#this could also apply to the role of 'batman' but seeing as only one other person... ahem... has donned the mask sincerely in

[bluegarners]

it gets to a point where, despite all the numerous people who have donned the name and costume, none of them have really added anything to the mantle. there's nothing they could add, really, because the role was designed for only one person, and that person already perfected it

[cologona]

The thing about Bruce making Dick Robin is that it can be read as empathy. Bruce and Dick both lost their family in the same way, and so Bruce tries to help Dick by giving him what he wanted as a young orphan. Justice, closure, power, meaning. Something to make the world right again, some way to move forward, someone who understands.

But that same reading is not as easy to apply to Jason

If I were to read Bruce in a particularly unflattering light, I'd say Bruce fundamentally saw Jason as more expendable than Dick. He was so afraid of losing Dick that he totally sabotaged that relationship, but he's fine with this much younger kid playing the same dangerous role? Jason is a tough street kid sure sure, but is he tougher than 18 year old Dick motherfucking Grayson??? No.

If I were to read Bruce in a more sympathetic light, I'd say that in Bruce's mind orphan = craving-for-justice-that-can-only-be-satiated-with-vigilantism, and since he found out Jason's father was dead he was trying to give Jason the same guidance and empowerment Dick got. He genuinely thought it would work. He did this at the same time that he was actively hiding the death of Jason's father, because this intense self-projection is happening at the subconscious level. He simultaneously wants to comfort the orphan and prevent the orphan from becoming "real" by hiding the truth. It is not logical but it is well-meaning.

(This self-projection is also the source of Bruce's bizarre assertion that Jason has anger issues- he isn't a classist asshole he's just sensitive! 👉👈)

Either way, there is clearly an instability to the concept of Jason's Robin. Batman and Robin requires suspending one's disbelief about child soldiers to degree higher than other superheroes, but there's not quite enough to support that suspension here.

Because how exactly is being Robin supposed to help Jason? What about Jason's supposed anger issues lend themselves to being helped by vigilantism? Jason could've just been Bruce Wayne's son, so why is he also Robin?

...Would Jason have just been Bruce Wayne's son?

I.. don't think so. I don't think Bruce adopted him just to offer a good home- not really. Bruce certainly wanted Jason to have a good home, but that's what sending him to Ma Gunn's school was supposed to be. Ma Gunn didn't work out sure, but it's not like she was the only option. Bruce could've just done more research the second time around. If Jason had rejected becoming Robin, would Bruce have still adopted him? If Batman had not intended for Jason to become involved with hero work, could you see him still sending Jason off to Wayne Manor to be adopted?

Bruce didn't just want a son, or even just a Robin. He wanted something specific- he wanted the feeling of having Dick back. Bruce praises Jason for how similar he is to Dick in his head, and based on Alfred's warning and Jason's own behavior, he apparently compared Jason to Dick quite a bit during training. When Dick himself eventually comes to confront Bruce about why there's another Robin, he pretty much lays it bare: Jason is Robin because he missed Dick. That's the core of it.

Now on one hand this is flattering for Jason! It means he was chosen for the Robin mantle because he demonstrated the good qualities similar to the original. In another universe maybe Jason Todd's Robin isn't the angry one or the dead one, maybe he got to develop and he could've become the Robin that came from sharing laughter and life rather than grief. A Cinderella? A little lotus boy.

On the other hand that's not the universe we live in and this reason has absolutely fuck-all to do with Jason.

As for Tim, parentification is straight up the basis of his Robin. It’s impossible to read his “Batman needs Robin” spiel without reading it as a meta statement because in-universe it’s just an extremely frgiggi depressing scenario.

I think Dick might be the only person for whom Bruce's intense self-projection kinda worked out. Not that their relationship was good, but the core of it was okay? Cassandra comes close but Bruce sorta… lives out his dreams of being all-Batman all-the-time through her. He pushed his bad impulses onto her and she didn’t understand the value of not being Batman so it came off really creepy. He was encouraging her to rely him. Like a tool.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for getting into a fight with my old boss for replacing me?

I (M19) worked for this guy (M late-30s) as a teenager for a couple of years in a very physically laborious job. I had a pretty shitty home life, and I came to see him as kind of a father figure. He was a bit gruff but was one of the only people who supported and looked after me. He helped me with school, taught me the ropes of the job, and consistently gave advice and backup when needed at work. Most importantly though, he helped me get out of my home situation, which is something I will always be grateful for. I tried my best to make him proud and be helpful to him.

However, while working there, I had an accident that prevented me from working for a while. I won't go into detail, because it would take time and I also don't want to get too gruesome, but I suffered major physical harm and couldn't work, go to school, or really do anything. It wasn't his fault at all, but he was the one that found me after it happened. I think he blames himself for what happened to me. It devastated me, because I really loved working there and working with him, and don't blame him for what happened.

I didn't see him for a while after the accident. In the time it took for me to recover and to be deemed okay to work again, I was desperate to return and see him again. It's actually a miracle I was able to work at all, as the professionals I'd seen all thought there was no hope for me. However, when I did go to see him, I realized that he had hired someone else for my role while I was gone.

To be clear, I hadn't applied for a job with him. He didn't have a job posted or anything, but knew about my home situation and offered me a chance to get away from my family and make some money by basically acting as his assistant.

So he didn't need to hire this other guy (M15), he could've left my position free for me to return to or just got rid of the job entirely. It doesn't help that he acted the same way with this other kid that he used to act with me, like some kind of a father figure/mentor. This other kid even looks like me, it's actually creepy. For all intents and purposes he replaced me.

Furthermore, the thing that caused my accident in the first place hadn't been removed either, which is just neglectful and puts others in danger.

I got so angry and jealous that I lashed out and took over Gotham's criminal underground, naming myself after the old alias of his greatest enemy, the Red Hood, and masterminded a plan to fuck him over. I beat up my replacement while wearing my old uniform, and told my old boss, Batman 🦇, that he could either kill me or kill the thing that caused my accident - or death - which was the Joker 🤡. He choose the Joker, so I blew up the building we were in.

In retrospect, I wonder if I might've overreacted slightly, so AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[stars-in-a-jam-jar]

Thinking about how I developed an Immediate attachment to Damian Wayne the second I learned he existed. Not even the second I saw him, the second I heard his name in a YouTube video about those animated movies he's part of, something in me went 'We are going to make liking this boy the newest facet of our personality' and that was when I was like *15 years old*. I've never actually directly read any of the comics he appears in because accessing them required (in order) money I didn't have, library locations I didn't have access to, piracy skills I had too much on my plate to acquire, and more energy to go further out of my way than my ADHD would allow me. So instead I simply kept up with my boy from afar.

My image of him is both so clear and probably So Far Off Base.

He is haughty and entitled. Because he is Ten Years Old and raised to believe if he was mean and deadly enough he could do whatever he wanted forever. Because his existence was functionally an experiment to see How Powerful Of A Being Batman's genetics could create and now he is obsessed with his own bloodline and birthright in a way No Healthy Person Is. Because in all the ways that matter to him, he has succeeded through Raw Stubborn Determination up until he is confronted with the fact that he cannot please his father while staying this way.

And isn't every child entitled to their father's love? So why does his father disapprove of him so much? Why does he treat these other people like family when Damian is his real family? Why does he work with them so closely but tell Damian to step back and follow orders? Damian is better than all of them in all the ways that matter most, obviously! He's earned his father's love and he should have it by default anyway!

But Damian doesn't know what love looks like. He knows what expectations and tests and goals and master plans look like. When you love someone you watch over them and notice things about them, but the only thing he was ever watched for, the only thing that was noticed about him all 6-to-10 years of his life was his ability to dispense death and navigate mortal peril and rigid high-control-group power structures. He doesn't know, he doesn't know how loved he is when Bruce tells him to put the blades away, to reel himself in, to not commit murders, to go to bed on time. How easily and automatically his father looks at him and sees a child in his care. Because to Damian, 'child' is a demeaning powerless role that only applied to him for as long as he had yet to grasp the mechanics of walking.

He doesn't realize how lonely and starved for affection he is. His slowness to believe in others and his overly formal abrasive speech speak to someone so unsocialized with anyone it'd be appropriate for him to socialize with that nothing short of Multiple Years Of De-Conditioning could possibly get him to a place where he can comfortably exist in a casual, gentle setting.

And then his dad Fucking Dies (this is comics and also It's Fucking Batman so obviously he gets better, But Like Still) and he has to orient his life around one of the people he started this whole journey territorially attacking for daring to think he had a comparable place in the heart of Damian's father just because he came into Bruce's life first. He becomes Dick Grayson's Robin, and suddenly everything about the way he's been operating gets shuffled and shaken and crackled into a shape that looks like a properly heroic young man. He connects to Dick in a way he's never connected with another person, he doesn't just feel a sense of 'Yes, this is The Correct Way Of Going About Things', he feels comfortable and like he's part of a team and not a Power Structure.

Has anyone else seen this? Do they touch on this Even A Little in the comics? All I know is the broad strokes and yet I Am Obsessed With This Boy. He's lifted from the original context of his life into the role of 'Batman's youngest son' and is floundering for a place in this family, but he doesn't understand that 'love' and 'family' and 'power structures' are not synonymous words. He is trying! He's trying to prove he's so cool and competent and valuable and why does everyone keep treating him like one of the least competent forms of person??? He's not a child, he's Damian Wayne Al-Guhl. He takes the mantle of Robin for himself because he refuses the idea that he should be asking permission, because to ask is an admission that not everything is meant for him all the time.

I'm so sleepy I wanna say more but I've already written so much about a character who I've only directly experienced in Wildly Inconsistent Forms.

I just like Damian Wayne a bunch, he's my blorbo.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@themousefromfantasyland @piterelizabethdevries @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @professorlehnsherr-almashy @stickypersonaearthquake

Do you know the conflict between Autheur Theory vs Art as Collaboration?

Basically, Autheur Theory began between French critics and filmmakers, as a way of analyzing the film industry: originally films were clearly a collaboration, and it was common to have more than one director on the same project until the final edit of the film was reached (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz being famous examples).

But the Autheur Theory presented and popularized the idea that, to have the same prestige as, for example, a classic novel, it is necessary to have a figure defined as "the Author of the film", and the chosen figure was the director.

And this vision became dominant from the 60s onwards, when a wave of directors grew up who exercised strong control over films, and whose names became the brand that attracted people to watch. Before, you went to watch a film expecting to be entertained by the fiction, and to see the actors and characters who were the Stars. You would go by Judy Garland, Gary Cooper, Vivien Leigh, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, etc. From the 60s onwards, you will see films by director Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Copolla, etc.

And there was the simplified idea that "the director is a visionary genius who is a champion against the oppression of producers and studios who care only about money." But decades passed, and after some box office failures of films made using the Autheur model (Heaven's Gate directed Michael Cimino being the most famous), the cult of Autheur began to be questioned, as it denied the fact the role of all the team collaborating to make a film, often this personality cult of the director encourages abuse practices in the name of the "vision of genius", the fact that just because the director has a style and trademarks common to his films, it does not This means that it is automatically good, just that it repeats themes and subjects, the study of the history of cinema showing that Autheur itself is also a brand to be sold, and that it is not the "great champion against the studios", but in fact, he becomes prominent because when he makes a film that is successful and the studios see that it makes a profit, the studio will support him to do what he wants in the hope of always replicating that success, and the prestige of his name is it works as marketing in the same way that the face of the Actor who is a Star works.

I bring up this discussion because I think a similar conflict applies to the American comics industry: American society is obsessed with the idea of ​​the Great Man, the Visionary Genius. Originally, artists drew the character, and then he became part of the publishing house (Detective Comics, Fox, Timely, etc.).

Those who originally created them continued drawing for a while, then went to work on other titles, and then another artist would take care of drawing the Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Society of Justice of America, the Blue Beetle, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Captain America. Another artist could expand the universe and increase the lore and create a new villain, but he did not compete to erase what the previous artist had built and only establish what their idea was as "the true version".

It was the old collaboration model in which the name of the artist didn't matter, what mattered was telling a good story about those characters. Not everything was rosy, obviously: with the publisher being the owner of the character, the artists were often screwed and left in the cold. poverty. Siegel and Shuster suffered from poverty after creating Superman, and it was the fact that other cartoonists came together to demand decent pay that helped them in their old age.

But narratively, there was a focus on cohesion and collaboration.

But in the 60s, as in the film industry, things changed: the idea of ​​control and authorship grew.

And now you had Marvel (former Timely) selling the image of Stan Lee as the creator of his entire Universe, Steve Ditko defending the view that the Artist should be considered the author of the work, names like Alan Moore, Frank Miller and John Byrne becoming stars, and it all comes back to the idea that the Author should have all the control.

And when a name and work become popular and make money, remember what companies do: they let you do whatever you want:

You are the Autheur.

And readers bought into that idea: His redesign and rewrite of Daredevil and graphic novels The Dark Knight Returns and Year One made people for decades venerate Frank Miller to the point of denying everything that came before as the "version wrong" of the characters and that Miller "fixed" them, no one heard of Swamp Thing and Miracle Man until Alan Moore's name was on the cover, no one remembers that one day Sandman was a masked guy with a sleeping gas gun before being portrayed as the embodiment of the concept of Dreams in the graphic novels of a certain accused of sexual abuse Neil Gaiman.

Now, imagine you are an artist or writer who becomes known as a star in the comic book industry, whose name becomes prestigious and helps sell the magazine, and then you are given the job of drawing an existing character.

Everyone worships you, your word is considered law, you are a genius who can do no wrong, and then you think:

"Why do I have to follow rules, because I have to think about what has already been established as a characteristic of that character, when I can use it to represent what is MY artistic VISION of what a hero SHOULD be?"

And as a result. ..comic crossover events where a bunch of characters die horribly or turn evil for no reason, weddings you've followed developing for decades erased from continuity, characters committing horrible acts without any idea on how to examine the consequences.

We, as the public, created the cult of the genius, the comics industry responded to this by thinking it was a viable economic model in which to profit, and art suffered in the process.

Recognizing the importance of collaboration is the solution to dealing with this problem.

And there are other comic industries outside the US where collaboration, rather than competition between "visions of genius", is encouraged:

In France, more people came to draw Asterix and Obelix after the passing of Gossiny and Uderzo, building the stories based on the work they established.

In Brazil, Maurício de Souza's publishing house produces both Classica M��nica and Friends and Monica's Teen Manga series magazines with several artists and scriptwriters working together as graphics novels in which individual artists reinterpret characters, but without wanting to impose their interpretation as the only correct one.

And the Japanese manga industry has the model of one or two artists working on a story with a beginning, middle and end, which allows other artists, often fans, to develop sequels or spin offs that expand or complement the previous title, without ever trying to erase what was done before.

[turtle--soup]

1 for all Raphs

1. What do you like or dislike about this character?

Wow. Buckle up kiddos - I may be here for some time...

Mirage Raph

My favourite thing about this idiot boy is that he goes at everything full force. Everything. There is no chill with this guy. And yes that means he's sometimes very aggressive. But this Raph is also very emotional - like when he thinks Splinter is dead when they find him in a tank in TCRI and Raph immediately bursts into tears and rushes to retrieve his sensei's body.

He can also be a silly little goofball sometimes - the antics he gets up to while the others are preparing Christmas dinner and putting up decorations in the Leonardo Microseries issue puts me in mind of 2003 and 2012 Mikey. I think he's the one that the 'teenage' part of the series title applies to most out of the Mirage Turtles, at least in the parts I've read, and I love how messy and rough he is because of that.

1987 Raph

My boy! (Heads up - I am likely to say this more than once...)

Okay, part of my love for this particular red boy is nostalgia. I grew up with the 1987 cartoon and Raph has been my favourite turtle for as long as I can remember. Little me thought he was the funniest (I was right) and Rob Paulsen was in other shows I watched (that man was everywhere back in the day it seemed) so he felt familiar too I guess?

But outside of that, I love his trademark sarcasm. Being someone who deals with Situations badly and kind of automatically responds with sarcasm and eye-rolling to cover up for the fact that I am genuinely uncomfortable or nervous... yeah, he's a relatable kinda guy! Role model. Absolute icon. The silly ever.

1990s Movie Raph

I don't know how to word this exactly, but he's really cool? Like, actually cool. In an awkward, grumpy 90s teenager kind of way.

I love the relationships this boy makes with people - he's so surly but everyone seems to be able to see straight through that, and he's just so adorable with Yoshi in the third movie! Also that bit in the third movie when he gets all excited about how clean the water is... He's a sensitive little guy really!

2003 Raph

My boy! (See?)

I love this boy like... so much. I have Many Emotions!

He is such a sweet little guy. Yeah sure, he will take every opportunity to throw shade and throw hands, but he is so protective of his family and anyone else who he thinks deserves it. Which is a surprisingly large about of people.

I love how he interacts with Tyler in Lone Raph and Cub and with Mrs Morrison in Touch and Go because I think they're good episodes to show how adaptable he is with others. He approaches different people differently and is pretty sensitive to their emotions - like when Leo is going through it at the start of season four Raph steps up and responds in the way that he thinks will help Leo most...

Yeah, I could probably go on for ages about 2003 Raph! But I won't...

2007 Raph

Ah, Mr Abandonment Issues! I love the fact that he's missing his big bro really mad that Leo hasn't gotten in contact and everything's changed and he's uncomfortable about that the others just don't seem to care that there's still crime on the streets so obviously the only thing to do is give himself an edgy name, dress up and take on all the thugs in New York City by himself. Obviously. Batman gets it.

Honestly though I love him. I just really wish there had been some less tense interaction between him and Donnie and Mikey...

2012 Raph

He does a really good impression of someone who doesn't care for someone who's so highly strung!

One of the things I love most about him is how Disney Princess he is with small animals lol

I also love his fighting style (2012 is good with fight scenes!)

2014/OotS Raph

You know when Mikey is introducing all of them and he says that Raph is a big cuddly teddy bear if teddy bears were incredibly violent? He's... not wrong!

My favourite scenes for him include the one where he's racing to save his brothers in the 2014 movie and he is just tearing through everything and everybody who gets in his way and he just throws this one guy at a wall like he's just throwing like a pillow or something (MM Raph does this too in the No Diggity scene!) and the bit in the aeroplane in OotS. Also just the fact that when he finds out that Leo told Donnie to forget about them turning into humans without consulting the others, most of Raph's issue with that is 'but what about Mikey though?' He's just... such a big baby!

Batman vs TMNT Raph

He is. So square.

Like the shape, not the 70s slang.

Just... a wall of turtle.

He is gruff as all hell and I love his relationship with Damian Wayne. Raphs just like to adopt small boys, apparently.

Has anyone read the Batman/TMNT comics btw? Just thought I would take the chance to ask! There are two whole Raphs at the same time in Batman/TMNT 3!

Mutant Mayhem Raph

--

My boy my son my terrible child!

He's so full of chaotic energy when he's in his comfort zone - fighting and messing about with his bros - but when he uncertain about something he can get really quiet and looks for reassurance. If you look at him in the background when other characters are talking, a lot of the time he looks like he's really trying to take everything in. I feel like he's naturally a worrier, like Leo, but he tries to hide it by being loud and angry. One of the things I really want to see in TOTTMNT and the MM sequel is how he gets on with Bebop and Rocksteady now they're living with them in the lair! They had a lot in common in MM and I've always wanted Bebop and Rocksteady to make friends with the turtles because I love those idiots! We'll see...

I'll just briefly mention a few more that I haven't actually seen much of...

I haven't read much of IDW but I liked Raph in the Turtles in Time time travel thingy bit that I read I guess? He seems pretty standard?

I've seen like... one episode of Rise so far. Raph seems like a sweet dude, and I love his voice. I am interested to see the tough guy/ big softie ratio getting played differently when I do get around to it!

I'm two episodes into Next Mutation. Raph is kind of a meathead but honestly I feel like that's just the vibe of the show?

Uh. I watched Choujin Densetsu-hen once many moons ago? From what I remember, Raph in that is just a Japanese take on 87 Raph?? I need to watch that again...

Um. Yeah.

tl;dr - I'm a sucker for characters who have 'opposing' character traits and 'tough guy who's actually an absolute sweetheart' is one of the best examples of that I guess?

Apologies to any Raphs I may have missed! I am very forgetful!

--

Anyway, thank you for the ask and I'm sorry I took so long to reply! (I kept getting carried away...)

[soleminisanction]

Since you’re in a meta-ing mood, what do you think of the fandom trend to portray Tim Drake as a ‘genius idiot’, basically a supercomputer brain for crime and business, but can’t cross the street or talk to people without injury or insult that is always his fault. Lots of times this ties in with the idea he’s desperate to get Robin back and the other Bats will basically have to have an intervention to get him to ‘grow up’ and move to his own cape. As you can see, I’ve run into a meta bog

I can sum up my opinion on that fandom trend in two words: It's bullshit.

It's part of a modern trend that I hate, the idea that "the smart guy" archetype automatically defaults to a (badly) autistic-coded tech bro with no social skills. It gets slapped onto so many characters it never should have applied to, and Tim is a big one. He's not even that much of a tech guy! He liked technology, sure, but that was supposed to flag him as a nerd in the 90s, not as some exceptional talent in the field. Him using a computer in his investigations more than Bruce was the narrative equivalent of teaching your parents how to use social media.

No, I've said this before and I'll say it again: Tim is and has always been a detective prodigy. Which means that his skill set lies in observation, deduction, sociology and psychology.

Tim gets people, he's good with people, he can empathize with them, analyze them, and manipulate them in equal measure. Anybody who pretends otherwise just flat-out doesn't read comic books, because the evidence is everywhere. To the point I really don't feel like hunting it down right now, because I've done it before, and other people have done it before, heck I've reblogged a fair number of them myself under my meta tag because I'm always happy when somebody recognizes it.

But also, like, people could figure it out if they used some basic common sense: not only do detectives need to be good with people, but so do businessmen. Being able to persuade and/or manipulate people is like 90% of that job, especially when you're the company spokesperson.

It's just... so obviously wrong, but people are lazy, I guess. (Looking at you, Wayne Family Adventures. -_-)

--

As for the tie-in with Robin, that's the biggest eye-roll of all. Tim isn't "desperate" to get Robin back, he's slipped back into it because Damian, for all his whining and demands, refuses to do the actual job.

Damian doesn't want to be Robin, not really. He doesn't care about its symbolism, he chafes under his father's command, he's too antisocial to fill Robin's role in the community, and he's not even all that attached to Gotham.

What Damian wants is the respect that comes with Robin as a title, the perceived legitimacy it grants as a member of the Bat-family and within the caped community, and the symbolic gesture of making him the squire to his father's knight. All of which speak to an emotional need that a) is not and should not be "the point" of Robin, a role that by this point is bigger than one person, and b) is clearly not being fulfilled by his attempts to be Robin. The role is far more stifling for Damian than it ever was for Tim.

Meanwhile, Tim is right there, still believing with all his heart in Batman's mission and in the importance of Batman and Robin as symbols of hope and justice, just like he always has, and still perfectly content to fulfill that role if no one else is going to step up and do it. So of course he's going to take the mantle back, it's the exact same thing he did the first time Dick said he wouldn't stop being Nightwing. Tim didn't have a good reason to stop being Robin in the first place.

Heck, technically speaking, he never actually stopped being Robin, not really. People forget this, but the Red Robin persona? Is specifically supposed to be a Robin who stayed Robin and NEVER "outgrew" the role. It was originally created for the Kingdom Come take on the Golden Age/Earth-Two Dick Grayson, who never became Nightwing, he just grew up into a Robin who was more like Batman. Red Robin was just a more serious, less cartoony take on the idea.

I've always thought that's part of why it didn't work for Jason; he's somebody who actually did need to outgrow Robin, partially because he was kind of rough fit to begin with and partially because by that point it was already wrapped up in so much trauma for him that it wouldn't have been healthy to cling. But it worked for Tim because, when you get right down to it, he really didn't have a reason to give up Robin at all -- least of all to coddle the ego of a spoiled brat -- and probably would've just told Damian to go fuck himself if his quest to bring Bruce back didn't involve shady shit like breaking into museums and illegally entering protected heritage sites.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble, been a long day at work and I'm tired but TL;DR -- "genius idiot"/coffee gremlin Tim sucks, the real Tim is sweet and empathetic and only as awkward as any other teenage boy, and he should get to be Robin for as long as he damn well pleases.

[linkspooky]

Do you have any thoughts on the Pro-Hero's discussion about Shigaraki and his hatred from chapter 311?

My thoughts are this, from both Jeanist and Hawks utter cluelessness to why Dabi could possibly have turned into a villain despite Dabi just telling them why, on tv, and being next to the man who pushed him into it, and from how all three of them fail to understand how Shigaraki could have been so easily groomed into hatred reflects an unacknowledged shadow for all three of them.

In Jungian psychology the concept of the shadow exists. The Shadow is an unconscious aspect of the personality which is outside of the conscious ego. While our consciousness is mainly made out of behaviors and memories, we judge as positive, and our Shadow differentiates by holding emotions, behaviors, and memories we label as adverse or painful. In a shadow, constructive perspectives might be incorporated, but most of the parts remain camouflaged under the thumb points of low self-esteem ness, anxieties, and false beliefs. "Everyone carries a shadow," stated Jung "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. To know yourself, you must accept your dark side. To deal with others' dark hands, you must also know your dark side.

In other words, for characters like Enji and Hawks, all of their bad traits define them just as much as their good traits, to be a whole and complete person they have to recognize those bad traits instead of being in denial of them however, both of them choose to only see themselves as heroes.

Anyway, now for something completely different. Let’s talk about batman and the joker. Batman uses Jungian symbolism a lot, of all the heroes he’s the most famous for being a normal person, who dresses in a costume to fight crime specifically in shadowed alleyways, and has a rogues gallery that also consists of mostly normal people in costumes. Batman’s villains are batman. Batman plays with both the relationship between himself and his villains, and also the relatinoship between Bruce and his own Shadow, because his Shadow is part of who he is. 

Now the most iconic batman villain is obviously the joker, and he’s a character like All for One who most of the time is just written as a character who does evil for evil’s sake, but more serious looks at the Joker like The Killing Joke which My Hero Academia directly references make this comparison between the two of them. The famous One Bad Day speech is also, notably, an attempt for Joker to connect to batman, to try to explain himself to him. 

He’s not just spouting a villain speech, he’s also looking for sympathy and trying to give sympathy, because that’s just what humans do. Because deep down, both Batman and the Joker were normal people once. The connection between Batman and the Joker is that they were both normal people, but one of them became a hero, and the other one a villain, and therefore that potential exists in any normal person. 

However, the heroes in MHA still don’t acknowledge their connection to the villains. Hawks and Enji did apologize yes, but what’s also important is their actions after, which is to choose to continue fighting villains as heroes.

It’s been pointed out by Shoto before that what Enji really needs to do to heal his family, is act like a good father, rather than a good hero. However, when given the chance to reach out to his son, he chooses to fight it instead. There’s a reason that the public isn’t reassured by the actions of Hawks, Jeanist and Endeavor and that’s because they continue to keep playing heroes instead of acknowledging what’s wrong. I’m not saying they are good or bad people, both Hawks and Enji have bad sides of their personality that they are almost completely ignorant of. They, like any human being have the potential to be driven to villainy. That’s why Enji can’t reach out to his son, because his brains have still made the connection that he was what drove Toya to villainry. 

It comes across in the casualness which Enji remarks upon what AFO did to Shigaraki and the complete lack of self awareness. Enji did the same thing, he had a child for the sake of passing on his quirk, raised that child to hate all might and want to do anything to surpass him, and he even wanted to live vicariously through the success of Toya and then Shoto so everyone would know him as Endeavor’s son. He still only cares about Toya to the extent that his dreams were once resting on him. 

So when Enji makes the connection to AFO, he asserts that there must be something wrong with him to do all those bad things, because he’s unaware of the resmeblance between his own deeds and AFO’s. He sees himself as a human being with reasons for his bad actions, he didn’t mean to neglect Toya, he didn’t know what to say to him, he was too guilty and hid from his guilt for so long but he doesn’t allow his enemies to have that guilt. This is a pattern that repeats with Hawks, and Jeanist as well, they can’t understand why people like Twice and Dabi would feel like they have a right to be angry at the society that mistreated them. 

Jeanist’s defense is why can’t he just keep quiet about it. 

Twice’s last words were hating Hawks and wishing the worst for him, yet Hawks still thinks they were best friends somehow.

Hawks and Twice were not friends, because Hawks chose not to be his friend, and to hurt what was most precious to Twice which was all of his other friends. Enji chose not to be a father to Toya and not be a father. Enji and Hawks are neither heroes nor villains, they are not good or bad, they’re just humans and as humans they have the potential to be both. 

In only seeing the hatred that Shigaraki was groomed to have they’re also fundamentally misunderstanding him. The thing is Shigaraki has reasons for his hatred, and not just because AFO forced him to feel that way. It’s not just AFO, that’s what they critically misunderstand, it’s Shigaraki’s experiences with how the society around him has neglected both him and his friends.

That’s something that the heroes can never see, because Shigaraki has been assigned the role of a villain who hates society. It’s not just AFO, Shigaraki can’t be at peace with a society that is designed to reject others.

That doesn’t come from his hate either, it comes from his sympathy with the victims. Just like they only see their own good traits, they can only see the villain’s bad traits. The thing is we have witnessed Shigaraki constantly been challenged on the fact that he only has empty hatred, first by Stain, then by Chisaki, and finally be Re-Destro. We also witnessed the moment he changed. 

The conclusion Shigaraki comes to as the result of his arc is that while he himself doesn’t care about the people, he’s not alone anymore, he wants to give the future to the others around him. 

That’s why Shigaraki’s actions aren’t driven just by hatred, but also by a deeply broken sense of empathy. Not only is he a crying child himself, he’s also someone who acknowledges the feelings of others. What converted Spinner from being someone who didn’t particularly care about the goals of the league, and doubted Shigaraki in front of everyone to his most loyal follower. 

It’s because he came to recognize that this human side of Shigaraki was there. The same way that underneath his mask, Spinner was just a pathetic NEET struggling with his own feelings of inadequacy, Shigaraki gets close to broken people, he tries to protect them, he tries to give some kind of validation to their feelings. 

Shigaraki has grown from just hating all of society because it rejected him, to realizing the real reason is because it rejects everyone around him. That means while there’s hatred to his character, there’s also a very selfish and intense love that applies to a small group of people, but the potential for love is still there. Shigaraki reaches out and saves people the same way that Deku does, he tries to do all the fighting himself to protect others just like Deku, it’s just that he’s been hurt again and again and that’s twisted him to act on his worst trait. None of the heroes understand Shigaraki’s love, because they can only see his hate. 

It’s not just that he’s been victimized or that he’s a crying child. Shigaraki is constantly compared to a child both in a negative sense as a man child, and a positive sense as a child pure heartedly pursuing their dream, because there is that potential within Shigarkai, to grow up, and grow into a better person if he was given the same chance to atone that characters like Hawks and Enji have already received. 

Shigaraki and Deku just like batman and the joker both reflect that in perfectly normal people, there’s the chance for great good, or great evil. For Shigaraki there’s an added level of complexity, that you can still grow into a better person, after everyone has written you off as too far gone. You can still grow to love the people around you when you thought you were only capable of hating. 

Enji and Hawks still have the oppurtunity to grow just like that, not as heroes, but as people. 

However to truly grow as people they would have to learn to empathize with the villains, especially because they have done wrong things too, Hawks killed because he had to, Enji hurt his entire family. Defeating the villain really is not the solution, because sometimes you yourself are the villain. 

In order to fully grow as people they have to learn to see themselves as people, and not heroes. That also means admitting the villains are just as human as they are. If Endeavor is someone who can become better after realizing that he made so many mistakes in the past and the only thing he can do about it is try to do better from now on, then Endeavor’s ending point should be realizing that since he was given that chance by his family, others deserve that chance too, especially his own son.  People are not villains, or heroes, Endeavor is just Enji Todoroki and Dabi is Touya Todoroki deep down no matter how they see themselves. 

[rhythmicpirate]

MILGRAM current theories and personal verdicts

Spoilers under the cut!

Haruka

Judging by the PV it looks like poor Haruka's only crime was murdering a dog that his mother brought for him. It seemed as though the dog appeared to him as a wild animal though, and he only acted out fear. Perhaps that mistake is where his depression came from? He needs to see if there's like a therapy place in Milgram. Personal Verdict:Innocent

Yuno

I...I don't actually know what her crime is? I mean I know she had to have killed someone but I can't figure out who? Probably one her clients as I believe, isn't she like a prostitute or something? Verdict:Unsure? Will have to wait for part 2.

Fuuta

Compared to the other crimes here, Cyber-bulling is kind of tame. It's still wrong, of course, but we've got people here who got multiple deaths. Still his quick to anger personality doesn't give me good vibes. Not to mention playing the role of hero isn't a good excuse for your evil. Verdict:Guilty

Mu

Bullying in real life can do a lot of damage to a person. I believe that at the time she thought her actions were completely justified, especially considering that she felt trapped by them. But now that her personality has done a full 180 saying that "she did nothing wrong" ironically enough I'm starting to have my doubts about her so called "bullies". Not to mention she is in the 1% (rich), and probally a transfer student. Verdict:Innocent, but may lean towards guilty later.

Shidou

I don't think Shidou murdered anyone. Instead I think that all his paitents died on their own due to bad caretaking. The stealing of the Organs was a lie he made up so he could get Es to be innocent. In reality he probally donated them to something. However, the guilt of not being able to save a single paitent made him spiral into depression and maybe the reason he wants to die so badly is because thinks it's the only way to make things right. Verdict:Innocent

Mahiru

Look at the poor girl. It looked like her lover was abusing her either emotionally or psychically (as assumed by her end frame, a look of fear clearly is visible). Yet she was blind to do this and kept on believing that he truly loved her. However her true colors soon shown at the surface and decided to end it herself. It's not good that Kotoko reminded her of her wounds after words. Verdict:Innocent

Kazui

He seem to really care about the other prisoners in the Milgram and dosen't seem to mind getting a guilty verdict. Infact he seems like he dosen't care if he gets guilty or not, maybe he secretly wants one too. His actions are definetly strange at times, but I just can't bring myself to hate the guy either. If I drank beer I'd probably drink it with him. Also I'm not so sure he cheated on his wife, rather he let someone who he had loved dearly go, or they broke up with him. Verdict:Innocent

Amane

She's still so young, only a child, I'd feel guilty if I gave her a guilty. Yet...I'm worried. Is she to far gone in her own delusions that the cult had brainwashed her into believing. Is there still a chance to redeem her or was us letting her down the final straw? I don't think Verdict:Reluctant Innocent.

Mikoto

It's my theory that Mikoto is suffering from Split Personality AKA Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). One personality appears to be ruthless and rude while the other one appears to be polite. However, this evil personality may be less protective then we thought, and maybe selfish as well. Either way, that other personality may be a bit much. Verdict:Guilty

Kotoko

A wise Batman once said "If you kill a killer the number of killers in this world stays the same." I think that really applies to Kotoko. Sure she believes she's fighting for justice, but wolves are often used as symbols of wrath. Not to mention she might be getting more dangerous due to her use of bats on the other prisoers. Even if they do turn out to be "guilty" in the end, does that mean she has the right to do those things to her. Verdict:Guilty

[bigskydreaming]

Its always interesting to me when I see people saying Damian is just like Bruce, in a totally matter of fact way, like its just such a foregone conclusion to them, because I don’t really see it at all, lol. 

Like to be clear, its not that Damian doesn’t have ANY similarities to Bruce, I think all of Bruce’s kids share various attributes with him....I just think most of the ones Damian shares tend to be more superficial than characteristic, and there are others who are far more like Bruce than he is? Personally, I think Cass and Tim have the most in common with Bruce, albeit in different ways.....but tbh I think even Jason has more in common with Bruce than Damian does, for example.

Idk.....like for instance, I consider one of the key differences between Dick and Bruce being that Bruce’s sense of morality and ethics is clearly defined, exists as specific, hard-clung to views that he applies regardless of whom is involved in whatever situation he’s applying them to. To Bruce, ethics and morality exist outside of people, and are inviolate.....they’re not meant to change depending on who they’re aimed at or will be affected by them. In contrast, Dick is someone I see as having a morality largely defined by people. His sense of morals and ethics are more fluid....its not that he doesn’t have clearly defined views of right and wrong that underly his regular actions and choices as sort of a default benchmark, a starting point to work off of....its that Dick sees morals and ethics as meaningless if they don’t serve those he cares about or fights for, or if he has to sacrifice someone he values in service to what he views as an arbitrary moral or ethic that CAN be adjusted if he so chooses to adjust it....like that’s the thing HE’S not willing to do. Its like.....Dick sees individual lives as having more value than the abstract, which is what he ultimately considers a singular principle, and so he’d rather sacrifice the principle than the life. Bruce in contrast doesn’t view morals and ethics as being remotely abstract, and views them as the very things that GIVE individual lives value, so he’s not willing to sacrifice his values or principles full stop.

Or to put it another way: If it comes down to a choice between a killer and their intended victim, where it looks like the only possible way to save their victim is to kill the killer before they can kill instead....Dick will take the shot so to speak.....but since he does still believe killing is wrong and an absolute last resort and he’s been raised by someone who he very much does value and who believes that there’s always another way.....then Dick will self-flagellate for not having been able to find another way that didn’t involve killing the killer. Bruce on the other hand, will attempt down to the very last second to find a way to save both lives, no matter how impossible it seems.....and if he’s ultimately unable to, he’ll then self-flagellate for not having found a way to save both. 

The truly ironic thing IMO, is even in a situation where BOTH consider themselves to have failed, they’ll both still consider their failure to be the exact same thing....though for entirely different reasons and with different results. Both will view ‘not having been able to find another way’ to have been the true failure.....even though, one killed and one didn’t. Because Dick wouldn’t perceive having killed as his true failure.....because that’s the part he doesn’t actually regret, if it means that he saved the killer’s intended victim as a result. He still did it with intent, in this complete hypothetical, because he perceived the victim’s life as more important than his personal desire not to kill or view that killing is wrong. BUT he’ll still consider himself to have failed because despite having saved one life, he’d view the fact that he couldn’t find another way where taking one life wasn’t a NECESSITY in order to accomplish that.....that was his failure, in his mind. Similarly, but completely differently at the same time....Bruce will consider his failure to have been not having found a way to save both. BUT just like Dick’s true regret isn’t that he killed the killer, Bruce’s true regret isn’t that he DIDN’T, in order to save their victim. Its that he couldn’t find a way out of that box that made it a choice of one or the other.

Course, that’s just my perception of the two of them.

But as examples, this is I think WHY Dick was able to kill the Joker at all in Last Laugh, whereas Bruce will ultimately never bring himself to cross that line. (And while Dick wasn’t matter of fact about it by any means, its significant in my mind that his actual stated regrets about that were always that he played into what the Joker had wanted and thus let him win, and that he’d failed Bruce and let him down....never once was it actually that he’d killed the Joker, period.) Similarly, its why Dick’s a lot more willing to work with people he’s ideologically opposed to or more flexible....in fact, I maintain its specifically why Bruce was so convinced that only Dick could infiltrate Spyral. It wasn’t JUST about the logistics of Dick being believed dead after Forever Evil, or Bruce’s issues about having just watched Dick die.......because Bruce is great at undercover work himself, as Matches Malone, and he traditionally HATES delegating the ‘hard stuff’ to someone else, especially when the stakes are this high....even if he does trust that person absolutely. He believes that if its his responsibility, its up to him to do it if at all possible.

Which is why I think that ultimately, the only reason Bruce didn’t find a way to take on the Spyral mission himself, is because he didn’t think he’d be able to. Spyral was a shady spy organization that engaged in morally compromising work on a day to day basis. Deep down, I think Bruce was aware that there would be too many occasions in which he’d be likely to be sidetracked or frozen by his conviction that there HAD to be a way around whatever he was being asked to do for the sake of keeping his cover, that didn’t require acting against various hard-set morals....which more than likely would have cost him the mission and rendered it a failure.....with catastrophic results for his family and the rest of the hero community. Whereas he knew that Dick would be able to find a way to make it work, because despite having a very strong sense of right and wrong of his own, he knows Dick’s highest moral prerogative is that he WILL act on even something he does firmly believe is wrong, if he’s convinced its the price he needs to pay for the sake of loved ones. And thus, even though he wouldn’t be any happier about the moral compromising nature of a lot of Spyral’s work than Bruce is, he’d be less likely to find himself unable to act in a split second decision time, so long as Bruce uttered the magic words: this is an utter necessity for the sake of your family.

Also ironically, btw, I think one of the key ways that a lot of people perceive Dick and Bruce as different....I’d disagree and say is actually where they’re MOST alike. And that’s that people point to Bruce as closed off and tightly guarding his emotions, hurts, and vulnerabilities at the expense of getting close to people or letting them in.....whereas Dick is more of a people person. But honestly, I disagree. I think people overlook that Brucie Wayne is still as much a part of Bruce Wayne’s life as Batman is. Bruce is and always has been completely capable of being the life of the party and surrounding himself with droves, on a surface level. I think Dick takes it perhaps a bit further than that, he IS more approachable than Bruce in general, that sorta thing.....BUT when it comes to his most private emotions, hurts and vulnerabilities.....I think Dick is just as inclined as Bruce to keep those parts of himself closely guarded and he doesn’t LIKE giving them up. The actual difference between them IMO, again comes down to the role other people play in their ways of thinking.....as I think that the times and reasons Dick DOES open up about his most closely guarded thoughts or emotions....its for other people, because he’s convinced himself that THEY need this from him. Left to his own devices, or at least the perception that he’s the only one likely to be affected by whether he shares his most intimate self with someone else or not, I think he’s just as likely as Bruce to well, not.

And all of this is key to why I think that Damian tends to have a lot more in common with Dick than Bruce, whereas others in the family have more in common with Bruce than Dick. Because see, Damian, like Dick, is more likely to ACT as a result of other specific individuals rather than his own personal sense of right and wrong. Look at when he first came from the League of Assassins. He had a clearly defined view of right and wrong, an already formed morality of his own, even if it was diametrically opposed to most of the Batfam’s, particularly Bruce’s. 

Damian didn’t set all that aside because people succeeded in just uniformly shifting his paradigms to be more in line with their views of right and wrong. The changes to his moral code came as a trickle down result of him ALREADY adjusting his actions or behavior - even before he necessarily came to view them as wrong - for the sake of the connections he was building, with Dick, with Alfred, with Steph, and then from there with others.

Just like I outlined with Dick, where he’s more likely than Bruce or many others to act on even something HE believes is wrong, if he views it as a necessity for the sake of a loved one.....Damian is similarly likely to act in a way that completely flies in the face of everything he came to Gotham already believing....if he views it as a necessity for the sake of the individuals he came to value. Just like Dick, simply starting from a different point on the moral spectrum. The sense of right and wrong that they ‘betrayed’ for the sake of other valued individuals was different....not the reasoning for that ‘betrayal’ of their previously established moral code.

Similarly, while Damian is just as inclined to be closed off and guarded as Bruce is (and Dick. and well, most of the Batfam shares this part in common, lol) - like Dick, when he does open up, be it to Dick or Alfred or Jon or Colin.....its because he’s convinced himself that on some level its what THEY need, rather than because he actually believes that he himself needs to let them in.

Meanwhile, the reason I say Jason is actually more like Bruce than even Damian is, lies in viewing Jason as falling somewhere between Dick and Bruce on a lot of this. Basically, I think that Jason is more naturally inclined to be more like Bruce in how rigidly he holds to a particular sense of right and wrong.....its just that the particulars of what they both view as right and wrong are different. Same thing with it being more natural to Jason to be like Bruce in terms of guarding his emotions. But in both instances, he’s still ENOUGH like Dick, as opposed to Bruce, that he does still adjust his emotional behavior and how likely he is to act on or against his personal view of morality.....for the sake of valued individuals. It just doesn’t come to him AS....naturally, I guess, as it does to Dick, and thus he’s not AS fluid as Dick in these things....but he’s still MORE fluid about them than Bruce. And that’s why even though it takes a LOT to budge him from his view of the right and wrong approach to vigilantism, he IS still willing to put aside what he does still believe is a necessity or right....if that’s what it takes to have his family in his life, etc.

To be clear - I am trying to not cast any particular judgments on any of the approaches to morality here....simply just, not the aim of this post. I’m more trying to view things analytically here, so when I frame Bruce as being the most intractable of the lot here, the least likely to budge his morals or act against his personal sense of right and wrong for the sake of loved ones, its not because I’m trying to say that he DOESN’T love his family, or even that he loves them any less than Dick does, Jason does, etc. And I’m not even trying to suggest that he’s wrong for his approach. I’m literally just....exploring the WHY of it.

And for me, that tends to go back to the singular difference between Bruce’s later childhood, after his parents’ deaths, the period between ages 10 and adulthood.....versus the childhoods of his various children around those same ages, or after their parents’ deaths.

Because these are the ages when most of us most fully develop the....intricacies of our personal moralities, when we explore and shape how our behavior stems from that sense of right and wrong and when and where we act on our beliefs, etc. 

And the key thing about Bruce during this period of his life, IMO, is that at the time.....he had very few specific INDIVIDUALS who played significant emotional roles in his life and in his mind. Bruce cares about people. Absolutely. A lot. But for a lot of the period in which Bruce shaped a lot of his personal moral behavior, people were almost as much an abstract to him as morals themselves. That’s not quite the right way to put it, but I mean, its more like....there was a kind of uniformity to the way he viewed people as a whole, because there were less individuals specifically standing out from the rest, as PARTICULARLY significant to him himself....and thus likely to influence his growing moral code.

The other key factor is the people he DID have valued emotional connections to at this point, like....they had a kind of permanence that stretched back to early childhood for him. They weren’t NEW additions to his life. While I believe that his parents’ deaths absolutely was formative for him and left him with severe abandonment issues....for Bruce, these abandonment issues were specifically geared around fear of losing people to death. He was already rooted in the same place, same life, same people, that he was before his parents’ death, that part of his life didn’t change.....and thus the people who were left to play large emotional roles in his life and worldview, like Alfred and Leslie.....he might have been afraid of losing them the way he lost his parents, but he wasn’t especially of losing them for other reasons. Specifically: I don’t think Bruce grew up during this time feeling any particular fear of losing someone like Alfred - a staple of his entire life - to, say, Alfred judging him for his choices or his morals.

As a result, Bruce grew up shaping his personal view of right and wrong and resulting morality-stemming behavior, on pretty much nothing BUT those morals and ethics themselves. And there wasn’t any particular NEED to shape those morals AROUND the people he valued in life, or likelihood that he’d lose them due to differences in opinion or ideology, like....with all of this adding up to be the reasons HIS moral code and behavior is less fluid than even most peoples’. Because there wasn’t really any reason for it NOT to be. There were very few people and thus few occasions, while still DEVELOPING all this, that made him feel that he was maybe on the wrong track, or that he needed to make room for exceptions or the possibility that he might need to adjust his views or behavior in these regards.

In contrast......Dick, Jason and most of the others all came to Bruce after significant upheavals in their life that necessitated basically starting over in an entirely brand new environment with brand new people, etc. So they lacked the specific aspect of the PERMANENCE Bruce felt in regards to his own valued loved ones during this period of his life. So unlike him, where he had a bit more space to contemplate his moral code and behavior without being particularly afraid of getting it wrong or that his choices here might cost him these people.....Dick, Jason, et al like....they formed their moral codes and behavior with significantly more awareness that many of the people they valued already had fully formed codes of their own they felt very strongly about...AND at the same time, they had REASON to be....less secure about whether or not the choices they made here could potentially cost them these people.

Which is a perfect recipe for the kind of moral fluidity based around specific individuals, that I maintain most of the kids display to various degrees. In fact, you can almost kinda....chart the extent of their moral fluidity, via various factors like the QUANTITY of significant emotional attachments in their lives at this time. Like I maintain Dick is the most morally fluid based on people.....but that I think has a lot to do with the fact that Dick had the most attachments to....protect or preserve. Even though he was forced to live apart from his extended circus family, they still very much figured into his thoughts as people he cared about and valued, and then there were Bruce and Alfred, and then Clark, Barbara, the Titans, etc, etc. 

In contrast, look at how Jason came to Wayne Manor with very few pre-existing emotional attachments with anyone still alive.....and the fact that Jason during his time living with Bruce didn’t really even have occasion to form a large number of attachments outside of his immediate family, as he wasn’t on any teams unlike Dick, and he didn’t mingle all that much with other members of the hero community. Ergo, Jason’s LESS morally fluid than Dick simply for the reason that like Bruce, he had more reason to construct his personal morals around simply his own perceptions and convictions, and less people he felt this moral code and behavior needed to acccomodate, or be prepared to make exceptions for or around. 

Meanwhile, I’d argue that Damian is like Jason in that he had fewer people to build into his personal view of right and wrong and how and when to act based on that.....BUT a key difference here is that Damian didn’t have a lot of experience pre-Gotham with feeling valued and valuing other individuals in turn, like...at all. The connections he developed with Dick, Alfred, Steph, etc.....they were brand new to him, basically a revelation in a lot of ways, because before that we’ve seen how he was often taught to dampen his view of how valuable or not to view personal connections.....whereas Jason, pre-Wayne Manor, like......we know that he DID very much have a strong emotional attachment to Catherine that he embraced and was not hesitant to value, etc. So my point here being that the sheer NEWNESS of what Damian was feeling in regards to even WANTING to adjust his behavior based not on what he THOUGHT was right or wrong but based on the PEOPLE he was coming to value....this was a complete shock to the system to Damian in ways that it wouldn’t necessarily have been for Jason, resulting in a likelihood that Damian would feel an enhanced INTENSITY around all this that Jason might not, and thus despite both of them having similar NUMBERS of emotional attachments they shaped their changing and developing moral codes around, these people carried an additional weight for Damian, just as Jason’s few carried an additional weight that Bruce’s didn’t have due to the differences in THEIR upbringings in this period of their lives.....and thus resulting in Damian having an even more fluid moral code and behavior than Jason did....closer to being on par with Dick’s, just as Jason still has a more fluid one than Bruce does.

ANYWAY.

This was a LOT longer than I thought it would be when I started a little post about huh weird how I don’t see Damian the way a lot of other people do BUT SINCE WHEN IS THAT NEWS.

In conclusion, this has been a post.

Good day.

[bluegarners]

hiya @viceturtle! I finally got it done! Here is your Bad Things Happen Bingo request with Dick and Jason; you can also read it on ao3

What Have I Done?

It’s a lot. He’s not going to lie.

Dick was dead for eight months. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was a fact that they were all forced to deal with, all forced to live with. Dick was dead and there was nothing any of them could do about it. And for a time, Jason had held onto the small belief, he’s not going to call it hope, that Dick had somehow managed to pull through. That even despite the beatings, the torture, everything before and after it, Dick had managed to pull through and come out of it all alive.

But he hadn’t. That was the thing, at its core. Dick died. 

Jason knows what it is to be dead. To be beaten and left to die. To struggle and still search for a way out of the shit hole you’re suddenly in and cling to that light, that stupid, stupid promise in the back of your head that screams, Help is coming, just hold on a little longer, that forces you to keep struggling, keep surviving, keep hoping for a way out despite the circumstances. Jason knows and it absolutely sucked. 

He died and then clawed his way out of his own coffin. One of his fingers is permanently misshapen, wood chips and metal piercing through his stiff and cold skin. He’s got scars all over his body to prove that he died, to prove that he was beaten with a crowbar, messed around with like he was just some dummy, some thing that could take a beating and then some. Up and down and across and lined; the scars are all over him and he died.

And Dick died too. 

In those eight months, Jason felt more connected to his deceased older brother than he ever had before. A deep and twisted connection over a shared death, a similar fate so convoluted it makes Jason sick to think about sometimes. His murderer is still out there. Jason has to live with that fact and even though it’s not fine and things would be so much easier without that psychopath, Jason gets it. Sometimes. Gets the moral code, the compass, that shrouds Batman and his little followers.

And he’s trying. He is. He made an effort to try and do the right thing when Dick died because suddenly, the role of older brother had fallen onto him and even though he doesn’t have a good relationship with Tim or the recently resurrected Damian, or anyone for that matter, there was still that recognition that it was all on him now. He was the eldest. He was the one to look towards. Not look up to, no, he will never claim the title of a role model, but now he’s the oldest, the most experienced, the next in line when one just can’t go to Bruce about shit going on.

The point being is that he did try, put in more effort than he probably should have, to stepping up to the plate and taking a swing at being better. At being the eldest of the entire brood and not fucking it up horribly. He switches to rubber bullets and smoke pellets. He keeps his excessive violence reserved for only the worst scum and even then still attempts to steer clear from Batman’s territories. He takes care of the Narrows, rekindles a sort of friendship with Tim, doesn’t fight the literal child that lurks in the Cave, and avoids confrontations with Bruce altogether.

It works and it’s good. He steps up, frankly owns being the eldest, and he’s fine. He’s fine with it. He’s still got his reputation intact, Red Robin isn’t terrified of his presence any longer, and Robin doesn’t pull a sword every time they spot one another. So what if he slips up occasionally and gets carried away? They’re just rubber bullets, weapons all the same, and they’re no different from getting hit with Batman’s fist (which Jason knows, from experience, hurts like hell) or getting swung at with a large knife. 

He had a thing going on, is what Jason’s trying to get at, and then Dick showed up.

Dick. Richard Grayson. Who died eight months ago after he was tortured by the Syndicate and had his heart stopped by Lex Luthor. Who they had a funeral for. Who they mourned for. Who Jason had attempted to fill the gaping hole he had left behind.

Who Jason thought had died.

Betrayal is a word Jason feels like he could apply to a majority of his life. Betrayal from his parents, his poor, poor mother who just couldn’t muster up enough fucks. Bruce, Batman, for getting him into the vigilante life, for letting him wear that damn costume and get himself blown up for all his efforts. Talia, for restoring his mind after he was supposed to be dead. Bruce, Batman, again, for letting his murderer walk around like it was another Sunday, any other day, just a nice, normal day for a stroll like he didn’t just kill Bruce’s own son-

Yeah, Jason feels like he has liberal use of betrayal. It’s just an old song he hums sometimes and lets others join in occasionally.

But there was an unspoken code, a silent right-of-passage, when it came to being Robin. A mutual understanding of sorts. You don’t back-stab another Robin. Ever. You don’t lie, cheat out, betray a fellow Robin. There were too many shared experiences when it came to being Batman’s, Bruce’s, Robin and that ultimately revolved all back to trust and knowing that things were still the same despite all these years. Being Robin was both the best thing to ever happen to someone and also the ultimate death sentence. You don’t just get to be Robin either. You’ve got to earn it, to prove yourself, to show that you can take it all on, to keep up with Batman and the ever changing and violent Gotham.

So, when Dick shows up with an apology on his lips and the expectation of being welcomed home after all this time, Jason punches him square in the jaw. It’s surreal, a part of him thinking his fist will just phase right through the man’s face, but his knuckles connect and if the sound of his fist against Dick’s jaw isn’t the most satisfying and cruel thing he’s ever heard, Jason doesn’t know what is. 

It’s agony, nearly, to see the red blossom on his older brother’s cheek because, holy hell, that means it’s all real. That Dick is really alive and not still buried in that weed covered yard with decaying roses scattered on top of it. Dick is alive and Jason is furious because he’s supposed to be dead and Jason already tried so hard to fill the other man’s impossibly huge shoes and he was doing a damn good job at it. He likes to think so, at least.

But who cares, right? Who gives a shit when Dick is back now and it was all for nothing? Everyone can just go back to their normal routines now that the star player is back and they don’t need a fill-in like Jason to stick around. All that effort, all that time, all that trying all summing up into one big, Surprise, I’m not dead, from the man of the hour himself.

Jason avoids Dick after that. The man said he wasn’t staying long, just “checking in” with everyone like he was just on some business call for a few months and not dead. 

And that’s the root of it, Jason thinks. That’s what really gnaws at him because Dick is treating the whole situation exactly like he was on some extended vacation and just forgot to tell anyone where he was going. Not like his absence literally turned their entire world upside down. Not like the loss, the emptiness, that literally echoed everywhere Jason went was consuming and terrifying. In those eight months, Jason had to toe the line between being the eldest and maintaining his identity as Red Hood, and that’s where Jason truly felt close to Dick. Felt like he finally got what Dick and Bruce’s arguments were about so many years ago, this constant war of wanting to be better, wanting to have freedom, wanting to stay yourself when there was a constant war of others trying to get you to fill a role that you don’t want. 

Finally, Jason felt like he had some other important connection to his elusive older brother that had nothing to do with the man that housed them, only for it all to be thrown across the room and into the trash. 

To keep it simple, bare-bones, really dumbed down, Dick lied. About being dead, of all things. Jason can get behind needing to lay low after all that, being stripped of your identity on live television wasn’t exactly great for their kind of lifestyle, but to just leave? To go out on some mission and leave the rest of them out to dry like that? No warning, no hints, no notes, nothing? God, at least Jason made an appearance. Granted, not the best sort of re-introduction, but at least he wasn’t trying to hide.

To say the least, Jason is hurting. The anger faded along with any sort of need to prove to Dick that he had stepped up when he left. Now, he just feels… shitty. In a way, this is what he had been half-way expecting. No one stays dead in this business. There is always someone with a back-up or ex-machina to save the day and bring back a fallen hero, villain, whatever. But there had just been something so final, so human in Dick’s death. In that moment, seeing the mask ripped off, seeing his brother’s face on T.V out of context, away from the normal flashiness that was being related to a billionaire, it had scared Jason because that was his brother, Dick Grayson, world’s most annoying man in the universe, on T.V; beaten, bloodied, bruised, and humiliated for everyone to see.

He’s always been jealous of how clean and clear Dick’s eyes looked. Just a simple and rare shade of blue, obnoxiously bright and searching. Jason’s mother used to say he had his father’s eyes, a muddy mix of blue and green. He’s never liked his eyes, but there was always something so attention grabbing with Dick’s. Seeing them on T.V, wide and blood-shot and bruised to hell; the blue was out of place and humanizing in a way that Jason just couldn't describe because it was simply Dick Grayson there. Not Nightwing. Not a hero. It was just Dick Grayson, world’s worst older brother ever, looking lost, defiant, and defeated all at once.

And that hurt.

The man is like some nasty disease that won’t leave him alone though. Their first meeting was two days ago and Jason is trying his best to ignore the knife in his chest, not literally, when Dick shows up. Just outside the Narrows on the roof of a bodega, Dick appears from where ever the fuck he’s been and walks over to Jason. It’s a cue, Jason knows, when thunder rumbles in the distance and if he were a bit more into literature, feeling a bit more melancholy for his freshman year of high school, Jason would say that a storm is coming for the both of them, not just Gotham.

Dick walks with his hands in his pockets, stuffed inside an old brown jacket that looks well-used and well-loved. Jason’s never seen the jacket before. Must’ve gotten it on his extended vacation. A part of Jason knows that Bruce was in on it too, that Bruce probably deserves just as much anger he’s dishing out towards Dick, maybe even more, but Jason’s tired of trying to play nice and get along. Dick is the one in front of him now, right here on a Wednesday night with the glowing, neon advertisement for Coke singing behind their heads and a run down, twenty year old convenience shop beneath their feet. 

Dick is here and now when he should be dead.

Just like Jason should be.

“What do you want?” he asks, the metallic tin of his voice modulator diminishing some of the threat. It’s a known fact that Red Hood guards his territory with a viciousness rivaling a rabid dog. Outsiders aren’t welcome. Never welcome.

In contrast, Dick is mask-less. Civilian. Same clear blue eyes from eight months ago that were sealed shut the last time Jason saw them. A dark bruise stains Dick’s right cheekbone, the shape of knuckles and betrayal. It’s a good contrast.

“I came to say goodbye,” the other man answers, stopping just short of six feet in front of Jason, “and that I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I really am,” he insists when Jason remains silent. “Things just… happened too fast. It killed me to be away from you all for so long. I wanted to tell you, I did-”

“Really?” Jason interrupts lowly. “It killed you, huh?”

Dick sighs, a hand coming up to brush through his hair. “That’s not what I meant. You know it’s not.”

“I don’t know, Dicky. Times are changing, you know. One minute, you’re the star pupil, and the next I’m your backup. And now,” Jason shrugs, letting his hand come up to rest on the holster he keeps on his hip, “I’m not so sure about that.”

Dick is eyeing Jason like he’s looking at something he doesn’t like. Something that’s leaving a bad taste in his mouth. But that’s just something he’s going to have to deal with, isn’t it? Suck it up buttercup, and all that.

A laugh erupts from Jason as he truly takes it all in. “You know,” he chuckles, nothing humorous causing his mirth, “you really had me there for awhile. I bought you flowers, went to your funeral, dealt with all that shit, and yet here you are. In the flesh.” He laughs again, fingers curving steadily around the grip of his gun. “I think I liked you better dead, Dick.”

The older man frowns, brow dipping into a neat crease. Not a single wrinkle on his perfect, tan, not dead face. “The situation was unavoidable,” he says, like he actually believes a word he utters. “Batman needed a guy on the inside. The, hm, circumstances leading up to that set it up so that I could be that guy. It wasn’t exactly my choice to stay dead, Jay.”

“Names,” Jason snarks, that same anger he felt two days ago rearing its ugly head again. “You know, you say you didn’t have a choice, but I think there’s a clear distinction between dead and alive, don’t you? It might just be me, who knows because fuck if I do, but I think a warning woud’ve sufficed. A fucking warning. ”

Something must click in Dick’s head as his frown deepens. His hands are out of his jacket pockets now. They’re both tense.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says. “Maybe another month. Two at most. When I get back, I’ll try and…” Dick trails off there, as if searching for the right words, but Jason doesn’t have the patience for him to find the right way to say the same bullshit he’s already heard before. 

He’s so tired. So, so tired.

“We were fine without you,” he snarls, relishing in the way Dick’s eyes widen at the claim. “The world doesn’t stop turning just because you decide to go off on a little adventure. Newsflash, asshole: None of us need you. You can’t come back here and expect everything to fall back to the way things were just because you decide it’s time to show your face again.”

“I was doing what I thought was right,” Dick snaps back. “Look, I’m sorry you had to step up and be a decent person for once-”

“And there it is,” Jason growls, unholstering his gun. “You think you’re so much better than me. You’re just so goddamn smug you can’t even see your own mistakes. What, is my being here just too inconvenient for you? Can’t make all the little hero-worshipers fall back into line like they used to?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth. I did what I thought was best for everyone and I paid the price for it.”

Jason lunges, cutting the feet between them into inches. “What was best?” he yells, swinging with one fist and aiming with the other. “Who the hell are you to decide that?”

Dick retaliates, pushing away Jason with a kick that connects to his armored chest. It’s barely a glancing blow though and he’s charging forwards again, squeezing the trigger as a shot rings off into the air, missing Dick’s foot by a few centimetres. Another crack of thunder resounds in the distance and a bolt of lightning cracks open the dark sky. Dick rolls away from Jason’s tackle, on the balls of his feet and ready to jump away again.

“I didn’t come here to fight you,” Dick tries, widening his stance. “I just came to, god, I don’t know, Jay. I didn’t ask for this!”

“Cut the bull,” Jason says, raising his gun again. He’s got it trained on Dick’s mid-section and even though a part of him knows he’s not going to take the shot, another part of him has his finger itching towards the trigger. “None of us asked for any of the fuckery that comes our way, but we deal with it, right? I’m dead, you’re dead, the brat’s dead, we’re all dead!”

There’s another crack of thunder, one that brings the rain with it. It pours, instantly drenching the pair, and a sheet of gray divides them. There’s surely something poetic about it, the divide that surrounds them both, but Jason’s not one to dwell long.

“Well, I’m not dead anymore!” Dick screams through the rain. “I am alive! I’ve been dead for eight months and I don’t want to fucking be anymore! I want to come home, Jay. I am alive. Goddamnit, I am alive!”

“So why didn’t you tell us that? Tell any of us that? All of this, that’s on you , Dick. You want to know why there wasn’t a big fucking parade for you? Why no one was fighting over the chance to be the first one to get to shake your hand? It’s because we don’t trust you anymore. No one fucking wants you near them because that’s how badly you fucked up.”

He must strike a nerve because Jason sees something crumple on Dick’s face. 

“I didn’t- I didn’t want to leave you guys, Jay. God, you’ve got to believe me on that. I had no choice. It was either I leave and do this for Batman or-”

That same anger rises up again. Anger from different directions, different thoughts, but ultimately because it’s about Batman. Always, always about Batman. What he wants. What he needs you to do. Because if you don’t do it, and someone dies, it’s your fault. And Dick has always been the suck-up, the one to come when called, because even after all their spats and all these years of silence between them, Dick was still a Robin first and goddamnit if Jason doesn’t understand that. He hates that he understands that need to please Batman, to do what he asks in the hope of just some tiny ounce of praise or acknowledgment, but Dick is a grown adult. He’s not Robin anymore.

None of them are.

Dick takes a step forward and Jason squeezes the trigger, feeling the recoil in his wrist as Dick freezes, the bullet breezing right past his armpit. His eyes are wide, finally taking the weapon in as it is, and there must be some realization going off inside Dick’s head because now he’s the one charging in, stance low and shifty, and Jason’s on the defense now. His finger is still on the trigger, just barely, and he’s raising it to aim again when a flying round-house knocks the gun from his hand and fist drives under his chin. It disorients him a bit because, damn, he didn’t actually expect Dick to fight back, Jason was trying to get him to go away, but now they’re both serious. They’re both dangerous.

It’s a no-weapons brawl, just fists and dirty kicks and the rain is still pounding away against the bodega. The rain has plastered Dick’s hair to his skull and Jason is grateful for his helmet because it’s clear the water is making it difficult for the older man to see. He takes advantage of this, striking down with his elbow on Dick’s trapezius and quickly hooking his left foot around his ankle. It works for a split second, Dick thrown off and unbalanced, before Dick is tumbling down and using his own momentum to pull Jason down with him. 

They’re on their backs now, rough and cold cement bleeding through their jackets, and the neon Coke sign flickers in and out as thunder continues to roll and shake the world.

“You should’ve stayed dead,” Jason snarls, taking a jab at his older brother’s face. “You should’ve never come back.”

Dick frees one of his hands from underneath the massive bulk of Jason’s suit, palm striking the sides of his helmet. “Take off the godamn hood and say that to my face,” Dick pants, shoving one of his knees into Jason’s side. “Look me in the eye and tell me you want me dead, Jay. Tell me you want me dead. ”

Another bolt of lightning splits the dark and its image refracts against the many puddles, and for a moment, the light sears into Jason’s eyes. He flinches against the burn and it’s enough hesitation for Dick to take the unguarded moment and flip Jason, crouching with one knee on his chest and the other digging into Jason’s forearm. They’re both breathing heavily, exhausted both physically and mentally, and he doesn’t bother to stop his brother as Dick reaches down and shoves the helmet off of his face.

Their eyes meet and Jason squints up at clear blue. Yeah, he hates that color. Hates it so much it feels like something ugly in his stomach, coiling and clenching. They’re both frowning but Dick just looks resigned. Jason hates that too. Now that he has the chance, he can see new scars on his brother’s face. New, finer lines and white and pink discoloration. 

Funny how eight months can make someone look so much older.

“I wish you had stayed dead,” Jason finally says, hating himself all the more for it. “I wish you had never come back.”

Dick stumbles off of him and there’s a thin trail of red leaking from one of his eyebrows that keeps getting washed away. Jason doesn’t even remember hitting him there, but he must’ve been excessive. Must’ve over-done it. Just another thing he’s managed to fuck up. Check it off the list. 

He sits up, feeling the ache of a sore back and numerous bruises, and watches as his brother leans heavily against the poles of the advertisement. The rain only seems to come down harder, bouncing off the yellow stained bodega roof. He gets to his feet slowly, careful to keep an eye on the slouching man, and treads over to pick up his helmet. His gun is closer to the bright neon sign and when he gets near enough, Dick looks up, something horribly heavy and sad, settling into his face.

“Okay,” is all he says, nodding once. “Okay, Jay.”

Dick reaches into his jacket pocket once more, fiddling with something, but Jason’s too preoccupied putting his helmet back on to really pay attention to it. They’re done fighting. Done with whatever all of that was. His hair is soaked, his jacket is going to have a layer of mildew on it in the morning, and Jason is tired. Beat. He can’t find the will-power to truly be bothered with anything else. 

This is his territory so he’s not technically fleeing, but that’s what it looks like. Tail between his legs, off to lick his wounds, Jason’s sure that’s what Dick is thinking (he knows that’s not true, he knows this, and he’s got a little secret screaming, pounding away in the back of his skull, but Jason’s too burned out to deal with it, to address it). He walks to the edge of the roof with his back turned on his older brother, his alive and breathing, long lost brother, and jumps off, sliding down the fire escape and landing on the grimy streets below. His boots squelch in the rain, and there’s water logged into his socks, but Jason ignores it in favor of staring ahead. Refusing to look back.

Here’s the thing about being a Robin that everyone who’s been one before knows. 

You rely on each other. There’s no codependency, not really, but there is a certain degree of reliance on past and current Robins. Robin is the inspiration. Not Batman. Batman doesn’t inspire little kids to go out in the night and get punched in the face and witness cruelty so awful you have nightmares for years after. Batman doesn’t inspire light and forgiveness and mercy; that’s all Robin’s doing. The bright colors, the chatter, the youth. That’s all on Robin, the little child weapons they are, and the shared experience of being that for Batman is a bond that runs so much deeper than blood. Thick and interwoven and relied upon so much more heavily than a simple crest or uniform.

And here’s that screaming secret that vibrates inside Jason’s skull: he’s happy Dick’s back. That Dick’s alive. At the end of the day, Dick was the first Robin, the first light, and having him snuffed out was a world that got three shades darker, bleaker. It was Dick’s Robin that truly gave it the twinge of hope all the Robins after carry with them; he was the model, the mold, they shaped themselves after. Him being dead changed that perspective for the worse because the first Robin made it. That’s what was so important, what tips the scales for the confidence of all Robins after. Dick made it. Survived being Robin, survived past Robin, and became his own hero. 

Dick outlived being Robin and that was the ultimate goal. To survive. 

So him dying was the last straw but now that he’s back, alive, everything was going to be okay again. Yeah, they’re all still messed up from it, there’s going to be a lot of trust built back up again, but they’re Robins for Christ's sake. Thicker than blood, stronger than a crest, relied on more than Batman. And maybe Jason’s being sentimental, still trying to be more eloquent than his sophomore English education allowed him to be, but God, he’s trying. He’s trying so hard despite the ache that wears down his bones and the fire that consumes his brain.

That’s why he gives in. Turns around. Looks back. Does what he thought he was too stubborn to do, but things change and-

The neon sign is brighter. No, that’s not right. There’s another source of that eerie, glowing light and Jason’s eyes widen as he sees a person step through it. Another figure, broad, muscular, unfamiliar, and they’re heading straight for Dick. His brother. Who is still leaning against the advertisement poles. Who’s not doing a damn thing to avoid the stranger that’s fast approaching. 

Soreness and fatigue forgotten, Jason starts sprinting, boots pounding against the pavement as he cranes his neck upwards to watch the stranger continue to advance.

“Dick!” he yells in warning, drowned out with the rain. “Dick, move!”

He slams into the fire escape, hands scraping up the ladder as he hauls himself three steps at a time, chest heaving and heart beating wildly. He slips, losing his footing, and Jason grunts as he feels the pull on his shoulder and his knees bang into the sides of the bodega. He pushes on though, gripping the metal tightly and finally reaching the top.

He’s pulling himself over, gasping and searching, and he sees the man tugging Dick closer to the strange light, what Jason thinks must be some sort of portal, and before he’s even gotten a leg over the edge, his right hand is scrambling for purchase on his gun. He takes aim and fires without a second thought and curses aloud when it jams.

“Dick!” he yells again, throwing the useless weapon away and falling over onto the roof. “Stop! Stop! What’re you doing?”

His brother just trudges on though, bicep gripped by the stranger that continues to drag him closer and closer to the pulsating light, ghoulishly pink and saturating the air with an ominous buzz. Another flash of lightning illuminates the sky and Jason trips over himself in his haste, crashing into the slick cement. He whips his head up, too far away, too late, as the stranger disappears fully into the portal, Dick just a few inches away.

“Wait!” Jason cries, still attempting to rise off of his knees. Damn the rain. Damn the weight of his grief. Damn it all, get up. Get up. “Dick, stop! Stop!”

The rain is loud though and there’s a divide between the two of them, mixes of gray, pink, and red light. His brother half turns, watching as the younger stumbles towards him, and Jason can’t hear anything, can hardly process what’s even happening now, but Dick’s lips move in what Jason thinks is, Goodbye, and Jason screams, lunging as his brother fades into the light.

He falls, smashing into the cement once again as he fails to reach for his brother’s hand, and lands where the portal had just been. He lays there on his chest, heaving and attempting to breathe through his helmet, but it’s too hard, too suffocating, and Jason rips it off and flings it as far away from him as he can. His hands clench into fists and he fights back the urge to cry as he slams his fists into the roof. Bam-Bam-Bam.

Something cracks in his knuckles and Jason stops at the pain, shifting back and hanging his head between his knees. There’s a vicious burn in his eyes, his ugly, muddy green eyes, and Jason swipes at them furiously.

“We just got you back,” he whispers through gritted teeth. “We just got you back, Dick, and you, you just-”

A clap of thunder rattles the thin poles of the Coke advertisement as its lights finally flicker out. The night is dark without its glow and Jason is left in obscurity. 

“What have I done?"

[ectonurites]

Yes yes yes both Tim and Dick we’re in the wrong and the situation was complicated. Ngl I really wished they would have talked it out or at least acknowledged it more (maybe they would have if they didn’t RESET THE UNIVERSE)

Yeah, like.

Listen, sure Dick probably should have talked to Tim about the Robin thing a little sooner (before officially giving it to Damian so that Tim could let his feelings out about it and calm down without Damian walking in wearing the suit to rub salt into the wound) but Tim also was self isolating and blatantly pushing everyone who tried to reach out to him away, the only person persistent enough to get through a little bit was Conner because he got Tim to help him with something unrelated which let him sneak in a little feelings chat along the way.

Both Dick & Tim did things wrong in that situation, and both of them had way bigger things they were trying to deal with than just each other (Dick having to... take over being Batman and caring for Damian and dealing with losing Bruce, Tim having a breakdown over basically all the losses he'd experienced over the last several years and feeling like nobody believed him) which influenced that. There were just a lot of raw feelings and nobody, especially not anyone who's gone through the kinds of traumas they have, is going to be in the best state of mind to deal with tough conversations in a situation like that.

From Tim's perspective though, it seems like the majority of his general frustration was coming from him feeling like:

Nobody believed him/trusted him

Everyone thought he was losing his mind in grief

He didn't really have a place anymore/he was being pushed out of things

One thing I think a lot of people don't take into account though is the fact that Tim came back to Gotham for Blackest Night during the really early parts of Red Robin (just before #6) and spent some time working directly with Dick there, before Tim had shown the proof he was right about Bruce. This was a huge emergency situation where they both had to go through this traumatizing thing of their dead parents coming back to fight them together, and they got to kinda... re-establish a lot of their trust in one another during that fight, which I think contributes to some of their tension going away without necessarily an on-panel discussion of how things went down in those Red Robin flashbacks. Having moments where they recognize that, disagreements over how things were handled aside, they can count on each other when it matters really helps.

(Blackest Night: Batman #3)

Another big reason that I think contributes to the lack of acknowledgement is that once Dick really fully believed Tim and Tim had felt like Dick's trust in him was reaffirmed, so much of the hurt from his perspective was gone and just replaced with more determination to get Bruce back. Once everyone was on the same page about all of this, Tim was literally brought in to work with the Justice League on all of it, Dick & Damian were also working on it, and he didn't feel like he was being pushed out of things anymore, he didn't feel like people thought he was crazy.

Having Wonder Woman pass the mic to you in a meeting at the Watchtower is a pretty good way to start thinking people respect you

(The Return of Bruce Wayne #3)

Kinda a sidenote but somewhat related: I feel like a lot of people don't know they should read The Return of Bruce Wayne during Red Robin (before The Road Home: Red Robin!) because that's where you actually see the evidence Tim found (and the evidence Damian & Dick found) get put to use in bringing him back, and you see the actual role Tim played in all of it.

(The Return of Bruce Wayne #6)

Like I don't want this to come off in a mean/bad way but I don't think among all the Tim-centric fanworks I've encountered dealing with this period of time (which is A LOT) I've seen a single one bring up or even allude to the actual logistics of what happened to Bruce (like what specifically happened to him aside from just 'lost in time'... or stuff like how the actual process of him coming back went) or how Tim was actually involved in bringing him back besides finding evidence (Again as I mentioned above, he was working directly with the Justice League and he ended up being the first person to come into contact with Bruce when he came back while they tried to determine what actually happened to him)... Which makes me think a lot of people don't know there is a comic that shows what happened. It's a little confusing of a read because anything with time travel and comic book fictional science will be, but it's not that it just goes entirely unexplained.

However if you only read Red Robin, it seems unexplained.

(The Return of Bruce Wayne #6)

Like that's not so relevant to the Dick & Tim stuff, but circling back to that, when Tim comes back to Gotham and finally has people believing in him, this stuff (and the other things he was dealing with in Red Robin) became his focus rather than being mad at Dick for not handling a situation perfectly when both their emotions were high. After it's settled and Bruce is back I think he's just so relieved about it and ready to move on and work on other things that he's not gonna be the one to dig up stuff with Dick from a few months back when he knows he was being pretty unreasonable himself at the time.

That self-awareness about his own behavior comes out in his talk with Steph, rather than to Dick, but we know it's on his mind because of this and he likely applied it to more than just how he and Steph interacted.

(Red Robin #10)

Dick & Tim just reaffirming their trust in each other by continuing to work together feels relatively in line with how they would heal from the tension of the initial situation. While some more specific talk about it would have been nice to actually see, I can understand it not being a priority when these books were being written because there was just so much stuff going on.

[jaydicksummerexchange]

2021 JDSE Reveals: Thurs, September 2

[ ❤ Works posted so far! ❤ ]

There are now over 100 works in this year’s exchange! Send a massive thank you to the artists and writers by dropping a comments and kudos.

Here are today’s posted works:

Somewhere Only We Know by Anonymous for bitterleafs [Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, 3.1k words]

Tags: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Fluff, Angst, Retirement, Family, Reminiscing

Summary: Settling into bed, Jason smiled, gently reaching out and running his fingers through Dick’s hair. From a man who had nothing to his name, no family, no home, Jason’s life had changed so drastically and it was all because of Dick. All he ever had to do was love Jason and somehow, that was more than enough to turn his life around, to make him see that there was more to the world than the darkness that he had always known.

Lying on the bed with his husband in his arms, Jason was now the happiest man in the world and he wouldn’t change it for a thing.

I linger on dear, still craving your kiss by Anonymous for epistemology [Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, 3.3k words]

Bombshells AU, Haly's Circus (DCU), Jason Todd & His Lesbian Moms, Canon-Typical Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced World War II, Pining, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Dancing, POV Jason Todd, JayDick Summer Exchange 2021

Summary: “Are you okay?” his shaky voice whispered. Blood trickled down the side of his face, his cheeks were flushed and filthy from fighting the soldier off, and yet he was the prettiest boy Jason had ever seen.

Kate & Renee take Jason to the circus for some fun. Who knew that would lead him to one troublesome Dick Grayson, too?

Just the Price I Pay by Anonymous for RUNNFROMTHEAK [Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, 3.9k words]

Tags: Captured, Angst and Feels, Hurt Dick Grayson, But also, Dark Dick Grayson, Earth-3, Manipulation, Idiots in Love, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Jason Todd Has Feelings, Dick Grayson Has Issues, Self-Worth Issues, all kinds of issues, Post-Spyral, Sadism, Implied Sexual Content, Rescue, Protective Jason Todd, Protective Donna Troy, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Hopeful Ending

Summary: "Damian gave me a hug," Talon says casually, with a malicious glint in his eye that is so familiar to Dick by this point. "Arms around my waist and everything. Of his own volition! Such a sweet kid, huh?"

Dick doesn't respond, doesn't let himself react, instead staring blankly at the wall. He knows Talon just wants to rile him up, and it'll only get worse if he shows that it's getting to him. But it...it is getting to him.

Or: Earth 3 Richard Grayson, the right hand of Owlman, captures Dick and takes over his life...and no one notices.

burn me up inside by Anonymous for Squishychickies [Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, 3.9k words]

Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Reverse Robins AU, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Dragon Dick Grayson, Fae Jason Todd, Protective Damian Wayne, Insecurity, Pining, Love at First Sight, Lack of Communication, Light Angst, Hopeful Ending, POV Dick Grayson, POV Jason Todd, JayDick Summer Exchange 2021, Worldbuilding

Summary: When Bruce had first brought the unfortunate matter of an arranged marriage to his attention, a marriage to secure the Dragon Clan’s alliance with the Fire Fae in order to stave off a potential war, Dick had reluctantly accepted that he’d be the one to fill the role of husband since Damian was already set to marry another. But upon seeing his betrothed at the altar, torches lighting the mesmerizing glow of his teal eyes, skin painted in reds and golds and oranges like a living flame, he’d fallen quite hard.

Like a secret in your throat by Anonymous for Xanthos_Samurai, spacecapes, BehindTheRobinsMask [Mature, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, 0k words]

Tags: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Human/Vampire Relationship, Vampire Jason Todd, Blood Drinking, Partial Nudity, Fanart, Beware of the nipple, …(click for more tags)

Summary: An invitation won't be necessary.

remember me, love by Anonymous for mlim8 [Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, 3.4k words]

Tags: Minor Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, kind of, Language of Flowers, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, But Platonic & Romantic & Familial, Mild Sexual Content, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Kissing, Established Relationship, Fluff, Body Worship, POV Dick Grayson

Summary: In this world, flowers bloom on your body when someone experiences strong feelings/emotions for you. These feelings can be romantic, platonic or familial as all sorts of relationships can result in strong feelings.

After a night of patrol, Dick and Jason have a heated evening exploring each other's flower tattoos. That is, until some uninvited guests decide to crash the party.

I'm not ever careful by Anonymous for whippy [Explicit, No Archive Warnings Apply, 1.1k words]

Tags: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Mutual Masturbation, Shower Sex, Hurt Dick Grayson, Getting Together, …(click for more tags)

Summary: mutual masturbation in the shower

could you love me at my worst? by Anonymous for withthekeyisking [Explicit, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, 3.4k words]

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Dick Grayson is Crutches, Angst, Hurt Dick Grayson, Batman #640, Batman #641, Nightwing #109, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, POV Dick Grayson, Pre-Slash, JayDick Summer Exchange 2021

Summary: So Under the Red Hood happened at basically the same time as the Nightwing Mobbed Up storyline—so what about a fic where while Jason is going after Roman, he comes across Dick currently working for Black Mask? And all the angst therein because that wasn't exactly an emotionally stable time for either of them

...or something like that.

[spikeface]

why do you think stiles refused the bite? he was lying when he said he didn’t want to be powerful like peter and scott, and he said he enjoyed the strength being possessed by the nogitsune gave him. so i do think he’d like the powers that come with it, but he still doesn’t want to be a werewolf. it’s not that he’s afraid of dying, he’s constantly willing to die for scott, lydia, his dad and malia. maybe it could be that he doesn’t want to give peter the power to control him, but he never asks scott for the bite either. for stiles the bite is always treated as a last resort. idk i’ve always wanted the show to have stiles explain his reasoning!

Peter Hale Can Go To Hell. This only applies to the time Peter offers Stiles the bite, but it’s the biggest reason why Stiles says no in that instance. Peter has been torturing Scott all season, including trying to make him murder Stiles, and just recently attacked Lydia, the girl Stiles has had a crush on since he was in the third grade. Stiles will do anything for the people he loves, and anything to the people that hurt them. Peter could offer Stiles anything at that point, and Stiles would say no. Stiles wouldn’t accept the time of day from him. The next time he sees Peter is when he tries to set Peter on fire. He’s done with this guy.

The question becomes a little more complex once there are other Alphas around, particularly Scott and Satomi. Here are a couple of thoughts on why Stiles wouldn’t want to be a werewolf:

Risk of Dying. This is a big one. You pointed out that Stiles is very willing to risk his life, but also that he does it for other people, which I think is crucial. Stiles places almost no value on his own life compared to the people he loves. To a certain extent, especially after the nogitsune, I think he places little value on his life in general. But he’s also very aware of how dying affects the people who survive you, as we see in his rant to Lydia in season two, so I don’t see Stiles risking death for personal gain—again, because of how much he cares about the people he loves.

Being a Werewolf is Shit. One of my favorite things about Teen Wolf is that becoming a powerful supernatural creature makes you more vulnerable, not less. Yes, you become stronger and more able to heal, but the danger you face from that more than cancels out the benefits. Even becoming an Alpha simply makes you more visible to dangers like the Alpha pack. More humans may die numerically in the show, but a much greater portion of werewolves either die or suffer constant injury (or both). My favorite example of the show subverting the supernatural-transformation-as-power-makeover trope is Erica. Initially, she seems to embody the trope; her physical transformation is tied to a social transformation even more dramatically than it is for Scott. She’s hot, and confident, and powerful. But what does it get her, in the end? Derek winds up being a lot less charming than he was when he seduced her into the pack, and she’s subsequently hunted, captured, and tortured first by hunters and then by other werewolves. I still can’t figure out if she spent more time as a werewolf in the vault or not.

Stiles watches this happen. At first, he focuses on the benefits of her physical change, and even uses them as an argument for why Scott shouldn’t interfere with Derek biting people. He also gets to be Batman to Erica’s Catwoman, which calls back to Stiles’ season 1 complaint that Scott’s transformation has turned Scott into Batman while Stiles is stuck being Robin all the time (the same anxiety that Peter preys upon when he tries to win Stiles over to accepting the bite). But, as Scott says, in the end, “no one is Batman and Robin any of the time.” Erica’s life quickly turns sad and bleak, before she’s killed in captivity. I think that would kill any last remaining romance Stiles had about being a werewolf, while his pessimism would be strengthened as he watches Scott and other supernaturals be targeted over and over again.

Conviction That He Is Bad (esp. Post-Nogitsune). Stiles’ mother is convinced that he’s evil. It’s a formative moment for Stiles, and one he internalizes, as we see in season 2, when Stiles hallucinates his father telling him that he killed his mother, and now he’s killing his father as well. This conviction that he is secretly evil or dangerous would make him even less likely to want the inherently violent power that being a werewolf brings. The conviction would also be made much worse by the nogitsune. Stiles does say he enjoyed the feeling of power that possession gave him, but he also feels enormously guilty about it, which is one of the themes of 5a. He hates how much he “enjoyed” being possessed, i.e. feeling what the nogitsune felt. He hates that Donovan’s death made him feel “good,” however briefly. He’s terrified of what he’d enjoy as a werewolf.

Role as a Human. I think Stiles is too anxious to ever be fully comfortable with his role as anything, anywhere, but we do see him, after season 1, start to think about what it means to be a human in the pack. In season two he wrestles with it, but afterwards, he picks the bat and the Jeep as symbolic of his human status (though the Jeep means other things too), and becomes obsessive about his role as the pack’s detective. He’s also there for both Scott and Liam during the full moon, and is aware of other times when it’s an advantage to be a human, like when there’s a line of mountain ash. I believe this is something the actor has discussed as well, for what that’s worth.

The Show Ignores Human Physics. This is an external factor, which I wouldn’t usually include, but it annoys me so much that I can’t help it. Stiles should have had so much more physical damage than he did. He mentions a bad elbow once, and has the wound from Donovan, but that boy gets knocked out so many times. Way too many. He should have such brain damage. Lydia makes his ears bleed. He gets stabbed in the chest with a piece of glass. He gets thrown against walls constantly. A realistic depiction of the physical trauma Stiles goes through would have been the biggest argument for him to become a werewolf—and indeed, the only time he really considers it is when he thinks he’s got a terminal illness. Because the show ignores that, Stiles can exist as a relatively unharmed human and the benefit of werewolf healing is undermined.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to speculate on this, so please feel free to comment or reblog with your thoughts or links to them!

[maxwell-grant]

So, we've talked about teaming up The Shadow with Superman, and with Batman. How would a team-up with Wonder Woman work?

I've sat on this ask for a while to catch up on the character and talked a bit with @jcogginsa about it to get some thoughts in order, although if anyone else would like to chime in feel free to do so. So here goes: I think a team up between The Shadow and Wonder Woman has a lot of ways it could go wrong for fans of either character, but if done right, I think it could be perhaps a much more substantial story than crossing over The Shadow with Superman or Batman again.

You'd be hard pressed to pair two characters as diametrically opposite to each other visually as The Shadow and Wonder Woman, a very casual viewer might even be confused as to why the hell is Wonder Woman standing next to this Freddy Krueger looking weirdo. Much of what I said about the immediate contrasts between Superman and The Shadow are applied more so here, because here we have two characters who dig back further than the superhero in their domains. Wonder Woman is a superhero, but she is rooted in a realm of folklore and myth and fairy tales, archetypal and dream-like and with strongly defined morals, with Diana as the classic heroine who takes all of the male fears of powerful women present in the old Amazon stories, and subverts them into a powerful feminist statement and a mission of love and peace minded towards a progressive future. The Shadow's stories, as I've argued in turn, were less hard-hitting crime tales and more urban fairy tales told in an urban setting, where the streets of New York City replacing the dark forests of yore and everything's gone so topsy-turvy that the Big Bad Wolf has to become the one to save us from those that would oppress and destroy us. Dracula meets King Arthur, as his creator described him, here to fight to protect us for little reason other than he can and it's the right thing to do, by turning the tools of evil against itself.

Sadly, the two of them also have a long, long and miserable history of being misrepresented and mischaracterized past their initial eras.

I've remarked often enough on The Shadow's downfall, how the clever, thoughtful, compassionate, even humorous and outright friendly (if theatrical about it) Shadow of the pulps, has been so far removed from those traits over decades of adaptations, that I have to link posts where I point out that these traits used to be there in the first place, because they've all been eclipsed by the image of a trigger-happy butcher if not outright barking fascist. And it's worse for Wonder Woman, because her main defining trait was her pacifism and kindness and loving diplomacy, the lasso as a tool for careful and non-violent submission when necessary, whose very first story goes to such lengths to describe the contrast between the Amazons and Mars, the stupid and brutish god of war who points a sword at the world where Aphrodite would point a finger proclaiming love, and now, The Sword has become an irrevocable part of Wonder Woman's image, as is the jokes about her being the member of the Justice League willing to snap necks and rip spines if necessary, the most direct anti-thesis of everything that defined her initially.

Perhaps you could tell a story about the conciliation of these traits, the how and why these have become such commonplace for the two. They may still be heroes and agents of justice and good and whatnot, but something has clearly been missing from them for decades, a spark of humanity and imagination and care that's made the two of them so, so much worse off for the lack of it.

Perhaps there could be a story about the two helping each other find it again. Perhaps no one knows better the dangers of getting lost in the darkness of man's world than The Shadow, and perhaps there's no DC hero that could cut through the darkness to pull it back moreso than Wonder Woman. Idealism and reality, light and dark, the way things are vs the way they could be, and most of all, Knowledge and Truth coming together in the fight for a better world that the two have been immersed in for so long.

There are some better opportunities for the two to meet compared to Superman and Batman, as Wonder Woman has usually been grounded in real life events around The Shadow's time period. The movie has placed her debut during The Great War, and several stories have been told about Wonder Woman fighting during World War 2, two conflicts that The Shadow lived through, the first of which being a highly integral part of his characterization. Little adjustments would be necessary to explain their intrusions into each other's worlds. Past the initial distrust and a conciliation of their differences? I could see the two getting along better actually than The Shadow might with Superman and Batman, or Wonder Woman with other pulp heroes. They are soldiers who chose to pick their battles, who only found their true calling once they've exhausted all other options as to what they could be, and who take on a myriad of roles for the sake of their missions. They confront the darkest aspects of the world in their own ways as they are both shaped by it, and they affect the world in their own ways, one far more discreetly than the other

So yeah I actually think there's a lot you could do with crossing these two, maybe more so even than crossing over The Shadow with Batman or Superman again. I was surprised over the course of researching for this ask at just how much I find myself liking Wonder Woman even better than the other two, and frustrated at the sheer mishandling of the character. I'd like these two to meet, maybe punch some Nazis together, maybe help each other reconnect with their original missions.

Or alternative, @jcogginsa pitched me the idea of Wonder Woman just taking The Shadow on a vacation to get him to chill out a little. Probably not on Themyscira, even if they let men in, the Amazons would be asking Diana why is she letting this unholy ghost from Tartarus or servant of Hades anywhere near the island, but somewhere where she knows how to set up a good party. I love when Diana's allowed to have fun, and she might be the only superhero strong enough to successfully force The Shadow to loosen up a bit, let him interact with the world on less controlling terms for a change.

Also I desperately want a crossover between The Holiday Girls and The Agents. I want Etta Candy and Margo to go shopping or shoot some Nazis together, either way works but I will not accept any crossover between The Shadow and Wonder Woman that doesn't let their long-neglected supporting casts shine.

[faakeid]

fab nygmobblepot moments that remind you of kd uwu

OMGGGG AHDAHDUIADHAD

I want to use this moment to be sorry to everyone that follows me but keeps seeing my blog full of Nygmobs/Smaylor instead of kaisoo. I usually don’t get attached to otps like this and it happened in an unexpected way for me. But it’s here and I need to compensate for all the years I didn’t watch Gotham and had no idea about Nygmobs spamming everyone and making my heart warm.

But in general, nygmobblepot isn’t a vision of ideal relationship. Both Edward and Oswald (their surnames Cobblepot and Nygma were the ones who originated this name) are stupid and do stupid shit to each other during most of the series. So, a lot of moments related with the actors counterpart (Robin is the actor who plays Oswald and Cory who plays Ed) reminds me of kaisoo more. But a warning here! Although they have a HUGE chemistry on and off screen, they’re mostly friends. Robin is married for almost ten years so it doesn’t mean their closeness is romantic or sexual. But still, some details remind me of kd.

Similarities with nygmobs:

Height difference: it applies to Smaylor as well because it’s their height but it’s really visible in the series. Cory is a bit taller than JI I think and Robin is like 1.65 but KS is not that taller (I can’t believe he’s 1.73 at all, sorry). But, again, this factor is evident during the series and in some moments and it’s cute.

(the way he moves his feet to reach Ed’s head ;_;)

(when they hug, Oswald barely reaches his shoulders [their hugs are the equivalent to kisses in Gotham])

the closest gif I could find where we can see kd’s height difference without me stealing other people’s gifs.

Penguin reference? That’s pretty obvious. Of course I didn’t start shipping nygmobs because one of them is small and has the Penguin nickname but it made so much easier for me to read some of their fics with kd as characters because they fit the profile so much! And also, I believe KD would totally fit the “murder husbands” couple if someone did a fanfic where they just kill everyone. The closest I remember of a fanfic with this criteria is Juice Pouche where Kyungsoo is a vampire and he protects Jongin and Jongin is kind of badass as well. But the kd fandom needs more fics like this. There’s also “(Before the night is over) come see me” where KS is also a vampire and JI a young werewolf but it focuses more on their relationship than a murder husbands idea Gotham shows so well. 

How they met: Gotham’s history has a lot of differences if you compare with other universes, so keep that in mind. In Gotham, Ed works with GCPD but doesn’t feel like himself with the good side. Oswald is the character that spices things up and is a rage of death and destruction and manipulation. But Oswald is infatuated with Jim Gordon (so isn’t the first time it’s implied Penguin is gay) but he goes to the police department to see him. Ed sees him and wants to talk to him no matter the cost. And he does that... And things don’t end that friendly for him because Oswald thinks he’s a weirdo and asks him to fuck off, basically. It reminded me of kd’s first meeting where KS was the one admiring JI all along but JI get frightned. But, during their second meeting, they bond and become friends. For Nygmobs it takes more time for their second meeting but they end up developing and being in good terms :’)

Their personas, sort of: Ed is the tall one, younger and logic. Oswald is the oldest, smaller and that thinks with his heart. I love how JI could show the more logic side of himself during the last few years and, again, while reading Nygmobs fics using kd names, it was easy to fit the profile for me (that was during the time I wasn’t too deep into nygmobs and I didn’t knok them that well. KS looks cold and deatached and that’s why many people got impressed when he said, during Knowing Bros that he would choose love over friendship. He doesn’t play the part but, considering all the context, it fits him pretty well and reading this description of Oswald made me so familiar because it fits KD well. Ofc I don’t know their private lives and whatever but it’s just the impression I had as a viewer and random person;

Drama issue: when I say drama here, it’s related with how people percieve the two OTPs and how different people visualize LGBT relationship in media. Nygmobblepot had a lot of drama involved because they’re the fucking Riddler and Penguin, two of the most famous Batman villains. People saw them in different sorts of media before and others idolize those characters because of videogames and comics. So, when Oswald mentioned expressedly that he was in love with Edward, it caused an uproar in the fandom. People accused the producers and Robin of messing with the comic canon because the fucking Penguin became gay??? Robin was outspoken about the homophobia behind those statements since he’s a gay man himself but yeah, the drama existed. Part of the people invovled with the series rooted for Nygmobblepot, including some writers and the actors (Cory was the one with ambiguous messages about the nature of their relationship but it’s not even close what happened with other series like Supergirl, Supernatural and Sherlock). But it was aired by FOX, a right wing channel and, as you may imagine, they didn’t become canon per se. Actually, after Oswald said he was in love with Ed and planned on confessing to him, the writers presented a clone of Ed’s ex girlfriend with no explanation and purpose, only to separate them for most part of the series future. After that, some people seemed to have FORGOTTEN Oswald was once in love with Edward, rationalizing many things that are hard to explain with a “bro explanation”, they had a scene where the characters would have evolved even more but it was CUTTED and CHANGED and execs added the sentence “we’re brothers” to make EXPLICIT that Nygmobblepot’s relationship wouldn’t be interpreted as a romance at the end of the series (but, honestly, the actors went for the romance path anyway, the deleted scenes and the final episode can’t convince me otherwise).

What’s related with KD, may you ask? I think you’re familiar with all the drama KD faced since 2016 and how many stuff exploded during that time. How many parts are involved into creating a certain image and shifting it to be appealing and “friendly” is similar with what happens with idols. It’s no secret now about many scandals of bullying and other issues that are considered problematic and how they need to be pushed under the rug for companies so idols can make money and be profitable. Especially for male idols, it’s important that they are viewed as desirable and an object of the fans affections. That’s why he needs to be handsome and kind and look like a person that doesn’t exist. If an idol is openly gay, this person isn’t viewed by the major public with the same interest because they can’t fit the fantasy. That’s why scandals involving idols being gay need to be forgotten and deleted from people’s minds, otherwise that celebrity is ostracized. Although we tend to see the Ocident as “progressive”, there’s similar things happening in that industry. If a celebrity is openly LGBT, they don’t receive certain roles or opportunities because of it. There’s still a huge stigma that needs to be broken and we, as a society, are so far way from it. But recognizing those differences exist it’s a step forward.

Similarities with Smaylor

For me, one of the reasons Nygmobblepot works so well is because of the actors. They portrait a good chemistry because of their friendship off screen and some non verbal signs they display around each other are amazing. Those are things that remind me more of KD as we see them in a lot of moments. So, I wanted space to show those comparisons below:

Mutual admiration: it’s something both Smaylor and KD display a LOT and is extrememly outspoken. I really love watching their old interviews because the affection and admiration is so genuine it makes me drawn to them despite not being romantically involved.

(full gifset)

(there are more moments than these but I don’t want to steal gifs and there’s not much on the gif research and that sucks. Same with KD’s).

Stares and touches: Robin was the responsible for the deep stares and Cory for the random touches. There’s so many gifs of it that is hilarious. It’s like JI divided himself in two cells because we know he’s more known for both >.<

(Cory was touching Robin all the way during this interview rip)

(the gifset!!!)

You’re pretty moment: Robin, like KS, is the one that mentions about Cory/JI’s physical attributes. They have a moment pretty similar and, for KD its famous among shippers:

(gif link)

(actually, Robin called Cory dashingly handsome but its okay)

Cory lost it

There’s another series of gifsets with Robin calling Cory handsome LMAOO

:))))

Synchronization: for specialists in body language, it’s a factor that shows two people are close. That’s because of the mirror neurons we have that makes us copy movements, actions or words that someone we have empathy/we are close with do or say. Both kd and smaylor do this and it’s really soft.

(one of the classics)

(classic 2)

whole gifset (i love this interview so much)

(gif)

The fact the actors came up with their OTP names: people tend to forget that KD’s real otp name (according with Jongin) is dika. Cory also came up with Nygmobblepot name and Smaylor too <3

So, meanwhile Nygmobs has thropies that work a lot with KD AUs, Smaylor has healthy dynamics seen in public appearances KD made. Like I said above, there’s a huge polemic about shipping Smaylor romantically because Robin is married. On social media, is visible he loves his husband and it’s pretty cute to see. Cory himself mentioned that their relationship was sort of a platonic friendship (whatever that means) but it’s really genuine in terms of affections and display of admiration, something KD has as well.

Probably someone will question that it may changed the way I see KD or if now I ship them as bros. Nothing about that changed. With KD, although there are some similar details, there are internal AND external factors that made me support them in a romantic perspective in the first place. And it didn’t change. 

But both of them (Nygmobs too) make me feel that I’m testimoning something genuine, which is really hard in both kpop and media universes. In one side, we have a LOT of fanservice. And, in the other, it’s mostly a work interaction with lots of queerbating. Yes, Gotham has queerbating aspects in it but it’s not full of queerbating, if it makes sense. The message the actors and some writers wanted to convey are there and really display a romantic direction with character evolution and growth. And, considering the way media is nowadays, it’s nice to see.