#tim is just so teenager core that it works for him being the cool robin

[buhbyebabyblue]

nobody robined more than tim drake. R.I.P to the others (literally and also not literally) but he is just so Robin™️ they just can’t compare

[ladymordecai]

I have been reading DC comics fic again for the first time in like . . . a decade-ish? because I'm a masochist, apparently. Finding new stuff and reading old favorites and being reminded of canon and all my thinky thoughts about superheroes and specifically Tim Drake, because he's my Robin and I imprinted (much like he did).

canon has put that boy through the wringer in the last decade, including smushing like, all his tragedies from 15 years of comics into like, ten seconds of comics time. I was reminded of the storyline where his dad found out he was robin and threatened batman into making him give it up, which at the time pissed me off because it was both a clear illustration of what a terrible parent jack drake was (in a way the narrative itself didn't seem to get??), and also because everything about it was so obviously For The Plot.

There was like, nothing in that storyline that I remember that actually came from the characters. It read like the writer or editors or whatever TPTB* decided they wanted to write a story about robin's dad finding out about robin and making him stop**. it's an obvious story for the only robin at the time who wasn't an orphan, and one of few kid heroes whose parents didn't know about them, and also it was Batman and Robin! The Drama! it so clearly had nothing to do with TIM when he should've been the main character, and it made me so angry, and then that anger was compounded because TPTB used it as an excuse to screw over Steph and then make the only non-orphan robin into an orphan, i guess just because. I hated it then, I hate it now.

BUT

I have a lot more perspective now, and have read a lot more (both published work and fanfic), and I have had a thought that I cannot believe I didn't have back then and that I've never heard before anywhere. (which doesn't mean somebody else hasn't had it, i just haven't found it)

One of my core objections about the storyline is that Tim's dad didn't figure out his ID, he just found the Robin uniform in Tim's room. Which is so out of character that it should invalidate the entire storyline.

This is the kid who wore another mask under his mask to prevent his other superhero friends from SEEING HIS FACE--not knowing his ID, just seeing his face. The kid who kept his identity from goddamn ORACLE for a while there. The kid who was able to sneak out and photo-stalk BATMAN AND ROBIN for literal years as a preteen and never get caught. Nobody ever knew anything about Robin III unless Tim made a deliberate decision to reveal the information. This had been a cornerstone of his character for 20+ years. Robin III's secret identity was arguably second only to Oracle's in-universe.

Yet that entire story rested on the idea that Jack Drake, inattentive parent maybe-kinda-misguidedly-authoritarianly trying to connect with his son for the first time ever, snoops in Tim's room and finds proof that Tim is Robin?? AND that Bruce Wayne is Batman?!?? Tim, whose best friends still call him "Rob," left proof of his identity and Batman's somewhere his civilian father could find it??!??!

There is NO WAY THAT MAKES SENSE. There is no version of canon in which that makes sense.

Things that would make sense: Is that old poster of the Flying Graysons how you met the Waynes? or Hey So I Noticed You Have Three Half-Empty First Aid Kits, Talk To Me? or Dad! Did you read my freaking diary and find whatever normal-teenager angst I wrote as a cover and possibly also some real civvie-ID angst mixed in?! Not cool!

OR

Somebody set that up.

That was a freaking supervillain plot.

There's like. No other explanation for what Tim's dad found. Either a supervillain figured out Tim's ID and took him off the playing board in the way most likely to disrupt as many other superheroes as possible, or a supervillain who didn't know Robin's ID mind-controlled him into revealing it for nefarious reasons.

So uh. I really don't want to get into writing DC fic, because I have shit to do that is not that, but SOMEBODY NEEDS TO TELL THAT STORY. Like, either all the characters involved don't contract plot stupidity and thus realize there's something hinky going on, or at some point after that in canon new evidence comes to light or an existing rogue says something suspicious or . . . there's just so many possibilities.

AND THEY'RE ALL MORE INTERESTING AND MORE IN-CHARACTER THAN CANON, DC!!!

(the creators involved in that storyline should feel very very lucky i don't remember who they are and am too lazy to look them up. because i would bring up how bad they are at storytelling every chance i got, forever)

--translations for fandom young'uns and some snark:

*TPTB: the powers that be, shorthand for the vast array of people in charge of multi-creator stories run by companies, such as tv shows, movies, and comics

**Buffy did it better

[river-bottom-nightmare]

listening to a batfam playlist and i've been thinking.

in an honestly rare occurrence for such a high profile set of characters, and unlike most other batman-eque character archetypes, romance was never,,,,part of the Batman Story. sure there are writers that prioritize it, heaps of fanfic and fanart, and more recently a lot of promotion for giving bruce a partner, but if you look at bruce's story, from the moment he was created as a character to now, romance never really was a major point in his life and in his story.

the event that shattered bruce was the death of his parents, the slaughter of his family. and despite training with the league and meeting talia, despite his complicated relationship with selina, the one thing that helped bruce start to put himself back together again was dick. the fragile glass that was his soul had fractured into sharp edges when his parents died, and the only thing that smoothed the edges was bruce becoming a parent himself.

bruce's story is about losing his family, and then finding it again. not through meeting the love of his life and settling down with them, not even through the found family trope with the justice league (which i honestly would have enjoyed.) no, the "happy ending" to bruce wayne's story came when he adopted a kid, and then adopted ten more.

and this is,,,,sort of mirrored in his children?

i'm not downplaying how important kori and babs are to dick, because they really mean a lot to him. but both of them were his friends first. dick places a lot of emphasis on friendship, and the importance of platonic relationships. the titans are the reason dick is the man he is today, and dick recognizes that.

(it's honestly probably the reason you can ship him with anyone, and why every ship with him and one of his friends works so beautifully: every single one of his friendships is so close and fulfilling and mutually loving. and we've all been conditions to only think of romantic relationships that way. but dick's story, the found family he discovers with the titans, proves that platonic relationships are just as important. but also dick and wally are gay i'm sorry that's just how it is.)

we really don't get to see jason interacting with people much before outlaws. and i'll be completely honest, i haven't actually finished all of outlaws, neither the runs with roy and kori nor the runs with artemis and biz, so this is mostly going on what i've seen from the fandom. you can ship jason with any member of the outlaws the way you can with dick and the titans, but at the end of the day, they're his friends. he trusts them, he relies on them, he depends on them, and he simply enjoys their company.

with tim, it's a bit different. he was created as a mirror for every "normal" boy in america, so they can see themselves as robin too. and what does every supposed average teenage boy want? dc comics is quick to answer: a girlfriend. steph was created literally for the sole purpose of being tim's love interest. but as tim's character evolved, and as fans began influencing him, we wound up with young justice: literally one of the most close knit hero groups in dc, with the core four even more so.

i mean, yes, tim and kon are in love. but also, tim, cassie, bart, and conner are an unstoppable team made of perfectly complimentary chaotic energies. this is titans all over again: those platonic relationships made a huge impact on tim's life. i'd argue they meant more to him than steph.

cass and damian are more similar, in a sense. both of their important relationships were not based in friendship, but in family. bruce was absolutely pivotal in cass' life, and he was a wonderful guiding presence, reliable figure, and father to her. the same with damian and dick. for the two of them, parental figures were the thing that made them whole again, the thing that saved them from their prewritten destinies. eventually, that morphed into all types of familial relationships with the rest of the batfam.

anyway, i just think it's cool that romance has never been a priority for any batfam members, both in-universe and in meta terms.

or maybe this is me just having a soft spot for found family. who knows.

[flashfuture]

hello do you mind explaining all the amazons?

All of them????

Okay uh I'll break down the ones i at least know about anyone who's deeper into the WonderFam please jump in I don't really interact with them that much.

But we've got

Diana Prince: Wonder Woman

Our Golden Age Princess of the Amazons. During the Golden and Silver ages she came from Paradise Island. She was truly animated clay here and several hundred years old by the time of WWII. During the Golden Age Diana married Steve Trevor and they had a daughter named Hippolyta "Lyta" Trevor. (My break down of Lyta would be an essay in itself and she's not really an Amazon so). Diana was a member of the JSA here.

During the Silver Age Diana also married Steve but no kids. She rescued Donna Troy from a fire and sent her to Paradise Island to be raised by Hippolyta making Donna and Diana sisters. This is the first timeline to mention Ares is her grandfather technically as he made Hippolyta. Diana lost her powers at some point. She got really really good at martial arts and then two years later got her powers back. She supposedly died during Infinite Crisis but then you know didn't. During Convergence she killed a vampire Joker. That was fun. In this timeline Diana was a founding member of the JLA.

Okay and post crisis New Earth Diana is the first one to say Diana is from Themyscira. It was still called Paradise Island sometimes. She was molded from clay. Diana in this time was not a founding member of the JLA but came to America after it was founded. (I think Infinite Crisis retconned her to be a founding member but idk) Diana has become a member of the Trinity alongside Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Superman (Clark Kent). 

The Prime Earth Diana is the one from Flashpoint and onwards. She’s now the daughter of Zeus. In New52 if I recall right she was made much much younger like in her 20s and explored mankind in the modern era. The Doomsday clock thing reestablished her WWII origins. She was also said again to have been born during probably the Hellenistic Period (they said classical antiquity and that’s you know just a few thousand years) She just helped out in Death Metals and is now doing something with Infinite Frontier unclear I don’t really know what Prime Earth Diana has been up to lately. 

So on Earth-Two, Earth-One, and New Earth Diana was the granddaughter of Ares and as such her life span was greatly extended. On Prime Earth as the direct daughter of Zeus she is immortal. 

Donna Troy: Troia/Wonder Girl 

Donna is a tricky one. She was introduced real quick to fill the girl role on the Teen Titans cause the boys were getting a little too gay. So started Silver Age Earth 1. Okay so basically her origin kept changing but the one that’s ‘canon’ is she was created to be a playmate for Diana but was abducted and kept being cursed to live tragic lives in New Cronus. Right around the Titans era okay Donna was rescued by Diana and brought back to Earth. Donna was the one to suggest the Teen Titans name. Donna is a member of the Fab Five along with Robin/Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Aqualad/Tempest (Garth of Shayaris), Kid Flash/Flash (Wally West), and Speedy/Arsenal (Roy Harper)

Donna married Terry Long when she was 19 and they had Robert, got divorced, they died in a car crash. 

After Crisis on Infinite Earth Donna sorta realized all those ‘lives’ she led were other version of her which she was all of now. And also Donna was believed to be the Goddess of the Moon. She had to stop a sun-eater or whatever but failed (Hal came in with a clutch it it’s cool)

Donna also had to fix some shit during Infinite Crisis and ended up on a Universe Hopping road trip with Kyle Rayner and Jason Todd to find Ray Palmer for Final Crisis or something. She was killed by a Superman Android during the Teen Titans/Young Justice Crossover. (Edit thanks to that anon for this I legit couldn’t remember how she died)

And Prime Earth Donna was made to destroy Diana. She you know didn’t. 

Look I’ll be real I know next to nothing about what the New52 tried to do with Donna. I just go by her original origins of being Diana’s sister. 

On Earth-One and New Earth Donna’s life span was greatly extended and on Prime Earth she is stated to be Immortal as on Prime Earth Amazonian’s on Themyscira were granted immortality. 

Nubia: 

She is like Diana’s twin made from darker clay on Earth-One which is the silver age Earth. Nubia was actually slightly older than Diana but she was stolen as a baby by Ares who was going by Mars. Mars/Ares is Nubia’s grandfather and he wanted her help in taking down the Amazons. Nubia was raised on Floating Island (or slaughter island as Mars/Ares called it). Nubia fought Diana and hesitated to kill her leading to a draw. Nubia returned to Floating Island and at some point Supergirl had to save her life from poison of some sort. 

On New Earth she went by Nu’Bia and was just a random Amazon, her job was to guard the Doom’s Doorway which is an entrance to the River Styx. She was not Diana’s sister. 

On Prime Earth Nubia is the daughter of Hippolyta and the half-sister of Diana not her twin. Nubia went undercover pretending to work with Darkseid before Themyscira could recover and rally to fight. Nubia is currently the Queen of the Amazons. She was given the crown by her mother, Hippolyta during the Dark Metals event. 

As with Donna on Earth-One and New Earth Nubia had a greatly extended lifespan and on Prime Earth Amazons are immortal. 

Cassie Sandsmark: Wonder Girl 

She is a New Earth entry who was for the new Young Justice team. She is the daughter of Zeus and Dr. Helena Sandsmark. Here as Ares is Cassie’s half-brother and technically the father of the Amazon’s this means Cassie is Diana’s great-aunt. 

Cassie as a girl was able to request a Boon of Zeus who she didn’t know was her father at the time I believe and demanded real superpowers. Her mother Helena was able to turn off Cassie’s superpowers at the start as well. Cassie was trained by Artemis for awhile. Cassie became Wonder Girl in honor of Donna Troy who handed over her old suit. Cassie joined Young Justice as a teenager and would later be on the Teen Titans. Cassie has become a part of the Core Four for Young Justice alongside Robin/Red Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (Kon-El/Conner Kent), and Impulse (Bart Allen). 

Cassie’s best friends outside of the core four are Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) and Cissie King-Jones (Arrowette). Cassie and Conner Kent used to date as well and she was in love with him before he died during Infinite Crisis. 

On Prime Earth Cassie is the daughter of Lennox and the granddaughter of Zeus. In this version Diana is Cassie’s aunt not the other way around. Cassie is still a member of the Young Justice team here. I don’t exactly remember what was happening during the New52. She was still Cassie unlike Kon and Bart who’d been replaced. But during Rebirth she went with the other members of Young Justice to rescue Conner Kent from Gemworld. She is currently still a member of the Titans. 

On New Earth as the daughter of Zeus, Cassie is an immortal who would not age further once she reached her prime age (like 27 or so). On Prime Earth as the granddaughter of Zeus and the daughter of Lennox Cassie’s life is extremely extended. 

Artemis Grace:

Artemis of Bana-Mighdall comes from a separate group of Amazons not on Themyscira or Paradise Island. Bana-Mighdall is a tribe of Amazons in Egypt who left Greece millennia ago. 

On New Earth Artemis left her home at 14 and wound up working for Ra’s Al Ghul before returning to her home. There was a competition to see who would be the next Wonder Woman as Hippolyta foresaw Wonder Woman die and wished to spare her daughter the fate. Hippolyta ensured Artemis won the competition. Artemis was shunned by most of the world including the Justice League who refused to see her as the true Wonder Woman. Artemis was also thought to be too violent. Artemis would later die in a battle with a demon fulfilling the prophecy of Wonder Woman dying. 

Artemis got out of hell eventually and was given the job of training Cassie Sandsmark by Diana and would later train Supergirl in combat as well. 

On Prime Earth Artemis was raised being told she would be Queen of the Amazons. She was desperate to prove herself and wanted to be the Shim’Tar of the Bana Amazons. Artemis’ best friend and lover Akila was chosen instead. Without Akila by her side Artemis felt her home had nothing left to offer and set out on her own. She helped stop an invasion of Qurac into Bana as well. 

Artemis then joined the Outlaws and worked with Red Hood (Jason Todd) and Bizarro, a botched clone of Superman. 

On New Earth Artemis had a greatly extended life span. On Prime Earth he Amazons were gifted immortality but those who left for Bana-Mighdall lost this gift so it is most likely that Artemis has the same extended lifespan from New Earth. 

Grace Choi:

Grace on New Earth comes from the same group as Artemis in Bana-Mighdall. Grace’s mother is an Amazon but her father was a Korean American. Grace grew up in America in the foster care system. She ran away at 9 but was kidnapped and sold into a child prostitution ring. She managed to escape at age 12 after her powers kicked in. Grace began fightining both for pay and for fun and worked as a bouncer at a meta club in Metropolis. 

Grace worked for the Outsiders for awhile at the request of Roy Harper an ex-fling and good friend of hers. She helped rescue Lian from the same child protsition ring she was in as a child and generally had lots of adventures with the Outsiders. 

Later it was revealed she had Bana roots but Grace refused to join them as they were currently you know sieging down the US. Batman was briefly worried about her loyalties but Grace proved she had no loyalty or ties to the Bana Amazons. 

Grace has returned to the Prime Earth in Infinite Frontier and in Festival of Heroes and it seems like nothing has changed with her so far. 

Grace has increased longevity of her life. She is listed as half-amazon because only her mother is a Bana Amazon but all Amazons only have their mother who are Amazons so I don’t really see why she isn’t a full Amazon. Anyways increased life span. 

Jason:

He is Diana’s twin on Prime Earth. He was sent away cause you know no men on Themyscira. Jason was raised by Glaucus who was a member of the Argonauts crew and worked under the original Jason of Greek Myth. Who Jason was named for. 

Jason was raised on the Aegean Coast by Glaucus and became a Fisherman. Jason was trained in his youth by his half-brother Hercules. 

Jason worked briefly with Diana but wasn’t sure how to be a hero. There was a period where Darksied’s daughter tricked him but Diana talked him down. And Jason saved Diana’s life during the Dark Metals event. 

He is currently in the Dark Mutliverse living with a boyfriend on the Aegean Coast. 

As the son of Zeus, Jason is an immortal. 

⚔️ Also for fun the Weapons:⚔️

Lasso of Truth: Wielded by Diana Prince

Originally imbued with it’s power by Aphrodite and Athena later after crisis forged by Hephaestus and powered by Hestia, this lasso forces the truth from whoever it has ensnared. It is indestructible.

Lasso of Persuasion: Wielded by Donna Troy

This Lasso forces someone to do what the wielder demands. This requires Donna’s or whoever wields the lasso to have a stronger will then who they’re using the lasso on. It is indestructible.

Lasso of Lightning: Wielded by Cassie Sandsmark 

This lasso was created by Ares and gifted to his half-sister Cassie Sandsmark on New Earth. This lasso channels Zeus’ lightning and can make someone experience intense rage if they are caught by the lasso. The power of the lasso is directly correlated to Cassie’s rage levels. 

Lasso of Submission: Wielded by Artemis Grace

Originally from Earth-3 this lasso has the ability to make someone obey any commands even those to inspire false love. After Superwoman (Lois Lane) of Earth-3 was killed Diana took the lasso and gifted it to Artemis. 

Bow of Ra: Wielded by Artemis Grace

The Bow of Ra was a gift from the Egyptian sun god, Ra to the Bana-Midghall Amazons. This bow goes to the Shim’Tar and forges a special bond with them. Those who are not the Shim’Tar cannot wield the bow and further if you are not a candidate to be a Shim’Tar the bow will harm or even kill you. The bow requires intense willpower to use or it can drive the wielder mad. Akila was driven mad with the power of the bow and had to be killed by Diana and Artemis. It is said to have the power to destroy stars so this bow is incredibly dangerous and powerful if not wielded by the right person. 

(Bonus Donna used to use a lasso that was golden but held no specific magical properties.) 

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Okay, so I've been working a lot recently on my version of the DCU, particularly the Batman side of it, so quick recap on stuff I did to a variety of the villains:

I lengthened out Harvey Dent's fall from grace extensively, and filled in a lot of the gaps: in most versions I've read (which... isn't many, I'm not that well-versed in Two-Face lore) there's a gap between his introduction and him getting acided, but after said aciding he almost immediately goes to the robbing the Second National Bank on 2nd Street at 2nd Avenue thing, and honestly I think there's way more opportunities with a slowly corrupting man in the role of District Attorney.

Scarecrow doesn't have Fear Toxin at all. He keeps trying to get it, but the ingredients for it are really hard to get so it's only deployed in the extremely rare circumstances that Crane has both all the ingredients and time to make it. What that means is that most of Batman and Scarecrow's fights are elaborate games of theatricality and deception, to steal from Nolan, Scarecrow trying to hide which component of the toxin he's after from Batman and both of them trying to scare the other into giving something away.

There are two distinct versions of Poison Ivy - the first is a femme fatale who uses pheromones to seduce and then kill people and who is regarded as a mentally unstable ecoterrorist, with no-one believing her claims of being an Avatar of the Green. The second is literally Gaia's Vengeance, a supernatural being that is almost completely detached from humanity aside from a few morals and an attachment to Harleen Quinzel as the only doctor to not see her talk of the Green as the core of her problems. The two are sharply divided by that arc from Alan Moore's Swamp Thing when Alec goes to Gotham and beats the shit out of Batman, during which he dropped in on Arkham and taught Ivy everything about this connection to the Green that she couldn't even express because humanity doesn't have a word for it. Also the second version of Ivy works a lot like Batman's version of Mxyzptlk or Circe - an antagonist that Bruce has no chance against in a straight fight, and so he has to convince her that she should stop her plans without registering himself to her as a threat, because if he does he's screwed.

Speaking of Harley, like with Harvey I've lengthened out her backstory and added one key element: she's Batman's contact inside Arkham Asylum, largely because Arkham is still Arkham and she's one of the only people inside actually interested in helping the people locked up in there. Her fall is long, drawn out, and in no small part exacerbated by the institution of Arkham in general, with the guy who dresses as a giant bat being really the only person who doesn't think she's incompetent because she's got boobs and diagnosed schizophrenia.

Ra's al Ghul, on top of being influenced by my love of all things Assassin's Creed, has a constant problem of changing his nemeses. As he's introduced he's more of an Alfred villain than anything else - the reason he's equal parts obsessed with Bruce joining him and laughably bad at selling joining him to Bruce is because 'Get the Detective to join me' is Step 1 on his master plan of getting revenge on Alfred for killing him back in the 60s or 70s whichever is more Bond, and so he genuinely only sees Bruce as a pawn in his game against Alfred. Eventually he clues in and starts treating Bruce as a worthy adversary, but even then he spend more time bothering Tim because hey, corrupting the proxy son of the guy you're fighting worked brilliantly the last time, didn't it?

It should be noted that whilst Ra's elaborate game of pass the antagonist is going on, there's an shadow war between the League of Assassins, who follow Ra's and wear black robes and hoods, and the Order of Assassins led by Nyssa Raatko who wear white robes and hoods with red sashes and blades beneath their wrists have I spelled out what they're a ripoff of yet. Nyssa incidentally is a mishmash of a load of different versions of her - she's in a relationship with Sara Lance like in the Arrowverse, centuries older than Talia like in Death and the Maidens, violently opposed to Ra's cobtinued use of the Lazarus Pits like in the Arkham Knight DLC, and because she's mainly seen in The Hooded Man (i.e. the Green Arrow thing) there's a lot of Nasir from Robin of Sherwood there too.

You would not believe how hard I had to convince myself to not go with The Batman's version of the Riddler. Frankly it's still up in the air, it could go either way, it's either that or Eddie does a couple of brain-teaser crimes before giving up and going into PI work with Gordon. ...actually, fuck it, both of them, I would kill to have a story with Gordon trying to convince people he's completely trustworthy whilst his partner sounds like Freddy Krueger.

Because there's a lot of vampire villains in Batman stories, I just went 'fuck it' and replaced the Court of Owls with a secret community of vampires. They may still have the owl masks, I think they're kinda cool, but there less 'antagonists' and more one more social ill Batman needs to manage as both Batman and Bruce Wayne.

The Killing Joke is not a thing - whilst Babs does become Oracle, the Joker is not at all responsible for it. He may be responsible for Jason's death, I haven't figured that out yet, but he's by no means the multiple mass murderer DC likes to portray him as - he's a hedonist with a taste for puns, he only occasionally kills people and only when it's funny to do so, he's not a serial killer (ironically explaining it like that goes some way to convincing me why he isn't responsible for Jason's death).

He doesn't technically count as a Batman villain, but I honestly think Deathstroke may be my favourite character to write about in this entire thing, and honestly I love everything about him. The key idea behind this - and one I attribute completely to this post on @davidmann95 - is that Slade, convinced that he lives not in the DCU but rather in something like The Boys or a Youngblood comic, is completely oblivious to how the laws of this world work, and so no matter how physically strong he is he keeps getting dunked on by teenagers because that's his place in this world. But more than that - his conviction that he is the hero of this story leads him to miss that literally everyone in his supporting cast is better than him - his children are better fighters, his ex-wife is a better soldier, the person he thinks is his best friend is secretly manipulating him - because Wintergreen's the real supervillain here, in a twist that has a fascinating backstory both in and out of universe. Slade Wilson's life is one hilarious black comedy piece after another, a comedy he's incapable of seeing - and one that, because he acts like he's in a Mark Millar comic, he's completely deserving of.

And I think that's it? There are a few villains - Hush above all else - that I don't want to touch with a ten-foot pole, and a few that I feel don't really need changing - Freeze and Killer Croc spring to mind. And then there's the ones like Penguin or Bane, who I feel like I'd change but I have no real idea of how to change them yet. Expect a reblog with another block of text once I figure that out.

[nefelibata-agibilibus]

Why Young Justice is a disappointment

I just rewatched Young Justice, and I’m thinking about the disillusion I felt, and why, for a few days I have been thinking about this, and I want to write it, this will be a long post, and is just me venting about my feelings.

Why I like Young Justice

I love to see cartoons, series and movies. I always liked superheroes, and, when I found Young Justice I loved it, the animation was great, the fights were cool, the characters, the plot, It was awesome, into the things I like are:

The big plot: It was awesome, as we learned about they machinations of the villains, we met them, the idea of the Light, this group of people, using the Justice League, in the fight between Darkseid and Vandal Savage, the two of them conquering the universe, waiting to fight each other in the last, ultimate, fight.

The way we learned about the Light was cool too, in the first season we don’t know who they are, we watch a lot of people planning things in the background, before knowing what they want we know who they are, and, by learning all the kind of villains are part of this, we understand the plans are big, mixing technology, chaos magic and metahumans powers, with influence on the ocean, the world politics and one of the greatest group of assassins, even alien conquerors.

The core of the show: We can say this show, deep down, is about found family and teenagers stepping up.

The team is about found family, in the first season Artemis, Conner and M'gann are alone, and they found family on the team and their allies, Mount Justice became the house of Zatanna after Zatara puts on Nabu’s helmet, they are kind of a surface family for Kaldur’ahm, in the second season a lot of people live there, and call the place home, this is the new home for Bart, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach found friends on each other, in the third season the team is a family for Violet, Bryon, Vic, Tara and Forager, and the youth center for metahumans is meant to be a home, they even buy a new place to be their quarters.

This is specially for Artemis, she was raised by abusive parents, Sportmasters trained her to fight, in the comics we see she knows other villains kids, Jade ran away, Artemis wanted to ran away, and her mother is manipulative, she cries so Artemis accepted entering Gotham Academy, despite not wanted to do it, her mother also uses Lian to make her quit the superhero life and enter a relation with Will.

At the beginning she doesn’t trust the team, she hides the truth about her origins, and she is really worried they would find out, at the end she trust them, and, after five years, she and Wally even consider start their own family, in the mental playground M'gann created is clear they talked about marriage and having babies, she offers a home for Violet and Tara, not only teaching them how to control their powers and work as a team, but offering kindness, and that kindness saves Garfield life and helps Tara cut the relation she had with the Light, both of them were in abusive places, and a group of friends they made are the ones helping to be better, they choose the kind and loving people over the manipulative and abusive.

The second core of the show is teenagers asking to not be treated like kids without agency, untrusty of the league secrets, they can make decisions too, they can fight crime too, the world the grown ups are crafting is theirs too, and, yeah, the grown ups are more mature, can take better decisions because they have more experience, their brain is fully developed, and, at the beginning, Red Tornado, Black Canary and Batman look after the kids, keep and eye on them, assign the missions, do the training, Black Canary is a teurapet too!. They are taken care of physically and emotionally, but they ask for trust, Garfield and Conner said it, work with me or move away, this is my world too, and, if I can take decisions about what’s happening to it, I will act.

Artemis and Kaldur’ahm act won’t have worked without the team, they were trusted enough by the league, so, Kaldur betraying would be useful to the Light, but the big public didn’t knew a lot about him, and their missions were undercover, no big shows and public fights for the normal people to know about them, so the betrayal affect just the heroes, Artemis death just affects the team and the league won’t need to said out loud that she died, and then said “Just kidding, she was in a deep undercover mission”, like, If Wonder Woman, Superman, or any league member died, the people would get angry if later they just take back that and go away with it.

And they are important in other ways, during the first season, when Klarion created two worlds, the team were essential to calm the kids, and asked for the older ones to take care of the youngers, and, during the fight, they needed them to fight against Klarion and brake the stone in their reality to join the worlds, Zatanna is the one to put on the Helmet of Fate, she is the decisive piece to win the fight; in the third season, when the outsiders stepped into the spotlight, they save people, and show that Luthor’s impediments could cost lives, in the final moment the outsiders, by defeating Granny on earth, saved all the heroes.

The fights: The animation is 10/10, smooth, easy to follow, clean, I love it, but, especially in the first season, the fights are more than heroes punching villains, the fights develop a character, give exposition about their history, an inside on their minds, or moves the plot.

This is awesome, taking on account the first two seasons were made to be broadcast on cartoon network, for a casual viewer, while zapping, would stay for seeing the fight, but, for a viewer who wants to know the characters, it is always going to have exposition, for the plot or the character.

You can take, as an example, the episode 5 season 1 “Schooled”, we watch how Superman don’t want to work with Superboy, and we’re reminded about Conner’s anger issues, he’s acting proudly and Black Canary defeats him easily, Robin is the one smoothing him, a kind of foreshadowing for Dick being the leader, Conner gets the lesson “raw force won’t help you win every battle”, and, during the fight with Amazo, he understands that, they even present Artemis.

Some people would stay, watch the episode, and enjoy it, it has its own story, there is no real need to know all the plot to enjoy it, for a fan, or someone invested in the show, the episode is good, we watch the relation between Superboy and Superman, foreshadowing about Robin leadership and a lesson for Conner. 

The consequences: The things happening to the characters aren't capsuled on one episode, they do things that will affect them in the future.

I will take, as an example, the episode 17 of season 1 “Disordered”, chronologically is after the exercise of the aliens, a traumatic experience for the characters, and it isn’t swept below a rug, we got and inside of every character, you have the cool episode fight, and an introduction to New Genesis and Apokolips tech, something really important for the next seasons.

We deal with the feelings of everybody, and they give us hints about the secrets or the future of the characters, Robin wants to be away of Batman’s darkness, putting on track Dick’s journey to become Nightwing, for Wally, he acts like nothing happened, and is still in denial about his feelings towards Artemis, we get hints about M'gann secret and how she is affected by the idea of others knowing, the writers foreshadow Kaldur’ahm leaving the leader position for Robin, the fear Artemis has about her friends finding out about her family, and, Superboy’s wish to be Superman, all of that is the road to the character grow.

But they ruined it with the time skips.

        2. Where Young Justice failed?

Time skips: I was watching Young Justice with my dad, it was my second time with the series, he ended the first season, we started the second one, and my dad asked me if Netflix didn’t add a season, no, they didn’t forget a season, they decided to age the characters, put a lot of info in the firsts episodes, and I felt robbed.

The first skip is of five years, the team grow, M'gann is less like Hello, Megan, she and Conner broke up, she is dating a L’gaan, is treated like a sister by Garfield, whom developed powers and now is Beast Boy, Superman is treating Conner like a brother, he have less anger, and helped the Genomorphs to be free of Luthor, Roy tried to enter the Light undercover, with Jade help, they failed, decided to have a normal life, married, have a baby, and now Roy is in a bad place, everyone is worried and Jade rejoined the villains, Artemis and Wally keeped their relation and leaved the superhero life, they were doing fine, Dick became Nightwing and is the leader, dated Zatanna and broke up, Barbara became Batgirl, Batman adopted Jason, Jason died, he adopted Tim, and Kaldur’ahm, lost Tula, discovered Black Manta is his real father, (in the comics we met his father and mother, so everybody lied to him about his family), quit the team to become a villain, but, plot twist, is on a deep undercover mission, and, apparently, only Dick, Wally and Artemis knows about.

And we didn’t need the skips, like, all the things happening would be useful for one or two seasons, and, if you wanted the undercover thing, you have Roy, you, literally, said he was undercover with the Light, you had things with every character, a way to develop them.

The second skip is shorter than the first, but it wasn’t necessary either, they grieved Wally, Dick ended his time out of hero life, Barbara became Oracle, Bruce adopted Stephanie and Cassandra, and they became Orphan and Spoiler, M'gann and Conner were doing a home life, M'gann was the team leader, Roy decided to be a normal man, changed his name to Will and raised Lian with Artemis, she kept Tigress alias, and lied to his mother about being a hero, Kaldur’ahm got a boyfriend and became Aquaman, leading the Justice League, all Atlantis knew he betrayed them, and now he is the great hero for all the atlanteans, Bart took Kid flash’s mantel, got adopted by the Garricks, and was able to spend a good time with his grandparents, father and aunt, Jaime got a girlfriend, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach aren’t around, except for Eduardo, who is helping in the Youth center for metahumans, and Virgil, who’s a hero and wants a girlfriend.

If you start a show with a core group of characters, and they are the main characters, you can’t insinuate grow for them, give the hints about their future, and swept them under the rug with the beginning of the next season, then, the new characters I’m starting to care about are pushed away too, it disappoints me. I wouldn’t be surprised if in season 4, the team are the babies we saw in season 3.

And there is no need to do this, are little things you could justify to need the time, but aren’t really important or could happen before is stated in the show.

In the first jump you could justify the Kroletan invasion as a reason to skip the five years, but the Kroletans aren’t the main villains, they are only used to make a database about the Justice League, and, in the comics, changing the leader of Bialya to be under the control of the Light, (and this is never brought again), furthermore, you could justify the building of a complex base under the earth in few months, days or weeks with alien technology, or just begin with the Reach, and justify the existence of the database about earth heros with info given by the Light.

And during the second time skip you could say, Tara needed time to be brainwashed by Slade, the tech to activate the metagen is new, and the mental controls to the metahumans.

But, technically, they said Vandal Savage is a meta human, and he is older than human history, if you don’t want to count him, you could start the metahuman gen active since 1950, I think, if they have on the Light mind controllers, people older than the team, and literally made clones, have access to Apokolips technology, they have Lex Luthor! The Light didn’t need the time, and the way to activate the metagen is really different between the Reach and the Light, they didn’t need the Reach to begin the investigation.

The lack of character growth: They were doing well at the beginning, and were good, and they hit a few things on other characters during the other seasons, but they miss a lot.

Dick, for example, has a lot of little brother energy, out of mission he is teasing his friends, when Black Canary defeated Conner, he laughed, he made fun of Wally the first time they were with M'gann, he is asking, with mockery, Artemis about what she is doing in Gotham, he calls M'gann Bald Megan, when they are on the first mission on Santa Prisca he is mocking Kaldur about explaining the disaster to Batman; he is going to be the leader of the team, but he is young, despite being the one with most time working as a vigilante, he is only 13, in age the next is Wally, with 15, and that Robin is interesting, in the comics he is the leader of a lot of teams, he is the older brother of the batfam, but he has to learn how to work with a team, to be trustful, to talk to others.

Creating Dick’s growth about leadership is an excellent idea, learning to guide people, how to talk to them, and, when he is a leader, he learns to be a mentor, he is teaching Violet, Bryon and Forager to control their powers and work together, an seeing a character grow to this point, would be satisfying, but they don’t do this, and yes, he is leader on season 2, but he is barely there, the missions, the action they are doing, Dick is away, he only fights one or two times, when the alien traps them on the Justice Hall he is not there, when Bluebettle betrays them, Dick’s not there, and he leaves, M'gann is the new leader, and they never gave hints about her doing that, Barbara has more foreshadowing than M'gann, Dick tells Kaldur Batgirl can step up and help, not M'gann, and we don’t see her really leading, Dick is the trainer, and Garfield is the one creating the Outsiders; Dick is a leader, you want him leading a team, but you don’t let him be one.

And if you wanted a love interest, in the comics they said Dick and Barbara liked each other before the team started, when you only watch the cartoon is, almost, out of nowhere the relation, Barbara is in Gotham Academy a few seconds on season 1, she makes a joke with Dick on season 2, they are dating on season 3, and they only interact a few times, I would rather see both of them grow into a relation than Mal and Bumblebee having a drama, Barbara, literally, said she is waiting for Dick to be ready, right now he is a dog, textual words from Wally and Barbara, and the idea of two peoples saying “I love you and I want to be with you the rest of my life, but right now I’m not ready to give you all you deserve” is astonishing, or, you could talk about healthy polygamus relationship, condemning the jealousy that could destroy a couple.

The show had good points, other character starting big, but falling flat, is Bart, he is from the future, a dystopian future, he is willing to leave behind all his friends and family to be in the past, he had a flashback when he is, literally, slaved by the Reach, he is using a collar, doing hand labor, and we don’t know if he really succeed, the only glimpse we got is the man helping Bart, not scarred and radioactive, but still on a bad world, and, on the third season he is a comic relief, saves a girl, and takes a photo with Jay and Barry saying #WeAreAllOutsiders.

Too many characters: Having six characters as the core team, none of them being more important than the others, could be hard,  but they were doing it fine, the things went down with the second season.

Now we have a big team, we don’t really know their names, how they became heroes, why they are here, in the first season we met Zatanna, and get a few chapters of her interacting with the team and Artemis, the only one that the watcher don’t really care about is Roquet, but she is important showing the sidekicks they aren’t a shadow of their mentors, they aren’t just kids on costumes, they are real heroes, they inspired her, and, we could guess, inspired others.

But in season 2, there are a bunch of characters I don’t know, and I quit the show at the beginning of season 3 because I wanted to watch the original cast, Wonder girl wanting to be more, Mal and Bumblebee having romantical issues, L’gaan jealous about M’gann and Conner, Tim wanting trust, nothing of that matters to me, you didn’t need them, needed their drama, because they go nowhere, and, in the third season, they aren’t bring up again.

You needed Jaime, he was the weapon against the Reach, and Bart was a good character, but his presence meant they failed saving the world, and he was a kind of comic relief, but not annoying or silly, and they did good when Tye was kidnapped, we watched the worry of Jaime, how he searched for him, by that we cared about Tye.

I understand why they created Violet and Victor, having a father box and a mother box with them, not as a computer, but as thinking beings, Violet is the answer for Darkseid plan, Victor was created from the father box, and now is working with the team, and they are poc, Violet is no binary, they are good characters.

Bt they started a journey with a character, gave us hints about they journey, and then, all the developing on the background, in season 3 Will tell Dick to stop being a loner, Jefferson is surprised Dick searched for him to save the kids at Markovia and asked help to enter Granny’s house, Dick, for the viewer, was never a loner, on the first episode he is making the team, in the second season he is the leader, his first appearance on third season is working with Oracle, asking help for the mission on Markovia, doing a team with the Harper boys, and training Forager, Violet and Bryon, Will said “Whom are you recruiting this time?” For us that means Dick, usually, asks for help to do the missions, they tell us Dick was working alone, but never showed it.

        3. Conclusion

The most infuriating thing is the show is good, they have a lot of great ideas, I will watch the fourth season, I want to watch the DC Fandome, I love the show, all this babbling came from my heart, and I’m sad, because they have great ideas, they put seeds for an excellent show, but barely water them, they let the ideas rotten and die.

[incomingalbatross]

Jason Todd’s canon origin is, fundamentally, a mess. And here’s why.

To start with, it very often happens in writing that you decide “I need this specific thing to have happened” and then have to find reasons for the characters to Do The Thing. That’s cool! That’s not bad writing!

Bad writing is deciding you need a thing to happen...and then making it happen without giving the characters reasons to do what they’re doing. And Jason is a great example of how this can go wrong!

To start with, let’s look at Robins in general. From the start, every Robin has been a writer-first decision—they decided they needed this character to have this position in the story, and then had to find a way to make that happen. The core question, always, is why does Bruce Wayne take this child into his life? And it needs a good answer because A) that’s a big decision and B) Bruce Wayne has a unique life and generally several compelling reasons not to take in a child.

Robin #1. Dick Grayson. They needed a reason for Bruce to take on this child as his ward and sidekick—why this kid? Why Dick, specifically?

Answer: Because he’s just been through the exact same trauma as Bruce’s defining trauma and has a similar temperament. Bruce is so particularly suited to helping him through it that he can’t not take him in. Good writing!

Robin #3, skipping ahead. Tim Drake. They needed a replacement for Jason, a new Robin to undarken things a little—but why would Bruce take in another kid after this tragedy? And why this kid, specifically?

Answer: Because Tim sees what the writers and audience see—”Batman needs a Robin”—and inserts himself into Bruce’s story. Because the need for a new Robin is so clear that even characters can see it—that is, instead of covering up their reasons, the writers leaned into them. Good Writing!

Robin #3.5, Stephanie Brown... Okay, her story was a trash fire. It was a crime against every character involved and I hate it. HOWEVER, unlike Jason’s origin, we can throw all of War Games into the fandom dumpster out back without losing beloved characters or any fundamental emotional beats! It actually makes things better because we don’t have to deal with heroes and good people hurting/killing/abusing each other, or a teenage girl being needlessly tortured!

Answer: ...we don’t need a good answer to their objectives because the objectives were bad. Jettison the whole thing. If you want Steph as an interim Robin you can just say Tim had, I dunno, strep or something, and she stepped in. War Games is the worst possible version of Robin Steph and contributed nothing but wholesale character assassination.

ANYWAY. Robin #4, Damian Wayne. The writer wanted him to join the family without anyone liking or trusting him, and without a Robin slot for him to fill immediately. That’s tough. Why this kid specifically? How is he bonded to the family?

Answer: He’s Bruce’s unknown biological son! Perfect. Automatically Bruce’s responsibility. I have problems with Damian’s arc but his intro works, good writing.

And then...we have Jason. Robin #2, the first experiment in “making a new Robin.” They, quite blatantly, wanted someone to replace Dick. (Because he was currently the property of the NTT creative team, and their vision of “increasingly capable leader of a team having their coming-of-age stories and fighting fullsize threats every week” did not fit well with Gotham’s demands of “Batman’s kid who we bring back from college whenever we need a Boy Hostage.”) So obviously that leaves questions. Why would Batman give Dick’s place to a new kid? And why this kid, specifically?

We have two versions of the answer here!

1: Pre-Crisis Jason Todd, the blond one, was SUPER clearly Replacement Dick—he was, in fact, a tragically orphaned circus acrobat whose parents were murdered (by Killer Croc, this time) while they were performing in Gotham. And...y’know, given this implausible thing happening, Bruce adopting him DOES make sense! He and Dick would both see it as fitting that he helps this kid, especially since he now has actual experience in raising orphaned acrobats. He has a successful track record and everything.

2: Given, however, that this was blatantly contrived AND Blond Jay didn’t have much to distinguish him from Dick, they decided to rewrite it completely. Post-Crisis Jason is a homeless orphan with a dead drug-addict mom and a convict dad, and... there’s NO clear answer to the questions posed above?

Seriously. There really isn’t.

Bruce and Jason’s interactions are: 1. Batman catches child stealing the Batmobile’s tires, finds out he’s homeless; 2. Batman takes child to a boys’ home and gets him taken in; 3. Batman catches child stealing his tires again, learns from child that the Home is actually a front for some kind of Artful Dodger setup where the boys are forced to do more crime; 4. Batman and child bust the Home together; 5. Batman decides to make the child his new Robin.

There is NO compelling reason there for Bruce Wayne to bring this child into either side of his life, let alone BOTH! I mean... you can’t tell me that he hasn’t had equally meaningful interactions with dozens of other kids, over the years. This is NOT SUFFICIENT.

“Bruce saw himself in Jason” “They bonded during this” These are things we, the fans, can insert into our versions of this story. Those are good versions, I like them and I have my own in my head! But we have to insert them ourselves. It’s not there in the outline like Dick and Damian’s links to Bruce, or Tim’s claim to Robin, all are. The closest thing we have is that Bruce thinks Robin will help “channel Jason’s anger,” which... A) still not sufficient, and B) that actually makes it WORSE??

(Because the implication is that he needs “rehabilitating” to not “go bad,” which, uhhhhhhh, is NOT a good place to adopt a child from OR the kind of person you should bring into your household on a whim—especially when you’re BATMAN. You don’t give a kid you don’t trust access to your home, access to your preexisting kid’s AND the JLA’s secret identities, and ADVANCED FIGHTING SKILLS.)

ANYWAY. There’s no good reason given for Bruce to take in Jason... and HERE we see why out-of-universe reasons matter. Because they reflect in-universe factors, and if you DON’T account for that...

Well, then the most obvious explanation for Jason being Robin is still “to replace Dick.” But in-universe, that means BRUCE is trying to use him to replace Dick—after all, what makes this different from every other orphan Bruce has helped? Only the fact that when he met Jason, Dick had recently left home and the Dynamic Duo.

And I hate this explanation!! It’s gross and super unfair to Jason as a person and paints their relationship as unhealthy from the start!! My Batman would never do this to a child!! But canon didn’t give us a better answer.

So yeah, this is one of the reasons why Jason’s time as Robin is inherently a Problem from a writing perspective.

It’s a pain!!

[cryptocism]

Do you have any other headcanons in regards to Tim?

always

1. so i know theres a popular headcanon that he drinks like eighteen cups of coffee a day and never sleeps which is fine, but personally i like the idea of tim making sure to hit all the quotas of being a healthy person just in the most convoluted ways possible. 8 hours of sleep a night isn’t really possible for him so instead he makes sure to get it elsewhere and elsewhen at the stupidest times. i.e. that time he fell asleep on a rollercoaster. he calculates the amount of calories he needs per day but sometimes those calories come entirely via bags of cheeto puffs and cans of zesti. (not super nutritious but he meets that quota goddamnit) he knows vitamin D and sunlight is important but going outside seems like too much of a hassle so he installs a UV light above his computer so he can keep working. he sees the trendy health foods like avocado toast or whatever and figures he’ll probably get the same result with week-old cheese bread and some relish (because its green and also made from fruits its basically a perfect match)

2. kind of an extension of the previous but his designation as the Smart One is pretty much bullshit. like sure, you could technically qualify him as a genius, but the only time it manifests is when he spends three weeks hyper focusing and working on what is essentially a city-wide rube goldberg machine. when the day it’s ready finally comes he stands atop wayne tower and casually tips a domino with his foot - and the night ends with four rogues behind bars. but other than being technically impressive the whole construction (which involved three cranes, over a hundred batarangs, a loose brick, two gargoyles, a bowling ball, and much more) was just incredibly elaborate and incredibly extremely astoundingly unnecessary.

3. everyone thinks he has a contingency plan for everything, and although he does have many many contingency plans it’s for like twenty eight different highly specific scenarios that will more than likely never happen but he gets distracted by weird trains of thought and makes them anyway. like he has one for if batman gets impersonated by an extremely rare species of alien and it only works if clark is in town, if aquaman is out of town, and if the alien’s ultimate goal is to harvest the earths core.

4. i love the idea of his fashion sense evolving into something more and more blatantly punk as he gets older. none of this suit-and-tie bullshit, catch this seventeen year old ripping the sleeves off his gotham knights sweaters and buying gucci just to cut it up with scissors and put it back together with safety pins. hes gonna skate around town wearing fishnets under his tattered jeans and spikes on his jacket cause hes cool, dad. he likes being intimidating to people who dont know hes a total dork yet. 

5. his life at drake manor pre-robin is a parents nightmare and teenagers dream. hes got a big empty mansion all to himself most of the time with no real supervision, and he’s the kind of kid whose wandering hands get into all sorts of trouble if left to his own devices. this means sledding off the snowy roof in the wintertime, watching home alone marathons and then immediately recreating and adding to every single one of kevins traps because he gets convinced the wet bandits are going to burgle his house (which was a real trip for the housekeepers holy shit). just every 80s movie shenanigan and some more for good measure

[gheckoe]

JAMES’S CURATED QUALITY FANFICTION PRIMER

for @rev0lutions-of-ruin, who tumblr does not like letting me tag

foolish bird avoids ao3 for years and misses out on the Good Shit, but it will be okay! she has THIS now. ft. DUMB LONG-WINDED CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE EXPLANATIONS, because i don’t think you would watch those movies willingly.

lots of selection - pick and choose, but if you don’t read “out of the dead land” i will be very sad. just treat this as really weird queer genre fiction and you’ll be alright. fics with pornographic content are marked as such, but said content is easy to skip as long as you can pick up on the warning signs.

we’re gonna start with the funny stuff.

nanananana BAT-DAD! (no ships, just bruce being a dad. safe for work and hilarious,)

who needs therapy when you have microsoft excel.

tim drake (robin 3) is a transgender teenage disaster. and bruce wayne is just generally a disaster. (same series.)

okay, now let’s get kind of sad. but not TOO sad.

nananananananana BATMAN (and superman)

this one made watching batman vs. superman worth it. not quite. but kind of. it’s fantastic.

i forget what happens in this one but i know i enjoyed it!

snk? why this, james. why this.

bad show, i know, but. formative experience. i figured out i was trans by projecting my feelings onto jean kirchstein. (not sure how, that’s just what happened.)

this one is stupidly fucking huge, in first person, and still isn’t finished.

included by virtue of some weird nostalgia. it’s half a million words long. try the first few chapters; i can’t guarantee anything that happens. don’t fucking judge me.

boring, punch me in the feelings already. more angst!

STEVEBUCKY

i don’t think you’ve watched the captain america movies, so i will explain them.

the saddest, gayest shit you will ever see. will fuck with your heart, ideally! but (as per always), skip the porn. this fandom is really big on it. UGH.

BUT it’s based off of movie adaptations of comic books, so the backstory is... ridiculous. i will summarize it for you. (tumblr ate this so here goes again)

THE DYNAMIC/history/massive goddamn ship manifesto

two guys, sitting in the great depression, two feet apart because it’s not socially acceptable to be gay

steve: tiny, blonde, always mad and big on SOCIAL JUSTICE. gets into fights for SOCIAL JUSTICE, despite growing up in the great depression when SOCIAL JUSTICE was not a commonly-known phrase or a common thing. he’s a bit of a shit, and he gets into shit. with his scrawny lil fists. he has all sorts of chronic illnesses but somehow manages to survive in a time with shitty medicine, and grow up to get into MORE shit. likes art, but is (partially?) colorblind

also he’s VERY HEAVILY coded as trans.

bucky: taller, brown hair, very popular but secretly a bit of a nerd (loves scifi, and is good at math). likes dancing, girls, and getting steve out of situations that he’s clearly over his head in and talking shit about it after. a bit of a charmer, etcetera.

there are some good fics from this era (”pre-war”) but idk where they are in my bookmarks. will update later.

so wait, what happens?

bucky gets steve out of dumb situations (like fighting a guy for talking during a movie) for pretty much all of their life. childhood friends until after high school-ish.

BUT, bucky is either drafted into the us army (it’s wwii now) or enlists, and steve is left alone in brooklyn, new york, to get into shit, without anyone to bail him out or prevent him from getting into MORE shit. so he finally manages to lie his scrawny, ill ass into the army, and (as one does) volunteers to get experimented on by the american government.

wait, what the fuck

comic books, okay. don’t @ me.

steve manages not to die! he finds a really pretty, badass lady to bisexually fawn over in the army (peggy carter is a fucking miracle), the experiments are a success and he ends up BIG and cured of all his ailments and with superfast metabolism (no alcohol) and superfast healing. he’s made it! (he basically just got really fast, unrealistic HRT hahaha)

... except the army can’t replicate the embiggening process they did with steve because the scientist that did it got killed, and steve is made into a glorified prettyman mascot to sell war bonds, instead of going to punch nazis, which he would be better at. he is a terrible mascot.

meanwhile, bucky has a shitty goddamn time in the european theatre. it’s terrible. he gets kidnapped by the EVIL SCIENCE NAZIS and put in a freaky camp and experimented on, poor guy.

you said you ship them, right? they’ve barely interacted so far, man. what the fuck.

alright alright i’m getting to it

steve the dancing monkey (in his words) is doing a Morale-Raising tour in europe for the troops and they hate it and he hates it. he discovers that... oh shit... bucky and his regiment (?) have been kidnapped by HYDRA! (the science nazis.)

naturally, he of little training MUST go save bucky, because the people that actually know how to save people know that it would be pointless to try. but steve “dumb shit” rogers will do it his own damn self. don’t @ him either. it’s the 1940s so he doesn’t have a phone.

steve will walk to austria, if he has to!... but he actually just gets a plane ride there, from peggy carter the badass and some other guy who’s not that relevant right now.

he KICKS NAZI ASS, SAVES THE PRISONERS, and MAKES MEANINGFUL EYE CONTACT WITH BUCKY ONCE HE FINDS HIM IN THE EVIL SCIENCE NAZI EXPERIMENTATION ROOM. bucky’s so out of it that he barely even tries to question why his old friend is suddenly hot  TALL.

steve and the lads walk back from austria, and he is a Bona Fide War Hero and not just a mascot. he has the stylish grime and everything. on the way, he realizes that the lads are pretty cool, and assembles a Diverse Crack Squad of Guys That Really Wanna Kill Nazis from the cool guys he just met. upon return to wherever they were earlier, steve is made a REAL CAPTAIN now, and his Diverse Crack Squad is at liberty to... go kill nazis.

bucky tags along. he is very handsome and talented at math, so he is a SNIPER and saves steve’s dumb ass (from getting shot by nazis, instead of getting punched in the face) like he used to. the Diverse Crack Squad gears up to take down THE WORST OF THE SCIENCE NAZIS, on a train in the mountains! they can change the course of COMIC BOOK WWII!

you said it was tragic. show me the tragic.

the TRAIN INFILTRATION does not go as planned, and bucky is knocked from the train and falls to his cold, painful, (presumably) death. steve can’t watch.

they catch a REALLY BAD SCIENCE NAZI, but it is a very hollow victory. steve goes and tries to get drunk in a blown-up bar where he hung out with bucky and they were really queer together.

the OTHER really bad science nazi now has a plan to BLOW UP COMIC BOOK NEW YORK! steven will NOT allow this to happen.

he’s also kind of given up on life. he has a flair for the dramatic, and also the ambiguously suicidal.

not that being ambiguously suicidal adds to the Dramatic Romance of this. it doesn’t, and that would be creepy. the point is that steve rogers has a LOT of issues, including the ones that science can’t cure.

this SPECIFIC PLANE is headed towards new york, full of explosives. steve manages to get aboard the plane... and doesn’t even try to escape. he crashes it into the water in the atlantic ocean, saying goodbye to peggy on the radio as it hits. he is also presumed dead. it’s... basically a suicide attempt.

flash forward seventy-some years.

wait, wasn’t he in the avengers?

steve rogers is found inside the frozen plane encased in ice in the ocean. he’s revived (super healing, woop) and... doesn’t say anything, because he’s really not up to expressing feelings.

he has a TERRIBLE time. all of his friends are dead or old and went about their lives without him, and he’s alone in a confusing new world. (but the food is better, vaccines are good, and no polio.) he’s not fantastic at making new friends, because, as shown by him and bucky’s entire relationship, he’s a bit of a sad introvert and just picks one person and... holds on.

blah blah avengers one blah blah, new team and fighting BAD THINGS. but steve is too angsty to make friends. he joins the new security organization that peggy founded, SHIELD, without really inspecting it that well because... he didn’t plan to be alive past flying the plane into the ice, much less in the 21st century. he doesn’t know what he’d do otherwise.

idk that sounds a little slow

he has DEPRESSION. it is a little slow. but it’ll pick up! (not emotionally.) now it’s very anti-establishment action flick. enter CAPTAIN AMERICA (2): THE WINTER SOLDIER.

steve makes a friend. actually, two! sam and natasha are wonderful, and they have some things in common. but steve obtains friendship while realizing that SHIELD is corrupt to the core and actually infiltrated by HYDRA, so he and his new friends have to... burn it to the ground. he “died” (or tried to) to stop HYDRA, and it’s still here and worse then ever. things feel pointless.

to make it worse, he’s fighting this creepily effective impersonal masked assassin on a bridge and oh fuck, oh fuck it’s bucky and didn’t he die years and years ago and his arm is METAL what happened to him, and he’s pretending not to recognize steve.

HYDRA is planning to eliminate sources of resistance for their new world order via shooting them from the air, so steve has to take one specific FLYING DEATHMACHINE down. he does, and brainwashed HYDRA bucky, the winter soldier, is there to stop him.

steve makes an appeal to emotions. “bucky stop you can’t do this”

bucky is confused, but he’s been programmed to do this.

steve tells his coworkers to JUST SHOOT THE DEATHMACHINE DOWN ALREADY, because he’s... given up again. he’s very talented at equating heroism with self-sacrifice/suicide. but he disables the DEATH part of the DEATHMACHINE without it getting shot down.

bucky has been trapped underneath a beam, but steve’s with bucky till the end of the line, even if bucky is brainwashed and lacking memories. steve drops his shield in the water and falls.

it’s another attempt to die. stop that, steve. go to therapy.

bucky doesn’t remember who he is, but he jumps after him. steve is very injured from his fight with bucky, and wouldn’t have survived the fall, but bucky drags him to shore and... leaves.

steve wakes up in the hospital with his new friend sam. they’re going to track bucky down, even if it takes forever.

ISN’T THAT FUCKED UP? isn’t that sad? it’s terrible. now, fics. most of them are after ca:tws, because that’s when the ship got popular. a lot of them center around Finding Bucky and Getting To Know Him Again.

there’s a lot of sappy sad let’s-teach-bucky-how-to-be-a-person-again-and-get-steve-to-be-less-sad but i like the ones that are like sad action movies, or sad queer movies, and less like sad romance movies. my bookmarks are a mess, so here’s the best stuff i could dredge up.

out of the dead land: this one kills me every single time. there’s something terribly cinematic about it. but, as fandom is wont to do, there’s porn near the end. skip that part. ew. it’s an introspective scifi action epic, with just enough identity issues to make you want to cry! READ IT, IT’S IMPORTANT.

this: alternate universe, sans steve “dying.” epistolary. sad, as far as i can remember. (i’d rec the rest of this series but i think it’s best if you read this one first?)

courtroom/media fic. what if the winter soldier got arrested after the movie? (cap fandom does this kind of fake-media thing very well. i just reread it. it’s still good.)

this one isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it’s a different take on the fandom’s typical post-winter soldier bucky interpretation. quite short, 100% safe for work.

in this one, steve successfully gets drunk, makes some friends, and gains some coping skills. good for dark humour. there’s porn somewhere but i’m sure it’s easily skippable, otherwise i wouldn’t have bookmarked it. not 100% the best thing every but it’s pretty fun.

if you aren’t team s/b all the way then we can’t be friends, but here’s some other marvel stuff i guess

lesbians, ballet, feelings? it’s a rarepair but it’s pretty lovely. au, no background knowledge required. basically a beautiful indie film that’s kind of oscar-bait. you will like this one, i think. there’s probably porn somewhere.

trans black widow. (that chapter only, not sure what the rest is). not very well-written and i have terrible memory but i’m 75% sure it made me cry.

ENJOY! or try to. don’t feel obligated to. but please at least TRY out of the dead land, it is groundbreaking.