gaygodcomplex

[gaygodcomplex]

[gaygodcomplex]

"Ok, ma'am that'll be $226.03."

I take my wallet out of my pocket and unfold it. It is empty other than a single moth that lazily flies out. The moth lands on the tap point of the card reader. There's a beat, and my payment is processed. The moth flies back into my wallet and I put it back in my pocket.

[gaygodcomplex]

It's time we spice up the vigilante scene. My suggestions:

• A Rogues exchange program with Central City

• LOVEMUFFIN guest villains

• Each batkid gets to be evil for a day

• Each goon gets a freebie crime

• Drop a Death Note in Crime Alley

• Build a second Gotham

• Release The Horse

[gaygodcomplex]

HELLO??

[gaygodcomplex]

before dc decided to make everyone's parents one dimensional to make bruce look better in comparison (my theory), batman was so good at showing the complexity of having your abuser be your parent.

i'll probably add more later, but here's my favorite examples

david cain loved cassandra. he loved that little girl, and he showed it by making her the perfect weapon. he showed it by the only way he knew how, making sure she was the best of the best and couldn't be defeated. he made sacrifices to do to so, like refusing to allow her to understand language, and it worked. he loved that little girl that he dressed in a pink dress and made sure to get her pigtails even and then he told that little girl to kill someone. and cassandra knows she was loved by him, even if that love was wrong and painful and not the kind she deserved.

talia al ghul loved damian. she loved her son so she trained him to fight men twice as large. she loved her son the only way she knew how, the only way her father loved her, so she trained him to kill. to defend himself. to do his duty as an al ghul. she loved him but she raised him in a cult, because the cult was all she knew. she loved him enough to let him go, to send him to his father. to stand up to her own father for him. and damian knows he is loved by her, even if was wrong and painful and not the kind he deserved.

[gaygodcomplex]

Okay so I got a wonderful ask that I started to respond to and I saved it in the drafts to look up the English translation of a word and now the ask is gone because tumblr hates me, hope you see this anyway anon. Here are the bullet points from the essay I just lost :

> being a HS dropout doesn't make you ignorant! I didn't know of the study you mentioned it sounds super interesting

> I'm not a bio/medicine student, what I do know about malnutrition I know from anorexia in children, there are probably nuances between the two I don't have access to

> size, like most stuff, is determined by the interaction between your genes and your environment.

> malnutrition absolutely stunts growth, basically the body goes into battery saving mode to preserve what resources it has and goes "well i'm not gonna grow up/develop until you start feeding me again". (This is why BMI is a fucking stupid tool to diagnose anorexia especially in children, it's so dumb.)

> can you play catch-up with growth ? Yes and no. There's something called "chronotopic constraints" which means that there are things in a person's development that need to happen at a specific given time for other stuff to happen later, like a chain reaction. This is true for embryo development, for cognitive abilities (that's why ADHD symptoms change over time) and for physical development like growth. So basically, whether or not a child who has been starved can catch up on growth depends, amongst other stuff, on their base metabolism, the amount of food they were eating, for how long they were starving and at what time window they were starving. And because of the domino effect I mentioned, you can catch up "partially": picture a child who, upon getting food, starts growing again, goes through late puberty, and ends up much tinier as an adult than both his parents were but still bigger than he was as a teenager.

> So how can we know that stuff ? You're very right that we can't separate twin babies, starve one and feed the other, it's not very ethical. But we can run stuff like correlational studies where we take a group of a whole lot of kids who have suffered from malnutrition measure their height at 6, at 8, at 10, at 15, 18 and 20 (this is called a longitudinal study) and say "hey, children who were starved tend to, on average, be way smaller than the average child their age, and they don't all fully catch up on their growth, and this catch-up depends on specific time windows" etc. As I said, a lot of my knowledge comes from the study of anorexia in children, so there are also a lot of case studies of children who didn't eat at specific time periods and had their growth stunted potentially forever (as well as a lot of other stuff).

> so if it depends/catch up is possible, why do you think the Pit is what "cured" Jason's malnutrition:

Well, the issue with Jason is we don't have access to for how long he was in a situation of food scarcity for. We know his parents were poor, but how about before Willis went to jail: if I understood correctly the man was in and out, so there probably was an uneven source of revenue in that side. And how about when Catherine got sick? Medical care costs a lot of money, not to mention heroin; he was probably in food scarcity at least once Willis got caught and sent to jail and he had to take care of his mom himself, before he even ended up in the streets. In the streets, Jason calls himself his own man and steals to survive, so he doesn't have like zero access to food, but no, seeing where Jason lives and that his income source at some point is "stealing from batman" i'd bet on pretty severe food scarcity. Not starving enough to die and not starving/not suffering from malnutrition are pretty different goals after all. Then Jason ends up with Batman and hey! Regular food intake. Though looking at his workout in the six months following his adoption is a little concerning, it's comic book science, let's just assume he's getting enough food and robin gives him enough magic that it's not a problem for his growth. Yippee, Jay can start growing again! Except when he dies, he's still tiny. Not as small as when he got adopted, but like, tiny (4"6 I believe? At 15.) This, along with how big Willis was and if we consider Jason's height in UTH, suggests that his growth is still stunted after three years of consistent adequate nutrition.

Obviously he doesn't grow when he's dead, but there's no reason he wouldn't grow in his coma, he's being fed and basically sleeping so no scarcity at that moment (though some level of muscle atrophy is to be expected). And then he's back to the streets, deeply dissociated, suffering from mysterious (as in hare to evaluate) brain damage and with muscle atrophy, for around a year -he's seen finding food, but again, he's most definitely not eating enough at that time. And then, he's in the league, where he definitely gets enough food, Talia isn't gonna starve that kid. So, through his childhood and teenagehood,Jason goes through several periods of long starvation. Though I don't know the intricacies of critical periods and chronotopic constraints in physical growth, the probability of him not receiving food during some of these periods is very high imo. And then of course there's the fact that not only does he go through intense stress/trauma/adverse childhood experiences for most of his childhood and teenagehood, which as you pointed out also stunts growth, but since he's still a teenager/growing in Lost Days and UTH and considering his mental state in these stories, this could also effect his growth. And also, even if Jason would have caught up eventually, catching up on growth takes time!

So those are all the arguments that lead me to conclude: while it's technically possible for Jason to have been this big in UTH without the Pit influence, I don't find it very probable. And also of course a question of taste: they could have made Jason tiny in UTH, and they didn't. Cowards.

[gaygodcomplex]

2024 is a terrible year to be a henchman. The word "minion" is barely usable and you can't even say "goon" anymore.

[gaygodcomplex]

I was rewatching Young Justice and the fact that all versions of Robin are the only one forced to keep their secret identity even with their teammates and friends is usually written off as Batman being paranoid. I think it's more than that, that it's his way of giving the kids an 'out'. If they ever decide they don't want to fight crime anyone they have a safe identity to return to, no obligations.

They are children first, soldiers second. Bruce knows better than anyone the loneliness his job brings and of course he would want better for anyone, especially his kids.

[gaygodcomplex]

stop forgivin' my crimes I worked hard on those

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Good for them

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he likes books too

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He is approximately three apples tall

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I love them, your honor

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[gaygodcomplex]

You know what, I’ll say it. I think Dick should bring back the mullet.

And the ponytail maybe.

[gaygodcomplex]

reading about serial killers in the 1800s and they had female incels I guess