Look. Don't get me wrong. I love the batjokes fandom literally everyone I've interacted with has been SO nice for such an insane ship it's a surprisingly chill fandom.
That being said... sometimes I feel Weird because a lot of the community (not all! but a large part) is like haha yeah my favorite fucked up toxic problematic ship love how twisted it is >:) batman wants to fuck that clown even though he literally killed his whole ass son it's so fucked I love it.
And that's fine! No problem with that. Power to you.
But I'm just over here like... what if they both got better together and processed their trauma and Joker made amends with everyone and everyone was happy and content as a family.
Like, the most compelling thing for ME in Batjokes is easily Bruce's refusal to view Joker the way most other people do. Even in arcs where he does dehumanize Joker, he at the very least makes an attempt to understand him. Everyone else is just like yeah, he's evil, he's just doing this shit because he enjoys it because he's a monster. But even when their relationship is at its worst, like in Joker War, Batman tries to understand where Joker is coming from. He doesn't just assume oh yeah Joker is just doing this because he's evil there's no logic behind his crimes he just enjoys it.
Bruce actually understands that Joker is trying to show him something, i.e., that he isn't being Batman right (in Joker's opinion). And even after Joker literally tears down his life, fucking reanimates his dead father figure to torment him and re-enacts his childhood trauma on the city, Bruce STILL ends up agreeing that he had a point!
Like to ME... Batjokes is about loving someone so transcendentally that you devote your entire existence to helping them. It's about having compassion for someone even after they commit horrific atrocities. It's about loving someone who everyone else hates and views as a monster. It's about someone loving the parts of someone that they consider terrible and unlovable. It's about being misunderstood your entire life and finally finding someone who gets it. It's about love for one person motivating you to stay alive in a world that's been nothing but cruel to you. It's about finding someone who makes everything awful that's ever happened to you seem worth it. But most importantly it's about the refusal to give up on someone who everyone else has long since declared a lost cause.
234 notes
·
View notes
In contrast to my last two Rain World OC posts, these guys aren't one offs and are part of my current core OC group. More info about them under the cut since it's lengthy.
First starting with The Serpent —
The Serpent is one of AV's many bio-engineered slugcats - if you can even call him a slugcat at this point - as part of a simple passion of experimenting with flexible slugcat biology
They share several traits in common with red lizards, those being constant hyper-aggression, tremendous strength, projectile spit and size
As for similarities with slugcats, well, a general elongated shape? Oh, mobility, unlike red lizards, the Serpent is very adept with vertical movement
AV didn't really have a clear goal in mind with the Serpent unlike the rest of their tube babies, they just sort of... happened.
The spontaneity of their creation though has been very interesting as despite initially being created with the solitary lifestyle of a red lizard, the Serpent still keeps his slugcat instinct of adopting random children they find
Though the Serpent seems at first, displeased with this development but rest assured that if you ever LOOK at his pup wrong they will kill everyone in the room and then himself
Though not pictured in his reference since he was my first Rain World OC, created with very little knowledge of the lore and started as a one-off, he has a citizen ID drone which AV uses to keep track of him
He was also simply created out of my desire to have a long slugcat and my obsession with red lizards combined so there's that, too
Speaking of AV, moving on to Administrative Violence —
Named after the song of the same name by Lauren Bousfield, you'd expect them to be - well - violent. They're not, at least not with those they commonly interact with
They are actually quite sweet with Blown Blooms, their partner, and Peach the slugcat
Weather conditions, all things considered, are pretty mild where they are but far, far off into the distance their partner Blown Blooms isn't so fortunate and natural erosion as well as other random unfortunate events unrelated to weather, has taken quite the toll on them
As a result and fearing for Blooms in every way possible but especially for their communication's inevitable severing and also Blooms being lonely all on their own, AV created a slugcat who resembles a strawberry lizard - a species of lizard Blooms is especially fond of
Peach was designed for protection and companionship first and foremost and an emergency messenger/relay secondly.
Outside of worrying for Blooms' condition and yearning & longing for close physical proximity to them the way creatures who aren't supermassive structures have the luxury of, AV spends most of their time studying their bio-engineered slugcats.
Each and every one of them is given a citizen ID drone for ease of tracking as well as general classifications
They couldn't give a shit about whatever problem the other iterators are working on - just these funny little slugcats
They take the occasional interest in other animals too but it's mainly slugcats
And finally, Blown Blooms and Peach —
Blooms, like AV, is named after a song of the same name by Lauren Bousfield. Peach is just named after her colors.
Blooms, like their partner AV, has a complete disinterest in the great problem and a very big interest in bio-engineering
This time with plants rather than animals though they have a soft spot for small critters but they're usually never the subject of any experiments - just study and admiration
However, due to a deteriorating state, Blooms isn't quite able to use their equipment to manipulate genetic information like they used to - which is upsetting
So instead, they help AV with their current studies as well as keeping tabs on their own prior experiments
They have Peach now, though, which brings a much appreciated break from constant studying and nice close companionship
Peach will often catch prey outside and come back to eat it with Blooms and occasionally Blooms will play around with Peach and levitate the prey around for Peach to chase in anti-grav
The event that pushed AV to create Peach was when a creature entered Blooms' chamber and attacked them, partially damaging their puppet before being killed and then expelled from the chamber
Blooms is absolutely still capable of themselves and ultimately damaging the puppet a bit is nothing when taking account the sheer scale of an iterator - but AV will be AV
Plus, Blooms isn't complaining about getting a cute little companion from AV
And general trivia/info —
Everyone here is aroace. All of them. AV & Blooms' relationship is non-romantic in a sapphic way
The Serpent's pup's name is Pipsqueak
I know rudder tails shouldn't curve like that but I decided that after I finished drawing the Serpent and I wasn't about to redraw anything at that point
The other Iterators in AV and Bloom's local group are Illuminated Crown of Fire, Projections of Watchful Eyes, and an unnamed lunar-eclipse inspired iterator.
I have little information on them right now, but they are each based off of solar eclipses, stars and lunar eclipses respectively
In all, this local group is just a bunch of experiment freaks to varying degrees except for ICoF whose presence is often forgotten because of how little they speak but is also ever looming
And that's all! Thank you for reading this far in <3
29 notes
·
View notes