#I was rooting for dick and kori to get back together

[azuree1733]

🗣️🗣️🗣️ GIRLFRIENDS GIRLFRIENDS GIRLFRIENDS‼️‼️‼️

[timdrakeinorder]

Batman #442 (My thoughts)

Alfred has known him for ONE NIGHT and he already gets Master Timothy status. It's unreal how fast he got endeared to this little shit. Alfred and Tim's relationship is so underrated and I will never stop saying it! In a way, Alfred mentored him before Dick or even Bruce did. Alfred has such an important role in teaching him how to be a support for Batman, and accepting how dangerous what they do is as someone on the sidelines

Alfred is so strong, he really doesn't get enough credit for how hard being Batman's guy in the chair, emotional support, nurse, and father is. He could lose his son every single night and he just has to sit at home and hope for the best

Right of the bat (hehe) Tim has SO much respect and appreciation for Alfred and it's really nice to see.

Hey look, it's the profile thumbnail!

It's like Tim can't physically restrain himself from jumping in to help when he sees a problem. He's so worried

This is where we get into one of my biggest gripes with fanon, the "tim forced batman to make him robin" thing, and also a bit of the "bruce was irresponsible and chose to endanger a random civilian child" thing, although the 'are robins child soldiers?' discourse is too heavy for me to get into.

The biggest problem I have with it is when Dick and especially Alfred are portrayed as being against the decision and forced to accept it by Bruce

As with a lot of fanon, it's rooted in canon and then horribly exaggerated. Tim talks Alfred into taking him to save Bruce and Dick, despite multiple attempts to talk him down both in the cave and in the car. Tim followed Dick all the way to Haley's circus to try and talk him into being Robin, if Alfred didn't drive him the little shit absolutely would've found his way to the fight anyways the second the man turned his back. He's extremely stubborn. And, as established in earlier installments, Batman has been reckless to the point where it is VERY likely he'd die out of his own lack of self-regard any day. I really can't blame Alfred for having a moment of weakness here. Bruce means more to him than anything in the world and Alfred can see that in Tim.

This is also where we get into the "did Tim stalk the bats and take pictures of them regularly?" fanon discourse. I definitely don't think there's canon support that he was following them every night on patrol as an extremely young child (he didn't even figure out their identities until he was 9. I've seen writers make him as young as FOUR trying to follow them and as a big sister to a 4 year old, y'all are insane) That being said, I think his use of the word "followed" could be interpreted in a few ways. It would be a perfectly valid interpretation that he means 'followed' in the way one follows the news, as in keeping track of. However, he does have A LOT of pictures of Batman and Robin and, in my opinion, a lot of them don't look like newspaper clippings. Plus Batman and Robin are rarely caught on film, I don't think the newspapers would catch them often enough for Tim to build a collection that big.

Tim also knows when Titans meetings are, where Dick's apartment with kori is and the fact that they're together as well as knowing what angle to peep through the window at and where to view both the tower and that apartment stealthily. He knows where Dick's New York apartment is, he knows how to get in, he knows how to get into Dick's safe.

He DID manage to follow Batman to that fight on the dam and photograph it.

I think that's too much evidence to completely dismiss the idea that he's followed them before

And here's the real kicker about the 'Tim forced them' thing. TIM DID NOT GO IN WANTING TO BE ROBIN! TIM SEES THIS AS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO BATMAN'S SELF-DESTRUCTIVE VIOLENT SPIRAL!

Tim is selfish. He is stubborn. He's reckless. He wants to help no matter the risk. He sees a problem that affects him deeply out of a VERY parasocial relationship and demands to be able to fix it no matter what anyone else has to say about the matter. And he's a 13 year old boy with a heart too big for his chest. Tim was made to be robin

(coming back for part two after work. we're still only on page seven and I have MUCH more to say)

[thebisexualdogdad]

Could you plz do headcanons with Hellblazer!Reader x Donna Troy?

Donna troy x Male!reader

● you have known Donna for a decade first meeting back when you were 18

● the justice league dark which you had recently joined were asked to aid the justice league in fighting doomsday

● Dick had written you off but Donna fully believed in your magic

● Dick "really Donna? You're falling for this mumbo jumbo?" He says as they watch you create a potion made of outlandish ingredients Dick had never heard of

● Donna "the Amazon's history is rooted in God's and goddesses, occultism is not too far out of the box"

● sure you two met up every so often to hook up but with the amount of traveling around you both did you decided it was best not to commit to a relationship and ruin the good thing you had

● but then years later she's settled down in San Francisco with the titans so you found a way to make your own pocket dimension headquarters to allow you to move to San Francisco to be with her while still having 24/7 access to the other JLD members when needed

● Donna is the only one on the titans who is allowed to have a key to this pocket dimension

● and Gar and Connor have been banned from even stepping inside after setting off a magical windstorm in your library while messing around with some of your ancient artifacts

● well Kori has been trusted with another key in case of an emergency but no one except you and Donna know that

● Donna walking in on you doing a spell fully naked

● "see something you like love?" You say with a grin

● "Y/N please put some clothes on, the titans need your help"

● you become a mentor of sorts to Rachel teaching her about the supernatural and how to control her powers

● she's also not allowed to take any of your spell/ritual books out of the library because once again Gar and Connor were messing around and accidentally summoned a demon in the titans tower

● Donna and Zatanna are super close

● Zatanna tells Donna so many embarrassing stories about you

● and all the magical mishaps she's witnessed you make

● being the only girl in the JLD Zatanna also likes having other women around

● Zatanna "you think Gar smells bad when he shapeshifts? You don't even want to know the smells that come off of Alec when he returns from the swamp"

● giving Donna your trench coat when it's cold out

● "you know there is something that will warm you up" you say suggestively

● Donna leans in like she's going to kiss you but instead whispers "tequila?"

● Donna pulling you in by your tie to actually kiss you

● and flirting with her at the most inappropriate times during missions

● Jason "does he ever shut up?"

● Jason still hasn't forgiven you for the time you turned him into a rabbit

● in your defense it was Kent's idea after the two of them were arguing because Jason was trying to sneakily put his Dr Fate helmet on despite being warned not to several times

● Jason "it's just a stupid helmet what's the big deal"

● "kid that helmet is one of the most powerful artifacts in the world not even I could handle wearing it, you certainly wouldn't be able to"

● Bobo argues a lot with Dick on who is a greater detective, him or Bruce

● Bobo "Richard, I am a member of mensa"

● Dick "yeah but you're a monkey!"

● Bobo "a chimpanzee actually and batman is the one who comes to me for help not the other way around"

● "he's got a point Dick"

● Dick "not now Y/N!"

● when Donna died you and Rachel stopped at nothing to get her back

● Kent told you it would be impossible to resurrect her but she was the love of your life, you would either get her back or die trying

● when you do finally get her back the two of you decide to put superheroing behind for a bit and travel the world together

● a year later Kori gets a call that you proposed in Paris and that Donna would need her help planning the wedding

[roobylavender]

I was thinking about Koriand’r as one does, and thinking about all the imagery we get when she’s hovering over earth and is in the middle between the lonely stars and the place where there is so much life. And I’m thinking about how earth despite her welcoming it so much into her life and trying to make it her home, like it didn’t love her back. I remember how awful she was talked about when it was announced she was going to marry Dick and how the citizens would call her names or not even really acknowledge her as a person with those kind of rights and she didn’t understand why they said those awful things to her. And I’m thinking about this because I feel like it’s something nobody talks about when it comes to suddenly giving Dick different ethnicities (which is usually to be like see he has it harder than everyone else) like idk… and then I think about how you said that Bruce wanted something for all his children and Dick making hero-ing his whole life. And I think that’s interesting when you compare to Koriand’r because I don’t necessarily think that she would have been upset with that lifestyle because she just wanted to belong to something but she also would have agreed with Bruce with wanting more for Dick because they know him and his needs and she like Bruce had seen him go through different masks while growing up and knows everything he could have. And here she is as his lover and his friend who was willing to follow him, and Dick was clinging to her but didn’t know who to vocalize what he should have and she had abandonment issues. Like what would I have given to have so many of these issues addressed between them and show that yes the love was always there and they were what the other needed but it was just the wrong time. Like it’s all tragic.. sorry if this doesn’t make sense I was going somewhere with it but I lost the plot lol

i am so sorry for letting this rot in my inbox for so long but GOD yeah like with the titans in general i think what wolfman really marvelously created was this group of people all suffering from various identity crises with respect to the place vigilantism had in their life as something inherited whether by way of legacy or circumstance. like all of these new adults were searching for somewhere to belong and permanently stick their roots and it was hard. and like you said for kory that struggle was twofold bc most if not all of her teammates at least had somewhere else to turn to if they failed to find themselves but kory had no one. like where would she go if she failed to make earth home? it's not like tamaran was an option as much as she loved it and had sacrificed herself for it and would do again at the drop of a hat if circumstances called for it. i can't remember what issue maybe it's from one of the later titans volumes where she's like "no matter how long i live on this planet, no matter who i meet, nobody means more to me than dick. more than a friend. more than a teammate. more than a lover. from the very beginning he was my connection to this planet. there was a time when i though we would spend our entire lives together as soulmates" like he was her CENTERPOINT. everyone else had homes or parents or towns to go back to in the event they failed themselves and all she had was HIM. the rest of the titans too by that point obv but we all know with dick it was different. and like you said i can't imagine the kind of emotional damage it inflicted upon her to have finally broken things off and the fact that writers never really bothered trying to explore that vacuum in the aftermath is so frustrating bc it wouldn't only have been about the dick and kory relationship but also about their own weaknesses as people and needing to overcome them and in the end we might have seen them become the people they needed to be when they were in the relationship in the first place. we might have seen them become whole

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

*Throws a smoke grenade on the ground and rolls into place as the air clears*

(Okay, I'm prefacing this by saying this is Comic Only Canon stuff. I've watched exactly three episodes of Young Justice. Some things have also been retconned.)

Roy Harper has gone by several hero names. He started as Speedy, the sidekick and ward to Green Arrow. From there, he became Arsenal and Red Arrow.

Roy was the orphan of a parks services employee who was killed in a fire when he was a toddler. He was raised by a Navajo tribal elder called Brave Bow, who taught him archery. Roy's Navajo roots are very important to him- he prays in Diné bizaad(which was his first language), raised his daughter to have a connection with that part of their heritage, and spends time on his home reservation a lot.

When he was sixteen or seventeen, Oliver just kind of... Fucked off with Hal Jordan to see America. While he was gone, Roy couldn't really handle being on his own (I'm not gonna get into opinions on Oliver Queen here, because it's a really divided camp) for so long and started using drugs as a way to cope. He eventually started using heroin. When Ollie found out, he kicked him out. For a time, Roy was homeless. He's relapsed a few times, but has been sober for a while now.

While his friends from the Titans like Dick and Wally were going off to college, Roy started to work as an undercover agent for Checkmate, as well as a sharp shooter. During on of his missions he met Jade Nguyen, aka Cheshire. They slept together and she conceived Lian. Roy didn't know about this until Lian was already a few months old. He fought for, and won custody of her. But he makes sure to keep Jade as a part of her life, bringing her to see her in prison regularly.

Lian was killed in an attack on Star City. In the Convergence event, a time traveller 'rescued' her the morning of the attack to bring her forward in time, to manipulate Roy into killing his friends. He didn't, but saved Lian anyway. So it is canon that on New Earth at least, Roy and Lian are alive and well, picking up right where they left off. On Prime Earth, Lian wasn't killed but thrown around in time. She's now a young teenager instead of a five year old, but she's back with Roy.

After one of his relapses, Roy decided he should check into a rehab facility called Sanctuary, where he was killed. He was resurrected during a multiversal reboot.

Some Roy Trivia Tidbits:

He is Jason Todd's best friend.

The two of them ran a Heroes For Hire business with the contact number RED-ARSE

He and Jason shared (or possibly still do share) a bank account

He led one of the Teen Titans teams

Bart Allen calls him Dad sometimes

He used to be a drummer in a band called Great Frog

He's a horny slut and proud of it

He is very open and affectionate with his friends. He frequently tells them he loves them, and isn't shy about hugs

When he lived in New York with the Outsiders, his nannies for Lian were men

He will stand up to Batman about how he treats his kids

Waylon Jones (Killer Croc) is his rehab sponsor, and considers Roy the 'Only good thing he's done in his life'

He is an Omega. (*squints down at the smudged writing on my hand*) Oh! He's an Omega Lantern. He's also a Black Lantern.

Seriously, he's an Arrow and a Lantern two times over. He's Batman's worst nightmare for a son in law...

The characters he's paired with most regularly:

Jason Todd ("That's my Jaybird.")

Kori Anders ("Best. Girlfriend. Ever.")

Jason Todd and Kori Anders ("We're supposed to be together, dammit. That's the only destiny that matters to me.")

Dick Grayson ("I always thought you boys would make a swell couple. In an erotic Butch and Sundance kind of way...")

Wally West ("You're looking at me kinda weird." "It must be love.")

Donna Troy ("There you are, my handsome little Artemis.")

Grace Choi ("You've gotta stop carrying me around." "You love it.")

Someone give me a crash course in Roy Harper!! I want to add him to Hyena and Hood but I know nothing about him ;o; His name is Arsenal right? Is he Lian's father or is that the clone? The clone's name is... Will?

[lady-stirling]

I think people are panicking because the BatGirl movie was canceled. However, they need to recognize that BatGirl is not as popular as Batman, Nightwiing or The Titans. Moreover, comic writers like TT have a hard on for the DB ship, but hardcore Nightwing and Titans fans prefer Dick with Kory. There are a whole lot more people rooting for them to get back together “in the comics” and long to see them together live action. Old school fans like the EP’s of Titans @ HBO Max. (Articles are popping up all over the place). It reminds me of N52 The Flash Barry/Patty. Although they weren’t together initially, I knew Barry would eventually get back with Iris, Wally with Linda and so on. Honestly, I don’t see Titans going anywhere until after S5 and I think it will depend on what BT and AD want to do/have going on. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if S&L and SG got moved to HBO Max. It probably won’t be the Titans verse, but who knows 😂

No, it's not about the ship. I was rooting for this movie too.

The problem is, they're not just messing with Batgirl, they're messing with all the productions that are on HBO Max. With the merger of Discovery with HBO Max, they want to superimpose Discovery+ and end scripted shows to invest in more reality ones, and they are even taking some movies out of the catalog now. We're afraid the series will get hit in some ways, precisely because for DC they only want big event movies now 🤡 So just like they can stop a fully finished 90 million movie and not release it anywhere, they can cancel the series that we like if they are not giving the necessary money. I'm afraid mainly for DP which is very good, but not very well known by the public.

We'll know more on their investor day that will happen today 😬 and hope for the best~

[iphoenixrising]

The Demon You Know

Day 1 Urban Fantasy AU | Magical/Supernatural Creatures | Time Travel

So, something a little off the grid for my first day of DickTim Week 2021. Special thanks to my wonderful babe @vellaphoria for the beta and the incredible peeps on the Capes and Coffee discord (looking at you @themandylion, @strawberryjei and others). Also need to show my undying love for @chippon because babe, we are making it work.

**

When the sun creeps up over the sky in Gotham, then it’s time to GTFO. Capes in the daytime aren’t the usual for the city, and Red Robin has been playing it too late, staying out far past O’s warning to bring it in for the night. So, really, he’s only got himself to blame.

His penthouse perch has seen more use in the last few months since, welp, Gotham and the fact he likes to get away from the team mentality sometimes, like to return to his roots and run the rooftops like when he was still that Robin. His trips to the Manor had become more frequent since B was back in the cowl and things in the family seemed to be returning to some semblance of normal. 

Well, as normal as it could get, really.

But all that goodwill and positivity is literally ghost. Red’s hands are shaky and his inner calm is absolutely blown. He’s ducking into his perch to throw his suit off, grab his duffle bag full of sundries and fake idents, then he’s going to hit the airport as fast as he can get a flight the hell out of town, away from the terrifying sight.

(He should just call Bart or Kon or Cassie, tell them he needs an out faster than he can arrange it himself, he needs to get away from–)

He knows he fucked up when the slight sounds, small and metallic in nature, make it past his pulse thumping in his ears.

Like a horror flick, he slowly turns as the front door gives a groan and is pushed open by a very familiar palm.

Dick’s blue eyes fall on him like a ton of bricks, on Red Robin’s feet frozen to the floor, his suit only half on, and no way he can get far enough to throw himself out a window.

Fuck.

“So,” Dick keeps his voice soft, footsteps easy as he steps inside Tim’s penthouse and closes the door behind him, “you finally found me out.”

Keeping his mouth shut in times like this has really saved his ass before, so Red doesn’t say a word, keeps every muscle in his body ready to spring for the right second –

Watching the would-be robber struggle in Dick’s grip, watching the light show brighten overwhelmingly, seeing what had to be-had to be feeding.

“I figured it would be you if anyone, actually, so I’m not really surprised, just… disappointed.” Dick continues softly, only in jeans and a t-shirt since Nightwing was oddly missing from the patrol roster last night.

And Red is apparently the only one that knows why.

“But that doesn’t mean I can just let you go, Timmy,” Dick isn’t stopping, his whole body lax while Red is wound tight, backing away from the man he thought he knew. “I really wish you hadn’t found out like this. I...I had other plans.” 

Whirlybirds and pellets aren’t going to help him here. Hand-to-hand and martial arts, aerial acrobatics, none of it is going to make a difference. 

His throat goes dry when Dick’s eyes get more and more blue, when his former mentor doesn’t stop advancing, and Red Robin is running out of room to back away.

“I tried to save you, Timmy. I tried so hard to get you away, out of Gotham, even if you went because you thought you had to find Bruce, I’m the one that gave you the compulsion to leave.” The low laugh is edged with something desperate, “why the hell couldn’t you stay away?”

“This is my city, just as much as Batman’s. You taking my fucking cape wasn’t enough,” Red Robin bites out, back thumping against the kitchen counter, realizing Dick had backed him into the corner. “How did you keep it from him? Constantine, Zatanna, all the magic users he has on speed dial and he never figured you out? No one in the JLA or Titans did?”

That makes Dick pause.

“He never had to. He knew what my parents were before they ever died, Timmy. Haley’s Circus came to Gotham regularly. Bruce always knew.”

The information blast hits him painfully, that Bruce didn’t bother to tell him and look at where they are now.

“And he didn’t try to help you?” Red, Tim, gapes at the still silhouette that used to be someone he thought he knew like he knew himself. Someone that’s always had this secret. “He didn’t try to –”

“Cure me?” Dick’s mouth lifts in a semblance of a smile Tim knows. “There is no cure for this, Timmy. It’s what I am. What my parents both were, the curse of the Romain Bababiljos. It’s unfortunate for me both of them were cursed, that just makes the...the hunger two-fold.”

And it’s just a few more steps, a raised hand that makes Tim flinch back, but only a fingertip taps the edge of the domino, makes the whiteouts raise.

Automatically, with everything he’s learned, studied, experienced about supernatural creatures, he ducks his head so he isn’t looking directly into those eyes. That doesn’t stop Dick from bracketing Tim in, both hands on the counter, their bodies a breath apart.

Dick laughs softly, close enough for Tim to feel the breath on his face. “The Titans...I never had to tell them. By then, I could control myself, at least mostly. The JLA? I’m one of the Batman’s proteges. I’ve been fighting crime since I was eight. They believe in me. There was never a reason for any of them to look too deeply past the surface.”

“Wh-what do you mean mostly?” Tim’s heart slams in his chest, “how many people have you killed, Dick?”

“Do you have any idea how awful the hunger is?” And the lower Dick’s voice goes, the harder Tim’s heart starts to pound. “Surviving on hugs and family affection is tantamount to starvation for someone like me. It’s so easy to kill someone during sex because the hunger is so much I can’t control it sometimes. Anyone I’m with is in danger.  That’s why I couldn’t stay with Babs, she’s too human. The one time I came close–” 

Dick breathes again and all Tim looks at is the span of throat, thinking of the soft, vulnerable parts, anything he can use to get the fuck away.

“–but I didn’t. I have...willpower sometimes. I drained her so close, though. She was-was so fragile, Timmy, and I was so hungry. I’d been starving for so damn long. She was hospitalized for longer than she’d been when the Joker shot her, and I said never again. But Wally and Kory were...different. I could go further with him without killing them, I could get more full than I’d been in a long time. It was still dangerous for them, but I was so far gone by the time...”

“They’re both still alive. Babs is still alive. Does she–?”

“Remember? Of course not. None of them do. I made sure of that, Tim, so none of them would be afraid of me.”  And the air changes when Dick gets closer, his eyes get brighter, and Tim almost chokes with the almost touch to his body under his suit. “But, you are going to be different, aren’t you? I’m not going to be able to convince your mind that what you saw was a dream.”

“So what? You’re going to make me “disappear”? You’ll give Bruce some sob story about how I got tired of the vigilante life and left for college or some shit? Going to bury me where no one will ever find me?” He isn’t looking at Dick’s face, can’t see his own end coming, can’t believe he’d put all his faith and belief in this man only to have it all come to this.

Tim laughs wetly, blinking rapidly, and everything suddenly comes together. “He won’t ever come looking for me anyway. You made sure of that when you made Damian your Robin. Nice plan, Dick. No one is going to give a shit if I’m never seen again anyway.”

And it’s stupid not to at least try, not to duck and kick out, trip up whatever Dick really is, to break a window and fucking run, try to get Bruce, Clark, Kon and Bart and Cassie, to get anyone to listen to him about what Dick really is, to try to save himself.

(If you’d never figured out Dick was Robin, if you never put yourself in front of him, you’d be safe now. Miserable but safe.)

Even if it’s his own brain pan spitting this out, he knows it’s bullshit. 

If he’d never approached Dick Grayson with proof Batman was losing his mind, Tim Drake wouldn’t have reached twenty-one. The way his life was going, he would have probably hung himself long before getting to this stage in his life. If he’d never had Bruce or Alfred or Dick or Steph, if he’d never had Robin, never had Young Justice or The Titans, if he’d never had the Clench, never felt the rumble under his feet as Gotham had fallen, if he’d never had the agony of losing everyone in his life, if he’d never had the drive to prove his adopted father was alive…

The civilian Tim Drake wouldn’t have had the strength to make it through life alive.

So if this is the way he goes out, if Dick is the one that ends it for him–

There’re worse ways to go.

He’s not going to be the Joker’s next victim or Ra’s al Ghul’s heir with a mix of Lazarus Pit crazy. The HIVE, the Light, the mass of aliens he’s fought, any number of Rogue Gallery thugs, none of them will be the ones to take him out.

But this?

His career as Robin started out with Dick Grayson, so maybe...maybe it’s fitting this is the way it all ends. 

He sucks in a breath and finally tilts his head up, looks up into those electric blue eyes, and lets his breath out so so slow.

Because Dick is looking at him with watery eyes, with a grimace, with something Tim can actually recognize.

But those eyes light up in his penthouse perch, take on a supernatural glow, Dick snatching his wrists in bigger hands, pulling Tim closer, the heat getting through layers of Kevlar and Nomex. And just like that, he can’t pull away, can’t pull back.

There’s no way to defend himself when Dick pulls him in, when he expects to get his throat ripped out, his neck snapped, something important crushed, for the darkness to take over and his heart to slow down to a sad, weak pitter patter.

He can’t defend himself when Dick kisses him, opens his mouth, and stuns him into going completely slack.

“I told you,” Dick growls softly when he pulls back, bends enough to get Tim laid out over his shoulder, “I had other plans.”

But Tim can’t reply, can’t do anything other than lay across Dick’s back as the Romani love deamon strides down the hallway and kicks open the bedroom door.

**

And if Tim Drake survives until morning, shocking the hell out of the both of them, staring up at Dick’s surprised face and glowing blue eyes, if the soft touch to his jaw contrasts sharply with the bruises and red marks blossoming all over his body from an intense night with his supernatural mentor and best friend, if Dick doesn’t whisper, “finally, finally, my mate,” before kissing him. 

If the power Dick drains from him doesn’t kill him, doesn’t do more than give him the most amazing span of unending multiple orgasms to ever happen, if Dick isn’t fully satisfied for the first time in his life. If Dick doesn’t call them both off patrol for the next three nights, carts Tim back to his apartment, refuses him clothes and computers and tech, tells the Titans they’re taking a break from crime fighting while Tim is tied and gagged in his bed, sated enough to listen hazily with half-mast eyes. 

If Dick doesn’t hand feed him while he’s getting feeling back in his legs (finally) and give him the full run-down about his parents. If the strange mark on his abdomen doesn’t get warm whenever Dick’s hand is on it, fingers tracing the edges, making those blue, blue eyes dilate in possessiveness. If Tim doesn’t eventually escape with his sanity intact and a little terrified how much his body craves only to have Dick chase after him with single-minded purposes to convince him they’re meant to be.

Then only the man with cameras all over Gotham, waiting and watching with bated breath and fear for his Robins, unmitigated relief when his theory proves true, would be able to give all the details.

[w00wzerz]

~The Grayson orbit 🥺💙~

(All that matters in Titans season 3 ep 8)

I have so much to touch on in such little time! So let’s jump right into it shall we?

Kory has got it bad… and I mean bad - bad. From the very moment that her beautifully long legs strutted into the room, her eyes were locked solely on Dick and his polished ensemble. I adore how she harbors a keen eye for the little things - like when she hands her husband a napkin to wipe the crumbs from his mouth.

Dick on the other hand, is simply that - a Dick. Comparatively in this scene where he takes a bite out of his sandwich - the man wants to have his cake snd eat it too!

He is handsomely dressed down in a black suit, his hair slicked back ever so evenly as it glistens the reflection of the dimmed lights in the room. He has plans for a “date” to a gala with Barbara 🙄 but remains at home shooting his pearly white smile and puppy eyes over to an ever so smitten Koriand’r. Gosh this man makes my blood boil.

Now moving on to the next “it” couple of the season! Let me also be clear that I might just be a grand wizard for the amount of accuracy in my thesis of Kom and Conner’s sex life here.

This scene was so HOT! 🥵 I almost found myself stripping right along with them! Lmfaoo that might be a stretch however, despite how entrapped I am by these two love birds - I find it incredibly hard to root for them in the long run.

Who knows what Kom actually has in store for the Titans? And by the way she was so adamant-on her stance of “no second chances” I believe that the writers are probably foreshadowing her role in the soon to come, ultimate betrayal of the team.

Now lets shift our focus onto Dick and the interesting dynamics with Tim.

For starters, can we all appreciate how incredibly smart and persistent my baby Tim is / was in this episode! He had to let Dick know that he WILL not be gaslighted like an idiot. He even got the job done quicker than Dick did in a day 🥴

Personally I believe that once Tim requested to be the new Robin, Dick instantly felt an emotional pull to him, similar to his connection with Jason. However, that chapter has long been shut. Who would’ve thought that Jason would be the first page huh?

Can Tim replace Jason and be the better Robin? In my personal opinion based on the comics - I think so.

Once Tim is shot by Crane, the writers choose to immediately highlight the parallel between Dick and himself. Tim’s impulsiveness, persistency, and determination is the blatant exemplification of the old Dick and his strive. This theory becomes evident when Dick suddenly pictures himself in Tim’s place.

This could also be another foreshadow of Tim’s new spot within the Titans as this particular moment could evoke the parent within Dick and cause him to take Tim in - with the sole intention of keeping him safe and growing the family. Along with his other stray kids Conner, Rachel and Gar.

After Dick discusses the deal with the team that he made with Jason to have him turn in Crane and return home, he ultimately enters extremely hot waters. For many reasons, one being that he made the selfish decision without including his family AGAIN - and two because his hard headed nature just simply will not allow him to listen to anyone!

Once Dick makes a decision, there is no getting through to him. Even as Kory tries to reason with him and call out his BS, he inevitably blows her off - clearly displaying that her words went in though one ear and straight out the other.

I am also really not a fan of the route that the writers have chosen to take these two. They barely have more than 2 scenes together in an episode and they never remain in the same damn room together for more than 2 seconds! They just said screw Dickkory and ALL of their fans huh?

However in the clip Kory brings forth the ultimate one liner from Bruce “be a better batman.” She also highlights that there is a clear distinction in that term, in other words, there is a Batman who kills in cold blood and one who does not.

Kory’s breakdown of the line also properly touches base on the symbolism that ran rampant throughout the last few minutes of the episode. The eminence of fire and water, good and evil. They both cause major destruction however, one is intentional and the other is just simply erratic.

This points out that even some humans with the intention to do good, may ultimately gain an evil label. Kory using her powers to accidentally leak Crane’s gas into the water drain of every civilian in Gotham, will be the prime example of this.

The next step in the Titans future will be as rocky as ever, but with each new step also brings about new beginnings. Hopefully a Wanted title will be enough to wake them up!

But thats all I have for this week’s analysis! I have full hope that Tim will survive because he is my little baby of courseee, anyways see ya next week 💕

[mejcinta]

A theory about Dick and Kory being distant the last 3 months before going to Gotham.

Gar referred to Faddei as Kory's 'boyfriend'. And apparently she's told the whole team the root of her grief in those 3 months offscreen [although I doubt she's told Dick to his face and had to hear it from Dawn]: the murder of her parents AND Faddei (by her own hands).

Hmmm. So if Gar even so much as jokingly refers to Faddei as Kory's 'boyfriend', can you imagine how Dick is taking that?

I mean, of course, Donna gave him the low down on Faddei in season 2 [again, OFFSCREEN], that he was an ex of Kory's, BUT grief that comes from losing a former lover is quite something else and demands time and space to heal.

So whatever hope or prospects Dick had for Kory romantically, he definitely had to put them on hold for a while as she healed. I also think Dick is overwhelmed by the mystery of Kory's past and the story of her royal lineage. He just doesn't feel like he can understand her when she's not yet understood herself (a chief part of their Try Again vow in season 1).

On top of all that, we have Justin the psychiatrist who we're yet to know if Dick knows anything about.

However, it seems like he did know Kory was talking to a man when he snuck up on her in the middle of taking Justin's call, tee hee! 😂

Kory is on demand and Dick knows it. However, Dick also fears to infringe when it appears Kory wants space. So he's definitely stepping back until Kory tells him she's open?

I feel like much of the hold up does come from Kory's side after experiencing grief, though. She's skillfully been avoiding Dick and Dick, in his typical Bat fashion, resorts to his impersonal ways moving along with life and being detached.

I love how these two transform each other when they're together. But the baggage both of them have this season, and that will play a huge part in how they shape themselves as leaders in Titans later, is not allowing for them to 'Try Again'.

The climax of their arcs is what will help solidify their character and draw up new paths for them. Then they'll open up to the Try Again moment they'd discussed in season 1.

Anyway, I'm hoping the ex and new love interest issue ends before we're halfway down the season. I'm tired of these distractions, and want to get down to the meat of the story that leads to 'Dickkory with a twist'.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

please. i can’t do this alone.

Titans 3.01

thoughts! thoughts! thoughts! some red hot thoughts!

SPOILERS ahead.

1. one episode in, and this season already looks set to give me everything i want. its abandonment of plot and storytelling conventions as it goes from one point to the next at breakneck speed; its cheerful bastardisation of iconic storylines from the comics; the ‘as-you-know-bob’ clunky exposition on one end and extremely restrained, subtle explorations of complex character dynamics on the other; endless shots of neon bleeding into black and blue corridors, shadows and silhouettes; my delight in seeing it celebrate and deconstruct the dark nolan-y batman aesthetic at the same time; my bafflement that it’s so fucking goddamn obsessed with the batfam when it’s supposed to be about the TITANS; kory just... saving every overburdened, clunky scene that she’s in by her sparkling charisma. just... *chef’s kiss*. muah. my show is back, in all its glory.

MY SHOW IS BACK, Y’ALL!

1.5. i mean... this show is so artful and weird and not afraid to go absolutely bonkers in exploring its characters’ psyche, but can just about barely stage a passable comic book fight when every tom dick and harry and their new streaming services can deliver ones that are far more exciting. i love this show with every atom of my body.

(there’s something to be said about rooting for the underdog as well. a pleasure in finding something to love about what other people dismiss. but! enough navel gazing! i have fictional characters’ navels to look at! metaphorically! and maybe literally!)

2. i expected jason’s death to come about pretty early in the season as soon as i heard rumours that red hood was showing up, but for it to happen in the first five minutes of the first episode... that’s a record. 

(well. “happen.” still don’t know what exactly went down there.)

2.25. GOD. jason is such a tortured and tragic character in this show, used and passed around by people with alleged good intentions, never really fitting in anywhere. he’s veritably bleeding vulnerability and the need to belong, the need to be known, and yet the tragedy is that his death proves that nobody in his life knew anything about him at all; that they only saw the flimsy walls he put up to protect his soft core, and thought that that was all there was. that they say they loved him, but blame him for his own death. 

dick is flabbergasted that jason can read, though we know from last season, from what jason revealed to rose, that he has a love for plays and music. barbara is quick to dismiss his actions as ‘impulsive’. bruce has no idea that his supposed son was building his own little chemistry lab right under his nose, and beyond that, no idea that jason needed structure, stability and validation beyond being left alone in a huge house with a treasure trove of dangerous weapons. kory thought his decision to fight the joker was from not learning and growing when the guy tried to kill himself last season and nobody apart from dick even tried to talk to him about it! did you consider that he might still be suicidal? especially after the titans admitted to having “given up” on him because he was just “too hard”?

2.5. the one thing that’s been consistent across all three seasons (so far) of the show is the unreliable narrator trope. there’s a reason why the characters’ dismissals of jason’s actions as impulsive is so repetitive; why jason’s death is a mystery dick feels compelled to solve. it’s a flailing attempt to know his brother much too late--but with red hood, maybe he gets a second chance, just like he got one with the titans. this is what jason’s arc has been building up to. this is ‘death in the family’ but more fucked up in some ways. it didn’t linger on the death because the death wasn’t the point. the joker isn’t the point. everything that came before it is.

this way it will also make perfect sense that the red hood’s main enemy becomes the titans rather than batman.

2.75. goodness knows what’s going on with jason’s little chemistry project. at first i thought he was immunising himself to joker gas or something, but maybe it’s what passes for lazarus pit juice in this universe? 

anyway, it’s pretty impressive that jason learnt all of that from a college chemistry textbook. STOP BRINGING UP THAT HE READ SOMETHING, DICK--

2.8. i’m glad that dick doesn’t immediately sink into self-loathing and guilt and tries to investigate jason’s death while also acknowledging how he failed him. it’s like he actually learned something from the last two years! 

anyway. more about dick later. 

3. oh how i love titans!bruce. a lot of characters had a lot of Opinions on his reaction to jason’s death in this episode, but again, i ask you to consider that they’re unreliable narrators, and this universe’s bruce is a product of how it shaped him. bruce wayne has become a phantom to himself--an artifice borne out of vigorous discipline and crushing self-denial. 

bruce has been batman for a very long time, and without a robin for much longer. (dick must be... in his early thirties? so he was robin for about, say, 10-12 years according to the timeline of the show. that still makes bruce pretty old when he took on his first robin.) things have... calcified (possibly parts of his brain). the personal cost and the collateral from the mission he’s taken up for most of his life is too much to countenance; it has to be a war, and war requires sacrifice. 

on some level bruce knows that’s a lie. he’s so goddamned alone. what’s he going to do? sit down and cry? who’s going to listen to him now? oh, is he going to just stop being batman? who’s going to stop gotham from consuming herself then? he’ll just have to forge ahead, do better next time, maybe he’ll be firmer with them, or kinder with them, or notice more things, or train them harder, or spend more time--

3.25. don’t get me wrong: titans!bruce is an asshole and a half. his roster of potential robins was honestly bone-chilling. the fact that there’s a twisted root of compassion makes it more disturbing. 

3.5. alfred’s dead! it must’ve been pretty recent, because i could’ve sworn that dick tried to call alfred in the very first episode of season 1, or at least considered calling him... 

what a devastating double-blow for bruce then, losing his father-figure and his, uh.... son-figure so close together.

4. i don’t know about barbara yet. i mean, i like her, but she had so much clunky expository dialogue to deliver this episode, and for an episode that was named after her, she only showed up halfway through it. but i like the weight of history behind her interactions with both bruce and dick and her compassion to bruce before he cruelly crossed a line. i also like the implication that she and dick have been in touch recently, and that she didn’t immediately try to guilt-trip dick about some perceived abandonment. it’d be too repetitive.

4.5. there’s also a sense that she ran interference for dick a lot whenever there was something Too Big and Emotional for him to confront directly, and i like and appreciate that character beat.

5. dick, my man! it really does feel like a substantial length of time has passed between the end of s2 and the beginning of s3... kory’s got a new costume, they’ve become celebrities in SF, working missions together, and dick’s actually smiling! genuinely enjoying his work and having fun with it for possibly the first time in the entire series! it’s really a far cry from the fractured, dysfunctional mess that they were at the end of the last season.

i just hope this doesn’t mean that they’ve magically reached a resolution off-screen to all of their fucked-upness from last season, and that the repercussions--for gar in particular--are actually addressed on screen. 

5.25. i mentioned this briefly above, but it really is so refreshing that dick doesn’t wallow in guilt and self-loathing after jason’s death; he acknowledges his and the titans’ failure, is able to admit to barbara honestly that he’s not doing great, and is actively trying to reach out to bruce to make sure he’s ok, is trying to investigate what made jason seek out the joker on his own, and is probably the only person not immediately buying that it was jason’s recklessness that got him killed. i love that dick is finally beginning to trust his instincts or just employ them at all after years of guilt and paranoia and self-loathing. we love some positive character growth!

5.5. another thing i love? the bruce-dick interactions on this show. every scene they’re in together is so fraught with tension, both of them holding themselves back, their emotions on a whipcord-tight leash. dick wants to reach out to bruce, is even somewhat familiar with this brand of denial in the wake of grief, but wants barbara to make the first move because he genuinely does not know how to get bruce to open up. his instincts are right, and wonderful, and genuine, but his expression has been smothered by years of trauma, emotional and physical self-discipline, and what i suspect is poorly treated mental illness. 

it takes a lot for him to finally explode at bruce at the end of the episode--in a way he hasn’t done even when his only opinion of bruce was ‘fuck him’--and it’s all the more startling for how subdued he’s been through the episode, how much he’s been holding back his emotions for bruce’s sake. love it.

5.75. it sort of hurts my heart to see the flying graysons poster in jason’s room. there are a few implications:

a) jason settled into dick’s old room despite living in a giant mansion with dozens of other rooms he could’ve used

b) he didn’t take down dick’s poster--not when he moved in and was idolising him, not when he moved out of the titans and was sort of hating him. i wonder if the reminder of what dick was before robin--that he was forged out of unspeakable tragedy--gave jason the connection to dick that he so desperately wanted in real life

c) dick moved right back into the room and slept on the bed that was now jason’s. grief can be so quiet and piecemeal sometimes.

6. i spy the beginnings of actual arcs for both gar and kory! i just hope that with the move to gotham their stories don’t fall to the wayside...

6.5. i’ve known tim drake for less than ten minutes but if anything were to happen to him i’d kill everybody 

7. this review has gone on for too long and i am tiRED. however, before i leave: i miss some of the dedication-to-aesthetic that titans season 1 used to have. remember how the first few episodes didn’t really feel like a superhero show but something out of gothic horror? there was something gorgeous and raw about that, about open landscapes and the road and creepy buildings looming up at the end of it. moving to titans tower in s2 really ruined a lot of that for me, given its ripped-from-architectural-digest aesthetic, all smooth and clean and artificial. 

i hope that we really explore gotham’s hellscape in interesting and innovative ways instead of camping out in the batcave all the time and indulging in the show’s unending love for long corridors, neon backlights and silhouettes.

8.....

9.  wait, fuck, HOW CAN I FORGET ABOUT HOT PSYCHIATRIST GUY (TM)??? NONE of you prepared me for his return! NONE OF YOU! i gasped! i got up and did a happy dance! 

listen, titans writers, if you’ve had a peek at my titans s3 wishlist, please go ahead and give the other items on the list a go too, thankyouverymuch.

[bigskydreaming]

Tom is already rehashing some things, like too many homages to the nineties run, Zucco's daughter plot point, Beatrice had ideas for societal reform he's taking that and giving it to Dick. It'll probably be half hearted, but it stings that Beatrice left just a few issues ago and she's already completely forgotten for the sake of DickBabs or a love triangle.

Like the thing about the nineties runs is I mean, as much flack as we give various elements of them, there’s so much from that time period that was good? Great, even! Just....myself and the writers seem to have very different opinions on what the most interesting elements of the nineties comics were, oh well.

And omgggggg I’m still so mad about Bea, and its literally Shawn Tsang all over again. The writers keep introducing new, interesting characters, investing just enough time and focus into them to have us interested in them and wanting to see more.....and then they toss them aside to go back to drawing from the same well as always.

And the thing is, this isn’t even about me not really being a Dick/Babs shipper, because honestly, I’m not enjoying the Dick/Kory stuff in what I’ve seen of Titans Academy either, and for the exact same reason:

When they create new characters like Shawn and Bea, they KNOW they’re starting from scratch and need to build interest in those characters from the ground up. So they’re forced to put their best foot forward. There’s no short cut there, if you want people to care about a brand new character you have to give them REASONS to care. You have to make those characters likable, you have to make people WANT to root for them, you have to hook them with intriguing backstories that don’t feel formulaic and new angles that don’t feel just derivative of older characters, and that’s how we got stuff like Shawn’s history as a former sidekick to a villain and now running a support group for rogues trying to turn their lives around, and Bea’s work in societal reform.

But then the second they stop having the patience to build the new characters up enough that the interest in them can actually start to reach the levels that lets older characters last and grants longevity....they just toss them aside and move on....except they never really move on, just backwards. Because the problem with so MANY superhero couples, far from just Dick and Babs or Dick and Kory, is just....how lazy it seems to make so many canon writers. They just fall back on rehashing the same old tropes and just updating popular moments that resonated with fans in the past, now just recreated with a slightly more modern twist but without ever really being anything new. 

Even with ships that I’ve never really been sold on in the past like Dick/Babs, I’ve always said, there’s usually nothing stopping me from GAINING interest in them.....its just....the writers have to GIVE ME A REASON TO. And so many of DC’s writers just aren’t even trying. They’re just moving parts around and pushing characters together in various arrangements like everyone’s just a puzzle piece that you can mix and match however you want......and then just basically expecting readers to be interested purely because of who the characters are, or because it hinges on a nice moment that they then milk the hell out of without ever expanding that into building actual STORY around these moments but rather just squeezing each one til they get everything they possibly can out of it and moving on to the next as though its all just about chasing the next soundbite...because it is! LOL.

And honestly, this problem extends far beyond just the Nightwing title or the Batfam or Taylor’s run or writing in particular.....its a company wide issue right now. In fact I would bet just about anything that its a matter of editorial edict, that even before Taylor started his run DC said okay here’s the approach we want everyone taking with their stories right now:

And that’s like.....its all about banking on nostalgia and the comfort of the familiar right now. I think Taylor is drawing all these elements straight from the 90s Nightwing comics, like Blockbuster and Dick having been a cop, etc, because these are the elements of past Nightwing stories that are so well known. Its the same reasoning behind why they put Tim back as Robin and so many of their new characters are just new spins on old faves like Punchline and Harley Quinn, and why they’re pushing all these older ships that haven’t been together in ages and why specific team lineups are reappearing....its because nostalgia is the name of the game for DC right now, and all their writers are just pulling together threads of classic stories that have stood the test of time, figuring anything that landed particularly well with fans in the past will sell with people here and now, and weaving these threads together and brushing over them with a modern social issues veneer. 

As an approach, its basically all just about repackaging previously successful story moments and elements with just enough changes or in just new enough a configuration that readers aren’t likely to complain en masse that like “hey we literally already read all this. We’ve already BOUGHT these issues. When we were kids.” Its minimizing creative risk while maximizing monetary profit. Spend as little creative capital as possible outside of anything that’s already been successful in the past and as such is a relatively proven quantity, instead of testing new material that’s an unknown and runs the risk of falling flat and thus not being profitable.

And see, I’d almost guarantee that all THAT, that whole line-wide approach to DC’s storytelling, is because the powers that be looked at the last several years of stories and how many of THEM fell flat with readers, and decided that the problem was they’d BEEN trying too much new stuff and readers just didn’t like it. Because they WERE concentrating on presenting totally new stories and building up new ideas throughout their books.....but readers have been pretty vocal for years now about being disenchanted with most of DC’s major stories. And so DC I think looked at that and came to the conclusion that okay, people just don’t want new right now, they want the familiar.

But like.....DC’s problem IMO was never that they were trying new stuff? The reason so much of their new and original storylines weren’t gaining traction or bringing in readers and kept shedding old readers had absolutely NOTHING to do with them being new and previously unseen storylines, which makes falling back on nostalgia very much a non-solution to entirely the wrong problem.

No, DC’s problem for years has been that they’ve been all about spectacle instead of story. There’s ZERO emotional pay-off to any of their biggest plot twists or character beats, and emotion is LITERALLY what people read stories for. Its all about racing to the climactic action packed finish of every storyline and then immediately resetting everyone back to square one and jumping straight into the next big story, without ever giving the events of any of their stories time or reason to MATTER to the characters.....and if they don’t matter to the characters, our proxies that we’re viewing these stories through, then why should any of it matter to us? Why should any of it linger, dig in roots, resonate with us as moments that left an impact and that we accordingly want more of?

And again, like because I’m a Dick Grayson focused blog I’ve obviously largely been focused on how much I dislike the SPECIFIC reactions or non-reactions to so many of the major beats in his stories.....but it was spread throughout their entire line.

Bruce and Selina almost got married....but why should anyone care outside of Tom King’s title when nobody else seems to, no other characters feel anything about this, and Bruce in none of his other appearances seems the same as ever without any reminder that he just almost got married but then didn’t.....and if the characters don’t ever seem to be affected by or feeling a need to revisit or reflect on recent stories, why should we bother remembering them either? 

Jason was dramatically and fucked-upily (yes its a word, I totally looked it up and everything) exiled from Gotham....and then all of that is undone in a single issue with one low-stakes awkward conversation between him and Bruce. Damian quits as Robin and goes off the map and everyone in his family is like “hey don’t we have a littler brother, I feel like we did maybe” for one panel per story arc, and that’s it. Roy’s back from the dead and everybody’s like oh hey cool instead of the kind of return we used to get like when Donna came back and everyone was like oh shit, this MATTERS, because we MISSED you....just like Dick’s death never mattered to anyone but fans of his character because much like I was just saying earlier with them not really giving me a reason TO emotionally invest in Dick and Babs’ relationship if I wasn’t already, same thing with the aftermath of Forever Evil. They didn’t give anyone else reason to emotionally invest in that as something that HAPPENED to Dick and that he was AFFECTED by....because the writers didn’t bother writing him as all that affected by it and it was just like oh he’s a spy now, all that was last year’s content, we’ve moved on, keep up.

And on and on it goes. Ric Grayson was the same problem all over again. Rinse and repeat down the line with everyone from Wally to Donna and etc etc etc.

THAT’S why DC’s stories have been falling flat. It has nothing to do with people not being interested in new ideas, characters or directions, its that’s ALL they were giving us, but it was like just reading wiki summaries of events just alongside pretty art, but no real emotional weight or substance to anything we were reading....and thus, literally nothing that we couldn’t get much the same outcome from if we just...stuck to reading wiki summaries after the stories were over, with no real need to follow along with them. For years most fans have basically just been about keeping up to date with changes in the characters’ lives, but without feeling any real need to watch those changes unfold and play out.

And so honestly I worry we’re just gonna be subjected to a company wide rehashing of old and familiar storylines, directions and character beats, but repackaged and delivered in the exact same way DC was delivering us their new stories and ideas these past years....and its basically going to have the same results, because its the same problem. They didn’t actually fix anything by switching gears, they just shuffled around the actual issue.

And DC’s just gonna be like well now wtf are we doing wrong, we were so sure this would work, everyone LOVES nostalgia right? Did we pick the wrong stories and character beats to bring back?

When really its like......it honestly doesn’t matter WHICH stories and beats they rehash, because its not about them picking the ‘right ones,’ the real keepers, the stories that everyone really WAS eager to see brought back or made new again.....

Its about like, the only reason any of those stories or beats or dynamics stood the test of time and are still familiar and well-known....is because the stories AROUND those moments and ideas gave us reason to emotionally invest in them and retain them as crucial to our view of the characters and things that would resonate and stay with us for a long time.

It was never that any of those ideas or stories were just so innately brilliant that they couldn’t help BUT linger in the overall reader consciousness...it was the fact that we CARED about what happened in those moments and stories.

*Shrugs* But I mean hey, what do I know? I’m just a dude on the internet lolol. 

[ships-bynoa]

Titans 3x08

-It's like they think they can get away with using Gar to help and reedeem other characters and call it an arc. He's being utilised in complete service of Jason.

-no to the T in the sky.

-a leak that will no doubt collapse the ceiling.

-dick and kory in the kitchen. so adorable, the face she made when she signaled to her own face. i know he better make my girl a sandwich while he's at it.

-so they're already all the way in, yeah? kom and conner. only there is no romantic chemistry.

-it's Tim! Timothy! How old is Tim? Let Tim and Gar get to together to solve crimes.

-lmao @ everyone making themselves scarce because Tim's there raving about the titans and robin.

-every.single.time.these two come on my screen, i am filled with disgust. the waste! i do not care. you can't make me care. you cannot nor should you be trying to redeem him. if you wanted a red hood spin off, you should have followed the animated arc because you lack the creativity and range to truly do something interesting with the character. some of these characters should not have been green lit. greg w is a shitty storyteller.

-so we're supposed to root for jason being done being used when he volunteered for this because he wanted to hurt the titans?

-i'm loving tim.

-dick was dying to get out of the engagement, he barely survived donna's exhibition last season.

- is barbara the commissioner of gotham or nah?

-the way dick flew off that bike. lmao!

-that sex scene was um 😬 and what was that purple energy under the bed, and why is kory dreaming again?? and why are they giving us fucking teaspoons of this mystery?

-surely dick isn't hooked to the machine because those readings are lol

-why is barbara asking dick to take jason quietly? Are you commissioner or nah, babs!?

-the crown of tamaran. Pram. Green eyed baby. A woman screaming for her baby. This plot better not get convoluted.

-i am dying whenever someone says "out there is crazy, and people are killing" when all i hear is silence and all i see is fancy dates, a leaky roof and visits to wayne manor.

-who wrote this shit? like why is this happening????? It's genuinely giving me the ick watching jason.

-does barbara exist outside of dick? are bab/oracle/batgirl fans pissed about this? savannah is doing great but maan what a waste.

-dick really does this hallucinating thing on a regs, eh.

-i hate that gar is the one who facilitated this for jason, considering when he'd been kidnapped jason said he didn't give a fuck and it ended up being rose who went to back it.

-lol look at this ordinary guy slipping into an underground tunnel in the middle of the day.

-are we about to be subjected to a whole scene between crane and his mother??? i hate it here. crane started sliding down the couch and i had to skip. i refuse.

-sorry, jason, no bueno, tim will be joining the family shortly, inevitably and you had his dad shot, so.

-the drugs and crane talking, oh, so we're not taking any responsibility, for any of it? jason is definitely on crud if he thinks he can live with them.

-i hate this for gar, i really do. this whole conversations is pissing me off. i don't mind a difference of opinion but narratively, the way they're playing it to redeem jason is irritating to no end.

-i hope kory doesn't budge or change her mind.

-NO! TIM! So both he and his dad have been shot, is that right? Hmm...

-imagine having qs for him while he dies instead of calling an ambulance. jason, everyone.

-i feel like making kory accidentally blow up the water supply is to make her change her mind about jason because she was tricked into "helping crane" which still doesn't work because it was involuntary unlike jason's involvement.

-and coincidentally and so shockingly, the ceiling comes down as soon as he gets the toxin in the water.

the writing of this episode was the most jarring and weirdly disturbing one yet.

[autisticcassandracain]

The original plan for the Mirage thing was for Kory to react reasonably and not blame Dick at all, and leading to their successful marriage. However, behind the scenes interference nixed that plan, and orders were given that Dick and Kory were to be broken up instead, leading to that whole mess

Do you happen to have a source on that? Not that I don't believe you because it would make a LOT of sense, it's just that if there's anything I've learned from being in the DC comics fandom it's that there's a lot of unsourced 'common knowledge' going around that's just plain wrong and I'd like to avoid falling for that. again. bc I've done it before (a lot. I am very gullible) and it's embarrassing.

But even if they had to break them up due to editorial demands I feel like they could've done that in way better and way more natural ways. Disclaimer that I don't like dickkory to begin with so my opinion may be biased, but there's way better angles you could've taken for a break up plot than the massacre of Kori's character that happened now.

I skimmed the break up plotline last night (I'm not finishing this comic because there's only so much bad writing my brain can handle, but I'd like to know the basics on what happens to Donna and Kori in it), and the thing that really got me is that they flirted with actual solid reasons for why Dick and Kori might be better off broken up but then consistently wrapped it in so much bad writing I can barely even give them credit for it. Instead of that weird contrived plotline with Mirage and Sexy Evil Raven that happened now, you could've simply had a B-plot of Dick and Kori's relationship slowly falling apart.

Their relationship was already quite rocky; while they clearly love each other very much, their personalities are quite different and that frequently leads to conflicts. We've seen that mostly with Dick lashing out at Kori when he has his own personal issues going on, and Kori blaming herself for it, and Kori wanting to be closer to Dick while Dick doesn't feel ready to make that kind of commitment. You could've easily extrapolated reasons to break up from these semi-frequent issues.

anyway this got long so there's an example of what you could do with this plotline under the cut

For example, we know that Dick always wears disguises when dating with Kori, and had to move out of her apartment to protect his identity. Kori values openness, and it wouldn't have been OOC for her to become unsatisfied with the secrecy surrounding their relationship. She likely wouldn't feel like she has the right to pressure Dick to out his secret identity (because she doesn't), and since there's no easy way around it otherwise, I can imagine it putting a strain on her.

You can couple this with the fact that Dick has attempted to restrict Kori in many ways; it's even directly acknowledged by Dick himself that he's tried to change Kori rather than taking her as she is, and that this was a mistake. (For the record, I don't think this would be impossible to work through, or that it means Dick doesn't love her, but we're talking break up plotline here.) By contrast, Kori has always tried her absolute best to be understanding and accommodating to Dick, and even though she is pushy sometimes, Dick has stated/implied this is something he actually appreciates. The break up plotline in canon already mentioned that Kori has always lived for others, and now wants to explore what she wants for herself. You can expand on this by having Kori become dissatisfied with the effort she puts into accommodating Dick vs. the seeming lack of effort he puts in.

The catalyst for this can absolutely be the Mirage plotline. The thing is, I don't think it's unreasonable or OOC for Kori to be upset about the fact that nobody noticed she was missing. It's not that anyone did anything wrong, but it's got to hurt, being tied up in a basement for days, only to finally break out and find out nobody noticed you were gone. Even with a reasonable Kori who recognizes that this isn't Dick's fault, I think it'd be completely understandable if she was still upset.

This could be interesting to explore because Kori, as a rule, lives by her emotions, but she's also spent enough time on Earth that she's learned the value of logical reasoning, and why you sometimes need to put your feelings second. In this case, logical reasoning says she shouldn't be upset, but emotionally, she still feels that way. This conflict could be a good catalyst for getting her to re-examine how exactly she wants to live, and how her relationships contribute to that. Particularly, she could take a closer look at her and Dick's relationship and come to the conclusion that while they clearly love each other, it's somewhat unbalanced, and might not actually be what she needs. The reason Kori has pushed through all this before is because she loves Dick, and that's all that matters to her, but with her taking a new look at the benefits of rationally examining your emotions, she might start doubting a little.

This could also tie back in to a line Donna said way back when Dick and Kori first got together that kind of lives in my head rent free but never got expanded upon. Namely, right after Dick and Kori get together, Dick's personal troubles start boiling over and he takes it out by being kind of a bitch to Kori. Donna and Kori have a conversation about this, and at some point (I forget the exact details), Kori says that she's in love with Dick, and Donna responds, "Are you sure you're not just in love with being in love?"

Like, again, dickkory hater bias here, but one of the reasons I was disappointed by the canon portrayal of dickkory was that it always felt like Dick was getting way more out of this relationship than Kori. In particular, I just. Genuinely have no idea what Kori likes about Dick. They've never established that. I can guess and extrapolate, but while Dick has stated repeatedly and explicitly that he loves Kori for the openness of her emotions, her passionate nature, and compassion, Kori. Hasn't done anything like that with Dick. Again, I don't think this would be impossible to work through, but again, break up plotline. In this case, Kori could think back to Donna's words, and realize she was at least partly right; that it's not necessarily Dick specifically that Kori loves, but more the sensation of being in love itself, which she could get with virtually anyone provided she fell for them.

All of this could be combined with Dick's new clinginess regarding Kori, which is canon. I don't know WHY his mental health was going downhill that fast bc I'm only here for Kori, but regardless, you could have Kori getting worried about how much Dick depends on her emotionally, just like she already did in canon.

All this, combined with her newfound worry that she might simply not be getting enough out of this relationship herself and her feeling increasingly restricted in it, puts stress on her. Kori is an emotional person, and the reason she's put up with all of Dick's shit so far was that she loves him, wholly and completely. But if she started thinking it might be a better idea to take a slightly more rational approach to this relationship, the way Earthlings usually do, I think her eventually reaching the conclusion that a break up would be healthier for both of them wouldn't be OOC.

Of course, this does kind of depend on your interpretation of Kori, and the arc you want her to have. Canon sent her in wildly the opposite direction, in which she got more in touch with her Tamaranian roots and decided to live by them fully, which I don't mind in theory, but it was just. SO badly written. I think this would be a much more logical progression of her character after staying on Earth for so long, particularly since she's already become more willing and able to take a deep breath and calm her emotions if necessary. I'm not saying you'll have to basically just give her Earth's values when it comes to emotions, absolutely not please don't do that, but for this particular plotline, I think it'd work.

Plus, if they wanted to, this also leaves a lot more room for a reversal of the decision. If editorial changed its mind, it would've been really easy to give Dick an arc of doing a bit of soul searching, proving he can stand on his own, and proving he can support Kori emotionally in this relationship, and Kori would likely be extremely happy to take him back because she really does love him to pieces. Again, maybe it's the dickkory bias, but I think it'd even be good for them, in the long term.

Of course, none of this fixes the fact that the Mirage plotline was a really shitty portrayal of sexual assault, but I feel like that's been discussed fairly well by fandom at this point (I mean, it's not mentioned that frequently, but it's well-discussed for a 30-year-old plotline and people seem to be aware of the problems with it), so I don't feel like I really have much to add to that discussion. By contrast, whenever this arc comes up, I rarely see people mentioning how OOC Kori was, and they even sometimes use it to bash her/dickkory in general, so I felt like it was worth discussing on that angle.

[roobylavender]

I feel like just the way comics have progressed over the years that I’m officially okay with saying never getting dick and kory back together in the same way that I don’t want Talia and Bruce to be together. Like I love them dearly and I think their love is weird and you really have to look at the way they loved each other to really understand them as people, but to me it’s special that the love was there and now they have to live that decision once it was broken off. Thought I still greatly want Mar’i Grayson to exist and like in my mind Dick and Kory have like another night where the comfort each other with the intention that they won’t get back together in that way and then Kory has her and her solo is about navigating both motherhood and what she wants out of life and finding a new place to lay roots and coming to grips with how her child would navigate earth life and I think it would come full circle too with like Dick’s plans and surprising him and putting a dent in his plans like she always has. Dick wouldn’t be the kind to want a child if he wasn’t married (if he would want a child at all) and like it would be reminiscent of the time he talked to Roy about maybe wanting children with Kory. Like I want to see new discovery with Kory and this is one small part of many discoveries I feel she could have. But also I love when Dick’s plans don’t go to plan, like that’s my favorite kind of Dick. Maybe that’s why I find so much do his recent stuff so forgettable and bland. He doesn’t learn or push himself towards anything or reflects on anything about himself. He’s just there.

And to add to that like knowing that Kory tried to make a new Tamaran and she was pregnant with and her husband died and she lost that world too. Like the natural progression from that arc would have/could have been this. Like if DC really wanted to play into that everything matters then wouldn’t Kory have had some memory of these things? I don’t know I just love the idea her finding herself and being loved without restrictions by her own child.

sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for SO long but i really couldn't agree more! mar'i strikes me as a unique narrative entity really capable of challening kory and dick both in distinct ways while nonetheless allowing them to cooperate and heal whatever rifts there are between them without necessarily needing to dive into a relationship all over again. i think that's something really lacking with a lot of modern dc relationships if anything there's so much focus on drama that writers don't even want to entertain genuine relationship development whether it's platonic or romantic. that's what made waid's flash run so good (despite my issues with linda's diminished agency) in comparison imo. the heroing was impt but so was developing those interpersonal relationship skills towards some tangible end rather than allowing for this cyclical non-growth that eventually dulled out the characters (which is what the writers after him did)

[a-wayne-at-heart-too]

The Robins as...

DICK:

Glam rock / Heartland rock ; goes by the pseudonym “Azul”; the Artist Formerly Known as Nightsing

He’s an incredible all-around performer, so it should come as no surprise that he’s a natural frontman (or solo act).

He’s constantly reinventing his look (short, long, mullet - you name it, he’s probably sported the hairstyle). And Discowing’s got nothing on the outfits he wears onstage.

People love booking or working with him because he’s very professional (but does have a volatile temper from time to time). 

The only thing that he requests for in his hotel room or trailer? A poster of The Flying Graysons. Oh, and cereal. Lots of it.

He actually uses the Cirque-du-Soleil-ish set design, blowing minds all over the world.

He likes calling audience members onto the stage, and never forgets to introduce his bandmates and give credit to those who made the concert possible.

His bodyguards don’t get paid enough for the number (and level of aggression) of fans who throw themselves at him.

He actually responds to fan mail, loves visiting sick fans in the hospitals, and gives warm hugs during meet-and-greets.

A substantial part of the proceeds from all his concerts go to the Martha Wayne Foundation, which supports many schools and orphanages.

His “entourage”? His long-term girlfriend, Kory Anders ( “Azul! Over here! Gotham Gazette! Why haven’t you proposed yet?”), and his childhood best friend, Wally West. 

For all his showmanship, he’s notoriously private about his personal life. And, honestly? The spotlight does make him tired.

JASON:

Folk rock / Grunge rock ; goes by the pseudonym “Rason Rodd”

He sings and plays rhythm guitar, while Roy Harper’s on either bass or drums and Lady Artemis slays on lead guitar. Together they’re known as The Outlaws, managed by Mr. Am Not Bizarro.

He sounds so much like Eddie Vedder that it’s eerie. Eerily beautiful.

His debut solo album “I Ain’t No Joker” went straight to #1 on the world charts.

He’s found that music can be an effective political tool, so expect to find him lending his talents, free of charge, to various charities and advocacies. (On that note, he’s already done jail time for his blatantly subversive lyrics.) 

He’s on the road so much that he practically lives on the tour bus (that’s always stocked with beer and cigarettes). At this point, he’s... trying not to mind. He’s been away from what he used to consider “home” for so long that he’s not sure where to go.

With The Outlaws and their connections, he holds free music workshops and provides informal foster care for Gotham’s street children, who often don’t have proper adult supervision.

During his downtime, he visits prisons in Gotham City to perform for the inmates, hoping to encourage them. Then he’ll anonymously send their low-income families some groceries every now and then.

It’s either you’ll barely recognize him on the streets because he’s so low-key or know it’s him because he’s wearing something outrageous, like a tinted gas mask or a plague doctor getup, on a grocery run.

TIM:

Rap rock / Electronic rock ; goes simply by his last name, “Drake” (not to be confused with other famous artist Drake or Gotham vigilante Drake or male fowl -- "I'm not any of them, alright!")

He’s moved on from his punk rock roots and has been experimenting with fusion subgenres.

Once in a while, he’ll do reunion performances with former bandmates Bart Allen and Cassandra Sandsmark.

Nowadays, he frequently collaborates with other artists with different musical backgrounds, such as rapper D.u.k.e. T and country crooner Conner “Kon” Kent. 

He’s notoriously hardworking (and his PA’s got some toned legs from all those coffee runs). 

His albums are a hit among the younger demographic, but his famous adoptive father says that he “is extremely proud of my son, but I... I don’t really understand his music.” (Hmm. Makes you wonder if billionaire Bruce Wayne’s got a closet full of Drake’s “Sedimentary / Metamorphic / Igneous - The Anthology”.)

He’s developed his own state-of-the-art software for composing music and even performs live as a hologram (through the help of information technology magnate Barbara Gordon’s company, Oracle).

He’s made the said software, which makes it possible to produce professional-quality music using little to no equipment other than a mobile phone, free and accessible so that aspiring musicians who can’t afford to work in studios can pursue their dreams.

He enjoys discovering new talent, especially among young people who haven’t had as many opportunities as he’s had, and offers to manage them for free.

His on-again-off-again relationship with pop star Stephy Brown has made him a tabloid staple.

When asked by a reporter what he likes to do for fun, he answered, “Sleep” while slowly sinking into the couch. 

DAMIAN:

Heavy metal meets orchestra music (think Metallica’s “S&M”concert) ; goes by the pseudonym “Habibi”

He’s a musical prodigy who can play practically any instrument from percussion to wind, but the need for control led him to being a conductor.

Like Timothy, he likes to experiment. His latest project, which he’s very secretive to the media about, has to do with oriental influences. He’s called upon the help of his sister, a musical prodigy like him, Cassandra Cain.  

He’s notoriously a perfectionist, which makes it challenging to work with him. (But no one argues that he’s a musical genius, so they put up with it.)

He owns the Wayne Conservatory of Music, which offers full educational scholarships and training programs to the poor youth in Gotham who are musically gifted. 

He once told a news reporter that his greatest dream is to conduct the ultimate performance -- his obra maestra --  starring Azul, Rason Rodd, and Drake.

When he’s not busy in the studio or mentoring budding musicians, he’s just in his mahal (palace), hanging out with his best friend Jon Kent, practicing martial arts, or enjoying the company of his pets. 

And in the quiet moments of their famous lives, they dial one number that always brings them back down to earth...

Alfred: *picks up* Hello? I’ve missed you, too, Master -- What’s the matter? Why are you crying? Oh, bullocks, don’t listen to what they’re saying... In which part of the world are you right no-- Ah, never mind. I’ll just follow the tracker Master Bruce has put on you. I’ll see you in a bit.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *  ~ 

For you, @xellexavierxau.

[captainshazamerica]

I can see why gar is your fave he is an actual angel and he seems to be the only one rooting for the good in jason aside from hank that is but yikes, I'm loving mom kory!!! gar calling dick 'grayson' and telling him off 😅 dick sitting like oh my s*it my son is shouting at me what do I do like his face there hahaa Dick in the vent was so adorable to me and I don't know why I freakin swooned at him crawling through a vent what is wrong with me 😅 I hope blackfire is actually trying to become a titans fam member and doesn't have secret ulterior motives ❤ her and kon was just awww 😊WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED AT TIMS that was a lot of gun shots was it just that one dude that got shot or did he shoot everyone, is tims family okay!? Yoo when tim gets with the titans or bruce he gonna be upset with jason, Jason standing outside listening to the gunshots dude noooo i really hate waiting a week. go babs!!!! I love that she could still hold her own, the dickbabs oh no but at least it was a flashback and not a rekindling what was with that plot of barbara being like I don't just want people to see me as a gordon but I don't wanna work with bruce cuz his rules are basically my father's so I guess I'll go copy selina and steal some shiny stuff just for funsies? Was babs a thief at some point in the comics or did titans just wanna do something surprising I have no clue, I can't wait for Rachel and Donna to come back and I kinda hope they'll be more on gars side in terms of rooting for the best in jason and thinking that he needs to be helped not stopped, I still love that dream thing with Donna it was so cool I hope it comes back up or jason remembers it and donna tells him it was her trying to help him, Kory tryna tell dick about blackfire and hes like nope not listening too busy (I mean I get it) but Richard Grayson will you listen to your wife when she wants to talk to you!! For the next mini mom mission korys gotta bring gar kon and blackfire all in the car with her 💕 how much of that toxin did he give out in Gotham cuz like thats gonna be messy if a bunch of criminals are suddenly fearless all at the same time, Crane is gonna be so fckn mad at Jason maybe that's what will drive him back to titans (I'm being way too optimistic) If jason can make a version of that toxin himself in his own lab place then why does he even need crane anyways, I love how polluted this cranes mind is 🎪

“Ohhh shite that dude was that tims dad!!? 🎪 yo I can't if it was”

AHH I just realized I never responded to this! I am so sorry! My chronic depression decided it was long overdue for an episode this weekend and went hard during that time of month :')

YAS! Gar getting that fan love he DESERVES! Yes to all that! He is just SOOO loyal and that is one of my fav qualities ahhh. And yes! I LOVED how they showed him still all upset about Jason!!! Mom Kori and Dad Dick are my fav things ever omg. Dick always needs to be called out every now and then, and you know its bad when Gar is the one to do it xD But u right, Dick was so confused then troubled by it after, all worried for him ahhh

Omg Dick crawling in the vent xD same though, nothing beats him in that first episode strutting and twirling those escrima sticks omg <3333 Im still swooning over that man xD

Yes! I hope they end up adopting backfire into the titans fam, I love a good dysfunctional sibling on the same team trope, come on titans, do what they didn’t do with Thor and loki and not having them work together more/same team. Omg, Kon was SO PURE ahhh, I love him so much and he needs all the protection against this mean mean world xD

*cries* yeah, that was Tim’s dad D: Cause we can’t have good things in DC’s world and they were like oppp we made Tim too happy, someone gotta die. D:

Jason was looking so bad at the end there, like he got Bucky Barnes Winter Solider level raccoon eyes D: He looked so far gone and lost D: And im scared its just gonna get worse before it gets better D:

Tbh, I was really into that Dickbabs thoooo….. xD I feel like im the only one but they be cute!!!!

I feel like Donna may be on the stopping him side but Rachel would be more on Gar’s side, considering she fights her inner demons all the time and kinda gets it.

Omg yes we need more road trips with Gar, Kon, Kori and Blackfire!

OOOH, omg yes!! Like maybe Crane will get all pissed at Jason and douse him in fear gas and maybe THAT will be a turning point in terms of getting jason to snap out of it? Or contributes to him reconciling with the titans or at the very least going a different direction? hmmm

Right! This Crane is like SO good at a villain, like Im loving it so much