#also a fan of the Jason and Danny are brothers fics too

[the-witchhunter]

i really like number 6 because it feels like a very realistic and compelling answer. There is so much going on in her life that would make motherhood less than ideal, especially earlier on. She's a career criminal, she's a cat burglar, she's made enemies, she lives in one of the most crime ridden and actually cursed cities in the world, the father of her child dresses up like a bat to risk his life and punch criminals.

like, i'm just imagining Selina getting pregnant early on in Dick's career as Robin. She sees him, this child in a flimsy little costume, running around across rooftops, fighting bad guys and getting kidnapped in his civilian identity. She sees this boy, still very much filled with anger and murderous rage and the desire to kill the man that took his parents from him, and she wonders if that's the future her own son would have if she kept him

and the best part?

These are all very reasonable concerns, but Danny doesn't have to feel like they are. Mentally, he's comparing what he had, inattentive parents that got him killed and then proceeded to hunt him for sport while his godfather abused him, with some idealized version of what they could have had together.

do you think Danny would be considering how dangerous it would be for him if she had kept him? No, he'd be thinking how dangerous it was that she didn't keep him. He died and for months no one but his friends knew about it. The first person outside the people who were there to notice was his sister, not even his parents who were obsessed with the thing they turned him into. If anyone could have seen the signs it was the doctors Fenton and they couldn't even pay enough attention to him to figure it out

so drama, angst, interpersonal conflict, internal conflict, emotions, and potentially fluff and comfort depending

and all the other options are also fantastic! There is so much room to explore his relationship to Bruce and Selina, it can be tricky, but it's entirely doable, which is why I feel it has so much more potential than most Demon twins AUs

Don't get me wrong, I love them dearly, but there is a bigger limits on what you can do with a Demon Twins AU because

a) they're specifically twins, meanwhile if Bruce is the bio father of Danny you can vary up the relationship between the two, older, younger, etcetera

b) Why is Danny no longer in the league of assassins and why does Ra's continue to let him live? The man does not like loose ends and a second grandson just running around out there is a pretty big loose end. Usually this is done by faking(?) Danny's death, but hiding things from a widespread spy/assassin network is potentially harder than hiding things from Batman.

this kind of makes Demon Twin AUs a bit more repetitive in their setup than Bio Parent Bruce because there's more room to play around with the setup

Continuation from this poll.

[aikoiya]

Jazz as Altair (The Bluebird of Gotham)

This is based on @tireduniversityscam's Halfa Jazz with Parent Syndrome au, a.k.a. BrucexJazz & @lordgrimoire's Bluebird vigilante Jazz.

I'm thinking that Jazz's vigilante name could be either Altair after the bluebird star (as homage to her brother, the astronerd) or just simply The Bluebird. As bluebirds represent hope, love, renewal, optimism, joy, as well as symbolizing the essence of life & beauty. Not to mention Immortality.

Also, seeing a bluebird after a death represents that the soul of your lost loved one has reached the afterlife. So, seeing her tends to give comfort to those who've lost loved ones.

I see her looking like this:

But maybe with her hair more resembling mist instead of water should her main element be wind instead of water to go with the bluebird aesthetic. Same color, but mist.

Here's a close up of her hat:

I see her using a Fenton Whiplash (just an anti-ecto whip) or just being able to form her ectoplasm into a whip. Either/or.

Also, this mask:

This is her with the mask:

If not a trenchcoat, then a blue cape that fans out to look like bird wings when she's flying. Like the Roc's Cape from LoZ: Minish Cap.

I always hc'd that she'd have psychic empathy, minor clairvoyance, minor mindreading, & telekinesis as a halfa cus it seems the sort of thing she'd have. She comes across as very psychic oriented.

Plus, Spectral Acknowledgement, which is a fun power:

Again, her primary core element could be either water or wind.

I see her having a ghost sense, it being a family thing. However, hers would be different based on her element. If water, it works like sonar & is more close range than Danny's & when it goes off, her eyes get watery, a single stream of tears falling from her eyes. I don't know how it'd manifest with wind, though.

I see Jazz taking the role of a medium as a vigilante. Helping Shades to move on. The Shades I think of is inspired by the ghosts from the Blackwell games & when doing medium things, Jazz tends to do similar things as in the game. Helping the Shades to get to a point where they can move on, which can result in them becoming ecto-ghosts later. However, helping Shades to fulfill whatever is keeping them on earth makes it less likely for them to become ecto-ghosts & more likely to move onto whatever is next. If she just fights them & sucks them up into a thermos, they're more likely to turn into ecto-ghosts & possibly come back. The reason being that emotional attachments, unfinished business, & so on, causes strong, often distressed emotions, which attracts ectoplasm & causes it to stick to a soul. The more ectoplasm sticks to a soul, eventually it'll form a core which is how ecto-ghosts come into being. At least, when spirits of the dead are involved.

For more on the formation of ghosts, go here:

Seriously, the Blackwell series is great & you should definitely go play it or watch someone else play it.

Anyway, Jazz does regular vigilante stuff too, but I feel like this would give her a bit of mystique as a hero. It also meshes well with her therapist focus.

I see her originally patrolling from just before midnight to just after dawn, but after Duke joins, she extended her schedule to midday in case he needs help. She works between midnight & dawn because that's the timeframe where ghosts, spirits, shades, & other such spectral entities are the strongest & cause the most disturbances with 3:00 am being when it peaks.

As for Jason as the Cardinal, I think this would look good for his mask:

Also, one of these hooded jackets:

They're freaking badass!

No helmet & give him a red bird symbol on his chest.

Everything else could match with the second jacket's outfit though.

This is also a really cool design for halfa Jason:

I love the design for his hair, especially the little shadowy flame for that little tuft.

I just really like the idea of Jason with shadow powers, like from @dxrksong.

One of his powers is being able to control his shadow. However, he doesn't have full-on umbramancy. Rather, like I said, he can only control his shadow. At the same time, he can cover himself in it for added protection & it gives him an aura like black flames licking over his skin. He can also make shadowy claws out of them for added melee. It's metal af, okay?

His shadow is controlled entirely by his wants, so it can do a lot of things similar to what Dr. Facilier could in Princess & the Frog.

While he can't control the shadows of others, if he makes his shadow touch other shadows, like if his shadow strangled another person's shadow, it'd result in the owner of said shadow choking for real.

At the same time, saving one's self from said shadow is as simple as shining a bright light all around themselves so that the shadow can't come near.

If they're in an alley at night with no lights, then the shadow can navigate the walls & surfaces unseen as it blends in perfectly.

Can also merge with his shadow & travel through shadows or jump from shadowy spot to shadowy spot.

Also, All-Blades are necessary. I dunno how, but they are.

[ghostly-penumbra]

20 Qs for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag, @summerssixecho!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Thirty-six as of now! Most of them are still from events (I put all the filled prompts in one work per event, don’t @ me), but when I really like one of these I post it as a stand-alone :) and I have a few fics outside events too! Woo!

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

132,746 as of right now, but I’ll still finish Ectober so that’ll change quickly. (and as I said before, some fics I post "twice", in the event's work, and as a stand-alone)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Danny Phantom almost exclusively, the exception are the CrossOvers :p

I love The Sandman and Supernatural ones. I’m into DPxDC as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Seven Ways to Summon the Ghost King (1,187 kudos): Seven different ways in which a tired, stressed and sleep-deprived King of Ghosts can be summoned!

Results may vary.

Holiday Gift 2022 (439 kudos): ALL ghosts need to honour the truce. Including those who don't know they're considered part ghost.

Poison Blood and Weighted Crowns (408 kudos): The Justice League asked for help to the Ghost King.

The King demanded Jason Todd in exchange.

Jokingly, Robin accepted.

King Plasmius had the deal be honoured.

Ectober Week 2021 (365 kudos)

DannyMay 2021 (243 kudos)

5. Do you respond to comments?

YUP. Sometimes I forget and only see it years later tho. But I do like answering comments so I try my best! If I don’t answer is ‘cause I can’t think of anything else to say but I still try! (I don’t really answer in FFN anymore tho, because I forget if I’ve already answered and I don’t remember how to check that, and I don’t want to accidentally answer twice lmao)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhh… not a big fan of angst, and even though I tried my hand at it in the past don’t remember where I put it anymore

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Dragon :') Danny gets dental! (lol ok, I can’t really tell, idk)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

My fics ain’t popular enough to get hate I believe lol.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

LOL. I WROTE LEMON ONCE. YEARS AND YEARS AGO (almost ten year now. I was fourteen). After that, I haven’t, but I have an idea for a fic and if I actually get to write it I know it would be explicit.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

asdfghjjklñ I fucking love CrossOvers so much. I’ve written some "niche" ones but I believe the craziest/crackiest was Doors :))

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

None that I know of. (Again, not popular enough lol)

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Other than ramble with the discord buddies, nope I haven’t.

13. What's your all-time favourite ship?

None tbh, I do like some ships but I’m aro and I don’t really have an OTP.

14. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Not much in the way of WIPs but I do have several plot bunnies I entertain before discarding.

On DPxDC I had a demon twin AU where Damian killed Danny as a kid with pressure from Ra’s al Ghul, and they met again after many years, with Damian as Robin and Danny as the Ghost King… and Danny didn’t forgive Damian. I had a lot planned and wanted to include a lot of worldbuilding, but ultimately I decided I couldn’t give Damian’s character justice as I was projecting heavily on my broken relationship with my abusive brother, and Damian deserved better than to be compared to my brother.

Also DPxDC, the aforementioned explicit work, which would be Danny/Valerie/Jason, with them dealing with being ecto-entities with the ecto-acts in place, Danny dealing with being King and trying to be an astronaut, Valerie coping with her feelings on her nature and her Wayne scholarship, and Jason being a crime lord with a family of vigilantes, and their broken yet existing relationships. As they navigated the complex ensuing dynamics, they dismantled the GIW and took down the Ecto-Acts.

I would also like to do more for Dragon, but I really don’t feel like it rn

16. What are your writing strengths?

Instrospection and mindscapes, if I can say so.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Anything that isn’t introspection and mindscapes.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Naruto :)

20. Favourite fic you've written?

aughdabdsufsda, I don’t really know, I love several of them for different reasons, but maybe Father and Sons? I love Clockwork and I love my Sandman crossovers, so I liked mixing both.

I’m not tagging anyone, but I encourage anyone to try! It was really fun!

[bigskydreaming]

I mean, Dick was also in a few other books. He was a guest star in Roy's Action Comics series, and even showed up in Blue Beetle. An aside: I actually kinda want Danny on the Outlaws?

Yeah, true, but the point remains that he wasn't exactly starring in a solo space where it would be easy to just bring Jason in as a guest star in stories that existed primarily just TO develop their character dynamic and bond, similar to Dick and Tim team-ups in their respective titles in the 90s. Pretty much any place Dick did feature in at the time, he was either part of an ensemble or a guest star himself, and as far as narrative priorities go, exploring Dick's dynamic with his little brother was never going to make a ton of sense as something for any of those books to focus on.

So, like, you're not WRONG by any means, I just don't think the distinction changes the larger point in any substantial way, y'know? But still worth noting. I do tend to forget about a lot of those satellite titles from the 80s, but there were some good stories in them too.

And I do remember the Blue Beetle and Blue Devil stories where Jason showed up briefly! Pretty much the entire basis of his canon friendships with Danny and Eddie, and he was super adorable in them. I'm ngl though, I tend to not......focus too much on those particular friendships myself though? Its not that I actively dislike either Eddie or Danny on their own merits, or WANT to invalidate their history with Jason, its more like.....there really was very little to it, compared to how much importance fandom has given it and retroactively turning Eddie and Danny into Jason's BFFs despite the complete lack of follow-up on those friendships post his UTRH return.

Of course, this is where I have to cop to being a petty bitch, because Petty is 90% of what this is. Like I am aware that 'oh fandom turned two pages of Jason interacting with Danny and Eddie into the greatest friendship never shown' sounds kinda hypocritical when I frequently wax on about how much more you could make out of Jason and Dick's sparse canon interactions - like, its not like fans fleshing out those friendships and prioritizing them more than DC did is inherently any different from what I do with Dick and Jason's pre-ADITF relationship, admittedly.

But then, that's kinda the point? LOL like, I'm not proud of it by any means, but a part of my hesitancy with Jason's friendships with Eddie and Danny, and why I tend to just pick characters he has ZERO history with to explore as friends for him instead (like Grant Emerson, Courtney Mason, etc) - its entirely reactive and just resentment-born, lol.

Like, aside from ONE specific AU by @spellboundtothestars - literally every other time I've EVER seen fics/metas/headcanons emphasizing Jason's relationships with Danny and Eddie...without fail they're ones that trash Dick and his dynamic with Jason at the same time. For whatever reason, in my personal experience there's been a huge degree of overlap in terms of fans who love those friendships for Robin Jason but hate Dick for alleged crimes against Jason, and so its just.....an association thing. I've never ended up enjoying explorations of those dynamics because the stories and meta that do so are so antithetical to what I like in terms of Dick and Jason's bond, y'know?

So I'm just kinda.....meh about them, because I side-eye how people were able to blow up a literal two pages from a Blue Devil comic into this hugely impactful, deep and profound friendship Jason apparently had with Eddie - which again, would be FINE, if it wasn't so often paired with bullshit about how oh we simply have no CHOICE but to portray Dick and Jason's dynamic the way we do, its not like they ever interacted post-Crisis, outside of just one issue and a couple of Titans stories shoehorned from pre-Crisis into post-Crisis continuity....so obviously there's just no way they could have LIKED each other and must have been mortal enemies....but meanwhile, back to how Jason and Danny and Eddie had such meaningful history and what a disservice DC did by never following up on that....

Its the juxtaposition, tbh. I DISLIKE being the kind of reactive fan whose feelings towards certain characters or relationships is just kneejerk grudges based on how others engage with characters I do like, but eh, it is what it is. And I think newer fans who entered fandom in just the last couple years - when there's been a LOT more balance to how fans view Dick and Jason's history compared to the five or so years before that where there was a HUGE slant towards just the one dominant take that Dick was a douche and Jason his eternal victim - like, maybe don't realize just how everpresent that take was for years and just....was everywhere Dick Grayson fans looked. There was no getting away from it.

So like. It annoyed. And things associated with it in my mind ended up annoying by extension, lol.

(My use of the word ‘annoyed’ is key, lol. I don’t like magnifying things to be like, oh Dick Grayson fans were VICTIMIZED by fandom takes and Big Name Fans or whatever, it was just.....like I said. Annoying. Often made fandom a grating place to be, leading to feelings of What If You Didn’t Do This Though, and general crankiness. Okay and maybe some gratuitous all caps on my part. Fine, a lot of all caps and T-Rex roaring on my part. Its whatever. Its fine. Lets move on).

And in addition to the disparity in fans massively magnifying the importance of Jason's history with Danny and Eddie while minimizing all positive history between Jason and Dick, there's also the fact that how Dick reacted to Danny in the immediate aftermath of finding out Jason died....this also for years was a hugely central talking point a lot of Jason and Bruce stans in particular like, would constantly raise as the reason they hated Dick.....which tbh, would be fairly valid, like, it was not a pleasant scene by any stretch of the imagination....but again, this particular talking point was almost UNIVERSALLY raised by fans who at the exact same time flat out REFUSED to acknowledge Bruce hitting Dick post-ADITF as canon or in character.....when the Dick and Danny scene and the Dick and Bruce scene happened in the literal exact same issue!

Again, its the double standard that bugged the crap out of me, more than the scene raised by Dick's detractors as their justification for why he's the worst. Like, that scene was what it was. I'm not in the habit of trying to excuse away a fave's treatment of a less powerful/more vulnerable character just because they're emotionally distressed - my take tends to be, mmmm, wish that just hadn't happened period, rather than spinning it to be more palatable or justifiable to me. Its like nah, I get why people hate that scene, *I* hate that scene, and I'm not gonna go banging on anyone's door insisting they change their mind about Dick Grayson if that scene's genuinely the reason they dislike the character and had no interest in looking past it.

But like with the disparity in how fans stress the significance of Jason's history with Danny and Eddie as opposed to his history with Dick.....the part I don't fuck with is how the same people who would jump at ANY opportunity to talk about what a terrible person Dick is for that scene....would then turn around and actively derail any attempt to talk about Bruce's behavior towards Dick later in that same issue. I've always been like....nah, you don't get to have it both ways. If the one scene is valid and the definitive source of your antagonism towards Dick's character, you can't be jumping on Bruce-critical posts by fans who are like 'and this later scene is a key reason why I dislike Bruce' and trying to act like they're reading the story wrong, and interpreting the media in some wildly off-base fashion.

So again, its that thing where its like.....any of these things in moderation, I can make my peace with. But when there were years and years of hypocritical takes and constant derailing of pro-DG or anti-Bruce posts while shoving that Danny scene in everyone's faces, using it to actively try and erode positive conversations people were having about Dick and being like 'this your king? hmm doesn't look so great here' and that sort of BS, its like.....that sort of crap, if it goes on long enough and there's enough of it, like, it creates a legacy of reactive resentment from other fans and well. That sorta thing can linger.

And all of this is just to say.....these days I'm like, honestly, yeah, there's just as much basis for exploring deeper friendships with Eddie and Danny than we ever saw in Jason's canon stories as there is in exploring a closer relationship between Jason and Dick than what we actually got on the page. Similarly, I totally get WHY people might want to see more Jason-Eddie-Danny interactions after his return, no matter how you have to tweak things in order to like, have Danny around TO have those reunions, for instance. Danny on the Outlaws honestly makes as much sense as DC randomly shoving Jason together with Roy and Kory to make the team in the first place, lol, so its like.....yeah, absolutely, why NOT make that a thing?

*Shrugs* Its just a thing that doesn't really...engage me, personally, because like, I might be perfectly AWARE that my attitude towards the Danny-Eddie friendships or even Danny himself is largely just a reactive 'nuh-uh YOUR faves suck' kinda grudge, but my associations with those things at this point kinda just are what they are and I don't have any particular inclination TO try and reframe how I see them. As is, I'm already perfectly happy to just imagine Jason's Robin years as being populated by the various other teen heroes I like to headcanon as his friends and teammates in different AU scenarios....hence my posts about Jason and Tom Bronson, Anima, Damage, Ray Terrill, Obsidian.

Honestly, I think I'm just a bigger fan of AUs and non-canon dynamics than most people in general?

Its just a thing I've noticed about myself. I'd much rather comb through characters in Jason's age range and pick others for him to interact with, date, be friends or rivals with, etc, based solely on their respective histories, personalities or potential dynamics, even if they've never appeared in an actual issue with him...rather than use sparse canon interactions as the sole or primary foundation for whatever relationships I cultivate with him in fic or headcanons.

Apparently the dealbreaker for me when it comes to canon is like, I care a LOT when people insist that canon was something other than what it was or try and erase key parts of canon or misrepresent them in sizable ways.....but beyond that, I don't actually NEED canon to align with my interests and I'm totally happy to just go off-roading in any random direction so long as I'm not actually pretending or claiming that canon supports the direction I'm taking.

Idk. Just randomly musing at this point, but like, that's the angle I come at most of this from. Not that most of this had anything to do with your ask, it all just kinda...sprawled out of the thoughts your ask sparked, so, here, have some word vomit! Tada!

[thecarmillacurator]

I’ll Keep You Safe If You Keep Me Wild - Carmilla - Fic Review & Recommendation

*New Reviews Posted Every Saturday with one-shots and drabble recommendations Mid-Week*

Title: I’ll Keep You Safe If You Keep Me Wild (Bounty Hunter AU)

Author: The Regalist on Ao3

Word Count: 121K

Chapters: 16

Rating: Mostly Teen with a few Mature scenes

Ship: Hollstein

Tags I’d Assign: #bounty hunter, #hallmark, #nonsupernatural au, #human au #cute, #sweet, #action, #nice brother Will, #Laferry, #theregalist

Author’s Synopsis: Carmilla is a bounty hunter who decides to pick up and move across the country to be closer to her brother Will, who's living in a small-town called Silas. Laura is a journalism student who's just trying to get through her last semester of college while sorting her feelings out for her best friend Danny. One night Laura runs into some serious trouble and Carmilla winds up saving her life and maybe stealing her heart in the process.

Readability: Good. Prose reads smoothly. Narrative flow is easy to follow. There are some word typos in the sense of incorrect homophone usage which are noticeable and consistent but not frequent or particularly distracting, and there could have been more commas (which, honestly, is always better than too many commas).  

Reviewer’s Plot Summary: Non-Supernatural AU. Carmilla Karnstein is a twenty-one year old bounty hunter with a painful and checkered personal history who begrudgingly relocates to be near the only person she cares about, her brother Will. WIll attends college in Silas, a small town in the American South along the Gulf, and Carmilla would ‘love to hate’ the complete hick-ness of it all, except that she absolutely can’t hate a tiny, blonde college Senior named Laura Hollis (or her smile ‘as wide as Texas’) who easily convinces her heart that it’s safe to love again. Carmilla’s New York roots are in further trouble (a kind she doesn’t mind, though) when Laura’s huge Southern family ends up showing her just how good home and a new start can really feel. But, not all is picture perfect: The life of a bounty hunter isn’t all Hallmark movies and Southern charm. Creeping through the underbelly of Silas is a dangerous gangster on the lam, Carmilla’s next bounty, who has a mark of his own. A mark who just happens to be one of Laura’s closest friends. 

Recommended to Read:  Yes, assuming you enjoy sweet love stories that lack serious relational angst. However, even if Hallmark movies aren’t your thing, there’s enough CBS-Prime-Time-type action to keep the feel-good story grounded.

Review:  

The story is written in third person limited, which works, but see the Cons section below for comments on the narrative tone. So, full confession: I’ve watched Hallmark movies in the past (and am still sometimes forced to because of the company I keep), but they’ve never really been my thing. Call me jaded (because yes, I’m jaded), but the reason I’m not a serious fan  isn’t because I don’t enjoy cute and sweet, but because the cheese chunks and plot-holes get to be so big in Hallmark plots that I can’t swallow without choking. What TheRegalist does here is provide a nice balance between PG-13 action-related suspense and what is a sweet love story lacking in the usual heavy relational angst, all without making me roll my eyes until they hurt. In other words, if this were a Hallmark movie, I’d actually watch it. Or, maybe it isn’t a Hallmark movie. Maybe it’s more like a CBS action show (say Magnum P.I. or Walker, Texas Ranger) only where instead of an hour-long episode, they put on a three-hour movie special where the action takes second chair to my ship finally getting together. I can’t call this story fluff, but it is cute and sweet. And the use of the gangster-on-the-lam with a complication that directly places the group in danger is the perfect counterpoint to make sure that a too-good-to-be-true-romance doesn’t become too-sweet-to-ingest. 

The Good: The pure, escapist charm of it.  Life sometimes really sucks. It’s difficult when you work hard and don’t get anywhere. It’s difficult when you’re lonely but everyone is busy or too caught up in themselves to make space for you. Families are rarely ideal. We all struggle with being accepted on one level or another.  Love seems elusive for many of us. Sometimes it feels impossible to believe you’ll find a place where you’ll belong.  But that’s exactly what this story is about, making all of those yearnings become fulfilled for Carmilla, and as the reader, for you. Here, finding the right person just happens. Falling in love isn’t a struggle or filled with  just-for-the-dramatic-tension arguments and growing pains. There’s a huge (huge), Southern, conservative-yet-accepting family jumping at the bit to welcome you into the fold, happy that you’re there. You’ve had bad [crap] happen in your past (loss, rejection, mistakes), but here,

those bumps and bruises aren’t left to haunt you, but are kissed like scraped knees by the Hollises and you’re bribed with red Starbursts by an adorable little child until somehow it’s better. This is a feel-good read, pure and simple. 

Also a great plus: The Hollis-family Sunday meals, as well as quite a few pivotal scenes in this story, are atmospheric and highly visual in how they’re written, and key secondary characters have actual personality. This makes the world of the story easy to immerse in. Laura’s grandmother Gigi is just… amazing.  The bar fight scene is great.  The dynamic between Will and Carm is adorable. Important locations are well-described, and it was easy to picture the Marina and the action sequence finale. 

The Concrit:  If I had to peg this, I’d say it’s written as third person limited, with head hopping. Unfortunately (although, don’t worry, it’s not too dire), as the story passes into the deep end of the word count, two things start to slip. First, is that the clear head-hopping starts to blur and some scenes feel more like third-person omni. Second, is that the characters’ reactions and thoughts lose their individuality of voice and begin to sound similar to each other.  Next, I do wish the characters had been slightly older.  Carm had somehow developed a complex personal history and high-level skill sets which would, in my opinion, have taken a lot longer than twenty-one years to acquire, perfect, and settle into with the comfortable confidence she seems to possess. I’d prefer her to have been closer to thirty. Bumping Laura from being a Senior in college up to maybe finishing a Master’s in Journalism after working at it part time for three or four years would have made that transition easy without changing much of the plot. However, once again, it’s not a deal-breaker in any way. The truth is, in my mind I was already reading them as older and more mature than the age stated by the author anyway.  

Finally, I can suspend my disbelief and actually enjoy the television-style, over-the-top and slightly campy action finale, but as much as I enjoyed the picturesque true-love romance without extra drama, the last chapter (more of an epilog?), Chapter 16, got a little too carried away and could have easily been deleted, or at least the last half of it deleted. Don’t get me wrong, I like the substance of the ending the author creates, but, as written, this is where it finally sinks into the Hallmark trap: Things needed time to mature to get to that ending. And also, at the very, very end of that chapter, there was a fluff bit on the unbelievable side which did, after over 120,000 words, finally earn the Hallmark cheese eyeroll.  So, I’d recommend you stop reading after the end of Chapter 15; you’ll get all the gist you need for their HEA.

Link’s in the title above, but also, read it HERE.

NEXT IN THE QUE:  Over the next four weekends, there will be reviews for the Jason Bourne AU, Vampire Hotel, a fake-dating AU, and a Sports Au. 

[bigskydreaming]

Why do You dislike Scott Snyder? I mean I have my reasons.. like a lot of the Court of Owls stuff, his convoluted plots, making Dick a punching bag for the broody bats, horrible at writing the family as a family he literally wrote Death of the Family I mean....*kill bill sirens* ... Also the ''son of a Damian'' line from Black Mirror etc. But I'm curious if you have more reasons since I'm pretty new and I'm told that he likes Dick and wanted to write Dick focused books and I don't.. buy it.

LOL yeah, all of that for sure, and I mean.....tbh, I don’t pay enough attention to his interviews and stuff to even be aware that he’s said that about liking Dick and wanting to write Dick-centric books, but I’m with you on that....not necessarily meaning anything.

God knows I’ve lost track of how many fic writers in this fandom swear up and down they love Dick Grayson and yet I avoid their stories with extreme energy, lmao, because I’ve read enough of their takes on DG that I’m like hmmm, yeah, we are not the same, lol. I mean, there’s a certain couple fic writers who just are like....DETERMINED to mention Danny Chase every single time I make a post about why I’m annoyed by the focus on Dick’s allegedly infamous temper. And its always the exact same song on repeat, they’re like “OH-HO, so apparently you don’t remember the time Dick choked Danny, a literal CHILD, just because Danny had the nerve to tell him Jason died, cuz like, I do, and it was AWFUL and Danny could have died TOO y’know, that’s how mad Dick was.” 

And then I just kinda stare at these words that apparently mean things, and enter a fugue state where an unknown amount of time passes and by the end of it I feel 80 million epochs older, and its like....no, I absolutely do remember that time when Dick grabbed Danny by the shirt and yelled in his face because he just found out his brother died and Danny said “what’s the big deal, its not like it doesn’t happen all the time” and this was absolutely not an awesome and fun scene for anyone, no matter how understandable Dick’s upset was at the time. BUT, I also happen to remember, since y’know, it was in that literal exact same issue, how then Dick went to see Bruce, and due to BRUCE’S upset about Jason’s death, Bruce literally punched his remaining son to the ground, screams about how it was all Dick’s fault, and kicks him out of the house Dick grew up in and tells him to leave his keys with Alfred. 

And its like......the very same people who LOVE to throw around references to Danny Chase in order to puff up the claims about Dick Grayson being volatile and extreme and having a Dangerous Temper like, flat out REFUSE to ever even ACKNOWLEDGE that scene with Dick and Bruce, from the literal exact same issue, because they at the same time claim that THIS was bad writing and OOC and Bruce would never.....but apparently, the writing from ten pages before it was just fine and completely accurate and Dick absolutely would not only ever, he would always, and thus Dick’s Legendary Dangerous Temper is canon and its why Dick can’t have nice things or people being nice to him in these writers’ stories, its too Dangerous, he might get mad I guess.

And each time this comes up on this site, I’m always like....hey, science side of tumblr, is it possible that insisting on vilifying Dick for his reaction to someone in the wake of Jason’s death whilst simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the scene of Bruce’s reaction to Dick is canon or in-character despite existing in the exact same issue and written by the exact same writer.....like....could this be one of those double standards I’m always going on about? And isn’t it in fact reasonable to question just how much or how little someone actually means it when they say they love a character but want that character flogged in the middle of the town square for a Bad Reaction to something that also prompted a Bad Reaction from another character but this character, they’ll like, throw themselves in front of a moving train if it keeps someone from daring to even suggest that THEIR reaction was canon and in-character and might potentially say something damning about their temper or behavior with friends or family?

*heaves endless sigh of endlessness*

Sorry, that example was right there on the tip of my brain today because like....I literally just saw another post around this oft-deceased and resurrected and killed to death again dead horse like, five minutes ago and then came to dip into my ask box for the first time today and it was like.....destiny. Assuming destiny has some free time to kill and nothing better to do, which, I mean, hey, everyone’s allowed a hobby is all I’m saying.

LOL sooooooooooo, ANYWHO, its just like.....ugh, I’m so over being expected to take at face value any writers, whether professional or fan, saying “oh but I love this character or that character, and due to that being my preface to everything else I say or do in regards to this character, you have zero basis for claiming that you do not like or trust my depiction of this character because ummm, read much? I literally JUST said, I love them though? Wow. Insert scoffs of incredulity here, I don’t even know how to talk to someone who thinks I don’t like a character I claimed I like just because literally everything else I say or do about them paints an opposing picture to the contrary.”

LMAO. Sorry. Had to get that off my chest. But yeah, like, I think EVERY canon Batfam writer has made a similar claim in recent years about pretty much every Batfam character, and at a certain point it starts to be like....okay, if all of you are telling the truth here, shouldn’t we see more canon evidence of like....these characters that you’re writing, like....actually even LIKING each other? At what point are we allowed to question the legitimacy of you saying oh I totes love this character, that’s why I write their family as abusing them, that’s just love, baby, that’s what it looks like.

Personally, I’d like to see more of us at least using qualifiers? I mean, I do say I don’t hate Tim, or Bruce, or any of these characters, but I get how people could be dubious about that and be all, umm, you rant about them a lot, because like...yeah. Fair. That’s a valid critique. SO its a lot more accurate for me to be like, I love 90s Tim and I just have become increasingly less enchanted with the character over the past twenty years since then, enough so that my knee-jerk reactionism to people bashing Dick’s character BECAUSE of what Dick did or didn’t do to Tim in their eyes, is like.....disinclined to view the situation or his character these days through 90s-Tim rose-colored glasses. 

Similarly, I truly don’t hate Bruce, at least not when he’s not being written as physically and emotionally abusive and/or just plain neglectful, BUT I absolutely despise the abuse apologism rampant in most fandoms, but particularly in this one, where people will make like Cirque-de-Soilei contortionists in order to prove that Bruce beating this kid or that kid isn’t actually abuse, its cuz they made him do it....rather than people just being like, no, that’s abuse right there on the page and I don’t stand for it or stan that Batman, so I have zero desire to defend that scene or his actions there from his perspective, and am totally fine with taking a seat when someone speaks up about how much they hate what Bruce did to his kid there in that scene and how it affects their read of the characters as a whole.

Its like....that too, is a thing you can do, instead of just.....trying to explain why Bruce isn’t abusive see, because what happened there wasn’t actually abuse, since it couldn’t have been, because Bruce isn’t abusive, see, he would Never.

And yet so rarely do people actually do that, and we have people literally championing themselves as members of the Good Dad Bruce Protection Squad when the frank reality is there CAN BE NO GUARANTEE of him ever and always being a Good Dad, when like....his characterization, ultimately, is dependent on how he’s written by canon writers who ARE NOT US. Which makes that desire to see him as just a good dad and nothing but a good dad always, like....not quite as understandable as it otherwise might be, and instead just kinda....willful, an admission that a lot of fans in this fandom will just flat out ignore all evidence to the contrary of this stated claim about what Bruce inherently IS, when inherently all he is happens to be a character who manifests whatever those in creative control of him choose to manifest via him. Like.....there are ways to go about that kinda thing, its just....that isn’t it. Something like “Proud member of the Keep Bruce Wayne a Good Dad Squad’ or something along those lines? I’d have ZERO issue with, because that’s ACTIONABLE, not WILLFUL. It posits not that Bruce simply IS this way and there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, but rather that just because he isn’t this way in some instances, that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it or condone that interpretation of him, y’know?

But people are like....unwilling to make that distinction or hold that nuance a lot of the times, so my dislike of Bruce as he’s written in certain ways or by certain writers like....grows and evolves and mutates into Godzilla rampaging through downtown New York, until its understandable that people reading my blog intermittently and who don’t follow everything I say on the subject are like.....”Bold of you to claim you like lizards in this one post when I have here nine other posts where you’re just like, FEAR the murderous monster-lizard destroying New York for it is Dangerous and Fearsome. Cuz one of these things is not like the others, bud.”  

*Shrugs* Anyway, all of that’s just my allergy to Staying on Topic, so make of it what you will, hopefully you get what I mean though even if you don’t have like, the requisite Kalen-Garbled-Nonsense Secret Decoder Ring. Back to Snyder though....yeah, he can claim he likes Dick all he wants, because y’know what, Tynion says the same thing and its been well established by moi that my fondest wish for Tynion is that he be kept far, far away from Dick’s character whenever possible. And I’m pretty sure Tom King claims he loves all these characters and we’re all like HAHAHHAHA and we know Lobdell insists he loves Jason Todd and its like wow how curious then that hardly any other Jason Todd stans love you.

The ironic thing about my random bouts of ugh Snyder in a lot of posts however, is that......tbh, its not even his depiction of Dick that makes me dislike him as much as I do? LMAO. I mean, I’m not a fan of it personally, for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, but I don’t like a lot most canon writers’ depiction of Dick these days and haven’t for years. The thing I really dislike Snyder for, personally, is his depiction of Damian.

Its just.....its very Not Good, a lot of the time. Oh, there are moments here and there, but you could claim that for any writer, really, but for the most part, like.....ooof, I haven’t read Snyder’s work on Damian recently enough to really cite specific moments off the top of my head, because I’ve been avoiding anywhere he’s writing Damian for awhile now BECAUSE of it, but....a LOT of the ‘demon brat’ shit in regards to Damian comes from Snyder’s work, and like, I’m always kinda like “hey is making Demon anything the go-to nickname for a kid of Arab descent who is already compared to a terrorist enough as it is like....really the best we can do” to begin with, and Snyder absolutely 100% does not help with that.

To be fair, its not remotely like its all just on him, the stuff that has had a lot of us complaining for years about the blood son crap and the insistence on acting like there’s this stark divide between Bruce and Damian and the rest of the Bat siblings, I mean, see: Tom King again, its just. Ugh, okay, Im gonna have to get back to this in the near future with actually sourced gripes about why I think Snyder’s Damian in particular is absolute crap and could he just not, though. Because it really is my chief complaint with him, like I was never gonna be a fan of his in general just because he’s someone who's like DARK MULTIVERSE BATMAN FUCK YEAH and I’m someone who’s like DARK MULTIVERSE BATMAN UGH FUCK WHY.....lol....BUT like I mention in other posts.....its not like he’s incapable of doing decent stuff or that he’s never written anything I like, because ironically, he IS the biggest canon backer of Duke Thomas and pretty much single-handedly responsible for Duke retaining as much of a presence as he has in recent years instead of just appearing and blipping out of existence like a one-hit wonder, and that can’t be overlooked or considered inconsequential.

That just also kinda makes it all the more annoying that his Damian is so very.....objectionable to me, but yeah. Anyway, that’s the curious case of my very mixed feelings on Scott Snyder, with a side dish of generalized “lol oh, so you do in fact love this character? Well magically all my criticisms of your take on them have now disappeared!”