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spicyhamsamson · 1 year

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I am. So fucking tired of Batman being portrayed as a bad parent and a toxic person. And it’s so goddamn widespread. Fuck, it might be as bad as the whole “Superman being a kindhearted Boy Scout is boring” take.

I get it, the man’s not exactly stable, he watched his parents get murdered in front of him and spent years of his life training to fight crime dressed like a giant scary bat, of course he’s not perfect.

But to say that Bruce Wayne isn’t caring, isn’t empathetic, to call him abusive…it just misses the point of who the character is to me.

Why do you think he fights crime? Yes, part of it is because he’s bitter and sad because his parents were cruelly ripped from him as a child, and he’s lashing out against the corruption of his city. It’s arguably the focus of his earlier years. But he learns to become more than that. He learns to bring hope, a chance to be better.

Harleen Quinzel is the Joker’s right hand lady, but she’s also a victim of an abusive relationship and a woman with a surprisingly strong moral compass and a love for animals, and wants to get better. That’s why we see time and time again that he has a noticeable soft spot for her, because he knows that she’s a good person at her core.

Harvey Dent is a man who will decide someone’s fate on a coin toss(and a pretty inaccurate depiction of DID), but he’s also Bruce’s close friend who clearly needs help learning to live with his condition, rather than try to get rid of it, and someone who he still goes out of his way to visit, even after everything, because he recognizes he’s not just a criminal with a weird gimmick, he’s a man who is struggling with a condition that he’s mishandled his whole life.

Victor Fries is a cold, emotionless man who will callously discard allies and blame them for being careless, but he’s also a man who’s either lashing out because he had the love of his life taken from him, or just desperate to make sure she isn’t taken from him, and is willing to do anything just to guarantee her survival. Of course Batman would understand, his whole life was defined by having people he loved taken away from him.

Even the Joker, arguably one of the most morally bankrupt characters in all of fiction, is someone that Batman has offered a chance to. After the guy shoots the daughter of his friend, a girl he cared for like she was his own kid, and paralyzes her from the waist down, he tells the Joker that he doesn’t want to hurt him. He wants to get him help. He looks at this monster who has taken countless lives and says “You don’t have to be alone.”

For fuck’s sake, he sat with Joe Chill in his last moments so that he wouldn’t be alone. Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, who took so much from him, the person responsible for all of the misery and suffering he’s gone through. And he sits with the man to comfort him while dies. Do you know how much emotional intelligence and maturity that must take? To comfort someone who arguably ruined your life?

And you’re gonna tell me the man who did that would abuse his kids?

That he’d hold up the young man whose death was his greatest failure, the boy he grieved, and say this?

That he’d look his goddamn son in the eyes and say this to him?

Why the FUCK do you think he took in Dick Grayson in the first place? It wasn’t because he saw the kid and thought “Ah. A potential soldier.”, it was because he saw a boy experiencing the same heartbreaking loss he had so many years ago, and wanted to make sure he didn’t end up as bitter and miserable as he was.

Why do you think he smiled when Tim Drake presented him a broken watch for Father’s Day? Because he was just happy to see the boy alive and safe.

DAMIAN LITERALLY POINTED AT A COW AND SAID “I’m keeping her. She’s Bat-Cow.” AND BRUCE JUST WENT WITH IT. DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO ARGUE WHY BRUCE SHOULD LET HIM KEEP HER. HE SAID “this cow is my pet now” AND BRUCE SAID “aight, bet”.

The thing about Batman is that he wants to make sure nobody else ends up feeling the way he does. That’s not just about stopping a mugger so a boy’s parents aren’t gunned down. It’s about giving his loved ones the support and care that he couldn’t have, because it was taken from him. It’s about comforting someone who just went through a traumatic experience and letting them know that they’re going to be okay. It’s about going to someone locked away in a cell who thinks that they’re a lost cause and a burden to society and telling them that he wants to help them get better. It’s about EMPATHY and COMPASSION.

That’s what makes him a HERO. He’s meant to inspire us, to show us that we can have that same empathy for others around us, that we can turn our suffering into hope for a better future.

I just wish more people at DC would start recognizing that. But I might as well follow that example myself. Maybe through this struggle of having to see this hero mistreat the people around him and act like a grade-A jackass, people will start to recognize that missing compassion, and slowly but surely, it might come back. After all, what is this post, if not trying to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of fixing it?

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gayemeralds · 6 months

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OKAY SEASON THREE OF TITANS: 7.5/10

probably giving this too high of a rating but man. if i put blinders on and only focus on jason’s story it’s actually not bad (this review is unfortunately long)

pros: JASON. look tbqh i don’t think this was a good adaptation of jason as a character or the utrh storyline. HOWEVER as it’s own seperate thing i think it was actually pretty good. they set jason’s character up in a way for the events to happen the way they did, and while i could easily nitpick, the core idea and relative execution was pretty good. jason was clearly suffering from ptsd and wanted so desperately to stop being afraid, which steamrolled all of his self worth issues and being outcasted by the titans into culminating as a really fucked up villain arc. also jason’s actor CARRIED the entire season on his back his acting was fucking insane i hope they compensated him for the back problems he has from carrying an entire season. also he killed hank and that’s a solid additional point from me. i really like how much they hammered home just how YOUNG jason is… like he’s just some teen who’s been casted aside by every form of familial support literally all his life, intentionally or through misunderstandings. and it’s so clear that he has problems but no one wants to take the time and help him. and then that leads to him getting easily manipulated by multiple people throughout the show who give him the slightest bit of compassion.

cons: where do i start. didnt like the scarecrow characterization… leaned way too close into being a joker rip off. a lot of the conflicts were dragged on and on. barbra and dick being thieves was stupid. somewhat disdained by the lacking moral complexity of the red hood as a character. the morals within the show and of the main titular characters are insanely flimsy, often hypocritical, and downright superficial, but their hypocrisy isn’t ever pointed out and they’re still painted as “correct” which is really annoying. there was seemingly little lasting consequences to everything that happened? like the lazarus pit was used as a deus ex machina to bring anyone who died back from the dead. tim was nice to see but he was RADICALLY different and also kinda unnecessary. everything about the handling of Bruce Wayne was fucking insane and badly done- he killed the joker and then fucked off for the rest of the season????? Donna troy coming back to life would have been FINE but they managed to somehow make it the most convoluted thing ever when they literally had a) raven’s magic or b) the lazarus pit to use as an excuse to bring her back. how did the entire city get tricked into thinking the titans poisoned Gotham when batman/justice league is an established part of canon and the titans, both new and old, have been also clearly established. crane’s defeat was entirely underwhelming. kori’s b-plot for the season could/should have quite literally been an entire season on its own. SPACE ARC IM JUST SAYING.

the biggest issue this show had was TELLING instead of SHOWING. like they managed to make jason’s death LAME. they didn’t even show him actually dying because they didn’t bother hiring a joker actor. some of the best story beats (jasons death, alfreds death, jims death, barbara’s stint as batgirl/being paralyzed, bruce killing the joker) just aren’t SHOWN but are explicitly mentioned. and the story definitely suffers for it. they very obviously had no idea what to do with batman, gar, or raven so they just kept disappearing into the background. batmans batcave is raided by scarecrow and his police force army but aparently his secret identity is still somehow a secret. the lazarus pit was WAY over used and dick shouldn’t have died.

the first half is definitely better than the second half, with episode 5 being the best one tbh. i think they just really paced this badly and the relationship between jason and the titans suffered a lot from the titans own hypocrisy and that quite literally never gets addressed, which is kind of annoying since they’re supposed to be “heroes”. however when the story wants to hit hard they really can start swinging- the scene between jason and bruce where Bruce benches jason from being robin but can’t communicate how much he loves jason and jason thinks that Bruce is firing him because jason couldn’t live up to the mantle of being dick’s successor, because he wasn’t good enough, was so fucking good. the scene where dick confronts his guilt about pushing jason away and away until jason spirals so badly he gets killed by the joker- how dick subconsciously or otherwise wanting jason dead manifests as dick beating jason with a crowbar in a hallucination. fucked up cinema. anyway i would actually watch this season again but i would not recommend it to anyone ever.

#1 million thoughts about this version of jason. he was so fucked from the start.#yeah yeah doomed by the narrative but jason was definitely doomed by the meta narrative #my biggest complaint is that i think jason should have killed crane and then stepped into REALLY being the main antagonist #that was a complaint i had with arkham knight. like despite this season essentially being about him #it still managed to Not Be About Him #jason todd speedrun

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bitimdrake · 2 years

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okay so I know that Jason now is like completely different than he was pre 52. I hate new 52 with all or my heart, but at the same time im a huge fan of how Jason is now

Do you have any thoughts on like the change to his character or like opinions on how it's different now or whether or not you like it?

New 52 Jason sucks and I hate him. He's not a terrible person. He's not a horrible villain. He is something far worse.

He's flawless and boring.

(DISCLAIMER: I'm only going to be talking about post-crisis vs new 52 here. I have not read anything after the new 52 yet. Rebirth/Infinite Frontier Jason may or may not be great. I don't know yet, and I'm not gonna make claims.)

So, without putting words in your mouth here, I think that when a lot of people say they like Jason better post-Flashpoint than pre-Flashpoint, that's not...actually what they mean. They mean they like Jason better as a protagonist and hero than as an antagonist and villain.

That might be for any combination of (a) preferring your faves to be morally supportable and (b) just wanting the narrative to give attention directly to them rather then using them as a tool in the real protagonist's story. And that's fair!

But I care about execution more than concept. I am open to both the concept of antagonist Jason Todd and protagonist Jason Todd. And New 52 Jason is--to his detriment--not just the same Jason Todd now turned antihero.

Post-Crisis Jason was far from a perfect character. He was a supporting character (and usually antagonist) who was tossed between short story-arcs with different writers, and the character's consistency absolutely suffered for it.

Sometimes he was a very sympathetic antivillain doing bad things for understandable reasons that genuinely challenged the protagonists' viewpoints. Sometimes he was an insane villain. These extremes were not stitched together well.

But, dammit, he was interesting. He was defined by trauma. He had strong emotions that were regularly unhelpful or unhealthy. He had principles that often conflicted with those emotions, and he usually let his feelings take precedence. He had complicated, messy, layered relationships and history with characters around him. He was a walking tragedy. You could write ten thousand essays just on his interplay with Bruce.

New 52 Jason Todd, on the other hand, is just fucking boring. He's an adolescent concept of A Cool Guy.

New 52 Jason is the world's most specialest boy. He's the chosen one, and he's good at everything, and he's the best ever. His friends would be helpless without him because he's so cool and he always saves the day. He has no meaningful flaws. He's never allowed to be truly wrong. He's never allowed to mess up in a significant way.

He's an encapsulation of why Mary Sues are bad characters.

I want to be clear here: it's not that Jason has to be tragic and antagonistic to be interesting. I would have loved Post-Crisis Jason to get protagonist focus in a good book. I would have LOVED an arc of him becoming a better and/or healthier person.

But the New 52 didn't just skip that arc--it also stripped out anything interesting or complicated from Jason's character.

The most nuanced and compelling relationships he had (particularly Bruce; also Dick, Barbara, Alfred) are simplified down to nothing. The new relationships he was given (New 52 "Roy" and "Kori", even Tim Not-Drake) only exist so there are other characters around to prop him up.

The flaws and trauma and complicated emotions are gone. He has the mildest aesthetic of a bad boy, pasted onto a Perfect Person.

And the most compelling potential--the conflicts of morality or principle--is missing entirely.

How does New 52 Jason feel about killing? I literally don't know, because none of his stories give a shit about questions of morality. New 52 Jason kills when Lobdell thinks it will look cool and badass, and he refuses to kill when Lobdell thinks that would look noble and heroic--and it's the same for every character around him. He has no principles, because his stories don't think silly things like principles are interesting. He is, again, always right.

I hate him.

tl;dr: Post-Crisis Jason is an example of how a compelling character concept can survive even messy, inconsistent stories. New 52 Jason is an example of how to squander every interesting thing you could have done with a character because a shitty writer decided to adopt him as a self-insert instead.

#*#ask #anon #dc #*dc #dc meta #jason todd #once again this is tied to the vagueness of post-flashpoint backstories #meaning none of his relationships *can* be truly nuanced because their history is unclear #but even without that new 52 jason would still suck #because lobdell just wrote him as a gary sue #ANYWAY forever amazed (derogatory) that dc looked at jason todd in 2011 and was like hm...let's give him a wacky team book #when he was CLEARLY designed for a solo book targeted and mature audiences #*at #anyway ask me about how i'd fix the new 52 batfam book line up sometime #sorry for the delay anon <3 the thing about me is that sometimes i am ready and excited to do a thing #and then i wake up one morning having forgotten it and don't remember it exists for 2 weeks

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Which era (both comic book wise and media wise) is your favorite Teen Titans era?

For me it’s the 2003 animated series, but that’s mostly due to nostalgia since I watched that as a kid so I have a soft spot for it.

I can give you a list of all my favorite Teen Titans runs and adaptations.

New Teen Titans: Wolfram / Perez Era is the main source of inspiration from the cartoon and if you want the same stories of the cartoon but with more nuance to the characters, and a lot longer running story then this is your ticket. Teen Titans cartoon is a fantastic adaptation for a cartoon, but a longrunning comic book series just has much more time to work with the characters. This is also in comics one of the most character development heavy comics there is, there's a lot of personal drama for the characters and well-developed relationships.

Teen Titans Cartoon (2003) This is the only adaptation that naisl the spirit of the original perfectly. I think what's best about this adaptation overall is that it's one of the few superhero shows where the entirety of the focus is on the Teen Heroes. The Young Justice Carton and even My Hero Academia both suffer from the fact that despite the fact that the story is supposed to be about the teens, the adults end up stealing away alot of the important fights and moments and the kids continually get sidelined. Teen Titans cartoon was like "The adults aren't even going to SHOW UP because they would pull attention away from the kids."

Teen Titans (2003) Geoff Johns Run. It's not a perfect comic by any means, but number one the Young Justice kids joining the Teen Titans was a great idea, and this was the last time Tim Drake, Conner Kent, Cassie, and especially Bart got to move forward as characters at all (thank you new52 / sarcasm). Bart became more intelligent and focused, Cassie became a team mom instead of an immature brat, Conner well he died but he had an existentialist moment when he came back, Tim actually failed as a leader and got kicked off and Cassie had to take charge. Which like Tim is always compelling when he fails. It's a rocky comic, but it has a really strong start, also it's the only comic that was still interesting after the one year timeskip that DC enforced on every comic, because the arc where Cassie, Eddie, and Rose are basically the only team members left is incredible. The reason I love Rose and Eddie and Cassie comes from this comic. Also the only reason that this ranks higher than Titans 1999, is because it's the only Teen Titans comic that sticks the landing with a solid ending.

Titans (1999) This comic is the Teen Titans reuniting after Wolfram's run ended and Technis Imperative happened, it's basically more of a love letter to people who liked the OTT/FAB FIVE. There is a lot of important Roy/Donna/Garth/Dick development in this series and it is nice to get the spotlight back on them again. The New Teen Titans on the other hand get much less screentime. The new additions like Grant and Argent are good too and it gives some more obscure Titans a chance to shine instead of focusing on the classic lineup. Also like, OTT / FAB FIVE era is good!!!! I don't say that enough so I love a comic that's more dedicated to that team.

Titans (2018) Live Action Show this show has such a bad reptuation and it's amazing. This is my favorite adaptation of Dick Grayson's character ever. If you are tired of every single adaptation of Dick erasing all of his character flaws then this is the show for you. It's a found family show where the found family is actually difficult, because every one of the outcasts has to work through their trauma first otherwise they can bring their unchecked trauma into their relationships. It's one of the most interesting shows about breaking the cycle of abuse. The Bruec Wayne / Dick Grayson relationship has a lot of nuance in this one where you get to see Bruce's flaws as a parent and mistakes he made with Dick, but also Dick learning to be his own person. The core main characters are all well done, Starfire especially this is the only comics accurate adaptation she's ever gotten in a serise. The casting is just fantastic!! DONNA IS IN THIS SHOW! Donna is never in any of the Teen Titans adaptations. Their superboy is unique and interesting too, especially since Young Justice ruined Superboy's character in a lot of other adaptations it's fun to see Kon be fun-loving, friendly, curious about the world, learning about himself, kind of fruity again. Also they made him really smart!!! YES!!!

#askspookies #teen titans

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prosperdemeter2 · 3 years

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I see a lot of people complaining about Dick's "lack of reaction" to Jason's death in the most recent Titans season and, I have to say... I don't see it. I'm not a psychologist by any means but I do have some experience dealing with grief and trauma, in myself and others. I feel it has to be stated to that not everyone processes grief the same way. I get it, we all want there to be more EMOTION involved. We want to see SOMEONE cry over Jason (that isn't Tim apparently). I too think it would have been moving to see the stoic Batman break down a bit in the cave after laying his kid to rest. But there are some things we have to remember:

1. This isn't fanon. Not everything is going to happen the same way fandom Batfam makes us want things to.

2. These characters and their relationships are in their infancy. Jason and Dick were never shown growing close when he was Robin for a reason. I, personally, thought it was a really good way to show the difference in how Dick handles Jason and how Jason would come to handle Tim - resentment. Ultimately, Dick knew his problems were with Bruce, not Jason. Jason hasn't quite come to those terms yet. His relationship to Dick was more important to HIM than it ever really was to Dick.

More importantly, I think Jason's going through the same things the fans are. He wants a specific reaction that his emotionally stunted family isn't going to give him.

3. Titans takes place AFTER Jason's death. Yes, we saw it on screen. But we didn't get to see the actual immediate reaction of any of the team (aside from Gar and Kon) once they got the news. We don't know how Dick reacted to that phone call. We don't know if he found a rooftop and cried. We don't know if Kory hugged him while he broke down and mourned for the brother he had just come to terms with having. We DO know that he was pissed at Bruce for having the funeral without him.

4. Alfred is gone. Alfred has ALWAYS been the one person to force the entire family to face their emotions. It makes sense that without him there, Bruce would be a lot more emotionally stunted.

5. Multiple times in the series we've been shown Donna and now Barbara calling Dick out on the way he acts and the way he was raised. He was raised a soldier, a detective, raised to channel his grief and suffering into anger and *justice*. The Batman didn't have time for little Dick Grayson's emotions after his parents died. He trained him to put those emotions to the side and focus on things he can solve.

Which is why Dick's so hung up on the "drug" Jason was on.

6. EVERYONE processes grief differently. Everyone. Some people get sad, some drown that grief in whatever they can find, some get angry (Bruce), some point fingers, some try to solve a problem and hold together a family that was never truly whole. Keep in mind we're on episode four only here.

7. Dick is traumatized. Like. Literally traumatized. This man is probably so desensitized to death that it's insane. We all said we wanted the Robins on screen and now that we're getting it - and getting an almost realistic approach to what that would do to a child's psychology - we're upset that it's not... what? I think, personally, considering all of the death and destruction Dick has regularly been around since before he was Robin (with his parents) he's reacting to things exactly how most people would.

8. He's been left to protect Gotham. Batman's dipped, we don't know where Bruce is, and Dick is told to protect the city. The city he left. The role he never wanted. He called in his team. He YELLED at Bruce that he would never be Robin again (guys, this is huge! He's standing up for his own principles against someone who, in season one, he wanted the approval of so bad). His TEAM is his family.

I see a breakdown coming. I just think we all have to prepared for it to not be tears and crying and, instead, be anger. Anger is the only way these boys have been taught to deal with their bad emotions.

Or, who knows, Donna - who is a big sister figure to Dick - could show up and make him confront the things he's been refusing to confront.

Idk this is just my opinion and my read on things. What do I know? 😂

#dick grayson #titans #nightwing #grief #titans hbo #titans analysis #titans season 3 #titans spoilers

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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#when i read about tim i often kind of come to the idea that he's relatively self centered#and that can be both a flaw and a strength#but he doesn't often consider other people's feelings and circumstances#like when dick made damian robin he didn't really consider the situation from anyone else's view#or in his origin story#he doesn't seem to consider how dick would feel about hearing how tim was affected by dick's parents' death#or with the spyral situation#or in regards to him earning robin#and its pretty consistent in fandom characterization even if a lot of writers don't seem to be aware of it#its interesting cause i think its something i think he has in common with bruce#its honestly a surprisingly consistent thing from what i see#and it can be a strength to#it can absolutely lead to some confidence and self actualization#as well as being able commit to fixing something and working hard at it#because you believe you can and don't think anyone else can/will do it via @emenerd

Y’know, what’s interesting to me about these points is the fact that like.....Tim having tendencies towards self-centeredness is actually something that COMPLETELY makes sense and can be quite sympathetic in light of his backstory of having neglectful parents.

In an age of armchair diagnosticians eager to label anyone who expresses a controversial viewpoint while centering themselves as an example, as like, having a narcissistic personality disorder (and with the loaded implication that this makes them a bad person even if its true, instead of just....having a disorder, yay weaponizable ableism) like, it can be important to add in distinctions that even tendencies that share overlap with a lot of things born of entitlement, etc....aren’t always necessarily proof of that.

For instance, in Tim’s case, an overemphasis on himself and his own position in situations and arguments can very reasonably be attributed as a coping mechanism he developed in an attempt to acknowledge and address self-esteem issues he sees himself as having, DUE to parental neglect.

Its not that he thinks he’s the most important person in the room, necessarily, its that he spent so many years not even being considered a person in the room, that now he OVERCOMPENSATES on his own behalf, in an attempt to remind himself that no, his opinion and feelings and situations do matter.....and because he like most of the Bat-characters has a tendency towards hyper-fixating on a problem they’re trying to address, this can also understandably create a kind of tunnel vision. Where he’s so busy focusing on what he’s diagnosed as an actual issue he has that he’s trying to address or make up for, in order to build up his self-esteem....that he neglects to keep everyone around him equally centered in his interactions with them, and remember that like, they have their own issues and ignoring that to focus entirely on his own runs the risk of negatively impacting them in the exact same way he’s still learning to cope with having been negatively impacted in his development as a child.

None of this makes him a bad person, or is stuff that can’t be addressed and developed just by paying the appropriate attention to it and his interactions.

SO the issue I tend to more often have....

Is with how often in fandom and fanon we hear references to Tim’s neglect and emotional abuse and how this impacted him.....much in the same way we see Jason and Cass and Damian and Dick’s various forms of abuse and the developmental impact it had on them....

BUT there tends to then be a disconnect, IMO, because that acknowledgment of the WHAT of Tim’s neglect and abuse and the HOW it hurt him.....isn’t often followed up by an examination/awareness of how it also SHAPED him.....at least, not compared to how discussions/fics about say, Jason’s abuse tend to point out the latter as much as the former.

And this is a big part of my gripe with the ways abuse is centered and tackled as a topic in fics and fandom discussions, because its so often capitalized upon as a defense or shield for a character from criticism, stuff like that.....without ever actually EXPLORING the topic itself, or the FULLNESS of the impact it can have.

But only in regards to some characters.

What I mean is like....we see a lot of focus on Jason’s childhood abuse, yeah? And this often is then connected through headcanons, meta and fics to various aspects of Jason’s characterization as a teenager, and as an adult as well.....with a tendency towards anger or violence, abrasive personality, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its usually presented as such in a SYMPATHETIC light, especially when raised by fans of Jason themselves.....but his abuse is very much present and centered in fics and discussions as something that not only impacted him and made him suffer, but something that actually shaped him to varying degrees as well....with a lot of focus then in fics of him as an adult, like, paid to him going to therapy and unpacking his childhood abuse in an effort to WORK on these aspects of himself that make his present day life harder or less healthy than he’d like it to be. The issue of how his abuse lent itself to various behaviorisms is raised in order to address various byproducts of his abuse as FLAWS that he seeks to eliminate, in order to make himself happier and make himself someone that people want to be around more.

And again, don’t get me wrong - for the most part, this is a GOOD thing. The caveat here is just a personal dislike I have for how often these narratives smack of a kind of saviorism, and act like it was only through the grace of Bruce and becoming part of the Batfam that Jason’s ever afforded the opportunity to better himself as a person. I dislike the hell out of this because it not only pairs all too well with a lot of classist shit, it feeds into the singular narrative we’re so often presented with by media about abused kids: the myth of the victim being destined to become a victimizer, it all being an inevitable cycle. The reason this myth is so easily perpetuated is the exact reason I’m so critical of the saviorism in a lot of abused-Jason fics.....people can very easily fall into the trap of assuming that abused kids are likely to grow up to be abusers because they never have anyone to TEACH them that abuse is wrong, or to lead by healthy example.

The harm of this perception is that it kinda throws under the bus every kid who never lucks out and gets a Bruce Wayne style savior swooping in to not only save them from their abusive environs, but TEACH them that they deserved better and that abuse is wrong.

Because its like, uh, the thing is, plenty of abused kids who never get a personal mentor or savior figure are fully capable of figuring out for themselves that they deserve better and that people hurting them is wrong, because it makes them feel bad and they don’t like that?

Many abused kids don’t grow up in a media vacuum where they simply have no access to glimpses of lives different from their own.....we see kids having happier, healthier family lives on TV or in books and are able to figure out that society overall thinks that’s what family is SUPPOSED to look like, and its ours that is the aberration?

The very fact that we’re taught or have it instilled in us by abusive parents that like, we’re not to bring up instances or examples of our abuse to teachers or friends, that its a SECRET, is like, usually a dead giveaway that there’s something WRONG with it that we’re being instructed - and enforced with abusive consequences - to keep from alerting others to....like, this is basically a blaring siren to a lot of us that no, what’s happening to us ISN’T normal and acceptable, and that’s literally WHY the parent we’re afraid of is so insistent on us keeping the facts of it hidden?

And so like, tons of abused kids figure out for ourselves the difference between right or wrong, based off nothing more than our own feelings about things and a desire to not be like the people who make us feel miserable - like, never underestimate the power of spite to like, keep a kid from growing up doing the same thing to others that was done to them, lol.

But point being, lots of kids never get a Bruce Wayne figure to take them away from their abuse and also teach them that they never deserved it and how not to pass the hurt forward by doing the same things to others. And its kinda condescending as fuck that we so often see narratives that take it as so obvious it barely merits commenting on, that like, ‘of COURSE abused kids grow up to become abusers if they don’t have someone else step in and show them a better way’....mmm, no. Fuck that. But you get what I mean.

So like, its a mixed bag. Its a good thing, to see Jason-centric stories that show him addressing his childhood and seeking just a more fuller, happier, healthier life for himself. Its a less great thing to see this narrative presented as all encompassing, with it never being raised that no, Jason actually could figure out he deserved better and how to treat people in ways he’d want to be treated even without a billionaire guardian angel.....NOT because the narrative wherein someone helps an abused kid figure out what was wrong about how they were treated is like, NEVER valid....but rather it just becomes a problem when looked at as a data point against the larger tapestry of fandom-wide works....and noticing that this specific narrative is pretty much the ONLY one raised or treated as valid. With it just being ASSUMED to be the natural course of events and characters, rather than just....the direction society overall has their perceptions of abuse steered towards due to a singular and constantly reinforced abuse narrative shown to us in media.

And the way this all plays back into my point about Tim and what took me down this road in general.....

Is that disconnect I was talking about, lies specifically in HOW Tim is often acknowledged and regarded as an abuse survivor due to his emotional abuse and neglect......with this abuse and its impact on HIM often taking center stage, much the way Jason’s abuse and its impact takes center stage in his narratives.....

BUT with a key difference being that while a lot of Jason’s narratives go on to denote the specific ways his abuse helped SHAPE him and his interactions with others, and raise and address the ways in which he can better himself and his relationships by unpacking all of this openly....

Most of the stories about Tim’s abuse/neglect tend to just STOP at the awareness of its existence and impact on him. Never taking it that one step further to examine how those specific forms of abuse could have additionally SHAPED him....in ways that sometimes negatively impact those around him and his own loved ones, even if this is completely unintentional on his part. The difference, the disconnect, lies solely in how rarely its ever acknowledged that Tim’s own upbringing can and does play directly into how he interacts with people later on in life.....and in ways that he’s fully capable of addressing and bettering himself so as to be happier and healthier just in his own life, and in his relationships, as someone others want to be around.

Aaaaand once you actually examine or consider WHY there’s this discrepancy between the full ramifications of Tim’s abuse and that which various siblings of his underwent, when there’s full agreement that what he did go through absolutely can be termed abusive as well....like, its the implications of what about Tim makes him more naturally resistant or whatever to being shaped by his abuse in ways that have actual negative impact on others in his life, whereas the same isn’t true of say, Jason.....that’s when the red flags start to go up for me, and the unintended subtext starts to get Less Than Stellar, IMO.

Anyway. Just food for thought on the subject of Tim, his upbringing, the various impacts this had on not JUST him but also on how he interacts with others, and ways in which all of this compares and contrasts with how the subject of abuse is raised and depicted in regards to other Batkids.

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whetstonefires · 4 years

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Do you think the DC fandom maybe, Infantilizes Tim a little too much? Like for a rich kid character who's main trauma for a long time was a getting left home alone too much there's an oddly amount of meta abt how much how much his parents hurt him~ compared to, y'know the two poor characters who grew up with physically abusive dad's+druggie mom's, or the two that were raised assassin cult's, etc

…well, yeah, I do kind of think that? His whole schtick for so long was being too old for his age in ways that didn’t sacrifice his jokey, relatable teenager energies. It’s weird how little of that we see anymore, sometimes.

And then DC broke him and discarded him and he’s sort of awkwardly hanging around getting reimagined as more woobie with every fan generation. It is weird!

But tbh I do get it. And I think the reason his parents’ failure of him and his vulnerability get played up so much, and Jason and Steph’s sufferings (while used a lot for things like motivation and context) not dwelt on quite so much in the same lugubrious style, are kind of the same reason.

Which is that canon didn’t commit to it. Jason and Steph’s experiences with bad parenting were foregrounded and retconned more dramatically awful several times. (There’s some definite classism in how that was approached imo, and I’m never budging on being mad about DC retconning out Catherine being sick and then ignoring her forever in all Jason characterization because a drug death invalidates a person ig, great message during the opioid crisis guys.)

They engaged and coped with it–Steph (and Cass, our #1 canon batfam parental abuse victim) pretty directly, Jason a little less so because of the dubious and fluctuating canon status of most of the content more specific than ‘poverty, homelessness, theft, parental drugs and crime in there somewhere,’ so most of his parent issues have been focused on Bruce. He sure has dug into them tho. 😂 Rarely well or productively, thanks DC, but it’s explicitly part of his character, is my point.

Whereas upper-middle-class Tim was always treated by the narrative as fortunate and unharmed by his experiences with his parents. Even though they were clearly behaving badly in several ways, and Tim showed signs of being harmed by it.

Tim outside of immediate moments of frustration always was of the opinion he was Fine, and Very Fortunate Actually.

Therefore a huge chunk of the numerous everyone who’s got parent-related mental and emotional harm, but has struggled to have that validated and hasn’t responded with a lot of anger toward the parent, identifies with Tim. The only one who’s never really lashed out at his parents for fucking up with him. The one who still needs it explored, because canon ultimately didn’t.

[editing post to put in a readmore because lol it’s long, post otherwise unchanged]

(Dick obviously didn’t ever have any Issues with the Graysons, but he Angry Teenagered at Bruce so hard it changed Bruce’s characterization permanently, rip.)

The things Jason, Steph, and Cass have been through are dramatic, obvious, and fit stereotypes because that’s what they’re based on.

That’s important content to have, but because it’s right out there in your face even people who identify with it quite a lot are less likely to feel the need to work all the way through it again in fanworks. That part’s there. It’s text.

(Well actually Jason having been physically abused kind of wasn’t? I think? It was mostly assumed on the basis of stereotyping and Jason’s not caring about the man much even as he felt possessive of information about his death, which is valid. I don’t actually know what’s up with Willis now, Lobdell did some weird shit that lacked emotional resonance or staying power because he’s Lobdell and has no soul.

Cass’ wandering years are also ludicrously underdeveloped. But very very few comics fans or writers can personally relate to being amazing child warriors with no grasp of language living feral under bridges. That part of her life is consistently represented in terms of absences, in terms of its deviation from the norm and the deficits of normality it left her with, which is typical but unfortunate.)

The interesting things to do with these characters are often informed by the bad stuff in their childhoods, but there’s relatively rarely that much more to say about the fact that those things were bad. They know they’re bad. They’ve had a lot of on-panel rage about it, as discussed above. Steph and Cass both beat the shit out of their dads.

Jason is, in fandom especially, a sort of Platonic ideal of a kid who’s mad about his bad childhood and really bad at figuring out where to point that rage.

(Damian is a whole other kettle of fish, because he’s been lumbered by so many detailed retcons coming so fast no two people can seem to construct compatible models of what his early childhood was like, and even more because he’s still ‘a child’ enough that he’s necessarily in a different stage of processing than someone who’s officially only a few years older than him at this point, but still functionally 8 and also 20 years older, and whose parents are no longer in the picture to continue screwing up.

Also there’s no question that if he brings up an abusive thing the League did, he will be validated by his current environment about his realization that it was in fact bad. There’s a lot of fic on that theme! But it doesn’t have the same tone precisely because it is usually understood that that support will be there if he wants it. Realizing that his previous context contained things that were wrong keeps being made the focus of his arc.)

The badness of Tim’s childhood, on the other hand, was mainly in subtext. Even when we were clearly meant to understand Jack was fucking up, like when he canceled plans with Tim at the last minute to go on a date with Tim’s stepmother, or that infamous time he came to apologize for not being a great parent and got mad Tim was distracted by a crisis on TV so he flew into a rage and took the TV and smashed it and was like ‘that’ll teach you,’ it wasn’t leaned into.

The story didn’t treat Jack as a minor villain to be overcome but like a sort of environmental hazard of childhood, like homework, to be endured and coped with. Tim said things like ‘it’s fine’ and ‘at least he left the computer.’

(And like. It’s not about having a TV and computer in his room. It’s about not letting a child have boundaries, pointedly not respecting a child’s possessions, creating an emotionally insecure environment, punishing minor infractions in proportion to their momentary impact on your own ego, physically lashing out at a proxy for the child…)

Rather like Tom King later didn’t understand about the punching from Bruce, whoever did that story (probably Dixon? I don’t care enough to check) did not understand how serious a case of bad parenting that scene was. That is most definitely textbook abusive behavior. (It’s a hell of a lot more common abusive behavior than being a lame supervillain or shooting you when you screw up, and a lot more specific than ‘was a thug, might have hit me, dead now.’)

And Tim was never allowed to be mad at his parents about it. It was fine. He needed to be ignored so he had the freedom to be Robin. He deserved his dad being mad at him because he was keeping secrets. He complained too much, although objectively he did not.

The universe punished him for ‘complaining,’ more than once. We cut straight from him shunting aside his disappointment that his postcard from his parents was just to say they weren’t coming home yet after all with ‘if it will stop all the fights they’ve been having lately it’s more than fine’ to them getting kidnapped.

He agreed not to come on the rescue mission. His mom never made it home, and his dad was in a coma for a while. And then ultimately Jack died as a result of Tim’s decision to be Robin, immediately after finally deciding to accept it.

So Tim walks around feeling a huge burden of responsibility for his parents’ deaths, and completely unable to process any hurt they did him as real or valid, especially in comparison with the far more blatant awfulness other people have been through, and canon is clearly never going to address it. Or even acknowledge it properly.

Let me repeat that because it’s kind of my main point:

People are fixated on getting Tim’s emotional abuse validated because that’s an incredibly important step in recovering from emotional abuse, and it’s one canon consistently denied him.

How ‘bad’ things are ‘in comparison to’ problems other people have is a bad and unhealthy way to engage with trauma. Okay? That’s just a really harmful framework to apply to pain.

It’s also a way that both Tim and people with experiences similar to Tim’s are encouraged to engage with their own experiences, compounding the existing problems.

So. Not a form of relatable DC was ever actually aiming for when they tried so hard (and pretty effectively) to make him a relatable character as Robin, but an enduring one for a lot of fans.

So Tim’s childhood is a natural target for fanworks in a different way than the traumas that have been made explicit and taken seriously by the text. And then a lot of that got compounded by the way the introduction of Damian as Robin was handled, and the lack of resolution that got. And his current status as not quite having a place in the family anymore.

So between the level of projection encouraged by that context and how relatively difficult to access Tim’s Robin run has become ten years after the fact, this has led to a lot of fanworks on these themes that are based mostly on other fanworks, and stray further and further from the original content.

So at this point there’s an entire wing of Tim’s fandom wherein this side of him has expanded enormously, and he primarily exists to suffer, frequently in ways that 1) escalate to a point that is inarguably ‘valid’ and hard to dismiss and 2) set him up to rebound from it in whatever way the writer finds emotionally satisfying or useful–being ultimately cared for and reassured by people who value him (the most infantilizing option but like, popular for obvious reasons), or unveiling his brilliant scheme that was causing him to pretend to be passive in the face of mistreatment, or turning around and using his genius ninja skills to wrest power back from his abusers, or just laying down some sick burns about being treated fairly.

But not that many of the last one, because that’s mostly done with other batfam members.

Tim’s become a vehicle for a lot of vicarious coping that Steph and Jason just aren’t appropriate for, because they get angry and they get even. And those are stories that exist already, so there’s less scope for telling your own.

And because Jason’s reaction pattern is ultimately so masculine (i’ll make them all sorry! with my guns! blam blam!) while Tim’s is pretty gender-neutral, the demographics of fanfic mean that the bulk of the people using Tim vicariously in this manner are female-aligned, which has over time feminized this archetype of him a lot. Sometimes in ways I find really uncomfortable, like there’s a lot of forced pregnancy stuff which activates my panic buttons. x.x

But, ultimately, it’s fandom. People are going to do what they’re going to do, DC in their perpetual fail has hung Tim out to dry in narrative terms, and I’d rather the people who are using Tim for victimization narratives over the people who can’t dismiss or discredit him fast enough now that his position has been filled. 🤷‍♀️ What we gonna do? Fave’s in an awkward spot. DC hates us. This is the life in this comic book pit. XD

Also if you’re the same anon who left me a callout about op of that weird Steph post in my inbox, or if you aren’t @ that person, 1) I refuse to get involved so I’m not answering that ask 2) those aren’t even particularly dramatic fandom crimes? That’s pretty normal? That’s just…Caring Too Much About Ships And Disagreeing With Me.

Do I also feel those opinions are kinda bad? Yeah. But I disagree with everyone about something. Chill.

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internalsealpanic · 4 years

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Imma answer this here @batarella

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

- Myself

-Reader

- Aside from my OCs and Bruce, the person I like to give the most angst to is Dick mainly because I don’t think canon explores his own emotional struggles enough. (Either that or I have not read enough canon where they actually address his trauma. Someone please tell me I am wrong. I am begging you.)

H: How would you describe your style?

-Sarcastic bastard trying to mime emotionally.

-I like to focus on gesture and jokes. My narration and dialogue are actually annoyingly close to how I talk irl which frustrates me.

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

- I am honestly guilty of this but I hate when the batkids get reduced to a single trait.

-I also really dislike bad dad Bruce but I have a few stories that I absolutely adore that use bad dad Bruce but mah dude is trying damn it.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

-Do I only have to pick one? Also instead of a

-The ones I’m going to mention are just ones that I want more of because they are top quality:

-Down Here in The Dark by @arestorationofbalance (Young police officer Jason has been living in my head for months.)

-Hot Water by @ you, you wonderful bitch. I need moar

- [insert a bunch of oneshots from @prettylittlebrownskingyal. Ijust love her stuff. For anyone who has not read her stuff, do yourself a huge favor and read her stuff. ]

I have a dozen others but it’s midnight.

#sealspeaks

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 5 years

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Grand Titans Rewatch: 1.01

so! i only really got into the show around the 6th episode, which means that while i was intrigued by the first five, i didn’t really pay a lot of close attention the first time ‘round. so i’m going to try and rewatch the entire series over the next several weeks and bring you Thoughts, because um. well. I Will Have Them.

SPOILERS for pretty much the entire series, though i will be covering only the pilot episode in this post. let’s see how this goes.

1. i’m just such a sucker for eerie dreamscapes, so i’m definitely biased when i say that this is a promising start. what’s really intriguing, though, is rachel dreaming of dick’s past well before she’d met the guy. after eleven episodes, the extent and even the very nature of rachel’s powers is still nebulous; this ability to dream about people she hasn’t even met only comes up this once, as far as i remember. (again, my initial viewing was superficial, so i might’ve missed it coming up/referenced again.)

1.5. a doylist explanation for this? hint at a special relationship between rachel and dick right off the bat, set the tone for the rest of the series, establish a character-development-by-dreamscape precedent, give us a gander at the origin story of the most iconic character in the ensemble, and set the broader arc of the season—an acceptance of and an ascent out of inner darkness—in motion with these two characters.

an in-universe search for an answer is potentially more interesting, however: why should these two be connected? i like to think that trigon’s influence started here, pushing rachel further and further down the path that would lead her to free him. i mean, handwaving aside the comic-booky implausibility of trigon foreseeing the exact pattern of random events that would lead to the moment rachel pulling him out of the mirror in 1.10 (he’s an interdimensional being! i don’t know! *flails hands*), i like the symbolism of it: both batman and trigon as phantom fathers that rachel and dick run away from, only to be pushed together. this is not to imply any broader equivalency between trigon and bruce wayne, of course; but it goes some way in explaining why this dick is especially traumatised and brutal, and why it would’ve had to be an especially traumatised and brutal bruce wayne that taught him everything he knows.

1.6. HAH at the ‘flying’ in the ‘flying graysons’ sign fizzling out just before the rope snaps, tho! so corny but also so upsetting.

(‘so corny but so upsetting’ – a valid tagline for titans)

1.8. oh but the set-up around rachel is so intriguing, tho! this is both the greatest strength and the greatest pitfall of the show: each of its characters can occupy a genre show of their own; because the first three episodes focus so heavily on rachel, it seems like the tone of the show changes when the titans finally get together, and like a lot of interesting, painstakingly slow set-up for rachel is just dropped and wasted.

2. the first glimpse we get of dick grayson is in the rearview mirror of his car. FUCK. i’m going to start a count.

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 1

Ok. things i love about this little two minute introduction to dick grayson:

a) look at this broody asshole. i love him so much.

b) right away we have this push-pull re: his robin identity. he hates it, resents it, but can’t quite let it go. his officer grayson persona isn’t enough for all the evil in the world, even if it means losing control and falling farther and farther down a spiral of self-loathing.

c) he’s so damn mired in crime and tragedy, tho: officer grayson by day, vigilante robin by night. MAKE A FRIEND, DICK. GET A BEER, DICK.

(so true to character, tho: a suffering dick grayson is usually a determinedly self-isolated dick grayson.)

d) AMY ROHRBACH! i refuse to believe they’d just unceremoniously kill off such an iconic character. i fully expect to see her in s2.

e) “you do your thing. i’ll do mine.” a poorly functioning dick grayson picking up unhealthy coping cues from his mentor.

f) i love how implicit it is that gotham is a carnival of unending horror among the officers in the precinct, and probably every other city in america.

3. the clawmarks on rachel’s mother, tho! fuck, i wish they’d carried over more of this eeriness in the second half of the season. oh, and also:

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 2

i realise why we had to get a move on with the plot, but i can’t help but wonder if we could’ve gotten an even slower build-up to rachel’s powers, because honestly? i know you’re lying, i always know when you’re lying, and the vicious slut! in the school bus window? actually more unsettling than watching rachel liquefy some baddie from the inside.

(tho. um. don’t get me wrong. that’s plenty disturbing, too.)

4. conflicted!brooding!vigilante!dick, here to chase away the images of dead women splayed over living room floors with bullet holes in their heads.

4.5. the fight scene was brutal, sure—but to be fair, most of batman/robin’s fights teeter on the fine line between causing enough damage to keep the bad guys down for a bit and outright brutality. it’s difficult to bring that to life on screen (in a series that touts to inject grittiness/realism into proceedings, no less) and portray a robin who’s definitely crossing some lines without going into some real brutal territory.

4.6. so far i’m loving how economical the storytelling is when it comes to dick—how quickly it’s established, then underscored, how being robin is so important to him and the last thing he wants. his curdling resentment at the thugs immediately looking for batman the moment they see him, and his inability to move on from being the other half of batman-and-robin. he feels compelled to play both parts at once when he’s fighting, and he hates it. all of these things are playing out right underneath stretched-too-thin skin, jagged and awful and ugly.

4.65. and the editing and sound choices keep emphasising how this is not dick in his natural state—how, in a lot of ways, robin is not his natural state anymore.

4.8. dick, brooding in his open-plan apartment, broodily listening to vinyl records and cleaning his armour of blood, while brooding. did i mention that i love this asshole?

(i don’t know where the bruises came from, considering that it seemed like the thugs couldn’t get a single hit in during the fight.)

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 3

4.9. a dick timeline: the zucco thing happened, what, two years ago? robin hasn’t been seen in over a year. and dick moved to detroit a month ago. hmmmm.

5. rachel’s alter-ego-self as a manifestation of her powers continues to be fascinating. as is the fact that that alternate self appears less and less as she grows more accepting of what’s inside her and learns to control her abilities.

5.25. so, what, was sally a part of the cult that wants to kidnap rachel specifically, or just a Bad Person in general?

5.5. “you got that thing for helping kids” – i love that dick has this reputation barely a month into his time in this department. like. this guy is broody and closed-off and clearly traumatised, but hey, he’s good with kids!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 4

5.8. “you’re the boy from the circus” is super-dramatic and all, but how did rachel recognise adult!dick when she’s only seen kid!dick in her dreams? and also, why did she dream of dick at all?

5.99. side note: officer!dick’s hair is the best. it never gets better than this for the rest of the season at least until he becomes trigon’s demon acolyte.

6. KORY!

6.5. so… did the car accident cause the amnesia? do we ever find out why exactly she couldn’t remember anything about who she is? she doesn’t look injured; just dazed.

6.6. her passport was issued in 2014—so she’s been here a while, searching, researching. or not, because it’s probably a fake-ass document. stop reading so much into this, emmram!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 5

6.8. her super-convenient amnesia means she’s forgotten her identity but not human language, mores or customs. i like this extra layer of… alien-ness? that this brings to her: so now she’s not only a stranger to the rest of the world, but to herself. again, so many interesting things are set-up here that the show never really follows through with for the rest of the season—imagine re-discovering kory’s identity along with her, piecemeal, rather than an impersonal infodump near the end of the season!

6.9. also given that portrayals of starfire (at least those that i’ve seen/read) make liberal use of the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope, i rather like this take—she’s already learned everything she needs to know about assimilating into human society, and it’s a question of rediscovering that knowledge instead of having some dude patronisingly mansplain the world to her.

6.95. why did she snap that russian dude’s neck, tho. that’s just brutal. i’d forgotten about this.

7. i like to think here that when dick says i’ll find someone who can help you, he’s not just thinking of law enforcement, but also of people in the super-community—psychics, or telepaths, or somebody who has experience with both. there’s still so much about dick that’s kept in the dark for most of the season, but given the length of time he’s been with batman and the easy familiarity with which he talks about other heroes in the finale’s dreamscape, i’m going to assume that he’s more than well-connected.

7.5. but he’s shuttered himself away for so long, and robin’s return has been far from well-received. i like this little moment where he steps outside and just… lets himself be overwhelmed. just for a bit.

7.7. i like that amy says “sidekick” first instead of “partner”. on-the-nose, but i like it!

7.8. the glibness of he and i had different ideas of how to do the job is making me laugh. oh, dick.

i guess the idea of batman sours quite a lot when you’ve spent most of your life as his partner. i get that he’s projecting losing his own sense of self to a role he just isn’t cut out for onto bruce, but it’s sad anyway.

7.9. gosh i just want these two to bond. i don’t care how you do it Show but bring back amy next season, yeah?

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 6

8. is there any particular significance to the repeated security-cam footage shots we’re getting in this episode?

(gosh, i love the cinematography so much in this scene.)

8.4. so… kory had to use some sort of russian mob and come all the way to vienna to find rachel?? why??? are we ever going to find out?

8.5. on a happier note, i love love this version of starfire’s ‘innocence’. like. she’s baffled, almost apologetic about it, but she isn’t going to take any shit about it, either. also, the music when she uses her powers for the first time, man. FUCK.

9. aaaaand there’s the liquefying-a-guy’s-insides bit. i both love and hate this show’s self-indulgence.

9.5. i gotta say, this episode makes a lot more sense on rewatch than it did the first time ‘round. i remember being so confused by evil!cult!guy, but then again, i was pretty distracted at the time. i only really picked up the show because i was so amused by the over-the-top reactions fans had to the trailer. now look at me, writing 2k+ word reviews dissecting its every moment. *shakes head*

10. *rachel stares at dick’s porsche*

“this is yours?”

“family heirloom.”

“… from the circus?”

“not the one you’re thinking.”

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS EXCHANGE.

10.5. i love these two Dramatic Kids.

11. beast boy cameo! just to assure us all that yes, he is in this show, and that, yes, he is the Best of them all.

12. you guys, this episode is so much more fun that i remember it being. you’ve got an amnesiac interstellar super-spy in kory, a straight-up supernatural horror story in rachel, and a psychological case study whatever genre batman’s supposed to be in dick. each of them could easily fill their own show, but i love that titans wants to connect them with something more than just a team falling together just because.

#titans #meta #dick grayson #koriand'r #rachel roth #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #a gothic cookie #grand titans rewatch 2k19

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starspatter · 6 years

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I think you should do ALL THE ASKS :D

WELL ALL RIGHT THENA - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.1) DCAU TimSteph2) ItsuHaru3) Logan x Diana Prince4) Itsuki Koizumi x Kyouya OotoriB - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.*looks at WonderWolf and SuperBats*C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.BatCat. Even back when I wasn’t a fan of Batman I remember I read one DCAU comic involving Catwoman, and her character just didn’t appeal to me.D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.Any Kagepro ships tbh. Idk I’m just not really invested in the romance of the series. I prefer them all as friends/platonic.E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?Ahaha… I’ve contributed a fair bit of Kagecrack through vids/posts, though I think my favorite are these BTAS crossover edits.Also Kyorange and Skitzo!Kyon for TMoHS. (Plus the “genderbent cast is the previous generation” theory if that counts?)F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?Well I’ve been a Pokémon fan since elementary school. While I no longer watch the show/play the games, I still follow the new generations and RP on occasion.G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?Eeyup. While I don’t ship too often, when I do I ship HARD. ItsuHaru was my first real “obsessive” OTP, but I think the honor for the *very* first ship I had goes to… Cody x Ken from Digimon S2, in a sense. *shot* ^^; Idk I was just really focused on the idea of them making up and becoming “friends”. XP Though I also shipped Ken with Kari too bc of the Dark Ocean stuff. (Also Gary Oak x Molly Hale from Pokémon but that’s a whole other story. >.>; )H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?I’m still mostly a weeb so animu is my go-to, but I’ve been branching out to more Western stuff lately. (Although when it comes to Kagepro the songs are still the best medium. =3=)I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?Steven Universe. While I still love the show, hearing about all the toxicity in the fandom really turned me off so I just try to avoid it.J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)Again, Steven Universe. Also Over the Garden Wall and Bojack Horseman (the former of which I still really recommend you see).K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?I’m also gonna say Sunset Shimmer from Equestria Girls. She went from being a seemingly one-off villain to a fully redeemed good guy and leader in her own right. Though she still has her insecurities, it lets her relate to and help others in the same situation to not let those feelings of inadequacy or jealousy overcome them.Also Midna from Twilight Princess. Her change of heart from servicing her own needs to selfless sacrifice after observing how hard Link tried to save others mirrors my own feelings when I met Link in OoT/MM and watched him grow into a true hero, working to help both the people of Hyrule and Termina even when he had no obligation or was openly blamed for Ganon’s rise to power.L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)So I’m not a big fan of Dick Grayson in the DCAU (or any of his animated adaptations aside from Lego Batman; his YJ version being especially egregious) since I see him as rather childish and bad at dealing with conflict, but he’s admittedly a lot better in the tie-in comics, which give him some much needed development as Nightwing (whereas he barely got any screentime in TNBA). There he acts as a genuine big brother to Tim, and is shown to not be as nearly as bitter at Bruce as the Old Wounds ep would have one believe. I also like that they highlight Dick’s fondness for music, wherein his musical knowledge actually comes in handy to solve a couple cases.M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.All of the Mekakushi Dan, SOS Brigade, or Host Club tbhN - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).1) More Kagepro content in general2) More DCAU TimSteph 3) More ItsuHaru

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?Growing Up - Run River NorthDefinitely a Timmy Todd/TimSteph song now that I think about it. Especially the lines “I found my way without your help, with a broken family” and “monsters in my head”. ;(P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).…Tbh I’m really liking the “Legion x Ouran” idea lately. XD *shot*Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.Hm… I don’t think there are any I’ve really “abandoned”, per se. Most of them are still there, just not at the forefront anymore.R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?All the relationships in Kagepro *shot*S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)Molly Hale from the third movie is the god of the Pokémon world. Just… don’t ask lol.T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?Already answered, but I’ll add a few of my favorites for DCAU TimSteph:1) Tim cuts his own hair after RotJ (or rather just lets it grow long) since he doesn’t trust anyone else with sharp objects around him. Steph is the first person he allows to trim his hair for him (even though she has no experience with it either), since I imagine him feeling comfortable enough around her that he even falls asleep like Sousuke does with Chidori in Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid. (For context, he was raised as a soldier from an early age and this is what happened when they tried to take him to a salon. Played for laughs, but probably an accurate portrayal of people suffering from anxiety/PTSD having to deal with mundane tasks that trigger them.)

2) Similarly, Steph plays piano to help calm Tim down whenever he’s having a panic attack.3) After RotJ Tim refuses to wear red for a long time until Steph knits him a red scarf and tells him it “suits him” bc red is the color of heroes.

As an aside, I also recently like the idea that Logan was at Lex’s party in the DCEU and saw Bruce and Diana together, based on this playlist that I made. U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.Gonna talk about a few I don’t mention too often nowadays.

1) Link from The Legend of ZeldaLink will forever be my greatest true love. He’s the first real “hero” I believed in, and he honestly changed my life at one point to actually want to be a better person. While that faith has faded and I don’t think I can ever reach his example, I still wish I had that kind of courage and kindness - or at least be able to inspire others in the same way he did me.2) Meroko Yui from Full Moon wo SagashiteIf Link was the first (and only) person I ever truly fell in love with, Meroko was the one who taught me what “true love” was in the first place. I won’t say too much since I still sincerely hope you will check out the series someday, but suffice to say there’s a scene towards the end where she makes a choice that shows how much she has personally grown, and come to understand what it really means to “love” someone wholeheartedly.

3) Gary Oak from PokémonThis is a bit of an odd one, but Gary is a character I related to a lot when I was an adolescent since, of the main series cast, he was the first and one of few to really change his “status quo” by quitting training and deciding to become a researcher instead. In my eyes it seemed like a shockingly conscious choice to “grow up” in a world where you can ostensibly remain a “child” forever, and I both admired and deplored him for it (especially at that tender transitory age I was going through at the time, where it feels like you’re being forced to “become an adult” whether you want to or not).

V - Which character do you relate to most?Already answered.W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.Romance in general is really not my thing, so I dislike when it’s the focus/the writers feel the need to pair every character. I’d rather leave things open-ended most of the time.X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.Family/friendship stories + tragic adopted children wanting to be heroesY - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?X-Men, Kingdom Hearts, Dangan Ronpa, Fate/Stay Night, Various Magical Girl series, Various RPG Horror games

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)I feel like I’ve rambled enough already phew. OTL Thanks for asking though. =P

#cryptoriawebb #starspeaks

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luxaeternags · 3 years

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name / alias: alex. pronouns: they/them or he/him age: 26 timezone: gmt triggers: terminal illness & bad representations of addictions & mental health. hex code: deets already in server discord id: we know

BASIC CHARACTER INFO

character name: tony stark wayne. character age / birthdate: 27 / may 29th 1993 character faceclaim: ben barnes hogwarts house / former school: ravenclaw / hogwarts side (order, death eaters, neutral): order of the phoenix occupation: wand maker ships / anti-ships: binch he’s married to bruce

EXTENDED CHARACTER INFO

personality: determined, stubborn, thoughtful, tactical, commanding, impulsive.

past: born in america to a pure blood family, the stark family didn’t move to the UK until the summer after his tenth birthday. the family settled in london, while his father worked on setting up stark industries, a weapons company with a foot in the magical and in the muggle worlds. tony went on to join hogwarts and in his first year, he met and became friends with bruce wayne and jolene fisher. during tony’s fifth year of study, both of his parents were killed. he only recently found out it was an attack orchestrated by voldemort. in the after math, tony has allowed stark industries to be run by family friend, obadian stane. stane has only very recently stopped running the company. during his sixth year, tony confessed to having feelings for his years long best friend, bruce wayne, and the two began dating.

tony knew that after he left hogwarts, he wanted to branch out on his own, start up his own shop. he didn’t want to entirely be connected with his father’s business. ever since he was a kid, tony had been fascinated over the concept of wand making and even conducted a few experiments of his own on the processes over the years.

in his final year of study, tony on the side, starts up iron wands, opening a shop in diagon alley. after graduating in summer 2011, tony pours all of his focus into the wand shop, while also putting more time into his public persona in the muggle world. beneath all of this, with tensions of what lord voldemort was trying to do, on the brink of a war, tony and bruce began speaking with powerful people about an idea. a group. albus dumbledore approaches them with a similar proposal and so, when the war official begins on january 19th 2012, the order is founded a week later. on april 18th 2012, tony marries bruce and dedicates his life to him, and fighting for a better world for future generations, hoping to end this war.

in 2014, tony was kidnapped and held captive for three months. here, he suffered extensive injuries to his chest.

present: over a year ago, bruce’s biological son appeared on their doorstep, dropped off by his mother, talia. tony adopted him a while later. a month ago, not long after discovering that obi was the one to arrange the kidnapping back in 2014, tony and members of the order were involved in a fight at stark tower in london with obi and other members of the death eaters. the fight resulting in the death of tony, who was then resurrected by bruce and nyssa. since then, and the death of obi, tony has been out of the public eye but working hard with the order.

headcanons: -during tony’s third year of study at hogwarts, he found the LGBTQ+ society that still runs strong to this day. it was the first of what would become many ventures for tony within activism movements, and was the inspiration for the foundation he set up after graduating to aid muggles and wix alike in gaining access to funds and resources for transitioning. -tony’s wand is 11 and 3 quarter inches, fir & unicorn hair. his patronus is a raven. amortentia scent is: sandalwood, pine, ginger & vanilla bean. tony’s boggart is his father. -tony draws upon multiple memories to cast his patronus. these include: the first time his mother used his new name, the first time his bandages were removed after surgeries and he looked in the mirror, the first time he and bruce said i love you, the day bruce proposed, and the day they got married. additionally, the day damian first called him papa. -tony has an exceptionally high IQ and from a young age has shown a talent for wandless and non verbal magic. he is an extremely skilled wand maker, often experimenting with cores and woods most wand makers wouldn’t try or deem too dangerous. tony creates some of the most desirable wands around and is one of the few wand makers that has shops across the globe. -tony lives at wayne manor with bruce, alfred, jarvis, damian, dick, nyssa and cass. the manor is located in buckinghamshire and ‘the cave’ beneath is the main headquarters for the order of the phoenix. nobody outside of the family & albus dumbledore are aware of the location. everyone else is only ever given specific coordinates to apparate into. -tony’s primary wand shop is located on diagon alley, while the Stark Industries London building is located where The Shard would be. fuck that ugly piece of shit, SI is there, a short distance from kings cross & diagon alley. additional SI locations include New York, Malibu and Glasgow.

any extras: i’ll add my shit to the server we know this

#app #app tony wayne

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lananiscorner · 7 years

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When writing your stories, do you ever wonder if you are ever making Batman look too bad? It was just a thought I had reading IWGA that a lot of stories in fandom seem to focus on the Batkids, but overall we are a pretty big minority and Batman's popularity is more than any of theirs put together. So when dealing with such a popular character and portraying him, how do you keep in kind that he has his fans but work to keep him in character in your stories?

Thank you for your question, Anon!

This ties back into another ask I had the other day, about my characterization of Bruce and Dick, but I do wonder about that and I do my best to make sure Bruce/Batman does not drift off into “unredeemable asshole” territory, because contrary to how it may seem sometimes, I actually LIKE Bruce as a character. He’s not my favorite, but I don’t hate him, which is why I try to show his good sides whenever it feels appropriate, as well. “August 16th” is one example of that, same as “A Signal of Hope”. I think the most important part is remembering that each character has strengths and flaws that are totally canon and it is necessary to understand those.

For example, Arkham!Batman repeatedly lies to all his allies, including about really important events such as Barbara’s “death” and his own suffering from “Jokeritis”. He is, in canon for that verse, manipulative, abrasive and dismissive, but he is also shown as caring greatly for Gotham in general and his family in particular (most evident in how he had no issue beating the crap out of pre-reveal Arkham Knight, but instantly backed off, apologized and reached out once he found out that it was Jason behind the mask). Contrast that with... say... Adam West Batman, who was much goofier and more light-hearted. They each exist within their own canon/continuity and should be treated as such. I write Arkham!Bruce, and I try to do him justice without white-washing him.

Which brings me to the second part of your ask: focal points. Obviously, Batman is the center of the franchise and most professional stories will feature him as the protagonist, but that is exactly what fandom is so good for: exploring the side characters, putting someone else in the spotlight, demonstrating more of the flaws of the usual protagonist, now that the burden to be the hero and save the day is on someone else. And of course, whichever POV you use will apply their own “filtering” to the portrayal of said character.

Finally, it is always important to remember that it is perfectly okay for different people to have different opinions. I am not writing for Bruce fans. I am not even writing for Jason fans. I am writing to express my own thoughts and feelings on the Arkham franchise and its characters, to offer my interpretation of events that did occur and my own headcanons about what might have occurred. If people enjoy that - great! I love that. If they don’t? That’s ok, too. Maybe my stories are just not for them. I headcanon Jason as bi. Anyone who headcanons him as aro/ace / straight / gay can either bench their headcanon for a few minutes and try to enjoy my stories nonetheless, or say “nope, automatic backspace”. Anyone who is a huge fan of Bruce may either say “okay, I don’t agree with everything you do, but this is not Bruce’ story and I want to see where you go with this, anyway” or “this is a travesty, I am never reading another thing of yours”. Either way is fine by me.

That’s the glorious thing about fandom: we don’t write for editors. We don’t write for sales figures. We write for ourselves and each other. If someone does not like the way I write Bruce, I’m sure they’ll find what they are looking for elsewhere. Or they can prompt me or someone else to write specifically what they want to see. Or they can try to write it themselves. Anything’s possible in fandom.

#asks #Anon #characterization #Bruce Wayne #character popularity

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Couldn't the thing with Jason thinking Dick is infallible from Truth and Justice story come from how he is compared to his brother from Bruce. Even when he was Robin with Dick and Bruce fighting, he was told that Dick was better by Bruce. Then he comes back and is a cautionary tale of what not to and how not to be while Dick and Bruce are now getting along.

I mean yeah, you could go with that take, but I’m always gonna argue that even that is more fanon based than anything else, at least before this issue. We’ve seen a lot of that take in the past already, but truth is, there really isn’t that much basis in older stories for Bruce comparing Jason to Dick. And like I’ve expanded on in the past, younger Jason looked UP to Dick, he certainly didn’t resent him.

With this being true even when he first came back - Dick was the only one he didn’t target at ALL during Under the Red Hood, and when he did finally meet up with Dick a year later, during the Brothers in Blood arc, it was more to fuck with him than any attempt to take things out on him. Like, that arc gets a lot of shit and deservedly so, but I really do wish more people would at least takeaway from it the fact that in it, JASON referenced still thinking of Dick as family. Which just doesn’t mesh up with all the ‘they barely knew each other/they resented each other’ takes.

Pretty much all the times I can think of when Jason was compared to Dick pre ADITF, it was actually not at all what its usually represented as by most fandom takes, such as the time Jason teamed up with the Titans. For pretty much Jason’s entire tenure as Robin up until the Felipe Garzonas arc, Jason was actually portrayed as perfectly secure in his position of Robin and wasn’t threatened by anyone else’s perception of him at all. Even the arc where he loses it on Two-Face has been kinda amplified to make more of it than it was, like.....Bruce was worried about the anger he expressed there, but that was more out of concern FOR Jason and it wasn’t the “Jason was on the verge of getting fired as Robin all along” kinda narrative we tend to see referenced.

Jason was only made out to be the angry Robin or the less competent Robin or whatever AFTER his death, which is all kinds of shitty, but like......there’s no real basis for any kind of extended history where Jason resentfully suffered under his big brother’s shadow while Robin. The angry/less competent Robin stuff was all DC retroactively railroading him after the fact to justify their choice to kill him off (which was still their choice no matter the existence of a poll), and its the narrative most people have run with because it amplifies Jason’s existence as the misunderstood and unfairly judged underdog of the family.

Now to be 100% clear, as I’ve said in the past.....there is absolutely no reason you CAN’T go with this take if you don’t want to. Nobody has to abide by canon, or a particular canon and I’ll never argue otherwise. My main point has always just been that the thing about fanfic is that its a transformative process, it enables fans to take canon and transform it into something else.....but here’s the thing....those transformations ALWAYS happen with INTENT. People are deliberate in how and in what ways they transform canon, even if they’re not always CONSCIOUS of that deliberation.....it still exists. None of these transformations just happen, they happen for a reason. Because fans want an end result that’s different from what we saw in canon.

So my thing is always just.....yes, transform canon as you like, for whatever reason. But don’t pretend that those reasons don’t exist, and understand that when people look at a canon to fanon transformation that really only results in one major difference.......they’re gonna assume that this difference, achieving this difference, was for whatever reason, the POINT of the transformation.

And here’s where I also want to express something else: my take has never been that most of fandom just hates Dick Grayson. That they’re consciously, deliberately out to smear him or make him look bad. I think there’s a lot of elements in play with how I perceive fandom’s interactions with him compared to other characters, but more often than not, I think one of the bigger issues with how his character is TRANSFORMED from canon to fanon, is just.......he’s collateral damage. I don’t think in most cases the point is even to make actual transformations of his character or characterization......its to apply these things to people he’s in scene WITH......and he just ends up transformed as well, by proximity.

Take a look at some examples:

1) Dick firing Tim

Except as we’ve gone over multiple times, Dick didn’t actually FIRE Tim. He didn’t neglect him, he didn’t turn his back on him, he could have handled that situation differently, sure, but he had none of the ill intent people assign to him when they typically ramp up how bad this period was for Tim. Dick actually called him his equal, begged him to stay, said he was too GOOD to be Dick’s junior partner........but this is not at all how this moment in canon is generally viewed by a lot of fandom. He comes off looking a TON worse, like he just chose Damian over Tim and discarded Tim first chance he got, he didn’t care how Tim was affected, he kicked Tim out of the manor and out of Gotham.

But the thing is.....I’d argue that none of this TRANSFORMATION from canon really had anything to do with Dick. I don’t actually think that tons of fans were just waiting in the wings for the perfect opportunity to make a villain out of Dick and just seized upon this moment as the perfect opportunity. I think it was just all about Tim. It was about accentuating his misery, his aloneness, heightening the whump factor of his character and amplifying the feelings of insecurity, rejection and alienation he was feeling and that people related to.

What happened to Dick’s character in most peoples’ eyes as a result of this transformation, was the symptom, not the point. It was the collateral damage, not the aim.

2) Bruce firing Dick

In contrast, we have more than one canon interpretation of Bruce firing Dick as Robin, with this leading directly into Dick leaving the manor at a fairly young age, keeping his distance from Bruce until he finds out about Jason, Bruce giving Robin to Jason without acknowledging or apologizing for the fact that he was giving away the identity that someone else had crafted and poured their heart and soul into, not him.......but this isn’t how a lot of fandom outside of Dick stans and people who are specifically predisposed towards Bad Dad Bruce like to treat that part of canon.

Here, the transformation is the reverse from what happened with Tim and Dick. Here, the feelings of rejection and alienation and insecurity Dick realistically would have felt during that time are overlooked and even outright invalidated by TRANSFORMING the canon so that actually, this period of extended estrangement is completely disconnected from any version of events where Bruce fired Dick, which he did not do here. And in fact, Dick gave up Robin, he and Bruce had a falling out, and this was mutual and two-sided and thus Dick’s refusal to come home earlier and reconcile with Bruce was not actually him standing up for himself and refusing to settle for being taken for granted and dismissed when convenient but rather just Dick being immature, stubborn and a little spoiled.

But again.....I don’t think that’s the aim so much as a byproduct of the intended end result. Once more, I think that had very little to do with Dick himself, wasn’t about making him look bad specifically....but rather, it was about making Bruce look better. It was transforming the thing he had done in canon which was so hard to defend, ie ignore all of Dick’s feelings on the matter much in the way people accuse Dick of ignoring Tim’s later, and passively rejecting him and refusing to be the first to reach out unlike Dick who actively sought after Tim when he left. Those moments in canon definitively make Bruce look pretty bad, and are hard to reconcile with Good Parent Bruce Wayne, so that is what people are trying to transform. Once again, the way it makes Dick look in contrast is just a symptom.

The further examples are honestly pretty endless.

The aftermath of Forever Evil and Spyral is ignored, transforming Dick into the true villain of that period not because people just want an excuse to hate him, but because they don’t want to or can’t reconcile what Bruce actually did in order to get Dick to act so out of character, or they want to justify Jason and Tim and others’ anger at Dick later rather than have them appear to be inconsiderate assholes just piling on a guy who just had the worst year of his life to date.

The instances of Bruce outright abusing Dick after Jason’s death and at other times like Night of the Owls are ignored, transforming Dick into an impetuous, overly aggressive asshole who isn’t reacting to Bruce’s initial aggression, but rather just popping off the handle because he isn’t being received or treated just the way he likes.

Dick reaching out to Jason and making an offer to be there for him as Robin and later times they interact in Titans as well as any actual bond they build, even if mostly just hinted at off the page....all ignored in favor of transforming Dick into this bitter, jealous jerk who can’t see past his own feelings long enough to realize he’s taking things out on an innocent kid who doesn’t deserve this, even though that’s exactly what he realized and motivated his actual actions towards Jason in canon. And again, its not so much about making Dick worse, its about overlooking the WHYS of Dick’s hurt, turning the focus from what was done to him that justifies him being upset in the first place, to some greater mistreatment he enacts on Jason and thus drowns out any sympathy that people might otherwise have for Dick.

Dick’s periods of brainwashing like under the Church of Blood being overwritten or ignored in order to transform his deliberately out of character attitudes towards his friends and teammates there into just normal outbursts that were part of his characterization rather than signs that something was abnormally wrong with him. Thus turning everyone else’s treatment of him during that time period into again just their part of a two-way street and nothing they had to feel bad about rather than acknowledge that he’d literally not been in full control of himself while they had no such excuse for their behavior.

To be clear.....this kind of thing is NOT limited to just Dick. It tends to happen any time people want to transform a canon event into something more one-sided, to accentuate a particular character’s position as the victim or the misunderstood or neglected party.....or to turn a one-way street into a mutual antagonism, to lessen a particular character’s culpability in some argument or feud. You can absolutely find examples of this same effect applying to every other character in the Batfam as well.

But the reason it happens so often with Dick, and thus every instance of it happening tends to be amplified by the sheer volume of similar situations......is because of convenience. Because ironically, the reason Dick so often looks so bad in fanon’s eyes when it comes to his treatment of his family....is BECAUSE of how Dick is so much more integrated into every one of his family’s lives (and his friends’) than pretty much any other character. He’s the collateral damage to other characters being deliberately transformed in some way purely because he’s the one who almost always is THERE to some degree. Because there’s no one else in the scene that’s being transformed.

And so to bring it all back to your question......I think you absolutely can go with that take. There’s an argument to be made for it, especially now given that this canon issue has actually established a precedent for Jason feeling that way rather than fanon just running with the idea because it makes Jason more maligned. Its still not something that’s ever going to interest me though, even if I can see the reasoning for it, because its not just the fact that this particular dynamic between Dick and Jason has played out thousands of times before in fic, as I said yesterday. Its also because like I laid out here......my bigger issue is that take has absolutely NOTHING to do with Dick himself, says nothing about his character, but his character is inevitably the one who will suffer fallout from that particular take. That dynamic, as you described it, makes sense.....but its entirely, 100% on Bruce or others for raising those comparisons, not because of anything Dick did to Jason himself.....and thus it makes Jason’s dynamic towards Dick MORE a product of other peoples’ reactions and attitudes towards him and his brother respectively.

And that dynamic IS perfectly understandable and valid. But even if its slightly different this time because of more of a canon basis, it still for me falls into the same pattern of Dick being collateral damage to something that’s largely focused on another character entirely, with him and how he’s impacted by extension being kinda an afterthought.

*Shrugs* And that’s just......a story I’ve read so many many times before, I’m just never gonna be all that engaged by it.

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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For the fic ask meme, either 7 or 8?

Eh, why not both, lol.

(Going with Batfic stuff mostly at the moment but I’m happy to answer specifically in terms of Teen Wolf fic or various other things I’ve written, if anyone specifies that’s what they’re most interested in.)

Umm, for 7

Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

This is a bit I literally just wrote earlier today, for a Batfic where Gotham itself is kinda a character. It’ll no doubt end up tweaked and rewritten in parts by the time it gets posted, since as people might have noticed, I am a Wordy Bastard and thus all my first drafts are an embarrassment of excess that pretty much end up losing half their overall wordcount in edits, lol.

Also, I tend to go overboard on the purple prose, as evidenced here, and then take the editing shears and prune things down into tolerable in edits. I’d rather have too much on the page by the time I get around to editing, than not enough. Its much easier for me to cut than it is to add.

Anyway, I’m going with this because I’m a) too lazy to try and think of something else to pick here, and b) pretty fond of this so far, overwhelming purple hue notwithstanding, as I think I did a pretty good job of imbuing character into the inanimate here.

____________________________________________________________

Dusk dawns as the daylight dies, not that the latter goes gently. It lances forth from the horizon in one last desperate sally. Broken shards of red, orange and yellow pierce the underbellies of the cloud cover and then ignite, making a mockery of the promise of rain as the heavens rage and churn like a roiling inferno instead.

Gotham’s skyscrapers - archaic, iconic and hostile all at once - add their own violence. Stabbing upwards and scratching sideways with sharp spires and menacing gargoyles; the sky bleeds dark shadows. They spill forth from weeping wounds ripped all across its canvas, and down they seep, down, down, and further down still. Thick and all-consuming, they slowly spread and drown everything in reach, like voracious ink blots that finally, victorious, deepen into night.

____________________________________________________________

And then for 8:

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

This is from Chapter 3 of my fic “Born Under a Bad Sign,” set in the Young Justice universe but drawing heavily from the comics. So trigger warnings as the whole context of the conversation is Dinah speaking to Dick about what happened with Tarantula, though there’s nothing explicit or even specifically about sexual assault in this snippet.

It remains some of my favorite dialogue I’ve ever written, because its pretty much the place I most feel I managed to encapsulate my view of trauma in a way that sounds true to character voice, rather than just me inserting myself into a fic.

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“This has nothing to do with Jason!” Dick ground out, heated.

“It’s not about Jason, Dick. It’s about you. Because your brother had a hard life, yes. It’s true. He suffered terrible traumas before Bruce found him and adopted him. And not a single one of those things are made less true, or invalidated or in any way threatened just because terrible things happened to you too. So why do you insist your pain was less than his? That yours didn’t matter just because his existed?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Dick insisted stubbornly. “You can’t compare what happened to my parents to the twelve years of shit Jason had to live through.”

“I’m not though, Dick. You are. You’re the only one saying one must be worse than the other. All I’m saying is both existed.”

She sighed. “Trauma isn’t a scale to be measured on. It doesn’t require a minimum threshold, and it doesn’t have a ranking order. It’s not about how much harm was caused or how much damage someone did, because at the end of the day, trauma is transformation.”

“What do you mean?”

Dinah held up his broken escrima stick, still cradled in her hand. “Trauma is force that causes change. It’s not about the act of damaging. It’s about what’s left behind once the damage is done. I could break this stick into two pieces. It would take a certain amount of force, a certain amount of damage. And once that was done, we’d be left with two pieces here instead of this one. But then give me another stick the same size, same dimensions, only made of metal instead of wood. I could break that in two as well. But it would require a whole different kind of force, a whole different order of damage. Still, in the end, once it was done, we’d be left with two pieces of that too, instead of the one we started with.”

“Two different sticks,” Dinah continued. “Two different traumas. Two different applications of force. And the only thing in common is in the end….both sticks would be transformed. Neither would be what they were originally. Not less. Not more. But different. Changed by the trauma they endured. You want to quantify that trauma? You probably could. It’d be arbitrary, but you could do it. You could calculate the force used, define parameters for the damage it caused. But what would that mean? What’s the outcome? What happens because you decided one trauma was greater than the other? How does that alter the fact, the reality, that in the end, the survivors of those two different traumas are changed? Something different from what they started as?”

“But it is different,” Dick insisted. He looked confused though, rather than forceful. “Context matters. The situations matter.”

“Yes, they do,” Dinah agreed. “But it’s a question of focus, not degree. Which trauma was worse only really matters when you’re focused on the trauma. When you’re looking at what the trauma leaves behind though? When you focus on the survivors? If you ask me, what really matters most is…how are they different? How were they changed?”

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