#maybe go back for more images?

[littleeyesofpallas]

I always really liked, in Death Note, that when they introduces M and N as L's two competing protégée, they just took a list of L's traits and quirks and split them down the middle: L was both logical and intuitive, passionate about justice and personally enraptured by solving puzzles, sat like a child, played with his food, and had an insatiable sweet tooth? Mellow gets the passion, the justice bordering on vengeance, the intuition, and the sweet tooth. Near gets the childlike demeanor, the play habits, the cold logic, and personal investment in puzzles for puzzles sake. And together they make one functional L.

I want that for the Batfam. Bruce has his giant obnoxious hyper competent repertoire, but instead of every Batkid being just a mini version of Bruce, give them each a SUPER distinct specialty. Something actually discernably different from their peers, rather than just slapping the same onesize fit all batbrand competency on all of them. The martial arts expert, the ace parkour/acrobat, the detective, the gadgeteer, the batcomputer data analyst, the criminal profiler, the vigilante, the master of disguise, the urban legend, the avenger, the ninja/assassin, etc... Obviously theyre each well rounded and versed in all these archetypes, but each one ought to have a specialized category where if it ever really came down to its, they could beat Bruce in a contest of that one set of skills. (Except Damian. Damian should just be a tiny Bruce with maybe a bit of an ethics problem, and the promise of being better than Bruce at EVERYTHING, just given a bit of time to grow into it while Bruce loses a bit of edge to old age)

(and frankly i really just want this for a bunch of hero families -the WWfam could have different fields of specialty from diplomacy to archeology and magic artifacts, to mythological beast tamer, to proper soldier and commander, etc...; the Flashfam could have radically different approaches to what elements of how they approach processing at superhuman speed and their atomic level of finite control; the Arrowfam could have a whole spread of survivalist vs hunter/tracker vs sport archer vs esoteric historical martial arts, etc skills to set one another apart.- but that's several whole other cans of worms...)

Dick is far and apart the best in the air, fastest maneuvering both around obstacles and on the run, in and out of the fray, sheer 0 to 60 from ground to air on a grappling line, fastest all around reaction time, and contender for most well honed raw athleticism right next to Cass.

Babs has the information network, the batcomputer sciences, and organizational and tactical perspective that comes uniquely from not just being a bat kid but from being so closely acquainted with GCPD's structures and systems. When it comes to cross referencing and pinpointing precise information, Babs is unmatched by a substantial margin.

Jason has the I Am Vengeance, I Am The Night down. The raw passion for crime fighting, and indeed the fixation on crime specifically. He and Steph are the most personally acquainted and invested in Gotham's underworld and the actual humans working, living, struggling and thriving in it.

Ill be honest I m actually never quite sure where the hell either Helena fits into this structure... Bertinelli feels like she should fit a niche almost too similar to Jason's, but lacking in the fanfavorite melodrama of being a dead robin. And Wayne ought rightly to fit a role not dissimilar to Damian or just Bruce himself... Consider this one unresolved...

Tim is of course is everyones favorite ace boy detective. I feel like theres always a temptation to make him Babs' equal in the tech department but outside of the laughable 90s hackerkid aesthetic I just dont see it. He's great at trivia and detective's intuition, and of course his near shamanic level of insight into Gotham itself.... He does strike me as one of the family's top gadgeteers; not a full blown engineer like Luke, but quick to pick up and make unconventional use of existing tech and hardware, matched and even surpassed in that respect only by...

Steph, who as Cluemaster's kid and one time potential protégée has had a thorough talent for tinkering and sabotage from and early age. Maybe she cant tap into the same depth of trivia or strictest logical deductions that some of the more thorough bred bats can, but no one can pinpoint the most vital areas, or dismantle a deathtrap more quickly than Steph, both by way of knowing the mechanics, but also by way of intimating a super villain's psychology and behavior. Where someone like Tim or even Bruce might fixate on knowing the exact layout or schematics or logistics of a hideout, a machine, or a plan before taking action to dismantle it, Steph knows at a glance where the most volatile parts of a machine or a plan are so that even if she doesn't have the time or the specific knowledge to work out every detail of what it does and how, she can figure out how to break a mechanism or topple a plan at its most central pillar(s) of support. I've always wanted her to be essentially the family's espionage expert, right next to Catwoman's breaking and entering expertise.(Ric Grayson eat your dman heartout)

Then there's Cass, and obviously, at her peak she's the family's (and frankly the world's) top martial artist. But even with her first language of combat fluency stripped down/away she's more than a match for anyone else in the family.

Luke kind of predictably taking his dads role as engineer, utilizing the full extent of the high end bat arsenal unlike really anyone else. People joke about comparing batman and Ironman but really if anyone should have a shtick comparable to Ironman it's Batwing. The rest of the bat fam can operate and maybe maintain the vehicles and hardware fine, but no one can design, upgrade, and see through the actual fabrication process of the tech better than Luke...

...Runner up in this same category is Harper, who is lacking in the straight up manufacturing department but built her whole vigilante arsenal by juryrigging salvaged battech.

Ill be honest, a bit like Huntress, I dont fully known what to make of Kate. Her background is unique among the batfamily as having been strictly military. She has a penchant for the noirsy side of the detective shtick, but thats more of a genre thing than a skill set; what does it really mean for her shtick inworld? I dont really have an answer...

Duke is a bit of a weird case in that the obvious answers are all baked right into his existing profile: he's the meta, he works in the light, he's supposedly more above board and less broody. And that all feels fine, but it also feels like he doesn't actually fit into the whole schema of batskills at all as a result. I would like to see him use his experience with We Are Robin to create a kind of PR or outreach branch of the bat fam. Like, a bat that Gotham can actually sort of get to know and learn to trust, beyond believing in a boogeyman or not. Like, i dunno, give him some airtime with Vicky Vale or Jack Ryder...

And I already mention Damian is just small Bruce waiting to grow into his dad's shoes. The whole benefit of being ras' heir is that he's the one kid who doesnt need Batman to train him. He can fight and think and ostensibly even gadget without Bruce, what Bruce gives him is what Ras and Talia cant: A moral compass. Plus it's a fun change of pace for Bruce to have a protégé where he isn't filling the time with teaching combat and shit to, so that he really has no choice but to learn to connect with Damian emotionally, for both Damian's sake and his own.

I'm not touching Gotham Girl with a 20ft pole...

Did I forget anyone??

People like Owlman, and Ghostmaker are all just the same shtick... Bruce's same character build stats but without the ethics. The Talons are cool but skillswise still just sort of amount to Nightwing knockoffs, ala the whole Owlman origins of the Court of Owls plot in the first place. Similarly the Batman Inc crew are just discount batmen; same basic skill tree but lower point values, so to speak. Not really worth investigating. (unrelated but has Catman fought Green Arrow before? I feel like they could have a really cool survivalist rivalry thing going on)

Not counting people like Clown hunter, or Harley, or Scarlet, or Raptor as parts of the family...

OH! Jace! Boy what a weird case. I wish we got more of an actual motive from him. It honestly doesn't feel like he has a particularly good reason to even be a vigilante, least of all a direct successor to Batman of all things. And I wish they hadn't just shipped him off to NYC... Other than that his shtick feels super weird in the scope of the general bat repertoire. Like Kate, it's weird that his background is really just (para)military rather than the more eclectic spread that Bruce has made the standard bat regimen.

[hegory-grousing]

im not a writer so this doesn't have real dialogue. mad libs I guess. I imagine this happens often on their lunch dates hehe

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[kalashnikovlobotomy]

mossman has infected me with the ruskittie brainworms... waiter waiter one fluffy pawjob with claws please!

[welcometogrouchland]

Batman #149 by chip zdarsky is mostly unremarkable, but I'm really fascinated by how it makes a great case for 'good' endings not saving 'bad' stories*. Because there's a lot of interesting concepts in this issue (bruce having to deal with his rapidly aging and decaying clone making him think about his own life, re-establishing a 'nest' so to speak for his family after pushing them away, etc) but bc of the OOC slog that came before it, almost every moment w/ the batfamily comes off as unearned and disingenuous imo.

Like, everything with Damian is the perfect example in this. Because in isolation it's...fine. admittedly it's a missed opportunity to not go deeper into how Damian would feel about a clone of his dad who tried to kill considering Damian's relationships with clones of himself (the heretic rejects and respawn) or with former enemies who wanted him dead but who were manipulated and/or brainwashed (like suren and maya).

Zdarsky doesn't go into any of this but you could maybe excuse it as the issue not being about Damian. However, coupled with the previous bizarre characterizations of Damian in 147 and 148, it ends up not being fine- instead it starts to feel...icky how Damian (who, despite often being drawn and written as white, will never have his connection to the non-white al ghuls forgotten and will always be effected by racism even when not portrayed as a poc) is constantly written as overly violent, uncaring and narrow minded in this run. Coupled w/ trying to recanonize the morrison origin for Damian it's like. OH this is badly written and laden with subtle bigotry, sick**

That's me going into detail on it with Damian but it's applicable to other things in this issue- the way Cass, Steph and Duke have all been ignored or turned into jobbers makes their inclusion in the 'family' here feel hollow instead of satisfying. Bruce proclaiming that Zur was still a part of him and he needs to accept responsibility for his actions (when it means taking in clone son) wrings hollow when just last issue zdarsky was bending over backwards to separate Bruce and Zur bc otherwise the Jason thing would get really awkward. Ends are achieved through means that feel hollow or strange. I'm at my destination but damn why'd the bus have to do all that???

I only really have opinions on this latest arc of zdarskys Batman bc it's the one I've read the closest (bc I'm a hater, masochist and avid follower of even the bad damian storylines) but it's not saying great things.

Bc zdarsky can do one thing good in this book, and it's write Bruce and Tim. And yet this entire story, whether of his own volition or editorial mandate, includes other characters who aren't Bruce and Tim, the fabric starts to unravel in very telling ways.

(p.s, I think pennyworth manor is an interesting idea but I feel like in execution it's just gonna be 'bruce living in a house haunted by the memory of the people he couldn't save' but with a different dead guy this time. Illusion of change and whatnot)

*whether or not the ending is good is up to you ofc, as is your opinion on the proceeding arc! I saw some ppl complain that the ending was too "WFA" for them, which I get even if I dont think it'll literally be the same premise. If anything it's probably a lead into the new tec run. Likewise many ppl who aren't in the weeds of Damian and Jason characterization liked the previous arc! But I have my opinions and rest my case before the bench

**disclaimer, I'm white and portrayals of bigotry in comics are complicated and subjective, but I am basing my point here off what other poc comic fans on socmed have been saying about 149. Also the "sick" is sarcasm incase that wasn't obvious

[rileys-battlecats]

guys google earth has photospheres captured of the waterfall I based micaclan's territory around. this is amazing

[puppyeared]

i feel like. theres designing a character with certain themes and motifs in mind, and then theres making a gijinka for the water bottle on my nightstand

[peak-dumbass]

Shoutout to the furry transformer fans this one’s for you

[creaturefeaster]

Been working on this for the last little bit. Elevation & listed primary town versions.

Due to be tweaked and updated in the future :3.

[sleepinglionhearts]

Work things, OCs, and... yeah

[screwpinecaprice]

This is why I like to draw Connie with longer (or at least with an abundant amount of) hair, so I can do dramatic crap like these.

[cak31ssuperi04]

Henna not being back in any capacity in the second Mariposa movie gives me two impressions:

1). untapped potential for a 3rd movie where we get Henna reformation or some such.

2).

Mariposa: I wonder how Henna's doing out there.

Willa: ..... what if she's dead 😧

Mariposa: 😨

Honestly it's entirely possible that she IS dead; a lot of her control over the Skeezites hinged on the promise of invading Flutterfield, and we can see their patience wearing thin throughout the movie. It's possible her failure to follow through would be the final straw, and that her lights would only be able to carry her so far when her entire army is against her. I do like the potential for another sequel to tie up that loose end though, in no small part because "dramatic revenge declaration followed by offscreen death that's never mentioned" is just kind of anticlimactic. Even if it's been a decade and that ship has sailed at this point. We could've had it all. Two fairy trilogies. Also consider: The Skeezites don't seem to be a threat--or even present at all-- in Fairy Princess. They're not once brought up unless in past tense. Regellius brings up Flutterfield defeating them when that's not necessarily how it happens in the first movie(which she does point out but focuses more on the method than the outcome so it's still unclear). Yeah they succeed in driving them off, but if Mariposa's quest or the fact that they've been terrorizing the kingdom for centuries says anything, it's that there are probably way more hanging around than Henna's immediate army. I'm imagining a midquel where she manages to get the Skeezites to hold out for a little longer so she can get her Revenge Plan in, and Flutterfield deals with them for good.

[greasydumbfuck]

that body of his is insane. hes so handsome. i cant live like this anymore

[akuma-tenshi]

i have this silly little idea of these two (+ a couple others) going on some sort of dnd-style fantasy adventure together and they have THE funniest fucking dynamic ever. god they hate each other. orpheus has two goals in life and that's to take care of memory and make frederick's life absolutely miserable and i'm just constantly imagining silly scenarios with them it's so fun

[mochasucculent]

Kinda weird but this is still like one of my fave things I've ever drawn lol, it's just a background study from Shawn James' cover of Arkansas by Damien Jurado (there was a character here too once iykyk lol) but I was Going Through It at the time and painting this was soooo cathartic

[rouge-fauna]

I think you’re talking about these posts [here & here], I don’t know if there have been others.

I'm not gonna say what I did was right, you are correct I should probably just not respond to asks getting me to talk about other people. I will say for these two posts those people had already blocked me I’m pretty sure, so it’s kinda hard to talk directly to them in that case. And I was not doing so anonymously and had not blocked them so I wasn’t hiding what I was saying. I did not follow them, I am not part of the innitor community, and not that that makes it right but I do think it is kinda different. Though you make a good point, perhaps we should stop this pattern of responding to asks about other blogs and such.

Still, the biggest thing to me I realized, back in elementary school when I first dealt with this, was that honestly all the time we talk about people behind their back. Talking about people when they aren’t always in the room is kinda just inevitable and part of socializing, however I think the important part is how you are talking about other people. It’s when you are insulting them, talking negatively about them to people they know, spreading false information and so on that it becomes not okay. Hopefully that makes sense.

In these cases I merely focused on the lore. I didn’t insult them or talk shit about them, as a person, as a blog or say their takes were stupid or they are stupid or speculate about their trauma or mental history. I just talked about reasons why I disagreed, or saw things differently and why we might see things differently. They were also not the only ones I saw to say similar things so I think in my mind I was making more of a general discussion, not trying to target them specifically. I didn’t post beyond that about them. But you are right, regardless it was probably not the right way to go about things.

But just to be clear, if I am a hypocrite it is not my intention. I haven’t vague blog anyone or meant to vague reblog anyone. I think this week is pretty much the first time I’ve ever been not naming, passive aggressively talking about blogs, and even then I’m not trying to insult them, trying to cancel them. I’m just expressing that before you go off about how I’m stupid and unable to have a discussion about it, the very least you could’ve done was give me an opportunity to try.