#but I don't know if that's Pre or Post Flashpoint Bruce

[mzminola]

Fascinated and disturbed by the trend in Preboot era of Bruce repeatedly stating he does not want Dick to be Batman, that Dick is better than that or shouldn’t be burdened by that, while also making it clear he sees Tim as Batman someday and is trying to mold him into that role, despite Tim making it just as clear that he actively wants to never be Batman.

[aalghul]

Saying that what fans (and post-flashpoint) make Jason is what Helena already is always gets one of two reactions: I hate Jason and this is true, I love Jason and this is completely wrong. Everyone's losing with that btw.

Helena and Jason are fundamentally different enough that it can't be exactly true. Helena and Jason's backstories don't have much in common either. Helena's involved betrayal, schemes and fights for power. Jason's was a product of Park Row being continually failed by Gotham. Jason also has a history with the Bats specifically, as the second Robin and a son of the family, that Helena doesn't. There is an appeal in that that's not transferrable; Jason's been a Bat and has had his own various roles since his he was created pre-crisis, not just since his resurrection or since he got a softer role post-flashpoint. He doesn't get to just not be a bat character.

In going "fanon Jason is exactly like Helena" you're also ignoring her time on the JLA and BOP, because remember that fanon thinks Jason sits around staring at his wall angrily until his family tell him to stop being a brainless killer OR runs around half-assing missions with his brothers friends because he has none of his own. It's honestly a disservice to her to pretend that brand of fanon Jason could ever be her.

However, Helena is the one who fought to be trusted by the Bats and compromised on killing because of them (whether that be due to the aforementioned struggle to fit in with them, or, at low points, because they know her identity). Jason did not due this pre-flashpoint, and even those abandoned attempts in Countdown didn't begin with the main timeline's version of Bruce. Pre-flashpoint Jason was not asking for anyone's trust or for a seat at the table. That's not even to say that any interpretation of Jason that has him reconciling with the Bats if a rip-off of Helena, it's just that Jason put himself on the outskirts of the family because he has personal issues with them. It's not just them making that decision. The role that Jason now occupies is very much the one that Helena had.

I'm not going to sit here talking about all the similarities and differences, or how they got tangled along the way. I just want to say that people who act like Jason was dealt a good hand by being given Helena's characterization by fanon and post-flashpoint are never going to be able to prove their point because you're focusing on the wrong thing (something that isn't even true). People who refuse to accept that the Jason they're talking about is a whole different character are going to miss out on any of the many interpretations of Jason that aren't just knock-off Helena's. And they're all pissing each other off in the process.

[necrotic-nephilim]

i simply must know: what are your thoughts on jaydick?

!!! JayDick my beloved, man do i have thoughts. disclaimer that all of these thoughts will be pre-Flashpoint in basis unless stated otherwise just because that's the canon i like best.

to me. JayDick is one of the more incestual ships of Batcest. there's this desperate, driving want from Jason, to have Dick as an older brother. he and Dick never really got to be brothers, they were definitely friendly with each other when Jason was alive, but because of Dick's distance with Bruce, he never got the chance to bond with Jason. he always made sure Jason knew he could go to Dick for help, but beyond that Dick wasn't particularly emotionally available with Jason as Robin. but Jason held Dick in a high regard and wanted to be his brother, even saw himself as Dick's brother. when he came back from the dead, i think the illusion shattered for him, but he still clung to that want for something familial with Dick Grayson.

i've vaguely rambled about Nightwing: Brothers In Blood before, because i think that arc really shows a lot of Jason's true feelings about Dick. of everyone in the Batfamily, Jason cares for Dick the most and wants an honest relationship with Dick more than anyone. Dick is the big brother he never got to have.

meanwhile on Dick's side there's... well, apathy would be the kindest way to put it. i think Jason's death pulled a lot of violent anger out of Dick, but that anger was toward Bruce at moreso the concept of Jason's death than Jason as a person. because Dick never knew Jason that well. so there is this guilt on Dick's side, guilt that he couldn't have in some way prevented Jason's death, guilt he wasn't at the funeral, guilt he didn't do more to accept Jason and possible guide Jason to be a better Robin. this is Dick's mantle after all, so when the first person to wear it after him so violently dies in it, that's a mark on his record too. even if Dick didn't give Jason Robin, he still okayed it and gave it his blessing, so he carries that on his own back.

but when Jason comes back it's... well, messy. Dick openly says he kind of wishes Jason had died when he faced Bruce and the Joker, and he hesitates a bit when he needs to save Jason's life. during an arc of the Outsiders where Jason helps out with genuinely no ulterior motives, nothing nefarious, he just knows Black Lightning is innocent and wants to prove it, Dick still doesn't trust Jason and has no reason to be trusting him. i saw a post on here say that pre-Flashpoint!Dick would've agreed with what Bruce did to Jason during Gotham War (reprogramming him to have a fear response to adrenaline) and like... ngl i agree with it. Dick does *not* care for Jason and regards Jason with a lot of apprehension. and that's the fun.

because usually, in Batcest shipping that centers Jason, it's always the other person in the ship seeking out Jason, trying to bring him home, trying to domesticate/fix him, etc. but for JayDick, i think it's the opposite. Jason would try to be good for Dick, if he asked. Jason wants to be close to Dick, he's reaching out when he knows he shouldn't and doing it in the most fucked up ways sure, but he cares about Dick. we bring up "Jason asked Tim to be his Robin" a lot, but never "Jason also asked Dick to be his Robin". it's always going to be misguided and fucked up because Jason doesn't know how to handle this love he has for Dick, that's an echo of the person he used to be. a person Dick doesn't even *see* in him anyway. that shit is fun and fucked up.

i think the one interesting thing Rebirth did was that one Nightwing Annual where Dick calls Jason 'Robin' to snap him out of killing someone. because in the moment it was to remind Jason of who he was. which is the fun of it. when Dick pictures a kind, loving Jason, he pictures Robin, not Red Hood. that will always be the version of Jason that Dick loves the most. i don't think Dick believes Jason could ever be good enough to be redeemed, but if Dick Grayson loves anything, it's a passion project of trying to fix someone. if Jason came to Dick and tried to be good (without putting on the Nightwing suit-) i do think in the end, Dick would try to help him. Dick wouldn't believe in Jason, but he'd put an honest attempt into helping Jason try to be good. and that's where the relationship for them works the best for me, imo. Jason wants Dick to be his older brother. Dick is apprehensive but looking for pieces of the "old Jason" in this person he doesn't recognize. it's weird and fucked up and they make it work so well. it's really one of my favorite Batcest ships for exploring the incestual nature of brotherly love. it's the Cain Instinct if i've ever fucking seen it.

honestly you could sum this entire ship up as "Cain Instinct but they want to fuck each other after the fist fight" and i do think you would be correct. they say i love you with bloody fists. it's so fucking good man, i love these two.

[apopcornkernel]

dick and jason have so many cool parallels especially if jason is a villain it actually makes their relationship more interesting and meaningful. the concept of brothers in blood is so great!!! please tell what you wish was different about this story!!!

hi anon!! thank you for sending me the ask like i begged in that post shfdjshkf

compulsory disclaimer: i like working within the confines of the text, when they aren’t rooted in misconceptions of the characters in the first place. i think pre-flashpoint pre-morrison jason deserves the same treatment and so does dick's view of jason considering all the other extenuating circumstances

ANYWAYS, my main issue with brothers in blood is that jason doesn't seem to have a plan like at ALL. he just shows up and starts killing people...? i i believe that dick's jason event was not fully capitalized on and that jason's character suffers for it. like he never really comes off as a fully threatening rogue, dangerous and cunning in his own right; his main schtick is "needless" violence and that's really it 😭

unlike with bruce and mia, for bruce jason literally engineered a drug coup, he ran circles around batman and taunted him with hints and clues slowly until the revelation of his return (after which bruce goes on a hunt for evidence himself to see if it's true). jason then maneuvered him into an impossible situation where he had to choose between letting jason kill the joker or killing jason to stop him from doing it, wherein jason not only bared his soul and anger and hurt but also pushed bruce to do the same. and when pushed to make the final decision, bruce is panicking. he's shaking, he can't think straight. and when he hits falsely he's completely distraught and i know that it haunts him.

and i think that's the type of psychological anguish jason should always be inflicting onto his opponents!!!! after mia's encounter with jason, she was like this:

and that's after jason dug up her entire history and taunted her about it. and then he blew up her high school.

and guess what happened right before OYL, right before brothers in blood... yeah. devin grayson's trauma speedrun arc which culminated in the entire city of bludhaven being leveled by chemo

i honestly think that jason Would go there. and i think it would've made for a more intense fight, coupled with the resentment dick already displays in the comic! and i think it's a damn shame that brothers in blood flopped in execution when there was a lot of potential in its concept and setup :/

that's also why i don't like teen titans #29. jason comes off as just another jealous guy taking out his daddy issues on a teenager with no thought or regard for anything else but violence. his only semblance of a plan is in incapacitating the titans, and after that he doesn't really think anymore? jason's also unable to get a reaction from tim, like i said. jason is screaming out his feelings and going U REALLY THINK U COULD REPLACE ME???? meanwhile tim is just like: "mm yeah im better than you idgaf". it's really unsatisfying. i expected better from jason and in fact i do not think that he would be emotionally unstable enough to be this careless with tim. his biggest turmoil lies with bruce and even with BRUCE he's cunning. so,,, yeah

[thatsastepladder]

I keep seeing posts on here in the DC tags that depict Billy Batson/Captain Marvel (yes, that's his name and Marvel can go cry about it) as a member of the Justice League - usually in conjunction with him acting/behaving like a child and/or Batman adopting him.

And I'm here to tell you that you've never read an appearance of Billy in your life and that you've got him all wrong.

The first big thing is that I can count on both of my hands the number of issues in which Billy's had JLA membership - pre-Flashpoint, it's a very brief period post-Crisis where he was a member of the early Justice League International. He leaves after six issues or so, and won't be a Leaguer again until the Forever Evil storyline decades later - and then again, not for very long.

I blame Young Justice for this misconception, depicting Billy as a mainstay Leaguer - when the truth is that the Elongated Man is far more of a core Justice League character than Captain Marvel ever was.

The other mistake I see made commonly is the idea that Billy is a perpetual vagabond who's ripe to be taken in by Bruce Wayne. I'm not all too familiar with the classic Fawcett continuity, but post-Crisis this isn't true.

Through his job at WHIZ Radio, Billy manages to save up for an apartment fairly quickly, and lives on his own for a while, and then under the supervision of "Uncle" Dudley, then the Wizard Shazam in human guise - until he ends up adopted by Nick and Nora Bromfield, who in this timeline are Mary Batson's adoptive parents as well.

This status quo lasts until the end of the pre-Flashpoint continuity, and then afterwards, the Bromfields are replaced by the Vasquez family, as seen in the Shazam movies.

For this one I'm blaming... I really don't know. General unfamiliarity with the character, I guess.

Which brings me to the point: if you're going to write a character, at least do some due diligence, get familiar with the character's history, and don't assume you know them based on Tumblr headcanon osmosis - because that's usually wrong.

[roipecheur]

Grant was the same age as Dick...or possibly a little younger

I've been seeing fans interpret Dick's age as the same as Joey's, or somewhere between Grant and Joey, and you can absolutely change up their ages in fic or fan ideas! However, there is a canon basis for how old Grant was when he died and how old Dick was at that time.

The New Teen Titans #1 (November 1980)

At this point, Dick has been in college for at least one semester, possibly two. In Detective Comics #488/5 (February-March 1980), Dick signs up for "another" semester at Hudson University, and then drops out in Detective Comics #495/5 (October 1980).

Dick first left for college in Batman Vol. 1 #217 (December 1969). He was, in his own words, an adult when he went to college, which I take to mean he was eighteen years old.

Batman Vol. 1 #217 (December 1969)

(Also, both Dick and Bruce crying about Dick leaving but not letting each other see it...aw lol)

So...given comics time, I'm not sure exactly how long he was supposed to have spent at Hudson University, but it has to be at least one and a half semesters, making Dick at least eighteen or nineteen in NTT #1.

This is also the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths timeline, which came out in 1985-1986 and changed some things about the mainstream DC universe. In pre-crisis, Dick was still Robin while in college, and seems to have spent longer there.

In post-Crisis, Dick is 19 when the Joker shoots him in the shoulder and Bruce fires him as Robin (Batman #408 - June 1987). Dick later says that he finished one semester of college, but was distracted and did so poorly that they asked him not come back for a second semester (Batman #416 - February 1988). Following this, he joined (rejoined?) the New Teen Titans as Nightwing rather than Robin, and the events with Ravager, Deathstroke, and the Judas Contract seem to have proceeded as they did in pre-crisis continuity. This would put Dick at 19 or 20 at the time of Grant's death.

Now that we're in the post-Flashpoint continuity...I honestly don't know if Dick's age in relation to Grant's and Joey's was supposed to have changed. Deathstroke 2016 features the New Teen Titans and Grant's death in one arc where Slade has the speedforce and is time-traveling...but Dick's age is pretty unclear.

(DC: "We rebooted the universe in 2011 to make it easier for new readers to get into." Me, a new reader in 2021: "I don't even think you tried at all.")

So, after all this, I'm going back to The New Teen Titans (1980), which has this panel:

The New Teen Titans #2 (December 1980)

The dates on Grant's headstone read 1961-1980, which puts him at either 18 or 19 when he died, depending on whether or not he had a birthday that year yet.

If we are assuming that both Grant's and Dick's ages stay constant in relation to each other as the irl years change--and I think we have to; if comics characters aged in real time, Bruce would be long dead--then they are either the same age, or Grant was in fact slightly younger than Dick.

[northoftheroad]

I’m about to start reading the new teen titans for the first time and I was wondering if you know what dicks relationships with Bruce and Jason are like at this point?

I’ve seen a panel floating around (the one with kory looking for dick) where Alfred says Dick left the manor when Bruce brought Jason home, so did dick leave in this comic run because of Jason?

I thought he left because he didn’t feel welcome anymore after bruce fired him as Robin. Or, that Bruce fired him and then kicked him out?

Sorry if this is difficult to understand. I’m just confused 😅

The New Teen Titans started publishing what we call pre-Crisis, i.e. before the storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths, which changed a lot of character’s backstories. So Dick left Robin of his own free will and became Nightwing (you’ll get to the Judas Contract if you keep reading), and he gave Jason his Robin suit and name. In this version, Jason was virtually a clone of Dick because DC editorial had wanted Dick back from the Titans book to be a full time partner for Batman again.

Post-Crisis, the story was changed in Batman # 408 (and a later and much worse version in Nightwing Year One) when Bruce fired Dick after he had been shot by the Joker, and soon after picked up the tire-thieving Jason because it turned out he missed Dick.

After the reboot Flashpoint, writers have given mixed signals about how and why Dick left Robin to become Nightwing, but at least Tom Taylor, the current writer of Nightwing, has had Dick talk about being fired.

I hope this clears things up. Here are some older posts you might find enlightening.

[cuephrase]

What are some things introduced new52 to current day that you like and think are an overall net positive for batfam continuity? (As in, it's not uncommon for me to see fan things that mainly focus on post crisis/pre flashpoint stuff but still incorporate new comic aspects, such as slightly changed family dynamics/new developments, and it's interesting for me to find out what different people think is and isn't worth keeping from what got added after the reboot)

ooooh this is a fun question!!

i was going to say i haven't read that many n52 and onwards runs, and then i realized i have actually read most of the ones i want to, i just haven't read any batman/'tec/batgirl/or duke's runs yet. (i read like...half of We Are Robin, Joker War, and i've read batman from where zdarsky come in so like have also read Gotham War.) (might read Catwoman?? not the point.)

since we're sticking strictly to net positives, i'll include something that i like, even if i have criticisms of it, but i won't get into those criticisms so we can stay positive!! (future cue, so this is kind of a lie but i swear i didn't go overboard.) i'm going to include stuff as minor as like costumes bc why not. also nothing is going to be in order of like what i like the most to what i like the least, just fyi. also, probs not definitive, knowing me i will forget something lmao

New52 Era-

tim's red robin costume. that suit is *chef's kiss* imo. i love that he has wings. i...i don't know if i necessarily want it back rn bc i am sososososo in love with his current robin costume, but i do adore the n52 red robin suit

i personally like that they went ahead and made jason less villain, more anti-hero. i think him trying to reintegrate with the batfam creates some very compelling crises

dick as Agent 37!! which...okay, no criticisms nvm. michael janin's art tho >>> okay well actually maybe sometimes i wish this was like elseworlds/black label instead of mainline but

might be a bit of a reach, but i really enjoy the first handful of arcs in n52 b&r and the relationship dynamic they established for bruce and dami

i like that tim and jason are somewhat friendly. i think it makes sense. for a lot of reasons. this is a somewhat controversial opinion, which i understand. but this is where i stand

did i like anything else from this era specifically?????????

OH

DUKE!!!!!!! i loooooove him very happy he was added

Rebirth Era-

the outlaws, specifically jason's relationship with bizarro. (i enjoyed artemis a lot too!! tbh, haven't read these guys outside of this run tho so zero clue how accurate these portrayals are, so grain of salt?)

the return of dick's fingerstripes!!!!!!! best part of tom taylor's run /hj

TIM'S ROBIN COSTUME AHHHHHH. i'm sorry i love that suit way too much

love damian's current robin costume, although...does he have combat boots rn still? can't remember. if he doesn't, they should give those back

damian + jon's relationship, ik it gets obliterated by the stupid age up, but super sons is still very special to me

tim being bi!! now do kon dc you cowards

alfred's death. i refuse to elaborate. i could, but i shan't (this is not alfred hate tho i swear)

i'm forgetting something rn i know it

oh yeah, i do like tim being robin again. IK. IKKKK. no, i don't think he should be robin forever. no, i don't think dami is a bad robin/shouldn't be robin.

um...i liked dick getting shot in the head. the ric era is not how i would've wanted the aftermath but

i don't want to comment on anything super recent, but i do think there's stuff going on rn that could end up being net positives

the titans being reassembled. jury's out on their location but, i do like that they're back

i'm not counting yj because they're not doing anything with them rn, but they should ugh

i think...i think that's it? there could honestly be a lot more that i'm forgetting. i hope this was interesting!! if there's anything i didn't mention that you're curious about, or something i did mention that you'd like a more in-depth answer about, please feel free to ask!! i'm curious what you consider net positives anon, you should shareeee

[fantastic-nonsense]

i don't know if you've already made a post about this but what comic(s) do you think have the best characterisation of cassandra cain and dick grayson?

My instinctive response to this ask was to just answer "Prodigal and Batgirl (2000)" and be on my way. Instead, I took a little bit more time to think about what my answer should be and what information might be useful to people looking for comics featuring a well-characterized Dick and Cass. So, with that said:

Dick:

Robin: Year One (2000)

New Teen Titans/Tales of the Teen Titans (1980 & 1984)

Batman: Year Three (1989)

Batman: Prodigal (1997)

Titans Vol. 1 (1999)

Nightwing/Birds of Prey: The Hunt for Oracle (2000)

Gotham Knights (2000) #1-12

Peter Tomasi's run on Nightwing (1996)

Batman: The Black Mirror (2010)

Batman: Gates of Gotham (2011)

Listen. All of these comics have their flaws. Many of them feature dated and occasionally poor treatment of various characters/social issues. I'm still holding a grudge against Devin Grayson for her Nightwing run and will until the end of time, and thus the inclusion of Titans Vol. 1 and her first Gotham Knights arcs might seem a bit odd. But I also think this is a pretty solid list of comics that portray Dick in ways that feel consistent and faithful to his core characterization; they're also some of the comics that feature Dick at his best.

Cass:

Batgirl (2000): specifically the Puckett/Scott run (#1-37) and the Gabrych run (#38 & #58-73)

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive (2003)

Gates of Gotham (2011)

Tynion's run on Detective Comics (2016)

Batman and the Outsiders (2019)

Batgirl Vol. 1 was and continues to be the golden standard of how to portray Cass. She's never reached those heights again. Other comics featuring Cass wish they were Batgirl Vol. 1, but it was a true "lightning in a bottle" run that has yet to be replicated. That being said: Murderer/Fugitive (which takes place during Cass's Batgirl run) is great, and Gates of Gotham features the only solid pre-reboot Cass characterization post-Evil Cass arc.

Post-Flashpoint!Cass is a bit of a different animal, but within the context and limitations placed on her appearances until Dan Didio's departure from DC in 2020, she's best characterized and treated in Detective Comics Rebirth and Batman and the Outsiders.

Honorable mentions: these comics either weren't quite on the same level of "good characterization" to make the list or just didn't highlight the character as much as they could have, but I still really like what the creative team did with them in the space they were given:

Dick: Nightwing (1996) #6 (for being a fun depiction of Dick and Tim's early-days relationship), Teen Titans (2003) #6 (great characterization of Dick. So-so characterization of...several other characters), The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul (I love Dick's characterization here, and it's one of my favorite Bat books, but he's just not in it all that much), and Batman & Robin (2009), which...I'll get into my complicated feelings about Morrison's B&R run some other time, but generally: I like Dick's characterization in this comic a lot in isolation. It becomes much more difficult to square, however, when you take everything else going on during the Reborn era into account.

Cass: Mariko Tamaki's Shadows of the Bat: The Tower (2021) event and "Sounds" short from the DC Asian Superhero Celebration (2021) anthology. They're nice and have some great Cass moments, but they're either too short (Sounds) or too focused on other characters/the overall plot (The Tower) to truly do her justice.

[therealtsk]

What is the Brown family pre-Flashpoint characterization vs post-?

hoo boy. So, disclaimers, while I've read a LOT of comics, I have not in fact read all of the ones where a member of the Brown Family appears (mostly because I just don't have the heart to put myself through Batman and Robin Eternal, along with some of Dixon's notoriously sexist writing in his Robin run), but I think I've read enough to make a decently informative post on this. Let's go by characters.

Stephanie Brown.

Probably the one that most people noticed, Stephanie Brown in her pre-Flashpoint characterization is one that has (right up until a certain...event...) a lot of grit to her. While she's still the victim of Dixon's notorious attitudes towards women, she's still allowed to be competent, holding her own in a fight quite handily, especially in her own Batgirl run, where she's able to take on League of Assassin members without too much trouble at all.

Her major, I would argue defining characteristic, is that she does not give up. Ever. Her dad tells her to quit. Tim Drake tells her to quit. Fucking Batman tells her to quit. Multiple times!

Stephanie Brown does not give up. Ever. When the going gets tough, she shrugs, puts on her eggplant outfit, and kicks ass.

Post-Flashpoint? Stephanie is constantly made out to be unreliable, unable to handle herself, constantly needing other people to pull her out of trouble. She loses fights she simply wouldn't have before (although to be entirely fair, this is a problem literally every batfam member has from N52 onward but that's another post) But worse than that, post-Flashpoint Stephanie gives up. 

This scene is genuinely insulting- it's definitive proof that DC's writers from N52 onwards have never understood Stephanie Brown, and never plan to (yes, I know she does come back later, but the fact this happened at all is the point.) This is utterly antithetical to Stephanie Brown as a character, and spits in the face of everything she stands for.

Crystal Brown This is actually the main reason I decided to start writing sins of the father (working on chapter two in conjunction with this), because the treatment of Crystal Brown in Post-Flashpoint DC comics is just insulting- and a major disservice to Steph! Her relationship with her mom is essential to her arc. Crystal Brown starts out as a woman who's got a supervillain as a husband. She's struggling with him, with near-poverty, and with a drug addiction that seriously impedes her ability to be a good mom.

But like daughter, she doesn't give up. In fact, Crystal Brown kicks Arthur Brown out of her life and picks herself up, manages to quit her habits, and becomes a well-respected nurse at Gotham City West Mercy Hospital. Her defining characteristic is that she loves her daughter, even if it took some time for her to get her act together.

Post-Flashpoint Crystal Brown is not that. Hell, she's barely a character. When Steph calls her, desperate, afraid of her newly-learned-of criminal father, Crystal’s response is to lie to her daughter, and then call her husband and tell him Stephanie knows about his plan. 

Sure, she doesn't want him to kill her, but this is so wildly out of character for Crystal that this is basically an entirely different person. And it leaves Stephanie without a single parent who cares about her, since Bruce sure has hell hasn't stepped up in Rebirth. Steph doesn't have any positive role models in her life in Rebirth, leaving her bereft of really any consistent form of love and encouragement outside of maybe Cass, but even that relationship is a hollow shell of what it was previously. 

Arthur Brown. 

So Arthur’s the one who’s arguably changed the least, because abusive asshole is hard to get wrong, but he does feel like he’s lost all consistency in Rebirth. Before, he's a smug, arrogant asshole who doesn't give a damn about his family beyond how he can use them.

In Batman Eternal he’s…well, fine, but in Batgirls he’s…nearly unrecognizable, even from his characterization in the previous issues. 

Like seriously, what was going on here? Arthur's never given a single damn about Steph aside from literally using her as part of a plan to get rich. But anyway. TLDR; All three lost nuance, Steph used to be more competent and had an actual character arc, Crystal used to have an actual character and was an inspiring story of overcoming addiction, and Arthur used to feel like a consistent villain instead of a one-off whack job.

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

So, since apparently I'm in a DC posting mood right now, you all want to hear this concept that's been baking in my mind for a while now?

Stephanie Brown is the same level of crimefighter as Bruce Wayne. Hear me out.

First, a common thematic reading of the Batfamily, especially the Batkids, is that all of them are in some way better than Bruce at one specific thing. Like with the equally broad thematic reading of 'All of Batman's rogues reflect a part of his psyche' this doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny and doesn't apply to all of the Batkids, but it applies to enough: Dick is the better leader, Babs is the better strategist, Tim is the better detective, Cass is the better fighter, you get the idea. Now, normally when considering this reading the consensus for Steph is that she is the negative archetype, similar to how the Joker is interpreted in the rogues reading - an inverse of the common rule, in this case meaning that Steph isn't particularly good at anything. Some people who take this reading end this part with 'And that's why I love her!' - most don't. But I think that's entirely wrong, and to explain why we need to examine Bruce's own past.

In most versions of the Batman origin, there's a period, usually immediately or closely after Bruce graduating from either high-school or college, where Bruce travels the world, seeking masters of specific disciplines and learning all he can from them. The amount of people he meets is extensive - seriously, I have a word doc of 40 names and that's not even all of them - and later stories, particularly the Nolan trilogy, Batman/The Shadow, and IIRC Batman: Earth One, try to par that down to a single entity - The League of Shadows, The Shadow, and Alfred, respectively - teaching him all that is necessary to become Batman. It's not a change I particularly like, for one simple reason - the trek around the globe is as much metatexual as it is backstory. Like many of the prototypical superheroes, Batman isn't just one thing, he's many influences that Bill Finger brought to the table when creating him - he's a pulp hero like the Shadow, an adventure swashbuckler like Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel, a detective like Sherlock Holmes, all melding together to form our concept of 'Batman'. Having him learn from all these disparate sources - from ninjas and car thieves and magicians and detectives - seems like a way of acknowledging that breadth of influence, and I can't help but feel like limiting it to only Ra's or Lamont or Alfred takes away from that.

So, what does all that have to do with Stephanie Brown? Well, think about it - almost all of the Batfamily have only one real mentor - there are exceptions, like Tim basically becoming Babs' apprentice in No Man's Land and Cass' very funny shared custody situation, but mainly all of the Batkids learn from Batman, and what they excel at they were just kind of naturally good at anyway - Babs and Cass especially, no shade. With Steph, though? It's not as impressive as Bruce's list, but she learns general Cowl skills with Bruce, hacking and cryptography with Babs, detective skills with Tim, get fighting tips from Cass and Black Canary, is taught teamwork by Kate, evasion skills with Damian (that last one may not be purposeful), plus whatever else she can learn because, unlike the rest of the Batfamily, at least Pre-Flashpoint Steph was always learning.

True, Steph started out with very few practical skills in crimefighting, but you know who else did that? Bruce - every single time a comic or adaptation has shown him attempting to fight crime before the training trek has him absolutely suck at it. At the very least Steph never decided to stop her dad by attempting to assassinate him in a courthouse full of witnesses by veeery slowly pointing a gun at him, like Nolanverse Bruce.

Bottom line? If one more person says Steph 'isn't particularly skilled at anything', I will chew glass.

[mzminola]

Suddenly wondering how Cass's original backstory being restored has affected the Row sibings' orphaning. I'm not up to date enough on current comics to know if there's an answer.

Post Crisis - Pre Flashpoint era Cassandra Cain is the daughter of David Cain and Sandra Wu San/Lady Shiva, raised by Cain as his own personal project for his theory of creating the best fighter ever. David Cain is a mercenary assassin associated with the League of Assassins but operating pretty independently. I don't know his backstory.

Cass's first kill is a crime boss that Cain aimed her at.

Flashpoint Cass's backstory is that she's raised by (is the daughter of?) David Cain, who himself was an orphan taken in by Mother's orphan-creating built-to-order human trafficking operation. Every kid is a sleeper agent. Cain raises Cass the way he does to prove something to Mother.

Cass's first kill is average Gotham citizen Miranda Row, mother of Harper & Cullen Row, in a failed attempt to make Harper the perfect Robin for Batman because Bruce fucked up his undercover investigation of Mother's operation.

In both continuities, little bitty Cass is horrified by what she's done and runs away.

So now we reach the Rebirth era (I think I'm remembering that name right). Cass's original backstory has been restored. All her past interactions with Lady Shiva are back in play and important. I'm pretty sure David Cain is back to being an independent operator.

(I know Preboot Tim and Flashpoint Tim are basically two separate characters, and we are back to Preboot Tim's continuity being the one in play. Which also brings us the question: do Flashpoint Tim's parents even exist?)

So if we are back to original Cass, with David Cain being a free agent doing everything for his theories/ego, not part of the Mother organization, and Cass's first kill is (presumably?) that crime lord...

But Harper & Cullen are still orphans...

Who killed Miranda Row?

And why?

[emin-folly]

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title(s) that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! (then tag as many people as you have WIPs.)

Tagged by @ceeloilights~

I'll just doing my DC folder since I have way WAY too many WIPs for a normal person lol (long ass list is LONG, you've been warned~)

My DC art WIPs in alphabetical order:

Ace and Batman

Alan and Thomas

Alan n Hal

Alan

Allen fam

Armless

Auction

Awkward

Bar Spo (yeah I don't blame you for not understanding this one lol I sometimes like to abbreviate the names of the characters)

Bargain

Bard

Barry and Wally

Barry and Wally 2

Barry horse

Barry Iris

Barry Iris 2

Barry Iris date

Barry Jesse

Barry out of time

Barry possessed

Barry sketchdump

Barry study

Barry suit

Barry Superman 2

Barry

Bart the Menace

Batman and Riddler

Batman needing help

Battle of the Fashion Tastes

Bby Eo and Barry

Beach

Bringing Barry to life

Carrying Barry 1

Carrying Barry 2

Carrying Wonderflash

Cats

Cheetah

Choices

Clark reading Cinderella

Compromise

Consequence

Cover Flash

Cover mockup

Cover redraw fem

Crackship doodles

Creature Eo

Crossdressing Barry

CW Flash

CW Flash 2

Dark Flashpoint Eo Supes

Dark Flashpoint Eo ivy

DC Aftermath

DC Barry and Kitty

DC Barry vs Slade

DC Barry's obsession

DC Barry's weird fears

DC Bruce's Farm Madness

DC Dad brawl

DC Eo styles

DC Flash and Thawne

DC drawpile 1

DC drawpile 2

DC Fashion Tastes

DC Food Cramps

DC Hal's Stripper Discovery

DC Hole in the Ground

DC Human Disaster

DC Human

DC Interviews

DC Justice League Civilian

DC Mer Spell Gone Wrong

DC My Hero

DC Nobody wants to save Thawne

DC Off Worlding

DC Plan Backfire

DC Slade's new pet

DC SonicFlash

DC Speedster Realities

DC Speedsters and Bug

DC The No Speed Force Race

DC Welcoming Barry back

DC Bleached

DC Furries

DC Mer Funny

DC OC

DC pile

DC things

DC vampires au

DC vs vampires 2

Deer style

Flash AU doodles

Flash AU

Flash

Flashfam fluff

Doting

Dress up

Drunk Barry

Eo and Croc

Eo Barry civilian

EoHal

Eo medieval

Eo meme

Eo needs help

Eo outfit

Eo panel practice

Eo torn up

Eo vs Batman

Eo wants commitment

Eobard AU

Eobard AU 2

Eobard Ivy doodles

Eobard

EoBarry transformers

EoBarry

EoBeth

Eo Carol

EoHarlIvy

EoIvy

EoIvy 2

EoIvy Genderbend

EoIvy meeting

EoIvy talk

Eo's Coping Methods

Eo and Paradox

Eo mini Barry

Eo's verbal mess-ups

Eostar pickup

Fem Bard full body

Fem Eo

Fem Eo 2

Fem EoBarry

Fem Thawne

Flamboyant

Flirting

Funny Silver Age

Genderbend Eo

Gertrude

GL headaches

GL Human infestation

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Gotham

Hal in Thawne's body

Hal suspects faves

Hamlet

Hamlet 2

Hamlet 3

Hamlet 4

Hand

Heels

Horse

Hug

Injustice Eo

Injustice Eo dump

Injustice EoIvy

Iris gets powers

Iris holding a grudge

Ivy about Eo

JL silly faces

Justice

Linda and Barry

Manga Eo

Menace

Mer AU

Mer AU 2

Mer design concept

Mer Reverses

Mom J'onn

Monophobia

Monster Supes

Muzzle Barry

New suit

No speed

Obsessive Eo

OT3

Panel redraw Barry

Panic induced Rogues

Parallax Eo

Parody

Pathetic

Personal boundaries

Pet

Plaything

Poses

Pre new 52 memories

Prop up

Protect

Random doodles

Reverse fam

Rogues and Barry

Role reversal

Roy and Ralph

Sacred

Scarlet Speedster

Secret

Shibari

Shift

Ship comic

Ship

Sin

Sleep

Sleepover

Speed dancing

Speed Force and Eo

StarFlash

Swan Thawne

Symbolism

Teacher

Team up Thomas and Baby Bruce

Thomas and Barry

Touchy feely

Vampire Barry

Wally Shayera AU

Wally talks to Barry

What Eo eats

Wipeout

Women

Wonderflash doodles

Wonderflash 2

xxx

xxx 2

Zoom prodigy

As for who I'm tagging, I don't really know who to pick specifically so the person reading this, boop you're it! :>

[necrotic-nephilim]

this is an invitation to ramble about slade/batboy ships: sladick, sladejay, sladetim, sladedami, and other batfam member/villain ships, especially jayroman and ra'stim :)

AAAAAA this is so delightful oh my god thank you. adding a read more just because this one is going to get Long to cover all the ships and all my opinions. because my god do i love Slade.

firstly, the original Robin/villain ship, SlaDick. Slade Wilson, literally created to be a Teen Titans villains, with the original Robin he cannot be normal about ever. i'm so sad there's not much interest in Slade aside from making him a generic Evil Guy who canonically likes teenagers because i think to just boil down his complex with Dick to 'weird attraction' robs them of SUCH nuance. Slade *trusts* Dick, he trusts Dick enough to ask Dick to train his own daughter Rose. and initially Slade's complex over Dick isn't sexual, it's seeing Dick as a replacement for his dead son, Grant. that's messy as hell and i love them for it. i don't think there's a single villain that has the respect for Dick that Slade has. i'm always of the opinion Dick's attraction to Slade is rooted in daddy issues and Slade's attraction to Dick is rooted in dead son issues. do i think they could end up as an old married couple? yes but only in a world where Dick is completely broken and feels alone. my favorite SlaDick flavor is post-Jason's death. Dick and Bruce are arguably at their worst during that era to begin with so Dick is pretty isolated and emotionally unstable. and Slade would take such advantage of that, swooping in to offer Dick emotional stability and fucked up sex to get out pent up emotions. (i'm big a big fan of Dick fucking out his feelings tbh) and Slade is just. this sort of bad habit Dick will kick for a year or two then come crawling back to. you can directly track how well Bruce and Dick are getting along based on how many times Dick has slept with Slade recently. and that's the prize, for Slade. knowing Dick will come back to him, eventually. it's all about patience. and if something really extreme happened to Dick (like Bruce's fake death) i think they'd even date briefly. it's not entirely impossible for Dick to date someone he disagrees with morally (see: his flings with Helena) and i think Dick would keep trying to 'save' Slade, using the upper hand he has of filling in this role of Slade's dead son to try to domesticate him. would it work? who knows but if anyone is going to try over and over, it's going to be Dick. it's practically self-harm for Dick yet the only thing keeping him sane. i love them.

SladeJay is... an interesting one for me. because i like the *potential*. but they have no significant interactions pre-Flashpoint. and while usually i can forgive New-52 and Rebirth for their grievances if it has ship fodder i just... can't do that for Jason. Judd Winick's Jason is the only Jason that exists to me so even Slade and Jason's canon interactions matter little to me because it's not the version of Jason i care for. the upside of that though, is it's more of a sandbox to explore what they could be and there are no limitations. i can just run wild. which is fun bc. you're telling me Slade wouldn't be so drawn in by the idea of a dead Robin who's come back and is now the antithesis of Bruce's morality? i think at some point Slade would want to poke the bear, really see what Red Hood is made of. do i see them working long-term? no but i do think Jason would have zero qualms working with Slade if he got something out of it. and if he could fuck with Bruce or Dick by having a short, fucked up relationship with Slade? that's even better. i don't think Slade could ever truly respect Jason, at the end of the day the Dick Grayson standard is too high and Slade would sneer at the idea of a legacy who fucked it up so bad he got blown up. but, he'd see that as Bruce's failure more than Jason's. and for Jason to have someone look him in the eye and say that Bruce *failed* him? i think that'd just *do* something to Jason. and Slade has lost a son, he knows what that loss feels like, how you feel you failed as a father. would he have interest in being fatherly to Jason? no but i think he'd have fun momentarily manipulating Jason and seeing what reactions he gets out of what jeers. Jason's been calling himself a failure this whole time, so to have someone else say it is no real big deal, but to have someone else say it's Bruce's fault and voice Jason's feelings? they'd have the most fucked up sex with the most unhealthy dirty talk that's both gentle and degrading. i don't think Jason would ever let himself get too close, he's far too emotionally guarded. but for a second, i think he'd fantasize about having even *half* the amount of attention that Slade gives Dick. bc what has Jason always been, but in Dick's shadow.

SladeTim. my two blorbos. in one place. somewhere in my drafts i have a half-started longfic about SladeTim that's one half really fucked up porn and one half slowburn feelings. arguably Tim and Slade don't have many canon interactions, but it's fun to me that when they do, Slade always seems sort of startled by how well Tim fights back and Tim's willingness to fight dirty in a way even Dick doesn't. and to me, that's the crux of this ship. as far as Robins go, Tim should sort of slip under the radar for Slade. he's not the dead one turned villain, he's not the grandson of Ra's al Ghul, hell he's not even the child of a second-rate villain like Steph, he's not *the* Dick Grayson, he's just... the other one. grew up pretty rich and normal and fell for all of Bruce's wax poetic nonsense. so when Tim puts himself on the map as a hero, makes himself a worthy opponent against Slade that's interesting. even to Tim, Slade isn't a particularly remarkable villain since Slade cares to stay more on Dick's radar. so when they cross paths there's a lot of unexpected. neither of them have thought about the other too hard. so there's this interest and intrigue about it i love. i'm a big fan of the idea Tim is a massive masochist, both physically and emotionally and Slade is The Sadist Ever so. i like them falling into bed together and having the most fucked up sex. like Tim just being a Weird Little Freak so fucked up even Slade raises an eyebrow. because this isn't what you *expect* of a kid like Tim, who's had a pretty easy life before tangling with vigilantes. he should be like a fish out of water, but instead he's matching Slade's energy in ways even Dick doesn't. and of course, how smart he is, that's an asset. it takes a special kind of kid to have the audacity to poison Lady Shiva with hotel chocolates and pull it *off* no less. it earns a begrudging respect, and it's rare to get Slade to respect someone. i really like the idea of Tim seeking Slade out only for fucked up sex and somehow Slade falls for this weird little freak who's cold and clinical outside of sex and keeps him guessing.

i'll be honest i've only considered SladeDami in the context of seeing antis say 'omg Slade has been predatory toward Damian ewww' and going 'no the fuck he hasn't but if you want that so bad i'll ship it just to spite you all' but their canon interactions do fascinate me. a lot of how they interact is predicated on Slade as a father, even more so than SlaDick. like Slade will fight Damian and then be like 'hey be good to your old man fathers need their sons' and fucking dip. and then with the whole Respawn thing and Shadow War? that was extra crunchy. for a brief moment Slade had a son who was a brother to Damian and then he goes and *dies*? talk about the complex that would give him with Damian, the spitting image of Respawn. Make Slade Weird About Batkids That Remind Him of His Son 2024. Damian holds an utter contempt for Slade that is simply unmatched. so Slade not leaving that kid alone because of his weird issues, making sure that Bruce doesn't screw up with Damian the way he screwed up with Respawn is very fun. and Damian slowly building up a tolerance to Slade's annoying antics could be fun. Damian is, at his core, still just a kid who needs the approval of something father-shaped and he will Take What He Can Get. are they ever healthy or long lasting? no but i do think Damian would cling to Slade during his teen years for something incredibly fucked up and codependent until either Slade dumped him or he forced himself to get over it.

JayRoman. i will not lie love these two but i don't think i've read many Black Mask comics when he's not interacting with Jason. which is funny because my entire conception of Roman is him just getting humiliated by Jason and really what more is there to know about the man. Jason is so unserious in how he handles Roman and the best part is you can tell it's truly because he doesn't see Roman as a threat. Roman's just a pawn in the game of getting Bruce's attention and sure, Jason is aiming to kill Roman by the end of it, but he'll always have bigger fish to fry. and that's so *infuriating* for Roman. this new guy who's *clearly* a fucking teenager shows up, owns you so badly it shatters your empire, and then you only live bc he seems to have gotten bored of you. JayRoman is my particular favorite ship for the flavor of 'the sub in bed is in control of every other aspect of their relationship and their submission is a gift that can be revoked at any time' which we don't get enough. fucked up power dynamics always have the sub being the one lacking control. and whilst i enjoy when Roman is able to absolutely control and manipulate Jason through various means, i think in canon, it makes far more sense he's pathetic and begging Jason for even a *chance*. and Jason very specifically picking who he subs for based on someone who he could kill or destroy at the drop of the hat if he needed to is a very Jason thing to do. there will never be trust between these two. they will fuck nasty and Roman will be in love with Jason. but they are both carrying a gun during sex. the gun is probably involved during the sex.

Ra'sTim. my everything. Red Robin (2009) you will always be famous to me. what *don't* they have. forced proximity. enemies to lovers. forced partnership. one-sided obsession. ridiculously large age gap. deep unforgivable betrayal. i will never evacuate these two from my brain dear god. Ra's is another one of those villains who gets painted with one broad stroke of being cartoonishly evil with no exploration of his interesting nuance. making him nothing but a villain is boring. where is the Ra's who loves so deeply and fully and has to lose his loved ones over and over and will not let that happen to Tim. he wants to consume Tim in a 'cannibalism as a metaphor for love but also probably literal cannibalism' way. the amount of trust put in Ra's in order for Tim to be able to betray him as spectacularly as he did? that's glorious. Tim had full unfiltered access to Ra's' computers even when he was advised against trusting Tim so much. and then Tim wins against Ra's and willingly lets Ra's kill him. (obviously Dick saves him, but I'm of the opinion Tim was just committed to dying in that moment and he was Okay With That) 'i will betray you if it's the last thing i do' as an act of love. Tim is to Ra's what Dick is to Slade. you will never convince me Tim and Ra's didn't hatefuck at least once during RR (2009) with a questionable level of consent. i'm so serious i will never shut up about them. the way Tim talks about working with Ra's as if he's making a deal with the devil and Ra's talks about Tim like he's the precious, once in a life time thing, one of the only people worthy to produce an heir for Ra's. how's that not gay. what other ship involved one of them literally trying to have the other's baby to raise as an heir. Ra's would probably carry the baby himself if he could. memes aside they're just so. they're so it. i love when Tim is forced into a Situation where he has to work with Ra's and confronts the darker aspects of himself that Ra's wants to bring out but Tim wants to squash. it is The corruption kink. whether Ra's succeeds or not in corrupting Tim doesn't even matter because the real crux of this ship is the chase. it's the way the heart pounds when they reach out for each other and you don't know if it's for a kiss or a killing blow. it's very Hannigram to me, in that i don't even need or want them to kiss to know they're in love. love to them is not true love's kiss, it's the thoughtful place they decide to stab the other in. be the sheath to my dagger type ship. hold all this bloody violence i know you're capable of inside of you. let me cut the violence out of you ship. what more can you ask for from a ship. Ra's would tie Tim down and torture him both as foreplay and as a love language and Tim would be too fucked up and self-sacrificial to stop him. always playing the dangerous game of how far will the other let them go until someone tries to die or kill. listen i think i lost the plot here but my point is they're unwell about each other. Tim will make Ra's regret the day he met Tim Drake not just for the betrayal but because Ra's can never go back to a time Before Tim. before knowing what the chase felt like. they're so. them.

[igotthisaccountunderduress]

i loveee all the batfam content but I’ve only seen the Christian Bale movies! How do I go about meeting them?

I would be thrilled to introduce you! The Christian Bale movies are really good, so you've already got a good starting point. If you want to read the comics here's a list I previously made to help people get started:

ok, if you want origin stories, Batman: Year One, Robin: Year One, and Batgirl: Year One are a great place to start. Then read Nightwing: Year One and Oracle: Year One (Batman Chronicles issue #5) to follow Robin's and Batgirl's stories. Batman #408 onwards will introduce you to the famous Jason Todd.

If you want to be introduced to a lot of characters from all over DC, Injustice is a great series to read (it's in a parallel universe tho, so not all of it is canonical).

If you want to meet a lot of the batfamily all at once, read Batman: Eternal and Batman and Robin: Eternal.

If you want a badass girl squad, read Birds of Prey (1999-2009). And if you want more Nightwing, read Nightwing (1996-2009), there's a lot of crossovers with the aforementioned Birds of Prey.

If you want Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon content, read Batgirl (2009).

If you want just Batman, The Long Halloween and The Court of Owls are great.

You can find most, if not all, of these comics on the DC Infinite app or at your local library.

One last thing! The comics are split up into different eras, each marked by a universe-changing event. This means that they might contradict each other, since each era is technically its own parallel universe:

Pre-Crisis is from the beginning until 1985, when the Crisis on Infinite Earths series was released.

Post-Crisis is after that until 2011.

Then the New 52 universe began with Flashpoint.

Rebirth started after that with Convergence in 2016.

In 2021, DC Infinite Frontier became the new universe.

And in 2023, the Dark Crisis caused the Dawn of DC.

Ok, so if you don't want to read comics or just want to be less confused while reading, there's an intro to all the characters under the read more

Stop me if you already know this, but the basic premise is that Bruce keeps finding random kids and other vigilantes and they join him in his cause. And we call them a family but it's more like found family bc many of them aren't adopted/don't fit into a stereotypical family structure.

So these three you already know:

Bruce Wayne/Batman - his parents were killed so he became Batman to protect the city. uber rich, genius, martial artist. REALLY bad at feelings. he cares about people but doesn't know how to express it.

Alfred Pennyworth - Bruce's butler/father figure and really the only responsible one in the group. British. Everyone respects and loves him.

Selina Kyle/Catwoman - Bruce's frenemy? love interest? She's a cat-burglar, and altho he's an illegal vigilante he draws the line at stealing, so sometimes they're dating and sometimes he's trying to arrest her.

Next there's the kids:

Richard "Dick" Grayson/Robin/Nightwing - a big brother with eldest daughter syndrome. he grew up in a traveling circus, which visited Gotham and his parents were killed. Bruce happened to be in the audience, and took now-orphaned Dick home with him. Dick, whose stage name/nickname was Robin, joined Bruce in crimefighting and used his stage name as an alias. When Dick was about 19, they had a big fight and he left to become Nightwing (they've made up by now). Dick acts like a sunshine golden boy but he's got issues. so many issues.

Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle - my pfp and beloved. Commissioner Gordon's daughter, who wanted to join the police force but was forbidden by her dad. So she became a vigilante instead, and since Batman was the current legend in Gotham, she borrowed some street cred by becoming Batgirl. Bruce tried to shut her down, but she convinced him to train her instead. When Barbara was about 19, the Joker shot and paralyzed her from the waist down. So she became Oracle, an internet vigilante, myth among criminals, and the coordinator of both the Justice League and the Birds of Prey, two of the most powerful superhero teams on the planet (since then she's had surgery and implants and she's not 100% paralyzed anymore). Oh yeah, and she's a certified genius with an eidetic (photographic) memory. She's got anger issues (mostly due to the assault) and doesn't play nice with others, but is one of the most compassionate people you'll ever meet.

Jason Todd/Robin/Red Hood - the heartthrob of the fandom. He was living on the street when Bruce found him stealing the tires off the Batmobile. He became the second Robin, but a few months after Joker shot Barbara, he killed Jason. Not a good year for anybody. Jason got resurrected, but didn't quite come back right. Oh yeah, and he was angry bc Joker was still alive. So he became a crime lord, Red Hood, bc he recognized that nobody could ever rid Gotham of crime but he could control it. He's sarcastic; a literature nerd; has anger issues, daddy issues, and mommy issues galore; and also has a soft spot for kids.

Timothy Drake/Robin/Red Robin - he's Not Ok. Used to follow Batman and Robin around at night and take pictures. Figured out their identities and when Jason died, Batman started getting out of control. So little Tim stepped in and became Robin to save Bruce from himself. He eventually "graduated" from Robin to Red Robin. He's a genius, and he's probly got depression among other issues.

Cassandra Cain/Orphan/Batgirl - she was trained by her dad to be a living weapon, then Bruce found her and took her under his wing. Due to the abusive childhood, she never learned how to speak but is really good at reading people. She's been learning English since she joined the fam. Babs was training her for awhile and let her use the Batgirl name. She's arguably the best martial artist on earth, due to the "living weapon" thing, and she's scarily good at hiding in shadows. She's sweet, but don't let that fool you, she's just as unhinged as the rest.

Stephanie Brown/Spoiler/Batgirl - resident blonde of the group. They all tend to underestimate her, but she's brilliant, especially when it comes to logic puzzles/riddles. She's sometimes impulsive, but also great at improvising. Her dad is a villain and all-around jerk, so she became Spoiler to spoil his plans. One day Robin!Tim tried to unmask her and she hit him in the head with a brick, leading to Steph joining the Batfam as Robin. When Cass stepped down from Batgirl for awhile, she gave Steph the role, and Steph trained with Babs. Now Cass is back and Babs got surgery, so they're all Batgirl at the same time (which is really confusing).

Damian Wayne/Robin - nobody knew about Dami until Talia al Ghul (she was in The Dark Knight Rises) (don't believe the allegations about her they come from a sexist writer she's lovely) dropped him on Bruce's doorstep when he was ten. Dami is the only one of Bruce's "kids" that's his biological son. He's got issues from his upbringing, cuz he's been training with the League since he was born and that's a lot for a kid. He loves animals and tolerates people. He's also really obesessed with becoming Batman when Bruce steps down.

Duke Thomas/Signal - idk a lot about Duke, he's a relatively new addition. He has meta powers, which none of the others do. He started his own gang based off the idea of Robin, got noticed by the Batfam, and joined them as Signal.

Those are the main characters, but there's also:

Kate Kane/Batwoman - Bruce's cousin. Ex-military.

Talia al Ghul - mentioned above. Dami's mom. Ra's daughter. Bruce's sometimes love interest.

Harley Quinn - Used to be a brilliant psychologist. Met the Joker and kinda went insane. Dated him for awhile, but as you might expect he was abusive and awful so now she's single and sometimes a criminal, sometimes a vigilante.

And cuz I like talking about this and you opened a can of worms, here's the canonical ships within the family:

DickBabs - they date off and on. they've both had crushes on each other since they were kids. the ultimate friends to lovers. my otp.

TimSteph - They dated for a bit, I think they broke up around the time Steph became Batgirl.

BatCat - Bruce x Selina. Seems like they're either dating or frenemies. There was a whole thing with a wedding once that didn't really follow through.

BruTalia - Bruce x Talia. they were dating when they had Dami, but I don't think they are anymore? there's always romantic tension with both BatCat and BruTalia.

[zahri-melitor]

All the discussion of the guts of the video

This has been floating around my head for months now, particularly a few of the sequences. I had the shape of the pacing of the verses, particularly the Barbara introduction very early on, as well as knowing what issues I was going to rely heavily on for material.

I really wanted to use Something Just Like This as it's both an excellent song to set a ship to, but it also of course allowed a bunch of massive ironic moments for various lyrics.

I wanted it to be set in a pre-Flashpoint universe, so that Barbara was still Oracle. Which made finding enough DickBabs panels for the opening verse somewhat of a challenge, as I was only allowing myself pre-1988 material, legitimate flashbacks, and dream sequences. Batgirl Year One, you will always be famous (and have a very useful kiss). But I succeeded and I didn't even give in to the impulse when I was one panel short to use a Barbara and Jason panel from Gotham Knights #43, even though I was really really tempted. Instead I went through Batman Family from the 1970s and found something I could shoehorn in that sounded shippy.

I did use Lil Gotham, even though it's technically a n52 comic AND an alternate universe. But it has a bunch of very cute DickBabs moments with her wheelchair in them, putting it firmly into the storyline I was trying to convey. That's why all of the Lil Gotham scenes (apart from the one flashback) went into the post-proposal section.

We'll just say in terms of the story told in the video, Dick and Babs actually got back together following the proposal instead of what actually happened, and then they had many cute moments together as a couple.

Stuff I really want to point you at and go 'did you see did you see' because I had too much fun with it:-

'Achilles and his gold' - Bruce is of course Achilles here, and his Achilles heel has always been Dick, the boy wearing a gold cape.

'Spider-Man's control and Batman with his fists' - this was another really really early scene I knew. I wanted the World's Finest circus scene with Dick on the trapeze and Bruce catching him. To have Batman's 'fists' in this scene not be punching, but be catching, with all of the imagery that surrounds Dick and his issues about catching people? Yeeeeessss.

'And clearly I don't see myself upon that list. But she said, where'd you wanna go?' - this came together when I was picking panels. I wanted a lovely ironic moment for Dick about how he doesn't see himself as Batman, so the costume transition panel looked SO GOOD for that. And then...I remembered Dick and Babs' first meeting in Robin Year One actually contains the line 'Dad! Are you ready to go yet?!'. And the panels line up so it looks like Dick is sprinting away from Bruce to Barbara, particularly given where the blank white space is.

And then we launch into Batgirl Year One, the main anchor of good DickBabs content prior to both of their costume changes. It's very important to me that I put the giggling panel AFTER the kiss as 'I want something just like this' - what they want is not just the romance but the comfort and trust around each other.

Despite using Batgirl Year One, I still wanted librarian!Barbara with her multiple degrees, so we got two panels of that.

I am SO PROUD to have got oath scenes for both Dick and Babs into this, and I find it amusing I put them on different lines for each of Dick and Barbara. Dick got "the legends and the myths" because his candle oath is such an important part of the mythology of Batman. But Barbara's is on "the testaments they told", because for her the important part of the legends and the myths was choosing to wear an urban legend's costume to the party, while swearing fit best with the testaments.

'The moon and its eclipse' - this was the anchor the entire video revolved around. I had to acknowledge TKJ to get to Oracle, and that line was absolutely perfect. I also went through a BUNCH of panels to decide which one I wanted for the scene, but ultimately picked Gail Simone's n52 retelling, because that one doesn't include imagery of Barbara being shot; it just has the threat.

'And Superman unrolls a suit before he lifts' - this gave me SO MUCH ANGST let me tell you. I actually wanted to use the scenes of Clark flying Barbara for medical treatment in BOP #71 and #85, because I've always loved that moment - Dinah calls Clark in and Clark officially doesn't even know who Babs is at that point, but she's got deadly Brainiac Virus so they're going to do everything they can. And it worked for storytelling as it would be 'Superman transports Barbara Gordon after being shot'. But the associated panels were far less clear than in my memory. So instead I gave 'Superman' to Jim Gordon, and then launched into Oracle Year One and Bruce being a creeper (as opposed to the time he's a creeper during Brainiac. He likes sneaking through the window to stare at Barbara when she's ill).

'But I'm not the kind of person that it fits' this was just perfect for Barbara, because from here on out she doesn't wear a costume. She's Oracle. But teaming it with Oracle Year One and the fact that Babs still learnt new self defense afterwards makes the point that she hasn't stopped fighting.

And then we launch into the extremely Oracle Green scenes, showing off her competency. Including the fun of the 'cover the eyes' moment after an eyes focused panel. I was really happy to find something that worked for Barbara as Oracle and also for 'some fairytale bliss', because a LOT of backlit green computer scenes have grumpy or annoyed Barbara.

'Somebody I can miss' had to be the reunion during Cataclysm. Dick fought his way into Gotham to check on Barbara. They'd both been working so hard not to worry about the other as they did their jobs. And, of course, it made the perfect platform to launch into the most sick!fic of all DickBabs issues - the pair during NML after he gets out of Blackgate.

Which then leads into Joker Last Laugh and the NICE bit of their celebratory roadtrip right before Barbara gets the call from Dinah that that plot started. I adore I managed to line it up so the view on the drive appears just as the music calms, relaxing you. So we can have a lovely dinner followed by the 'Dick and Babs totally had sex' sleepover issues.

Third verse actually was ALWAYS going to be Our Worlds at War, because I think the Nightwing issue of it is underrated in terms of how blatantly shippy it is. Also the narrative of the issue actually fits the verse lyrics pretty well. It's one of Barbara's more badass workout gear looks that she tends to have during the issues when she's got to do things in person.

And of course I wanted to end the third verse with the proposal. Because proposal! I didn't want it too early, because I wanted everything after it to look like DickBabs in a stable, loving, long term relationship. Which is why we get the two shippy flying scenes (with catching! gotta have Dick catching imagery, combined with Barbara letting go of control), then I use 'Happy Birthday' to draw them over to Lil Gotham and Dick about to hand Barbara a present.

Having Lil Gotham here was really fun actually, as it's a continuity that has both Oracle AND DickBabs as a stable background fact, and just a bunch of cute moments between the two.

Then finally... a massive compilation storyline where I pull scenes from all over. After running reasonably canonically through a bunch of earlier storylines, putting together one that's just about the comfort Babs finds in having Dick around was really fun for me (also my Barbara stan nature confirmed)