I literally can't take it anymore. I need to get this out of my system. This is a hate-rant about why almost every single thing Tom Taylor has written is wrong.
First and foremost is the bimbofication of Dick Grayson. Tom Taylor loves to write him like this idiot who doesn't think at all. Being cheerful does not mean being dumb.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #79
"You seem unusually contemplative"? All Dick does is contemplate!
Nightwing (1996) Issue #3
His mind is always running!
Nightwing (2011) Issue #13
Nightwing (2016) Issue #38
I just picked a random issue from all of these comics and in every single one of these, Dick's planning, thinking, and strategising constantly.
Tom Taylor literally treats him like he's stupid or something.
Also the degradation of his abilities
Nightwing (2016) Issue #79
A vigilante for 20 years. Who has faced assassins, hitmen, psychos, surprise attacks, metas, and you're telling me he didn't know that a untrained kid snuck up and stole from him?
He forgot who he was, he didn't forget where he lived! Even when he was Ric Grayson, Dick had procedural memory. His battle instincts stayed with him.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #52
"Then...I didn't even know what I was doing. I took him down--took him apart in seconds."
This man is a vigilante machine when he was amnesic. Why the heck would Dick ever let his guard down?
His robin reference
Nightwing (2016) Issue #92
Even Bruce in Batman: Hush has said it-Dick was the best. His skills were the best of anyone he's witnessed which is one of the reasons why Bruce let him be Robin in the first place.
This scene is so wrong that there's a robin scene that came out before this in direct opposition of this Tom Taylor Shitshow.
Robin & Batman Issue #1
This was actually pre-robin. Bruce had him do a solo-trial run to see his skill before he made him Robin and this was the result. Compare that to Tom Taylor's scene and the result is humiliating. For Taylor.
Tom Taylor's version of trying to show that Dick loves the people comes off as him hating crime-fighting. RIP the whole Robin firing drama and Nightwing birth i guess.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #79
"We could have avoided all of this if we'd just stayed in and eaten kibble."
Nightwing (1996) Issue #3
Dick would rather die than stop crime-fighting. After Blockbuster's first attempt, his life was hanging on by a thread and he still continued crime fighting.
Nightwing (1996) Issue #91
After Blockbuster blew up his apartment, this is the single-minded determination Dick had to continue crime-fighting. This is him at one of the worst lows of his life but he refused to give up but now? He has everything and Dick wants to ignore the murder of a child to stay inside and eat kibble which - what the heck? I know he's seen as a happy character but him finding dog-food desirable is too far!
Also the idiocy of which Tom Taylor had Barbara calling the cops in Bludhaven for a stolen wallet. Newsflash! This isn't her first rodeo here.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #81
vs
Nightwing (2016) Issue #24
Nightwing (2011) Issue #23
Given how Dick's easily defeated enhanced metas and "very good" fighters, him falling down the stairs is a little to absolutely impossible to believe.
Another thing I love about Dick that Tom Taylor deciminates is his grace. Dick is the most graceful person in DC. His balance easily matches Selina's enhanced cat powers.
But yet. You have.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #83
Nightwing (2011) Issue #23
yeah. okay.
Taylor's motorbike scenes of Dick make me so mad. The boy is a pro at crazy. It's one of his best traits because he does the wildest stunts and he pulls it off.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #93
Nightwing (1996) Issue #86
He lands on his feet. He grabbed a villain mid-air, crashed into a window, and was perfectly fine. Actually no, he's not fine because he's worried about his bike's paint job.
Nightwing (2011) Issue #24
He just sailed over a whole crowd of people and started kicking butt like what he just did wasn't extraordinary - which for him is just another tuesday.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #95
yeah, tell 'er Dick.
He doesn't need someone to hold his bike.
One of the worst things in Taylor's run is how Blockbuster went down. It suddenly reminded me of Selina's stupid ideology which is why I think I got so ticked off.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #96
Blockbusters' thugs loyalty to him isn't a make it or break it deal. He's one of strongest criminal organisations and the knowledge that he owns one of the worst prisons that he could easily put his underlings into would've instilled fear into his thugs, not freedom. Furthermore Blockbuster takes good care of his people that don't piss him off. He teamed up with Nightwing in the scarecrow era in Nightwing (2016) because someone was messing with his people. He's extremely intelligent and superstrong, and he's not just going to be brought down by the knowledge that he owns a prison. It's Bludhaven. If he didn't, then there would be something suspicious given that he runs the city. It's the way Taylor dumbs down Bludhaven's villains that gets to me. Imagine him writing Batman (2016). It's like saying, "yeah the Joker was just a little misguided but he found the right way again after a stern talking to by Batman."
Nightwing is a big name.
When Dick first came to Bludhaven, one of the police officers was like we don't want your crazy here or something. Also Bludhaven loves Nightwing. They want him.
So why is everyone pretending like they don't know who he is?
Nightwing (2016) Issue #90
The police, the citizens, the villains-all of them. Dick fought Brutale and beat the crap out of him way back in 1996 comic. He's a Bludhaven regular. Just because Dick forgot who he was doesn't mean anyone else forgot him. Amnesia doesn't work that way.
Nightwing (2016) Issue #54
A whole team of Nightwings were formed during Dick's amnesic period because of how badly he was needed and missed. It's almost like the Tom Taylor run is set in an alternate universe.
I ran out of image space but what the absolute fiddlesticks is up with Dick being scared to jump. It better be a manipulation tactic but at this point I think Tom Taylor doesn't even know that Dick is manipulative.
909 notes
·
View notes
first step.
a/n: i can't get chilchuck and his wife out of my head!!!
fandom: dungeon meshi
pairing: chilchuck tims / his wife
genre: angst
info: told from the perspective of the wife; she is named (junnimay); takes place pre-canon
warnings: might not be canon-compliant
synopsis: everything in the house had a memory, but memory wasn't enough for her to stay.
word count: 2.2k
Chilchuck Tims / Chilchuck's Wife
It was supposed to be easier than pulling out a tooth. Instead, Junnimay found herself dragging her feet about the house as she took stock of all her belongings one last time before she went to bed.
Tomorrow, she would be leaving this house where she had spent almost half her life and the entirety of her adult years. This house where her daughters grew up and where her youngest was born a week late, coaxed out only by a long and complicated spell cast by a kind gnome living two houses down who happened to be a retired midwife.
This house where she once felt she had made a home.
Fler was the first of the girls to move out, wanting to live closer to the heart of the city where she was only a short walk away from the best clothiers in Kahka Brud and where she had better chances of meeting someone to marry. Mei followed suit half a year after, her hands hidden behind her back as she approached Junnimay one evening to announce the news that she had been given a room at a lodge owned by the Half-foot Union as a perk of the contract she accepted. Puck roomed with Mei for a brief period when she was employed by a wealthy tall-man family as a dog walker, before she decided to hop on a caravan with an elf she had befriended during that time.
With her daughters having places of their own to call home and Chilchuck being away on dungeon expeditions for years on end, there was nothing more than memory that kept her where she was. This house had served its purpose in her life, and she believed that it was a good time to move on from it. Even if she hadn't thought too hard about what to do next, moving out of this house and taking Fler up on her offer to live together seemed to be the right first step.
Most of the shelves in the house were bare even before Junnimay started the process of packing up about a week ago. Mei and Fler took the bulk of their belongings with them when they moved out. Junnimay stored the things they left behind in the basement, where she had marked out one set of shelves for Mei and two for Fler. Puck didn't have the luxury of space that her older sisters had, taking only what could fit in one carrying pouch and one trunk that was comically large in comparison to her then newly ten-year-old self. The rest of Puck's belongings were moved to the set of shelves in the basement that Junnimay had set apart for her.
Besides several wooden chests of lock-picking tools, two cupboards of various bottles of alcohol and the odd item of clothing that cropped up here and there, there wasn't much else in the house that belonged to Chilchuck. It made cleaning up easy when she first did her rounds in preparation to move out, putting anything that belonged to one of her girls onto their respective shelves in the basement. If she found anything that belonged to Chilchuck, she would stuff it into any bare spots in the lowest sections of the cupboards of alcohol where he also left things that he didn't know where else to place.
Before dawn broke, Junnimay was already awake. Despite having tossed and turned persistently before sleep finally came over her, she surprised herself with how easily she emerged from beneath the blankets and rose from the bed.
Having changed out of her nightclothes and gotten herself ready for work, she checked every corner of the house as if she were an inner city guard on night patrol, making sure that everything was as she left it the night before. When she was satisfied, she tied on her cloak and laced up her boots and left for the bakery for a short morning shift.
Mei was already inside the house when she came back, hunched over an open trunk as she loaded in her mother's books that had been removed from the makeshift shelves around the alcove that overlooked the sea.
That was her favourite part of the house for the longest time. Looking at it now and seeing it devoid of the signs that she had just been lounging there with a new novel and a cup of honeyed milk made her feel as though someone had reached into her chest to pinch at her heart.
("You drink more milk than the girls," Chilchuck said, all smiles and good humour as he finally emerged from the girls' bedroom after tucking them in. Junnimay laughed, leaning into his labour-roughened palm when he tucked himself into her side and smoothed his hand over her cheek. "All that milk and you've never been taller than me."
"Well, it'd be a waste if I drank honey straight from the pot, wouldn't it?")
There was a reason that she left the alcove as the last part of the house to gather her belongings from.
"I'm back," Junnimay said, softly so as not to startle her daughter who was currently preoccupied with helping her pack up. "Thank you for your help."
Mei continued her work, not looking up in order to keep her concentration. "I'm about half-done here," Mei said. "Fler's upstairs, and Puck's on her way with the wagon and the horses."
Since her books and her clothes were being taken care of, Junnimay ventured into the basement to bring up a trunk she had brought from her parents' house all those years ago. She was hit with a sudden urge to open it up and poke around inside it when she tugged off the dust cover. Something about the weathered leather encasing trunk made her feel like she was a child waiting to open her birthday present again.
("What are you doing down here?"
Junnimay jumped from her seated position on the basement floor at the sound of Chilchuck's voice. She turned around to see him coming down the stairs and fixing her with a curious look.
"You got a secret pet in here or something?" he asked, scanning the area around her. She let out a sound that was between a scoff and a chuckle, standing up and dusting off her now-wrinkled dress.
"The girls would be here too if we did have a secret dog to hide from you," she said, smiling.)
Junnimay was caressing the time-worn grooves on the latch that spelled out her mother's name when Fler shouted for her from upstairs. It didn't sound as though Fler was hurt, but she still rushed towards where she thought Fler might be when she called just in case something was wrong.
"Mama, do you...?"
Fler was standing in front of one of Chilchuck's cupboards where he kept his alcohol, her back facing her mother as her voice trailed off. Hearing footsteps behind her, Fler turned around to face Junnimay, clutching something to her chest that looked very familiar.
It was a pot of honey from her hometown.
("Jun," came Chilchuck's voice from directly in front of her. "You can open your eyes now."
When she did, she was greeted with the rare sight of her fiancé with his cheeks pink and his ears pinker as he held out a painted pot of something to her. Junnimay reached out, and he all but shoved the pot into her hands. Fumbling a little with the pot that weighed much more than it looked, Chilchuck was quick to latch his hands onto the decorative indents so that neither of them wouldn't drop it.
"Chil, is this what I think it is?" she asked, even if she already knew what was inside the pot from the sweet, sweet aroma wafting through the cloth covering the mouth of the pot, bouncing on her heels.
Chilchuck nodded, his eyes darting about awkwardly before he cleared his throat. "As promised, only the best," he said, his words coming out in an ambiguous string with how he spoke without moving his lips much. "Just for you.")
"You told us Papa got this for you a long time ago! Do you remember?" Fler was trying to gesture excitedly at the same time as she held the large piece of stoneware in her arms, coming close to dropping it more than once. "You told us—"
Junnimay wanted to answer the question, but her ability to speak failed her.
She had long since emptied the contents of the pot, being overly generous with the spoonfuls she took from it when she wanted to sweeten her milk. The girls, too, mimicked her large portions when they took turns scooping out honey for their bread in the mornings.
Chilchuck had once said something about him not being made out of gold coins, after he was drawn into the kitchen by the smell of cured meat made in the style of their shared hometown cooking in rendered lard. He had caught sight of Puck with honey smeared across almost her entire face and walked over to her to wipe it off. Puck's bowl was more honey than bread, which prompted him to remind his family that he was not, in fact, made of gold.
Junnimay could see herself laughing as she flipped over the slices of meat in the pan, knowing that Chilchuck was censoring himself since he was in front of their daughters who were too young to be spitting out expletives.
"... Of course I remember," Junnimay said, putting on a smile and inwardly cursing at herself for doing so. "I asked for a lot of honey, so he bought some for me." There was no point in putting on a smile. There was no point in pretending.
What was she pretending for?
Fler coiled her arms tighter around the pot, squeezing. Junnimay could tell that there was something she wanted to say but she didn't know how to say it. She could see it in the way Fler was staring at her face but not making eye contact, the way Fler was incessantly shifting her weight from one foot to the other and then back again.
"Why did you stop asking Papa for things?"
When Fler finally spoke, Junnimay felt the question batter the breath out of her. She inhaled slowly, finding relief in the stretch of air filling up her lungs, thinking and thinking and wishing she had the answer.
Why did she stop asking Chilchuck for things? For help? For the time of day? Why—
"Asking someone who's not around is hard, isn't it?"
The words were bitter on her lips. She spoke the truth, though oversimplified for the sake of not having this difficult conversation on this day when she needed to be strong for herself. There would be a time for that in the future, but not now.
Fler's eyes misted over with the arrival of tears. Junnimay began to fret over if she had been too harsh, but Fler started nodding to show that she understood, a slow and measured nod at first before she repeatedly bobbed her head.
"... You know, sometimes, I can't remember what Papa looks like," Fler started with a wobble in her upper lip, turning away from Junnimay for a moment to return the empty pot of honey to the place where she found it. Junnimay met her at the open cupboard doors and drew her daughter into her embrace, squeezing. "I understand where you're coming from, Mama. But— I wish— I didn't have to miss Papa so much."
"I know how it hurts, little heart. But we still have each other," Junnimay whispered, starting to choke up from her own tears. She began rubbing circles into Fler's back, swaying and humming a lullaby with Fler in her arms the way she did with all her daughters when they were much younger. "We'll always have each other."
(This neighbourhood that Chilchuck had chosen was predominantly gnomes.
The vicinity was different from their hometown where everyone was a half-foot and everything was sized accordingly. Everything was built a little larger than they were used to. Junnimay supposed it suited her husband, since he was the tallest half-foot she knew.
Gnomes weren't much taller than half-foots, so she supposed that having to reach a little further to place things on the upper shelves was something she could learn to live with. She was more relieved that Mei and Fler could grow up in an area where she need not worry about her comparatively smaller daughters getting trampled by the much larger tall-man or kobold children who didn't know better.
Away from the centre of Kahka Brud which boasted architecture quite heavily in favour of the taller races, this gnome community along a cliff that looked out on the sea was similar enough to the village they grew up in. It was the perfect place to build a home away from home.
Chilchuck stopped at the shortest house in the row of fourteen that lined the edge of the cliff.
"This is it," he said, a grin on his face so wide that his skin threatened to split. "Our new home.")
21 notes
·
View notes