needs Danny's expertise and help to capture the ghost. Danny agrees and he meets Batman and Robin (Dick Grayson) on the roof of the police station (after dropping face first onto it because he got blinded by the bat signal). They go by Batmobile and arrive at the scene of the crime where Danny confirms a ghost is involved. A bunch of different scenes of Danny and Robin having a blast while Batman's trying his best to stay on task and then, eventually, they find a warehouse where the box ghost is interrogating a bored looking Mr. Trand, the victim, about some fancy box commissioned by Vlad.

Danny figures out this guy is Bertrand in disguise and since Bertrand's essentially on vacation, they both agree to lie about how they know each other. And then I got stuck around here, but I imagine it just ends up being a series of dumb events where Batman, Robin, and Danny have to 'protect' Bertrand until they catch Boxy and throw him back into the Ghost Zone while the disguised ghost tries to make the most of the rest of his vacation.

Batman and Robin definitely don't believe whatever lie Danny came up with to explain how he knows Mr. Trand, but they go along with it until it's revealed in probably the worst way possible and leads to both of them trying to take the former kidnapping victim to the GIW while also trying to keep Danny from stopping them and barely listening to a word he says (maybe they think he's being threatened somehow or being controlled or smth, idk). Absolutely no clue how that whole fight goes, but in the end Danny kicks Box Ghost into the Zone and Bertrand is told very explicitly never to bring Spectra to Gotham.

15. What are your writing strengths? evoking emotion in my writing? yeah i'm going with that

16. What are your writing weaknesses? planning out plot ahead of time. I can write outlines and write a bunch of notes about what i want to include, that's not the problem. My problem is that all my motivation to write just drains away the moment I have a somewhat concrete plot planned out for a fic- this applies to one-shots and longfics exactly the same. And past that, sometimes I'll make one change to the planned plot and feel like tossing the whole thing out the window and going freehand without the 'constraints' of an outline or anything ..........

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? try not to offend anybody? like, look at good examples of how others have done it and do a lot of research and stuff. Also, be aware that not everything will translate perfectly from the original language you wrote the fic in and whatever language you're translating it to.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Fairy Tail

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? Hellbent. A few others come close, but I seriously cannot express the joy i felt writing that first chapter (and when I'm done my minibang fic, I literally cannot wait to get back to it)

20. What fic are you most proud of? that's a tough one, there are a bunch i fucking adore but i think it's tied between The Big Dipper and ignorance is your new best friend

Tagging: @guardianrex, @shinygoldstar, @cleanlenins, @princessfanonanona, and @ghost-pasta!

[bigskydreaming]

what are your favorite and least favorite tropes in fanfiction regarding dick grayson?

Most of these I feel are probably a given with me given that I am apparently physically incapable of being subtle and am donating my body to science upon my demise so that this phenomenon may be studied. For Science.

(But also like, the funny thing about me is as much as I rant about a few specific topics its only so frequent because there’s actually only a few specific things I gripe about its just that they’re eeeeeeeeeeverywhere.)

Thus, in no particular order, my least favorite Dick Grayson tropes in fanon and in canon because I can’t read apparently OR AT LEAST I CHOOSE NOT TO FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS EXERCISE, JEEZ, LEAVE ME ALONE....

1) Police officer Dick Grayson

2) Dick hated Jason pre-death and/or judges and is incapable of understanding or empathizing with Jason post-his return

3) Police officer Dick Grayson

4) Dick’s loved ones and friends all making jokes and insults out of the nickname he keeps in memory of his parents and Dick being all like lol this is fine, this isn’t debilitating to my self-esteem at all hahaha oh man that was a good one, I AM a Dickface, you nailed it!

5) Police officer Dick Grayson

6) Dick’s loved ones and friends all punching Dick every time he puts a foot out of place and then everyone both in-universe and in-comments being like NO PROBLEMS DETECTED, and also WOW, CHILL OUT DG, TEMPER MUCH?

7) Police officer Dick Grayson

8) Dick fired Tim and callously kicked him out of his home and the city UMM METHINKS THE FUCK NOT

9) Police officer Dick Grayson

10) Only addressing conflicts between Bruce and Dick when using the framing device “when you think about it though isn’t it still like at least half Dick’s fault that Bruce fired him and kicked him out of his home and hit him and guilt-tripped him into doing what he wanted.”

11) Bonus round - sub Dick Grayson. Like, I barely ever read smut in this fandom because I’m like ‘mmm, no thx and also hard pass’ to rape and incest as fetish or porn, and its like....hard enough to find any mature content with Dick that doesn’t overlap with at least one of those so I just kinda stopped looking ages ago, but even just when glancing my eyes past tags while browsing, I just DON’T GET THIS. I tend to be a variety is the spice of life kinda guy and thus usually can make a case for any character going any which way in any number of things, but this is the one character where I’m like, I do not see any angle in which he has a submissive bone in his body. Yeah he has control freak tendencies and there’s that trope about people who spend most of their time in charge wanting to give up control and let go at times, buuuuuut that only actually works with people who don’t fully WANT to be in charge or control to begin with, not people like Dick whose control freak tendencies IMO are directly born of how rarely he gets to be in control of even his own personal life in the first place. Just doesn’t compute for me.

And in no particular order, top ten most favorite Dick Grayson takes in canon and fanon, with these weirdly just being the direct inverse of things I hate because I mentioned the Not Subtle thing and also the Not Actually As Picky As I Often Come Across As, right?

1) Anything other than police officer Dick Grayson

2) Dick and Jason being bros who get along and confide in each other about the stuff they can’t/won’t share with anyone else because they understand each other in ways most others never will, and also also them having Secret History as Brothers BECAUSE THEY ARE BROTHERS WITH HISTORY BUT I FUCKIN’ DIGRESS

3) A Tim who respects and appreciates Dick’s contributions to his life and happiness and the amount of time and effort Dick has put into being there for him often at his own personal expense, even if there have been like one or two times in the grand scheme of thirty years of comic book content when Dick wasn’t able to put Tim first because he felt he had to put someone with directly competing needs to Tim’s first in this particular time and place instead, just like he had so often before put Tim’s needs ahead of others who had competing needs at the time

4) A Bruce who acknowledges his fuck-ups with Dick and actually apologizes instead of just being like “I am going to look at you solemnly with my Apologetic Eyes but its on you to read the Apology clearly present in my Apologetic Eyes cuz that’s the only one you’ll ever get as I am a genius and a renowned playboy but I do not do the words good except for when I am being genius-y and renowedly playboy-y and not Apologetic.” And who also puts in actual work to actually fix things with Dick when he fucks up in that over-the-top-I GOTTA BE THE BEST THERE EVER WAS, POK-E-MON!! kinda over-achieving way in which he does everything in life.

5) An extended Batfamily and hero community who actually ACT like Dick is someone they respect and appreciate and are in awe of for his position and accomplishments in the hero community and the fact that he’s been out there risking his life day in and day out for people almost as long as any other hero out there, and who has in fact been doing this for a FAR greater percentage of his lifetime than any other hero, period. Rather than an extended Batfamily and hero community who just SAY that Dick is respected and appreciated by everyone and this is why actually they resent him and think he’s over-rated, with no actual sign or evidence of Respect, Appreciation and/or Awe on display anywhere at any time ever.

6) A Dick Grayson who is allowed by the narrative to be as hyper-competent and intelligent and multi-skilled as any member of the Batfamily, without feeling a need for qualifiers about him being second best or a good acrobat but not as good at the detective stuff as the others, etc, etc. Noooooope. Nerp. Nuh-uh. Someday I will rise from my death-bed amid my death-throes one last time just long enough to gasp out “The Batfamily’s entire high concept is that they are a family of literal Mary Sues and thus all of them are every bit as intelligent and hyper-competent as the plot demands and its stupid to try and rank them and telling when Dick somehow always ends up ranked bottom last despite being the kid whose very existence as a hyper-competent little genius troll boy is what jumpstarted the kid hero trend in universe in the first place, which is the kind of thing that could ONLY happen if he was impressing and making second-guessers of nay-sayers left and right BUT I FUCKING DIGRESS, GOOD NIGHT NEW YORK, AND SCENE!” At which point I will expire, my work here done.

7) A Dick Grayson who is allowed to get mad and yell when people DO FUCKED UP THINGS LIKE HIT HIM AND BLAME HIM FOR SHIT THAT ISN’T HIS FAULT without this being viewed as a “flaw” and him Being Dick Grayson Badly. Extra points for a Dick Grayson who is allowed to stay centered in his own traumas and tragedies without everyone else around him somehow making it out to be that they’re MORE victimized by the things he is most directly the victim of.

8) A Dick Grayson who eats more than just sugary cereal because he was literally raised from birth even pre-Bruce as a world class athlete and show me one single person that description matches who doesn’t know how to actually keep to a nutritious diet. Yes, by all means have him eat the occasional sugary snack as a treat, that’s fine, but when the take is that this is all he exists on or would be the only thing he exists on if not for the intercession of Actual Adults being like eat your veggies, Dickie, like.....mmmm, but whatcha doin’, fic?

9) A Dick Grayson who doesn’t actually even HAVE to get mad and lose his temper when people do fucked up things like hit him and blame him for shit that isn’t his fault or do nothing but mock and insult him and make him feel bad, because there’s actually other friends and family present who make a point to be like WHOA, HOW ABOUT I SHUT THIS SHIT DOWN LIKE AN INTELLECTUAL, BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT OKAY? I’m just saying, how is it that every single fic and their grandma posits the existence of a swear jar because Alfred will not tolerate uncouth language in his domain, but it coooooooompletely flies over everyone’s head that Alfred of all people would be okay with people casually disrespecting his eldest grandson for the sake of a yawn-worthy punchline every single time someone opens their mouth to say “Dickhead” without even any kind of “Swear jar!” follow-up, let alone a “I don’t know who gave you the idea it was alright to disrespect Master Dick’s memories of his parents, young sirs, but I assure you most assuredly...‘TWAS NOT I.”

10) The existence of literally any other plot for Dick Grayson than one involving or relying on brainwashing. Like, just spitballing here but maybe people would have less trouble acknowledging and remembering the hyper-competence and skilled and genius qualities of the first Batkid if he was able to more often put those things on display instead of just running around 24/7 either brainwashed or brandishing pom-poms in enthusiastic commemoration of the hyper-competence and genius of everyone BUT him.

11) Bonus round - literally any other career choice besides being a cop.

[valkerymillenia]

Now that I've finished season 3 of Young Justice, I'm adding on to my previous thoughts/review.

Anyway...

There's a criminal lack of Spoiler and Orphan, for starters but it's understandable why, this isn't a BatFam show after all (but I'd sooooooo watch a BatFam spin-off of this universe).

Got to see a hint of Suicide Squad! That was a surprise (not really but it's awesome).

Vandal Savage's backstory and development? Literal gold if you like villains (I never liked Savage and yet this interpretation of him just has so much potential!). I do wonder if they will ever approach the "Roy Harper is Savage's descendant" detail...

Thank you, Lord, for all the Klarion! Boy needs to show up more in DC media.

So Halo is bisexual and non-binary? That's pretty awesome but it sucks that nobody in the show seems to get the NB part and everyone codes her as female throughout the whole season, kinda defeats the purpose of having a NB character.

Still annoyed that they used the hijab for hype but removed her actual faith from the character (she literally says "I'm not Muslim", they could have at least left it undefined), you can't bank on a character's traits for "representation" and ignore the meaning behind them, otherwise it's pointless and insulting.

Also, making the Muslim girl the immortal? Badass (and works well with the character). Making it so you can repeatedly kill her to very graphically highlight the seriousness of the situation? A little fucked up, dude.

Still, she's powerful as hell and saved everyone in an amazing display of power.

So yeah, I totally love Halo and her concept is awesome but she was a bit disrespected by the writer and deserves better on some aspects. Oh, and I like the whole "Halo and Cyborg are now related" thing more than I anticipated.

Really happy to get bi Harper Row in the story! Bluebird is such an underappreciated character of the BatFam. The abuse subplot was also very good because it's a topic that needs to be approached in media, victims need to see positive representation.

The Bumblebee baby subplot was... Tricky. It really messes with an important ethical conundrum (yikes, eugenics) that is definitely too complex for younger audiences but I think the goal was to create another future super-kid for the next seasons (still a little icky though but at least they tried to frame it as controversial even to Karen's own feelings). I guess we'll find out.

Granny Goodness has always been a brutal villain and I hope we see more of her. Also, MORE BIG BARDA, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!

Wyynde and Kaldur are SO CUTE! GAH! I need more of them! I just love their relationship so much.

"Who is Dick's family anyway? Is Grayson's father Bruce Wayne-...?" *cue someone immediately redirecting the conversation*

I'm sorry but that what AWESOME and kinda hilarious too. (Yes, Brion, Dick is one of Bruce Wayne's several children, get with the BatFam).

The Anti-Life Equation thing was very well done, I didn't expect it to go so well but every player involved played a great role and the idea of a world with no free will? Shivers, man. Now, it just needs to be readressed in the future because no way would any villain give that up so easily with Halo still alive.

The Geranium City subplot was quite sweet, it brought back some intriguing questions and finally touched a piece of Conner's story that has been hanging since season 1.

Will x Artemis is NOT a thing, thank God! They made such a big deal about it that I was scared and I get the appeal but they are in-laws, it would be so messed up.

I mean, I want Artemis to heal in a healthy way and move on as much as any fan (that limbo sequence made me cry my eyes out, so heartbreaking) but there's no need to force a thing with Will, so I'm glad for the way things got resolved.

Luthor's Infinity Inc reminds me waaaay too much of the Seven in "The Boys"... Still, a smart move. Kinda wondering where it's gonna lead in the future now that they basically belong to Brion.

Terra actually choosing redemption and the Outsiders before trying to kill them was surprising (as was everyone knowing she was a mole), I expected a big fight against her and Deathstroke because that's always been the Terra schtick but instead we got a power crazed Brion, which was a beautifully executed plot twist and as much as it hurts me to see Brion fall (and break Violet's heart) I have to give kudos to the writers, that was well played to wrench our hearts to pieces.

And that new psychic asshole manipulating Brion and making Markocvia into the Light's puppet? Interesting addition.

I really hope Brion gets his own redemption in the next season (orrr maybe he degenerates further into full blown villain? I don't think he has it in him and by the very end he seems to be depressed, lonely and disgruntled with his position already so there might be hope for him yet, but it would be interesting to see him fall further and further beyond redemption and I don't see him infiltrating the Light for the good guys because that would just be a rehash of Kaldur in season 2).

Loved how Lex Luthor got taken down from that bullshit UN position. He's a brilliant villain but he was soooo getting on my nerves in that particular position and it was such a relief to see him fall (which is a sign of how well written it was).

Black Lighting as boss!!!!! Ahhh, that was such a goddamn good choice in this particular universe, especially after he spent the whole season being a voice of reason while going through some growth himself. Still, feels a bit odd merely because he was barely in the bg in previous seasons.

Funny how Conner and M'gann never speak out loud even at home, damn I love this ship (miss my classic timkon though).

That little Robin laugh at the end of the season was such a nice touch, really nostalgic.

What's with the Legion Flight ring on the waitress?

What's with Lobo's finger? So messed up.

Oh boy, now I need Jason and Damian in future seasons (hell, Jon too, give us the Super Sons!!!).

All in all, the third season seems to bring a lot of things full circle at last but also feels like the beginning of something completely new, opening doors and raising questions for a lot of possibilities. It was a very intriguing subversion of a lot of DC plotlines and mythology.

Still... Can we just call the Outsiders the alternate Teen Titans? because that's basically what they are.

CAN'T WAIT FOR SEASON 4!!!!!!

[dcubang]

DCU Bang 2019 Summaries

Claiming Form Now open!!!

Claiming Information and Instructions

Summaries after the read more!

1

Title: Fly With Me Word Count: About 14k Genre: Fantasy-Adventure Fandom/Universe: Green Lantern, Flash (comics) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan/Guy Gardner/John Stewart/Alan Scott Warnings: Mild/implied body dysphoria Rating: PG-ish Summary: When Watchman Barry Allen arrives to a grisly murder scene, the last thing he expects is the enigmatic dragonlords of the realm to arrive and ask for him specifically. They are handsome and charming, but the existence of enormous fire-breathing flying lizards that seem to exert some kind of... Strange emotional aura is more than a little terrifying. He is introduced to the prince of these dragonlords, Hal, and steps up to be taken back to the towering natural fortress of Oa, a massive hollowed out mountain that sits on the edge of the continent. Called the 'weyr', Oa is home to the dragons and their riders, and Barry soon finds himself welcomed inside with all the honours that a prince might receive. In the morning after a restless night's sleep he is bathed and anointed, and taken down deep beneath the mountain to a holy underground sea, where he must confront the mysterious Lord of Oa and receive the prize for which he had been chosen: A dragon egg, rare and precious. The last third of the story will be hatching the dragon, and a montage of sorts with Barry further bonding with the dragon riders and forming a... Tentative proto-romantic relationship with them. He trains in arms with Guy, learns the histories and concepts of the weyr with John, is taught about the running and logistics of Oa from Alan, and finally Hal tutors him on bonding with his dragon, and eventually flying with it. The broad aesthetic of the fic is very much generic medieval fantasy, set mostly in the mountainous fortress/castle of Oa. Characters vary a little bit from canon appearances, mostly in regards to hairstyles and the like, but a few characters are trans, which is mostly going to be a background detail. There are no warnings except for a crime scene early on (which will be edited down) and brief discussions of trans characters being trans, so there's a bit of mild dysphoria but no explicit details or transphobia/homophobia. There is implied polyamory and age difference, but everyone is consenting adults and nothing is properly established in this fic. 

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2 Title: The Case of the Missing Son Word Count: 6,031 of 10k-ish Genre: Mystery, Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman (comics) Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson, Talia al Ghul, Damian Wayne Warnings: Minor violence Rating: NC-17 Summary: Bruce Wayne has come to PI Dick Grayson with a problem. His ex-wife, Talia al Ghul, has been sending him letters claiming they have a son. Bruce wants Dick to find the boy and bring him home. Dick gathers information from various sources before running into Talia herself, which only results in him getting beat up. He goes back to Bruce to convince him to confront Talia. Eventually, the son goes to Bruce, and Bruce and Dick get some private time together. The story takes place solely in Gotham, from Dick's office, to Wayne Manor, with one trip down into the caves of Gotham for the showdown.

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3 Title: Forth My Mimic Comes Word Count: 19k Genre: Mystery, Supernatural Fandom/Universe: Batman (mostly comics) Characters/Pairings: Gen; Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake Warnings: past canon character death, non-consensual bodyswap, thoughts that could be construed as non-specific suicidal tendencies (i.e., "I was already dead, if I die again it's no big deal," etc.) Rating: PG/T Summary: Robin saves a boy from being hit by a car, only to discover that the victim is none other than a very alive (if comatose) Jason Todd. An already unusual situation turns even more bizarre when an unfortunate turn of phrase and an errant bit of magic cause Jason and the current Robin to end up in each other's bodies. Knowing it's only a matter of time before Bruce learns of the switch and locks him up in a fit of paranoia, Jason must seek the help of the enigmatic (and familiar) Oracle to fix the problem, all the while learning far more than he ever wanted to know about the boy who replaced him. Takes place immediately following Jason's resurrection in a slightly canon-divergent timeline, primary locations being the clock tower, manor, and cave (and all of Gotham, because patrol).

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4 Title: Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? Word Count: 4,579 of 5k Genre: Mystery Fandom/Universe: Batman (comics) Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, Tommy Elliot Warnings: Nonconsensual body modification, some torture Rating: PG-13 Summary: Selina Kyle is missing. Bruce finds mannequins and dummies of her around Gotham, each with a modified nursery rhyme about cats. Bruce follows these clues all across Gotham, growing more desperate to find her. Finally, he confronts the villains of Gotham and finds Selina, only to find Hush there as well. They battle and Bruce rescues Selina and takes her back to the Batcave. This takes place solely in Gotham, from the streets and graveyards of Gotham, to beneath Arkham Asylum, to the Batcave.

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5 Title: Daily Gab Word Count: 5776 Genre: Coming Out Fic Fandom/Universe: Batfam Characters/Pairings: Jon/Damian, Damian & Dick Warnings: Bullying Rating: PG-ish Summary: Damian finds a tabloid taped to his locker at school. The headline? "Wayne Kid... Gay?" He endures a day at school listening to the gossip from all the other kids. Dick does the brotherly thing and helps Damian sort through all he's feeling. Damian admits to Jon what the tabloid said and why he's been running scared all day, they talk about the reality of what they want together and Bruce manages to be a real father for once. Summary I'm posting when I post the fic: Damian swallowed against the bile in his throat and carefully took in his next breath, walking himself through the steps of emotional calm. Pretend this was only torture. Pretend it was only a gunshot wound. Pretend it was only his body in pain and not his heart and his mind. Remove himself from the situation and take a few steps backwards from the reality of it.

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6 Title: Stay My Tragedy Word Count: 16k Genre: Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman, Deathstroke, Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Slade/Jason Warnings: explicit sex, angst, descriptions of violence, references to self harm, slight dubcon, problematic relationship Rating: NC-17 Summary:

Soul marks can appear at anytime in one’s life -- a mark of karmic destiny that most people take to mean they’ve met the person they’re meant to fall in love with. Jason knows that’s not true. He knows because his soul mark appeared in the very last moments before he died -- marking his destiny to be murdered by the hands of a madman.

It is a world in which fate is unbelievably cruel, when Jason’s soul mark is of none other than the man who murdered him. Slade has other ideas however, and he might just be the one man who can change Jason's tragic fate into something else.

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7 Title: New Horizons Word Count: 6091 Genre: Action/Adventure Fandom/Universe: Canon Divergence/AU Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake Warnings: Major Character Death, Abusive Parents, Child Trafficking Ring, Drugs Rating: PG Summary: Jason, Tim, and Stephanie meet while Jason still holds the Robin mantle. They band together to take down a child trafficking ring, all while each one is fighting their own personal battles. Stephanie's dad is a small-time crook who is major-times ruining her chances at a better life. Tim's parents are never home--he doubts they could pick him out of a lineup. Jason is suddenly thrust into life with a billionaire (and vigilante), but not everyone might want him there. Story is mostly set in Gotham and Wayne Manor, with a few scenes in Titans Tower. The Major Character Death is Jason, but it happens off screen and in the epilogue. The Abusive Parents is Tim's parents neglecting him. Drugs are a passing mention. The Child Trafficking Ring is a major plot point.

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8 Title: You’re saving Blüdhaven but who saves you? Word Count: 3457 Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Humor Fandom/Universe: Batman/Nightwing comics, Under the Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd/JayDick – Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Warnings: child’s death, mentions of rape, canon typical violence, non consensual drug use, incest (pseudo-incest? Jason and Dick were adopted), self esteem issues Rating: T/Teen And Up Audiences /PG14+ Summary: After a kid got killed Dick, already in a bad place, decides that his only option to make a difference is to fight crime in a different way. He decides to partner up with a carefully chosen criminal and Red Hood caught his attention even if some of their morals are on the opposite sides of the scale. This somehow leads to Dick having an elusive roommate he developed an attraction to. It’s a shame no one told him Red Hood is in fact Jason. This story is canon divergence or alternate universe and takes place after the events with Blockbuster and Tarantula in Nightwing comics and intertwines with some happenings from Under the Red Hood. The action is placed mainly in Blüdhaven, but there are trips to Gotham and Wayne Manor. The story has a romantic relationship between adopted brothers. The rape is mentioned several times and one of the character is forcibly drugged. It also contains description of child’s death and violence.

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9 Title: A Bit(e) Wild Word Count: 5-6k total, 4k written Genre: mostly Angst/Fluff but some Action/Adventure Fandom/Universe: Losers/Batfamily, no particular series Characters/Pairings: established Jensen/Cougar, will be Jensen/Cougar/Jason Todd later in series. Background canonical Pooch/Jolene, mention of Clay/Aisha. Warnings: Graphic violence, swearing, maybe sex in the flashback Rating: Explicit. Even if no sex happens yet, it will later, and there's also the violence to consider. Summary: The Losers have just barely taken down Max and cleared their names; Jensen's still cleaning up post-mission but they're all back home. Jason Todd's preparing to move back to Gotham and butt heads with Batman when a bit of pest control ends with him bitten by a wolf shifter. He didn't think the Pit's aftereffects would allow him to be changed, or that he'd call the Losers for backup again, but of all the people Talia had him learning from, Cougar's the only shifter he knows he can trust if this IS the dreaded change coming on. Cue frantic phone call. The Losers load up and head out immediately, but Pooch brings his family just in case, Clay rides up with Roque, and Jensen and Cougar lead the charge because they've already got the shifter genes and being bitten again isn't going to do anything to them (Jake is a recent change; Cougar was born a shifter). By the time the others arrive, they've got Jason settled and all three are in their animal forms. Jensen is a wolf, Cougs is a cougar, Jason is a snow leopard. After the first few lessons, Jason gets impatient--maybe the Pit, maybe new instincts, partly the knowledge that the Losers aren't going to just let him leave until he's got enough control over his shifter side to satisfy Cougar. He tries to slip out in the night, half hoping they won't follow him, subconsciously aware this will be much easier with trusted backup. Every Loser was expecting this, though, and when Jason slinks off to Gotham, they're still mostly packed and ready to head out. It doesn't take them long to follow.

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10 Title: where monsters lie (in dead men's dreams) Word Count: ~75k total, 47.7k written (including unfinished draft) Genre: Drama, Horror, Angst Fandom/Universe: Batman Arkham Games, and a lot of creative liberty taken with comic canon and the traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega AU Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson Warnings: Non-con, Dub-con, Drugging, Non-traditional ABO Dynamics, Bondage, Descriptions of Torture, Pseudo Incest, Kinky/Rough Sex, Intersexed Characters, Background Polyamory, Angst, Murder Rating: R Summary: Oracle enlists Red Hood's reluctant help to find Batman and Nightwing, who have disappeared during an arms bust deal orchestrated by the Penguin. They've been captured and dosed with a perverted form of the Scarecrow's latest toxin, and the effects of the toxin force the three of them to face their feelings for each other. All Jason wants to do is run away, except Dick won't let him leave. Things grow more complicated when the Penguin re-emerges with a threat none of them had expected, and Jason takes it upon himself to teach the Penguin a permanent lesson. Meanwhile, Dick has been experiencing random bouts of mania and murderous intent, ever since getting dosed with the toxin. By the time he confronts Jason about the Penguin's vicious murder, Jason sees more of the Joker in Dick than he does in his nightmares. Fortunately for them both, there's no mystery in Gotham that Batman can't solve in time. The story is set in Gotham City, 1.5-2 years post the game Batman: Arkham Knight, but also features several flashbacks of bastardized canon scenes from the comics. If you're a stickler for canon, this will probably kill you dead so please bear that in mind. Besides that, there is a single instance of non-con and another instance of molestation. There are also two implied sex scenes which can be considered dub-con. There is pseudo-incest between Jason, Dick and Bruce. The Penguin gets tortured to death but the torture occurs off-screen and only the results are described in graphic detail. The polyamory is mentioned throughout but does not occur on-screen.

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11 Title: The Sacredness of Tears Word Count: 13k Genre: Romance, character study, elements of fantasy and drama/angst Fandom/Universe: Batman comics, set in the future and using events from New Earth and the current continuity Characters/Pairings: Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Tim Drake-centric Warnings: temporary character death, pseudo-incest, canon-typical violence, discussions of mental illness, parental abuse through neglect, swearing Rating: PG-13 (maybe R for swearing?) Summary: Tim Drake Wayne isn’t weak. He can’t be. And now that he can travel through time, he has the perfect tool to make sure he’ll never be vulnerable again. Gradually, Tim’s family, friends, and his slowly blossoming relationship to Jason teach him otherwise. The story is set in Gotham with scenes in Tim’s apartment, the Batcave, a diner and various rooftops. There are scenes with multiple members of the batfamily and Tim’s team. The romantic scenes are focused on cuddling and size difference. The plot spans several years. Tim is eighteen at its beginning and twenty-five at its end. There is one detailed description of a meltdown or anxiety/panic attack. There are discussions of mental illness; some symptoms of depression are shown, especially withdrawing from the world and diminished self-worth, but nothing too bad and absolutely no hint of self-harm or suicide. Jason dies in one scene (not the canonical temporary death), but that is quickly reversed. There are descriptions of injuries. The parental abuse refers to Tim’s and Jason’s canonical backstories, not Bruce (who tries to be a good parent in this).

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12 Title: The Nightingale Word Count: ~14k total, 8.5k written Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe, Drama, Healing Fic (kinda) Fandom/Universe: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: No Warnings Apply Rating: NC-17 Summary: Crushed by the guilt of Jason's death, Dick quits the vigilante life, gives up Nightwing, begs Bruce for a clean slate, and runs away to New York City. He takes shelter at the Nightingale, a nightclub where Dick works as an exotic dancer, a stripper named Richie. Dick uses the blinding stage lights, Bloody Marys, and a mysterious man named Jay to hide his past. However, Dick's rather painful former life is slowly uncovered by Jay through a series of one night stands. Meanwhile, Dick also has some unconventional run-ins with the Red Hood, a supposed antihero working in the tri-state area and associated with the family Dick has not had any relations with for over five years. Old wounds reappear, and Dick's new life slowly falls apart around him as the truth comes to light. Set primarily in NYC, in the Nightingale nightclub and at the different hotel rooms Jay books. Towards the end, Dick and Jason will eventually move back into Gotham City and Wayne Manor. Story takes place five years after Jason's death. Dick's "new" life is an emotional roller coaster of hurt/comfort, a path of healing, a life built on lies, and identity porn woven all throughout it, until it is all untangled in the end.

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13 Title: Between Flight Word Count: ~15k, 10.8k written Genre: Romance, Drama, Humor, Alternate Universe Fandom/Universe: Batman - All Media Types Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: No Warnings Apply Rating: PG-13 Summary: Jason is a 15-year-old orphan, living at a crappy orphanage, going to school because it is the only fun in life, and dreaming of the day he becomes eighteen. After a little altercation with a pickpocket, Jason meets Robin, and from that night on, Jason could not get rid of the Boy Wonder. Coincidentally, Dick Grayson starts at Jason's school as well, and decides to befriend him of all people. Jason finds himself being tugged in two directions - towards a charming and talkative circus boy with a past similar to his, and towards Gotham's own hero in scaly panties. Over the course of a couple weeks, Jason is dumped at a school dance, kissed on rooftops, taken on dates a couple times a week, and even glared at by the Batman himself. Needless to say, Jason finds that his life is a lot more interesting after he met both Dick and Robin. But of course things smell fishy to Jason. Especially when Robin knows tricks that only Mr. Circus Boy can do. Or when Dick uses the same girly shampoo as the teen hero. Or when their identical disarming smiles send bursts of happiness straight through Jason's heart. Batman might be the World's Greatest Detective, but Jason Todd is not so shabby either. Set primarily at Jason and Dick's high school, the orphanage, the rooftops of Gotham City, the luxurious halls of Wayne Manor, with special appearances of "date" locations around the city. Jason is 15, while Dick is 17.

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14 Title: Moon Dust On Your Lips Word Count: ~6100 Genre: Romance, First Time, Mutual Pining Fandom/Universe: Batman and Green Lantern, no specific canon Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Hal Jordan Warnings: Mild sub/Dom, explicit sex, biting and bruising, praise kink Rating: NC-17 Summary: The Justice League is trying to expand their potential pool of allies in the known universe, and with the help of their Green Lanterns, they set off to personally negotiate with as many people as they can. Everyone is involved, but it mostly falls to Bruce/Batman and Hal Jordan. The longer Bruce and Hal work together, the more Bruce let's Hal see under the cowl, and the more Hal starts to like what he sees. Bruce even accepts advice from Hal on an issue dealing with his children. Then Hal, returning exhausted from a mission to Oa, loses his temper at the tail end of a League meeting. He says something stupid within Batman's hearing, and then goes off to get decidedly drunk with Barry. Hal confesses that he has a crush on Bruce, but there isn't anyway that he can see it ever happening, so he decides to just ignore it and move on with his life. Bruce doesn't exactly get the memo right away, but as soon as Hal starts physically distancing himself from Bruce as much as possible, their tentative friendship falls to the wayside. Soon, Bruce and Hal are back to being uneasy coworkers. It culminates with Bruce and Hal on the return trip of another successful negotiation, when their escorts decide to up and leave them in the Middle of Nowhere, Spaceville in a small, cramped, one man space pod. There's an argument, confessions, and then sex, before being rescued. The story takes place in a variety of locations, including Wayne Manor, the Watchtower, Barry's apartment, and the space pod. The sex will include Bruce manhandling a very willing Hal, with some rougher edges (biting and bruising, praise kink).

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15 Title: Happy Middles Word Count: ~4600 Genre: PWP Fandom/Universe: Batman and Green Lantern, no specific canon Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Hal Jordan Warnings: Somnophilia, Dirty Talk, Praise Kink, Noise Kink Rating: NC-17 Summary: Basically a slice of life PWP about the time Hal and Bruce make for each other, specifically how Bruce's ends his nights and how Hal starts his days. Bruce comes home early from a shortened patrol and joins Hal in bed a few hours before Hal has to go to work. Hal falls back asleep, and then wakes Bruce up when he starts exhibiting signs of a wet dream. Bruce pleasures Hal until he wakes up, and then gets Hal off. Hal turns the tide on Bruce, teasing him until Hal decides he's ready to ride Bruce to their mutual completion. This takes place solely in Bruce's and Hal's bedroom in the Manor, described as having a darker color scheme with blues, blacks, and grays. All kinks are negotiated prior to the story, as this is a well established, husbands!fic. No noncon here.

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16 Title: Hold Me Tight (or Don't) Word Count: 6055 Genre: Mystery, Angst, possible supernatural elements Fandom/Universe: Batman, no specific universe Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Conner Kent, Jason Todd Warnings: Medical experiments, but non-graphic Rating: Teen Summary: Sometimes, a Family is you, your Beloved's dead kid in a coma, and your Beloved's best friend's "clone" who's other gene donor is sort-of kind-of your boss off to play at politics Or There’s been a rash of robberies in Gotham, leaving Batman puzzled as to what the villains are up to, all the while seeing Jason appear to him, even though he’s been dead for a few weeks. Meanwhile. Talia takes care of a comatose Jason, while discovering Lex’s secret project taking a form no one expected. On the other side of bay/river, Clark is investigating a mysterious Cadmus fire, under a building Lex Luthor (who is now the president) owns. Not to mention the mysterious new villain who may be more connected to the robberies in Gotham that it seems.

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17 Title: untitled as of yet! Word Count: 3039 Genre: 5+1 things, fluff, probably eventual smut Fandom/Universe: dc extended universe, films 2013-present Characters/Pairings: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Warnings: none Rating: T at the moment, will likely slide into M/E Summary: After a few months of working together side-by-side as a team while not actively trying to kill each other (even in their spare time), Clark realizes he’s developed Feelings for Bruce. He knows Bruce is stubborn and self-isolating, so he decides the best plan is to figure out a way to make things a little (incidentally) romantic without scaring off Bruce: little notes on rooftops, a dubiously agreed upon makeover by Lois, advice from Barry and Victor and Diana—even Alfred ends up in on the game. Unfortunately for Clark, Bruce is even more slippery (or oblivious) than he ever imagined. Maybe what Clark really needs is a little help from a Higher Authority… or, the five times Clark Kent tried (and failed) to seduce Bruce Wayne, and the one time Bruce Wayne allowed himself to be epically seduced.

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18 Title: the weight of eventuality Word Count: 24,000 Genre: Romance, /Action, Drama Fandom/Universe: CWTV Flash (2014) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart, Team Flash Warnings: canon typical violence, graphic sex Rating: NC-17 Summary: Life was pretty great for Barry Allen, honestly. Team Flash successfully pulled him out of the Speed Force, he still had his job, and all of his friends and family where there to support him. Eddie and Iris were expecting their first child, and even with everything that happened between Caitlin and Julian, the team worked as well as ever together. Barry didn't want to tell them that he was still slipping backward and forward in time, or that every night the Speed Force made him witness the death of Leonard Snart. Rescuing Leonard was easy. Falling in love with him? not really part of the plan. With Captain Cold back in Central City, it was hard to remember that there were other people out there who wanted to do more than flirt and steal pretty jewelry. It was just a matter of time until they made their move. This story takes place mostly in Central City, with a detour into the Speed Force. There isn't really anything to warn for, I think. There's an explicit consensual sex scene near the end of the story, and canon typical violence and injury. There's some mention of minor medical procedures. There's technically some torture, but that happens off screen and Barry is in the speed force of the entirety of it, so there's no graphic detail.

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19 Title: your continental divides Word Count: 9k Genre: Hurt/Comfort Fandom/Universe: DCU. not set in a specific universe, borrows from several continuities. Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson centric, Batfam and company, Gen Warnings: non-con Rating: PG-13 Summary: After Catalina Flores, Dick is dealing the way Bruce taught him: push it down and carry on. It's not working out very well, and people are starting to catch on. The story is set mostly in Gotham, and guests a few characters besides the batfam (mostly Wally and Roy). It's essentially just an exercise in letting Dick be comforted by the people who love him. This focuses on dealing with the sexual assault from Nightwing #93. The assault is not graphically depicted but is referenced and discussed, in addition to self-destructive behaviors and a variety of coping mechanisms.

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20 Title: Broken Wings and Notched Arrows. Word Count: Around 6-6.5k total. 4,280 written Genre: Action, Romance, Drama. Fandom/Universe: Young Justice, Batman. Characters/Pairings: Will Harper (Roy Harper's clone)/ Jason Todd Warnings: Temporary Character death, mild language, mild violence, small age gape, Rating: NC-17 Summary: The only thing Will Harper wanted to be doing that fine winter morning was to play dress up with his beautiful daughter Lian. What he got however was a surprise visit from the legendary Bruce "Batman" Wayne. And if that wasn't a big enough shock being hired by said legend was icing on the cake. So now instead of spending Christmas with Lian Will is kind of, maybe being held against his will on Infinity Island. Bright side he did find Jason Todd like he was hired to. This story takes place in multiple locations. The main set is in the Caribbeans, mostly Infinity Island and the League of Assassins HQ. It also show cases Will's home in Star City and a major fight screen in Gotham. There is no major warnings. Temporary Character death as Jason Todd doesn't stay dead for long. Some violence but nothing more then a few short details of fight scenes. No gore just a little blood.

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21 Title: Masks Word Count: 7,783 Genre: Action/Adventure and Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman Comics, post-Infinite Crisis Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Alfred Pennyworth Warnings: Incest, canon typical violence, explicit sex Rating: NC-17 Summary: Continuation of pre-new 52 canon. Jason's back in Gotham. All he wants to do is figure out how he can successfully help fix his city, without falling foul of the rest of the Bats and the GCPD again. He's even hung up his red hood in an attempt to stay under the radar. When he discovers that Alfred is in danger from the gang he's investigating, he infiltrates a costume ball at Wayne Manor in disguise as a supervillain. He ends up flirting with Dick to stop him interfering with the rescue plan. Dick doesn't realise who he is and flirts back until they end up making out furiously in a closet. Afterwards neither of them can get the encounter out of their heads, and they start to get to know each other again. Featuring conversations with Alfred, Dick attending a party in a Superman costume, Jason spray painting his red hood grey, everyone rescuing each other and lots and lots of pining. Warning for pseudo-incest between the adopted brothers, Dick and Jason when they reach adulthood.

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22 Title: Sleeping Beauty Syndrome Word Count: 9k written. Genre: Romance, Angst, Fairytale Rewrite Fandom/Universe: Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: Horror, gore Rating: PG-13 Summary: Dick Grayson and Jason Todd have been living the perfect life. Happily married for more than five years with two perfect sons, they have everything they could possibly need. Unfortunately, good things don't last forever. Struck by a spell during a mission, Jason's mind has been scattered, putting him into a deep sleep and the only way to wake him up is for Dick to put his pieces back together. The task won't be as easy because each part of Jason has been hidden within a fairy tale, a world tempting Dick to make one wrong move and doom his husband and himself forever. The story will take place over multiple locations, including rewrites of fairy tales like Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Pauper, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

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23 Title: we just now got the feeling that we're meeting (for the first time) Word Count: Around 36K (34K written) Genre: Drama, Romance, Fluff, Angst Fandom/Universe: Superman and Batman, DCEU canon/movie canon Characters/Pairings: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne; Lex Luthor, Diana Prince, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry, Victor Stone Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Rating: Teen Summary: While fighting Lex Luthor for his latest weapon, a time weapon, Bruce Wayne gets hit and sent back twenty years into the past. Meeting Clark Kent on some snowy mountain side in Alaska was not exactly what Bruce thought would happen, but he’s here now and there’s nothing for him to do except wait for his team to pull him back to the future. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite know when that will be, so sticking with Clark is his best option. Of course, it would be much easier if Bruce wasn’t already pining for Clark in the future. How long until Bruce is pulled back into the future, and will he be able to stop himself from falling in love with Clark Kent in the past and potentially creating a time paradox? This story is set in a couple of locations. Most of it is set in the past in Alaska during the beginning of Clark’s pilgrimage, specifically in the Denali National Park. Other locations include the Wayne-Turned-League Manor, Bruce’s Lake-House in Gotham city, and the lake itself! Primarily it involves young versions of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, although the very beginning section and at the last few parts of the end is focused on the present/older versions of them. There are no Archive Warnings that apply to this story. It is mainly an excuse to just write cute scenes of Bruce and Clark falling in love in the snow with the added bit of dealing with time travel, with a lot of focus on Bruce Wayne's character! The most rated this story goes is the occasional swear word.

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24 Title: Scarlet Tears Word Count: 12,914 Genre: Action Fandom/Universe: AU Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Warnings: mention mpreg Rating: M+ Summary: Leonard and Mick take a mini vacation from the Legends and head back to Central City. It is there they find out things aren't as them left it. A certain speedster has the attention of Captain Cold when an accident happen will he be able to resist staying away from this particular speedster?

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25 Title: Absent Shadows Word Count: 3487 Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Fandom/Universe: Justice League Animated/Teen Titans Characters/Pairings: Robstar & Superbat Warnings: None Rating: NC-17 Summary: Starfire can’t believe her eyes when Robin sends her his resignation from the team, in fact she doesn’t believe it all. As she investigates Robin’s disappearance, she considers his similarities with his father and in the chaos, she meets a fellow traveller to this strange planet she calls home. Whilst they learn about each other, she seeks his experience when falling in love with both Earth and more specifically men from a certain family.

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26 Title: Make an Ass of U and Me Word Count: probably 10k-12k (6k written) Genre: Romance, Comedy Fandom/Universe: DCEU Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce, Dick&Bruce Warnings: sort of assumed incest, but no actual incest Rating: Teen Summary: Bruce neglects to tell the newly formed Justice League that he has a son, because he and Dick aren't talking to each other . Until they suddenly are. Unfortunately, he doesn't clarify who exactly Dick is to him, so Clark gets the wrong impression. Or: Five times Clark thought Dick was Bruce's boyfriend, and the one time he found out the truth. Contains lots of unfounded jealousy, misunderstandings, Dick being delightful, and Clark being a mess. Lots of domestic settings, mostly around the lake house and the batcave, with the exception of one battle scene.

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27 Title: Honey Trap Word Count: 7.7k Genre: Porn-with-plot, crime/modern AU Fandom/Universe: DCU (Comics) Characters/Pairings: Slade Wilson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson Warnings: Consent issues (consent is there on both sides, but dubious on one side due to situation), manipulation, some BDSM-style kink Rating: NC17 Summary: Slade's used to dealing with informants. Most get caught in the screening process before they ever get a hold of anything useful, but this one, 'Jason Todd,' gets as far as working in the lower ranks of his organization before Billy drops the file on his desk. Another attempt at an undercover CI from Detective Grayson, this time just some random arrested civilian, instead of a fellow officer. Billy would prefer that he throw him out now, but Todd's not bad looking, and Slade likes the idea of ruining this plant just like he ruined the last one. Modern AU, no-capes. Aside from sex scenes, one character is primarily in part/all of a suit throughout scenes. As Slade is aware from the start that Jason's a plant, the sex has some consent issues. Jason is doing it partly to ingratiate himself, and Slade absolutely manipulates him into it. However, Jason enjoys/consents to everything that happens, it's only the situation that's sketchy.

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28 Title: Don't Let Your Yearnings Get Ahead of Your Earnings Word Count: 7.2k Genre: Western, technically Romance Fandom/Universe: DCU (Comics) Characters/Pairings: Slade Wilson/Jason Todd Warnings: Some non-consensual touching, non-sexual Rating: PG-13 Summary: Slade Wilson is a bounty hunter, one of the best in the business. The contracts that specify 'alive and unharmed' are rarer, but usually worth the extra bonus that comes with. This one is definitely not. Jason Todd was supposed to be just another young outlaw with more balls than brains, not a slippery sharpshooter who Slade would have to chase halfway to the next town. And just to add to everything, he still has to get the damned boy all the way back. That's going to be fun. Western AU with bounty-hunter Slade and an outlaw-ish Jason. Most of the story is traveling, but there will be an inside-mansion scene near the end with Roman Sionis. No real warnings for this. There's some brief non-consensual touching of intimate bits, but it's entirely non-sexual.

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29 Title: [insert song lyric here] Word Count: 8084 Genre: It's a slowburn at its core, with action and drama mixed in Fandom/Universe: DCAU's Justice League/Unlimited Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Wally West, Shayera Hol, J'onn J'onzz, John Stewart, Diana, Clark Kent Warnings: human trafficking, threat of dub/non-con, language, sexual themes Rating: R Summary: Ever since their run in with the Justice Lords, Flash and Batman reached a new stage in their teammates-but-not-quite-friendship. The only problem is Flash is the only one who seems to think that, so he decides to see how far he can push at Batman's annoyance level before the Bat snaps at him. Unfortunately for Flash, their job keeps getting in the way, including but not limited to stumbling upon a human trafficking ring and a worldwide invasion. When the dust settles, Flash finds himself wanting more from the man under the cowl, and the harder Batman pulls away, the harder Flash is drawn to the man and his elusiveness. The Fastest Man Alive needs to rely on his patience if he wants to get anywhere in his quest. This story takes place throughout the entirety of DCAU's Justice League as well as the first two seasons of Justice League Unlimited, with the main locations being the Watchtower and Wayne Manor. The human trafficking and threat of dub/non-con are contained to two scenes in which a main character falls into trouble, but nothing too graphic occurs. Still, the subject matter isn't everyone's cup of tea. The R rating is just to be extra safe.

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30 Title: Anachronistic Crises Crossover Word Count: 8k Genre: Gen, Crossover, Fluff Fandom/Universe: Red Robin, Batman- All Media Types, DC Comics Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd (Post Crisis),Tim Drake, Jason "Jay" Todd (Pre-Crisis)/Rena(Pre- crisis), Jason "Jay" Todd (Pre-Crisis), Rena(Pre- crisis) Warnings: Period Typical homophobia, possible inclusions of bad mental health care later Rating: T (just to be safe) Summary: Coming off of the Search for Ray Palmer, Jason Todd reconciled with his family. Just in time for Batman's apparent death. After an international adventure that led them to finding the batman, said batman in his Hyper-Adapter crazed state seemingly vaporized them with Omega Energy. Jason and Tim wake up to find themselves stranded in Gotham, New Jersey where its somehow the April of 1986. Tim takes the lead and stalks a young person also named Jason Todd- who is very unlike the one he knows. The Alfred Pennyworth with him seems similar enough though. In there efforts to observe this world's Bat-family Tim ends up having to go to high school again- where the shear amount of brightly colored clothes that are either skin tight or falling off makes him want to claw his eyes out. Jason is comparatively having a much better time as a librarian in the Gotham Public Library to fund their tiny studio apartment with money that doesn't look fake for the time period. 

Night work continues as well, with Red Hood and the vigilante named by the media as "Shrike". Their quick and calculated moves on the Gotham drug trade lead them to colliding first with this world's Robin. Jason alone is confronted by the Batman, and nearly has a panic attack though Tim will never be privy to that information. 

Gotham is a not as insane back drop of retro-not-so-chic. Jason enjoys the small pleasures of being legally alive and having a job. Tim doesn't cope well without all his compact gadgetry and hates school- but likes the closeted lesbian couple he meets. A budding bat-detective trying to figure out who these new and weird people are, and who these new sci-fi like vigilantes are. Will the people back home in Tim and Jason's Gotham ever succeed in getting them home?

The entire fic takes place in either version of Gotham, with the exception of the Watchtower being there for like 5 minutes. Post-Crisis Gotham features locations like Oracle's clock-tower Jason is wearing his Under the Red Hood costume, Tim cosplays as knock off Midnighter (red robin), Bruce has blue accents and trunks, and Robin-Jay makes Jason re-live cold nights in hot-pants and pixie boots.

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31 Title: Batsons Be Crazy Word Count: 11,169 words Genre: Fluff With Plot Fandom/Universe: Batfam + Shazam basically DCU leaning towards the comics Characters/Pairings: Damian Wayne/Billy Batson Warnings: None Apply Rating: Teen Summary: The story takes place over a year, a year of Billy and Damian teaming up, falling in love, and meeting family. Damian has never liked anyone before, while Billy sees the best in everyone and will fall in love at the drop of a hat. Their romance isn't a crazy one, it's one built off of trust, comfort, and most importantly, a love of animals. Their romance brings them to many places, including Canada, Dick Grayson's apartment, and the dinner table in the manor. No warning apply except maybe underage because Damian is 17 when he begins to peruse Billy as a romantic interest, but doesn't start seeing him until he's 18.

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32 Title: The Past Still Ties You Down Word Count: 7k Genre: Angst, Romance Fandom/Universe: The Flash (TV) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Warnings: implied/referenced violence and abuse, alcohol abuse Rating: NC-17 Summary: On another earth, Barry falls in love with the most hated man in Central City - mob boss Leonard Snart. Only, Central doesn’t know Len like he does. They didn’t grow up with him like Barry did, sleeping in the bed above him, patching up his wounds and crawling under the covers with him when his bullies had been especially cruel. Even as the years go by - where Len is no longer a teenage boy forced into a life he didn't choose and Barry is no longer the child still grieving his mother while hating the father who killed her - they can't seem to let go of each other. Set in multiple locations in Central City, including a foster home, hospital, and the West house. The violence and abuse are not actually shown, but the aftermath is (ie. patching up wounds, some blood, some discussion of specific actions after the fact).

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33 Title: Unfortunate Souls Word Count: around 8-9k total, 4958 written Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Fandom/Universe: Batman, Batfamily Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Slade Wilson Warnings: dub con (may have a bad ending that pushes it into non con) Rating: Explicit, NC-17 Summary: Based off of The Little Mermaid (Disney film mixed with aspects of the original fairy tale) as well as fandom-type Mer AU’s. With red-headed Jason taking the part of Ariel, Dick as Prince Eric, and Slade as Ursula. Jason, adopted prince of King Bruce’s underwater kingdom, is fascinated by all things human. One night, while stargazing on the surface, he decides to follow a ship out of curiosity. On the ship is a handsome human prince who steals his heart. After an accident, Jason risks his life to save the human, which puts him at odds with Bruce. After inadvertently challenging Bruce during an argument about his ‘hobby’, Jason flees the realm and accepts the offer of octo-mer Deathstroke, a one-time rival of Bruce’s, to turn him human. But Slade’s intentions are murky and hidden. He wants Bruce’s throne, his son, and if he gets a human pet out of the deal, that’s just one more trophy to show that he is the stronger Mer. The story is set in the underwater mer kingdom ruled by Bruce; Slade’s underwater lair; and the idyllic land kingdom of Bludhaven, ruled by Price Richard. I haven’t decided whether I want a happy ending, like the film, where Jason and Dick ride off into the sunset or a bad ending where Slade gets everything he wants. If happy, there will be some dub con between Jason and Slade when they make the agreement and later when Slade is using magic to enthrall Dick. If I go with the bad ending, there will likely be some non con.

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34 Title: You Will See Me Word Count: 6,146 Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Character Analysis, Canon-divergent Fandom/Universe: Young Justice Characters/Pairings: Arsenal (Roy Harper), Artemis Crock, Roy Harper (Will Harper), Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Lian Harper || Oliver/Dinah, Arsenal & Artemis Warnings: Trauma, PTSD, Realistic depictions of injury, Physical Disability, Recovery Rating: PG-13 Note: Arsenal, and thus Roy, are trans men in this fic. Summary: After being rescued from the clutches of Lexcorp, a cryochamber, and no future, Arsenal struggles to find his grip on life. Between the vast amounts of anger, fear, and loss, he fights to cling to autonomy. A mentor he feels betrayed him, a clone he isn't sure how to relate to, and a couple of badass women who may not have known him, but are here for him, Arsenal is just learning to live again. A heavy introspection fic on the nature of the trauma Arsenal has been through, and his road to healing. Exploring the relationships he has with Oliver, Dinah, Roy, and Artemis especially, but others as well. The two weeks between his rescue, and his first mission with the team are rife with trouble and struggle, but he has a fire and a determination in him that will get him through. The hell of the War World and the true recovery afterwards. Learning to forgive Oliver, learning to accept Roy for himself, a separate entity than himself, getting to know Artemis and the real and true bond they form. Forgiveness, healing, and his fair share of slips and bumps, Arsenal finds closure, acceptance, and comfort in his life.

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35 Title: Build Me A Place (we'll call it home) Word Count: 6,800 story (+outline of ending) Genre: Fluff, Minor Angst Fandom/Universe: Batman, Superman, Justice League Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Louis Lane, Kara Danvers Warnings: None Rating: PG-13 Summary: Kryptonians are not human. It’s easy to forget, even for Clark. That being an alien means more than his powers. There are traits rooted into the DNA, coming out in the subconscious, until not even Clark notices. Kryptonians, among other things, build Bowers for their mates, beautiful homes to settle into. It’s more than a tradition, it’s a way of life. When Clark begins to redecorate, he doesn't know why it matters so much to him. And why it hurts so badly when Bruce doesn’t even care.

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36 Title: Little Scab Word Count: 6,246 words Genre: gen, family, found family, community Fandom/Universe: DCU, Batfam, Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain, OFC, Bruce Wayne, Batfam Warnings: violence, descriptions of abuse, non-graphic allusions to sex acts Rating: M for violence, adult themes Summary: Red Hood is not a hero to most. Outlaw, yes. Killer... yes. He and his estranged family all serve some role as self-described protectors, but only Jason Todd delivers his justice in blood. However, following one good deed and the start of a fledgling friendship, Jason finds the Red Hood tasked with leading a self defense class for some of Gotham's most vulnerable—homeless, prostitutes, and runaways. When the Batfamily members start catching on, will they approve? First appears Robin. Then Black Bat. Who next? What will Batman ultimately do about his wayward ward stirring up Crime Alley? Can Jason be trusted to keep Gotham safe? The story is set in Gotham, featuring set pieces like Crime Alley, warehouses, tall buildings, the Bat cave, and more. It features many Batfam characters as well as several OCs all taking part in self defense instruction, with a few action scenes thrown in. The story does contain graphic violence, including allusions to or descriptions of past physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse. It deals with mature themes but is ultimately about forging friendships, building community, and becoming better stewards of Gotham.

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Claiming Form NOW OPEN!!!

[dccomicsnews]

Fun. No matter genre or style, comics should always be fun. Unfortunately, sometimes, comics fail on this point either through content or execution. While it’s true that “fun” may be a quickly moving target for audiences generation to generation, it shouldn’t be too hard to point out comics that miss this. Even the most progressive and innovative comics have a “fun” quotient. Currently, DC Comics seems to be struggling with this notion in a significant segment of their line. However, there are some titles which have no problem exuding “fun!” It’s telling that the company that would be known as DC launched their first title in 1935, New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine. It’s even more telling, that this title evolved into More Fun Comics. From the very beginning, there’s been a notion of “fun.”

It may be easy to say that the element of “fun” is elusive and subjective. However, there are some classic titles that due to mature themes may seem to contradict this notion. Let’s look at Watchmen. While this comic is full of mature elements, it never eliminates the aspect of fun. The use of the Charlton Comics characters as analogs is an instant indicator of “fun.” It’s clear that Alan Moore is tying in to the history of comics, not only Charlton’s history, but the very history of comics as his backstory evokes the Golden Age of DC’s history. While Nite Owl, Silk Spectre and the rest are more or less original creations, it’s clear that they echo characters like the Golden Age Flash, Green Lantern and Atom that were in use in the DC Universe at the time. Any contemporary reader would be aware of this. It’s not hard to imagine that reader understanding that Moore was creating a sort of synergy with the legacies in the DC Universe.  While not an analog for the Justice Society of America, the Minutemen are that world’s first team of mystery men like the JSA in the traditional DC Universe. Evoking legacy is one of the primal elements of comic book “fun.” This is what made the reintroduction of the Justice Society of America in Justice League of America #21 and #22 such a hit in 1963.

  If something as highly acclaimed and serious as Watchmen can contain “fun,” what’s going on with today’s books? There’s no shortage of fun in the current Hawkman, and The Terrifics as well as the recent Plastic Man mini-series. However, the Heroes in Crisis mini-series/event is anything but fun. Issue #1 was essentially a bloodbath with 1/2 the issue devoted to Harley Quinn stabbing Booster Gold, repeatedly and unrelentingly.  There’s no fun here.  The tone is somber and the action mired in gratuitous violence.  The basic premise of the series is that sometimes super-heroes need some mental and emotional counseling.  At Sanctuary, the heroes hope to receive that assistance, but there’s a mass murder at the facility that takes the lives of some fan favorite characters, Wally West and Roy Harper.  The premise is about as far from fun as could be imagined.  While it has the potential to be a truly moving story, so far it has felt more like spectacle with little substance.  It would’ve been much more effective to have created an emotional connection with the victims before dispatching them.

Even a moment that could be perceived as fun in issue #2, when Harley Quinn takes out the Trinity, feels awkward and incongruous. Perhaps, one needs to be a full on Harley fanatic to appreciate this moment. To the average reader, it feels incredibly bizarre and absurd considering the accepted portrayal of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Perhaps, there is more going on, but on the surface, it appears to be quite ridiculous considering Harley Quinn’s power set. In the end, it feels out of place and damning of the Trinity. It’s hard to smile with such an indictment of DC’s big three.

The fallout from Heroes in Crisis naturally extends over to Titans.  The team has lost Roy Harper and Wally West, Arsenal and the Flash respectively to the events at Sanctuary.  Additionally, Donna Troy seems to be struggling with alcohol.  And, to add insult to injury (pun intended), Nightwing their leader suffered a gunshot to the head in Batman #55 that has left him with amnesia.  He only remembers his life before his parents were killed.  Dick Grayson has no memory of his life as the original Robin or Nightwing, nor of Bruce Wayne as his adoptive father.  This whole storyline plays like an attempt to remold Dick Grayson’s personality and affect a name change to “Ric” in order the pacify the perpetually immature that can’t handle the traditional nickname for Richard, Dick.  All this trauma leaves very little fun in the Titans book, which is 180 degree turn from where it started out with the pre-Rebirth mini-series, Titans Hunt, and the first story arcs during the Rebirth branding of the DC line.  These stories relied on the nostalgia for the return of the original Teen Titans to the history of the DC Universe and featured friends rediscovering friendships.  Nostalgia is a major fun factor, as is friends reconnecting, either in real life or between beloved fictional characters.

   Looking at the recent Plastic Man mini-series by Gail Simone and Adriana Melo, it’s not hard to see the fun in it. While the character may lend itself to something more humorous, there’s a fun in exploring Plas’s character. Addressing Pado Swakatoon’s identity issues is just as serious as what Tom King is attempting in Heroes in Crisis. The difference seems to be that Simone and Melo find an element of fun embedded in the themes. King appears to have lost this in his Batman run as well. His lead up to the “non-wedding” included some great character moments and “fun”, most significantly the double date with Lois and Clark at the carnival. However, with Batman #50, the “non-wedding” issue, was a great disappointment. Weddings are generally considered to be fun events, even if just in the moment. However, Bruce and Selina never got that far. There’s nothing fun about a wedding that doesn’t happen. Ask any guest….

Let’s look at Hawkman and The Terrifics, two DC Comics series that both exude “fun.” Hawkman not only presents an interesting plot, but builds on the main character, Carter Hall. There’s a lot going on with this character as his history is explored and yet not destroyed. Robert Venditti has managed to build on Hawkman’s past in an interesting way which doesn’t eliminate any aspect of his history. Instead, it embraces it. This is a real triumph! It exudes “fun.” It doesn’t necessarily require previous knowledge and it doesn’t eliminate ANYTHING that’s come before.

The Terrifics channels the fun and themes that the Fantastic Four originally produced back in 1961 for Marvel Comics. It’s no secret that The Terrifics draws on the chemistry of the Fantastic Four, but more importantly it manages to remain “fun” utilizing the unique personalities of Plastic Man and Metamorpho contrasted against the Mr. Fantastic intellectual analog, Mr. Terrific.

It’s prescient to look at Marvel’s The Immortal Hulk, a series which is not only doing well and receiving positive response, but also serious, somewhat scary and definitely mature. Despite all of these attributes going against it, this series manages to remain “fun.” It is able to channel the original horror element of the basic concept while maintaining a modern sensibility. There is no doubt, however, that Immortal Hulk is fun. Most recently issue #8 has featured a dismembered Hulk still able to provide succor for Bruce Banner. Perhaps, it is the relationship between the two that remains most salient element in the book.

Maybe, the most damning titles in DC’s stable are the Superman books by Brian Michael Bendis. What should be fun is not, and what’s left is sometimes boring and mostly depressing. The Rogol Zaar storyline is progressing too slowly and quite underwhelmingly while the Lois Lane subplot in Action Comics feels completely wrong. The solicits for February’s comics seem to project a future for Jon Kent (Lois and Clark’s son) that has robbed the reader of Jon’s growth and development. Bendis seems to be robbing the reader of understanding how Jon matures and grows, as well as robbing Lois and Clark of raising their child. Not only is this not fun, it is disturbing. If you haven’t dropped Bendis’ Superman books, go ahead and do it now so there may be a chance of salvaging the Kent family. “Fun” is watching the Kent’s raising their son. Depriving them of this opportunity shows a complete lack of respect for the characters, and an agenda of spectacle over character development. There’s enough inherent conflict and story ideas in raising a child with superpowers that Bendis’s contrived plot are not only unnecessary, but uninteresting and depressing- the opposite of “fun.”  Not mention, a status quo that absolutely no one asked for.  There’s an ominous cloud hanging over Superman’s head as Bendis seems to be purposely breaking down the Man of Steel instead of writing legitimately interesting character development.  A mopey, sad Superman is just depressing, and it doesn’t feel genuine when the conflict is so clearly contrived.

It’s not as if there is just one title or character that seems to be suffering from a lack of fun.  The widely reaching Heroes in Crisis event sort of permeates the tenor of the DC Universe.  Interestingly, this atmosphere isn’t isolated in the books that are dealing with the repercussions of Heroes in Crisis directly.  Superman and Nightwing both have some very somber elements that tinge the overall tone of their current storylines and suck the fun out of the drama.  At some point, if the comics you are reading aren’t fun and enjoyable you should drop them. Superman, Action, Titans, Heroes in Crisis, maybe Batman…. Send a message, read what you like…buy what you want to read…don’t be afraid of change….

Editorial: Comics Should Be Fun Fun. No matter genre or style, comics should always be fun. Unfortunately, sometimes, comics fail on this point either through content or execution.

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

asks (9)

Anonymous said: if you have the time, could we maybe please have your absolute /worst/ headcanons about Dick mourning Damian? before/during Spyral? btw u are an absolute gift :*

Shoot I meant to put this one into the fic today too. Oh well. Damian and Dick angst is here

Anonymous said: everytime I see something about damian it reminds me of you

The highest praise I’ve ever received :’)

Anonymous said: do you know of other batblogs that don't do ships?

Uhhhhhh I don’t think so? I can’t think of anyone else that’s entirely ship-free, but frankly I don’t follow very many people. How bout this? If any of y'all ARE ship-free, reply in the notes. That way we’ll know :)

Anonymous said: Song recs: "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy (Justice League), "Remember The Name" by Fort Minor ft. Styles of Beyond (this is THE Batfam song!), "Counting Stars" by OneRepublic (Dick), "All The Right Moves" by OneRepublic (Batkids), "Tiptoe" by Imagine Dragons (Batkids), "Warrior" by Beth Crowley (Batgirls), "Shatter Me" by Lindsey Stirling ft. Lzzy Hale (Babs), "Disarm" by The Civil Wars (Jason), "Demons" by Imagine Dragons (Jason), "Afterlife" by Ingrid Michaelson (Batkids).

Oooooooh thank you these are very nice! I hadn’t heard most of them

Anonymous said: Batfam/kids song recs! "Renegades" by X-Ambassadors, "When The Darkness Comes" by Colbie Caillat, "Royals" and "Rule the World" by Lorde, "Midnight" and "Fix You" by Coldplay and "Bad Blood" by Bastille. Also for Dick: "Pompeii" by Bastille and "Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford & Sons.

Thanks! Idk if this was one person or two, but please continue to send me music, y'all, I like it

Anonymous said: no need to be batfamily centric, what comics would you recommend for someone getting into comics now?

Red Robin (2009)

Batgirl (2009)

Batman and Robin (2009)

Batman and Robin (2011)

Robin: Son of Batman (2015)

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman: The Black Mirror

Batman: The Court of Owls

Batman: Death of the Family

Good enough for a start? I don’t read a lot outside the batfamily titles, I’m afraid

Anonymous said: Omg I love your writing. Can I request Damian and Jason fighting about Damian and Jon's missions?

Hm I’m a lil backlogged just now, but I think there’s a pretty good chance that Jon will show up eventually. Just probably not real soon :/

Anonymous said: I'm new to the DC comic world, but I'm a bit curious as to how fans feel/reacted about one thing: Talia drugging and taking advantage of Bruce? Do fans feel the same about that as they would if that had happened to a female character? Was it a big deal? I was shocked to find out it had happened, and want to know how other fans feel. Did the writers ever later address it?

Oh boy

In my experience there are two schools of thought:

1) People that like Talia and choose to use the older version of canon, where Bruce and Talia were in love and the rape never happened

2) People that hate Talia

As always, I’d prefer not to say which side I come down on, and I won’t answer any personal questions related to Talia. It’s a bit of a hot button topic, and I prefer to avoid conflict. Thank you. Let’s continue.

Here’s the thing, anon-- Damian was created by a writer named Grant Morrison in 2006. Before that, there was a storyline where Bruce and Talia had a baby, and she gave him up for adoption without telling him. Historically, Bruce and Talia’s relationship has been pretty straightforward: they liked each other, and any romantic interactions were consensual. 

Morrison changed that. I can’t say for certain why, but you can read a bit more about my opinion of him over here. In Morrison’s version, Damian was conceived by rape, for eugenic purposes; they were trying to create the ideal heir from al Ghul and Wayne DNA.

Talia drugged Bruce’s drink, and yes, that is absolutely rape. No doubt about it. Rape. It’s disgusting and unnecessary, and it doesn’t really make sense, considering the thirty-five years of material that came before Morrison’s Talia. 

Because of that, it’s a divisive topic. There are a lot of people who argue that since Talia’s actions were out of character for her (and since Morrison went on to make her do other out of character things, like murdering her own son) the rape should be removed from canon. Those folks generally substitute the older storyline where Bruce and Talia were in love. 

That kind of thinking really isn't that uncommon for comic fans because the way comic canon is constructed-- multiple writers with varying skill levels who frequently produce overlapping or contradictory accounts of the same events-- presents us with multiple versions to choose from. A small and unrelated example: in his original version, Tim Drake dropped out of high school before graduation. In the n52, he graduated early. I prefer the older version, so even when I read the n52, I think of Tim as a high school drop out.

There are also canon story lines that I just don’t acknowledge, Battle for the Cowl being the easiest example. I know that the characterization is awful, so I pretend it never happened.

Morrison dramatically changed who Talia is as a character, not just at that specific point, but continually from 2006 to 2013. Since he retired, Talia has been shifting back to her older incarnation (again, see the link from above). You’re going to find a lot of folks who are happy with that, and those are likely to be the same people that edit the rape out of Talia’s history. 

You’re also going to find folks on the other side of the issue-- people that acknowledge the rape and believe that it would be wrong to edit it out of history. Morrison’s Talia, while mischaracterized, has been around for a long time with some very dramatic effects. Damian’s redemption storyline, death, resurrection, and general personality all depend on Talia’s action while Morrison was writing her-- if you choose to ignore all of that, Damian as we know him can’t exist, and he’s been a giant part of the general bat canon for the last eleven years. 

Beyond that, rape and filicide are awful, horrifying crimes, and they both happened within Talia’s canon. They’re the current version. They haven’t been retconned. As a matter of fact, Morrison isn’t the only one circulating that version-- the recent animated movies about Damian explicitly include the rape, and those began in 2014. 

You also made an excellent point when you asked about gender-- male rape victims are treated incredibly poorly in fiction and life, and I think it’s fair to argue that ignoring Bruce’s canonical rape contributes to that. Bruce isn’t the only member of the batfamily with this issue either. Dick was raped by Tarantula in 2002 (he asked her not to touch him, he was in shock and immobile, and she had sex with him anyway), and that writer (Devon Grayson) didn’t even call it rape. Would the rape of either of those men be treated differently if they were women? I don’t know. I can’t really answer a hypothetical. But it’s worth thinking about.

When it comes to Talia, I’d say my experience with general opinion has been about a 50/50 split? That being said, I am very young, and I’ve only been in this game for five years. I can’t tell you how any of this went over in 2006 because I was a ten year old at the time, and I don’t think I know anyone older who could tell me.

As far as writers go... I don’t recall Bruce’s emotional state being addressed in any way. Most of the time, writers don’t directly talk about it. Some of them seem to lean towards the earlier version by framing Bruce and Talia as a love story; however, that doesn’t mean that by omitting the rape, they retcon it. People are raped by their partners or spouses all the time. Saying that Bruce loved Talia doesn’t automatically erase the rape. Implying that Bruce and Talia had consensual sex before or after Damian’s conception doesn’t automatically erase the rape. Frankly it would be very hard to retcon, since there would have to be some kind of statement within the dialogue denying any kind of drugging. 

I don’t know if any of this will ever be addressed, but I’ve written a lot more than I meant to now, so I’m going to stop. I hope I answered all your questions. If I didn’t, you could try sending me a message instead of an ask, and we can talk more about it in private

@another-nameless-person said: The CTC story reminds me so much of my own family omg. I am so happy I'm not the only one with a big family who does this too. I'm so happy I've since moved out of my moms and can stash my own junk food at home lol

Right? I’m only just now kicking the habit of hiding my food. I also recently realized that I’m allowed to drink directly from the bottles now, which is fun

@coredesignixandnekonee said: Do you think, in a world where Nightwing knows Starfire, Oracle, Miss Martian, Red Arrow/Arsenal, and Kid Flash (Wally West1) that there's a "red headed friends of Robin/Nightwing" club where they hang out and complain about him with tea and cookies?

Wally, dipping Oreos in his milk: listen guys I know for a fact he isn’t sleeping and I think we’re gonna have to make him. Whose turn is it

[bigskydreaming]

If your basis for saying that the reason you dislike Dick ‘taking away’ Robin from Tim is that it was like stripping Tim of the last remainder of his father, Bruce, then just say you hate Dick Grayson and go.

No matter that Robin is permanently associated with Bruce....it does not come from Bruce! It is not Bruce’s!

By your own logic, that taking Robin away from Tim, Dick was taking away a reminder of Tim’s father.....your own logic declares that every time Robin is taken away from Dick or deemed outside his control, its taking away the last reminder of HIS parents....you just don’t care, because Dick’s sentimentality towards his parents is meaningless to you.

That double standard does not work. Again. Tim being upset about how the Robin transition was handled? Totally understandable. Tim victimized by how the Robin transition was handled, with his victimizer being Dick himself, the actual creator of the mantle for his own reasons that no Jason or Tim stan that I’ve seen ever seems to feel the slightest inclination to acknowledge? NOT understandable.

It is messed up that so many people hijack the emotional and sentimental significance of Robin in order to deem those deep connections to it, only something Jason and Tim understand and share, whereas Dick himself gets.....no say, no sentiment, no attachment, no rights. 

Has it really escaped so many peoples’ notice that there’s more hostility towards Dick for ‘taking away’ Robin (I will always use quote marks with that because compared to Robin definitively being taken from Dick, it is NOT what happened with Tim).....but when you’re still more mad about that than Bruce taking it from Dick, even when you reference that being the continuity you’re going with in your own fics, that he was definitively fired and stripped of his own mantle by Bruce....how does that not seem backwards to you? 

I’m genuinely confused. How can you see such deep and meaningful attachment/connection between Tim and the Robin mantle (and to be clear, I see it too! I’ve never said that I didn’t!) but at the same time never demonstrate any awareness of Dick having even a similar degree of feeling towards the mantle, let alone more given the additional meanings it holds for him than the others on top of what it means to all of them?

Like, when you write over and over about Tim holding a grudge or still nursing resentment for this years after it happens.....why do you just take it for granted that all of Dick’s own resentment for it so frequently being out of his control has just....evaporated, years ago? Why is he the one who’s not allowed to hold a grudge, still nurse bitterness himself? Why isn’t he years later still allowed to be ticked at Bruce for it, and the fact that Bruce never actually acknowledged his wrongdoing here in canon? Why isn’t Dick allowed to express resentment that the very bond all his brothers get to share in because of him and no one else, has like....become the very thing they’re all so often written resenting him for?

Just for five seconds, imagine you’re Dick Grayson, and you created your superhero persona to be a memorial to your parents, your first family, to be a constant reminder of the love you felt for them and they for you.

And now skip to the future, when you’ve shared this very same mantle signifying family with three of your brothers, and two of them are a vast majority of the time viewed as hating, resenting, envying or just in some way, shape or form...not liking you, because of this mantle that you had every right in the world to say no, this is mine, if anyone else is going to be Batman’s partner after me, that’s fine, but they have to make their own mantle. My tribute to my family doesn’t get to be passed around to a bunch of people who couldn’t give a single shit what it means to me, that it was my family.

Like. LOLOL I know I constantly harp on this but that’s because it constantly repeats, a recurring pattern that’s alive and well in at least a couple new fics a week, something like ten years after this happened in canon. And its just really frustrating to see in all these fics that are in various ways prioritizing the Batfam as a FAMILY....like, I think it would probably be different if the fandom itself usually only viewed and depicted Robin as Batman’s partner. Then I could somewhat understand the viewpoint that Dick took something away from Tim rather than just expand a circle of family he still very much was shown to include Tim in.....then I could understand the focus on Robin existing more to be Batman’s partner than as a mantle embodying the found family/family of choice concept that binds all of these siblings together....with the linked view that the Robin mantle isn’t really Dick’s anymore, but rather as the partner of Batman, its Batman’s to regulate, hence why it wasn’t as big a deal when Bruce stripped Dick of the mantle.

Except.....ummm...first off, Dick was literally Batman at the time? Even though he didn’t want to be, hated having to shoulder that burden, he stepped up and did it because everyone told him it was what Gotham needed, that he needed to do it....

But bizarrely, even though Dick was Batman at this time, even by that logic, that its Batman’s partner and thus Batman’s to regulate and give away like he did with Dick....its still deemed that even as Batman, Dick didn’t have the right to definitively decide who needed to be his partner and why.

So as Robin, Dick didn’t get ownership of the mantle he’d created to honor his parents, because it’d been superseded at that point by being Batman’s partner, and thus it was Batman’s to do with as he pleased.

But then as Batman, Dick still didn’t get back ownership of the mantle he’d created, because it was still superseded by being Batman’s partner but....Dick wasn’t really the real Batman....whereas Tim definitively was a real Robin whose emotional attachment to the mantle was more important than what the acting Batman decided to do with it?

This is the rant I’m always making about Dick being allowed zero agency in any of his stories, in any aspect of his character.

Over and over and over again we see the refrain repeating that in story or out of story, in universe or out of universe, by some loophole, by some trick of semantics, there’s always some reason why Dick’s choices and decisions and feelings never matter as much as anyone else’s. That he’s just kinda meant to facilitate what everyone else needs or wants, and orbit around them providing support and validation, but he doesn’t get proprietary rights over anything in his life, even things that definitively came from him and no one else.

Its just....the logic itself is upsetting. 

Because like I was saying a second ago, it’d be one thing if the fandom as a whole concentrated more on Robin as Batman & Robin, rather than a common bond shared within the family. 

But they don’t. The focus on Batfam, in fandom, is on family. On these characters as a family. Either a dysfunctional one or a recovering one or a happy one or building bridges or burning bridges or reconciling or whatever....nine out of ten Batfam stories, at the end of the day, are about family.

So yeah, its frustrating, that in a fandom where the focus is so much on family and where these characters came from and how they arrived to be part of this family and what makes them a family....

That over and over it repeats: one way or another, Dick is the only one of these characters whose feelings about family, whose emotional, sentimental attachments don’t mean anything unless they’re focused on or about Bruce or his siblings. Family isn’t really allowed to mean anything else to him, than what’s best for them.....while they’re each allowed to have a wealth and breadth of emotional resonance and complexity regarding their second family and their first, their attachment to Robin and how it plays into their dynamics with Bruce and the other Robins, etc, etc.

So let’s recap....

Dick Grayson - not allowed to be angry, without it being deemed a character flaw, proof of a nasty temper, out of control anger, volatile, reckless. Never righteously angry, on his own behalf. For his siblings getting hurt, sure, he can be angry then, but if he’s ever angry for himself....its a flaw. Its a problem.

Dick Grayson - not allowed to be resentful. He’s not allowed to hold on to bitterness for Bruce taking the mantle, for others wearing it without consulting him, he’s not allowed to resent the fact that Tim has looked at this thing that means family more than anything else to Dick and decided that because Dick had the nerve to want to share it with a new brother, use it to bring him closer the exact same way he forged a brotherly bond with Tim through it......Tim’s justified in resenting and even hating the brother who gave it to him, trained him, stood by him for years and even when ‘giving it away’ still was right there pleading with him to stay because he still needed and wanted him by his side, wasn’t trying to kick him out or drive him away like Tim imagined, when Dick actually is the one who knows the reality of being kicked out of Wayne Manor.

Dick Grayson - not allowed to be proprietary. Any hint of possessiveness on his part is a flaw, a sign of him being controlling or overbearing or overstepping....he doesn’t get to claim rights of ownership to his memories of his parents via Robin or his choice to go by Dick or his costumes or anything.....his reasons for clinging to those things don’t matter nearly as much as whatever other people feel they can make of them - a joke, a mockery, making it their own, etc. Nothing is Dick’s....not even Wayne Manor is his home, really, for all that he lived in it longer than anyone but Bruce and Alfred...he can still be kicked out of it, he can still be denied it as a place to recover from great trauma because he’s needed elsewhere, nobody’s ever shown expressing to Dick that he should come back to the manor because its his home, he’s welcome and loved there and would be comforted there, its at best a place he’s trying to get away from because he’s only invited back as an attempt to ‘control him’ when he’s sick or injured. Even well into his twenties, any money he has via Bruce or inherited from the settlement after his parents’ death, isn’t really his money, its Bruce’s though I don’t ever see anyone talking about any money Tim spends as being Bruce’s or the Drakes’, etc.

Idk, I mean I’m just saying, its not really a surprise that people often deem Dick to be less interesting or compelling than the others, a bit more shallow or two dimensional, not as deep and rich to explore....

When right off the bat, its just implicitly understood by a bunch of people, it feels like, that there’s a whole list of feelings that Dick Grayson just flat out isn’t allowed to have, for and about himself and his own life and issues....because somehow, those get in the way of everyone else feeling everything they feel, and they take priority.

*shrugs*

Sorry to be a broken record, but I wouldn’t constantly have stuff to say on this topic if fandom wasn’t just as much a broken record when portraying dynamics this way.