#They are all part of the history of Superman
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motion-of-love · 1 month ago
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Superman through the Years (1948 to 2025)
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nonokoko13 · 1 year ago
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Rollo Flamme is autistic. I had suspicions about it but after reading his vignette I heard a voice in my head confirming it. God has told me the truth and I must spread the word
He would also be ok with Batman, if he's not his most favoured hero. Oh and he also probably has PTSD and depression. Thanks for coming to my ted talk
#twisted wonderland#rollo flamme#twst#okay hear me out#jp spoilers#spoilers of Rollo's vignette❗❗❗#This mf keeps count of each grape he eats. 16. No more. No less.#they could have just generalized and say he eats a bunch of grapes but no. he SPECIFIES how many he eats#+ 2 croissants and a coffee with milk. That's his lunch every single day#(very implied or canon) he always goes to the same store. to buy the same envelope and letter paper < that's canon#he goes through a schedule and he's comfortable having the same routine#one of his hyperfixations is hating mages and magic. another one is his liking towards croissants and grape (comfort foods)#another possible special interest is history. given how he reacts in history classes and how much historical lore he knows of the city#another special interest could be flowers because both in the event and vignette is shown he's exceptionally good at cultivating plants and#i think he mentioned in the vignette one of the things he likes of Fleur city is the landscape tho his con is that the flowers initially --#were cultivated with magic#a perfectionist who brushes it off but his grades and efforts to make everything right despite the questionable morals of his says it all#and the most important thing: it gives me autism vibes#Now about the second statement: he doesn't read comics or scifi in general#but mc explains him some hero lore and talks about a hero who beats villain asses w/o superpowers#and who keeps an eye in every superhero but specially in this guy called superman#because bat believes super is so OP he could make a disaster if he turned to be a bad guy#bat also has reserves of an element that removes superman powers and bets SUPER villains using his brains and weapons he has created himsel#his morals are somewhat different to other heroes and most of them don't understand him but he's ok doing it his own way#and Rollo is sold. No he probably won't ever touch anything related to heroes but this called Batman is right and superior#and most importantly. If MC says Batman is the best with that alone he agrees. With proof he only joins MC more#“Magicless people rule” – Rollo Flamme#the part of Rollo having depression and PTSD or some sort of illness induced by trauma is self explanatory if you have read the event#shut up noko
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oliveroctavius · 1 year ago
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Reposting this thread by historical nonfiction writer Sean Howe from Twitter, because god damn:
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"People would later talk about the "Superman curse," but this newly unearthed 1951 letter from Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel— mailed with mysterious white powder—actually invokes it. Siegel sent the letter to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz of DC Comics (then officially National Comics Publications) in December 1951. The first Superman movie, SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN (starring George Reeves) had just opened and was currently in theaters."
The letter, fully transcribed:
On the occasion of this Christmas Season, when you have turned deaf ears and cold hearts upon the man you deliberately ruined I put on you a curse: May you become subject to all of the horrible maladies that beset mankind: disease, fire, flood, gas, tragedy, self-destruction, ropes, and sharp and heavy instruments. May God crash doom down on the bones, and flesh, and blood of you and yours. I see by the current Sunday SUPERMAN strip that SUPERMAN, famous big-hearted do-gooder, is helping a young lad. How kind and humane! This touched me until I recalled that SUPERMAN's owners stole SUPERBOY from his creator while he was in the Army. Then I began to laugh—laugh at SUPERMAN's owners, who SELL Superman's goodness for money, while wiping off the blood from the knife they stuck into his creator's back. Imagine--THIEVES controlling SUPERMAN, the greatest battler for Justice in the world! HA-HA-HA!!! I have created what I call the 'Identification Game.' You reads 'em ... and let your conscience identify 'em: (1) PHILAND RING DRUNKEN RUNT (2) A HUNK OF FOUL KOSHER ROUMANIAN PASTRAMI (3) 'PHILANTHROPIC' PHONY (4) FAT RAT (5) SADISTIC SWINE You are herewith invited to grab this, as you grabbed my other creations. Like yourself, I am a Jew. I have read of your wonderful philanthropic work on behalf of the Jews and am writing to you for help as one Jew to another. You see, some Jews have given me a rough time--snatched away my creations, and slyly deprived me of an income from them. As a gladiator who fights in behalf of downtrodden Jew--whether they come from Roumania or anywhere else, I appeal to the hope that you will do something about these clever Jews. They have cut off pounds of my flesh. With their Jewish lawyers, they have deprived a fellow Jew from earning a living with his phenomenal creations. How can you battle the so-called "International Jew" legends as depicted in the Protocols of Zion when Jews like the above are permitted to stick a knife in the economic back of another Jew, facing him with the necessity of having to go on relief? Millions for these cunning grasping money-lusting jews, and poverty for the Jew they ruined! I have placed a bitter curse on these Jews, and they and theirs will suffer under the curse for all time. I spit on them and hope it won't be long before they rot in hell. - When SUPERMAN goes on television, if not earlier, the story of his birth will be unfolded. Jerry Siegel ROTTEN PROFITEERS MAKE MILLIONS WHILE SUPERMAN'S CREATOR IS POVERTY-STRUCK
"(The publishers sent the white powder out to a lab for testing; it was corn starch.)"
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dcxdpdabbles · 9 months ago
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Red Yummy
Based on the post by @spacedace. Basically it's a joke that Red Robin (the restaurant with the little jingle: Reeed Robin: Yummm.) Isn't a thing in the DC world but is one in the Phantom world.
The rip in the multiverse was an issue the Justice League was not at all prepared for. Sure they had incidents where visitors from an alternate universe have crossed over to their side or they have gone to one. There are times when they meet doubles of themselves, both as allies and as enemies.
They have been to different Earths, with different histories, different countries, and that one particular time, even different beings that ruled the planet.
It's always been an adventure where at the end of it, the doorway to both worlds is sealed shut, with little or no chance of it opening again. The friends they made. The sights they saw. All gone. Fine. Over.
That was, until a villain from a different world, attempted to attack Clockwork's Tower. The Justice League was not aware of Clockwork- Master of Time, Weaver of Realms, The Concept of Between- but they noticed that he had been attacked when other worlds started spilling into theirs.
People were falling through glowing green portals, stumbling into buildings that weren't there before. People who were just going out for walks would be zapped away and replaced with their confused counterparts.
Parts of the sky glitch into others, replacing the soft blue with brown or black, little patches scattering around the world. Cities vanish for a few hours, sometimes replaced by others sometimes not, and animals never before seen running amok.
It was a mess.
The League did everything it could to help, but it was hard to stretch their reach to the help then world when all reality was being thrown into a mixer and set on chaos.
A lot like busted pipes, the Leaugers would run to cover a leaking pipe only to have the water build up in another and burst there and then scramble to cover that one before the rising water drowned them all.
Thankfully the Justice League Dark was able to use magic and find the source of the leak. The Infinite Realms known as the web that linked all universes, are usually only accessible by the dead, or in Constantine's case having friends in high places.
"Ghost Writer owes me a favor," Constantine said while the rest of the Leauge watched a flouting green book descend from the sky. It flipped open, expanding into a gateway. The smoke of the book curled into little missy hearts.
"Ghost Writer?" Zatanna gawked "How did you get such a powerful, and notoriously recluse, being to owe you anything?"
"Let's just say, we both appreciate the finer things in life and that ghost has a rather fine ass" Constantine leered. No one had asked for any more detail, although Zatanna had the expression of someone who had bitten something sour the whole time.
Ghost Writer had given Constantine a warning that his power would only be able to protect five living souls. Any more would be at the mercy of the Infinite Realms'.
Humans that wandered into the Realms were more often than not driven into madness, became hopelessly lost, or had their souls swindled by beings that dwelled there. Not that it wasn't surprising.
After all, the living did not belong there, so of course they were a danger to the Realms' structure. Hell, there were rumors that a living being could produce fresh uncorrupted ectoplasm when killed or even kept like livestock.
Constantine did not want to find out if the rumors had any truth to them.
To be able to travel safely they had to fall under a powerful ghost's protection and Ghost Writers let them know to pick their five best.
It was decided that Constantine would go as their expert, Batman as their strategist, Wonder Woman as their diplomat and protection, Superman as second protection, and Zatanna as another magic user that could combat the dead.
The rest of the league remained, doing their best to hold their universe together as the team of five rushed off to put everything to right. It was agonizing not knowing what was happening or how the mission was going but they did what they could and placed their trust in the five.
Many of the Justice League didn't say it, but it was the remaining Bats that sort of kept everything afloat in their father's absence. Each one leads a group of young heroes, easily countering and controlling their self-appointed sectors of the world.
Nightwing and Titians.
Red Robin and Young Justice.
Red Hood and the Outlaws.
Oracle and the Birds of Prey
Robin and the Blades.
All five groups agree to use the Watch Tower as a central base to coordinate their defenses against the world falling apart. Trading information with each other quickly and efficiently, and using this new information to prepare for more ripples of universes, showcasing that Batman had taught them well.
Following their example, the rest of the Justice League did what they could to minimize the damage. It was on the second day of constant relief efforts that everything was snapped back to normal.
A giant wave of sound- the noise sounding a lot like a grandfather clock strick repeating over and over again- as things that were not meant to be in their world vanished and their own people and things returned.
The shy's patches were removed and the right color returned.
Even property damages that were caused by the incident were reversed as if reality falling apart was nothing but a dream. No wreckages to clean up, no people had gone missing, and best of all, no casualties had been taken.
The Leauge gathered around Ghost Writer's book watching it open as the five returned, cheering and screaming, giving them the proper hero's welcome. Then right behind their teammates, a second group followed through.
Three glowing figures, all dressed in the same black and white outfits, and a ship carrying four humans. Batman introduced them as the allies who helped defend Clockwork's Tower and keep the multi-universe from collapsing.
He did admit that just because it was no longer falling apart, it did not mean that the rip had been closed. In fact, it was the only thing left to do but it was proving to be difficult due to Clockwork himself not understanding why their world wasn't healing.
Clockwork couldn't leave the Realms for too long- if no one was there to keep Time running the same thing would happen all over again- but he did give them equipment that could in theory patch things up on their side.
They just needed someone who understood the equipment.
Team Phantom, led by Danny Phantom, one of the flowing figures was happy to volunteer. They would be staying for three years, to strengthen and rebuild their Universe structure.
Team Phantom consisted of Dan Phantom, Danielle Phantom, Jasmin Fenton, Tucker Foley, Samantha Manson, and Westley Weston. All young, kind, strong- Batman vouched for the non-powered members claiming they could go toe to toe with his kids- and all much to the joy of many young heroes- attractive. They played an essential role on the team, doing whatever their people and kind did to help Clockwork, staying out of the League's way.
They all seemed happy to live as close to civilians as possible and despite their strength and combat training, Team Phantom was more like a research party instead of a hero.
Since they would be there for three years- more depending on the Speed Force's effect on the timeline grumbles Tucker- the seven had chosen to set down some roots within their dimension.
The three Phantoms needed Ectoplasim to live- a rare substance in the Justice League's universe- so they chose Gotham as their new home. Batman was more than willing to allow them into his city, as long as they knew not to interfere with his work.
Things settled, The Justice League moved on to other missions and other issues while Team Phantom ran tests, gathered information, and worked on the timeline.
The only real issue Bruce had with Team Phantom, was that a majority of his kids were romanticly interested in them.
Dick's love-struck sigh, whenever Dan wandered by, would often lead to useless backflips in an ill-fated attempt to impress him.
Jason would conventionally be lifting weights shirtless whenever Jazz came by with an update report. Then he would mention some novel or other that had the girl's attention far better than his abs.
Steph had taken a very large interest in gardening and at the same time, started wearing shorter shorts and tighter tops because Sam seemed to adore flowers.
Cass meanwhile found every excuse there was to be dressed in the prettiest dresses she owned whenever Wes was anywhere near her. She even wore light makeup- a real sign of how much she was interested in the conspiracy theorist.
Duke seemed over the moon whenever Tucker asked for his personal help on anything technical-related. It did his son wonders that someone thought of him first when it came to tech- Duke has always been a bit self-conscious of his place among geniuses- would be all but speaking in poems to the bemused teenager.
Damian's crush on Ellie did melt Bruce's heart a little. It was his baby's first after all, but he wasn't sure if Damian's approach was doing anything. Put him on the battlefield and Damian could lead to victory. Put him next to a pretty young girl and all his son was capable of doing was stare and babble.
The only one that didn't seem to have a crush on Team Phantom was Tim. Which should have given him reassurance except for the small little detail.
"Red Robin" Danny sings upon Tim's arrival at the cave. Officially tonight they are all going over the results of the latest tests on the universe's structure. Unofficially Team Phantom had been invited over for dinner by Alfred and they were looking over the Batcave as their butler finished preparing the main course.
At once every member of Team Phantom raises their head, turning away from his love-struck children to his flustered son and singing "Yum" with wide smiles.
Tim's face goes bright red.
Apparently, Tim was their universe version of Adonis and Team Phantom had no issue with expressing how yummy they found Tim. Now Bruce isn't saying that he would be against Tim having more than one romantic partner- he has made sure to look up proper healthy poly relationships and given Tim a PowerPoint version of it.
It's just that he isn't sure how he's going to handle supporting one of his children while breaking the heart of another. Tim seems unsure how to handle so much romantic attention- he's had plenty of relationships before- but said attention is picking him before any of his siblings is a first.
Bruce knows that deep down Tim still struggles with thinking he's not as good as the others. That he really is just a placeholder in the long run.
Then there is the fact he isn't sure how their culture works. Is the singing like a mating call? Was there a chance they would earn the irk of Clockwork himself if Tim accidentally accepted their advances? Why was it always Red Robin and not just Tim himself that made Team Phantom go yummmm?
"Hi guys" Tim greets at least and Danny grins wider.
"Reeeeed Robbbbbin" " The ghost boy says throwing an arm over Tim's shoulders. Sam and Tucker surround them, making their voices sound strange as all three start singing, rocking Tim back and forth in a strange little dance.
"Yummmmm!"
From the corner of his eyes, Bruce makes out Dick's protective Older Brother's face, as his eldest starts marching towards the group with the intent of breaking them apart. He's been very vocal about putting an end to Team Phantom's flirtations if he saw so much as a hint of Tim's unease.
Except that Tim looked utterly bliss being pressed up against Danny. Maybe he should rethink Tim's disinterest in Team Phantom. The rest of his children looked murderous as more members of Team Phantom gathered around Tim also singing.
Bruce had to deal with this for three whole years. He can physically feel his hair turning greyer.
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audliminal · 27 days ago
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Survivability Bias Pt 2
Masterpost
Danny spends the next few days exploring the town more, while he considers the implications of everything he’d learned  at the library. He’d taken notes, but they’re not exactly the best. Danny’s never been that good at taking notes, after all, but he has a pretty good memory, so the various key words and few quotes he’d scribbled down are plenty useful in reminding him of all the wild shit he’d read about.
There’d been a lot of history involved in the whole meta situation. It seems like these so-called meta humans, and various other races (species? Danny doesn’t know nearly enough about the cultural implications of that) have been around long enough to have had a significant impact on the world at large. And yet, at the same time, there really hadn’t been a lot of personal information on any of the heroes. Oh, there’d been plenty on some of the villains - and of course there’d still be villains here, he’s not lucky enough to escape that - but aside from various speculation about their romantic lives, and a few acknowledgements of family ties here and there, there’d been very few details about where most of them actually came from.
Superman, for example (he seemed to be this world’s go-to example of metas and superheroes), is listed as being an alien, who’s powers come from his biologies unique interaction with this planet’s atmosphere, although it doesn’t explain anything about what that means. Interestingly, there seems to be almost no speculation about Superman’s so-called secret identity. Only about half the listed heroes seem to have one according to the public, but Danny knows that song and dance too well to fall for it. Honestly, they’re even more likely to have a secret identity than Danny himself, seeing as Danny’s alter ego is literally dead. Not that ghosts seem to be much of a thing here.
He’d felt so silly looking up information about ghosts, right before leaving the library. Compared to the deep dive into recent history, googling “are ghosts real” must have looked insane if anybody could see it. The answer he’d returned had been not unlike the way things had been when he was ten or twelve. Before the portal, you’d see dumb ghost hunter shows where they never actually saw much of anything. Ghosts were, like, poltergeists that moved your furniture around and slammed the doors shut. The results here had been a little more interesting - clearly in a world where superheroes are a fact of life, fantastical stuff is a little more rational, and the speculation was clearly affected by that fact, but it still had been, seemingly, all speculation.
Of course, none of that really mattered when it came to Superman. Danny was at least ninety percent sure he wasn’t a ghost. And even if he somehow was, it didn’t change the fact that he either has a secret identity, or he basically never takes part in society. And if he doesn’t have a secret identity, then the question very much becomes why not. Because that means he either has no real reason to care about anyone here (which seems implausible), or he’s unable to spend that time in public. It’s that possibility that’s knocked out any chance of Danny approaching any of the heroes. Because there’s always the possibility that the endorsed heroes are being used to lure other metahumans in. And Danny doesn’t know nearly enough about this world to make any kind of judgment on what’s most likely here. After all, historically there’s plenty of examples of governments that  work with specific people among targeted groups, in order to more successfully take out the others. it tends not to end well for those people when it’s all over, but anyone who’s short-sighted or even just backed into a wall enough can fall for that.
Hell, the GIW had actually tried that line on Danny once or twice, not that he’d ever accepted. After all, they’d never realized that was actually sort of alive, so their pitches had always been... less than convincing. 
Danny blinks, reaching out to touch the brick wall in front of him. He hadn’t meant to come back here, but honestly at this point, he really shouldn’t be surprised. This random little alley on side street wouldn’t be interesting at all to anyone else. But if Danny stares long enough, he can almost see the green-tinged light of the portal that brought him here. Not that he’d ever seen the portal from this side. He hadn’t turned to look until after the light had faded. The idea of seeing his friends’ faces through the swirling green had been too much.
They had all known exactly what it meant when he came here. The difficulty of the journey was the point. Between the anti-ecto acts gaining not just mainstream awareness, but support, and the GIW gaining access to better funding and training, well, the second the GIW had started successfully ending ghosts, it seemed like all the denizens of the zone had collectively decided to stay the fuck home.
At first Danny had enjoyed it, had relaxed and been excited to finally be able to focus on just being a teen. But the GIW hadn’t calmed down, had just started going even more on the offensive, and the second he and Jazz had noticed agents showing up casually at their house, everyone had gone into full alert.
That’s how they found out that the next goal was to apparently take the fight to the zone itself.
The conclusion had been easy from that point. The portal needed to be destroyed, and fast. But with the ghost zone blocked off (and Danny’s death being the unknowing link that made the portal ever work in the first place), that would leave Danny as one of three remaining targets.
They’d all immediately agreed that Vlad could figure out his own solution. Dani- well, she had been traveling, but the second she turned up, the others had made plans to send her on her own one way portal trip too.
Of course, the likelihood that she’d end up here is probably minuscule. So he’s alone.
“Hey,” a stern voice cuts through Danny’s thoughts. He glances over to the person who’s standing at the door to a building. “There’s no loitering here.”
Right. It’s almost easy to forget, in the face of his life’s inescapable absurdity, that to everyone else in this town, he just seems like a possibly-homeless delinquent. Not that the delinquent part is unfamiliar.
“Sorry,” Danny mutters belatedly, realizing that the person is just waiting as he stares at them like a weirdo. He’s not very good with people anymore. Not that he was that good to begin with. Phantom had been a Ghostly Menace, constantly destroying the town with his fights, nobody had expected him to function as a person. Nobody had thought he was a person. But as Danny Fenton- well, he’d fallen short of just about every expectation set at Danny Fenton’s feet.
Distantly he wonders if his friends even bothered to disguise his disappearance. He’d always kind of wondered if his parents would ever notice if he and Jazz just- left. School definitely noticed, though most of the faculty would probably take it as completely expected. After all Danny Fenton was a terrible student, constantly skipping class and never doing his work, and even when he was in class he was usually halfway to falling asleep anyways. Lancer had certainly lectured him about his lack of discipline more than enough. So they might just come to the conclusion that he’d dropped out and run away.
He doesn’t know if he’d prefer that, honestly. The truth is messed up and complicated and frankly, unbelievable. But maybe if they knew the truth at least one person might feel a fraction of sympathy for all the bullshit that he’d been dealing with. Funny, Danny thinks, how coming here feels more like a death than when I actually died.
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rboooks · 1 year ago
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DC x DP Fic idea: The Royal Consort
Wesley Weston runs a blog after getting over his desire to expose Danny's secret- primarily due to no one believing him- and no one pays attention to it since almost all of Casper high school has one too.
The difference between the hundreds of other blogs is that one of his pictures of Phantom is clear. A perfectly uncorrected image of the famous ghost, whereas nearly all other pictures are blurry due to ghosts disrupting cameras. Even Wes isn't sure how he managed to capture him so well.
Another difference between his blog and others is that one of his followers happens to be John Constantine, who followed the kid a long time ago due to the fanfiction of the Bats and found them hilarious.
John opens his phone app, expecting a new chapter to the Bruce Wayne/Superman fic, and spits out his tea upon seeing the High King of the Dead casually in the human world. Horrified that the King has not been appropriately welcomed- which could lead to a war that the humans would never win- he calls an emergency Justice League and Justice League Dark meeting.
It didn't help that they had allowed a county to pass the anti-ecto laws, which ruined any attempt to appease the Ghost King once the news broke to the public. The League still worried about a declaration of war even after they demolished the laws and the United Nations had the States apologize on humans' behalf.
They quickly discover High King Phantom has been visiting Earth for almost three years. Before his coronation, Phantom had not been outside the Infinite Realms very often though he has appeared throughout history. Cave drawings date back thousands of years before the first ancient Egyptians, but he's visits are few and short.
Life would naturally send him back to the Realms because he had too much power and ectoplasm. After taking the throne, his powers only grew, which meant someone had to summon him as the only way for him to stay on Earth longer than an hour.
Now as King, he appeared only within the small town of Amity Park daily. Why?
John sighs. "He has an anchor. Someone is tying him to this plane. Like the helmet for Nabu, which allows Doctor Fate to exist here without being launched back to the Infinite Releams, Phantom has bonded himself. And I know who that is"
He pulls up a class photo on Weston's blog and points to a boy wearing a particular necklace.
"Danny Fenton is wearing the official Royal Consort of the Infinite Realms symbol and has been since he was fourteen. Phantom's husband may be our only hope to salvage the terrible mess the USA's bloody GIW placed the rest of us in."
Danny loved the necklace he found in Pariah Dark's old haunt. He inherited Pariah's haunt and everything inside once he was crowned and hasn't taken it off since. He didn't think it would be an issue. It's not like it would out his secret to his parents or anyone else since it was in Ghost Speech. Even he didn't know what it said.
Then one morning he comes down for breakfast only to have the most important members of the Justice League sitting in his living room waiting to greet him.
Desperate to keep his halfa status a secret, Danny must convince the entire world watching him, that he's just a human who scandalously eloped at age fourteen with one of the strongest beings in the mulitverse.
Jack's horrified "We were shooting my son-in-law this whole time" became a meme that has trended for months.
( Part 2 )
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trexiejan · 12 days ago
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Friendly reminder that DC and Dickbabs writers are gaslighting you into thinking Dickbabs are childhood sweethearts that are always in love with each other since day 1.
Dickbabs is the most superficial manufactured by retcons ship.
Babs was deaged for this crap to work.
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Here is Original Barbara Gordon working as a congresswoman in the Senate when Dick was just the little kid Robin.
She was much closer to Bruce and Clark's age than Dick's.
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Barbara refers to Dick as a "kid" and "little brother.
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Dick had a small puppy crush on her but it was seen as a precocious crush. It was controversial when they first kiss (to make Dick shut up) because it involved a grown ass woman kissing a teenager.
Dickbabs was hated the same way modern Brucebabs is hated today.
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Even the writer of that book admitted he never intended for them to become a couple.
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Babs was more into older guys.
- she was viewed as an equal love interest to Batman
- she went out on a date with Superman
- then got engaged to her coworker Jason Bard.
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Dickbabs shippers always try to deny that Babs was deaged and her history was altered for dickbabs in an effort to defend their ship.
They say it's not true because according to them Babs has been deaged before dickbabs became a couple.
Here's the thing though:
Babs has been deaged twice.
Just because she wasn't deaged to be with Dick in her 1st deaging doesn't change the fact that she was deaged to be the same age as him in her 2nd deaging which happened in dickbabs content.
The 1st time she was deaged was in Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was so Jim could be younger but they only decreased her age slightly because she's still written as older than Dick, here is a panel from Secret Origins #20 that was published in 1986 exactly 1 year after she was first deaged in Crisis on infinite earths (1985) she said Dick is too young for her and that batman is always the one on her mind. So Dickbabs during this time still couldn't work because they still have that age gap and Babs was still into Bruce.
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The 2nd time she was deaged is in dickbabs comics and tv shows where she was finally made the same age as Dick so dickbabs can finally work as romantic pairing.
Instead of being older she's now written as a part of Dick's generation.
From a congresswoman to someone who went to highschool prom with Dick.
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Even Tom Taylor had the two first met when they were young little kids so he can also portray them as childhood sweethearts in his run.
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Tom Taylor claims Barbara still has a law degree but isn't it sad how instead of using that degree to find an actual job, she wasted her time following Dick around like a dog in Bludhaven ?
She has no job of her own, no friends of her own, no hobbies of her own outside of Dick.
She's just Dick's clingy lovesick girlfriend who is a total standby for him in his solo books.
Dickbabs shippers who deny this and get mad at people who point this out are the people who don't care about Barbara Gordon as an individual.
They don't care that Barbara lost her PHD degree, lost her own career, lost her own agency, lost her history, lost her self identity for the sake of shipping.
Their only concern is defending dickbabs and making it look better.
Because if they like Barbara separately from Dick, all these valid anti-dickbabs criticisms wouldn't bother them.
What's even funnier is that they are the very same people who accuse Starfire of being nothing but just Dick's love interest despite the fact that Starfire hasn't been in a relationship with Dick in the comics for 20+ years due to the fact that dickkory's history was ignored and erased in favor of dickbabs. NASTY HYPOCRITES.
At least Starfire wasn't deaged to fit Dick and you can never see Starfire following Dick around like a dog in his solo books 💀
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cypherscript · 5 months ago
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Linchpin Part 2
"I am not familiar with this group. Batman? Superman," Wonder Woman asks the two with the most hidden knowledge of Man's world.
Hal Jordan just groans into his hands, "Not those buffoons. I used to hear jokes back when I was in the Air Force. They're almost as bad as the area 51 conspiracists. Always claiming our bases were haunted by high level ecto beings. Ghosts aren't even real!"
Batman is listening to something on his earpiece, "Ghosts are real, Lantern. One is a member of the JL Dark "
"When was anyone going to tell me?! Now I look stupid."
Red Robin mouths to batman, 'Now?'
Batman pointedly ignores that and continues, "That knowledge has always been available if you read the reports properly. Regardless, Oracle has provided me with some more information on this organization; a comparatively small G-List government group tasked with hunting down, capturing and experiment on beings of ectoplasmic origins or ghosts to civilians."
T̵̪͗h̵̬̊ē̴̤y̵̪̅ ̸͇͗h̵͙͂ẽ̸̘l̶̎͜d̸̗̃ ̵̼̆o̴̪͐ȕ̷̞r̸͚̚ ̷̗́c̸͚͐i̶̙̔ť̵̟y̷͔̚ ̷̧̒h̴͕͑o̵̼̊s̸̰̈t̷̙͝a̷̯̓ģ̶͊e̴̦͐,̴͔̋ ̸͉̒t̵̩͌ḩ̴̋r̵̜̐e̵̙͝a̷̡͋t̵̜͌e̷͉̕n̸̼̾ě̸̩d̴͎̕ ̸͖̏o̵̱͒ụ̴̑r̴͈̚ ̷̨͂p̴͓̎e̴͍͝o̸̼̍p̶͕̋l̴̛͔ȇ̵̟/
(They held our city hostage, threatened our people.)
Ť̵̹h̷̙̓e̴̯͗ ̵͎̑G̷̣̀r̷͜͠e̴̩̽ą̴̍ẗ̷̪́ ̵̜͌O̵͕̿n̸̲͒e̸̤͝ ̴͇̄t̴͈̋r̴̡̍i̶̩͊é̴͙d̷̞͋ ̶̬͌t̸̮̀ö̸̢́ ̸̯̎f̷͍̽r̸͚̿e̶̬̎e̶̯͠ ̶̡͛t̴͙͗h̴͖̓e̷̥͝i̸̞̎r̶̳͑ ̶̭͐c̷͔̀ì̵͎ẗ̶̙ỷ̴͚
(The Great One tried to free their city.)
B̵͔͆a̷͖̔b̵̧̑y̶͕͒p̴̪͝o̶̰͗p̵̪͛ ̴͒͜s̸̱̊a̴͇̐c̸͍͠r̴̩̃í̸͕ḟ̶̤ǐ̷̘c̴̛̱ȇ̷͙d̵̮͆ ̴͓́h̴̙̓i̵̲͌m̵̗̌s̶̥̓ë̶͜ḻ̴̑f̶̖͝ ̵̥̆j̸̫̆u̷̮̍s̷̖̀ṯ̷̀ ̵̨͑t̴͔͛o̵̦͘ ̴̗͊g̷̠̎e̷̱͗t̶̘́ ̵͔͠t̷͎͆h̸̬̀o̷̟͆s̷̤͝e̸̹̓ ̴̮̈́j̸̛̮ê̶͓r̸̤̈́k̷̮̄s̷͎̽ ̶̨̅o̵̖̊u̴̺͑t̶͍̃ ̶̭̂ö̵̮́f̶̖̕ ̸̺̌A̶̯̋m̸̯̿i̴̲͆ẗ̵̡́y̷͕̓.̸̛̭
(Babypop sacrificed himself just to get those jerks out of Amity.)
T̴̨̉h̸̻́e̶̲̊ỳ̸͕ ̵͚̊r̴̥̔ë̶͈́ṅ̸̫e̸͓͝g̷͔̎e̷̖̕d̴͚͌ ̵̹͒ó̶̤ṉ̵͒ ̷̹̚t̷͔͌h̵̿ͅè̷͜i̴̐͜r̷̪̄ ̵̩̒d̴̛̮ě̴̠a̴̞͛l̸̻̐ ̴̹̿t̴̙̓h̴̯́ó̴͍u̷̠̾g̷̟͝ẖ̵̏ ̸̭̚a̷̤͌n̵͖̎d̷̬̔ ̴̈́ͅA̵̜͗m̵̬̕ȋ̵̠ṯ̸̓y̷̟̓ ̵̺̄P̶̥̉ä̴̫́r̸̪̂k̵͈̑ ̵̥̈́î̸͇s̸͓͂ ̴̡͒n̷̩͛o̵̰͑ ̸̠̚m̵̨̀o̴̭̔r̶̥̔e̵̼̋.̷͙̆
(They regened on their deal though and Amity Park is no more.)
Red Robin takes this new information and inputs it into the Watchtower's computers and pulls up a satellite image of Amity Park, IL and just finds a blackened hole in the ground several miles wide.
Batman's suit groans as his fist clenches before turning away from the table, "Superman with me, Red Robin contact Cyborg. We're bringing this group to justice. No organization should have the ability to wipe an entire city off the face of the earth."
"Right behind you, Batman." Superman quickly takes off after him.
"What about the rest of us," Flash yells at him as he leaves.
"Everyone else should pool their resources together and try to come up with a way to slow down, stop or even reverse the Decay Field. Technology, magic, I don't care even ask your rogues if need be but this needs to be stopped."
______________________________________________
Base Gamma-5, IL
Superman and Batman stare down on an old seemingly unused military base. Superman's eyes shimmering as he looks over the area with his x-ray vision.
"So?"
"Skeleton crew of scientists, minimal guards but there is definitely activity underground."
"Any centralized location?"
"What, hoping for a big open room where all the bad guys can get together and start throwing hands?"
"..."
"Don't look at me like that, I blame Kon and Jon, I don't even know how that phrase became a common thing."
"Hn. I was asking for a central area to reduce any unnecessary structural damage our encounter is likely to cause."
Superman focuses as he resumes looking, freezing in place as a rictus of anger covered his face and he takes off. Explosions of steel and concrete echo through the forest as Superman flies through the base's defenses and high speed. Bruce gives a withering sigh as he fires off a grapple and follows behind Clark.
Shortly after Bruce finds Clark deep into the base, a large metal door ripped off its track and him threatening a scientist. "What is the meaning of this, who is this?!"
"What is this, you mean. It's ectoplasmic scum."
"You better pick your words carefully, that is a dead child in a TANK. I have VERY short patience for people like you."
Batman appears behind him, "I'd listen to him if I were you."
The scientist sneer at the sight of him, "Batman. I see you managed pull yourself out of that ecto-contaminated cesspool you call a city. You still reek of it."
Superman lifts him even higher and shakes him in one hand, "Don't look at him, looks at me and answer my question. WHO. IS. HE."
"P-Phantom. He was an ectoplasmic entity that breached the veil five years ago. He was the strongest power level in decades. The last time something like him was detected was in 1902 in North Carolina. Psychics all over three states surrounding it felt it appear."
"Who killed him?"
"Agent A, just over four years ago. He bagged him in a small town called Amity Park. There's records he had been there for over a year, check them."
"We can't, Amity Park has been a smoking crater for some time."
"What? Did the ghosts do it?"
"You did it, your organization did it," Superman shakes him hard to make his point.
"Superman."
Superman drops the scientist on his ass, "Fine, you deal with him. I'm likely to do something we'll both regret if he stays in my sight. I'm going to go get Phantom's body."
"Why is the Justice League even here?! You should be thanking us for purging this planet of that ectoscum!"
"That is a child."
"It's scum! It just looks like a child, there have been records putting its age at over 2 millennium in Rome where it burned-."
Batman sighs internally before giving a swift jab to one of the scientist's pressure points making him drop like a sack of potatoes. Clark mutters something as he removes the poor boy's body from the vat.
"I don't want to hear it, Kal."
"I didn't say anything, Batman."
"Hn," is all Batman says as he throws the scientist over his shoulder and plugs a USBat into a nearby server and has Oracle let off some of her rage st this organization.
______________________________________________
Flash is staring over batman's shoulder at the body on the gurney, "Is it just me or does he look familiar?"
The boys black and white hair now dry is fluffy over his face, scars litter his form in lightning strike patterns.
Batman gives him a look as he starts scanning the body.
"I mean not like I know the kid, just like I feel like I seen him around somewhere."
"I understand. I also have that feeling but it could simply be the radiation talking."
"Radiation" Flash screams before he zips across the room.
"Low levels, barely over a smoke detector's level."
"You think you're real funny don't you?"
He just raises and eyebrow, "do you have any information on our issue? Have your rogues anything to add?"
"Nah, even the ones from from the future don't know anything. Which is weird if you think about it; how can there be a future if the universe is eating itself?"
"Because time is most likely fluid right now, we're in the middle of the choices that make it set in stone and affect our future."
"Since when do you know about time travel?"
"I have some experience in it, unwanted experience but experience none the less."
"Right... so who is he?"
Batman pulls up a medical record on one of the doctors tablets that soon span into multitudes of windows, "Daniel Fenton. Son of Drs Fenton and Fenton. Saver of the critically endangered purple back gorrilas, Senior at Casper High, suspected meta but proved negative after a lab accident when he was 14. Godson and beneficiary of deceased billionaire Vladimir Masters. Lifetime ban on handling chemistry equipment..."
"Lab accidents? Lifetime ban in chemistry class? Sounds like my kind of kid."
There is a puff of thick sulfury smoke as a british voice speaks out, "Oi Batsy, I heard ya discovered the universe was ending, just came to see if- BLOODY FUCKING HELL. Why is there a dead kid on the table?!"
Batman counts to ten in his head and turns to Constantine, "What have we said about teleporting into the Watchtower?"
"Forget that! What have I said about keeping bloody dead kids out in the open?"
"You haven't."
"I shouldn't have had to, its implied!"
"Hn"
"Wait a second... this kid looks like... no couldn't be. That was ages ago."
"You too" Flash asks him as Constantine ponders on the boys face.
Constantine's face turns sharp, "what do you mean? You think you've met him as well?"
"Yeah but we just can't place it. Who does he look like to you?"
"Reminds me of a protector spirit I made a deal wit a couple decades or so ago. It was tasked to guard a rune for me. Indigenous populace referred to it as the Great One Who Breathes the Cold."
"Oh yeah? A spirit huh," Flash interjects, "What'd he ask for in return, Booberries?"
"An Astrolabe of all things, smartarse."
"He's not a spirit, we can see him so it's not like Boston and he has DNA. We were able to track his medical and public record. I've got what I need, I'm calling a meeting to collaborate ideas on how to fix this."
"Right, Bats, I'll just-"
"Mandatory meeting, Constantine."
"...Right."
__________________________________________
"What about those noxious pits one of your villains constantly uses?"
"We can't use the Lazarus Pits; they don't bring back the dead only the dying."
"Besides," Constantine interrupts, "Body doesn't have an ounce of soul tethered to it."
"What about time travel," Booster asks, "I can just pop back before these MIB wannabes kill the kid. Boom, Problem solved."
"We don't even know what changing that much will do."
"How about a localized time rewind," Raven asks, "If we just rewind him and not everything else."
"Nah, love. Decay field's already in play. The likelihood we rewind him and he doesn't know how to reverse it is to bloody high and we wasted the energy to only fail."
"Lantern, how much time do we have before the wave comes back?"
"The guardian's projected a time frame of two weeks before it returns to the earth."
"Not a lot of time but we've had shorter timeframes to save the universe."
"Hn" Batman turns to the Flash, "If need be we may need you to Flashpoint the event."
ALERT: Intruder in Medbay 1.
ALERT: Intruder in Medbay 1.
"I got it," Flash says before zipping off to the medbay, hoping to graze past the point of the Flashpoint.
"Isn't that the medbay with the body," Wonder Woman asks as Batman gets up to follow after the flash.
"Yes."
Everyone's comms went off with the Flash's voice, "You guys better get down here. I found our intruder but I can't touch him. He's just standing-"
"Flash," Superman puts a finger to his ear. "Flash do you copy?"
__________________________________________________________
Amity Park, IL 4 Years, 4 Months ago
"-Over the body of the kid... Wait where am I?" Flash frantically looking around at what was obviously not medical bay of the Watchtower and instead looks like a back alley of a moderate city frozen in time.
"Amity Park, Wallace," The old man says with a smile in his voice.
"That's not possible. Amity Park was obliterated off the face of the earth."
"Use your process of elimination, Wallace."
Thoughts zip through Wally's head as he comes to the obvious answer, "This is before the city was destroy. Do you know what you're doing?! Time travel causes nothing but problems, after the last flash point I swore I would never do it again!"
"I know more about time travel than you will know in multiple lifetimes. I am known as Clockwork here, I was once the master of time; it was my job to maintain the structure of the timelines even when you 'Flashpointed' a timeline to make sure the right outcome comes to be."
"Then why is the universe ending?!"
"I miscalculated the hatred some of my kind felt towards young Daniel. As such to betray our dimension to those that would sooner purge us. I cannot physically intervene in a past event but you can and for once I give you permission to fix the timeline and save your world. You have two weeks to save Danny Fenton."
"Wait, betrayed? I don't even know how they killed him how do I save him?!"
"You'll figure it out, you always do. By the way you may want to destroy your comm. Time in."
Flash's comm comes to life with his own voice, "I don't know who you think you are-." Flash rips his earpiece faster than could be seen and smashes it into the ground.
"Rightrightright... Right, two weeks to save some kid from bargain bin men in black... How hard can that be?" He spins in place, replacing his costume with his civilian cloths and stepping out of the alley to walk around the city.
___________________________________________________________
Thanks to @phantom-things and @a-lost-time-traveler for the Zalgo text translations. It didn't occur to me that people wouldn't be able to read it even at its lowest setting. I've learned and just parentheses'd the translations. I tried to make the two timeline but I just couldn't get the dead squared idea to flow properly so unfortunately I can only give this one. I'm gonna start working on the part three when I have time tomorrow. sorry if the quality's terrible.
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lvis44 · 4 days ago
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Senna or Superman // LH44
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Lewis Hamilton x Reader
Warnings: Language, Angst, Talk of this seasons difficulties, Suggestive dialogue, (Felipe Massa jump scare mention), Not Edited
Word Count: 4.3k+
Summary: Brazil 2024 was unforgiving, but amidst it all some greatness can still be achieved.
Notes: Hey y'all, like I said, I was feeling like typing and needed to work on something different for a second and I think I can speak for all of us that today had me feeling all of the emotions. There's definitely some angst in here but a lot of it is just absolute fluff and reader being an absolute Stan of her boyfriend, bc who wouldn't be if they were dating Lewis Hamilton, lets be real. Also, I've said it once I will say it again, I cannot follow a tense to save my life to ignore that. Kisses xxxx!!!
I am not a professional writer and all of this is a work of fiction and is strictly for fun. Enjoy! xxx
You hadn’t gotten much sleep and you were feeling it as you sat in the back of the Mercedes garage. Lewis had been hyper and full of anxious energy when he returned to the hotel last night. He had spent most of the previous day bobbing around the paddock like an energetic child, complaining about the delay in qualifying and trying to convince anyone that would listen to him that they should be sent out to try and put a lap together. He’s in Brazil, he wants to put on a show, but he’d been forced to wait much to his dismay and that had left you having to deal with him. He had been hyper after being so ready to go but never getting the release from his adrenaline and also annoyed that the sport had changed so much, yapping on about how when he first got to F1 they would have sent them out and that danger and adrenaline is a key part of the sport. You tried incessantly to get him to chill but you really had to just let him wear himself out, much like an actual child. It wasn’t until later in the evening, laying against his chest after finally convincing him to try to get some sleep, that you really got the answer to his emotions.
~
“I’m so excited and honored that I’m driving the MP4 tomorrow, but I’m also nervous. I was so prepared to do it today but having to wait, delaying the gratification, it’s really getting to me.” Lewis whispered into the comfortable silence, surprising you with the unprompted admission.
“It’s even more iconic to do it on race day.” You told him softly, rubbing your hand against his warm chest hoping to lighten the weight of whatever way playing in his mind.
He just hummed in response, evidently deep in his thoughts, his arm tightening around you ever so slightly.
“It’s understandable that you’re nervous Lew, you’re driving a piece of history, not just history to the sport but to your own personal journey and career. You’ve been asked to drive your idols car, the man is the reason you found your calling. Superman or Senna, right?” You kept your voice quiet, realizing that he needed to talk this through a bit more but not wanting to disrupt the peace that had settled around the two of you.
He smiled down at you as he heard the last part of your statement, chuckling lightly,  “Superman or Senna, yes indeed.” He trailed off for a moment, the soft smile lingering on his lips as he stared at the ceiling, almost as if reminiscing over those years when those were his two goals in life, back as a young boy in Stevenage. “What’s kinda funny is that it’s not that I’m really nervous about driving the car itself, like I feel confident in that part, I feel like I’m more than capable. It’s that I’m nervous that I don’t deserve this or something, this is a big deal and I would never want anyone to regret this decision or something. I honestly don’t even really know, like I don’t know why they would regret it I just, I don’t know. Just not really sure I’m worthy of this.” He finished his rant, letting out a deep sigh.
Hearing his thoughts caused you to sit up, no longer caring if you broke the peace in the room. You stared directly at him, eyes locked with his that were evidently startled at your abrupt departure from your cuddle.
“Lewis, I need you to listen to me. They chose you, Senna's family specifically chose you and asked you.” You started, poking him in the chest for emphasis before putting the same finger over his lips to shush him when he tried to argue. “They could have asked any of the other drivers on the grid, they could have asked a retired driver, they could honestly have asked whoever the hell they wanted, but no they asked for you. Not the current reigning champion, not the owner of the car, not even a Mclaren driver. They asked you, not only because they recognize your talent but because they see him in you. They see the love and respect that the people of Brazil have for you and they see you return that tenfold. This beautiful country made you a citizen for a reason, they see you carry that flag with the same pride as your own. Lew even Felipe Massa said that you deserve to be the one to drive that car and isn’t he like literally suing you right now?”
You finally let out a huff before the both of you erupt in a fit of giggles, Lewis forcefully pulling you back down to him to wrap you tightly in his arms. 
“I didn’t know he said that, honestly rather shocking because yeah, pretty sure he is. But ya know, I heard he’s running out of money.” His lips hold a smirk as he looks down at you before you’re both consumed by another fit of giggles. “Thank you,” He whispers once you’ve both calmed down, his lips against your forehead, “I needed to hear that. You know I get too much in my own head sometimes. Still have a hard time believing that all of this is real after everything I’ve been through, where I came from, ya know?”
“I do,” You say, tilting your head up to press a soft kiss to his lips, “you’re allowed to still revel in it, even after all this time. It truly is mental, even if it’s been this way for a while now. And by the way, I’m pretty sure the only reason they would ever regret letting you drive that car is if you crash it into a wall and break it, so just don’t do that and I’m pretty sure everything will be just fine.” You giggle, giving him another kiss.
“Well damn woman, no pressure or anything.” He fakes offence before splitting into a grin with you.
“Hey,” you say, your voice softer again, “I know I’m biassed and all, but know that I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this honor and I am so incredibly proud of you. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold back the tears when I see you in that Mclaren tomorrow. You are an incredibly blessed man but you do not take it for granted and I am honoured that I get to see how incredible you are every single day, as a driver, as a partner, but most importantly as a human. Let yourself enjoy this Lew, you deserve it and I will be there watching in awe.”
“I love you so so much.” He says, his voice thick with emotion as he pulls you impossibly closer to him.
“I love you too,” You tell him softly, placing a kiss on his chest where he has squished your face into him, “now get some sleep, you have to be up in a few hours for that stupid early morning quali.”
~
Lewis had left early in the morning, sneaking out of bed around 3:30 to get ready. Only waking you accidentally when he placed a soft kiss on your forehead as he was leaving. He was apologetic, telling you to go back to sleep and that he would see you at the track. Not that you were able to get much more sleep, needing to get up and get ready yourself if you wanted any chance of making it there on time. When you had finally arrived to the garage, you made sure to perch yourself in the back, trying to stay out of the way of all the busy people rushing around you.You only got to see Lewis for a brief moment, only having enough time to give him a quick kiss and send him off with a final good luck encouragement. It was pointless though, you both knew the car wasn’t going to perform to Lewis’ liking. If anything it had somehow gotten worse for this weekend. 
As you sat in the garage watching on you couldn’t help but cringe. Lewis was battling with the car, not even making it out of Q1. You knew his mood wouldn’t be amazing when he finally made his way back to you after going to be weighed and speak to the media. You watched the next session, baffled by the sheer chaos unfolding and you couldn’t help but pray that the race would end up being better. The grid was out of position and red flags were being thrown left and right. You let out a sigh when you saw your man finally enter the garage, his helmet still on. He stopped momentarily to speak with some of his engineers, shaking peoples hands and thanking them for their hard work. He finally locked onto you, gesturing for you to follow him as he made his way to his drivers room. When you walked in behind him you could see how heavy his shoulders were. His helmet had been discarded on the bench beside him but he still hadn’t turned around.
“Hey, we knew it was gonna be shit, right?” You said quietly, putting your hand on his damp back.
“Yeah, we did. I’m just so ready for this season to be over.” He finally said, letting out a deep breath as he turned to face you.
“We’re so close babe, so so close. And for now we get to take a little time away from this devil of a car.” You told him, wrapping your arms around his neck as his hands found your waist. Not caring one bit that he was soggy from the rain and the sweat, just content to be with your guy.
“Still got a race to do hun.” He reminded you, kissing his teeth.
“Oh I know, but let’s not think about that right now. I was talking about you getting behind the wheel of a Mclaren MP4 for a little while instead.” You smirk, leaning up towards his now smiling face.
“A proper race car.” He says, his smile threatening to split his face.
This is what you wanted, you wanted him to revel in the joy, revel in the honor of driving such an incredible car. Enjoy being behind the wheel of a Championship winning car once again even if it was only for a few laps and unlike the cars he was used to winning in. 
“A legacy meant for a hometown hero to carry on, and a race car meant for a World Champion. It’s been waiting for another great to stretch its legs and they found just the right Brazilian for the job.” You whispered to him, your faces incredibly close now. 
“If you keep talking like that I might end up locking you in here.” His voice is teasing as he wraps his arms around you.
“As much as I desperately want to say yes to that, I do believe you have something to get ready for.” You sigh, pulling back and patting his chest.
“I do, but we’ll use it for motivation later, I might need it.” He says as he peels himself off of you, his voice is playful but you both know he’s dead serious.
“The second we leave this track, I am all yours for as long as you want or need.” You promise, watching as he starts to change and prepare to go meet the Mclaren mechanics that have been looking after the historical car.
You sit in a comfortable peace for a while, occasionally exchanging words about little things that don’t really matter that much, just enjoying being in his space. You know that when the day is over you will have a full debrief, all of the frustration that he’s setting aside for this moment will inevitably bubble up once he’s in the safe privacy of the two of you alone, but for now you entertain his small talk and let him start to get excited about his incredible moment as he gets himself ready. When he’s ready he turns to  you with childlike excitement bubbling at the surface and you can feel your heart swell.
“This is a good look for you.” You tell him, eyeing the all white suit with the Brazilian flag at his waist.
“I’m still mad I can’t wear his actual helmet.” Lewis grumbles with a shake of his head.
“I hate to say, I actually agree with them on that one babe, let’s keep your head safe, yeah?” You laugh.
“I know I know, don’t think it would even fit on my head anyway.” He playfully groans, making his way over to you.
“I like the special helmet for this weekend though, it’s still a tribute.” You remind him, knowing he’s half joking but wanting him to be fully confident when he steps out.
He nods, taking a moment to admire you before he’s pulling you close and landing his lips on yours in a kiss that takes you by surprise with its force.
“Thank you, for everything,” He starts when he finally pulls away, his forehead resting on yours, “for reminding me that I’m allowed to revel in this, for keeping me grounded,for letting me be excited, just for everything.”
“Hey, that’s why I’m here. You do the exact same for me when I need it, it’s why we work so well.” You say quietly, your hand coming to stroke his beard gently.
“If I don’t get to see you before I get in the car, just know your words from last night are gonna be in my head the entire time. I’m gonna let myself enjoy this, let myself feel this. Nothing else about today matters other than honouring and paying tribute to my childhood hero and getting to live out my childhood dreams of driving the car that made me want to start racing around the circuit that introduced me to another home.” His voice holds excitement and certainty as he speaks that makes you want to cry and kiss him all at once.
You’ve never been quite so proud of the man in front of you. Yes, you’ve cheered for him since the beginning, before you even met him. You’ve wept when he’s broken records and won each and every championship. Yet nothing quite compares to seeing this amazing moment and knowing just how much he deserves it, knowing that there is no one better to hold this responsibility and honor. There is no one like Aryton Senna and truly there never will be, and there is no one like Lewis Hamilton and there truly never will be. 
“You know you’re doing for millions what he did for you, right?” You whisper, hoping he knows just the level of inspiration he gives to everyone watching him, young and old alike.
“I know, and it’s amazing to be able to do that.” He says, his smile warm.
You don’t say another word, giving him a long kiss, feeling connected to him in a way you both need in the moment, albeit for much different reasons. You are pouring every ounce of pride and amazement into the kiss, hoping he can feel it, while he is absorbing the love and reassurance that comes with your touch, letting himself feel his greatness and humble himself all at once. Finally there is a knock at the door, signalling that he really needs to get going, causing you to part from each other reluctantly. 
“Okay, I gotta go do the most amazing thing of my entire career.” He says with a smile, “Be here when I get back?”
“I can’t promise I won’t be sobbing out near the pit wall but I will definitely find you, promise.” You laugh, giving him one last kiss before he grabs his helmet and makes his way over to the media garage where the incredible car is being stored for him.
It takes you a little while to get out to the pit lane that is already lined with people. You wish you could be closer, see the car up close but this isn’t your moment. Today is for Senna's family and the people of Brazil, you are just lucky enough to be able to witness the incredible moment in person.You know Lewis is somewhere down the pitlane, most likely trying to stay calm as he geeks out over the amazing machine he is about to drive. He has driven one of Senna’s cars before, but not in a long time, and not in this setting, not with this honor and audience. You also know that no matter how many times he may have had the privilege of being around and driving incredible race cars, he is a racing driver through and through and the excitement will never change. While you’re standing there smiling to yourself, thinking about how excited Lewis must be and taking in the incredible aura of the crowd, you catch sight of the live stream playing on the jumbotron. There he is, getting in his idols car, you watch as he takes a moment to really take it in just before he’s being strapped in. It’s funny to you to see him surrounded by Mclaren mechanics again, to see the goodyear tires you remember from your first ever F1 races. Then they’re rolling him out and the crowd gets their first in person glimpse of the car over the wall and the cheers echo through your soul. It takes a few more minutes for them to be ready and the atmosphere is building with anticipation but then they start the engine. The first rumble sends a chill down your spine and silences the track. The sound of the V10 roaring to life evoked a visceral feeling from you, bringing back memories of why you fell in love with the sport as a child in the first place and you could only imagine what the emotions coursing through Lewis in that moment were. You saw him shake his head in disbelief as he revved the engine and you could just picture the boyish grin that would be covering his face at that moment. Then it cut, he stalled, and you heard the boos and wanted to run and protect him. You knew it wasn’t his fault, and realistically you knew the crowd wasn’t booing him, they were booing the disruption of the soundtrack that was the incredible V10 engine and you also knew Lewis was smart enough to know that as well. The mechanics were quick, getting the engine back up rapidly and soon enough Lewis was headed out toward the track. He took a moment, the mechanics meeting him again and you prayed that everything would go to plan, this moment was too important to everyone for anything not to be perfect. And then you saw him, speeding past you in Senna’s Mclaren down the pit straight. The spray of water adding to the moment as he waved at the fans who were evidently stunned at the spectacle in front of them. Their recently adopted hero bringing them back to a moment with their lifelong hero. You couldn’t hold back your tears as you watched him complete lap after flawless lap, handling the car like he’d been driving it for years. You could only imagine what the emotions flowing through his body must be, so incredibly grateful to be able to witness the moment. When you saw him stop to grab the flag your tears picked up, watching the beauty of the moment as he completed his dream of waving his new country's flag as he drove his idol's car with no hands around the wet track. Everything about the moment was pure poetry. 
By the time he parked the car on the grid, you were sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the entirety of Sao Paulo. You watched through teary eyes as Viviane went and spoke to him as he collected himself in the cockpit. You could see her thanking him and you knew that he was thanking her just as profusely. You tried to dry your eyes as you watched them pose with Senna's helmet while Lewis sat in the car, but they came back quickly. You finally managed to pull yourself together just a little bit as you watched him pose with flag but the second he knelt down next to the car as if to thank it for everything it had done for him and his idol, you lost it again, You couldn’t help but laugh at yourself just a bit, your emotions were definitely getting the best of you. You could see the emotion on Lewis’ face as he too pulled himself together to get ready for the interview. He was beaming, eternally grateful for the opportunity. You listened as he described his love for Brazil and the love he has received from the fans, you could hear the emotion thick in his voice the entire time, even through the incredible joy that was paired with it. You knew he meant it when he said it was the ‘honor of his career’ and you were certain this would be a moment that neither of you ever forgot. Everything about it was purely beautiful, seeing everyone pause for something so meaningful, you weren’t sure you had ever seen the sport so at one in your entire life.
When you saw him finally making his way to the pit lane you scramble to try to pull yourself together, hoping to be somewhat emotionally sound when you went to meet him in his drivers room, but he found you first, a strong arm slinking around your waist before you were being crushed in a tight hug. When he finally let you go you took a moment to take him in. The emotions were written all over his face, the weight of the profound moment sinking in for him as the joy was palpable. He took in your state, his eyes softening, knowing that every emotion on your face came from your love for him and your love for the sport.
“C’mon, lets go be alone for a second.” He said softly, guiding you toward the garage.
When you were safely inside his drivers room you turned to him, your words dying on your tongue as they didn’t feel enough to express just how proud of him you were. Instead you opted to grasp his face in your hands and kiss him, hard, tears falling down your cheeks as you did. When you finally parted from him you saw that the smile had never left his face.
“I think you’re more emotional about that entire thing than I am.” He teased you softly, wiping a stray tear from your cheek.
“Stop it,” You laughed, swatting at him pathetically, “I’m just so proud of you and so happy for you. I can only imagine what that meant to you.”
“Yeah, it was surreal, never had so many emotions at once. It felt incredible, it truly felt like a dream come true.” He said as he placed his hands on your waist, pulling you toward him.
“I was right you know, there was no one more suited for that than you.” You tell him softly.
“You were absolutely right, that felt perfect, Viviane was so kind and so grateful, I will never forget this.” He sighs and you can tell the weight of the weekend is leaving his body with it.
“Nothing else that happens this weekend matters, okay? This was what it was all for.” You assure him, placing your hand on the side of his neck.
“Thank you, you’re right, that was truly the only reason I am here this weekend, none of the rest matters in the slightest.” His eyes are soft as he melts into your touch.
“I know you said you wanted to be Senna or Superman but I think you may have achieved both just now. You are more than a hero to just about everyone here, me included.” You tell him softly, staring deep into his eyes as you do.
“That means a lot, I felt it while I was out there. It was a crazy feeling, getting to be that for everyone.” He says earnestly.
“You do it way more frequently than you think, even if you haven’t been feeling it lately.” You assure him, wanting him to know just how much you mean it.
He doesn’t respond but you can tell he’s just taking it in as he lets out a breath and traces circles on your hip. He’s a confident man, cocky at times, but even the strongest of soldiers can be weak in the face of defeat.
“I know you are a natural born competitor, but let's make a deal that your only objective today is just to come back to me in one piece. That’s all I ask of you.” You say after a moment, listening to the rain pickup against the roof.
“I will absolutely come back to you, but I ain’t making any promise about not also trying to pull that tractor as far forward as I can.” He laughs, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
“Okay fair enough, just need you in tiptop shape to be my superman when we get back to the hotel tonight.” You smirk, pinching his bicep.
“Well when you put it like that why don’t we just leave on a high note and head back right now?” He asks playfully, pulling you closer to him.
“I’m down, but you’ve gotta go keep being both Senna and Superman.” You giggle.
“Okay, I’ll do my best, but I’m still holding you to that even if this race is shit.” He says, pinching your bum.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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artbyblastweave · 7 months ago
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So I recently had the thought that Superman as depicted in the DCAU canon probably has the best-articulated-by-the-narrative and most-consistent character flaws of any Superman I’ve seen, in a way that’s enabled by the long-formedness and consistent creative vision of the series.
He’s got an Atlas complex that grinds the gears of his equally-durable, equally-capable colleagues in the Justice League. He has deep-seated fears of moving the wrong way and breaking something or someone, which is then upstream of some moderate control issues. He’s got anger problems, although it’s rare for someone to push him far enough that this takes center stage; you see this with Prof. Hamilton in the series finale of STAS, but also in a number of fights against opponents strong enough that he starts getting frustrated. When the stakes are lower, he can be cocky bordering on genuinely vindictive; there are lots of examples of him rubbing his opponents' noses in it when he finally gets them on the back foot, and it’s shown in flashbacks that he was genuinely kind of a dick when he was a teenager and hadn’t completely sorted out what proportional responses looked like. He doesn’t always think through the implications of his grand projects, be that the implicit threat-escalation posed by the expanded JLU, or the massive disarmament project he spearheaded that turned out to be part of an alien invasion scheme. There are probably more of these that I’m forgetting. The final roundup here is that he’s a good guy. He’s far and away from a perfect guy, with perfect judgement. All of this amounts to something that’s more coherent and specific than the contradictory, subject-to-eternal-revision mess you could assemble from his 60-something year publication history in the comics, but nonetheless with a substantial-enough runtime that all of these traits can be put on display again and again.
In turn, this allowed the collective DCAU continuity to get away with at least three “what if Superman went rogue” plots- four if you count the mind-control situation in Legacy- specifically because they did the legwork to establish the concrete neuroses and psychological vulnerabilities that might cause this specific version of Superman to go rogue. It was never completely insane that Luthor might figure out the exact set of words, actions, and personal losses necessary to coax this depiction of Superman into an authoritarian partnership for the supposed greater good. It’s not completely insane that this depiction of Superman, if pushed far enough, might lose faith in the collective judgement of humanity and decide to put the world and all his loved ones in a bottle. And when the Cadmus plot rolls around in JLU, it’s as effective as it is because they’ve already advanced two roads-not-taken, established what levers you need to pull to make this specific version of this guy cross the line, and that Cadmus and Luthor are pulling all of them. 
I emphasize the specificity here, because the flipside of this are Superman-gone-rogue narratives that jump right to that as the cornerstone of the continuity, with no real opportunities for juxtaposition. A major issue I eventually developed with the Injustice franchise is that despite its pretenses of being an alternate universe, there’s no established continuity that it’s deviating from, bar its own. To some extent I feel as though it’s banking on the audience transposing their gestalt-understanding of Superman and the broader DCU- hell, their understanding of the Justice Lords arc in particular- in order to elide that they’re playing extremely fast-and-loose with the specifics of what has and hasn’t happened to Superman in this continuity. The DCEU is a runner-up- jumping right to the Damocles-sword of a bad-future after two movies is jumping the gun, in the same way everything about the 2010s DCEU was jumping the gun. I think you could plausibly attack TDKR’s portrayal of Superman under this logic, although I personally wouldn’t- but that’s its own post.
Point being that you can’t sell me the upset of a paradigm if you never established it-you need to set up the pins before you can bowl worth a damn.
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ungoliantschilde · 2 months ago
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“The Mother of All Jams”
“Here is the mother of all Jams!! Two years in the making for me after Wizard gave up,lol. Wizard wanted to do a special anniversary piece for the magazine so they got George Perez to do the layouts on most and then sent the piece all over the world to get all the star artists to do their key characters they were most associated with. The project kept getting held up and it was just too much trouble to get it completed. There are almost 150 characters in this mammoth Jam Poster Illustration.I love how the whole piece has direction. All the characters are either moving right on their respective side,left, or right in front of ya.
We have here..
Full figure pencil and inks of Spawn and Spiderman by Todd Mcfarlane. There is no other piece to my knowledge that has spidey and spawn hand drawn by Todd on the same board. They have a combined image of 11x11in with that incredible spaghetti webbing.
Alex Ross- Superman
Travis Charest- Grifter
Jim Lee/Scott Williams- Batman
George Perez-Wonder woman, Starfire, Scarlet Witch, Beast, and the Thing
Erik Larsen-Savage Dragon
Danger Girl, Fairchild, Grunge, Roxie, Burnout, and Rainmaker are all by J. Scott Campbell
Then I had David Finch do everyone else over George Perez's layouts.It is huge, 23X39in
David Finch is one of my favorite artists out there today and it was an honor to have him finish this incredible piece of history. Parts of it were published in a 1990's Wizard Magazine.”
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ri-afan · 2 months ago
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Thought posed:
Danny does the college stuff and interning for stuff at Wayne Enterprises while living in Gotham, but he doesn’t catch the Bats attention because he simultaneously is both Just Normal Enough while the Bats are Slightly Out Of Step of normal long enough that things with Danny don’t catch their attention. (Gotham as a whole is a huge ‘well this might as well happen’ place and after however many years…the threshold is a bit off for weirdness. Pair that up with normal Batdrama and role-code-switching and minor things are likely going to be subconsciously overlooked if not clocked as Dangerous.)
(Does Danny know the Bats’ IDs? … He would deny it if asked. Not his circus business though. He does think it’s smart that they at least try to cover their faces, unlike when he played the hero. He meets Clark before Superman and feels like he’s on the Office or something.)
Danny moves on with the astro-stuff (whether an astronaut, an astrophysicist, or whatever else) in another city and catches the attention of another hero as Not Normal, What’s Up With That Guy?? (two parts coincidence, one part Danny’s willingness to trust for the better, one part Uncanny) and they track his history to Gotham/WE and decide to ask the Batclan if they knew anything.
They find out nothing really is wrong with Danny (…the JLD was not called or conferred with, unfortunately for all) but it does spark the reeducation refresher of the Gotham Clan for Human Weirdness (that also educated the rest in just how messed up Gotham can be).
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literaryvein-reblogs · 24 days ago
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Writing Notes: Character Flaws
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Nobody is perfect.
By depicting characters who mirror that sentiment, it’s easier for us to understand and connect to them.
Flaws don’t just add character depth though, they can also drive the entire story.
They can create personal arcs that raise the tension of the main conflict.
Flaws make the character’s success (if it comes) that much more rewarding.
But when we’re developing our own characters, how do we build flaws into them? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but we can pull some tips from some examples.
A lack of flaws: Characters like Superman who don’t have a lot of character flaws need other kinds of things to create compelling stories. Superman was intended as a symbol of hope. The fact he fights people or lifts heavy things is rarely ever interesting these days, but the way he handles problems and fights for the downtrodden still resonates with people.
Flaws & plot work together: A character flaw should have some meaning to the plot. Haymitch’s (from The Hunger Games) drinking isn’t particularly interesting until you learn about his history and realize that it’s a coping mechanism. Irving’s (from A Strange Loop) get-rich-quick schemes create the conflict in the story. And Hinata’s (from Haikyū!!) flaws are something that he’s constantly working to overcome to reach his goals.
Proceed with caution: Finally, character flaws are an important part of creating well-rounded and believable characters, but if you treat sensitive topics too lightly—or misunderstand them—you risk upsetting part of your audience.
While you might have the best of intentions, if you’re dealing with serious issues that real people deal with, it would be a good idea to do some research or get a sensitivity reader. Or both.
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Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References ⚜ "Well-Rounded" Character Worksheet
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eddiezpaghetti · 10 months ago
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Okay, Part 2! Time to get into that tasty, tasty Steve/Nancy comparison. For that, I don't think I'm really getting into any new ground, I feel like people have said this before, but it's worth stating again.
Steve having unrequited feelings for Nancy is a bad choice to compare to Will having unrequited feelings for Mike because he's a little busy basically being a perfect El parallel.
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Look, okay, Nancy and Mike were automatically attracted (whether you think it was real romantic attraction or just attraction to the idea of being with them) to Steve and El respectively because they were impressive. El, of course, was "Superman landing on Mike's doorstep" and Steve had all the "King Steve" shit going on.
But Nancy and Mike both had preexisting history with a Byers boy. Mike and Will have been best friends since kindergarten, and Nancy knew Jonathan through them.
Shit happens, Nancy and Mike both lose their best friend, a lot of drama happens that basically leads to a rift between our respective pairs, but Steve and El both face down a Demogorgon to save a Wheeler (and some other people) aaaand a relationship still manages to happen despite all the shit going down. Kind of hard to ignore getting saved from a monster by a pretty person, right?
But there's still something...unspoken, between the Wheelers and the Byerses, even when the Wheelers are dating their superheroes. And when push comes to shove, when it really comes down to it...Mike and Nancy can't even honestly say "I love you", and this causes the two pairs to split up.
And...while they're split up...Steve and El both sort of...rise from the ashes of their former selves. Form new identities. But also...sort of their old ones.
Steve had lost his superpower, the thing that attracted Nancy to him in the first place. He was no longer King Steve.
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For fuck's sake, he was being bullied. By some loser with blond hair. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
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And on top of all that, the girl he loved most couldn't even love him back.
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They parted, on terrible terms, and while they were apart, Nancy found her comfort, comfort Steve could never provide, in Jonathan.
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But, while he was alone, he reclaimed his old superpower. He was king again, and he'd found something new to fight for.
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He didn't ever really need Nancy to fulfill him. He just needed to be his own hero.
And El?
El had lost her superpower, the thing that attracted Mike to her in the first place. She was no longer Superman.
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And for fuck's sake, she was being bullied. By some loser with blond hair. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
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On top of all that, the boy she loved most couldn't even love her back.
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They parted, on terrible terms, and while they were apart, Mike found his comfort, comfort El could never provide, in Will.
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But, while she was alone, she reclaimed her old superpower. She was Superman again, and she'd found something new to fight for.
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She didn't ever really need Mike to fulfill her. She just needed to be her own hero.
Steve and El both ended Season 4 with their relationships with Wheelers still sort of up in the air, but Nancy still ran to Jonathan while Robin comforted Steve, and El and Mike weren't talking while Mike and Will are.
And both Steve and El--in very different contexts--end the season mostly focused on, not their romantic prospects, but their best friends.
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And I really think that's where their focus is going to stay.
Oh, and one last assurance--something that's been said SO many times before but bears repeating again--is this:
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It's kind of hard to miss what' the story is saying's going on when the writers are saying "This is what constitutes romance," and then having Will and Mike follow the exact trail they set out, step by step by step. Not just Will, Will and Mike. It's not one-sided.
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radioactive-earthshine · 1 year ago
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Hi, I know you already addressed a lot of the mischaracterization of Kon and Clark's relationship, but I was under the impression that Kon actually means 'abomination' in Kryptonian, and that Clark giving him that name was a rejection in itself. I am not very well versed in comics, so I apologize if this is just a fanon concept.
Hello!
You're not alone in being misled, as this concept has stretched far and wide and it is a very common theme in fandom works like fanfic.
The concept of Kon-El meaning "abomination" is canon, not fanon, but its source is from the New 52 reboot.
Some fans have in an attempt to create more angst for Kon adopted the concept that Clark gave Kon this name knowing full well what it meant as a way of rejecting him - this is incorrect - and it is blending versions together to make something that just never actually happened with Clark.
There are two versions of Kon getting his name in a main continuity - one in the 1994 comics, and the other in the New 52 Superboy comics.
To best answer your question, I am going to talk about the New 52 version first where "Kon-El" means abomination.
Also, it is important to remember that this Kon-El, isn't even actually Conner Kent (that's another post for another day comics are weird).
Anyway, in the New 52 reboot Superboy is 'called' Kon-El not by Clark, but by Kara!
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Superboy v.6 (2011-2014) #6
In this iteration, Kara has some extreme prejudiced bigotry towards "Kon" for being a clone due to the disastrous history Krypton had involving clones. It prompted her to attempt to kill "Kon" the moment she found out he was a clone after more or less calling him a slur.
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Superboy v.6 (2011-2014) #6
You can blame Scott Lobdell for this particular evisceration of Kara's character and for the name Kon-El warping into 'abomination' henceforth.
This particular run and story is no longer relevant to main continuity and it is not attached to Conner Kent because this did not happen to Conner Kent, but it did in fact happen and Krypton's disastrous history involving clones is still canon as well. Kon is still facing varying degrees of discrimination from Kryptonian-based ideology (Eradicator) because he is a clone.
Now let's talk about Clark and Kon and where Kon-El first came from and put a stop to the slander.
Where the name "Kon-El" originally came from was from Conner's 1994 solo series where Clark offered it to him from a place of affection.
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Superboy (1994) #59
The original moment of Kon obtaining his name from Clark was profound because up until this point he did not have a proper name. He was just "Superboy" or "Kid" or "Pup" (derogatory) so when Clark offers this Kon is so happy he starts crying.
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Superboy (1994) #59
At this point in time in comic history Kon-El did not mean abomination, "Kon" was a real Kryptonian name, and in the original run Clark did not even have any resentment towards Kon or negative feelings about his existence at all. He trusted him, felt he was worthy of the S-shield as a representative of hope, and at this point he wanted him to be part of his family.
This is Clark adopting Kon into his family right here in this moment - because Superman is the tale of the immigrant, the refugee and of love in family where blood does not equal family. That is what he is saying right here in this issue.
It is also important to note that at this point Geoff Johns' making Kon a 'clone' of Lex AND Clark is not canon and Kon is not even supposed to be blood related to Clark.
In closing...
Clark's relationship to Kon/Conner Kent in the main comic continuity is not hostile or rejection-based.
In their comic origins they had a nebulous relationship which over time evolved to being firmly brothers with a huge age gap and now in current continuity they are again brothers but with a different perspective.
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Action Comics #1028
Current continuity Clark who doesn't remember Kon at all knows him for less than a week and claims him and he is actually distraught he doesn't remember him.
Fandom is transformative and angst/hostility/rejection will always be a major theme people will love to create and consume - but it is also important to recognize that some details are simply not canon and should be regarded as transformative works to tell a story.
I hope this clears some things up from the comics side of DC.
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dg-outlaw · 5 months ago
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Batman #148 Thoughts... or Why Jason Todd is Awesome and Batman Doesn't Deserve Him.
So... I know a lot of the discussion about this issue has been about what happens to Jason, and IYKYK. What I want to discuss are parts of the rest of the issue and why I think Jason is one of the best characters (and more than how many perceive him). *spoilers ahead*
I know many outsiders and even those in fandom look at Jason Todd or the Red Hood and think of him as the hot, angsty edge lord who isn't afraid to break Batman's one rule. He's cool and badass so you want to be like him or he's the romantic fantasy bad boy with a soft side. These things are fine, but this is often where people stop with Jason or if they dislike him the above descriptions are why.
Some people want him to be an antagonist again because villains are cool and this is where we get things like 'The Boys' because it's edgy, subversive, or some intelligent deconstruction of superheroes. Colorful and honorable superheroes like Superman or Spider-Man are boring, just a fantasy, or for kids who don't understand the real world. Again, fine if that's your take, but I don't believe that one "graduates" from one to the other.
Beyond the Fast and Furious style cool factor of fast cars, guns, and explosions that often get associated with Jason, there's more to him than that and it's why he's still one of my favorites. Hell, this is the same character that writers thought would be a priest in the Flashpoint universe, a universe that had gone to hell in a handbasket but in all that chaos and darkness he became a PRIEST.
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(The World of Flashpoint: Issue #2)
Say what you will about organized religion, Christianity, or the Catholic church (because there are definitely issues there), but I think two of Jason's core traits that I admire are his faith and hope. Traits that often get Jason hurt by the people closest to him, but that often see him through the darkest times.
The cheapness of using Jason's "death" aside, these traits are seen again in Batman #148. Not only is Jason willing to put his faith in Bruce again (after everything "not" Bruce did to him in Gotham War), but he's the first down into the cave.
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This isn't blind faith, but a willingness to try. A hope that maybe this time he won't be hurt, even if time and time again history has proven otherwise. Note: This can be a slippery and dangerous slope and not one without consequences as many people fall into the trap of going back into or staying in toxic relationships that only bring them pain. (And I never said his greatest strengths can't also be his greatest weaknesses).
We also see some emotional maturity and growth in this issue and I love that for Jason. Has he been going to therapy? Maybe, but my money is that he's probably been reading lots of self-help books or something.
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Does Bruce deserve this level of forgiveness and compassion from Jason? No, but Jason gives it to him anyway. I also feel like this is a soft challenge from Jason. "I'm not here to save you from yourself or to ask you to save me. We do this together or not at all."
And if you're thinking, "Oh no, Jason has gone soft. Not my Jason Todd!" He's still a cheeky bastard in battle, even when he's on the ropes.
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Now, for Jason's "death", one could say that it was a cheap ploy by the writer or DC to get people talking or to have a random "Jason dies" scene (though he's revived in the same issue so I feel the emotional stakes/hype are less compared to leaving it open-ended until the next issue).
One could also look at it in a cynical light given it's Jason that Bruce brings down into the cave during the flashback reveal with the secret Lazarus Kool-Aid. Did Bruce plan that knowing Jason would volunteer in some sort of reverse psychology manipulation? Was it just a random plot explanation to justify having the "Jason dies" scene? Who knows? Though I think Dick or Tim would've volunteered as well. But my focus is on the conversation.
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This is another example of Jason's hope and faith, and his faith in Bruce. Bruce's plan isn't tested, though one could assume that he's done the math so to speak, but it's still Jason literally putting his life in Bruce's hands. It's also fairly clever because if Failsafe is some echo of Batman, then something in his programming probably knows about the emotional pain of Jason's initial death. So not only is "killing" going to make him glitch out, but killing Jason is probably the ultimate Failsafe glitch.
Deep down I think Jason knows how much he means to Bruce, even if Bruce is terrible at showing it sometimes. He's willing to take the risk and die, not for Bruce, but for the greater good of saving the day.
Let's also not forget that in the span of a short amount of (in-universe) time, Jason has saved the entire East Coast (end of Gotham War), Gotham City (end of The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing), and is now ready to die again to stop Failsafe--all while his brain is still probably a little messed up from Gotham War.
Let this young man take a damn vacation!
Was this issue perfect? No. And I agree with others about it not being cool that Steph, Cass, and Duke got sidelined as the clean-up crew, but I do think it showed a lot of Jason's deeper character (flawed or not) and how he's more than just the edgy, sarcastic bad boy. That part of him is just the hard candy shell he's had to create to protect the gooey center that is his hope, faith, and love. After all, Damian has previously (and rightly) called him out as the "emotional one".
P.S. I know my previous post picked on Jason's Red Hood outfit at the end and I still stand by the fact that it wasn't my favorite, but seeing that it's Jorge Jimenez's art, I can forgive it. I love most of Jorge's art and would kill (not literally) to be as talented as him, but that outfit design is still a no for me. Sorry, Jorge. :(
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