#(they keep being dc characters. what's with that.)

[hiddenwashington]

observant citizens of washington may have seen the beginning of a set up, stands, a partially built stage, and the signs that something was coming to the city. those who have been here long enough to remember start telling their friends that perhaps the ren faire is coming back for another year, to let everyone know they should start planning costumes though no official event date or information has been released. despite the fact that something is clearly being set up no one can track down who is running the event, or any of the important details for it, and nothing in washington can ever be that simple. overnight the upcoming ren faire seems to have taken over the city. bars suddenly become taverns, shops are replaced with merchant stands, and nobility now holds the power rather than the democracy that had been running the city. cars are an unknown creation, so citizens better be comfortable with a horse if they intend on going anywhere far.  luckily the transition seems to have gone well for the majority of the citizens, who are unaware that anything has gone wrong, going about their lives as if the sound of a dragon overhead is simply something they've grown used to, and know how to navigate in their lives.

TLDR;

overnight the city of washington has been trasformed into an image of the past. the entire city looks like it may have been taken out of any renaissance faire, though not many are aware a massive change has occurred. though this is america the city has somehow become the image of medieval europe, with all of its citizens losing their modern clothes and technology and employment.

OOC INFORMATION:

happy fall everyone! we're super excited to go ahead and bring you our eighteenth event! we have done a ren faire mini event in the past, and decided to have some fun making things bigger, and much more complicated for your characters. we're super excited to see what your characters do and how they live in this new environment for a little bit of time. that said, definitely go out there and come up with some crazy ideas, plot, and don't hesitate to get creative with it. obviously this isn't an exact time period or realistic in any way since we're pulling a european fantasy setting and sticking it in america, but the goal is just to have fun with it!

DATES:

october 2nd - october 16th

this event will last the same time ic and ooc

THE CHANGE:

magic has swept over the city and completely transformed it into an era similar to that of the european medieval/renaissance era. modern washington as everyone knew it is completely gone. this includes technology, clothes, transportation, and anything else you can think of.

what does suddenly exist is medieval fantasy! feel free to get creative with this, but know that it would be easy for characters to find creatures such as dragons, witches, fae, dryads, unicorns and more throughout the city. this could include monster hunters as well, both as a potential job, and something for supernatural characters to have to worry about.

feel free to check out our list of potential fantasy elements you could incorporate into your threads here!

AWARENESS:

characters will keep their awareness status on the taken page! this means that if your character is aware they still remember their past and believe that at some point they arrived in dc in this time period, and that it has been this way the entire time.

most characters will have no idea there was a time shift! they will believe that washington has always been like this, and they’ve been living in this era for the entire time since arriving in washington. this way threads don't just have to be about the surprise of arriving in the new time period, and you can instead have the chance to explore how your characters would be living in this environment.

with that said there can be exceptions! we will allow you to pick up to half of your characters to be completely aware that they have been shifted to this time period overnight! these muses would know that one minute they were in washington and the next day the city had completely changed, with no idea why that isn't common knowledge.

you do not have to meet this cap, and can have the majority of your character unaware that any change has taken place.

JOBS:

we encourage thinking of what your character would have been doing and potentially posting a little blurb about it before the start of the event so everyone knows. there are lots of possible jobs your characters could have taken up, such as being a noble, scribe, blacksmith, court jester, knight, merchant, rat catcher, and much more

feel free to check out a longer list of job ideas here if you need help deciding on something that would be fitting for your character!

HOUSEKEEPING:

please make sure to tag all event threads hwevent18!

nonevent threads will be paused during this time! as it doesn’t make sense to have threads going on in modern washington and the event washington we do ask that all nonevent threads are put on hold until after the event

feel free to kill your characters! though it’s not the focus of this event there are still plenty of dangers, between the fantastic with creatures like dragons around, and more grounded options, such as jousting as a duel. with that being said, as this is not the main intent of the rp you do have to message the main and get confirmation before killing any of your characters! 

please use your best judgement when including time accurate content. obviously we are throwing characters far into the past, and social hierarchies and situations were very different, but characters should not have to worry about time accurate racism, sexism, homophobia, or otherwise in washington. this is all meant to be a fun time and we don't believe that content would be appropriate for our group

of course make sure to review our triggers page any tag any post with content that requires it.

feel free to begin your plotting and starter calls now! we know that you have to figure out situations for your characters with this event so definitely take the time you need to do a plot and starter call if you wish! there will be an event themed meme coming at the start of the event to get some threads going, but you can always draft things ahead of time if you want.

and that's all! if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask either over dms or in the discord, and feel free to get started with plotting and starter calls! finally please make sure to like this once you've read it!

[mrdogface]

So I finished Birds of Prey (1996 - 2009).

Highs:

known unrepentant homophobe Chuck Dixon accidentally wrote a pretty incredible bi sapphic story during his tenure on Birds of Prey, although much of the queering does come from the artists working on the books. We all know the “call me Barbara” moment – apparently, after the audience reaction to that, Dixon started leaving notes for artists like “be careful and make sure the audience doesn’t misinterpret this scene” lol. 

imo, the realization of Helena Bertinelli’s arc happens in the Birds of Prey. She is finally removed from an environment where she needs and is actively craving Batman’s approval, and she ends up thriving, infiltrating the mob and earning the “good work” from Bruce. Personally, I would’ve preferred if her character moved completely away from Bruce’s opinions of her, and it kind of does, but Gail SImone does close that arc off by giving it to her. 

Gail Simone uses the series as a who’s who of women in DC, showcasing a number of minor and often underrated women, from returning classic characters like Ice to giving Zinda Blake / Lady Blackhawk a second chance at comics relevance (Lady Blackhawk’s best story in the Birds of Prey, imo, happens under Tony Bedard, concluding the character’s arc from her 1950s roots). 

Infinity, introduced very late in Bedard’s time on the team, is a severely underrated nonstarter superhero and it is criminal she never went anywhere. Weird ambiguously Australian ghost girl? Hello??

Barbara as a character who learns to accept her disability. A lot of people, including Dixon and Simone, tend to point out that Barbara learns to be a superhero in spite of her disability, but that’s not the interesting part imo. I think the more interesting story here is that they almost accidentally cobbled together a very genuine character arc of Barbara initially being insecure and doubtful that she’ll be perceived as an equal, as romantically desirable, as a real leader in the superhero world, all this stuff, due to the chair. What we end up seeing is her growth into someone who realizes she’s accepted within the bubble of people who are relevant to her, and that the bigotry of people who aren’t can be made irrelevant simply by building one’s life without them. Her disability isn’t written as saccharine inspiration porn (I think it actually veers too far in the other direction at times; at its worst, it’s a point of grimdark melodrama lol) and it isn’t something she “overcomes” in the classic superhero sense of getting a magical wheelchair or psychic powers, and imo in the superhero genre that’s rare and valuable. The execution isn’t perfect but for me it’s very close. 

Lows:

Chuck Dixon makes Barbara and Power Girl do an accidental war crime lmao. dw, both DC editorial and the fanbase ignore this and the less said about it the better.

Dixon really likes James Bond, Indiana Jones (surprising because Indie keeps beating up his friends) and other travel-adventure stories, so throughout his run Black Canary keeps ending up in exotic locations… and judging the people there, before doing some insane “World Policing.” The racism is uhhhhhhh

Simone ties the Birds into the wider DC universe and it does, frustratingly, hit a point where you need to be either really up-to-date with other books or cracking open google to know who a lot of characters even are. This is kind of just how DC works in the mid-2000s, frustratingly. She’s also forced to work with a lot of off-screen deaths, like Ted Kord’s death should be an enormous thing for Barbara, but we have deadlines to keep and we can’t be certain people have been keeping up with Jaime Reyes, so gogogogo

Misfit and Black Alice. They never worked for me. I hate Misfit’s whole archetype of zany comics fan who acquires powers. Making her Jason Todd-adjacent by giving her the sad homeless backstory did not sell me on her and felt like a cheap attempt to make a nonstarter character function. Black Alice’s whole thing devolves into a “stay on your meds, emo kids” PSA. Just very clumsy 30-somethings-writing-teens material. 

the last arc, set in DC Silicon Valley, kind of sucks. The Calculator isn’t an interesting villain to me. The chemistry between characters after Dinah leaves never feels right. 

it all ends with Barbara believing she's lost her edge, writing a signed note, peacing out, and dumping her adopted homeless kid friend on Helena after getting her ass kicked by the Joker. The last page: Ganthet lamenting that she's in a wheelchair, "to be continued in Oracle: The Cure." oy.

[welcometogrouchland]

ANOTHER SKETCH DUMP! Featuring more of me playing with lineless art. Batman reborn era trio (dick, damian and steph) I miss you...when will you return from war. Also featuring Steph designs bc I've seen ppl dissatisfied w/ her current look, some good mom Talia, and Jason Todd poetry club. Duke is confused not that Jason would start a poetry club but that he'd have such mid poetry opinions. (ID in Alt)

[undertheredhood]

imo gotham war should end with the batkids tying bruce up and dumping him at a therapist's office to sort out his many issues

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Oh hey what about a groundhogs day event where the hero has to relive their traumatic “One Bad Day”-esque backstory but it’s another hero they either know really well and the only way to break the loop is letting that horrible event happen

Bc I’m basic my first thought was “Oh, this would absolutely tear up anyone having to walk down crime alley knowing way too well what’s about to happen”

But I’m also obsessed with my blorbo so my other thought was “Omg lol, imagine if one of the adult heroes ended up in Billy’s body just before his parents left to go die on their dig and think maybe they can save their co-worker the tragedy he faced so young only for every attempt they succeed at getting them to stay keep the loop going and they realize they have to let them go and doom this kid all over again. Haha, extra points if the loop actually lasts from that point to them actually dying so they wake up the next day thinking they failed again only for it to be tomorrow and suddenly Uncle E gets the call that his brother and sister in law are dead and then whoever is in Billy’s body is getting thrown out with a suitcase realizing maybe the nightmare is going to last longer.”

And I just had to laugh bc goddamn my brain cant stop with angst

[starry-bi-sky]

i have... ✨Danyal Al Ghul Headcanons✨ but specifically for my yaelokre danyal oneshot

There's also the tumblr post here but I recommend the link in the title because its the ao3 version, and that one is edited and has some stuff in it that's not in the tumblr post, and will be the version I'm using.

So for summary: this Danyal is also from a Demon Siblings Au where Danny is five years older than Damian. However, things turned out a bit differently, and Danny and Damian had a fantastic relationship with one another. Danny loved music and regularly came up with songs to sing to Damian with. Specifically the folk band Yaelokre's EP "Hayfields" (seriously go fucking listen to it its sooo good. Harpy Hare is the second song but its my favorite. Special shoutout to @gascansposts for introducing the band to me)

He falls off a train when he's twelve and Damian is seven while the two of them and Talia are on mission. He ends up with magically induced amnesia and wakes up in Arkansas while the Fentons are on their yearly Divorce-iversary visit to Aunt Alica, and since he can only remember his name, he ends up being taken into their care.

---------------

Yaelokre Danny has the same facial scar as Things in Threes Danyal, since he was initially another version of him where things turned out better. I'm debating on whether or not I should take it away however, and give him a different scar (maybe from when he fell off the train?), just because the scar is a pretty key identifier for Ti3 Danyal.

-----------------

Danny frequently visits Aunt Alicia in Arkansas! Well, only after he gets settled in and stuff. He doesn't really like the city that much and prefers the countryside where Alicia lives. I know she lives in a cabin but I'm changing it to a farm, so she puts Danny to work and gets him to help her.

I don't want to confine his hobbies to only being star stuff, because people tend to have more than one hobby and I feel like it reduces him to one-dimensionality, so he likes to garden, and learns guitar. His room becomes filled with plants, and he turns their roof into a rooftop greenhouse right below to OPS Center.

He has a complex relationship with the weapons from his past, but he's not... like... appalled by it? When he finds his weapons in the Fenton attic all he thinks is that they're his weapons, and he starts carrying a knife on him afterwards. Essentially he becomes fascinated with weaponry because its one of the few physical ties he has to his past, and while he's not training like he is in the League, he allows his strong muscle memory to guide him through his katas.

Danny likes climbing things. This causes Problems For Everyone Else.

----------------

Danny was not the "kinder Al Ghul" in the League. His kindness extended to his brother and family, and that's it. To everyone else he had high expectations out of them, and the pride you'd expect from the grandson of Ra's Al Ghul and trained by its top members. While he wasn't like, unnecessarily cruel or anything, he wasn't merciful either.

This transfers post-train fall as him coming off as no-nonsense and unforgiving. He's not fond of the idea of giving people second chances, and is skeptical of the idea. He's disgusted by incompetency and views it as an unforgivable offense, especially if he thinks that the person should know better, although he's not sure why. Some egocentrism for the soul.

He doesn't like being touched by anyone who isn't family, and gets irritated when anyone grabs him or holds onto him for extended amounts of time. Dash has gotten hit so many times. With Jack Fenton's tendency for abrupt physical affection, it doesn't make it any better. I'd argue it'd make it worse because Danny doesn't want to be touched more often than not.

------------------

Danyal had a red scarf in the League that he wore on his last mission, it came off before he fell off and caught itself on the roof. Damian still has it and took it with him to Wayne Manor. He's got it locked in his room and takes it out when he's alone and missing Danny the most. One time he forgot to put it away before leaving his room, and Dick was visiting the manor for something and found it. Damian found him holding it and freaked out.

Dick could only say "I've never seen you wear this, Damian, this is really pretty--" before Damian shoved him to the floor and stole it out of his hands, before screaming at him; "Don't touch this! You don't ever touch this! This is mine! You hear me!?"

It caused such a commotion that the rest of the family present came to see what the fuss was about, and Damian kicked them all out of his room. Dick is the one brother Damian's the closest with, so the fact he reacted so strongly shocked them all.

This is likely what leads to the "Danyal" conversation.

[mokulule]

The Number You Have Called Cannot Be Reached 6

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason) Warnings: angst/depression and canon typical violence

Bruce sighed, absently feeling the air on his hands folded in front of his face. He stared unseeingly ahead. His frowned deeply, at a loss of what to do. Worry picked at his self control.

Something was up with Jason. Ever since the other night, something had happened between the thief and Jason. It had left him unsettled and off balance, that much was obvious. They’d all been able to see it.

Now, today, Jason had lost control. He’d been agitated of course, but Bruce hadn’t expected the outburst. Jason was usually good at managing his anger these days, at least in the family. He didn’t get physical with them anymore in anger. Except today Jason had suddenly pulled him up by the shirt, and Bruce had honestly expected him to punch him. Jason had shaken it off, but then he’d fled.

The urge to move, to do something, itched at him. He wanted to get answers, but confronting Jason was out of the question. Their truce was fragile, and it seemed every time he spoke to Jason he said the wrong thing. He didn’t know what to do except control the urge to go after his son. He couldn’t fight his demons for him. He could only try not to make it worse.

And so he sat there, staring, unseeing.

Dick’s footsteps, came down the stairs, easily recognizable: light and almost dancing to a rhythm only he could hear, skipping a step every now and then.

“Hey B, thought you were going golfing with the mayor, keeping up the old appearances and all that” he greeted brightly, as ever immune to Bruce’s mood. Or maybe Alfred sent him down to deal with him, that was also an option.

“Oh I love these,” Dick reached forward over Bruce’s shoulder to grab a protein bar from the backpack. He opened it and started to eat it without hesitation.

“Dick,” Bruce sighed, “this is evidence.”

Dick snorted and leaned on the console so he could look at Bruce. “You’re serious.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

Dick snorted again, of course Bruce was serious, then he pulled the backpack over and started rooting through it. Much to Bruce’s exasperation he opened another protein bar.

“Dick, they could be drugged.”

“As if you’d have let me take the first one if that was the case,” Dick mumbled around the mouthful of granola. Bruce mentally conceded the point.

“Anyways,” Dick swallowed and continued, reading the name tag on the inside of the backpack, “Danny Fenton, who’s that?”

Bruce sighed.

“The thief.”

“The Ghost!?” Dick looked up in excitement, “so we have a name now?”

“Presumably, it may not originally have been his backpack.”

“True, doesn’t help much either does it? Danny is very common and Fenton may not be Johnson, but it’s not exactly unique.”

“I haven’t looked it up yet.”

Dick narrowed his eyes.

“This has anything to do with why you’re brooding?”

Silence stretched between them, but Dick could be surprisingly patient when he wanted to. There was no point in dragging things out, it wasn’t a secret, Dick could easily find out through the surveillance if he wanted, Bruce would rather he didn’t.

“Jason was the one who delivered the backpack.”

“Ah.” There was the worried frown Bruce would have liked to avoid. He leaned down a bit to better face Bruce.

“You had a fight?” The question was posed carefully, softly, not betraying any inkling what he thought of that, in a way to gently pry the answer from Bruce, but Bruce knew his eldest son well enough to know he was already mentally running damage control options. That was Dick, always trying to keep their family together tooth and nail. There was a soft pang of appreciation in his chest he couldn’t articulate, instead he focused on the problem at hand.

“He’s convinced the thief needs help, I don’t actually disagree.”

Dick sat back in realization, his eyes flickered to the backpack and its sorry spoils.

“But he could still be working for someone,” Dick recited with a sigh, it was an old lesson. One he knew Jason wouldn’t have appreciated, not if he felt Bruce was dismissing his concerns. “B.”

“I know.”

Do you? Dick’s eyebrows asked, but he had the grace not to actually say it. He clapped Bruce on the shoulder instead, squeezing slightly.

“He’ll warm back up.”

“You think so?” He asked unable to look up at Dick.

“Hey,” Dick said brightly in a way that naturally drew attention to him, “we’ve come back from worse.” And there was that bright smile and that pang of appreciation was back, along with another warm feeling in his chest: hope.

“Well, I gotta get going, I’ve got work tomorrow. Just gotta grab a few more of these.”

And the feeling was gone.

“Dick.”

“We shouldn’t waste perfectly good food, B, also they’re W-Mark exclusives, they don’t have them in Blüdhaven.” He grinned, pockets stuffed with contraband. Invariably reminding Bruce of a younger version with pockets full of candy he’d been denied. Brat already knew he had won. Bruce waved him off with a sigh.

Dick practically skipped towards the stairs. Then he paused.

“Oh and B, if I was you, I’d check the phone at the bottom of the bag. It’s not a brand I recognize.”

With that he was off.

Bruce stared after him. Pride warred with annoyance. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts he hadn’t even noticed Dick checking out the bag more thoroughly than the cursory look he himself had done when Jason had handed it to him.

He grabbed the bag and rooted around a bit, and just as Dick had said, there was a phone.

He pulled it out, and turned it over in his hands. It was made from dark blue plastic. The logo on the back, a stylized V in front of a globe, wasn’t one he recognized. It looked old and scuffed, had actual buttons and a jarringly small screen when you were used to modern smartphones.

It was also out of power.

With how old it looked, it was unlikely cordless charging was an option. He looked at the bottom edge where there was an actual mini headphone jack, along with what he assumed was the charging port - it wasn’t a type he recognized.

He frowned and got up. He wouldn’t be too late for his meeting with the mayor if he left now, not something he couldn’t brush off as eccentric forgetfulness at least.

He could drop the phone off at Tim’s on the way. Tim would get the phone working one way or another.

Oo o oO

Danny stayed underneath the pavement long after the not-ghost had left. The feeling of almost giving in was a crawling like ants underneath his skin. The threat of almost capture was like a noose around his neck - if they captured him, if they managed to contain him, he would never get home.

Eventually the bone deep tiredness of using his powers too much hit him, and he dragged himself back to his haunt, invisibly and intangibly, because he’d had much too much excitement today. He was raw and empty inside when he dropped onto his blanket pile and rolled up. He would get food some other day. Never mind that he was completely out. It wouldn’t end his existence, just weaken him. Ghosts at the core ran on willpower, and Danny wanted to go home.

A small squeak and rustle, had him opening his eyes a crack and turning his head to look to the far side of the room. There the rat was going his trash, the packaging probably still smelled like food.

He huffed and closed his eyes again. If he got truly desperate he could always eat the rat - It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d eaten.

next

Masterpost for subscription

Sorry, it's not the longest part this time, but we got to appreciate a few other characters, yay! Hope you enjoyed, cause Danny sure isn't enjoying himself.

[boyfriendgideon]

as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

[kryptonbabe]

What we had / What we ended up with

I miss Yara, she was not a perfect character, but one that was different enough to add something new to the Wonder Woman mythos, she had a brash attitude yes, but had flaws and was not an overly entitled and girlbossy person, there was room for improvement and growth, leaving connections to characters like Cassandra Sandsmark, Nubia and others as thrilling possibilities for her future, sadly she was dropped hard and now we have Trinity written by Tom King, and of course, let's wait and see, but so far... I wish we had more of this...

And less of this...

[raifuujin]

Anyone else feel like Kaito is almost becoming a secondary character in his own manga due to the heists slowly becoming DC clones of figuring out the tricks going on instead of just letting the heist happen and staying within Kaito's perspective.

[geneticdriftwood]

i’m having thoughts about batman vs green arrow, and how the central characters shape the stories their supporting casts are allowed

like, in batman comics, bruce’s story is about being permanently shaped by a grief he can never move on from (his parent’s deaths, and later jason’s death). the premise of batman, bruce’s unyielding dedication to his mission, requires that bruce always be living in the shadow of his formative trauma, always responding to it. structurally, he can never be allowed to heal (because a happy bruce wayne isn’t batman), which means he can’t really grow. his supporting cast can develop and grow in their own right, but they can’t leave (bc they’re batman characters), so they stay stuck in the same unhealthy dynamics with bruce. this creates a narrative paradigm where positive change rarely sticks, cycles aren’t broken, and the easiest story to tell is a tragedy. bruce isn’t allowed a happy ending, so nobody who loves him gets one either.

now compare this with green arrow, where ollie’s stories are so often about having the humility, courage, and determination to take accountability for your mistakes and change for the better. transformative change is his whole deal! it’s the point of the island! and his relationships with his supporting cast reflect this. ollie messes up, he learns from it, and his relationships with other characters develop and improve accordingly. the point of the story is that ollie changes, making change possible for everyone. and so green arrow books present a paradigm where characters are allowed to grow in ways that stick, where harm can be learned from instead of brushed aside, and where happy endings aren’t guaranteed but do largely feel possible. yk?

[danothan]

does anyone know what hal thinks abt jazz?

i associate the genre with him sm that it surprised me to see someone hc him actively disliking it

my only frame of reference could hardly be called evidence, but hey, he brought up the comparison himself

now i’m curious if there’s any reason to believe the opposite, would love to see any scenes for or against the hal jazz enjoyer headcanon

edit: hal hates jazz 😔👊

[ambrozians]

the point of a redemption arc for jade, to me, would be something that restores her to the initial essence of her character which was, to put it simply, a morally grey assassin who had zero interest in mass destruction. she made her money and went about her business, sometimes she would enact justice herself, and she can’t wait to retire.

i think there’s been little glimpses of that in the last few years, though most of it is ram v’s doing whenever he could incorporate her into his catwoman and TEC runs. the fact that she’s someone selina can and has sought out for help in the past is a step towards that, in my opinion. but it’s hard to make "morally grey jade" the status quo when so many other writers can’t seem to write her without dousing their writing in so much racism and misogyny. it’s even more difficult when her creator is responsible for some of the most important parts of her character and wrote the very event that took all that away. more writers (and fans) are inclined to engage with a racist and misogynistic depiction of her character than anything else.

[welcometogrouchland]

Anyway since they're apparently not going to go with the "Steph leading/babysitting a team of young heroes" book idea (pause for despair) I'd like to pitch MY idea for Steph: Steph gets back into playing piano (she already started doing so in Batgirls #18!) and ends up taking on a mystery related to the basement rock scene in Gotham (I know the underground concert game there is INSANE absolutely prime serial killer territory)

[tiffanybluesclues]

Every week someone makes a post about how annoying it is that Dick Grayson fans don't acknowledge his flaws, and every week someone replies with an explanation that the flaws OP listed are entirely fanon and inconsistent with canon as it actually happened and at this point I have to assume that none of those explanations are ever going to stick because clearly some people just want the fanon to be true.

Anyway, I'm just putting this here for me to edit and add relevant-to-the-topic links later so I'll have them nicely at hand to read and sooth my frustrations when it gets real bad out there. (Echo chambers are good when we use them to drown out character mischaracterizing fanon.)

[clambuoyance]

I'm gonna be honest. I forget canon kon is white now because I only consume fanon content most of the time so I'm like. yeah this is kon! and then I see a comic screenshot and get whiplash cuz my brain thinks ur version is correct

before i actually read the comics literally every kon i saw was poc so my mind was just like oh okay this is definitely gonna affect my brain perception of this character 🙏

headcanoning is a very interesting concept because it can add a layer or recontextualize canon but you also have to keep in mind that canon will contradict your hcs sometimes because it doesnt have the things that make things like a sexuality or ethnicity unique, if that makes sense (well duh, it was written by primarily cishet white men who are writing from a specific lens). for example, the smallville setting is very white in my opinion and if canon kon actually wasnt white then the story might have had a new layer of storytelling to explore. but his feeling of intense out-of-placeness and the struggle with identity is something that is very relatable to me so oops if i let a lil projection slip out you know? and the fact the superfam are immigrants and kon’s journey with proving he’s worthy of being a kryptonian and worthy of being a super? it’s just sooo relatable. i definitely tend to attach myself to these type of stories. if you were to ask me to write an official dc comic of him id comply with his real canon but there’d definitely be subtext id sprinkle in for people like me to relate to if ur looking for it🤷🏻‍♀️

however it’s also good to actually read stories that were built with these lenses and intentions rather than just hcs because those stories will take that potential where it needs to go.

sorry that was very rambly 💀