#and then gotham ed is autistic and a system

[moonlitkilljoy]

“wow i wonder why i latched onto the riddler so strongly and so suddenly” <— guy who has OCD, DID, and is autistic

[oddballcobblebot]

more people need to acknowledge the fact that ed is system rep no matter if its bad or not. like yes he is incredibly bad representation of did/osdd but he is still representation. trying to deny that eds a system by calling it an alter ego or personality difference, we deny the fact that he is just bad system rep. i personally love ed as a character and as a system! i relate to him as someone who is autistic and a system.

as a fandom people should take this bad rep and make it good, make it something people can relate to, turn it into positive representation. fix what the gotham writers fucked up!! dont deny his systemhood and try to erase it or make it into something else. acknowledge he is bad rep, and make him better

acknowledge that ed and riddler are 2 different people sharing one body, but dont make one evil like the gotham writers did. make them complex alters, give them identities, personalities, etc. dont reduce them to just good and bad.

alters are so complex!! theres so much you can do with characters like edward nygma and the riddler!!!! edward nygma and the riddler can co exist without harming eachother, or one needing to be silenced.

just please dont erase something like being a system!!

he does not have split personalities, he is not schizophrenic, he doesnt just "hear voices", he is a system and it should be acknowledged!!

thats all

[just-an-enby-lemon]

don't apologize for the tangent it was interesting! and I do agree, both versions - him not being a good student because the system failed him and being desperate to prove he's not an idiot or him being a good student and seeing that as his one good value - are both interesting, since they both can lead to someone being the way he is usually characterized: someone desperate to prove he's the smartest person in the room, someone that would make himself feel better about being lonely by convincing himself that people only don't like him or treat him badly because they don't understand him cause he's smarter than them etc. so what I was referring to as something I find less interesting wasn't that really but the thing that One Bad Day or other comics do where it's presented like he's the smartest guy ever who already spoke 10 languages at 3 years old or already had a dozen university degrees at age 20. there's nothing wrong with that characterisation and it can be interesting when written well it's just a bit bland for me personally because having the "smart" villain be a super genius who has 40 degrees and is perfectly capable in any subject is just something they do with every 'genius' villain so it just feels a bit generic to me personally, which is also why I liked that in Unburied they had him specifiy that he is more of a talented artist than a scientific genius, but i totally get why that characterisation exists too, I just personally find it more interesting and unique when he's less extremely supernaturally smart • You're right about the costume idk why they turn characters costumes more bland for the sake of realism when there are a lot of eccentric people irl that dress even weirder than the characters in the comics. I mean Edward specifically has a game show host motif and a lot of those people irl dress just that flamboyantly. Robin's movie costume is gonna be interesting you're right about that too. • the ableism...yeah the autistic coding was on purpose, he's very clearly coded as neurodivergent in the tie in material to the movie. idk if the people involved were fully aware how harmful and stereotypical that portrayal was but it was definitely meant to show his neurodivergent traits as scary. that said you are right that the rogues' mental health issues or neurodivergence should be portrayed in a more sympathetic way or at least should be shown as something that isn't the reason for their villainy. and when you mentioned TwoFace's DID - did you read the new detective comics run yet, Gotham Nocturne? that one does adress his mental health in a more nuanced way too. • about Bruce being connected to the Arkhams, yeah that's true it would be too much. I wouldn't want it in the comics either, I just figured if they had to do it it would be better if it was through Thomas' family than Martha's. thanks for the discussion!

Oh no. I was thinking more of a realistic genius behavior where he still has to work to know things. He learning a bunch of languages at 3 and having a bunch of degrees IS a boring clichê and just meh. He being extremly good in some things (talented as Unburied Ed says, though he probably was a good student as he says he was always a good "test taker") is okay. But that level of genius is ridiculous and the only villan that I accept having it is Doom because someone has to counter the ridiculous unligical amount of academic knowledge they gave Reed.

In the specific context of One Bad Day it doesn't even make sense in the story. If he knew a bunch of languages by age 3 why didn't he skipped classes? What is the point of even have him in high school at high school age? Is just a ploy from his father to torment his son for daring to been born from a prostitute? Because its just weird. Also he does fail at least a bit on his academic level, not to a normal amount, but like he is this unrealistic super genius but as his father punishment seemed a thing that he knew well he was still not always the best one on his class what means that whoever was studing with him is probably lobbing the cure of cancer or some other absurd comic book genius thing, maybe trying to go back in time to marry silver age Louis.

• I did not. I just gave up on following the new runs and basically live in my Silver Age bubble until something else grabs my attention and since I'm on tests week at school I didn't had time even for that. But now you mentioned as soon as I get vacation I'll read. I always wondered how they could adapt Harvey's DID in a non-offensive way.

I think to have more neurodivergent and mentally disabled heros or supporting characthers is also a good move. Because the problem with representation is that when a lot of evil people have mental issues and none of the good ones it paints neurodivergency and mental illnesse as proof of evil. I do not think the people in The Batman realized that their coding was harmfull and not very nuanced, specially with Hollywoods worst than DC story with all forms of ableism. I think they thought they were simply represented a neurodivergent characther neurodivergently (as Edward is charactherized as neurodivergent across most medias) and just didn't think hard of it, after all the old comics (their main source material) also didn't.

• Yeah. No, if the had to better be in relation to Thomas.

Again I'll defend my silly idea of making Tim an Arkham, because I find it funny. Specially in versions were at least part of Arkhams share is still related to heritage. So Jeremiah is arrested and suddently sixteen yesr old Red Robin has a place on Arkhams board and he is just very confused and all "Da-Bruce help me". Or even just recently turned vigilante thirteen year old Tim Drake is visiting his uncle Jerry and he has to keep a straight face as Jeremiah Arkham talks about the rogues who Batman and Robin just arrested or complaining about the constant escapes or even just teeling a riddle to entertain his nephew that Riddler told him last therapy and Tim have to pretend he knew the answer because of riddles.com and not because Riddler told him the exact same riddle when they were on the batmobile taking him to Arkham. Or maybe he is talking about some problem he had with Scarecrow in private with Tim's parents and in a low voice to not disturbe the child while Tim just was fear gassed on monday and likely heard Joker say worse things anyway.

Thanks for the discussion as well. It was really fun.

[thatdiscovampirething]

Some headcanons about Oswald and Ed’s childhoods/earlier lives, and then of their lives together.

(the childhood sections are both pretty depressing, and Ed’s in particular has some details of ableism and emotional and physical abuse)

Oswald

After Gertrud was thrown out of the Van Dahl house, she did consider getting the situation ‘taken care of’. She never trusted doctors (neither does Oswald really, unless it’s an emergency, which is a whole other post), and ended up visiting a back alley abortionist/midwife. She couldn’t bring herself to go through with it though, and the same woman she visited ended up delivering Oswald a few months later in Gertrud’s apartment. (Her name’s Annie, she’s irish, and could kick your ass despite being like, 80 now)

Gertrud smoked while she was pregnant, and only quit after Oswald was born because it was one of the few things she could cut out of her budget to afford to feed them both.

Gertrud worked a series of low paid kitchen and waitressing jobs, and the two of them moved around quite a bit. It wasn’t until Oswald was 10 that they finally settled in the same apartment they share in season one. That was the first time they’d lived somewhere where Oswald could have a bedroom of his own.

In addition to giving him an Americanised last name, Gertrud was determined that Oswald was going to speak English ‘properly’ despite it not being her first language, and used to read to him from some decidedly archaic books. They also didn’t have a TV for a long time but they did have a radio.

Gertrud used to buy Oswald’s clothes from thrift stores, in sizes way too big for him, so that she could take them in and then let them back out again as he grew.

Gertrud never had any boyfriends or lovers, as far as she was concerned, Elijah was her one true love and there couldn’t be anyone else. Anyway, so long as she had Oswald she would never be lonely so what did she need anyone else for...

They never had a computer (Oswald still doesn’t ‘get’ computers, which Ed finds both sort of cute and endlessly frustrating), but they did have a typewriter that Oswald did homework assignments on.

Oswald never went to prom. Senior year he got dressed up, told his mother he was going and let her take photos, then went out and stole a bottle of whiskey and drank most of it on a bench by the docks. He got picked up by the cops (led by a still in uniform at the time Harvey...) having fallen asleep there, and spent the night in the cells.

He never went to college because they couldn’t afford it. That’s the reason he gives anyway. In reality, one of his teachers had been pushing pretty hard to get him a scholarship - his grades were good enough - but it would have meant him moving out of state, and that would have broken Gertrud’s heart.

Ed

Ed grew up in the suburbs outside of Gotham

His parents, Mr and Mrs Nashton, were high school sweethearts who got married soon after graduation. It was not a good idea and they were pretty miserable together, and had Ed hoping a baby would fix all their problems. Spoiler alert, it did not.

The Nashtons were comfortable enough financially. Not wealthy but not struggling, at least not until Mr Nashton lost his job when Ed was in his teens, which caused a major downturn in their already rocky relationship.

Nobody ever really suspected anything was wrong in the family because it was all very much behind closed doors, and it wasn’t all terrible 100% of the time. Ed’s dad had been a football player, a real mans man with a set idea of what he thought his son should be like, and any time Ed showed any sign of living up to that he would latch onto it and things would be okay for a while. He taught him how to ride a bike, he built him a tree house... but Ed used his bike to ride to the library, not go off on adventures with other kids. The tree house didn’t have a ‘no girls allowed’ sign on it and a gaggle of boisterous preteen boys hiding out in it, just quiet little Ed with his books and his puzzles. Mr Nashton didn’t understand Ed in the slightest and took out all his frustrations about how his own life turned out on him, starting with emotional put downs when he was small and escalating into more physical stuff when he was older.

Mrs Nashton was no better, resenting Ed for not being the magic bandaid baby she’d hoped for and wishing she’d made other life choices. The older and less ‘cute’ he got the less effort she put into pretending she was happy being a mother.

Ed was never tested as a child to confirm if he was autistic or neurodivergent in any way, because his ableist father refused to even contemplate the idea. Didn’t stop him calling Ed a ‘freak’ later in life.

Young Ed wore a lot of oversized sweaters and went through a bow tie phase in high school.

Ed did go to his prom, and spent the whole evening trying to work up the courage to ask a pretty girl from his science class to dance. In the end he ended up asking her if she wanted some punch, despite the fact that she was already holding a cup, before disappearing back into the shadows to berate himself for being a loser.

After the final big showdown with his father about the SATs, Ed made the decision that as soon as he could leave home he was going to and would never look back. He applied for college in Gotham City, organised all his own loans and financing, moved into halls, changed his name to Nygma and never looked back.

The key difference really is that Gertrud and Oswald didn’t have any money but they had each other, while Ed didn’t want for much in terms of material things but didn’t have any sort of emotional support system. They were both lonely, outcast little boys, but Ed’s family placed the blame for that solely on him while Gertrud blamed everyone else.

They’ve ended up with very different skill sets. Ed can cook gourmet meals and has pretty advanced medical knowledge, Oswald knows how to survive on 5 dollars a week and has an extensive list of folk remedies for things. Ed’s good with technology, Oswald isn’t squeamish about dealing with rats and roaches. They can both sew, and they’ve agreed to disagree on the matter of spiders (Ed wants them gone but doesn’t want to get near enough to deal with it, Oswald would rather have spiders than flies and anyway killing spiders is bad luck).

Ed doesn’t have a lot of good memories surrounding the holidays, after the age of around 8 they just started getting really tense and unpleasant. Oswald meanwhile has all of Gertrud’s old Christmas ornaments, including ones he made as a kid, and loves decorating the manor. He tones it down a lot when he realises how it affects Ed, but Ed likes seeing him happy so it all balances out.

Ed has attempted to get Oswald into video games, but Oswald never quite got the point of them and generally just watches Ed play. Also Ed uses all sorts of abbreviations in text messages to get more information into them, often eschewing punctuation in favour of word count unless he’s trying to make some sort of grammar related point. Oswald writes texts like he’s writing a letter, no matter how many times Ed has pointed out that he doesn’t have to sign off at the end, it says who it’s from at the top of the screen...

Oswald introduced Ed to bubble baths. Ed still prefers showers for actually getting clean, but he now at least gets the ‘fun and relaxing’ side of baths.