#Dick being a cop who loved his job is canon

[oifaaa]

wasn’t dick only a cop briefly for undercover corruption investigation reasons and then he quit anyway because the corruption was so deep there was no digging it out from the inside or did i hallucinate that

Maybe your thinking of a different time dick was a cop the main time or at least the one I think about when people bring up cop dick is during his 90s run in which I'd say he was a cop in bludhaven for the majority of that (if we also count the training) and yeah he definitely said something like he wanted to fix it from the inside but he didn't quiet he was fired which he wasn't happy with bc in his words he loved being a cop

[damianwaynerocks]

ya know how it’s canon that damian was taking acting lessons with carrie? and that he was really good at it?

what if that’s his civilian job when he’s older?

like we know some of the bats have civilian jobs. bruce, obviously, runs WE. tim is CEO. dick is a cop.

what if damian’s civilian job is an actor?

i know it wouldn’t make total sense bc he’d probably have to leave set randomly in the middle of a scene because he’d have to go on a mission but hear me out.

we know he loved acting because he gets to be someone else. carrie says this:

and then damian says the same thing in super sons

yeah he could’ve been saying that to fuck with jon but because carrie said the same thing, i think he was being honest.

and besides, look at how he played that old man. that is a jolly old fella and i personally read it in sweet old man voice.

and the disguises he always chooses when going undercover are outfits like these

and yes you could say that it’s just a gag bit the writer put in to be funny or you could say that that’s how damian feels like “normal” people dress and he’s trying to fit in but to me!! i feel like it’s him trying to be the opposite of how he is. you know, being somebody else.

plus he’s so good with voices. he could easily put on any accent necessary.

and so i think he would be an actor. yeah, he wouldn’t be able to be in gotham all the time filming movies and stuff, but personally i love the idea of damian being like dick and moving out of gotham to become his own hero/person.

he’d get the opportunity to experience what it’s like to be someone else, someone who wasn’t taught to kill someone before they could walk, someone who wasn’t forced to grow up way too fast, someone who doesn’t have to risk their life every single night, somebody who doesn’t have to hold possibly the world’s biggest secret. he could embrace being a completely different person, even if it’s only for a few hours at a time.

and imagine how funny it would be for the batfamily to turn on their tv and watch their mean, stern little brother have a wide smile with an australian accent in a romantic comedy.

jason storming out of the manor after damian insulted him 30 times and then he turns on his tv to get his mind off it and there damian is on a beach searching for treasure side-by-side with tom holland

damian in a wired google search interview and the first result is “is damian wayne robin?” and damian just sighs.

damian on a press tour in an interview and he’s just shooting the shit with jennifer anniston.

tim watching the tiktok edits of damian and just silently fuming at the comments that are like “he’s so babygirl”

damian getting an offer for a star wars movie and yeah, he might hate star wars because the lightsaber duels follow no sword fighting etiquette but he takes the role anyways so that tim can’t watch his beloved star wars without seeing damian wielding a light saber with ewan mccgregor

would dc do it? no definitely not and logistically it wouldn’t work because crimefighter hours probs do not mesh with 14 hour days on set. however!! imagine damian in a buzzfeed puppies interview.

[mysterycitrus]

Hey!! Love your art and your meta posts. I was wondering about your thoughts on something because I don't think I've ever really read about much of it in canon (might be missing something though), but do the batkids have their own Brucie Wayne-esque personas? I figure they'd be expected to act a certain way, like they've been taking in by a party loving play boy, they're gonna be a at least somewhat spoilt social butterflies right? I just can't stop thinking about the kids hitting like teenhood and having to adopt and put on that kind of act because it would be a little suspicious if nothing about Brucie rubbed off on them. Maybe they steal Bruce's cars or crash a gala, something staged just for the tabloids like that. Idk, I just find the idea of (most of) the kids not being raised anything like that and having to act up in the name of keeping their identities safe really interesting because I don't think they'd find it fun, I think it would actually gross them out to throw around money and act like brats.

lovely anon this is SUCH a fun question and i shall answer it in parts. the first is this — what is the purpose of the bruce wayne persona?

bruce created a specific public image of himself for several reasons — to deflect any suspicion that he’s batman, to justify his frequent disappearances from the public eye, and to be consistently underestimated by people he was in opposition with (gothams corrupt elite, the gcpd, etc). the popular interpretation of this is that he’s like a kardashian, but to be honest id say he’s a lot more like a donatella versace— relatively reclusive but who occasionally pops up doing the weirdest shit ever. he posts on dick’s insta like bruce WAYNE ❤️

wrt his kids, no, i don’t think many of them have that sort of glamorised persona. part of it is that the “gala” trope in fandom just…… doesn’t really exist in the comics? like bruce will take vicki vale to an event, or go to a luthercorp thing to gather intel, but the idea of everyone hitting up an event at the gotham four seasons is not a common story beat. and even then, again, the performance has a purpose outside of just being a distraction.

in particular, u have to consider how his kids are different from bruce. jason and dick were both lower class, if not actively below the poverty line and acting spoiled won’t win them any favours. cass straight up isn’t interested in that kind of performance. damian is honest to a fault. duke has his own family that he’s proud of. when u consider that damian and cass and duke and dick also aren’t white, u have to think about how acting like a glitzy idiot would help them in the same way it would bruce. short answer — it very much wouldnt. many people will think less of them regardless. it would be dehumanising, and because none of them have that same degree of disconnection from the standard person that bruce has, how would them being seen as spoiled idiots help them?

dick has always lived with civilian neighbours, had civilian jobs, and fostered civilian relationships. him being a cop was bad, but he takes a lot of pride in being someone who’s like… dependable. a good neighbour. jason is legally dead, but he wouldn’t have wanted to be seen as the dumb poor kid either. cass would probably play with peoples expectations of her, but not like an established persona that she has to take on. duke is, again, very attached to his family and where he grew up, and is very aware of assumptions people might make about that. damian would rather kill himself than pretend to be an idiot. tim, again, is a strong maybe, but i also don’t think he’d give a shit. he really values keeping himself as tim drake intact, away from robin. he wants to keep being himself.

i just think most of them would stay out of the public eye. remember — bruce isn’t active online. there is still massive control over released information about him, especially with babs. i think they would purposely make themselves boring and unassuming.

the short answer is that none of them, truly, possess bruce’s raw commitment to the bit.

[raviolirash]

This is all just a way too long personal theory/ramble abt the boi if u disagree that ok

Tldr I believe pre-Caz Astarion is a young asshole who is punished with a job he doesn't take seriously, and his noble parents don't respect him enough to see how much of a good person he could be given a proper chance at redemption and it all goes to shit, naturally.

Long version:

I see few years pre-Cazador Astarion as that asshole teenager who's getting away with everything. He's used to being told that he's handsome, rich, and above others. He's getting away with things, he's spoiled, and has no experience of the world. Especially work experience.

My theory is that Astarion was forced into the magistrate job as a punishment and just didn't give enough of a fuck about the world to take the job seriously, as opposed to consciously being malicious/evil. He is power hungry in the game, half as a response to being powerless for 200 years. That being said:

He's a rogue, through and through. It's implied a lot including with the "I've missed this" line that he wasn't a proper and polite city boy before Cazador. I don't see him doing paperwork or sitting next to a large fancy dinner table without screwing around with a dagger. He slouches. He has his feet on the table. He's a nerd.

If you call The Watch in the final battle, he jokes that it feels wrong to call for guards to come and do something. He's not a snitch. If he sees someone stealing from a sick person he gives a thumbs up. He canonically hates cops lol.

Leading to my theory that he was being so rambunctious and belligerent, his noble parents/elders forced him into the magistrate job as a punishment of sorts because they were just so sick of his bullshit. Just rich people things.

So now:

You have a handsome young elf, with people probably fawning over his beauty, known for breaking laws and being The Worst, not respecting authority and etc. And he's put into a magistrate position through presumably nepotism. He becomes one of those asshole sons of a rich bastard who is a fuck up. Rich, spoiled, knows that he's above others which influences his haphazard rulings and provides him a nice power trip, has a bit of education but not enough to not steal from grandmas.*1

Of course it's going to be a glorious mess! He doesn't care about the world enough to take a stand and try to change the corrupt system from within. Fuck that. He's going to make it worse. Who cares. If there was any good in him, at best it was maybe because he knew it's already fucked and he's not there to be a hero and fix it.

It makes sense that he would double down on the "evil" once freed from Cazador in Act 1. He's used to everything going south because - ironically enough - of the world's failure to do anything good for the helpless and weak. Without realizing that he was also part of the problem once. Hell. He got beaten up by Gur for a ruling he made and his takeaway was "all Gur are bad" and not Baldur's Gate fucking SUCKS and something should be done. No seriously. The politics of the city and the ruling systems are so fucking broken. Bhaal the god of MURDER LITERALLY LIVES UNDERNEATH THE CITY. What is WRONG with this town.

Either way, I don't believe he was consciously and maliciously an evil person. Especially given the scale of evil the city of Baldur's Gate has to offer. If he was, he would have been much worse. He was corrupt in a shithead way and not "we're going to take resources from orphanages to build a machine that punches you in the dick when you tell your boss you are too tired to work overtime in the mines" *2 *3

I also think that he was the reason why Cazador implemented the "no nobles lol that raises suspicion" rule. And the reason why no one of Astarion's family recognized him was because they were too snobby for Elfsong or Blushing Mermaid.

I think his parents still loved him though.

Clarification station under read more

*1. (I guess this does fall under some people's definition of evil, but for me honestly the true evil is the system which allows these people fall into power in the first place and in this essay---.)

*2. (Actions of negligent people in power aren't diminished. If negligence causes a death it is still a death.)

*3. (I don't think he was a young baby either, like a lot of fandom does. He was still young when he was turned but not a teenager. I just believe he was even younger when he started working as a Magistrate. Like on a personal note, it was really heartbreaking when Billy Kametz died because he died so horrifically young. He was 35. 35 is still heartbreaking young.)

[butch-chastity]

as The cass enjoyer and dick enjoyer i need your ideal cass & dick dynamic pls 🤲

dick & cass's dynamic is really interesting because, up until the evil cass arc, their canon material together tends to be really good! (even if there's not a lot of it)

cause, like, in the beginning, dick puts up his usual front. he's all about appearing responsible and collected in front of the new, "less experienced" hero:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120 / Batman: Family #7

but drops that role the moment he spends a few minutes alone with her.

dick realizes very quickly that a) cass can see through any facade dick tries to play in to, and that b) cass doesn't need him to be someone older & wiser than her.

batgirl #29

compared to dick's other siblings, like damian and tim, cass feels like dick's contemporary, not someone he's mentoring or trying to guide.

they're on equal ground. and, they both know that they can take care of themselves.

this leads them to be pretty silly (for bats) around one another:

Detective Comics #782

gotham knights #45

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #184

because, while i'm not going to outright say that dick is completely himself around her (as in, he lets himself be emotional vulnerable), dick is at least aware that he can't pretend around her, and probably feels at least a little kinship with her.

I mean, they're pretty similar. They enable each other's guilt complexes, neither one of them is comfortable spending a lot of time in one place, and they wouldn't know what a healthy amount of devotion looked like if it smacked them upside the head.

^ that's not even unpacking their similar forms of trauma, which is just. woof. y'know?

cass's insecurities are similar to dick's, in that they're both desperately afraid of slipping up and hurting every one, but also her insecurities aren't similar to his at all because they formed under completely different circumstances and choose to act on those fears in different ways.

i think a lot of what i'm trying to say could be summed up by my own tags on a post:

as well as @/heroesriseandfall's tags on the same post:

also, as cool as dick & cass's canon material is, there isn't a lot of it and the evil cass character assassination ruined EVERYTHING!!!

i want cass and dick in blud together!!!!!! we were so close to having it all!!!! i want it sooooo bad and its so fucked that dc editorial decided to pull BULLSHIT and drag cass through the mud for ??? reasons.

so, tl;dr my ideal dick & cass dynamic is pretty complicated, but looks a little like this:

they trust each other a lot. and they're a little goofy together, because they're on equal ground, and both know they're really damn good at their jobs. the majority of their relationship is quiet, based around mutual understanding and an unspoken desire to fill in the gaps left behind by trauma.

and if i had it my way: they would both live in blud (for at least part of the year) and get shitty midnight coffee together, on the really bad nights.

my absolute favorite interaction they have is in NW vol. 2, even if it happens because dick is busy being a cop:

because, yeah. "what do you need me to do?" that's it.

also, much as i love being recognized as a dick and cass enjoyer, i think the person who's actually thee d&c enjoyer is @heroesriseandfall, who posts about them semi frequently and is actually smart enough to keep a dedicated tag, which i pillaged for screenshots for this post.

thank you, bestie. :>

[saintsenara]

your turtle romcom fic was amazing. do you have a fancast for them?

thank you so much, anon - i'm thrilled you enjoyed bookbinding, and i'm always delighted to welcome new members to turtle nation.

i'm never great at fan-casts largely because i can never remember people's names, but also because i often have incredibly specific ideas in my mind about how these characters look which i find very difficult to then actually explain. but still... let's get into it:

myrtle

one of my least favourite aspects of the writing of the harry potter series is the fact that characters we are supposed to find unsympathetic are always, always written as some combination of fat, ugly, unintelligent, and inarticulate.

i understand the watsonian explanation that harry-as-narrator is a teenager and teenagers are kind of dicks. i understand the doylist genre reasons for this - jkr is not the first children's author to make use of such tropes, and they are certainly used with a lighter touch in hp than in, for example, roald dahl - and i also understand the reasons specific to the series' central mystery, in which snape's ugliness [the marker of his apparent villainy] actually conceals the fact he is one of the narrative's heroes.

the reverse is, of course, used with tom himself - harry's trust in tom riddle's memory of framing hagrid in chamber of secrets is established right at the start of the scene by harry's comment that they both have jet-black hair; harry's profound empathy with riddle's past in the memory scenes shown in half-blood prince completely disappears when voldemort returns for his job interview and is "no longer handsome tom riddle".

all of which is to say, i do not vibe with the fact that myrtle is written in the text in a way which presents her appearance as a moral failing. this was the decision behind two key points made in bookbinding - that myrtle doesn't lose weight and it literally doesn't matter, and that beauty standards change and a young woman considered unattractive in the forties was not considered unattractive at other points in human history.

tom notes that she looks like a renaissance painting, specifically da vinci's lady with an ermine:

and as for current people, i think bella ramsey would work as casting for school-age myrtle - in particular because they are absolutely tiny and it is very important to me that tom is being constantly hen-pecked by someone who barely comes up to his shoulders.

tom

i find fan-casting tom extremely difficult, in particular because - and i accept this might be unpopular - i find that many of the preferred fan-casts and fan-art interpretations always look far too masculine. [this is particularly the case in tomarry, one of my favourite ships, in which harry "i have anger issues, am a jock, and aspire to be a cop" potter is far too often this tiny, feminine damsel-in-distress, and tom "i would love the chance to be a mammy's boy, spent my teenage years in the library, and create anagrams of my own name for fun" riddle is far too often a pile of twitching muscle intent on snapping him like a twig.]

the things we're told in canon about tom's appearance are that he has dark eyes and black hair and "finely-carved" features, looks a bit like harry, looks exactly like his dilf of a father, and is really hot. we are also told that both he and the later voldemort are very tall, extremely thin, softly spoken, and have a certain elegance of movement. all of which, to me, suggests that we are not dealing with the buff greek god of so many interpretations, but someone who is, in reality, slightly effete.

this fan art by @arcynist:

and this by @erichthaxa:

are 100% how i picture him. especially the being covered in blood part.

so, in terms of fan-casting, find your favourite slightly-androgynous-leaning male model i guess...

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

if you have not seen discowing era dick… you need to. you may rethink the fashion stance lmao 😂 just imagine kate giving him shit for that, which he of course will defend by going after the Infamous Hip Holes

also while he has been a cop (ugh) dick really just picks a career and magically gets it???? like epitome of a nepo baby, bruce just buys him jobs I am CONVINCED. he’s been a social worker, a museum curator, a cop, he owned a crossfit studio (if you see babs on the yoga mat upstairs in GK, it’s a nod to that!), and depending on canon he has a law degree????

and riffing off of that degree… nightwing vs. daredevil rivalry WHEN. they are parkour badasses. they’re street level heroes who are just regular guys. they have fantastic asses. dick you cannot also have a law degree you CANNOT TAKE MATT’S ONE THING— my running joke is that if dick shows up and he’s better than matt at everything, matt might have a Small Existential Crisis

xoxo dickate anon 🩵💜

oh i KNEW about discowing when i called him a fashion boi. I did not specify it was good fashion. nightwing is that one tiktok. "I don't dress for men, I dress for little girls (children?) who have been told at some point in their lives that this is not a fashion show, and for old women drunk on their porch."

also nepo baby dick is hiLArious considering that I have been thinking all day about how in a separate-universes world, everyone in Kate's world thinks he's a golddigger. The tabloids and gossip mags are so confused??? He's a stay at home boyfriend? He literally doesn't have a job. He basically doesn't even exist. Kate's always saying he's home visiting his family, or traveling. Is he a spy? Does he do crime? He didn't know who Captain America was, he's just a himbo. He absolutely could not be a spy. Dick LOVES this, I feel like. It's much funnier when people think that about him than when they think that about Kate (which is what happens when she goes to his universe)

There's a post from forever ago about someone who's supervisor called their partner "Boytoy" at work, like, exclusively. And the guy knew and was fine with it, but anyway he came in one day and the op went "Mr. Toy, I presume?" and he went "The very one." This is very much Dick and Kate. also somehow he meets Anthony Bourdain, and this is a Good Timeline where he's still alive and Dick winds up traveling with him for a few episodes? That would be a fun dichotomy

Kate turns her back for five seconds and Clint and Dick have gone undercover at a circus. Kate expected this from Clint, but Dick knows better. Which prompts Dick explaining that CLINT is the brains of the operation, not Dick, he's the beauty, and Clint getting mad because HE'S the beauty, and Kate just sighs. Clearly neither of you are the brains.

Dick loves that there are no expectations of him in Kate's universe. It's like a vacation. He gets to be a himbo here. There's absolutely a pic of them on insta that he captioned "this barbie is an Avenger. He's just ken" and he will not HEAR Kate's arguments about how technically by Barbie/Ken rules he is also a Barbie. Dick pouts and is like I AM KENOUGH.

All of this leads to a mostly funny conception the Avengers have of Dick. They know he's Nightwing, he doesn't really need a secret identity here, but they don't...get it. He's bouncy and casual because he's still watching Kate's teams, figuring out how best to support, and he doesn't want to step on Kate's toes by accidentally being Too In Charge. So there's this idea that he really IS a himbo until Kate gets injured or captured. If she gets injured on a mission he's on? Look. It clears things up right away. He will absolutely rip apart whatever faction or organization caused that to happen with his bare hands. And God for-fucking-bid he encounters the actual individual responsible for harming her. I'm not saying someone's getting kicked off of a roof but, someone is moving from the roof to the sidewalk in the most expedient way possible.

This is also funny because it makes very clear how different their preferred fighting styles are, because Kate picked A VERY DEFENSIBLE POSITION, please stop worrying, Dick. And she's right! It is! IF YOUR PREFERRED WEAPON IS RANGED.

Now Dick is standing over his mostly unconscious girlfriend who looks like her face got scraped against the ground (because it did), preparing to defend them from all sides. fucking snipers.

It also leads to a fun moment where Kate can't lead. Eli isn't there, so normally command of the team would slide into Cap's purview (if cap and whoever his second is are down, Avengers command would slide over to Kate) so Cap is getting ready to start giving the YA some orders and Dick, not even THINKING about it, just kind of assumes command of the young Avengers and NONE OF THEM QUESTION IT???? He doesn't lead like Kate. He doesn't give orders like Kate, he doesn't even sound like Kate, with cadence or whatever. But there's something that is just kate like enough that her team is like yep this is correct. (The same thing will happen in reverse with the titans) After that the Avengers stop roasting him behind Kate's back.

Also, THE HIP HOLES. look. We need to admit that Kate, canonically, does not have great taste in her avengering uniform. Why did she choose this look? why is she so attached to it?

Like if Kate has the audacity to genuinely criticize discowing?? If for some reason she's wearing a different costume or they got tossed into Gotham in their civvies, her team will absolutely throw her under the bus in order to get brownie points with the batkids.

You can't talk about the deep vee when you had YOUR ENTIRE ABDOMEN OUT BABE. Nothing! Not even a tissue! The body confidence is great Kate but seriously how did you not die. (he's into the scarf, though)

And if Kate actually wears the hip holes? Dick is poking at her trying to figure out if they're actually holes? Is there mesh there? Is it flesh toned fabric? No?? It's actually holes? This man is going to stick his hand in one just to see because what the fuck, Kate, and Kate's going to be like. Dick. Dickie. Nightwing. Your hand is under my costume. Do you realize where your hand is.

Is THAT what it's for?!?!? Dick is now seeing how far he can get his hand. The small of her back? Her other hip? Their friends are scREAMing. Guys? Could you do this some other time?? Like maybe when we're NOT ON FUCKING PATROL?????

anyway now Dick is wondering how far he can actually get his hand inside her uniform and he WASN'T thinking about it Like That before but he sure is now

[this-was-a-terrible-idea]

hiii so i recently found your post abt dick grayson being a paramedic or emt and i was wondering if you were cool with me using it in a fic ???

ofc i’d give you credit, but as someone who hates dick’s time as a cop in canon, writing his day-job being smth that still has ties to helping the public while using his medic training from his time as a vigilante would be super awesome !!!!

omg!!! yes of course!!! PLEASE make dick a paramedic in your fic! the goal is more paramedic dick aus out there so truly i would love for you to take the idea and run with it. you don't have to credit me if you don't want to though its totally an open idea <3 (also send me a link if you do make dick a paramedic bc i would love to read it!)

[jasontoddiefor]

“Bruce can’t kill! He’s not a cop. He will just beat the shit out of you, arrest you, and hand you over to the cops who he doesn’t even trust. Also he believes in redemption, which is why he utilizes the Gotham prison system despite it never being focused on redemption or rehabilitation and also he continues to utilize Arkham despite it canonically making everyone worse!”

The issue isn’t just that Bruce doesnt kill the mass murderers of Gotham, it’s that his moral stance has no nuance. He doesn’t believe in self defense or defense of others. If bane was killing Damian and Damian killed bane to save himself, Bruce would blame Damian. There’s no room in his ideology, it’s just as extreme and skewed as other characters. AND! He can’t just let it be his own ideology. He has to force it on other people as well

I‘m assuming the second one is from the same anon! If not I’ll still answer in one since they work together

You‘re bringing up multiple interesting points here so I‘m gonna break those down briefly!

Batman‘s (Legal) Authority

He’s a vigilante. He has been enemy of the force for a time. The fact that he’s allowed to operate at all hinges p much only on the fact that he’s going after criminals and Gordon like him. And the moment he goes after criminals that are on the “legal” side of things, he’s public enemy #1. He’s never had any kind of binding legal authority.

Violence used in arrests

Batman is violent. Sometimes it’s on purpose, to show him losing control and going to far, sometimes it’s just “Haha Batman go punch” comic book narration style. But we also see panels of Batman talking people down, not using violence as a first, middle, last and only resort. And my original point about that was that “beaten up” is still better than “dead”.

Reliability of the system

I mean, yeah we know the cops and Arkham suck but what else is he supposed to do besides what he’s already doing, weeding out corrupt cops and funding Arkham? He could start his own private prison but we’ve seen in other comics how much that Does Not Work. I think ultimately, Batman sees himself as an emergency service trying to pick up what the system itself can’t do while trying to fix it himself. Meanwhile, people still have to go somewhere.

Humanity/Morality of Batman

Bruce Wayne is a dick. Very my way or the high way, arrogant, and a man of extremes. He cares about people, about love, but Christ he‘s not a good communicator. He‘s got flaws, his inability to see nuance at times is certainly one of them. But what struck me - especially in Batman: The Knight, which was why I added that panel and cannot stop recommending that comic - was that Bruce defines himself by acting out of love, the want to protect, and the realization that if his mission is to save human life, he cannot take it. No matter how much he might resent a person or think they’d deserve it, if he became the kind of person that would kill for his mission, he’d become someone unrecognizable.

Batman‘s ideology as a frame

This is going to sound very dismissive and I promise I do not mean it that way. Batman is a character that says “we don’t kill, period. If you can’t do that, don’t do the job”. Like, that sounds incredibly offensive, but those are the standards to which he holds himself. I’m the best, I can do it without resorting to taking a life, so if you do the same job I’m doing, you should be just as able. Bruce didn’t really make any of his Robins his side kick, they more or less did that themselves, kicking and screaming, whether. Batman wanted them to be Robin or not. If they wanted to, they could drop out (ofc they don’t actually can bc we’d be left without any comics) but they don’t. So we’re back to Batman saying, “if you wanna do the job, you have to be able to do it this way”. Thus one of the Robins taking a life in self defense doesn’t fly because they’re supposed to be better. Is that particularly rational? Well, no, not necessarily, but that’s what it boils down to. If they had to resort to taking a life to save themselves, they shouldn’t have been in the position I’m the first place, but somewhere away from the fight. He trained himself until he could fight without taking a life and thus everyone else who wants to do the same should learn it as well.

All of these are associated with the whole discussion surrounding Batman killing, and you raise interesting points regarding how Batman operates and the hypocrisies involved. The last two are difficult to discuss particularly because we’re still reading comic book heroes and not actual legal irl batvigilante. I think this is still a step sideways from my original point that Batman’s refusal to kill on principle is a valid stance the character should be allowed to keep, but all of this is interconnected.

[butchgrayson]

3, 4, 12 and 24 for dick grayson our beloved

dick grayson our beloved <3 i am about to be so fucking annoying about him

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

Joke-ish answer everything from TT nightwing (and rebirth nightwing in general). I just ignore its existence tbh.

Real answer I had a lot of difficulty answering bc i loveeeeee dick's flaws i love it when he's a cunt i love it when he self isolates i love it when he is a hypocrite the tension between his bad traits and his love for people/his friends, his dedication to heroism his intellect all of it is what made me fall in love with his character <3 BUT THEN. i remembered cop dick grayson. who i have almost completely wiped from my mind bc i hate it so so so so bad. it just doens't make sense with him as a person, like whyyyyyy would he ever go and join a police force more corrupt than gothams?????? its so anathema to who he his/his character history that my blood boils whenever i reread nw96 or see that era mentioned in fandom spaces LMAO whatever. im not even mad. in my own personal dc universe that lives in my brain and the personal wiki i have on my laptop the bludhaven cop era was an extended undercover/infiltration strategy. dick's true career calling should be being a bartender/doing seasonal work <3

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

ACE ATTORNEY !! i have an extended dc ace attorney au that i will post about someday but even outside of that it would be soooo fun to see him as either a protag (esp given that the defence attorneys in aa have to do all of their own detective work) OR as a supporting character. i think he would fit right in with the main cast of the series too, especially trucy (fellow circus kids !!!) and apollo <3

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Another one i had a difficult time w just because how can i pick there r so many. BUT i saw a post earlier that reminded me that i am a dick grayson occasional smoker truther. i understand why most people would NOT agree w this but its a little self-indulgent i fully admit. on the one hand like yes he is a high level athlete/why would he do anything that he knows have bad health impacts but i can say as a former (semi) high level athlete i think that is the demographic i have known that has the highest proportion of smokers LMAO i think he picks it up in the ntt era originally as a social smoking thing whenever the titans would party or whatever (another self indulgence is i think he picks up the habit from donna) and it eventually turns into a very rare (as in, goes through a 1.5 packs a year) stress management technique when shit with bruce/the family/the titans/a case gets bad. he's filled with a lot of guilt over it but this does not stop him.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

See there are so few characters with the specific brand of neuroses/issues that dick has that i was stumped on BUT while it is very much not a one-to-one i draw soooooo many parallels between him and declan lynch from the raven cycle series. ESP DURING THE ERA WHERE BRUCE IS "DEAD". pov you are the eldest child of an emotionally unavailable man who has involved you with his underworld/vigilante dealings since you were far too young to be doing so and so you take up the burden of it and incorporate it so deeply into your sense of self that you don't know how to be a real person anymore. and when your father dies it is your job to look after your family and protect them even when theyre estranged from you and you are the inheritor of something that you must keep going even if it kills you to do so <3 i think this parallel also works especially well with declan&ronan compared to dick&jason (<- am drafting a post in my mind about this whole topic as i type all this btw)

tysm for sending this in it was v v fun to answer !!!

character ask game

[bagelboys-withcreamcheese]

Aaaand More Modern!Reader + Pre-Canon VDL Gang!

~~

Dutch: I’m serious, Y/N!

Dutch: No more of....this..

Reader:

Reader: You just gestured to all of me!

—

John: *hits Reader*

Reader: Is that all you got?!

John: *gut punches them*

John: How was that?

Reader, doubled over: ᴮᵉᵗᵗᵉʳ

—

Reader: DUTCH VAN DER LINDE, stop stealing my jacket!

Dutch: Y/N, you steal my food, my boyfriend, and my son on a regular basis, I think I have joint custody of this jacket.

—

Reader: Hey, do you know anyone who can teach me how to play the trumpet?

Hosea: Why?

Reader: I wanna annoy Dutch with it.

Arthur: Technically, you don’t need to be able to play the trumpet to do that.

Reader: You have opened my eyes, Artie.

—

Bessie: I’m loving this whole ‘good cop, bad cop’ thing you two have going on.

Hosea: It’s really not a thing, it’s more like I’m nice and Y/N is not.

—

Bessie: What should I get Annabelle for her birthday?

Reader: Medication.

—

Hosea: What do we call murder?

Reader: A hobby.

Hosea:

Arthur: ....that we do not engage in.

—

Hosea: Why is it, when something happens, it’s always you three??

Reader, John, & Arthur:

Arthur: Believe me, ‘Sea, I’ve been asking myself the same question for a while now.

—

Arthur, dragging in a hogtied Reader and John into the post office: How much to mail this to Alaska?!

—

Arthur, across camp: Y/N WHERES COPPER?!

Reader, holding Copper: thinkthinkthink

Reader: Panicking, can’t think. Work on instinct.

Reader: *throws Copper out the tent*

Reader: INSTINCTS BAD-

—

Dutch: We have money.

Reader: Oh, thank god.

—

Dutch: I know I probably shouldn’t put this kind of pressure on you, but I need you to save my relationship.

Reader: Oookay....

*Dutch spending an hour talking about all the times he’s fucked up*

Reader:

Reader, walking away: You’re very lucky to have Hosea.

Dutch:

Dutch: THATS YOUR ADVICE?! Go to bed!

—

*Dutch giving a lecture*

Reader: Pssst.

Arthur:

Reader, whispering: Your ass is grass and I’m gonna mow it!

Arthur: *snorts*

—

Hosea: Are you sure these disguises will work?

Reader: Absolutely, they’ll make us invisible.

Reader, talking to a random stranger: Excuse me, do you have a minute to talk about the environment?

Stranger: *keeps walking*

Reader: See? Now no one will make eye contact.

—

Annabelle: Y/N, I need help.

Reader: Great, who are we killing?

Reader: I won’t do kids, that’s a rule.

Reader: But the rule is negotiable if the kid’s a dick.

—

Dutch, teaching math: You got to be careful, when you’re doing math, remember to factor in the invisible numbers. If you don’t-

Reader: Remember there are imaginary numbers!

Arthur, holding his head in his hands: Oh my god!

Reader: *cackling at Arthur’s pain*

Hosea: Arthur, calm down, don’t be so irrational!

Everyone except Dutch: *wheeze*

John: I’d say this is a primetime for number joke.

Everyone except for Dutch again: *WHEEZE*

—

*Sending Arthur & Reader out on a job by themselves for the first time*

Hosea: What will you do if this plan goes successfully?

Reader: Arthur and I will do a little dance!

Hosea: ....and if it doesn’t?

Reader: Do a sad dance.

—

Dutch: What are you doing in here??

Reader: I should ask you the same question.

Dutch: This is my tent!

Reader: I should ask you a different question.

—

Arthur: Can you stop her from being so cheerful.

Reader: I don’t believe there is a power in the universe that can stop Bessie from being cheerful.

—

Hosea: It’s unhealthy to eat after 7pm.

Reader, eating an entire cake at 3am: Well, fortunately, time is an illusion.

—

Hosea: Did you even sleep last night?

Reader: I got a solid 8 minutes.

Reader: Not consecutively but it’s fine, you’re not even that blurry.

—

Dutch: We have to have a plan.

Reader: Agreed.

Dutch: Okay, so what’s the plan?

Reader: I don’t care, I agreed, I did my part.

—

Reader, quickly riding back into camp: I NEED TO GO THE HOSPITAL!

Reader: IF ANYONE ASKS, MY BLOOD TYPE IS....RED!

*falls off horse*

—

Reader, walking into Dutch and Hosea’s tent: What’s crackalackin?

Hosea, sore™️: My bones, dear.

—

Hosea: All I’ve done all day is eat, sleep, and stare off into space. What an awful existence.

Reader: Hey! Dutch doesn’t dump on your lifestyle.

Dutch: Whats that supposed to mean?!

—

Hosea, reading a biology book: Apparently if corals get stressed, they die.

Dutch: What do corals even get stressed about?

Reader: Current events.

Dutch: Get out.

—

Police Officer: You have the right to remain silent.

Reader: But do I have the ability?

Arthur: Spoiler alert, they don’t.

[movedyoakkemae]

messy thoughts incoming about dick being a cop. i’ll clean this up later with comic panels and stuff, but i think a common misconception (thank you, fandom!) is that dick wholeheartedly wanted to be a cop and that being a cop is his true calling and he did that to get away from bruce. 

that... isn’t even the case. dick canonically became a cop because it was an undercover assignment to try to dismantle all of the dirty cops in bludhaven. he ended up getting the MAJORITY of the police force in bludhaven (i think upwards to 75-85% of the police force?) fired or arrested for being dirty, but that still didn’t 150% fix the problem either. 

literally, right after most of the police force is gone, we have a scene of dick’s partner, a gay police officer, getting beaten by “good” police officers (aka the ones who survived the dirty cop purge) for being gay. dick, of course, comes onto the scene, stops it from happening, says “we’re supposed to be the good cops here, not partake in this sort of bullshit”, and manages to protect his police partner. dick, by this point, was supposed to have quit, but a) he felt a responsibility because he just DECIMATED the police force and b) [my own thoughts] realised that even the “good” cops who didn’t take bribes aren’t actually good cops, and so he stayed. I think there’s about two (2) whole good cops in that series that aren’t incompetent/homophobic/racist pieces of shit, and dick liked both of them enough to stay on the force for them to help because he felt a sense of responsibility for the amount of work they’d have to deal with. 

dick didn’t like being a cop. dick even said numerous times in his run that he wished he could have been nightwing in moments and not officer dick grayson. dick liked all of two people in the police force, and they were enough to make him stay, but dick himself was not heavily attached to the job nor thought it was his calling as now most people in the fandom write him out to be. 

and these thoughts are not bc i think acab (because i do), but (surprise surprise aka not if you look at my full muse list which does have a few agents and a police detective) i don’t mind writing cops/fbi agents when it makes in-character-sense for them to do so. for dick, who is canonically shown to be kinda on the side of “i don’t want to be a cop” prior to dixon’s run and still during dixon’s run is kinda sorta like “eh this would be better if i was nightwing/i’m here to take down the majority of the police force”, i don’t know how or why people seem to think DICK LOVES BEING A COP AND WANTS TO BE ONE 150%.

[yoakkemae]

messy thoughts incoming about dick being a cop. i’ll clean this up later with comic panels and stuff, but i think a common misconception (thank you, fandom!) is that dick wholeheartedly wanted to be a cop and that being a cop is his true calling and he did that to get away from bruce.

that… isn’t even the case. dick canonically became a cop because it was an undercover assignment to try to dismantle all of the dirty cops in bludhaven. he ended up getting the MAJORITY of the police force in bludhaven (i think upwards to 75-85% of the police force?) fired or arrested for being dirty, but that still didn’t 150% fix the problem either.

literally, right after most of the police force is gone, we have a scene of dick’s partner, a gay police officer, getting beaten by “good” police officers (aka the ones who survived the dirty cop purge) for being gay. dick, of course, comes onto the scene, stops it from happening, says “we’re supposed to be the good cops here, not partake in this sort of bullshit”, and manages to protect his police partner. dick, by this point, was supposed to have quit, but a) he felt a responsibility because he just DECIMATED the police force and b) [my own thoughts] realised that even the “good” cops who didn’t take bribes aren’t actually good cops, and so he stayed. I think there’s about two (2) whole good cops in that series that aren’t incompetent/homophobic/racist pieces of shit, and dick liked both of them enough to stay on the force for them to help because he felt a sense of responsibility for the amount of work they’d have to deal with.

dick didn’t like being a cop. dick even said numerous times in his run that he wished he could have been nightwing in moments and not officer dick grayson. dick liked all of two people in the police force, and they were enough to make him stay, but dick himself was not heavily attached to the job nor thought it was his calling as now most people in the fandom write him out to be.

and these thoughts are not bc i think acab (because i do), but (surprise surprise aka not if you look at my full muse list which does have a few agents and a police detective) i don’t mind writing cops/fbi agents when it makes in-character-sense for them to do so. for dick, who is canonically shown to be kinda on the side of “i don’t want to be a cop” prior to dixon’s run and still during dixon’s run is kinda sorta like “eh this would be better if i was nightwing/i’m here to take down the majority of the police force”, i don’t know how or why people seem to think DICK LOVES BEING A COP AND WANTS TO BE ONE 150%.

[noladyme]

Chess. Chapter 13

Y/N never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. She only took what she needed, or what she felt others needed. She’d stayed out of sight for a long time, avoiding anything that could get her in to too much trouble. But for some reason Rick Flag shows up in her life, and in an instant, everything changes.  

TW: Language, sexual themes, violence, torture. Rated M 

(This story is obviously non-canon, i.e. Diablo and GQ, but I hope you’ll enjoy it either way. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.)

————————–

Let me start this off with a disclaimer: This chapter does not have Rick appearing. He will be back, but due to length and flow I needed to cut off the chapter where I did. Sorry. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it anyway

————————–

I was lounging on a love seat in the large house the Joker had taken us to; pretending to read a magazine Harley had offered me.

Frost had shown up at the house about 30 minutes after us, with a bump on his head, and a sneer plastered across his face. He insisted that the squad were gone by the time he came too.

The house was just as ghastly as the car had been; with bear skin rugs and clashing patterns on all the furniture. There was no doubt that 99% of it was stolen.

Playing a weird game of tag, Harley and the Joker were chasing each other throughout the house; squealing and growling at each other, each time one of them managed to catch the opponent.

I was thinking something fiercely.

I’d followed Harley and her psycho boyfriend into the Palisades, without any idea of what my next move should be.

Throwing herself into the seat next to me, Harley was laughing; out of breath.

“J is getting me a new puppy”, she giggled. “Those stupid animal rights activists took back my last one, when I was sent back to Louisiana”.

“What’s the plan here, Harley”, I asked.

“I dunno. It’s your turn to think of something”, she answered trustingly.

I sighed.

“I need to make sure Kelper doesn’t make it to congress”, I said.

“Revenge?”, she asked.

“No”, I answered. “There are enough shitheads in office as it is – look at the main guy in charge! We don’t need another one”. I crossed my arms. “Also a little bit of revenge, yeah”, I admitted.

“Yeah that judge does seem like a dick”, Harley muttered.

“No”, I said. “This is about Waller. She has enough power as it is. She doesn’t need to be able to keep hunting people like us down, and force us to do things we don’t want to. Even if we are bad guys”.

She grabbed my face between her hands.

“I’m with you”, she said, and kissed my forehead with a loud smack. “Tell me what to do!”.

I beamed at her. She was a good friend. Even if she was bat shit crazy.

“I need to be able to prove the connection between mr. J and Kelper”, I said; and looked down at my feet. “That does mean, that J won’t be able to use him for protection from the cops anymore”.

Harley was biting her lip.

“Huh”, she said. “He ain’t gonna like that”.

“I know”, I replied. “But we need him to”.

“Harley!”, the Joker called from somewhere. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”.

Harley sighed, then looked into my eyes, and nodded.

“Marco!”, Joker called from the kitchen.

“Polo!”, Harley answered, still looking at me; then grinned, and sprang from the couch to hide from the clown.

—

“Chess has a live bomb in her bag”, Harley said conversationally during breakfast.

I instantly froze; mouth agape – prepared to feel my throat being slit at any moment.

“Oh?”, the Joker said, gazing up from over the newspaper he’d been reading – well, not so much newspaper as comic book. “That’s nice, dear”. He looked back down.

Harley – curlers in her hair, and wearing a pink fluffy bathrobe – continued.

“Yup. It’s a pretty nasty one too”. She returned to her marshmallow cereal.

Joker put down his comic book and looked at her.

“Is there something you’d like to say, toots? Something I need to know?”.

I was shaking in my seat; and I gently put down the golden rimmed porcelain cup of coffee in my hand.

“Uhm, Harley. I don’t think this is the time…”.

“Please, Chess”, Joker said to me, lowering his old-fashioned reading glasses. “In this house everyone can say whatever they want, whenever they want. We mustn’t stifle others expressions”.

I nodded fiercely.

“A-absolutely, yes. Of course. I’m sorry”, I stammered.

He quickly reached across the table, and grabbed my hand, putting it between his own.

“I could tell you meant that”, he grinned.

Letting go of my hand, he turned to face Harley again.

“Now where were we, doll? Chess has a bomb in her bag?”, he said calmly.

Harley swallowed some of her orange juice.

“Yeah. It’s a black box, with a little display on it. Pre-set to 1 minute”.

“That sounds fun”, Joker said cheerfully. “What’s it for?”.

Harley got up from her seat, and went to stand behind her beloved madman; massaging his shoulders and neck, making him close his eyes and groan in pleasure. She slid her hands down his shoulders under the flowered kimono he was wearing.

“You know that mean lady, who’s been putting me in that bad place?”. Joker grunted in response. “Well those friends in high places Jerry was moaning about? That’s her”.

The Joker opened his eyes, and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Kelper’s friends with the witch?”, he asked.

Harley went to sit on his lap, and laced her fingers behind his neck.

“No, not the witch; the bitch. The witch is dead”, she said.

“Right, right”, Joker answered. “So?”.

“Well”, Harley continued, “the bitch gave Chess the bomb to blow you up; so you’d stop asking Kelper for favors”.

The clown looked at me, brows – or lack thereof – furrowing.

“You were going to blow me up?”.

I jumped in my seat.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. Once I knew who you were…”. Harley interrupted me.

“Puddin’, Chess would never do anything like that. We were coming to tell you about the bomb; but then that stupid judge was there, and Chess got all upset, because she really hates his guts”. She kissed his forehead. “We plain old forgot!”.

Joker groaned.

“I spent a lot of money on Kelper. We had a lot of parties”.

“A lot of parties”, Harley nodded, backing him up. “So, maybe… we should do something about it”.

“Oh, snuggle-tits. I need the judge for my business”, Joker said, and looked adoringly at her.

My heartbeat was calming down, and I could think more clearly. I took a small sip of my coffee.

“Mr. J”, I began. “You probably know that I used to work for the Hatter”.

The Joker guffawed and snarled all at once.

“That idiot”.

“Yeah, well”, I continued, “I could work for you, like I did for him. Getting you information, money…”.

“I have money”, he interrupted.

“A new Lamborghini?”, I tried.

His eyes lit up.

“I’m listening”.

I sat up straight. Here we go.

“Kelper is pulling out of your arrangement. He’s even gone so far as getting someone to try to kill you”.

“Well that happens at least once a week”, he said, and shook his head. Harley stroked her fingers through his green hair.

“There’s that girl”, she said, and looked at me.

“What girl?”, Joker asked.

“Well”, Harley continued, “Kelper did some pretty nasty things to a girl who used to work at that place… what was it called?”.

“Sammy’s”, I answered. “It’s a burlesque club in the Narrows”.

I casually took another sip of my coffee, that at this point had gone cold. My face contorted from the taste.

Joker looked at me with narrowed eyes.

I continued.

“About a year and a half ago, Kelper raped and beat an 18 year old girl that worked there”, I said. “She’s still suffering from the attack”.

He patted Harleys thigh to get her to get of his lap.

“Jonny!”, he called, getting to his feet himself.

Frost came into the dining room.

“Yeah, boss?”.

“We own the Narrows, don’t we?”, he asked, and walked slowly towards his minion.

“Yeah, for about 2 years now”, Frost answered, not meeting his eyes.

“And do you know about a bar named Sally’s?”.

“Sammy’s, yeah it’s a stripjoint”, Frost said.

“Burlesque club”, Harley whispered into Jokers ear.

“Burlesque club, Jonny”, Joker said, and grabbed the back of Frosts head. “There is a big difference”. Patting Frosts cheek, he went to sit down again.

“So Sammy’s have been paying their dues, have they not?”.

“Never missed a pay-date”, Frost retorted.

Joker – now sitting down – slammed both his fists into the table, making us all jump.

“Then would you mind telling me, why one of the young ladies working there, was attacked and raped; while she was supposed to be under our protection?”, he yelled; his slicked back hair now disheveled, and falling into his face.

“This doesn’t look good, Jonny! This makes me look bad!”, he shouted.

“I know, boss”, Frost tried. “But it was Kelper, and you told us to stay clear of him”.

Joker jumped out of his chair, and threw it at Frost; only narrowly missing the man.

“Get out. Find Kelper. Bring him to me!”, he growled. “And get Chess new hot cup of coffee. That cold stuff is a disgrace”.

Frost rushed a fresh cup of coffee to me, and ran out the door; already on his phone, yelling at someone.

The Joker found a new chair, and pulled it up to his place at the table. He smoothed his hair back down, and exhaled.

Harley went to stand behind him, and put a hand on his shoulder.

He grabbed my hand like he had before, and looked at me seriously.

“Now”, he said. “Chess. Chessie. My dear. Thank you for making me aware of this problem in my organization. Am I also to understand that you were the one to punish Jer-Jer after his misdeed with the young woman?”.

I smiled brightly, doing my best to seem cheerful.

“That was me, alright!”.

Joker grined.

“Well, when you think about it, you did our job for us!”, he smiled widely. “So I owe you. You came in to this house a stranger; but now – you’re family”.

Harley squealed, and jumped up and down, clapping her hands.

Great. I wasn’t only the clowns newest pet and employee; I was apparently family.

Shit.

“I still want that Lamborghini”, Joker finished, and went to get dressed.

—

We drove to a building not far from the one we had been at the night before.

“Puddin’ you know this means you can’t work with Kelper no more, right?”, Harley said, as we were getting out of the car.

“Yes, yes, squishy-butt, I know”, he answered. “This is going to be fun!”, he snickered, and put his arm around her waist.

I followed them into the building, and down into a basement. In the middle of the dark room sat Kelper, handcuffed to a chair. A single lightbulb was lit above him.

Masked henchmen were spread around the room, covering the exits.

“Jerry!”, Joker said, arms spread into the air as we entered. “Thank you so much for being able to reschedule our meeting. I’m so, so happy you agreed to this location”.

The judge was gagged, had a black eye, and there was already a wet stain under the chair from where he had urinated his pants.

Harley jumped onto a table near the scene, and crossing her legs; she began to file her nails.

I stayed in the shadows; out of Kelpers line of sight.

The clown went to stand in front of his victim, putting a hand on each of his knees, coming down to eyelevel with him. He wrinkled his nose.

“Jer-Jer. Were you that excited to see me?”, he asked. He removed Kelpers mouth gag.

“P-please; Mr. Joker. I don’t know what this is about!”, he stammered.

“This, my friend”, Joker said, “is about your plans for your political future!”.

Frost appeared from the shadows with a chair, that Joker pulled up in front of Kelper. He sat down.

“It’s recently come to my attention that you’ve decided to run for congress”.

“Yes, mr. Joker. I was the one that told you about it myself”, Kelper said.

Joker smacked him across the face, and then pointed a finger at him.

“It’s rude to interrupt!”, he roared.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry”, Kelper said.

Joker smiled.

“I take a great interest in politics, as you know. I’m even the governor of my own little corner of Gotham. And I find it’s very important to make sure that the people I govern feel safe”.

Kelper nodded.

“Good! So you know where I’m coming from”, the clown continued. “Then I come to hear that someone decided to cause problems in my little paradise. Apparently, a very silly man decided to pay a visit to a burlesque club, and play a little too roughly with one of the lovely dancers there”.

I saw Kelpers eyes widen in fear.

“I didn’t know that would be an issue for you, I swear!”.

The Joker patted his cheek gently.

“Well it is”, he half whispered.

Jumping from the chair, he ran to sit down next to Harley.

“Hi, sugar lips”, he said; and put his arm around her, before calling out.

“Chess!”.

I stepped out of the shadows, and pulled down my hood. Kelper looked at me, recognizing me from the meeting the day before.

“Miss, I don’t know what he’s paying you, but I’ll match and double it!”, he tried desperately.

I sat down in front of him.

“You smell like piss”, I said. He gulped. I sighed. “So this is not going to be fun for you. At all”.

His facial expression changed.

“Do your best, bitch. I’ve been through worse!”.

“Oh?”, I asked. The judge was about to spit in my face, but didn’t have the chance to do so, before I headbutted him.

I rubbed my forehead. That hurt, I thought, but cheered up, when I saw that I had obviously broken his nose.

Joker and Harley roared with laughter from the table.

“So, you’ve had it worse, huh?”, I asked.

He ground his teeth, and nodded.

I smiled and slowly began disappearing into a mist.

Kelpers facial expression immediately changed from prideful to pure fear. He began jumping in the chair, screaming; and managed to fall over; landing in his own wet pool.

“Ew”, Harley said from next to a gleeful Joker.

“Sshh, Harls’. I’m watching this”, he said.

Frost pulled Kelper back into a seated position.

“Get the camera”, I said to him, reappearing in my seat.

I clenched my fist, letting my claws come out.

“I heard you’re going to have some reconstructive surgery, your honor”, I said, looking down at my claws. “Jonny here could find me a pair of rocks, and I could do the deed for you. It’s only polite, seeing as I’m the one to blame for your whole ordeal in the first place…”.

Kelper began crying.

“No, no. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I will!”, he sobbed.

Frost came in to the light, two plum-sized rocks in one hand, and a smartphone in the other. I took the items into my hands.

“Ok. Now, you can chose one of these gifts; and I won’t take no for an answer!”, I beamed. “Either you chose to let me help you make a nice little video, where you tell the world about your rape and beating of that young woman 18 months ago – along with an account of your dealings with criminal organizations in Gotham. That will make your family really proud of you, and you’ll instantly feel better about your misdeeds. Or…”.

I showed him the two rocks.

“… you let me help you by filling that empty sack of yours”.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joker and Harley both leaning in to hear his answer.

Kelper sobbed, and a bloody glob of snot ran out of his broken nose.

“The video. I’ll do the video”.

“Boring”, Joker snarled quietly, and Harley patted his leg soothingly.

I pulled out the phone.

“Don’t worry Jerry. This will be over in no time”. I started filming. “Action”.

Kelper opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Look into the camera. Say your name”, I whispered.

He looked into the lens, and began.

“My name is Jeremiah Kelper. I am a judge in Gotham city”. He paused, and I kicked his shin.

“And”, he yelped, “18 months ago, I raped and beat a young woman I was giving a ride home in my limousine”. He sobbed. “I then… let two of my friends rape her, while I watched”.

I was struggling not to run my claws through his heart.

“Continue”, I hissed. Kelper did as asked.

“I have also been receiving payoffs from the crime lord known as the Joker”.

“That’s me!”, the Joker said, and jumped into frame; giving Kelper a wet kiss on the cheek. “We’ve been the best of friends, for a long, long time”, he said, and patted Kelpers shoulder.

“Isn’t this enough?”, Kelper cried.

“Apologise!”, I growled.

“Yes!”, Joker exclaimed. “And tell them that you’ve been a bad, bad boy. Say; I’m Jerry, and I’m a bad, bad boy!”.

Kelper sobbed again.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve abused my office, and I’ve hurt a young woman who didn’t deserve it”.

“No one deserves what you did to her!”, I snarled.

“No, no one deserves that”, he admitted.

“Bad boy!”, Harley yelled from her table, making Kelper jump in his seat.

“I’m Jerry, and I’m a bad, bad boy”, he finished.

“Cut! Scene! Print!”, Joker called, and gave the judge a hard slap on the back. “Good job, Jer-jer! This is one for the books!”.

I put the phone in the bag with the bomb I was still carrying. It was over.

—

A loud crash was heard. While we had been filming, the room had been almost cleared of Jokers minions, as they’d disappeared into the shadows.

The lights went out, and I felt a gush of wind over my head.

“No!”, Joker shouted.

A hard punch to my shoulder made me fall to the floor, and I dropped the bag, accidentally kicked it; and watched it slide into the darkness somewhere.

Panicking, I scrambled to find it, my shoulder pulsing with pain.

A gunshot was heard, followed by the sound of Harleys shriek, as she was thrown across the floor.

I got on my feet, and ran in the direction of where I thought the bag might be.

Someone grabbed my arm, holding me in place.

“Leave it”, a gravelly voice said. “Keep your head down”.

Shit…

Tag list:

@gloriousgam3r​

@hyp-oh-critical​

[delcat177]

FALSE DUALITIES: How NOT to address The Serial Rapist

Hopkins keeps doing these “wacky” Drip stories where he’s a bumbling uwu sillypants and I frankly can’t think of a single worse way to “redeem” a character

More rape tw plus abuse tw, csa tw, fucking generally grotesque shit under cut

Drip is canonically the sin of Lust and has raped, tortured, and killed at least a dozen women onscreen and hundreds more off (there is a LOT of detail about it), including a cave full of enslaved souls he molests at will while they beg and scream for mercy, one particular enslaved soul who he raped multiple times daily after Death gave her to him for the sin of avoiding death, his own kindergarten-age son,

...and, as much as Dave wants us to forget it, *countless* victims in (ugh) Musical Holes, a game he invented to play in Hell’s arena with damned souls, at fifty women a go:

Oh yeah, the karmic punchline to this one was gay rape is scary and reprehensible whereas rape rape is pretty entertaining:

Same character. But look, he’s got big soft eyes and he’s kinda dumb! It’s not creepy at all!

It’s not creepy at all that she’s using real-life self-defense scripting against real-life rapists (soil yourself however possible, bring up pregnancy, ask about women in the rapist’s life, humanization etc)!

It’s especially not creepy when you realize that this character, Megan (sorry IRL Megan it never stops being weird) was stalked, threatened, brutallized, humiliated, raped, and fucking dismembered over a series of violent events in her own arc, by three different rapists, at that, one of which also wanted to rape the little girl she was trying to save! This is a character who should by all means be in the middle of raging PTSD shock, but it’s funny and cute because her buddy from that arc might eventually rescue her after having sex with everyone else ol’ silly Drip tied up to rape-murder later!! u fucking wu!!

This is my Thing. I have no problem with dark fiction. I have no problem with noncon or rape fiction, even (with a good list of caveats, but let’s not digress). I have no problem with creators tackling mature subject matter, the response to there being terrible things in the world is not to pretend that isn’t the case.

But that’s exactly what is happening here. And it is fifty kinds of fucked up. If these were completely whole cloth characters...well, I’d still have a LOT of problems with this comic, not least because Silly Drip’s comeuppance is getting raped himself and then shamed by the rapist leaving his TV to tape gay porn so the cops laugh at him (HA HA, HA HA HA HA, MUSICAL HOLES ALL OVER AGAIN, GOD HOPKINS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU), but it would read a lot kinder than its reality--an attempt to reform a character who was built specifically to never be redeemed by giving him a soft outline and hanging a lampshade on his dick.

And there’s no damned reason for it, except brand. People like Drip. People *love* Drip. He’s their fantasy. So Dave goes “okay here you go but remember Drip is a BAD GUY” and then whines that nothing he does is ever enough for the critics.

This is why, Dave. THIS is why. You can’t take a character, spend fifteen years having him as a worshipped figurehead for brutalizing innocents, and then turn around and make him Boner Mickey Mouse. Your audience knows what they’re looking at. Paint him pink and call him Bippo the Clown, he’s still going to be the one who raped his own kid not only because he has no qualms with child rape, but because as self-stated, he wanted to use it to hurt another character on the deepest level possible. He has done nothing to earn redemption, learned nothing, has given no compensation to his victims, has no accountability.

Oh yeah, and the last time he and Megan met?

It was just soooooooo cute! That darned wacky boy uwu

yeah no he ripped her tail out at the spine because he didn’t get a chance to rape her and she never recovers it and nearly never recovers from it. They have to remove her to Heaven to keep her from dying and they can’t regrow her tail because.......well, Heaven is Hell with a paint job in this comic. They’re the lawful evil to the chaotic evil of Hell. There is no recourse for souls. There is no recourse for the wronged.

Except WACKY DRIP ARCS!!

*laugh track*

Yes, he states these are “comics for friends” and have “no relation to his other comics”, and, I imagine, come from roleplay sessions or streams. I do understand the professional distancing of the character that you write for a serious publication and the behind-the-scenes “actor” quality of those characters, that running silly antics with them is a fun exercise for blowing off steam and letting them say and do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. It makes them stronger as characters, builds in detail, provides material to make the organism of a story work better with itself.

But you don’t fucking invite the serial rapist to the party and expect people to go “oh he’s so cute now”.

That is, of course, exactly what’s happening in the comments. Honestly, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find this comic to be kinda cute, because I do like Specks, I like Megan in theory, and I thought that the two had chemistry to interact in. It even has a page where a character asks if they can choose not to consent to sex for rescue and the reassurance that no, that’s not the case, which is something I legitimately never thought would ever be addressed in a Jack comic. Which is why it is so goddamned frustrating that it remains the most fucked thing I’ve seen all week, and I’m working with Screaming Barrel right now.

Don’t whitewash the rapist. Don’t fucking do it. For the love of God, Montressor.

Fucking kill Drip already.

Don’t bring him back.

Jesus.

ETA:

A visual aid

[infantbluee]

title: count to eight

summary: in another timeline, maka is killed on the moon and the world descends into madness. five years later, a reclusive soul stumbles across a girl who claims to be his dead best friend. 

pairing: soul/maka

rating: explicit

warnings: angst, smut, canon-typical violence, sort of love triangle (though not really because it’s just between maka and two souls) 

links: ao3 // ffn

—

oh my gosh, this is my second resbang fic ever and i still can’t believe i got so lucky! this year i was paired with the amazing, brilliant, hilarious, and adorable @ochako999 and @maevenneverland who had a full-time job making me laugh-cry over their shenanigans while also making GORGEOUS art for my fic. (links can be found here and here respectively.) please excuse me while i sob over their talent for the next 84 years because they are perfect.  

even more hugs to my ridiculous discord family for keeping me insane, as well as all the other wonderful people i’ve met on tumblr, twitter, and even just by exchanging reviews on fanfics! there’s a reason i’ve been so glad i joined this fandom and it’s because of every single one of you that make it so warm <3

please enjoy the short excerpt below! 

—

It’s surprisingly cold this year.

Soul blows into his hands, rubbing his palms together to retain warmth. Normally he can escape Kid’s annual Christmas party and hide out in the gardens without any sort of penalty, but apparently Mother Nature decided she was bored this holiday season and wanted to take a turn punishing the antisocial hermit.

That, or she’s calling him a coward.

It’s probably that last one.

“Hiding already?” a familiar voice calls. “This must be a record.”

Holding back a grimace, Soul maintains a blank expression as he turns his head to see his girlfriend approach him along the cobblestone path.

She’s too pretty to be real in this setting, surrounded by glazed tree branches and the twinkling lights strung all over to make up for the blackened moon. Wearing a dress like that with her hair so long and loose, she might as well have “serenade me, you coward” plastered all over her forehead.

“Idiot, you’re going to get frostbite,” he scolds instead, already scowling as he shrugs off his suit jacket to drape over her shoulders. “What are you thinking, coming out here without a coat on?”

Maka smiles sweetly. “I was thinking my weapon always takes care of me.”

Stupid. He thinks the word twice, both times so pathetically filled with affection. “Did Kid send you to hunt me down?” he asks. “I swear I was gonna go back inside. Continue wooing those foreign emissaries or whatever the hell he expects me to do. I just needed a break.”

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s Christmas; he doesn’t expect you to spend the whole time working.” Her eyes twinkle. “Besides, I already handled it. The dignitaries love me.”

He snorts. “Of course they do.”

“Hey, one of us has to be doing our jobs right,” she teases.

“Suck-up.”

“I prefer the term eager to please.”

Soul is incredulous. “How the hell did you manage to find the one phrase that’s dirtier than suck-up?”

Her smile is angelic. “It’s a talent.”

He responds with a growl as he nuzzles his face against her skin, his hands sliding under the jacket he covered her with to trace the artfully exposed curves underneath.

“Soul, stop!” she giggles. “We can’t do it out here. It’s cold.”

“So keep me warm then,” he grumbles. “And anyway, is that really the first thing you worry about when I’m trying to cop a feel? Not ‘oh, someone might catch us’ or ‘what if your dick shrunk too much in this weather for me to feel it?’”

This time when she laughs, he hides his own smile against her skin. She doesn’t stop him, letting her head fall back with a sigh as he presses kisses along the base of her neck. Even when it’s this cold, she’s so soft. It’s really unfair. He’s seen her moisturizing routine. She hasn’t done anything to deserve this level of silky perfection.

“Soul,” she gasps when he nips particularly hard at her throat. Her hands grip at his shirt, desperate, and he decides that maybe getting a little dirty on a garden bench wouldn’t be the worst thing after all.

But then the lights flicker.

That in itself wouldn’t have been enough to tear his mouth away from her skin, except that it’s accompanied by a deep tremble beneath the earth which causes Soul to stumble into his meister. She catches him, always so impressively steady on her size-five-hidden-by-giant-boots feet, and the speed at which she goes from horny girlfriend to calculating meister is seriously impressive.

And hot. Really hot.

Soul’s never been as adept at switching off his hunger as she is.

“A pre-kishin attack?” she asks with a frown as they rush back towards the party. It’s been a long time since they’ve encountered a pre-k without actively hunting one, and even longer since one has existed within the walls of their city.

“Maybe a demon,” Soul guesses. They’re also rare these days, but they still exist. Though the Witch Treaty has significantly put a damper on their confidence.

As they approach the mansion, they can already hear a commotion brewing. Plenty of shouts, glass shattering. A horrifying, almost unearthly slithering sound as fluid shadows spill out of the windows like overflowing bath water. They pick up their pace.

When they finally burst into the room, they’re horrified by the sight in front of them.

“Kid!” Maka cries.

The chandelier is history, now scattered around the dancefloor in a million tiny little pieces. The decorations are torn; the tables cracked and thrown about. The civilian guests have all been ushered to the sides of the room as several witches hold up a barrier to keep them safe, but the real terror is the enormous entity in the middle of the room that seems to have no problem fending off the advances of half a dozen meisters.

It’s like nothing Soul’s ever seen before, even during the worst of the war. A giant, oozing ball of shadowy flesh with these sharp, jerking limbs that regenerate and extend from its body whenever someone tries to attack it.

Accompanying it is this smell, putrid and awful—but even worse are the low, chittering moans coming from its repulsive form, over and over and over again, filling the room like a sickening hum.

“Maakaa. Maaaaaaaakaaaa.”

Soul feels his blood run cold.

Kid, who is currently trying to hold back several of its limbs from further attacking the civilian barrier, jerks his head up at her call for him, his face flashing with horror. It’s obvious how long the creature must’ve been moaning her name by the intensity of the reaper’s panic.

“Maka, get back!” he screams.

In the same moment, she gasps as Soul tackles her to the side just in time to avoid getting pierced by a flurry of sword-like limbs. He then rolls and grabs her hand, jerking her to her feet as he starts off in a sprint, squeezing to get her attention. “Maka!”

“R-right!”

He shifts into weapon form just in time for her to swing him in defense. She manages to block two of them, slicing off three more, before being forced to jump back as another wave rushes at her. The monster seems to have forgotten about the others completely now that it has her in its sight, its several dozen eyes turning to train directly on her.

“I don’t understand,” she says as she blocks more of its attacks. “Why does it keep coming for me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” growls Soul. “I’ll die before I let it take you. The only priority now is to kill it.”

“But how?”

“To your left!”

She twists to the side, barely dodging the next stream of violent hands as they scrape off Soul’s blade. But instead of relief, he can feel her horror, because those same regenerative limbs that had just tried to rip into her heart somehow jerk to the side with enough force to shatter one of the barriers protecting the guests.

He hears Angela among the screams.

“Maka, no!” he cries out.

Too late. She flips over one of the creature’s arms to run against it, slicing at the others with a ferocity that would impress him in any other circumstance. At the end of her sprint, Maka dives, pushing Angela out of the way from an attack and twisting in a way that cushions the young girl’s fall.

Through their bond, Soul can feel the pain shoot up Maka’s spine and he cries out for her, demanding to know if she’s hurt.

She forces a smile as she sits up. “I’m fine,” she lies terribly. She glances down at the young witch and looks relieved that she’s unharmed.

Before she can say anything else, she’s yanked away so quickly that Soul is literally whipped from her grip and clatters to the floor. He shifts back to human form in an instant, scrambling for her with a cry, but it’s too late.

The monster has Maka dangling by her ankle over its main form, the rest of its extensions retreating as well. Black Star and Kid both try to charge at it only to be swatted away like flies and held back with the pressure of mutated shadow limbs.

Then it does the worst thing possible.

It drops her.

“NO!” Soul screams.

It’s like a detonator is pressed. The moment Maka’s body is absorbed into its inky flesh, the creature begins to twitch a jerk violently, pulsing and moving so rapidly that even the meisters have no choice but to back up.

With a horrifying screech, it’s sucked into the earth through an invisible exit, like some sort of oversized blob of goo being sucked through a vacuum or forced down a drain. The whole fleshy monstrosity continues to be pulled through that tiny unseen gateway until it has completely disappeared from the ballroom. Gone.

And Maka along with it.

[ read more on ao3 or ffn! ]