#Idk starfires full real name :/

[jewelsli]

me seeing a canon ship ppl like being broken up for a canon ship that people also like: Well actually-*slides poly relationship across the table*

[p-artsypants]

Blurb #26

I'm going to try to share 70 blurbs from my WIPs and unfinished fics to celebrate reaching 70 posted fics! To help with this endeavor, please feel free to send me a word or a fandom you know I write for, and I'll share the blurb. IDK if I'll get 70 prompts, but let's try it! Send as many as you want!

Starfire came in a moment later. A thin silk robe around her and bubbles in her hair. She was soaked.

Robin laughed. "Did your shower randomly shut off again?"

"Yes! This has been the fourth time! Cyborg, when will you get around to fixing it?!"

"Oh, sorry Star, I'll work on it after breakfast."

"I thank you."

"Need to use my shower?" Robin asked, enjoying the view.

"Yes please. I shall be quick."

"Take your time. I took mine already."

"I thank you as well, Robin."

"Anytime Star." He smiled.

She floated out in direction of his room.

"As long as she's not using it while you're in there, I don't have a problem." Cyborg joked.

Robin turned an interesting color. "Audacity! You filthy pervert!"

Cyborg laughed. "Ah, come off it, you know I didn't mean it!"

"Yeah yeah..." Just by what Cyborg had mentioned, very sensitive images popped into his mind, keeping his face red. "Just make the damn food."

In Robin's bathroom, Starfire finished her shower and was dressed. She was now towel drying her hair.

"Oh Glorpa, I forgot my moisturizer...well, surely Robin carries some as well?" She reached to open his mirror and froze when her fingers entered it like water. "What is-..." She was cut off as she was sucked into the mirror and sent spiraling into an unknown land.

She landed with a 'oof' on a forked road. One road led down a dark path with dead trees and gray clouds overhead. The other path was lush and full of flowers and foliage. Sitting between the two, a young man perched upon a rock. His eyes were closed, his hands formed little circles and he looked concentrated. He had black hair and wore thick glasses. Oddly, he wore a red, green, and yellow argyle skin tight uniform.

"Ummm...." She rose.

He opened one crystal blue eye. "Hello there Starfire." He said, nonchalantly.

"Hello...um...?"

"Oh, please excuse me." He hopped up from where he was sitting. "Richard Grayson. Known to you as Robin, but I am his personality trait of Knowledge and Wisdom."

"Oh. Well, nice to meet you."

"Why are you here?" He asked.

"I am not exactly sure...you see, I was using your, er...Robin's shower this morning and as I went to look in his cabinet of medicine for skin moisturizer, because I had forgotten my own, and my fingers had gone through the surface of the mirror as if it was water...and now I'm here. But you do not seem to be surprised to see me."

Knowledge and Wisdom gave a small, nervous shrug. "I knew you were coming...besides we've had another visitor lately."

"Who?"

"Raven's emotion of Timid."

"Oh, and so that is why there was a portal in Robin's mirror! Because she has come and opened it!"

"Uh...right."

"For Knowledge and Wisdom, you sure do not act like you know everything."

"I...uh..." He cleared his throat. "You interrupted my concentration."

"I see. Well, I have already learned Robin's real name, and seen what he looks like under his mask."

"Oops."

"I believe I should leave. I do not belong here."

Knowledge and Wisdom looked thoughtful. "Well, in order to leave...oh my..." He whispered.

"What?!" She asked horrified.

"Well, in order for you to leave, you must meet all of the emotions..."

"What! No! I cannot! It would be an invasion of Robin's privacy!"

"Okay, good luck being stuck here forever." He smiled.

"Alright! What must I do?"

"You must go to each emotion. Unlike in your own mind and Raven's, one entity is assigned more then one emotion or trait, as I am Knowledge AND Wisdom. So find them, get something from each of them, and then report back to me."

"How many are there?" She asked.

"You don't want to know."

She groaned.

"For your convenience, Order Control and Domination has organized us in a simple loop. Either take that road," he pointed to the right, "For negative emotions or that road" pointing to the one on the right, "for positive. Both lead back here."

She sighed. "Which would you recommend?"

"I would say to go through the bad emotions first. That way you will leave here on a good note." He smirked.

"I guess I will go this way first then." She briefly looked down the list of emotions that would be in that direction, and shuddered.

"Good luck." He resumed his place on the rock as she began forward.

When Starfire was out of sight, Joker and Deceit took off his 'borrowed' glasses and smiled mischievously. "I can't believe she fell for that! Man, I can't wait until she meets Oblivious and Naïve!"

[the-kr8tor]

One last thing before I go:

Dick Grayson/Nightwing

-Pretty

-Manwhore

-So nice

-Golden boy

-Pretty

-Damian would still be a child menace

-Silly

-Can bond over mutual trauma

-Acrobat

-Fun romantic

-Protective

-Golden retriever

(+(If Evangeline has blue eyes) They can both wear blue)

-Steve Rogers

-Baby, babe, sweetheart, any silly nickname

-Can be besties w Starfire

but

-Oldest sibling (prolly has ✨communication issues✨)

-Could be spooked ab settling down (only for a while tho)

-Can be a manchild

-Womanizer

-Name

-Would let you die to save the world

-Steve Rogers (can be boring)

-Can't really see him as anything other than mid/late 20s

-----

Jason Todd/Red Hood

-Sweet

-Classic romantic

-Clingy

-Protective

-German shepherd

-Switch up

-Will read you to sleep

-So loyal

-'Touch her I'll kill you'

-Would save you over the world

-Silly

(+(if she has white hair)Mutual white hair)

-Bucky Barnes

-Built like a fucking beast

-Damian still in his demonspawn era

-Doll, chipmunk, sweetheart

-Potential for some good angst

-Prolly his first relationship (so fucking cute and awkward)

but

-Could be overprotective

-Secretive

-Runs a cartel/drug ring/smth idk

-Bucky Barnes

-Not rly a lot of dynamics to play w outside of the Batfam

-Could be overbearing

-----

Damian Wayne/Robin

-Switch up

-Can possibly be child menaces for a little bit

-Loyal af

-Damian Al Ghul (> possessive)

-Enemies to lovers

-Beloved, idiot, any Arabic nickname

-Demon head! Damian

-Very territorial cat

-Natasha Romanoff

-Artist (will draw his S/O fight me)

-A decent amount of dynamics outside of his family

-So much potential for the best angst/fluff

-Evangeline would be best friends w Jon

-Pretty

-Could be clingy

-Batcow therapy

but

-Can be annoying/ooc if done wrong

-Robin

-Idk what her design would be

-I like guard dog energy more than cat energy most of the time

-Lacks the 'can strangle a full grown man with brute strength alone but treats you like you're made of porcelain' aspect of the switch up compared to Jason

-Maybe too not-clingy (not Demon head! Damian tho)

I made a list :D

It was honestly fun lol

You got them to the T!!!

May I add for the con on dick?

-cop

-he's a cop

- HE'S A COP

Also I laughed so hard at the 'name' bc that is so real 🤣🤣🤣

I still vote for Jason!!!

[sorakingdomhearts]

I just finished watching all of the Kingdom Hearts game cutscenes in 16 days! Under the cut, my super-long analysis post.

This was such a bad idea and also the best I’ve ever had. I can no longer tell the events of separate games apart, other than the stuff I added to this post’s draft while watching, but it’s given me so much to do in the quaran-times.

I would say my favorite games at this point are KH3, BBS, and 358/2 Days. I actually played through KH3 to like 90 something percent so I’m most attached to it, but storywise Aqua, Ventus, Roxas, and Axel/Lea have the best plots. If I had to pick a top favorite, other than Sora(because. Well. Sora’s my chosen middle name for a reason) I would say it’s Axel/Lea, and Aqua is the world’s closest second.

My favorite Disney worlds are probably Traverse Town for the music, Nightmare Before Christmas for the costumes(both the wintery ones and the spooky ones), Disney Town for the character appearances and aesthetic/colors, and BH6 for the plot/dialogue. Honorable mention to Hunchback of Notre Dame for being the only one I hadn’t heard about before starting this journey AND being a friend’s current hyperfixation so I got to share hyperfix joy with them for a bit.

I think Aqua has the best voice in the series. Especially with BBS 0.2/KH2.8 there’s quite a few scenes where the only dialogue is her talking to herself and she’s got such an emotional, pretty voice to pair with her heartbreaking journey home.

Axel/Lea’s relationship with his name is the same as a trans person with their deadname and I love that for him. For example, in the end of Dream Drop Distance, he gets frustrated with Riku not knowing it’s changed to Lea again but gives up on correcting him because the rest of what’s going on is more important. I’ve definitely done that with people deadnaming me.

On the other side of that coin, in ReMIND Demyx struggles to remember it’s Ienzo, not Zexion, but he corrects himself over and over. He doesn’t seem to want to deadname Ienzo, he just hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I think that more than anything else is what proved to me personally that Demyx really was trying to do something good.

Also, with Axel/Lea, can he not make bad jokes IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS OWN DEATH? Hello?! I said this on Twitter but hey, buddy, I love you dearly but now isn’t the time.

Xion’s name is pronounced she-on, not zee-on like I thought when I read it. Idk why I thought it was that way when I read it printed but it’s not.

Donald is always cute, all the time, and he’s cutest when he and Sora are squabbling like little kids. I love him. Or maybe that’s the Ducktales fan bias creeping in...

Speaking of HEY, WAS ANYONE GONNA TELL ME HDL AND SCROOGE ARE IN MORE THAN JUST THE KH TRILOGY?!?! What a pleasant surprise to see Scrooge in BBS and to visit Disney Town.

Nobodies make the wobble sound of laminated paper being shaken. I keep thinking about that for no reason.

Does anyone else think Riku saying he can “smell the darkness” on people in ReCOM is weird? Am I just really late to the party, or are we just going to ignore that? Yeah? Okay.

Aqua’s end of Birth by Sleep has some of the sweetest, most poetic dialogue in the series imo. When Aqua and Mickey are talking about Ven, and Sora and Riku talking about hurt within the heart? Yeah. I’ll cry.

Also, another sad scene: Isa and Lea as kids when Lea explains his whole “get it memorized” thing is so he can be remembered and live on, if need be. I cried real tears at that one.

Conversely, some of my favorite sweet scenes are: in the beginning of BBS when Aqua tells Ven and Terra they’d “make the weirdest brothers,” Sora meeting Santa in KH2(I think?) which reminds you hey, these are children, the scene right after they find out Goofy’s not dead and Donald flips out, Lea summoning his Keyblade for the first time(powermove,) and of course the series of reunions in KH3. There’s at least a solid scene or two in each game that really warms my cold sad heart.

Speaking of the KH3 reunions, the best one I think was Xion, Roxas, and Lea’s. At least with Aqua/Terra/Ven they started out with hope, and Aqua and Ven at least had the ability to hold onto that hope to get them through. The ex-Nobody crowd really didn’t have anything. Just the promise that they’d meet again, and maybe not even in this life. I will cry.

Some of the voice casting is surprisingly great. Like, Nala’s voiced by Vanessa Marshall, who did Gamora in the GOTG tv series. Love her. And Hynden Walch who does Starfire is the Alice voice at one point which was such a pleasant surprise.

Also hey, Zachary Levi went so fucking HARD on his voice work. Even Rapunzel has some lines that fall a little flat compared to the tone of the original, like the KH version of the “first time outdoors” sequence. But Flynn Rider has this consistent energy to him that I really love.

In ReCoded I really liked the second-person Mickey narration. Idk why. It just made me super happy.

Hercules is a movie that frequently becomes a level in these games and like every time they continue that trend of Phil’s “I got two words for you” joke like guys, wasn’t the thing in the original that it translated to two words in Greek? Not that he couldn’t count? Anyway that’s the best reoccurring joke. I hate it and love it in equal measure.

One of the frequent things in KH that I love is there’s this sense of ridiculousness to it. Like, it’s a lovely story with excellent worldbuilding and character designs, with a brilliantly complex plot, but like. You get into scenarios like the end of ReMIND, and Sora’s time-travelled to save his dying and sorta already dead friend(Kairi). He’s cradling his other dying friend in his arms and talking about how he found his way to them by tracing the connections between their hearts. Beautiful, poetic, showstopping, right? Except it’s Mickey motherfucking Mouse. You can’t find this anywhere else.

Speaking of ReMIND, the part where Sora connects all the keyhole things? It looks like a starry sky full of constellations? Yeah. Holy fucking SHIT is that pretty. I literally had to pause it twice to absorb the visuals in that scene.

To end off, here’s some of my pride headcanons: Terra and Xion are trans, Ventus and Riku are nonbinary, Saïx/Isa is agender, and Sora is genderfluid. Axel/Lea is pan, Kairi, Riku, and Sora are poly, and Aqua is bi. ((I definitely have more of these but these ones I think are most important.))

[bigskydreaming]

Whats Nightwing and Deathstroke's dynamic? Why does it make you wince? Im not very familiar with it.

Nightwing and Slade actually have a really interesting and compelling dynamic in a lot of ways, that can be really good when written well and really terrible when not. My biggest issue is it is that its not sexual in the comics (Slade is a good thirty years older than him) or in other adaptations that have a version of it, like the Teen Titans cartoon. But fandom being fandom, Dick/Slade is a bigger ship than like, half his actual canon ships, so any new take on it always comes with a big sigh at all the new Dick/Slade shipping that’s gonna crop up or have a resurgence cuz of it. And I’m annoyed enough with YJ right now that I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll do anything new or interesting with it that’s worth having to wade through pages of new Dick/Slade noncon in the months afterwards. Its a ship that generates a lot of non-con fic in particular, or at least my old favorite, ‘dubcon’, with the dubious part of the consent referring to the fact that it usually involves mind control or brainwashing, both tropes that show up a lot in their interactions anyway. (Not that there’s anything dubious about this NOT allowing for consensual anything, just that people love to call it dubcon because….fuck if I know).

But anyway….in the comics, Deathstroke is a mercenary who’s one of the Titans’ earliest and most iconic enemies. Though at various times and depending on who’s writing him, he’s sometimes an antihero and even a semi-trusted ally of the Titans (usually with Dick specifically), other times a villain but with his own personal code of honor that means he won’t help the Titans or other heroes but he’ll refuse to take jobs that would pit him against them, and other times he’s full on remorseless and sadistic villain who hates them all and wants them all dead.

He also had three kids, his son Grant (the first Ravager), his younger son Joseph (Jericho) and his youngest, their half-sister Rose (the second Ravager). Basically, the first time he interacted with the Titans was when the supervillain group HIVE put out a contract to have the Titans all killed. Slade turned them down cuz of his personal honor code and how young the Titans were, but his son Grant accepted the contract in exchange for HIVE giving him superpowers to help him fulfill it. The process didn’t work right though, and when fighting the Titans, Grant’s powers overloaded and killed him.

Slade blamed the Titans for this, and vowed to finish the contract and kill them as some twisted way of honoring Grant. He doesn’t do Logic so good, well no, its more like he doesn’t really do parenting so good, as in he tends to have fuck all to do with his kids 364 days of the year, but then something bad happens to one of them and suddenly he thinks he’s Dad of the Year and going 0 to Homicidal in six seconds flat is the way to make up for all the times he’s let them down or screwed them over, instead of just…not Doing That.

So Slade recruited a young meta named Tara Markov (yup, that one) and trained her as his apprentice specifically to help him get revenge on the Titans. At his prompting, she joined the Titans as a spy for him, feeding him intel and plotting against them in one of the best known comicbook storylines of all time, The Judas Contract. It was up there with some of the X-Men’s best known stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. (In the 80s actually, the Titans comic book was almost as popular as Uncanny X-Men at the time. Like way more than the Justice League. They were DC’s big hitters, popularity wise - specifically the lineup that for the most part was centered around Dick, Donna, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Raven, with other members like the original Titans and later ones like Pantha and Wildebeest coming and going at various points in the 80s too).

Ultimately, Tara made her move and betrayed the Titans, enabling Slade to kidnap each of them one by one and turn them over to the HIVE….all except for Dick. In the meanwhile, he was approached by Slade’s ex-wife Adeline Kane - who has an equally all over the place dynamic with Slade, like sometimes she’s his worst enemy and other times she’s manipulating events behind the scenes to help him without him knowing, because she still loves him…it basically just depends on who’s writing her, same as with Slade. Also, Kane is Adeline’s maiden name, she’s distantly related to Kate Kane aka Batwoman in some extremely complicated manner I can never remember, but that’s mostly just trivia. I can’t remember a time its ever been relevant to a story, and it has nothing to do with Slade’s interactions with Dick.

ANYWAY. Point being, so Adeline, who blames and hates Slade at this time for their son Grant’s death, along with their other son Joey, seek out Dick and offer their help rescuing the Titans and defeating Slade. Joey is a metahuman as a result of Slade’s altered DNA (he has regenerative powers and is actually immortal, due to experiments the army did on him while he was a soldier). So Joey was born with powers although they didn’t activate until he was a young adult. His codename was Jericho and his power lets him possess peoples’ bodies. He’s also mute, and I’m half expecting him to show up in YJ fairly soon. If not this season then hinted at by the end of it. Also wouldn’t surprise me if they had plans to have him be gay in the YJ universe. He’s a character who was coded as gay practically from his debut. Joey/Dick is actually probably Dick’s oldest and most enduring slash ship, for the record.

So Joey works with Dick to rescue the Titans and defeat Slade, who’s captured and goes on trial for kidnapping the Titans. Joey ends up joining the Titans in the aftermath, and Adeline’s yay good, this was my Sekrit Plan all along, I did all this solely in the hopes that you would end up a superhero and have positive influences and not end up a murdering douchebag of flexible morality like your dad cuz fuck that guy, am I right Titans?

Did Adeline really just do all of that because she wanted her son to have more friends? Like…idk honestly it could go either way. Like….it IS the kind of thing she would do, tbh, so its as likely she was telling the truth as it is she just wanted to screw Slade one last time to avenge Grant and then was like hey if I take credit for my kid ending up a Titan now, I could probably play the “you owe me one” card later if I ever need to. Addy does like handing out “you owe me one” cards, just to be safe. Never know when you might need one.

The thing all this has to do with Dick is like, so it basically ended up being Dick versus Slade in the big finale, while Joey was rescuing the others and helping them face off against Tara. And for whatever reason - with multiple takes on this offered by multiple writers in the decades since - something about Dick just stuck with Slade and he’s had a kinda fascination with him ever since. Like he’s always talking about how much more he could teach Dick than what he already learned from Bruce, trying to convince him he’s got a killer instinct that Bruce just suppressed and its holding him back, blah blah, like saying he’s good, but Slade could make him great, so he surpasses both Bruce and Slade. TBH, he spends WAY more time obsessing about Dick and getting Dick to join him than he bothers paying attention to his own kids. 

It really isn’t inherently sexual though, its a weird kinda pseudo father/son, pseudo mentor/mentee type thing. And its not entirely one-sided, because Dick at various times IS…tempted? Kinda? Like whenever Dick’s having some kind of crisis of conscience, or he’s pissed at Bruce or is questioning the effectiveness of superheroes or why they do the things they do or what does it all matter blah blah blah like omg I love you Dick, I really do, but sometimes you are such a drama queen, my god, blast some My Chemical Romance, experiment with drugs and chill out already, its not that deep. (LOL I kid. Well mostly). But point being, every once in awhile something happens that puts Dick in a funk and makes him second guess himself, and he spends like….a month being convinced he should reinvent himself as the anti-Bruce, that’s the solution, and this usually sends him in search of Slade except he’s always like ‘OH FANCY MEETING YOU HERE, THIS IS TOTALLY RANDOM AND NOT ON PURPOSE’. 

And Slade likes to take any opportunity to try and convince him like BE A BAD GUY DICK, KILL PEOPLE FOR MONEY, ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT. Except inevitably Slade does something that pisses Dick off and Dick snaps out of it and is like NO, IM A HERO AND THIS IS BAD, I REMEMBER NOW AND I’LL NEVER JOIN YOU, YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD I HATE YOU! And then they fight again, but with swords, not words, and then they’re like crap, we’re too well matched, this is going nowhere, you’re a worthy opponent, the only one I can truly respect, blah blah and then they call a breather and Slade’s like hey kid, wanna grab a beer and Dick’s like yeah but only if you promise not to kill anyone. And Slade’s like ugh fine.

And then Slade’s all, look kid, its been fun but its time you went home to your real family and your real life, this isn’t you, you’re a hero, I can’t try and turn you into something you’re not, its Wrong. And Dick’s like….umm yeah, I know, I literally JUST said that, how hard did I hit you? And Slade’s like NO SHHH, DONT TRY AND ARGUE, GO, YOU GO NOW, GO ON, LIVE YOUR LIFE, YOU DONT BELONG HERE IN THE DARK WITH ME, YOU’RE ONE OF THE GOOD ONES, GO BACK TO YOUR OWN KIND.

And Dick’s like no seriously dude, I already called my dad to come pick me up, what are you even on right now, are we having the same conversation?

Slade, sobbing paternally: I HAVE TO LET YOU GO, ALL I EVER DO IS HURT MY KIDS, I’M A TERRIBLE FATHER, ITS NO WONDER JOEY HATES ME.

And then Dick awkwardly slips out while Slade’s mid monologue, with his head thrown back yelling up at the sky and shaking his fists like WHY GOD WHY IS THIS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN WHY - because the thing about Slade is he’s actually even MORE of a drama queen than Dick, he just hides it better. Most of the time. But seriously tho.

Anyway yeah, this is like…a pattern with them basically. And Slade’s like, you’ve inspired me, I see in you the man I could’ve become, maybe even that I can still be, and he like doubles down on his personal honor code and becomes a Mercenary With A Heart for a couple years and even helps out the Titans every now and then (basically just whenever Dick’s in trouble and he goes on a killing spree, like NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO MURDER MY KIDS BUT ME - also by this point in time, Joey had died because Slade literally killed him, I forget why, it was a dumb story, but its okay Joey came back, its not like his name is Uncle Ben. But yeah, killing his kids is kinda a thing with Slade too, and he’s very proprietary about it).

And then he falls off the wagon and is like fuck, I forgot how much I like murder, ugh, you should have never tried to make me change, THIS IS WHO I AM, and Dick’s just like….I literally do not know where you’re getting these conversations from, like am I there when you think we’re having them, am I just blacking out…do I need to see a doctor??? And Slade’s like YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU EVER MET ME, GRAYSON, FROM NOW ON I AM THE TITANS’ MORTAL ENEMY and runs off all dramatically while Dick’s like…..wut, and all the other Titans are like srsly, dude, what is WITH you too, and Dick’s all I DON’T EVEN KNOW, HE’S JUST LIKE THAT.

In all seriousness though, ultimately my take on their dynamic is that for Slade, Dick’s a combination of seeing himself and Grant in Bruce and Dick’s dynamic, and its like….all about his regret and missed opportunities. Like, he tends to be super judgey of Bruce and critical of how he trains (and raises Dick) and passive aggressively like *I* would never do that and Dick just kinda lifts an eyebrow and is all, you’ve literally killed two of your three kids. 

But like, Slade kinda views himself as the anti-Batman and thus Dick is inadvertently cast as Grant, but its like Slade can never decide if he thinks Bruce is actually holding Dick back from his full potential and he wants to push Dick the way he thinks Bruce refuses to, or if like, he blames Bruce for getting Dick involved in this life, the same life that got Grant killed, and wants to protect Dick from Bruce and from the same thing happening to him. So its this weird mix of Slade manipulating Dick sometimes and pushing him way further than even Bruce ever does and saying its for his own good, but also randomly mixed in there are these bouts of extreme protectiveness, and there’s like zero rhyme or reason to which he is on any given day and there’s never any way to predict where Slade will land and so it always fucks with Dick’s head in a big way, he’s like…I’m getting whiplash.

And then on Dick’s end, like, the thing about Dick like I’ve mentioned before is he’s a huge people pleaser? Like he’s a very empathetic caretaker type personality who sinks a huge amount of his identity into being everything for everyone, to the extent that he tends to lose sight of himself in the process, sometimes. And he’s also a perfectionist who was raised with the most demanding father of all demanding fathers ever, and has a lot of abandonment issues and insecurities that Bruce’s mutant power is to trip over and set off in the worst possible ways.

And so I think the reason Dick keeps seeking Slade out every now and then is not because he ACTUALLY wants to ever take Slade up on his offer and genuinely become his apprentice or partner and like, turn his back on how he was raised. I think the point of it for Dick is the fact that each and every time he ends up affirming for himself no, wait, this ISN’T actually what I want, I just needed to be reminded of that, to remember that. That he always pulls himself back before going too far. And at the same time, I do think on some level he likes that Slade is this kinda constant in his life, that at the end of the day Slade is like…so fixated on his potential and his achievements and his worth as a fighter and a hero, because like….Dick Grayson is a person who craves validation but will never ask for it ever. 

And he’s one of those people who everyone is just so USED to liking without even thinking about it that it never occurs to them when talking amongst themselves about how great he is, that they forget to say this to his actual face? And so he never hears it? And never asks for it, because gasp, then people might think he’s needy, and that would be bad, so he mostly just goes and sulks in his apartment about how nobody likes him and he’s terribad. Except for Slade. Slade always compliments him on what a good fighter and what a good planner and what a good leader he is, so hmm wonder what he’s doing. He hasn’t committed any crimes in six months and I can’t find any reason to track him down and bring him in? Ugh, that asshole. Okay, ummm, I guess I could tell him I’m thinking of turning evil again, I haven’t done that in a couple years, he’d probably buy it.

And then later Bruce is pacing around the Batcave wrathfully shaking his fist, like “Damn that man and his sick hold over my son, if only I knew how he keeps getting his hooks into you!”

And Dick basically shrugs and plays games on his phone. “He mostly just tells me I’m special, and that’s nice to hear.”

Bruce, still pacing and ranting and fist shaking: “What kind of evil genius is he, how master a manipulator he must be to be able to get inside your head and upend your normal views of right and wrong, to make you entertain these ideas of working with him, learning from him…”

Dick: No its seriously just the saying nice things about me bit. I like that.

Bruce: If only I had a code word or phrase I could use to snap you out of whatever brainwashing he seems to be able to affect you with any time you come near him, perhaps some kind of alien tech….

Dick: You could try “I’m proud of you, son.” I mean if you’re taking suggestions.

Bruce: There’s also the possibility of a magical component to consider, blast, I hate working with magic so of course he WOULD do something like that, ugh I suppose I could ask Zatanna or Jason Blood for help there…

Dick: Cool cool, well this has been a fun and productive chat as always, so you keep doing…all that…and meanwhile I’m gonna go ponder my fixation on father figures who are 100% more committed to obsessing over their failures as a parent than like…actual parenting of their actual kids.

Bruce, ten minutes later: Dick? Where are you? DID SLADE GET TO YOU AGAIN? RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE? CURSE THAT MAN AND HIS UNNATURAL SKILLS, HOW DOES HE DO IT??!?

Anyway, that’s Slade and Dick. There’s also the whole Renegade thing, when Dick asked for Slade’s help in infiltrating the Society of Super Villains in his fake villain identity as Renegade, with you know, lots of Slade trying to corrupt him and also trying to murder any supervillains who looked as his not!son the wrong way. 

And then there was the time Slade brought his daughter Rose to Dick to train and said he couldn’t teach her himself because his track record with training his kids and them not ending up dead is like, not good, and he’s superstitious or something? Idk, I forget his logic, it was probably bad though.

And Slade was like, I only trust you to be a competent teacher for my daughter, I want you to teach her everything you know! Except for like, being a hero. None of that nonsense. I FORBID you from trying to make my daughter into a hero or the deal is off. (The deal being that if Dick did this, Slade would not do crime in Dick’s city for a year).

And Dick was like, you got a deal. I will train Rose but there will be NO trying to make her a hero, I swear. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And Slade was like okay, fine, you got a deal, I will absolutely still do crime and be villainous but only in every place except for Bludhaven specifically. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And then Dick tried to make Rose a hero and then Slade blew up Bludhaven and that was definitely a thing, so…yeah.

In summation, Slade and Dick are weird but also very interesting but also if we get another rehash of the Renegade/apprentice arc aka the Teen Titans cartoon adaptation of that story aka the single most popular Dick Grayson fic trope of all time, like….I swear I will probably get a brain bleed.

[sabredeath]

I've got some questions about the teen titans

(the 2003 show, haven't read any comics or watched Go!)

First off who the hell is funding them? They have all this kick ass technology and live in a nice tower and have video games and always have food but where are they getting the money? Does the city fund them for their services? Is it Batman?

Also I know they're superheroes and some aren't even native to earth but why don't they have to go to high school? They're like 14-17 education is still maybe important??

Also who are their parents I mean we know Raven's and Starfire's and can presume Robin is an orphan and maybe was chilling with Batman before or something but what about beast boy and cyborg? Where are their parents?

Also are those their real names because again okay Raven and Starfire are their names and Robin even if an alias is still a legit sounding name but like there is no way beast boy and cyborg were born with those names. What are their real names and why do they have their friends call them by their hero names instead?

Also how exactly did cyborg become a cyborg because we know he once was full human but they never elaborate on what happened. Also why is beast boy a druid? Is he a human or an alien or like what happened was he just hanging one day as a child and suddenly became an antelope and was like wtf or what.

Also in the episode where Starfire goes 20 years into the future why wasn't the world affected by Trigon and that whole deal because presumably her absence would have had no effect on those events but she gets there and Raven is just chilling in a room being emo, no sign that the apocalypse she was supposed to be a part of ever happened.

Also how are they so freaking responsible? I know they're protecting humanity and whatnot but like you've got 5 teenagers living together with complete freedom and you're telling me they aren't doing anything sketch? Like yeah it's a kid's show and they're awkward teens but I feel like at some point the average teenager in that situation totally would have banged one of their friends or brought home a 6 pack or some shit.

And finally: WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. TERRA. Was that her at the end? Did she lose her memory or was she pretending? How did she un-stone herself? I NEED CLOSURE.

I'll probably think of more questions as I keep rewatching the show and I can probably find answers to a lot of these if I do some research or read the comics or something but whatever

Edit:

Okay and also someone explain me Killer Moth and Kitten. Like is he actually a moth/part moth and if so how does he have a human daughter? Is she adopted or did someone fuck a moth man (no kink shaming). It's like the whole how does Mr Krabs have a whale daughter thing. I mean she doesn't seem to question the fact that her dad is a moth which I guess helps explain why she's into fang the spider head bro??

Also Slade is one of my favorite villains but like...what's his goal? When he and Terra briefly have victory over the Titans he's like THE CITY IS OURS but like everyone evacuated so he just rules this dead city of nothing and wants to do that to more cities? Idk I don't really see the appeal but you do you Slade.

[batboyblog]

things I believe

we all have things about comics we believe in totally no matter what is canon and here are a few of mine

The Justice League watchtower is a moon base, because moon base

The Martian Manhunter is and should be on every version of the Justice League

Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg were members of the New Teen Titans and are friends and teammates of the original Teen Titans

Tim Drake is gay and in a relationship with Kon El

speaking of Kon he isn’t and never was the son of Lex Luthor

everything that happened to Bart Alan after Young Justice isn’t canon #fightme

There is a Justice Society 

Queen Hippolyta was Wonder Woman during WWII and still hangs out with her old friends in the JSA some times when she’s sick of being Queen

Wonder Woman, AKA Princess Diana of Themyscira is a Princess, the Amazonian’s Ambassador-at-Large to the world, author, feminist speaker, and the Goddess of Truth in (semi) human form.

She does not need a man, I’m open to a girlfriend though

oh also She’s the daughter of Hippolyta, FULL FUCKING STOP! she didn’t get her powers from Zeus, she’s not any man’s daughter she was made of clay and given live by the Goddesses of Greece because Hippolyta prayed for that.

The Titans/Teen Titans live in a big T shaped tower on an island 

Wally West is Flash, he’s married to Linda Park, they have adorable twins (as an aside I’m totally cool with two Wally Wests)

Lian Harper is alive, Roy is a DAD! you FUCKS! 

also Mar’i Grayson is canon idk how I’d make it work but it just is!

Colin Wilkes and his friendship with Damian Wayne, also canon 

Billy Batson isn’t and never will be a teenager, FIGHT ME! (13 is the OLDEST he should be allowed to be) 

I don’t ever want to know for sure who or what the Joker is, I don’t want a real name, I don’t want a birthday or an origin, nope NO never. 

Barbara Gordon is Oracle, I refuse totally to deal with her as Batgirl again, nope! 

I’m sure I will think of more but that’s my list so far