#not batcat related

[no-thanks-im-goof]

In honor of Gotham City Sirens month coming to a close,

Here's a drawing I did of Catwoman suplexing Batman into oblivion,

If that's not true love then I don't know what is 😢

[high-quality-tiktoks]

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She’s so stunning

[starlooove]

Ok so like my issue is that I have so many AUs revolving my oc that I can’t give a set story or even anything definitive abt how they fit into the timeline so imma just give interesting factoids or whatever;

-batcat kid but specifically an Afro Cuban Selina so the kids afro cuban

-I can’t decide on a gender BUT for names I’m thinking Simón (like See-Mon) but I change my mind by the hour so

-I think their specialty would be stealth and info gathering on a street level as opposed to online. Like I think they’d have the hiding in plain sight thing totally down and they don’t do stakeouts cause they can literally sneak in anywhere when they feel like it.

-Very sticky fingers. Doesn’t even meant to steal shit sometimes and will even return things to their siblings after they notice. Damian goes through an existential crisis when they return a whole fucking sword he didn’t notice was missing.

-Has abandonment issues in the: I’ll screw u over before u screw me over kinda way, and a tendency to run from consequences. Big moment for them is doing smth wrong and instead of hiding or flat out leaving till it’s forgotten, they decide to just stay and take whatever happens. (Whatever they did doesn’t have to be a big deal, maybe like a knocked over vase or whatever; but it’s a big moment in the sense that they feel so secure in not just their place in the fam but the fact that the fam loves them that they can get grounded and be fine or whatever.)

-split up from Selina a lot when it came to escaping or just general wandering for awhile but they always made their way back to eachother. The kind of ppl that can go months without speaking and be completely fine when they come back (tho they absolutely prefer not to and make it a point to see eachother at least thrice a week when the kid gets older)

-Selina’s vv protective of the kid but also doesn’t want them to grow up spoiled and with the ability to survive if smth ever happened to her. She feels like a shitty parent sometimes bc her kid doesn’t seem socially ready for so many things but she can’t help but feel a surge of pride or vindication whenever her kid comes out stronger after something tough. It makes everything worth it when her kid can babble about how they fought off some thug, even if her heart aches as she’s bandaging their bruised knuckles.

-Twin whips. This is me projecting a bit (finding out ppl don’t generally use two nunchucks on the regular after tmnt 2012 fucked me up) but they don’t feel comfortable if they’re not dual wielding. They can’t use one pistol, it’s gotta be two. It just makes them feel unbalanced and unprotected so they follow in their moms footsteps but yknow they had to double it

-big ole eyes. Slightly unsettling. They’re green and if you look at them too fast you could swear their pupils look like slits at times…

-causes problems on purpose and is genuinely surprised by the consequences

-if they ever got caught and genuinely couldn’t escape, Selina would step in but if she thought they could make it out on their own she’d leave some kind of sign or clue as to how to go about it. She’s so proud when they don’t take her cue and escape on their own for the first time.

-is very used to going unnoticed so ppl who are extremely perceptive or pay too much attention to them freaks them out and it makes them kinda defensive. Someone asking about their day will feel like an attempt at getting them to admit to smth and they’ll respond as such.

-don’t know whether to make them younger than Damian or his age for the sheer comedy but either way they get along with him and Duke the most

-starts picking up the caveman grunts from Bruce and everyone is trying to get them out of it. “Let’s use our word sugarplum :)” “Hn.”

-toxic trait is they expect everyone to know what they’re feeling despite looking like they were etched from fucking marble all the time. They genuinely think they’re an open book and don’t understand why Tim doesn’t get that they don’t ACTUALLY hate him they just said that in a fit of rage and it doesn’t matter anymore because it’s over with.

-very go with the flow kinda person tho. “This might as well happen” personified

-smoothtalker to the max, can lie like a fucking rug. Considering their actual blunt kinda awkward personality, watching them lie so smoothly is almost as jarring as watching Batman become brucie wayne.

-if someone talks shit Abt Bruce it’s whatever and same for most of their siblings but they’ll step for Selina and Jason 😭 (spreading my close Selina and Jason agenda btw)

-tells Jason that if he doesn’t take them on a joyride around Gotham, they’ll let themselves get caught in Bristol and tell Selina that he wasn’t watching their back. They get batburger on the way back

-is very black and white at times and they know that ppl CAN change but they’re also not very forgiving. “Fool me once and fuck you I can’t wait to dance on your fucking Grave” kinda thing.

-big moment is them telling Damian or smth “I don’t wanna be mad at you anymore” and forgiving them for smth big. Smth Abt love being worth heartache and smth Abt how ppl can hurt you w/o meaning too but that doesn’t mean they love u any less or whatever.

-that’s kinda all I got

-OH! They’re darkskinned btw. None of that light caramel macchiato swirl yall always do to mixed kids. I’m thinking Eartha Kitt or Harley Quinn show Selina so they’d be somewhere in there with dark hair. They get strong brows from Bruce (I’m thinking duckytrees drawings of him) and the way they emote is all him.

[starvinginbelair]

me trying to explain that while tt's nightwing run might kinda suck, it really was a good latch on point for new fans when it was first released:

[catastrophicalcat]

Reasons Valmont Sucks (Catwoman 2018)

Valmont was a terrible character. And I really want to dissect why and how he is terrible - not just to get it off my chest and onto the collective Internet, but also because I think that Howard made some questionable writing choices that doomed him.

A quick intro - Valmont is Selina's love interest from the 1st two arcs of Tini Howard's Catwoman (2018) run. Inspired by some version of the Dangerous Liaisons character, he is a quasi French assassin who appears in Selina's life when she is trying to take on the Five Gotham Crime families, stalks her a bit, gifts her a stolen cat, fucks her, and eventually get murdered by her while he's trying to kill Batman. BatCat are on a poorly defined break during these events (with Bruce clearly thinking that they're somewhat committed to each other). Valmont is a dork. He looks like this:

More stuff under the break since I don't know how to write succinctly...

Valmont is a possessive stalker. It's obvious that Howard wanted to create a character who is different from Batman. Just look at him - Batman wears black, Valmont wears white. Batman strives to be a good person, while Valmont is an unrepentant murder. Bruce tries to be a gentlemen, while Valmont.... Almost immediately, Howard is in a pickle - how can she recreate a 17th century romance about assholes when, at the moment her run begin, Selina has no reason to be into this guy? And, this phony goth poser, by definition, cannot be upfront and just ask Selina out. Bruce would have done that. He's not Bruce. Solution? She gets rescued by him. A lot. Some examples:

While getting rescued frequently may be a way to fall in love, it makes Selina just so incompetent. Like I think that almost every single issue where Valmont appears, she needs to gets saved by him in some fashion. I don't think that Bruce rescued her that often, at least not in her own run! I went from reading about a savvy cat-burglar to an eternal damsel-in-distress.

Maybe I missed it, but I literally just read through all of his issues to find these screencaps, and I can't find any reason for him to be there other than to stalk her....

2. Making sexy French man is hard, OK! Prior to this run, I did not realize just how hard it is to write a sexy man instead of a creepy man. But seriously, this guy is GROSS, and Selina being into him makes her come off as dumb floozy. Who in the world would get turned on by lines like:

Maybe I'm fascinating, Catwoman. (Spoiler - he isn't)

I consider myself a citizen of the world. (Is he "my parents live in Ohio, I live in the moment" Ted Mosby?)

I wanted to help. But I did not want to chase you, or do what those boys had done. So I simply waited, where I knew you could find me. ("Those boys" - Tim & Dick, who tried to offer reasonable assistance and advice).

Fascinating? Interesting? Dangerous? (Describing himself.)

But I won't assume that just because a cat has sat in my lap once, it will do so whenever I call. (He then proceeds to bang her on the roof).

Have you ever had anyone encourage you to chase your desires? Just for your own pleasure? (Yeah, this is like a famous trait of hers...)

The sharp pleasure of waiting until I see you again is enough. (See, normal Selina - or a normal woman - would just never see him again).

Related to the above - their sexy times? Not sexy. First, they try and fail to hijack a cannibal's plane and parachute jump. Maybe adrenaline got their heart rate up, but still - poor planning! Second, and more egregiously: multiple characters comment on how Selina is deliriously tired. Valmont is one of those characters! He then bangs her on the roof. I don't want to kink-shame, but sleeping with someone when they're falling off their feet from exhaustion is like, not great?

3. He's a freaking murderer! This guy kills people and drops their bodies in the harbor. He's friends with Flamingo, a cannibal who tried to eat Robin (Damian, but still!). And yet, this is how Selina feels about him:

What happened? Really, what happened? Selina used to be smart and not boy crazy. Sure, she has a wide variety of unfortunate love interests despite these traits (post forthcoming!). But never has she fallen so fast, so quick, so off the deep end for someone who deserves it so very little.

I have other substantive issues with this run, but wanted to start by dissecting Valmont. A non-Bruce love interest is already an uphill battle in a Catwoman comic. Burdening him with all of these negative traits did not lead to a good story. Instead, Selina came off as stupid and immature for ever liking this guy in the first place.

I know that this post was super negative - these are just my thoughts, and I'm open to critique. If folks feel positive about Valmont, or other things I touched on here, I would be really interested to hear it.

[totallytracted]

here r my batman related playlists if u care/are looking for music to project onto comfort (emotional turmoil) characters

trust fund #1 - meet dick grayson, resident slut who uses pleasing others as a way to escape his own problems

robin is magic - for jason, self loathing edgelord who refuses to get help. but also mymanmymanmyman

i am timothy jackson drake - i know this bitch is emo

batcat - yeah.

third party - for all the other ppl bruce has loved that did not turn out to be his soulmate (2011 talia al ghul save me)

batsignal - WHEN THE NIGHT CALLS OUHHHWOWOWOHHH

gotham sirens - my fave girls <3

8 years old - pov ur an orphan who will never get over anything ever

bonus boarding school - lofi sitting and brooding sexily beside a gargoyle (the best batman soundtracks imo)

p. s. i have a lot of like batman adjacent stuff on my spotify if u care to go look for it :)

[mikeylikeyou]

𖦹 Oh my goodness okay, just a quick discussion post now that I'm on the roll with posting batjokes content. WHY CANT PEOPLE ENJOY MULTISHIPPING!!!!????? I think that as long as your not proshipping characters, have fun with your own opinions of the relationships between characters!!! Media is there for enjoyment and everyone elses own ways of perceiving things, and thats how its made to be. Every now and then some batcat shippers and talia x batman shippers (sometimes even people who ship batman and wonderwoman) come in and yell at everyone that is a batjokes fan about how 'unrealistic' or 'unhealthy' the ship is, forgetting that at most times, thats the point that makes the ship so incredibly interesting and fun! I personally am a multishipper because I find it very fun to see the different variants, wether or not the ship is queer or straight, its always fun to indulge in many perspectives of one peice of media. I personally do not favor batcat except in certain comics, because otherwise they too are an unhealthy couple in the way that doesn't have any interest, or meaning, to it! (In my opinion at least.)

𖦹 By the way, my favorites are batjokes, superbat, bruharvey, batman x plasticman, and many many more!! :DD (Let people enjoy media the way they want and I promise that it wont ruin your own ships, most important thing about liking something is that you are having fun alone or in your own community!!!) (Pls dont argue in the comments!!!)

For those who don’t know, pro shipping is shipping two characters no matter what/without bounds. This means even if there’s age gaps (ped0philia), family relation (incest), and more inappropriate things about the characters themselves.

[t4tails]

I know batcat is always the favourite but sometimes, sometimes i see something brutalia related (especially from the btas and earlier eras) and wistfully think of what couldve been

The beloveds.......

brutalia is so good too. honestly i like them both just in different ways... imo if i had like my very own ideal batman timeline going on, i always think of brutalia as happening first with them genuinely loving eachother but being torn apart by their conflicting beliefs and bruces crusade. modern divorced vibes but both definitely stay up at night thinking about what couldve been. batcat meanwhile, i dont think either should ever really entertain the idea of a traditional relationship like brutalia does. neither wants to commit to something like that but ironically this leads to arguably a more stable relationship of cat-and-mouse in contrast to bruce and talias emotional peaks and valleys. if i had to put it in simplistic terms id probably say i think of it as specifically batman and catwoman, vs bruce wayne and talia al ghul. personas and the like.

[clownprince]

finally reading the metal/death metal arcs and related stuff and the timeline is just so insane. like. first batman chooses his family over joker, rejecting him and breaking his shriveled black heart. joker's reaction to this is to kill batman and destroy gotham, as one does. then they both make the executive decision to commit homoerotic murder-suicide. but they're resurrected with dionesium. joker in his new persona all pleads with batman not to go back to the way things were.

batman, now re-batmanified, captures joker, locks him in the batcave for several months, extracts the dionesium from his body, re-jokerfying him (???). bruce proposes to selina, presumably at the same time he has joker imprisoned in the cave. then despite joker all but begging him not to, batman effectively breaks the multiverse and opens the door for barbatos, the batman who laughs, and a whole other host of cosmic horrors. nice one, bruce! joker later teams up with batman to fight tbwl even though, again, this entire mess is very much bruce's own fault and joker was actively trying to prevent all of it! even though bruce Locked Him In A Cave. For Several Months. and broke his heart and literally killed him...

and joker's later reaction to all of this unfolding is to team up with lex luthor who's trying to take control of the multiverse because ofc he is. however joker fully intends to backstab lex the second he gets close to succeeding, and then to murder the entire legion of doom and show off their bodies to batman. but this plan is derailed because luthor is working with the batman who laughs who joker DESPISES.

then when tbwl resurfaces to target batman, joker shoots himself in the heart to infect batman so he can fight tbwl. bruce holds his dying body so very tenderly in his arms and then has alfred perform open heart surgery on him, refusing to let joker actually die even though alfred is basically begging him to do so. then joker escapes but comes back to wish batman good luck in fighting tbwl. batman asks joker to kill him if he becomes like tbwl. joker agrees and ends up keeping his promise and shooting batman (who ends up fine ofc because y'know, comics).

then like a year-ish later everything with their dark designs and joker war goes down. and some time during this the whole batcat marriage and best man arc takes place (not sure exactly when, the timeline makes my head hurt). like... how am I supposed to be normal about any of this.

[spicy-apple-pie]

D, L & V?

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Batcat. Idk, I kinda don't ship Brutalia either tho. Like I ship them in a way that Bruce and Talia loved each other more than anything in the world, but discovered that they don't work well long distance. And neither of them was willing to leave their what they devoted their life to doing to live with the other. So they mutually broke up.

Bruce just attracts women with his poor little meow meow energy.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

I like it when Joker reaches a point where he just goes "I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy." For example, I think it was a marvel crossover comic where he punches Red Skull when he finds out that he's a Nazi.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Probably Mia. Idk why tho. Probably because she's a pretty average girl who just fangirls a lot. Really proud of her for becoming Robin.

[leighlew3]

So lemme get this straight… Kara/Lena on SGCW = baited, open ended, Lena Luthor a hero Kara/Lena in DC CW comics = baited, open ended, Lena Luthor a hero Kara/Lena in future DC comics/movies = TBD, anything could happen

Meanwhile...

Kara/Mon-El on SGCW = ended forever Legion of Super-Heroes animated movie = Mon-El a villain, no romance

New DC Comics = Mon-El related to Kara, no romance Between all this + major DC artists and writers proving to be pro-Kara/Lena, I’d say “Supercorp” could still happen at some point in really any media, meanwhile Mon-El is a character that may never recover from the awful SGCW version and “Karamel” is dead forever in all versions so far. 

Interesting, and ironic.

P.S. Happy for KaraDox fans in the meantime, since the LOSH animated film apparently leans into that. I’ve never had any issues with that duo, though obviously I still think Supercorp is 100% the future as far as Kara’s romantic destiny if they want her to have an iconic, Clois or BatCat type of a lasting legacy that stands the test of time, as far as love interests are concerned. 

[aboutzatanna]

To put into perspective just how forced the whole JohnZee pairing has been for the last few years, Zatanna met John 5 times in the pre-reboot continuity. That's 5 out of the 379 times she has appeared in comics before the Pre Nu 52 debut of Justice League Dark. Similarly John's Hellblazer lasted for 300 issues with his own supporting cast and love interests and Zatanna only appeared once in it.

(Yes, there was a divide between Vertigo and DC at the time but Zatanna was one of the few characters who famously flaunted the line)

Swamp Thing #49-50: this is where we first find out that these characters knew each other as John tries to recruit Zatara and Zatanna for the magical seance. Note that there is an element of manipulation involved in all of John's interactions with everyone in this issue. John was also a new character at the time and Zatanna was a very established character. Moore can be a perv so it's not surprising that he made their relationship sexual. He also basically ended the pairing with John Zatara's death and Zatanna blaming John for it. Although they were established as collegues, we got fans and writers today who think Zatanna should be a novice who needs John to lead her around and tell her where to aim her powers.

Books of Magic: In which we learn that John hasn't met Zatanna at all since the traumatic seance but feels he can just waltz in and ask her to babysit a kid for him. The writer likes him so of course it works and she hugs and kisses him, which felt so very jarring. Books of Magic is a book I enjoy except for the Zatanna scenes (and Spectres). Then we had Zee acting like a complete idiot who endangers Tim Hunter and needed to be saved by John Constantine. Really jarring when you see her appearances in JLA comics around the time where she was a powerful magician whose kicking ass. ( Yet, this one comic would decades later set the pace for her characterization in JLD as this novice with a lot of power except for when John needs to shine. ) We would later get a follow up to this in a dream sequence in the 1991 Zatanna mini series by Lee Mars but that too had a scene where Zatanna went 'oh no, I'm not as good John' which makes no sense since she has been involved in magic her whole life.

Hellblazer Vol 1 #63: Zatanna's only appearance in the title at John's 40th birthday party. I don't have any objections to this one. Zee getting high at a party with a floating joint is hilarious.

Totems mini series: A brief appearance where she turns down his offer for sex and even goes 'reven niaga'.

Zatanna Everyday Magic: I like this one. As it deals with things from her perspective. She is the one who saves him and very subtly we see her shed any resentment she may have for John but is not hung up on him. She has her own life and her own love interests, even has casual sex with them.

So we have a pairing that cratered and halfway buried, only for an ill thought out reboot to drag it back up and heavily retconning both character's respective histories to make it work. Like introducing Nick Necro and treating the seance like Zee's origin story instead of Zatanna's Search. Ignoring any aspect of her that's not related to John, like all her relationships with the JL members (except Batman) don't matter anymore even though they played important roles in her life as well. Yet, John gets to keep most of his history and supporting cast and even get several shots at an ongoing. Zee ends up being treated as less smart, less competent and daresay even less sexy, whenever the JohnZee pairing comes to the forefront. The seeds were there since even their second meeting.

I don't see why this pairing needs to be treated as something so sacrosanct that the characters aren't allowed to grow past it. It's definitely not an earned relationship that's up there with Clark/Lois, BatCat, WallyLinda or BarryIris. It's only post nu52 that writers can't seem to go two pages without mentioning the pairing whenever Zee shows up. And I hate the fact that it's lead to Zee developing a reputation as a woman with a bad body fetish. Yet another aspect of the character they had to twist to make the pairing work.

It's not just that Zee deserves better, it just plain doesn't make sense. Even on it's own, it's a constant merry go round 'oh John, you are lying to me, I can't trust you/John, you lied to me, I trusted you. Everyone in JLD gets this but Zatanna gets it the worst.

Also, Zatanna didn't 'choose him', they were apart then the reboot happened and DC went 'well, lets pretend these two are an angsty couple who can't quit each other, forget anything that might contradict this narrative'.

To drive the point home; compare Zee's last appearance in 2022 in JLD as team leader where she was shown to be reckless and dumb leader who endangered her team for no reason and refused to take responsibility (of course John comes out looking good). To her later appearances in Batgirl and the excellent Knight Terrors crossover team up with Robot Man.

Once she is away from John, she goes back to being her fun, competent, bad ass, sexy self.

Side note: Can we also go back to a time when Zatanna, Phantom Strnager, Spectre and Dr Fate were bad asses and not chumps so John Constantine can look cool as he pulls out a vaguely defined spelled from his ass? I saw scans from a comic recently where he got the drop on freakin' Waverider recently.

[mistress-of-vos]

Once again got all intense about how annoying Ra'sTim haters are. I'm remembering that time on Twitter not long ago when they were calling Ra'sTim i*cest... Yeah I know, Twitter is hell, but come on! 😭

I think it's particularly funny because Ra's is a man who reduces his family to his blood ties and even then he is picky. He *will* disown his children (not hurt them! Do not confuse it!) if he considers he has been betrayed so the proposition that he would see Tim as family... And that Tim would see Ra's as family! It's just so funny to me. Tell me you don't read comics without telling me you don't read comics.

I believe Tim and Ra's (before properly interacting) used to see each other as villain and hero. Period. Tim studies Batman's villains and cases so for him Ra's is synonym of bad guy, extremely dangerous, probably best if avoided. Ra's keeps an eye in all the bats, so Tim (still Robin) is a threat too: awfully loyal to the Batman, highly trained, more likely will provoke lots of damage and won't die. And that's mostly it, until Ra's is forced to meet the bats more frequently due to Damian going to live with Bruce. Ra's is more aware of Tim's abilities, and Tim is more aware of the danger Ra's represents, which I think explains why their meetings go as they do.

I don't think Ra's labels Tim as Damian's brother, but he might label Tim as Bruce's son. Which doesn't mean that makes Ra's *feel* like he's related to Tim, and similarly, Tim labels Ra's as Damian's grandfather, but nothing to him. There's no familiar tie between them, nor is their dynamic close to that, so I do wonder why people look at Ra's saying he wants a heir with Tim's blood and think that's familiar and not low-key homoerotic.

I get it if people dislike Ra'sTim due to the "dark" elements (tho I consider them very tame if compared to ships as Hannigram for example) but there's nothing on them that makes it "i*cest" so I do get mad when people accuse them of so. Particularly when it's the fans of certain Ra's' child and her ship who do so, as if Ra'sTim fandom doesn't actually treat her better than gen fans. Hell, Ra'sTim fics always lean in portraying her nicely, erasing the awkward comic canon and allowing her to have her classical bond with Damian. I have even seen certain tendency to ship her with Bruce (tho yes I admit most fandom goes with BatCat, myself included). So the fact that they have this need of hating Ra'sTim is annoying, because Ra'sTim is NOT the fandom treating their fav poorly nor doing anything wrong.

It's awful that we aren't allowed to like Ra's as his own character, that we aren't allowed to speak freely of the interesting elements of shipping him with MEN. Exploring a queer, individual Ra's al Ghul has taught me a lot about storytelling. Exploring an scenario where he falls in love with someone who contrasts with him the way Tim does has made me realize that fanfiction can be more than "I disliked the ending" and that you can write your own opinions on characters that sometimes other people share. It has been amazing and I adore it.

So what I'm trying to say is... People should stop being these loud, violent haters. There's no need for this. Why can't people let others enjoy themselves?

[darkcacaocookieandfriends]

Schwartzwalder often went out on his own. It could be so BORING, just sitting around with Licorice Cookie and BatCat when they did all of their alchemy and spell-related activities. The Werehound would rather spend his days pounding cookies to bits!

He often got antsy just sitting around, doing nothing. He had places to be! Cookies to smash! Ambitions to carry out! It was honestly cruel how the world seemed to have him on a short leash…but NO LONGER!

Today, he was going to watch strawberry jam fly!

Hammer in hand he prowled around, looking for some cookies to torment. Schwartzwalder wasn't going to go back to Dark Enchantress Cookie without having accomplished SOMETHING. He was going to show them all what true strength and brute force could do!

He was the Choco Werehound Brute, after all! He had to live up to his own self-proclaimed title!

Just then, his ears picked up on something. It sounded like distant laughter. Blinking a little, he realized it wasn't just ANY laughter, but something familiar.

A little… TOO familiar.

'Wait a minute! I'd know those voices anywhere!' Schwartzwalder thought to himself as he eyed the group. In particular, a certain Custard Cookie.

Seeing his laughing face sent irritation through his form as those words ran through his memories. 'My name is WAY cooler!' It echoed in his head, bouncing around in his spongy interior, playing over and over like a worn out record.

It was humiliating enough that Licorice TOLD them his real name. It only added insult to injury when that moment came flooding back. It was enough to make his strawberry jam boil!

But then, a smile crossed his face, and a deep menacing laugh escaped between razor sharp teeth. "I've been itching for a fight, and I think I know JUST the cookies to entertain me."

Schwartzwalder charged at them, with Custard III in his sights. "How DARE you make fun of my name! It means STRENGTH!" The brute shouted as he brought down his hammer. "You'll pay for that remark, Cookies!"

@mixed-up-multiverse

[fantastic-nonsense]

Do you have any post about didio's hatred of legacy characters? I forget if that was an actual stated thing or if it was just assumed. I vaugely recall him hating Dick Grayson specifically.

I don't have any posts, but here's the shorter version of a better-sourced post I might make about it some day:

Dan Didio notoriously disdains legacy characters, particularly ones which have eclipsed their earlier gen mentor figures in popularity (see: Wally West). He USUALLY will not say this outright in interviews; you have to read between the lines between what he's saying and not saying. But the sentiment is obvious for anyone who does read between those lines, and people around him have talked about his general dislike of legacies on multiple occasions.

The long-and-short of it is that he feels that legacies, particularly ones who were allowed to grow up and become their own independent heroes like the Fab 5, make the "originals" look old and outdated. He doesn't like that legacies inherently age older heroes and make them more mature, and he doesn't like that the story of a legacy is inherently about growing up and either accepting or rejecting what your mentor has taught you. A fully grown, independent, and successful Nightwing makes Batman look old, which he can't stand. Likewise, a Wally West who has taken Barry's place as Flash and eclipsed him in pop culture popularity makes Barry irrelevant in his mind.

He also has very weird and frankly wrong conceptual issues with legacies taking over their mentor's mantles; he thinks it makes them "too similar" to their mentors and unable to stand on their own as characters (this is his core issue with Wally, for some reason). He has a special dislike of Dick Grayson and is notorious for wanting him killed off in Infinite Crisis, which writers like Mark Waid and Geoff Johns have talked about before and Didio himself has commented on:

His dislike of Dick in particular exists for a lot of reasons, but there are two main issues that pop up again and again during interviews: he thinks Nightwing ages Batman too much (which he hates)...and he thinks a "happy Batman is the end of Batman."

Dick tends to be the focus of his ire because he was the first legacy hero, the first of Bruce's children, and has been the second most successful breakout legacy character at DC Comics (with the first being Wally), but there's a part of me that thinks he hates the concept of the Batfamily more than he dislikes any singular legacy Bat hero given his various editorial edicts (not letting Batcat get married, not letting Kate and Maggie get married, erasing most of the Batfam during the New 52, ordering Lobdell to write the Ric arc, etc). He doesn't think heroes should have happy personal lives (Batman least of all) and to Didio, having grown and successful children who have succeeded beyond Bruce's wildest dreams counts.

Ultimately, he's a 62-year-old fanboy who does not want to move beyond the Silver Age. He wants his heroes and favorite teams to remain just as they were in the 70s, when he was a kid. He doesnt like characters to mature and grow as adults, he wants teen characters to stay teenagers forever, and he wants his heroes to have sucky personal lives and ruined relationships because he thinks it makes them more relatable. Happy hero families with successful legacy characters undermines those desires. I'm glad he's no longer in charge of DC Comics.

[setsailslash]

wip polling

Rule: Make a 24-hour poll with the names of your WIPS, let it run, then write one sentence for every vote the winner received.

tagged by @cetaceans-pls :D i needed this because i have been neglecting any of my ficcing to play..... stardew lol

tagging @stevieraebarnes @wajjs @braingray @meaninglessblah-writes @daemoninwhiteround2 @primeemeraldheiress @chekov-in-a-dress and anyone who needs a lil push to work on their wips!