#if you’re going to be a dick

[arkangelo-7]

Dick was 100% the worst kid Bruce had to deal with, but he turned out such a well adjusted adult (relatively) that no one believes Bruce when he tries to explain the absolutely unholy terror that was pre-teen Dick Grayson.

[galaxymagitech]

Bruce: Congratulations, Jason! You’re the first of my kids to graduate college!

Dick: Yeah, first and only one for all eternity!

Bruce: *Ignoring Dick by sheer willpower* Anyway, what are you planning to do next?

Jason: I think I’m going to continue my education in English Lit.

Bruce: *nervously* Great. You’ll get a Master’s Degree, right?

Jason: …

Bruce: …right?

Jason: Actually, I’m going for a PhD.

Bruce: This is a terrible joke. You’re over the supervillainy, right, Jay?

Jason: Look, my application to GothamU’s PhD program was accepted!

Bruce: No child! Of mine! Will get! A PhD!!!

Jason: I’m hoping to be a literature professor at GothamU, if I survive long enough.

Bruce: *screams incoherently*

Dick: I think you broke him.

[morganbritton132]

There comes a time in every Robins life where they realize that crying will actually get them out of this.

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Here’s how I want robin in the next battinson movie:

The very first scene is Bruce and tiny Dick Grayson sitting across from each other at the dining table, staring each other down in silence, both clearly grumpy about it. Alfred is in the background watching them with concern. The silence lasts about 20 seconds before Dick speaks.

“Let me fight crime.” (said with all the petulance of a pouty 10 year old)

Bruce replies immediately. “No.” (this is clearly an ongoing argument)

Immediately cut to the next scene where Dick, wearing the iconic Robin suit, is having the time of his life swinging across the city while Bruce frantically tries to keep up with him while yelling at him to be careful like an anxious mother

[the-bat-bros]

Damian, Jason just wanted a hug. He thought that his baby brother was hugging him. The poor man is so touched starved but this was SO funny

From: Robin #5 (2021)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 293

Jason takes a deep breath. He takes a deep breath, in for ten seconds, out for eight, and just takes a minute before looking again. Nope, there’s still the strange quartet of orbs in the box of what should be stolen weapons (What, the government had enough, honestly) that gave his workers the heebie-jeebies. 

Which is not the vibe he gets from them. In fact, he’s actually kind of concerned with how much he has to beat the Pit back with how quickly it lurches to latch onto the… Well they’re not gems, and he’s a little wary about touching them at first, but the Pit does seem to settle when he does.

Alright, he can deal with this. It’s not like he has several heads in a duffel bag that needs to be delivered or a tiny assassin child back in his safehouse (Seriously Talia, why was he the preferred babysitter?) or an entire gang in Crime Alley to deal with. It’ll be fine. 

…

He would like to curse out his past self, because there’s now four babies in his safehouse that appeared to have fucking hatched from the orbs. Goddamnit. 

[noxcheshire]

HOT TAKE

But I like the idea of the phantom world being reincarnated into very unexpected people.

Like I still love the idea of Danny being Martha or Thomas.

Or Dani being another clone, or her being Damian, and Sam being Poison Ivy and or Martha, etc.

But I also like the unhinged nonsense of Sam being a clone in the dc world — ideally Kon, and Dani (or Dan) being Bruce, while Vlad is gasp Thomas Wayne.

HEAR ME OUT

JUST HEAR ME OUT

I just think the idea of Danny finding out that in an alternate world he married a nicer and age appropriate Vlad and had the son the guy has been demanding for so long in their world is hilarious.

The absolute mental breakdown that boy will go through: this is my son, and I love him, look at him go being a hero and kicking ass, but holy fucking Ancients above I fucked VLAD —

And on the other hand, can you imagine Bruce’s reaction? To his alternate mom being a sassy teenage boy, his alternate dad being an older guy ‘preying’ on this kid that absolutely HATES the guy, and being an absolute creep while his alt self **gestures to your choosing** is either a tiny girl menace or the biggest and meanest growling ghost that is BARELY tolerating being in the same space as the living.

But they also hate his alternate dad and would punch him into next week with Mom! Danny.

This man will being going THROUGH IT.

[bonebrokebuddy]

I get that this is due to people not read comics but, if you want a fun lighthearted batfam dynamic, I cannot recommend enough putting your story and characters in the Silver Ages. I see so much fanon material that would fit in this setting perfectly and it pains me that it’s not more popular or well known.

If you don’t know what the silver age of comics is, I’d recommend checking out this article!

And here for the 1956 Comics Code Authority.

It might not be in continuity anymore but the silver ages were such a large era of comics that defined the characters. And the format & restrictions of the silver ages allows you to easily bypass several common issues folks have with plots. In modern comics, there’s constant interpersonal drama because there has to be, if you resolve all those issues then you can’t sell more comics & they lose a lot of tension.

But due to the Comic Code Authority that is no longer an issue!

Randomly ignoring a dark past that makes connection between characters difficult [the poor aging of Jason’s bag of heads making it difficult for him to reunite with the rest of the batfam, for example] because it doesn’t fit with the theme you want?:

Comics are episodic in this era. Think of it like a early 2000s TV show. Things that happened in past comics/episodes often won’t affect the current story at all as the setting resets to default at the start of every comic. Additionally, literally all gore, torture, or explicit descriptions of murder is banned due to CCA restrictions, so you can choose to have it simply never have happened!

Characters that don’t fit at all in a story but you want a crossover for?:

The Silver Ages had SO MANY crossovers of heroes solely bc it sold comics. How compatible they are doesn’t matter in the slightest. The thinnest of reasons why they met works perfectly. You can even just have the characters know each other already and go “I know who can help me with this case! [Insert character you want here]! I met them in my last trip to Antarctica!” You only need maybe one sentence, two if you’re feeling frisky, to explain why they met and then you’re free to run wild.

Want a character to randomly acquire a superpower or meet a long lost cousin they have for one comic and then it’s never mentioned again?

I cannot state how frequently this happens. Silver Age comics were pretty much written cover first. Meaning the cover was made and the story was written after with the philosophy of “if my comic cover is more bizzare and eye catching then kids will buy it!” Like, there are multiple comics where Superman’s head got turned into an ant and Batman gets powers practically every other World’s Finest issue. Like it’s not even an “au” to do these things. That’s just what the Silver Ages were like.

Comic science and comic physics run rampant as well as bizarre villains! You can have so much fun with this!! Heroes often play the straight-man in bizarre scenarios with over-the-top villains in this era, making that aspect shine brightly can make for an inherently funny plot. You could either keep it fun and light or turn it into a psychological horror as the characters realize they can’t disobey the CCA code and have to follow a specific plot.

Also the restrictions of the CCA at the time would also help create some fun and unique plots if you wanted to keep the plot time-period accurate.

There’s a lot of restrictions but there are still many ways to create conflict in your fic! Plenty can come from the CCA directly!

Canon or HC LGBT+ characters could be pressured to not come out or face tremendous backlash. Time accurate homophobia, essentially.

McCarthyism and paranoia ran wild. Oh no someone suspected your blorbo of being a communist/socialist and now it’s ruining their life!

Characters dealing with how the CCA’s restrictions/their reality is inherently bigoted and can’t be themselves. (See: comics on topics of racial & religious prejudice aren’t allowed, characters can’t speak in “slang” or “vulgar language” and “good grammar” is emphasized (often targeting minorities), and the sanctity of family must be respected (no divorce, no queer people).

Also! Crazy over-the-top villains with deadly stakes are played with a lighthearted tone. Play it straight and suddenly your comic changed genre into horror if you think about it for more than a second.

Characters that used to be antihero’s are just straight up villains now or suddenly wake up with massive gaps in their memory and no one else can tell them why. There is no grey with the CCA. Just good and evil. Because that would make the villains sympathetic and we can’t have that!

If you want to just have a fun, campy and lighthearted tone however, that’s the Silver Age’s bread and butter. While keeping the CCA’s code in mind is good to keep a Silver Age story feeling time accurate and Silver Age-y, it’s definitely not necessary to follow each and every rule.

Here’s some more links to free silver age comics and places you can go to find information on silver age comics if you want to learn more that aren’t fandom wikis but rather made by nerds with a passion to catalogue and share their interest to others.

Your local library has a decent chance of having an omnibus of 50s-70s comics or you can order one from a nearby library if your local one doesn’t carry them.

A local comic shop or bookstore. Silver age omnibuses & “50 year anniversary/best of” type collections are usually present and have a good variety of silver age comics.

Jenny Blake Isabella (the creator of Black Lightning) has delightful reviews of the Batman Silver Age Omnibus on her blog that add context, critiques, and overall are a delight to read

Takes some hunting but this Silver Age Comic blog has a bunch of single issue reviews of Silver Age Batman comics.

Want a specific issue to read? Here’s super brief summaries of soso many issues curtesy of The Comics Archives blog.

The Internet Archive also has a few:

Batman & Superman world's finest. The Silver Age. Volume one

Justice League of America, the Silver Ages volume 1

Batman: the dynamic duo archives. vol 2 (I cannot find volume 1)

A good tip to find legal and free comics decently intact is to search [comic run title/character hero name & issue number if you have it] + “blog” + “review”.

There are so many in-depth reviews of comics in blogs by comic fans out there that practically share most of the comic panels in the post while giving context to past issues while the poster adds personal insight and opinions on the comic. Is it going to give you the whole issue unfiltered? No. But it allows newbies to get insight from old fans and old fans to get a new perspective on a comic they’ve already read. Blog reviews are such an underrated way to get new fans into comics considering how great of a resource they are! Don’t know if you’ll like a comic run? Read a bunch of reviews on it from different blogs! It’s truly so underrated.

I see a lot of dc fans that don’t read the comics because they don’t like the violence and dark tone of modern comics or don’t know where to start. Simple solution: Why are you reading reading modern comics then? Give the Silver Ages a try! They’re utterly corny and campy & I love them dearly.

They fit all of those bills with the CCA. Plus, with the episodic stories of that era, you can just pick up an omnibus, open it at a random issue and start reading. Hell, you can toss a stack of silver age issues in the air 52-pickup style and read them that way and you’re still be fine. You rarely, if ever, need knowledge from previous comics as they’ll often directly explain what happened to you. If you really need previous context, just like modern comics, they’ll directly tell you which issue(s) to read first.

Lastly.

It’s good to keep in mind the “By it’s time. For its time. Of its time” rule of comic analysis when reading old runs. Comics are: relevant during their time of publishing, for its intended audience (in this era, young american boys with a non-nuanced worldview) & with little care of how it’ll age, just that it’ll sell.

How history ties itself to comics is fascinating but also it’s good to be a little “👀👀 uh zoinks scoob that was a bad narrative or character decision that didn’t age well” and not dismiss it because that poor interpretation does have historical value as how it shows the moral, social, and political conflicts of the time in a neat little bow. Even if that bow is like, puke green.

Writers of comics will follow the misogynistic and racist ideals along the historical & social conflicts and ideals during the time of the comic’s publishing date. It’s uh, just kinda something ya gotta deal with when reading a lot of old comics runs. Most collections of silver age Batman/best ofs don’t often have comics that aged super badly but if you end up encountering any, it’s good to keep this in mind.

If anyone is inspired to write something based off of this, please tag me so I can read it!

[dragonpyre]

Heyyyyy heard you had the idea for an au where Jason thinks he's a clone of the real Jason? Cool idea, can I hear more about it??

Ok, SO

Basically the premise is Jason has some weird fucked up version of Cotards Syndrome and also is massively dissociating cuz holy shit the amount of the trauma that boy has.

But after coming out of the pit, he realizes present him and past him are almost two entirely different people. They react to things differently, he’s far easier to anger (a symptom of PTSD), he can’t really remember parts of his old life, and when he does, it doesn’t have the same emotional connection he remembers it used to. Also, people don’t come back to life. Ever (Superman excluded).

All of which leads him to the conclusion of “I’m a clone of the deceased Jason Todd”

Because, apparently being a clone of a dead boy is easier than admitting to severe untreated PTSD…

[logicallyblind]

This is such a non issue but there’s a tiny thing that bothers me in batfam fics, especially the fanon!tim centric ones

And it’s that there’s occasionally this moment where Tim will walk into the room and tells/ ask Bruce this super important piece of information during a moment where Bruce isn’t centred enough to acknowledge it appropriately (i.e he’s stressed about a case, he’s distracted, he’s agitated by something, etc etc) & as a result he usually ends up lashing out at Tim or just reacting inappropriately and as a result it caused more aggravation in the plot, which is fine—

But the part that bothers me is that, 9 times out of 10 Tim would not have revealed said information in that moment if we’re following what we know about Tim’s character (at least in a fanon sense) because Tim ABSOLUTELY would walk in & throughly read the room’s mood before revealing anything, especially personal, emotion based information

Tim grew up with abusive/temperamental absent parents (whatever fanon choice you want to go with) but he grew up knowing that he needed to be able to read his parents moods, and respond & act accordingly to ensure no ripples are created in the social ecosystem he’s living within, he ensures that he keeps things peaceful and non-eventful so he can blend back into the background if he needs to go avoid being the object of ire

And so I don’t believe for a second Tim wouldn’t instantly clock the type of mood that Bruce would be in and HIGHTAIL out of the emotional conversation asap like, this is the boy that regulated Bruce at his most emotionally inconsistent and volatile, there’s noooo way that he wouldn’t be able to read Bruce like an open book and adhere his behaviour accordingly, this is Tim ‘walking example of childhood parentification’ Drake were talking about come on now—

[zahri-melitor]

Just because it needs to be said: Tim pulling Dick off someone who he’s punching in a righteous rage is a GOOD THING. Dick feels intense guilt after these incidents if he actually hurts the person.

(Cue minor breakdown)

If you care about Dick as a character at ALL, Dick’s anger having a rein on it is avoiding SO MUCH ANGST later on.

Because it needs to be said again: Zdarsky is clearly, CLEARLY referencing Transference.

(Gotham Knights #10)

(Joker Last Laugh #6)

(Batman #138)

These are the SAME CHARACTER BEATS.

Dick’s righteous fury about harm done to a member of the family. Tim pulling Dick off because he knows how Dick will feel about this when he calms down.

And if you don’t believe me that Zdarsky is thinking about Transference:

(Gotham Knights #11)

Here Bruce installed a mental block to stop himself accessing his memories until someone recited the Oath.

(Batman #138)

Here Dick’s override access to Bruce’s central computer includes reciting the Oath, and he’s doing it to protect them from a mentally-controlled Bruce.

It’s obvious to me what is being referenced here and while I love watching Dick lose it and start punching as much as the next person when someone deserves his rage, I also am aware of the eventual fallout. So you know, maybe think on that.

[ashenquill]

Wasnt gonna post this at first because reasons, but I spent a lot of hours drawing this shitty thing so fuck it, here ya go, batboys eating batburgers (fries)

[jemgirl86]

“Stop ship wars!”

And the ship war in question is somebody going to their otp’s tag and seeing a post for a ship that has nothing to do with their otp, so they ask what the deal is

“STOP SHIP WARS!”

And the ship war in question is somebody scrolling their favorite character’s tag and running into a post where that favorite character is basically being depicted as Bagger Vance, and then having the audacity to question it

Lord. Y’all are so unserious about something that is actually quite serious, and I hate it.

And, here’s some free advice: if you don’t want to be accused of antiBlack racism, maybe don’t post racist things, or share racist fics, or like and reblog racist posts 🤷🏾‍♀️

It’s really not that hard to be respectful of Sam when you post in the Sam Wilson and SamBucky tags, y’all just don’t want to do it. And that’s your prerogative, I suppose, but why are you acting so outdone when someone calls you out on it???

[pantherxdrawz]

*crashes from the ceiling*

hyperfixations back. “Huh” *pulls out the AAI collection (and the fact I have the game on Switch and the Demo on Xbox)* Hyperfixation’s back.

Now comes with Alt. Text! (I might also go back and add Alt text to the previous installments but no promises it might just be a going forward thing)

Actually the hyperfixations been back for a while I’m just now posting and I wanted to be funny

Previous Posts in this series if you’d like to check those out: 1 2 3

[vomitspit2]

one thing about the MC and Jade in Got You is both of them are fucking liars. not manipulatively … well sort of.

you see, both of them are wholly ignorant about the worlds the others live in. they are so, so many countless differences in their lifestyles. through technological differences, cultural differences as human and merfolk, history of their world (is george washington a political figure similar to simba, the two have often debated), how they were raised, just about everything!

and at certain times, they lie to each other a lot as friends.

exhibit A. after jamil’s overblot, MC mentioned offhandedly to Kalim how she was sad she wouldn’t get to celebrate Festivus (which is from Seinfeld) during the winter holiday. Kalim, being a close friend, said they should celebrate it together! what do you do on Festivus!

‘oh Festivus is the airing of grievances!’

cue MC airing out grievances and insulting everyone that caused her trouble while stuck in Scarabia. she uses the stage’s microphone for it and drills into everyone.

exhibit B. after learning Floyd and Jade are merfolk, seeing their forms in Scarbia for the first time, Jade notices just how very little MC is aware of anything to do with merfolk. he then lies to her that merfolk need to be within proximity of water at all times; if they breach a certain distance from water, their lungs start to collapse.

he plays it up. keeping near water foundations, citing how octavinelle is an underwater dorm, doing whatever to make it just slightly convincing.

cue Jade just walking with MC as she rolls her janitorial cart back to the staff room before preforming the most convincing asthma attack known to man.

their harmless pranks could use some reconsidering — jade’s fucking especially —but it’s a dynamic i treasure.

[sometimesimbored]

HOPEFULLY this is less niche than my astroboy!Tim Drake take but it’s also probably more self indulgent

I just can’t stop thinking about Jason and Tim as Ed and Al from fullmetal alchemist

LIKE YES the ages would be kind of skewed but Tim as the alchemic prodigy and don’t even tell me that Jason as Robin isn’t slightly similar to Al like come on

It could fit

I could be high, but it could work

Tim becoming the youngest state alchemist in order to fix the mistake he made???? Jason having existential crises over the fact he’s not what he used to be??? The little boy he was won’t mesh with what he’s become in his own head which is causing issue after issue?????

Tim lashing out at anything CLOSE to an authority figure??? Being crazy smart and ridiculously arrogant on top of that?? Having a guilt complex the size of fucking Mount Everest?? Putting family above all else??? STILL being a child soldier????

I have absolutely NO idea how the rest of the batfam could fit into this except maybe Bruce as Roy Mustang??? And that’s it I hope people find this and feel inspired