#bruce is half a blorbo

[captainlordauditor]

Batman for the character opinions bingo?



There's 50 different versions of Bruce and I like some and despise others (thus the question mark over technically canon) but I would marry Golden Age Bruce Immediately

The reason Minkhoa Khan exists is because James Tynion understood that Batman is at his best when he has a partner you're not sure if he means in a gay way or in a detective way and the 1990s ruined Robin

why does he look like that but in a good way

He doesn't need 50 books to himself though let Ollie have one

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[frownyalfred]

Narratively speaking, when should the batkids be able to beat Batman single-handedly? Sure, Cass can do it already and Dick is seen as above or on Batman's level but what are your thoughts on this? It's always hard to do this stupid power level stuff because the character you want to win is obviously gonna win, but you still have to show that Batman is this super ubermensch martial artist who always has a plan and whose goal is to make his kids surpass him but then how do you do that? When can you say, "yeah Batman's cool and all but [enter batkid's name] would totally wipe the floor with the old man if they were to fight 1v1"? This is extremely exaggerated but you get what I mean, right?

I'm genuinely fascinated by this question and I thought I could just ask you.

Thanks!😀

Yeah, it’s all biased like you pointed out since we all want our special blorbo to be the most special blorbo, even in situations where the logic gets pretty thin.

The thing with Bruce is, in his prime, he’s a god-tier fighter for multiple reasons. He’s got insane training under his belt, he’s at or above peak physical human conditioning, he’s trained to think strategically about combat, he’s fast for his size (despite his size), and he’s BIG.

The last one is so important. He’s anywhere from 6’ to 6’4, 190 to 240 lbs of muscle, etc. He’s not losing to most people in a fair fight! And he’s definitely not losing to someone much shorter and lighter than him when it comes to sheer power.

What’s interesting about the comics is that they largely argue that Bruce losing these 1v1s comes down to skill and experience. Cass trained for years to be a weapon, and her advanced training is what supposedly tips the scales in her favor. Same thing with Damian. Bruce makes the argument that enough training can create conditions for his Robins to surpass him, like you mentioned.

But is that actually a fair determinator of a fight? Can most if not all advantages Bruce might have in a fight with a woman half his size be overcome by volume or rigor of training?

It’s the comics, so the answer changes depending on what’s intriguing and fun. We can oscillate between Bruce being the ultimate overpowered fighter who can’t ever lose and Bruce getting his ass handed to him by his kids because it all comes down to power ranking, which is SO subjective.

Should the Batkids be able to beat him? In my opinion, not when he’s in his prime and it’s a fair fight. That isn’t me saying that they can’t win 1v1 through skill, misdirection, getting lucky, etc.

That’s not me trying to shit on female fighters either. Dick carrying 30-40 lbs less muscle than Bruce puts him at a disadvantage too. Jason being the same weight but not as fast/nimble puts him at a disadvantage to Bruce. Damian being a child fighting an adult will ALWAYS result in an unbalanced fight.

If you’ve ever squared up with a heavier, larger, more skilled opponent — especially if you’re a woman and they’re a man — one of the first things you have to learn is that, when it comes to pure strength, you cannot hope to win. It is an inherent advantage, and why we have weight classes for fighting.

Your goal is to figure out a way to get around that advantage. To be smarter, or faster. We teach women about throws and the benefits of having a lower center of gravity. We teach kids the benefits of being flexible or smaller in certain holds. Things like that.

But comics aren’t real life. The better question is, have we overpowered Bruce in a way that makes taking him down a peg or two somewhat difficult or implausible? How can we better show his flaws and complexity as a character when the stakes get set too high?

[evilwickedme]

Gail's Blorbo Showdown

On the contenders:

Jason Todd is Bruce Wayne's second adopted son and second Robin who very famously died via fandom poll, although the weapon of choice was the Joker beating him half to death and leaving him to die in an exploding warehouse in Ethiopia, which he kind of took personally. He does eventually come back to life as a full on villain called Red Hood, reclaiming an old name used the Joker, although he's eventually turned into an anti-hero (the disappointment is real). I have a crush on him. The murder is sexy, actually. I don't know what else to say, all of my thoughts about this man are utterly unhinged.

Jaskier (also known as Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount of Lettenhove) is a recurring character in the Netflix show The Witcher. He's a bard and a pretty damn good one at that, and basically Geralt's PR team to boot. He's played by Joey Batey who himself is a talented musician (check out The Amazing Devil, for real) and who gives the character that lil fruity vibe we all enjoy. I am talking specifically about the Netflix version, because I only managed to read one book and my computer can't run the games.

Blorbo Showdown masterpost here

[gffa]

If the batfamily were in the gffa, which ones of them do you think would have been jedis? How quickly do you think they would have joined the nascent rebellion?

Absolutely NONE of them would have been Jedi, I say with all fondness towards the Batfam, but they are emotional hot messes, every single one of them, and to be a Jedi you literally have to have your emotional shit together, that's straight up how the Force works. You cannot act out of anger or fear without slinking towards the dark side, the Force will throw all that right back in your face, and I don't think there's a single Batfam member that doesn't consistently act out of a place of anger. Bruce - My guy can't even keep it together without a psychic energy field in his brain that resonates with his emotional well-being, he would fall to the dark side inside a month. I love him, but he already thinks he has things under control in his brain that he very much does not, he is the definition of being created by fear of loss and the anger that results from it. Dick - My Blorbo may be the definition of hope and light in the DC universe, the most trusted hero right after Superman, but he absolutely has anger issues that he just kind of ignores. Psychics in the DC universe have tried to invade his mind and come out like, "Jesus fuck why is that guy's mind so terrifying!?" because, while Dick chooses kindness and love, he was also forged in anger at the injustices in the world. Jason - Sweet babygirl doesn't even know what he wants, I tend to see Jason as often times deeply contradictory because I'm not sure he knows how he feels about things, does he want to be part of his family or does he want to walk away from them, he wants their love, but he can't tolerate their love, he thinks everyone expects the worst from him and is angry ahead of time, because he's so deeply insecure about his place in the world and in his family, and the injustices of his life are ones that still haunt him, the Joker killing him and still getting to run around would drive him into anger, fear, and despair just as much as anyone. Tim - My guy is ready to tell anyone and everyone to fuck the fuck off at the drop of a hat, that he's often times the one trying to pull everyone back together, but he also is still haunted by the death of his parents, he's still unsure of his relationship with Bruce at times, when things get back and he loses a little too much in his life, he starts pushing people away, he pushed Dick and Steph away while Bruce was dead, he obsessed over bringing Kon back as a way to cope, rather than actually letting go of his hurts, that guy seems fairly even keel sometimes, but, no, he's a hot mess who would have the Force throwing all that back in his face, too. Damian - Baby bat is so insecure in a lot of ways, because he doesn't always know how to relate to his father, he doesn't know how to be a complement to Bruce the way the other Robins did, they're both brooders, they're both the kind who wear their anger on their sleeves, and have a core fear of loss that would have the dark side hissing in their ears. Barbara - In some ways, Babs is more emotionally stable than the others, but in other ways, she is JUST as unhinged as they are, her fury at the Joker is still lingering all around her heart, she still explodes in anger when something pisses her off, she's still a little afraid of commitment because she's scared to open herself up, she still has to deal with her spinal implant not being perfect, Babs probably has a stronger sense of what her problems are, but it's not like she does anything about them half the time. Cassandra - I think she still feels too much guilt about her past, even if none of it was her fault, but that she can't let go of that pain, and it's not just "bad" anger/fear that draws you to the dark side, it's also "good" anger/fear that lures you there, too. And Cass deals with a lot of that and, while I think she'd probably have the best chance of any of them at making it as a Jedi, she does still have a lot of issues that the Force would be throwing back in her face.

Stephanie - I'd give her the second best chance, she at least sometimes recognizes her fears and says, yeah, I'm afraid, I'm just not going to let it stop me. Steph has as much anger and need to punch the world as any of them do, but I think she might have a chance at changing up her thought patterns enough to make it. Duke - Hmm, I'm not sure I've read enough with Duke yet to tell what his underlying issues are and how much he's dealt with them. He seems fairly stable and willing to back off when he needs to, but in general, if you're a Bat, you've probably got some real anger to work on. Kate - Everything I've read of Kate is definitely "wants to punch things in the face" or "feels torn up about her relationships with people" and that she's not really interested in not being those things. Alfred - It depends on how you view him, I guess. If you see him as someone who has made peace with the lives his family has chosen and willing to understand that they are who they are, then I could see Alfred as a Jedi. But if you lean into the idea of a British Stiff Upper Lip where he just doesn't talk about the anguish he goes through seeing his family get hurt night after night, knowing he can't stop them, then no he would be a terrible Jedi. In short: THEY WOULD ALL SUCK AS JEDI, but they would definitely have started their own Rebel cell even before Bail and Mon and Leia started connecting the various individual groups together!

[bigfan-fanfic]

help me out here and tell me an idea that really sits with ya!

[alto-tenure]

war games thoughts writeup now that I am awake enough to write something resembling coherent analysis/review:

I...actually think most of this is at the very least in-character for Steph. She's someone who always keeps going, who doesn't know when to call it quits, and of course her being accepted and then rejected two and a half months later would only rekindle her desire to be truly brought into the fold.

Tim is really good in this arc. Absolutely heartbreaking to see his response to the shooting and Darla's death and how his choice to become Robin again is driven by loss (just like him becoming Robin in the first place was).

I didn't actually read Nightwing, because Dick is just a blorbo-in-law, but I do like how much Blockbuster haunts him throughout this. His story hasn't been forgotten about, but it has to be pushed because of the emergency.

I was bracing myself for the worst when it came to the Steph torture stuff, and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but it was still awful. I want to punch whoever made the call that she should be sexualized while getting tortured.

Writers outside of Cass's solo who try to write her can be hit or miss. I felt like she was being overly wordy sometimes.

I can definitely see how this becomes a problem when bringing Steph back, though. She spent what time she had left trying to coordinate and fix what she had done, and she didn't know Orpheus was dead until it was too late for her. I do think there's coming back from it, for sure, but...I guess we'll see how it's handled down the road.

Speaking of Orpheus: he deserved better. This event manages to be racist AND sexist!

How long does this event take? (Excluding most of War Drums -- we know how long Steph was Robin.) Because by the time the events of War Crimes are going on, Identity Crisis has already happened (since Bruce talks about Jack dying), and...uh...yeah, timelines, woo...

Making me read War Crimes was a war crime in and of itself. What the hell was that.

[they-reap-what-we-sow]

Damian participating in Ramadan

because I want to put my blorbo into my situations

-Damian claims that he should be allowed to go on patrol still, but does acquiesce to only doing recon or protective missions. 

-Sleeps almost all day except to wake up for prayers, and then like an hour before sunset to ready himself for his day (a la Saudi Ramadan)

-Goes on patrol after Taraweeh, hides his costume under his thobe- everyone in the mosque can definitely see it but they’re all ignoring it. 

-Eats suhoor right after patrol, Alfred keeps it warm and ready just as he arrives

-Everyone else is very conscious of their eating during the month, literally running out of rooms if Damian is in it and they’re eating- Damian really doesn’t care though

-WE has a big employee Iftaar Gala- the one and only party that Damian is ever excited to go to

-WE also does open Iftaar every night for employees and anyone on the street who can use an extra meal at night

-Damian makes a concentrated effort to be nicer to his brothers during this month, which got more than a few concerned responses the first year, but now they all just appreciate the break and try not to antagonize him too much

-Once, there was an all hands situation before sunset and Damian insisted on helping- he had to take a second to break his fast, and then it took another half hour to explain to Riddler what he was doing; “Not even water???” “...No, not even water.”

-Bruce keeps emergency rations in his belt at all times, but he’s a little extra prepared during Ramadan in case they lose track of time or get caught up in a fight so that Damian can still have a Suhoor meal.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Men I’ve Always Meant to Write for Masterlist

A little collection of the blorbos that have often been on my mind, but rarely been in my WIPs. Better - Don Draper x Reader

The Starlight Room - Don Draper

Multitudes - Don Eppes x Reader

The Other Half - Bale!Bruce Wayne x Reader

More Than Enough - Harvey Specter x Reader

Wicked Game - Daniel Le Domas x Reader

[guentzel]

bunch of asks beloved!! 🧃😇🌍 ☕️ 🎉🌻🥦

🧃 cold drink

my absolute favorite cold drink is arnold palmer half and half, specifically the strawberry one you can only get at like, kwik stars, which is super fucking annoying but its too damn good

😇 blorbo

i got so many blorbos... bones from star trek, nixon and speirs from bob, thomas barrow from downton abbey, bruce mclaren, kris and geno from the pens, yadi waino bdonnie bcraw and nado from the cards ;u; god john marston from rdr!!! i need to stop collecting so many

🌍 place

i love st louis! ive only visited it four times but its one of my favorite places to be, esp busch stadium. makes me wish i could live there

☕️ hot drink

i would say hot chocolate or tea? but i dont really drink hot drinks unless i have to, like im cold or forcing myself to be "healthy"

🎉 holiday

uuhhhh i guess christmas?? i enjoy seeing my family and giving gifts, and i love the cold and the snow

🌻 flower

delphinium!!! i love flowers that are like, cone shaped like that with a bunch of petals??? and their colors are gorgeous

🥦 veggie

give me all the mushrooms, i will eat them raw i dont care. give me the mush

[daincrediblegg]

all right. my final word on house of usher is this:

it was a fun little poe soaked romp. I had fun. is it my favorite flanagan? not by a long shot (forever remains midnight mass and hill house). But then again I came in expecting some satirical romp and I got it. got it good. had fun. saw the blorbos from my shows again. Bruce Greenwood did a half decent raven reading but the best iteration of it remains treehouse of horror (but it's impossible to outdo that tbh). good sendoff from netflix with a scathing condemnation of capitalism and I applaud him for it evermore.

[levitatingbiscuits]

Do you hve any fav superbat fic recs? Any fics with the trope u talked about recently (bruce tryna charm a slightly bewildered clark)

that particular dynamic is kind of rare, but i just checked my bookmarks and i have a LOT more fic recs that kind of sort of have it than initially anticipated lmao

first up, anything by mithen on ao3 is god tier. they are the definitive superbat writer and have been for over a decade. they wrote both the first superbat fic i ever read (interview with a batman) as well as my favorite superbat fic of all time (heroes of the squared circle). but all of their superbat fics are great, and there are a lot to choose from!

I also really like susiecarter's superbat stuff because she is fantastic at writing "awkwardly trying to make friends" bruce (who is often also pining for clark), which i deeply enjoy.

takes one to know one (the love square) by soetry is a SUPER adorable, very funny fic where supes and bats are besties but (unbeknownst to them) each nursing an embarrassing crush on each other's civilian identities. seeing batman stiltedly interact with cheeky intrepid reporter clark, who is totally unintimidated by him, was great.

The Salmon Incident by CoffioCake is another hilarious love square where batman gets very jealous of superman's growing crush on his new boss, which he whines to his bff about often and at length. of course, he doesn't know that clark's new boss is bruce wayne.

Satisfaction Brought It Back is an adorable fic where bruce gets magically turned into a cat, and who do we know who rescues cats out of trees? initially, bruce does not like supes at all, so it's great to watch him slowly warm up despite himself due to clark's inherent lovability. of course, once he turns human again, clark is not as fond of bruce as bruce is of him, but bruce is gonna make sure it doesn't stay that way for long ;)

Favorite Strangers is set in the DCU before Superman's resurrection. Batman is tortured by guilt and regret, naturally, and ends up dimension hopping to a lighter and softer comic setting where the Justice League is in its heyday and Superman and Batman are best friends (and maybe more). Lots of great angst as Bruce grapples with this vision of how things should have been, falls ever harder for Clark, and deals with his alternate self, who is PISSED that a version of himself hurt Superman.

Learning to Fly is a superbat beauty and the beast au where Clark wanders into a horrific bat monster's mansion in an attempt to escape his odious bald suitor. then the bat monster starts trying to woo him.

On the Half Shell is probably the closest to the dynamic I was talking about. Lois dumps Clark, Bruce jumps at the chance to seduce him Brucie-style, but things go wrong when Clark assumes they're having casual rebound sex and Bruce gets utterly thrown off his rhythm and predictably reacts in the worst way possible because he sucks at communication. Then he has to try to make amends for acting like, well, himself lmao

There are tons of other enjoyable superbat fics in my bookmarks as well, if you're willing to brave them! They don't even slightly have the specific dynamic you're looking for but they're still great. Of the two of them, Clark is my blorbo, so most of my bookmarks have dynamics that are not the typical "superman is in love with batman and tries to win him over" that you often see for this ship. at the very least, they tend to go in depth on clark as a character, which is unfortunately rare :(

[plural-swag-competition]

Reminder that it's possible to bring y'all's blorbos up without bringing others down. This includes fellow voters.

[pluralswagbracket]

The Upper Bracket has been determined!

Click for quality, man we have a lot of blorbos! I just noticed this bracket ccut off a lot of people’s names. Man. I did not use a traditional seeding method, because we all know Moon Knight would just slaughter half the bracket in one go. In general, I seeded the top bracket’s big vote-drawers against each other, and started seeding everyone else based on media type and fandom size, in the hopes of giving some more obscure guys a chance.

Round one uppers are as follows:

Moon Knight (Marvel) vs Michelangelo (RotTMNT)

The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Marvel) vs Leonard Church (Red vs Blue)

Alluka and Nanika (Hunter x Hunter) vs Greed and Ling (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Shallan Davar (Stormlight Archive) vs Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb)

Camilla and Palamdes (The Locked Tomb) vs Jekyll and Hyde (like six different adaptations that got submitted)

Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama (Mob Psycho 100) vs Doppio and Diavolo (JJBA)

Hajime Hinata and Izuru Kamekura (Danganrompa) vs the Four Swords Links (The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords)

Touko Fukawa and Genocider Sho (Danganrompa) vs Sora, Roxas, Xion, Ventus and Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)

Hal 9000 and David Bowman (2001: A Space Odyssey series) vs Tyler Durden and the Narrator (Fight Club)

Doc and O’Malley (Red vs Blue) vs Oscar Pine and Ozpin (RWBY)

Eddie Brock and the Symbiote (Marvel) vs Crazy Jane and the Underground (DC)

Darcy and the Core (Amphibia) vs Raphael (RotTMNT)

Dr Alto Clef (SCP Foundation) vs Red and Twitch Chat (Twitch Plays Pokemon)

Vash the Stampede and Eriks (Trigun) vs Yugi Mutou and Atem (Yu-Gi-Oh)

Uendo Toneido (Ace Attorney) vs Maxim Kischine (Castlevania)

Madeline and Mirrorline (Celeste) vs Frisk, Chara and the Player (Undertale)

Votable polls will go up once I have the spoons to get images together!

[magical-awesome-kid]

Ok whoever needs to hear this, hear it: Stop gatekeeping cannon.

Seriously, stop.

This is FANDOM! We do shit to our funky blorbos because we love to see them in weird situations! We imprint upon them and want to see ourselves in them! Is it sometimes Out of Character? YES! That's why we tag it!

But if you want to gatekeep something like the Marvel Universe or Detective Comics, let me just say: Everything is Probably Cannon.

Why am I ranting? Because someone just told me to read a batman comic. Holy Guacamole, Batman! You want to discuss cannon? Fine.

Yes, there are Batmans who are absolute pieces of shit. Who abuse their Robins. Who say things that no sane person ever would. There are also Batmen who adore their children, would do anything for them even if they've fucked up before. Hell, there are also Batmans who are COMPLETELY emotionally competent!

Bruce Wayne? Thomas Wayne? Dick Grayson? Terry McGinnis? ALL BATMAN!

In fact, you know that strong moral code, the "no killing" rule that we all cite? HAHA you FOOL for the ORIGINAL cannon was that Batman was a bloody, violent character! Willing to kill! Yes, that was back in the 30s/40s. Still comic cannon. Even at other times, during different stories, we have seen Bruce dip back into those rages. Batman is violent and cunning and emotionless and great with kids and a genius and learning and always prepared and constantly adapting.

Batman is a lot of things.

And that's just the comics. Batman has also been in dozens of TV shows, movies, radio specials, and more. Cannon varies so drastically based on just where and how you were introduced to the character.

I have had no less than a half a dozen commenters tell me to "read the comic." Bitch, I watched the 1960s Adam West Batman and Robin as a kid. It was a special thing shared with my dad. Commissioner Gordon calling on the special Bat Line, the ridiculous costumes, and Bat Shark Repellent.

I gravitated towards cannons where there was a little goofy, a little funny, and, above all else, Bruce was a good mentor and peer to others in the superhero community. Where his Robins were his kids, whom he loved and adored, even if he sometimes fucked up.

And this is just for Batman. Over and over again, I've seen people nitpick about cannon. I've had people come to my blog, my fan accounts, my shit, and get mad because it's not fitting cannon, even as I tag what I'm writing. Even if there is just one cannon, I'm not the writer, editor, or producer of the cannon. I'm never going to write exactly what the makers wanted to be made. I'm a fan.

So for every comic gatekeeper screaming "BUT THAT'S NOT CANNON! READ A COMIC!" Get out. I don't fucking care what you think of as cannon. If you don't like how I play with my little, unreal blorbos, go over to the other corner with your toys and sulk.

[gffa]

for the character ask game! dick grayson: 5, 16, 25

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them? Lmao please don't ask me this question, because I have zero musical taste--and I don't mean I have bad musical taste, I mean I have no taste whatsoever, I barely listen to music, and I have no funny suggestions! (Mostly because I don't care for most of the ~jokes~ about his physical body.) 16. What's your least favorite ship for this character? Fandom has made it extremely hard to like a lot of other Dick ships because literally half the fandom can't stop tearing down Dick/Babs to build up their ship, which means there's nothing there for me to like, all it does is make me think there's not much there, if the only content to come up with is ranting about another ship. Nobody's obligated to like Dick/Babs, nobody's even obligated to not rant about it, I know where my scroll button is, but also all it does is push me further away from the ship that was supposedly being sold in that post, because it seems like an unfun place to be. But my actual least favorite ship for Dick is probably Bruce/Dick because it's so close to what I want out of that relationship, except also a thousand miles away from it! Honestly, one of my oldest friends is a Bruce/Dick shipper and the overlap we have of views on the characters is probably like 85%, we just diverge on how that plays out and we both feel extremely strongly about how we dislike the other path, but that we respect the other person being on it. We both are really into the fucked up entanglement of the characters, the mirroring aspect they have of each other, the belief that the other is the pure version of who they're meant to be, the frustration of how much they love the other while also being mad at them for the distance between them, the co-dependent disaster relationship, etc. All of that is the same for both of us, we just diverge on the context for it. Which is fine in our friendship, we meet in the middle, but there have been times when I feel like the ship would be so delicious for me, because it would tunnel vision in on those aspects I like, but the thought of them so much as even smooching makes me look like I bit into a lemon. How dare fandom almost give me what I want and then take it away from me!!!! Like, I don't actually care that it exists as a ship, fiction is not in a 1:1 relationship with reality and I think a lot of us get blinded by how modern comics go hard on the father & son aspect, which I am into and think is fair to evolve them into, but that wasn't always true and it's not like Bruce/Dick came out of nowhere. It just denies me personally what I want and therefore it it is The Worst For Me Personally And Thus Jail For DC Fandom For One Thousand Years!!!! 25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? Dick Grayson is my longest running Blorbo, like that guy invented Blorboism for me, before I ever had such a name for the concept. Dick Grayson has been my One True Character for 20+ years, nobody has ever unseated him, not Anakin, not Obi-Wan, not Thor, not Usagi, not Duo, not Tezuka, NONE OF THEM that I've lost my mind about. Dick Grayson came on the scene for me when I first watched B:TAS and hit my tiny little baby brain with his daddy issues on display and excellent Nightwing design in later episodes and the push-and-pull relationship with Babs and my fannish life has never been the same since. "That it. That's him. That's the one. That's the character I'm going to obsess over for the rest of my life." I must have said when I first saw him and I HAVE NOT BEEN PROVEN WRONG YET.