for the ask game (1)
au where bruce is attracted to his robins and batgirls. he tries not to think about it or act on it, but it's getting more difficult with every new member of his team he acquires. does anyone know? do the robins and batgirls notice his weird behavior? what do they do about it? do they ever find out the truth? who would think it's terrible and who would find it strangely hot/comforting/nice? does bruce ever act on his feelings?
for the ask game!
oh my GOD do i have thoughts for AUs like this, i love this shit so dearly, dirtybadwrong Bruce who's trying to keep a lid on it my beloved.
i think the fun of this AU is if characters would notice Bruce lusting for themselves vs would they notice Bruce lusting for a different Robin/Batgirl. like does Dick pick up on it when it's just him and Bruce? no, because it's just. him and Bruce. he and Bruce are weird and complicated and hold endless bounds of nuance. that's just How Bruce Is, and Dick is the "test run", in a sense. he knows Bruce is new to this whole sidekick/family thing and is giving Bruce grace for being rough around the edges. but when Bruce starts looking at Jason or Tim or Cass that way, that's when Dick starts to notice. it's never enough of a suspicion he feels justified to bring it up, but the thought lingers. he's hyperaware and grows less and less comfortable with leaving them alone with Bruce. it's a weird game of chicken, Dick and Bruce staring each other down when Bruce's touch lingers too long. each waiting for the other to say something first. if Bruce ever broke and actually acted on his feelings, Dick would be eaten alive by the guilt of knowing something was up, but never saying something until it was too late.
obviously, Cass would know. there's no world where Cass *doesn't* know, the nature of who and what she is would immediately clock it. but the issue is, Cass doesn't have a good framework of what family looks like. she doesn't really understand familial vs romantic love bc she has no firsthand experience of what a parent's love should even look like. so she never calls it out. she just watches. i'm a fan of Cass believing this is normal and believing she too can express and act on attraction that's vaguely incestuous. maybe it's with Babs, maybe it's with Dick or Tim or Bruce himself. but she recognizes this as Normal and Accepted within the Batfamily, so it severely fucks up her understanding of familial love and i just. man it's my favorite thing about Cass in Batcest honestly, is how you can play with her lack of experience with love, boundaries, and sexuality.
Tim is the fun one for me. because my favorite flavor of BruTim is when Tim knows, as he agrees to be Robin, that there's a non-zero chance that Bruce is going to be Weird and agrees anyway because he's decided it's an acceptable risk. so Tim knows from the get-go because he's expecting it. if Bruce acts on his attraction, i think it's either with Tim or Cass first, because they're the most likely to confront him about it in a way that isn't entirely negative. Tim has accepted it's a possibility and Cass just seeks being loved and touched so. it leads to the first time someone's ever confronted Bruce about it. and the thing is, Bruce really doesn't like confrontation about his flaws. the first time Tim tries to imply he's okay with it, Bruce would lash out at the idea, tell Tim how inappropriate that is and benches Tim for a week. it'd probably take a united front from Cass and Tim to get Bruce to even *admit* to the attraction. still Bruce wouldn't allow it to happen and he brushes them off until finally, the dam breaks. it's fun if there's a cause like sex pollen, but i think it's *more* fun if it's just. a random fucking Tuesday and finally Bruce is at his limit. he has no real reason, there's nothing particularly different about that day's routine. he just sees Tim or Cass striping armor and sighs and gives in.
i don't think Steph, Jason, or Babs would notice until anything substantial happened. not because they're not wicked smart, but just because none of them were looking for it. Jason put Bruce on a pedestal when he was alive, and when he came back from the dead he wasn't close enough to be noticing Bruce's interpersonal dynamics outside of his narrow scope. Steph has no real framework for what healthy fatherhood looks like, so if Bruce's touches linger, if he stares too long, she just shrugs and assumes it's how it is. and Babs was just never quite close enough to Bruce to notice. if and when she notices, is when actual sexual things start to happen between Cass and Bruce. because Cass would see no reason to hide it. Babs would be pissed, but it'd be tricky to navigate. Cass would be an adult, even if she's only 18/19, so technically, she's old enough to be consenting. if nothing else, Bruce is a careful man. even when he breaks and gives in to his desires, he covers his tracks well. he makes sure he has enthusiastic consent and there's no legal recourse that could be taken. age of consent and all that. there's not much Babs can *do* other than try to tell Cass (and/or Tim) that this isn't normal or okay. not that it gets her anywhere, but god would she try.
by the time Duke comes along (if we venture out of the pre-Flashpoint era) i think it's a sort of. open secret, in the Batfamily. talked about in nothing but hushed whispers and knowing glances. at some point, they've all had sex with Bruce, caving all for different reasons. some more than others. Tim sees it as a duty, Cass sees it as a way of seeking comfort, Steph sees it as getting Bruce's approval for once, etc. it's never forced on them, but eventually, they all come to Bruce sooner or later. and that's the fun irony of it, i think. they try to convince the others not to, but would go to Bruce on their own well. because complicated reasons they can't put into words. sometimes, Bruce is just a messy man who doesn't realize how prized his Attention to for the rest of the Batfamily. that weird duality of not liking him, but also wanting desperately for him to like you. all of them have dealt with it, at some point. so for Duke, it takes a while for him to understand this... whole dynamic. it's Cass who tries to explain it to him, and he's a little horrified, a lot confused. especially when Bruce starts staring at him a little too long as well. i think he'd only want to watch first but well. they all cave eventually.
also fun bonus if we venture into the Dark Knight Returns universe for my bestest girl Carrie Kelley: there's such a like, "i'm fucking around and i'm finding out" vibe to Carrie. like Tim, she's very proactive in just. deciding she's going to be Robin and she's ready for whatever that entails. (IMO canon Carrie is closer to fanon Tim than canon Tim is but *that* deserves its own post-) like she takes one look at the old man that is Batman and goes yup. he's never fucking getting rid of me now. if Bruce started having weird feelings about her, i think she'd have *fun* with it. she's decided she's in it for the long haul and for whatever being Robin means so. she's almost teasing about it, seeing how hard she can push before Bruce snaps. since it's an older, gruffer Bruce, i think he'd express open annoyance at it first, almost a sort of banter about how Carrie behave. but of course he caves and Carrie leans into it, because there's a fun in having all of Bruce's attention to herself. in the main timeline, Bruce is pretty split with so many Robins and Batgirls, but during their era, it's *just* her and him and she's very proud she's got him all to herself.
38 notes
·
View notes
Beefleaf isn't canon. Mxtx has said she doesn't like to write another gay ship different from the main (she struggled with svsss)
I have heard about this! The content I saw was just so insistent about Beefleaf that I wondered if maybe I was misremembering and the "no same-gender side couples" thing applied to MDZS only. (I have gotten similar vibes from Moshang and from whatever Yue QIngyuan and Shen Jiu's ship name is, but I've now obtained Vol. 1 of SVSSS and plan to read it, so if those two aren't actually canon, don't tell me! It can be a surprise!)
The "no side couples"--or, in MDZS's case, "no queer characters AT ALL besides the protag, his love interest, and the disgraced goth weirdo who annihilates himself to resurrect the protag"--thing confuses me, because... I guess I don't get the point of it? I totally understand not having the bandwidth to develop more than one couple. The challenge of adequately building up other relationships fully independent of your main couple without detracting from the exploits of your protagonist and his love interest could be daunting, as would expanding the story's focus and juggling multiple equally-prominent lead characters for an effective ensemble piece. But here it seems like people picked up a vibe between the characters from what was already there in the text and then MXTX was like, "oh, no, they're not a couple! there's just the one couple!" and THAT I don't get. If she's disinterested in writing women, but has a cast of attractive men who are all obsessed with each other, why not toss a romance in there between some of the guys? Again, you can keep it entirely as-is and just toss a kiss in there or confirm in interviews that yes, they were in love, and you're so happy readers picked up on that even though you didn't get to tell their full story on the page.
I am extrapolating based on the Xiyao situation specifically, so maybe this doesn't apply to her other works! But it is a choice that confuses me. A couple doesn't have to be that developed; Xuanli certainly aren't, but their existence is a major plot point. I should think that the presence of other m/m couples would bolster the main couple, if anything, because it sets a precedent for them existing in their world. There are situations where adding an expressly romantic element would change something fundamental about the relationship, but there are just as many where the addition of a romantic element changes nothing or makes it make more sense (case in point: Xue Yang's freakout after killing Xiao Xingchen).
Like I said, I get not wanting to devote energy to it, and I also get that sometimes a work or performance is received by the audience in ways the artist didn't intend (this is the Destiel website, after all), but to make it a conscious choice to have One M/M Couple Only? Based on what I currently know, this perplexes me.
40 notes
·
View notes
I found this in my drafts - I wrote it after I finished Leverage: Redemption S1 and then most of the original series. Posting it now with the caveat that I never got around to watching the rest of Leverage: Redemption so I do not know what happened from there.
----------
It still amazes me that people who've lived through
- Sherlock, where the creators outright deny that their two male leads could ever get together, while throwing out constant M/M fanservice.
- FIFTEEN seasons of Supernatural, where women can't survive for very long because they'd threaten the fan-preferred M/M pairings, and one of the actors for the pairing straight up denies that his character could even be gay, shot down questions about it, and finally just "didn't want to put him in a box" following an outcry near the very end of the series.
- She-who-shall-not-be-named, who never so much as hinted that any character might not be straight, but then declared one gay when the series was basically done.
- and however many more queerbaiting shows
can look at Leverage and think the creators are trying to pull one over on us.
- "That means I would be thinking about you and Parker, which I never do!" in the least convincing tone, after lamenting the suave thief Parker is out with that night.
- Watching them kiss and nodding
- "'til my dying day" and "but you never, never need anything" "Yeah, I did" looks over at Parker and Hardison for a moment before looking back "And thanks to you, I don’t have to search anymore."
- Confirmation from the creator that the OT3 is canon.
- "Even numbers only baby" and "Age of the geek, babe"
- The hints in the show (Hardison being aware of how Eliot wakes up, "we built vents in the house", etc) and then confirmation that the three of them live together.
- The necklaces
- Hardison talks to Eliot AND Parker before making the decision to step away from the team. Parker's scene is more dramatic, sure - but Hardison checks in with Eliot too, and Eliot confirms his support before Parker drags Hardison off for their chat.
They haven't given us a kiss or the exact words, sure. Polyamory still isn't widely accepted in the US - it's very possible that they can't give us a big flashy display on screen because of executive meddling, or just that they have to consider ratings.
But what they've given us is in line with the characters they've created. They also never make it into a joke, aside from Hardison's "We're together" bit in The 12 Steps Job (which was season one). They don't make flashy fanservice out of scenes with Hardison and Eliot together, or with the three of them.
The Leverage PTB haven't queerbaited us with the OT3. They queercoded them. And then confirmed that they intended the things we saw on screen.
Part of me wonders if the idea that the OT3 are queerbait is the fact that Eliot's relationship with Hardison and Parker is more subdued than their relationship with each other. I think there may be folks who want to see them as a perfect, exclusive triangle where they all share the exact same relationship style. But that's not how polyamorous relationships have to work - and indeed, it's not how most of them work. Parker and Eliot have always had a different kind of relationship than Parker and Hardison. It's not unreasonable to think that, even in a committed romantic threesome, the three sides of the triangle would represent different types of relationships.
21 notes
·
View notes
SO... I was just thinking, let's say hypothetically.. mahiru guren & shinya weren't toxic ca16 was written by a less misogynist author then would you like mahigureshin as like poly ship? It just came in my head as much as I dislike how author wrote them esp mahirus character I still think in alternative setting it might work?? They are kind of catastrophic trio with very poetic themes & victim of fate kinda afterall.
honestly probably yeah. most powerful trio imagineable.
although i actually have no clue what mahiru's personality would be like were she not written by such an author. i think i've read some cool modern AUs in which i really liked her - kickass businesswoman that overworks herself trying to get her little sister out of a difficult situation while simulteanously juggling her relationship with her boyfriend and their shared trophy wife, i think that'd fit her well. "all you do is work :(" "you don't understand i'm doing this for us!!!111!1!1!!1!!!" type of stuff.
i will forever treasure that little snippet of her and shinya making fun of guren together, that was adorable. the way things should've been.
25 notes
·
View notes