#esp bc bruce would have to REALLY be pushed

[mysterycitrus]

peter parker getting adopted by bruce (broke)

peter parker getting adopted into the titans (woke)

aside from making more sense geographically (bc I always wondered why there would be a portal sending peter to gotham when new york still exists in the DCU) the titans would overall be better for him to team up with, peter would respect them way more than bruce lmao and they’d be way more open to helping him return home

i agree!! the titans tower is the place 2 be. i know im like a Roy Person™ but i think he and peter would get along like… really really well. partially because peter’s always had a chip on his shoulder about being taken seriously because of his age and reputation and that’s something roy is uniquely able to relate to, but also cause roy is just generally really good with younger heroes? idk

i think there could be a fun interaction where peter gets to see that other young people with great power took on responsibility to protect the world, regardless of personal circumstance. esp cause like we have the champions and young avengers and stuff now, but peter was decidedly on his own for most of his run as a teenager. to my knowledge, his peers were adults. seeing an organised group who continue to mentor and raise younger heroes would be really interesting from his perspective!

roy is an obvious choice, but i think both karen and vic would also be good characters for him to meet — karen for bugs, and vic for the experience of being transformed into something different. i do think dick’s pushed as the dc spiderman just to make him more like…. quilt and less dynamic, but there are a lot of parallels to their origins (both encounter the killer who murderers their loved ones before the fact, but ultimately cannot do anything to stop it)

i also think the idea that bruce would want to adopt peter in the first place is a massive exaggeration of how trigger happy bruce is about adopting children lmao. additionally, like, would peter want to kick back with a buncha yuppies in jersey? nay. let him stay in new york and hang out with lian and maybe kick slade off a roof

[roobylavender]

do you believe Bruce is emotionally abusive? ik fans prioritise physical abuse and ultimately ignore emotional abuse tactics like parentification etc because it’s not “that bad”. I don’t believe Dick ever resents Bruce for letting him be robin (he’s grateful for it) , but in ntt he mostly resents him for being emotionally closed off, and rejecting him as a partner. Bruce worries for his kids safety so he pushes the whole “if you’re not perfect you’re dead” mentality onto Dick which ultimately is harmful to him. He’ll never regret being a hero but the rift between the two isn’t just a “we want different things” scenario but more that they’re incapable of giving the other what they want.

bruce being emotionally closed off from dick is what’s revisionist about that version of canon though. i think bruce can be bad at communicating sometimes esp when he’s deeply pained (like in knightfall, for example) but for the most part he and dick are shown to have great communication for decades before new teen titans and the adjacent post crisis starlin canon starts to rewrite that dynamic into something else entirely. per that version of canon i do believe he’s emotionally abusive but it’s not a version of canon i particularly appreciate bc it requires overriding the dynamic they had previously where they could certainly be prone to disagree at times but bruce was nonetheless willing to have an open and understanding conversation with dick about whatever the disagreement was. even the whole idea that bruce is responsible for dick believing that he has to be perfect or he has to be dead is one that new teen titans cements (or that issue of batman where bruce makes dick quit and jason is introduced thereafter)

i get that it’s easy to take new teen titans as gospel bc it is in essence the textbook source for dick but i think there should be some awareness too of how it twists that relationship between them and not necessarily for the better. i’m not opposed to bruce having faults he has to answer for. i absolutely agree he’s not cognizant enough of the complexes dick develops as a result of wanting to be seen as an equal, and thereby can’t realize the effect it has on dick for him to still be protective and fearful even if it’s ultimately out of goodwill and love. and there’s also the fact that even if he gives dick the space he desires to lead his own life it doesn’t mean he should be hesitant to reach out bc he’s afraid he’ll overstep by doing so, as a parent he should reaffirm his love for dick regularly regardless of knowing he might get some pushback bc dick is growing into his own (again, knightfall is a really superb example of this). but i also think those are tensions you can wholeheartedly explore without rendering bruce into a controlling and abusive figure, and i’m not sure who it benefits to write bruce as such in the long run

some of dick’s problems have to be his own, and he’ll never escape bruce’s shadow if the only source point of issues in his life is his relationship with bruce. that’s something i would actually apply to the robins at large. hardly any of them are allowed to explore problems entirely unique to themselves and i think that’s in large part bc writers simultaneously portray a mildly to explicitly abusive bruce at their leisure while refusing to ever actually address the elephant in the room that is literally of their own creation. a lot of people believe the bruce shouldn’t be an abuser argument is framed entirely as a resistance to bruce’s character assassination and for me i can admit that’s part of it, but a more pertinent part of it should also be the fact that bruce being written as an abuser is what truly chains his children to him forever to the point that they can never grow beyond that abuse bc writers refuse to allow them to. imagine the problems the robins could be addressing individually in their lives if not everything came down to them being fucked up bc that’s the way bruce raised them or failed to thereby. there’s a lot about the robins as individuals that’s deeply interesting and i think it’s not just a disservice to bruce but to them as well to write the relationships this way bc it obscures their own agency and ability to be explored for more than a haunted legacy narrative

[dictionarywrites]

mmm this batjokes au huh

mmm, okay, so bear with me here but

bruce wayne sees one last catastrophe, and it’s a big one. a big train crash, or a whole apartment block goes down, and like everything, like everything, it can be traced down to citywide corruption. 

not to one of the super villains. not to one of the criminals. just to a group of politicians and businessmen cutting corners and looking after each other, and as batman, bruce hears these guys going through this shit... and he’s had enough. 

he calls a group of villains together with some kinda bat signal. poison ivy. the joker and harley. two face. penguin. riddler. freeze. they all come out to this deserted fucking warehouse, and there, sitting on a desk with his legs swinging down, is bruce wayne. big dude, handsome, cleft chin. nice suit.

“you know,” he says quietly, running a hand through perfectly coiffed hair. “i’ve just about had it with gotham. i’m done with it, actually. i’m finished here.”

and all the villains are like, what the fuck. where’s batman??? what the-- bruce wayne? what?

“is that so, sweetheart?” joker says, and he’s immediately stepping forward, dragging his hand over bruce’s cheek because damn, he’s not ever gonna miss a chance to touch a guy like this. “Where ya gonna go?”

“no, no, joker, you misunderstand me,” bruce says, and he gently pushes joker’s hand down. joker turns a look to penguin and riddler like “get a load of this guy!” and they’re just like, we hate you joker, but you have a point. “I’m not going anywhere. gotham’s the one that’s changing. not me.”

“What do you mean?” Ivy asks, slowly.

and bruce explains. politicians? they’ve all gotta go. mayor’s office? out. most of the corp offices? gone. big wall goes up around gotham - big wall. a few hundred feet high, nobody comes in, nobody goes out. we stock up, and we fix things. fix what? fix everything.

just imagine bruce wayne setting up a fucking monarchy, and making all these fucking villains his generals. like... if they have enough money and they have actually nice places to live, if they’ve got stuff to do, most of them don’t actually give a fuck about villainy.

very strict, stringent import/export thing, but suddenly gotham is exporting shit the likes of which the rest of the world kinda desperately wants, so they go with it. they have to. gotham and the surrounding state area... it’s its own thing now, and it’s not worth fighting with.

with ivy, the whole thing can be a biocity. no more dim, dank, dismal gotham! no more fumes - everything’s eco friendly now. flowers bloom on every street. the fucking skyscrapers are insulated with grass and thick-growing vine. penguin runs fuckin entertainment venues. harvey’s justice attorney again, and justice is strict, but with no capital punishment. riddler runs the power grids, and runs city-wide entertainment schemes - fucking wildass scavenger hunts, citizens rewards for figuring out riddles, the kinda shit that goes wild on social media. freeze takes over the running of gotham general, and suddenly the hospital actually has funds??? money??? harley takes over arkham asylum, and makes it...... actually a good fucking hospital.

and there’s joker. standing in the middle of the warehouse, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted slightly to the side. all the villains are standing in varying states of “what the fuck”, staring at this rich kid that’s obviously cracked like a fucking egg, but joker... joker’s intrigued.

“Well, you called me here too, Brucey,” he says, laughing. “Whaddya-- You think I want in on your cute lil utopia? What do I get outta this? No more fun! No more chaos!”

“Well, Joker, I’d have thought that was obvious,” Bruce says simply. “I’m not the one that called you here. They all get purpose - they get funding, jobs, responsibilities, lives. You don’t get any of that.”

“What do I get, then? Nice big rocket launcher? Nice new car? A boy t--” 

“Joker,” Bruce says. “You get Batman.” And it’s like the whole word narrows to a point. Joker, standing in the middle of the room, staring into space. 

They’re all in. 

[jostenneil]

would you say more on how the writers are totally missing why bruce adopted his kids? im interested in hearing your commentary i wanna know how bad the new writing fucks up

a lot of it is to me a notable product of the slowly evolving idea that bruce is waging a war on crime for which he needs to employ soldiers. in the pursuit of that idea, and in the pursuit of long-form narrative arcs where villains are no-longer relegated to the purpose of one-off appearances, writers steadily forget that what made bruce into a hero first was his empathy. he lost his parents at a very young age and thus decided that he never wanted to see anyone else become a victim the way he became one, and this ideology extended to his relationships with the children he adopted. he didn't want them to be alone with all of this pent-up rage and anguish inside and with no healthy outlet to channel those emotions into. he wanted to give them the safe haven and support that he didn't have growing up. and obv, he wasn't always good at providing that. growing up the way he did left him with a lot of communication issues that sometimes threw wedges in those parental relationships. i think esp with immediate pre-crisis bruce and dick, we got to see a good example of that. bruce simultaneously wanted dick to have everything that he could give him, like an education, but he also knew he had to try to respect that dick's personal wishes would be different. there was some rockiness between them, and sometimes bruce inadvertently took charge before dick reminded him of his own agency, but it wasn't unsalvageable to me. it just felt like standard parent-child relationship growing pains. where i think things inevitably took a turn for the worst in terms of bruce portrayals was actually with jason. like obv we have the frank miller stuff to blame, but what i think jason dying did was allow for the "robin existing is child abuse" idea to permeate bc that was literally the reason starlin gave for orchestrating his death, and writers were content to allow that reasoning to extend to portrayals thereafter, which obv resulted in whatever we got going on with leslie and stephanie in war games/crimes. it's really odd to me though that writers allowed that idea to permeate bc, to me at least, what made jason's death special (and why i personally think he should have been the only one to die) is that he was the one robin that bruce actually "recruited". every other robin or batgirl pushed their way into the field of their own volition (ig you could maybe argue that bruce recruited cass, but personally i would argue against bc she had already been trained at length by her father and she was already going out of her way to save people before bruce acknowledged her wish to help at large). so like, as much as i hate that he died, i think it also kinda resonated in an interesting way, esp with a lot of bruce's closed-off behavior in the nineties. he felt guilt-ridden over what he'd allowed to happen, he grew more willing to shoulder burdens entirely on his own, it was hard to convince him to let new people into the game, etc etc. that progression of him becoming a stricter, darker character and it being a result of jason dying made sense. what doesn't make sense is to act like bruce was always that scathing, or to peddle the idea that he only ever adopted children to recruit them as child soldiers when the whole point of jason dying was to emphasize that he was the One robin bruce recruited and it resulted in such tragedy, which bruce thereafter never wanted to repeat. and not only does that latter part damage him as a character over time, it also damages the robins and batgirls bc it robs them of their own agency with regards to heroism. none of the robins and batgirls aside from jason needed bruce to ask them to join his crusade. they joined the cause of their own volition and at times even went against his wishes in pursuit of the cause. to act like bruce has always worked to employ child soldiers directly jeopardizes so many of their origin stories as heroes bc now heroism is no longer something they sought to pursue on their own first. it becomes something that bruce is responsible for, and in the process it obscures the fact that his relationships with them were built on empathy first, not a commitment to a cause

[dyketectivecomics]

tell us about the roller derby AU!! <3

(tysm anon bc this got me to get my ass in gear abt actually writing it all down fdskl;fjla ALSO shout out to zom for leaving a reply <3 ty both omg)

OKAY, first things first. This started bc I was thinking abt the Sirens doing Derby together (OBVIOUSLY Harleys idea) BUT 3 players isn’t enough for a team (you need 3 blockers, a pivot and a jammer afterall) so this team HINGES on the fact that GCS had that brief team-up with Talia and Zatanna and the pure Chaos of them permanently joining the sirens in the mainverse is something I want to explore sometime in the future but ANYWAYS they also need a team to play against and I’m Nothing if not Consistent so OFC this is Sirens vs Birds

cue Same Age-Range College Setting, Roller Derby Focus AU. Everyone’s attending Uni at Gotham State and yes I have majors in mind too, for the Sirens we got undergrads Harley: Psych, Ivy: Botany, Selina: Art History, Talia: Anthropology, Zatanna: Theater. For the Birds, (grad student she’s fast-tracking) Babs: library science, (undergrads) Dinah: Music, Helena: Undeclared, Zinda: doesn’t actually Go Here lmao

now u might be saying “wait a min randy, that’s only four birds. DIDNT u JUST say u need 5 players for a team?” And yes. Yes I did. The Birds is actually a BIGGER team than the Sirens and includes anyone who has ever been on the BoP team ever. They’re all here! And there’s a lot of them that rotate in and out of the roster but for the sake of simplicity we’ll focus on those four as Main members.

So let’s talk positions, play style & other stuff!

so Harley is the Jammer, don’t fix what isn’t broken. I like the idea of Talia being the Pivot bc ofc she’d want to be in charge. Which leaves Ivy, Selina & Zee as the blockers

 YES Selina plays damn near as dirty as Harley does lmao. In fact if we rank them by how often they play Renegade vs Regulation, you’ve got, Harley, Selina, Talia, Ivy (all at varying degrees of being FAR at the renegade-end of the spectrum) and Zee is more like just Right of center in favor of Regulation (but not above elbowing an opponent or ‘accidentally’ tripping them up if they’re REALLY close to winning) 

Derby names MOSTLY follow their costumed personas, like Poison Ivy and Catwoman, but then there’s also Gnarley Quinn (currently taking suggestions for Zee n Talia tho bc... well they DONT have names other than their own really lmao)

For the Birds, Zinda is the Jammer, Dinah is the pivot, Helena is a blocker, Babs is actually the team manager & former pivot. Harley gave her a BAD injury during an end-of-season bout and kicks off the rivalry btwn the teams at the start of the plot. (Other birds in the rotation play blockers and jammers as needed. Helena will step up as pivot if Dinah can’t make a bout)

All the Birds PRACTICE regulation derby but....  well, when you put on your skates and the ref blows the whistle, what happens next can’t be helped (but esp after babs’ injury if its a Sirens vs Birds bout they’re out for BLOOD)

Yes their derby names are the same as their hero names, and yes ppl still call Babs Oracle even tho she doesn’t put on the skates as much even after her knee heals

Outfits and Skates:

okay, so OBVSLY zee & dinah are still VERY much the Fishnet Queens™, but i can totally see Harley, Selina & Zinda joining them. can’t have derby w/o SOME ppl wearing fishnets after all fjldka;s

also i know that derby’s sometimes a bit more butch and some ppl take issue with Zinda’s miniskirt but listen i am GAY and a SUCKER for vintage inspired looks and really? skirts and skates go hand in hand BEAUTIFULLY. the skirt STAYS for zinda

actually im a sucker for bombshells!Ivy’s dresses too, i know the big fandom push has been towards making her more butch but LISTEN.

wait, do i actually just want to see Bombshells on skates is that what all this is about. im gonna scre-

everyone else’s looks im still trying to figure out in my own brain but tbh, any artists out there who feel like doing their own spin on superhero inspired looks for these guys im *eyes emojis* would LOVE to see that actually would love to see that A LOT

imagine everyone color-coding their wheels, though, omg i need that

outside of derby i think Harley & Dinah would be rlly into jam/rhythm skating, Zee, Selina & Talia would like artistic skating, and Helena & Zinda would be into speed skating. Ivy and Babs like supporting their friends & esp their gfs but actually they’re trying rlly hard not to show them up bc theyre both pretty good at jam/rhythm themselves fjdkls

Now for the Extra Relationship Stuff:

Obvsly almost all of the sirens have dated each other at some point. Whether in the past or over the course of going to uni together. Cue even More Drama when Talia and Selina break up and Both start pursuing soon-to-be-drop-out Bruce (the dropping out is unrelated to the drama itself but I just think it’s funny if even in an AU setting Bruce drops out of college aksjak)

also listen ever since i read those GCS issues with Talia and Zee I’ve NEEDED to see Selina/Talia/Zee so so so badly. its my AU and its happening some fucking how i’ll make it work shut uppppp

Also I’m gonna throw in some real slowburn HarlIvy bc once again it’s MY AU AND I DO WHAT I WANT.

Yes Dinah and Zee become star-crossed/rival-to-lovers in this. Havent actually decided which way I wanna go bc starcrossed is Fun, but rivals gives me DRAMA and with them both being diff arts majors could Add to that aksj

the Birds marginally have their dynamics together better than the Sirens, but every so often there’s some communication issues bc yes, we need all the Drama in this!!! I demand it!!!

So yeah, if/when I ever plot this out, it would be something with equal focus on changing relationship and team dynamics, and then focus on how well each of the teams are doing leading up to the Big Bout where the Birds are out to Avenge Oracle. And do they succeed? I guess you’d have to read to find out lmao

Coming to a fanfic site near you...... eventually.......

[okaybutlikeimagine]

So Steve and Jonathan and Billy hanging out???

So uhm OF COURSE babe! ♥ ♥ ♥ I LIVE for this shit.

{Disclaimer: recreational drug use}{AKA i’ve basically just made our boys stoners, woops}

Okay, so i’ve talked before about Billy’s relationship w/ Jonathan and how he gets close to him and why. I’ve also mentioned (wayy more briefly) Jonathan’s relationship w/ Steve and how I think they’d be cool. Steve and Jonathan would work at being cool w/ each other bc Steve loves the kids but he also likes having friends that are his age. I just… LOVE the idea of Steve being touchy and friendly and sweet to Jonathan and Nancy. I know Nancy kinda broke his heart and his relationship w/ Jonathan has been tumultuous at best but I think they’d all work to be close bc let’s face it, nothing brings you closer than a near death experience. And those 3 have had MULTIPLE so far.

So they’re close and Steve will push himself inbetween the two of them when they’re walking together and sling his arm around their shoulders and kiss a cheek on both of their faces. Jonathan always blushes and says: “Y’know, ever since you came out as bi you’ve been-”

Steve cuts him off with: “Happier? Funner? More beautiful?”

“More annoying.”

Steve feigns offense.

So i just REALLY think that these boys have good relationships w/ each other. Steve and Jonathan are good friends, Jonathan and Billy are brothers, and Billy and Steve are dating.

And Steve, who I think loves people and loves having friends, wants to hang out w/ them as often as possible. He loves spending time w/ Robin, obviously. They’re basically best friends. He also really likes hanging out w/ Nancy and Jonathan (esp bugging them). But sometimes he says they need a “guys night” to which both Nancy and Robin roll their eyes but Steve is absolutely adamant about.

So Steve is standing outside of their house to pick Billy and Jonathan up and is asking them where they wanna go. They mention the quarry.

But the thing is, they always go to the quarry and it’s always to smoke and Steve is just fed up with that right now. Billy and Jonathan already smoke a LOT and whenever Steve wants to hang out w/ them they suggest the same damn thing.

“Oh c’mon guys, let’s do something fun.”

“Yeah, smoking is fun, babe.”

“But we always smoke. I wanna do something different… let’s go to the pool!”

Jonathan makes a face. “You know I hate the pool.”

“Alright… let’s go to that coffee shop you love on the edge of town!”

Billy gags. “You’re kidding, right? I’d rather be caught dead than go in there.”

“Augh, c’mon there has to be some place you both wanna go.”

And Billy and Jon just share knowing glances before they turn that same look onto Steve. Steve sighs out dramatically.

“Fine! We’ll go to the quarry to smoke. But the more we do this the less fun it is! We need to start doing something fun! Going out to smoke all the time isn’t fun. Especially not when I’m the one who has to keep bringing the weed!”

The boys are walking to Steve’s car now, and Jonathan turns around to walk backwards so he can face Steve.

“We’re broke, Steve. We can’t afford weed all the time.”

Steve calls bullshit on that and cites Jonathan’s 3 jobs. Jonathan denies said 3 jobs. Billy says he and Hop are going to force Jonathan out of 2 of those jobs bc “You don’t need to bleed yourself dry to help everyone anymore, take a goddamn break!”

And soon they’re in Steve’s car, bickering over music bc that’s just their relationship w/ each other. They’re Always bickering about music. Hey, when you get 2 of the most opinionated boys on music together, they’re going to bicker. It’s always amicable enough, anyway.

And so they go to the quarry to smoke. Which yes, they do far too often for Steve’s liking, but Steve still has fun. Bc getting high is, in itself, a fairly enjoyable act for him. He gets real giggly and happy. But getting high w/ Billy and Jonathan is a whole different story. Jonathan gets so peaceful, those worry lines on his face disappearing, the stress in his eyes gone as he looks up at the stars and points out things he sees in them. Billy’s frown slips into the sweetest, gentlest smile. He talks to Steve a lot bc Steve likes to talk a lot when he’s high and Billy always matches him on it. Always entertains all of Steve’s weird little ideas.

Jonathan always lays down on his back to look up at the stars. Billy always sits with his legs splayed forward, leaning back on his hands so he can look around everywhere. Steve will sit with his legs folded up a bit, his arms cradling them, ankles crossed, knees out wide, hands clasped in front of them. They’ll find a soft 60’s/70’s channel on the radio and turn the volume up enough so they can hear it from outside of the car and let the sounds flow over them and pretend like they’re in a different time. Like they’re in a different place. One time Steve laid on his stomach and hung his head out over the edge of the cliff down to the quarry and looked at it. Watched the water beneath him. Billy followed suit, as did Jonathan (after quite a big bout of paranoia)(I know Steve is mom to the kids but I like to think Jonathan is mom to the teens and gets worried for all of them)

So it’s nice. It’s just… soft. Sometimes Billy will lean with his back against Steve’s car and Steve will be inbetween his legs leaning back against Billy’s chest and they’ll just watch Jonathan on his back as he plays with the smoke leaving his mouth. It’s all just so calm. They feel they deserve it. Life has been hell for too long. They find peace in the presence of each other and let that be alright.

And Steve really does love those soft moments, he DOES. But one night Steve is like: “Actually, there’s gonna be a good music video on MTV tonight, soooooo…”

And he takes them back to his house. And the two other boys are a little grumbly and confused until Steve walks in and turns the lights on and he’s basically bouncing his way over to the living room and the boys follow him slowly and they get to the living room and-

“Oh my god.”

The coffee table in front of the TV is filled with food. Multiple bags of different kinds of chips and a carton of cookies and 2 boxes of Coke cans and 3 fucking pizzas and-

“Holy shit, Steve, who else is invited over?” Jonathan asks, walking up to the table very confused.

“It’s just us! Guys night!! Plus I know Billy’s gonna eat about half of it.”

Jonathan nods in sudden understanding and Billy is looking at his boyfriend like he’s the best and goddamn craziest person ever.

“Alright!” Steve heads over to the table, separating the pizza boxes. “I got us all separate pizzas because I know we all like different toppings. I got New and Classic Coke because I know you-” he points to Billy. “Are a heathen who likes New Coke.”

Jonathan gives Billy a horrified look.

“You like New Coke?”

“You Midwesterners are weird as fuck, New Coke is no fucking different!”

“You’re wrong and it’s embarrassing, babe.” Steve says with his hands on his hips. “Anyway, I also bought every type of chip I could find and a carton of cookies because I couldn’t help it.”

He gives the two boys a bright and cheesy smile. Jonathan laughs and Billy kisses Steve’s cheek before asking: “But where’s the weed?”

Steve groans. “Seriously?”

“You bought a bunch of food for us to eat but no weed? Don’t you know what munchies are, babe?”

“Fine, I’ll go grab some weed from my room. But put MTV on!”

“What music video is on tonight?” Jonathan asks as Steve leaves the room.

“I dunno!” He calls out. “I just wanted to go somewhere other than the quarry!”

Billy and Jonathan roll their eyes, but they break into the Cheetos, Jonathan grabbing a can of Classic Coke and shaking his head in disapproval as Billy reaches for New Coke. Billy chugs the entire can while making direct eye contact with Jonathan.

“You’re a monster.”

Billy crushes the can on his head.

“And a moron.”

They watch the random music videos that are on TV. It’s a lot of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and some Mick Jagger and Prince.

Jonathan says Springsteen’s voice makes him sleepy and that his music is too much for him. Billy and Steve boo Jonathan for the comment and throw Cheetos at him in protest. Steve does a beautiful cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun to which Jonathan quietly applauds and Billy yells “that’s my babe!” Billy sings every single Springsteen song that come on and gets very excited when the music video for I’m Still Standing plays.

And Steve is very very happy, under Billy’s arm and watching as Billy kicks at Jonathan’s leg to ask him to pass the cookies. Sits there and smiles bc these are his friends and he just… he loves having them here, in his house, making it feel so full and alive and comfortable.

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[soap-brain]

oooo so i got tagged by both @elroymarvelous (something like a week ago i’m so sorry) and @greetings-from-the-suffer-puppet (yesterday :p) to do this alphabet questions thing! let’s go!!

a - age: 19

b - birthplace: düsseldorf, nrw (it’s in germany) (it’s the best city in germany) (95 olé)

c - current time: 11:38 am

d - drink you had last: some neat sparkling water, also i pretended to drink chips rings but they’re solid so idk whether that counts

e - easiest person to talk to: @greetings-from-the-suffer-puppet , cause we have somehow absolutely /no/ need for filters and we’ve talked about some things we would never, ever talk about with other people :D (hey ryn, remember the scintillating convo we had recently involving chrispy? good times) and also @loststarlight bc she’s a very bad person who got me into a ship and enables me to write fic for it and sends me unacceptable photo posts and totally made me watch doom!! which i didn’t want to do.. at.. all *sweats nervously and holds hand over pocket that’s def not bulging with karl pics... and bruce... and chrispy...*

f - favorite song: atm it’s a tie between sabotage by the beastie boys and ..... every time we touch by cascada (look, i’m technically a rock person, but sometimes it’s midnight, you’ve had about 5hrs of sleep every night, you know you have at least one more hour of super complicated chemistry to do, you’ve had a long ass day, you’re really hungry, just had a bowl of cereal and are fast approaching an ultra sugar high. what better to party with than that song??)

g - grossest memory: story time! during grades 9-12, i sometimes liked walking home instead of doing the hour long tram and bus ride. idk, it was a self reflection / relaxing thing, which i still kinda do. there was a short tunnel i had to go through. nothing scary, it was literally just the street and a pavement on each side, it was short, well lit, in an okay neighborhood, there were frequently people around etc. so really, really, not scary / gross. one day i’m walking and i see a guy of maybe my age coming towards me ahead of me, so i go to one side of the pavement, while he goes to the other, i’m doing the staring ahead thing which will morph into a lightning quick checking the other person over thing once we pass each other. it’s a thing i do. so  we’re just about to pass each other, and he pushes up his tee shirt (it was summer/spring) and ... there’s just... his erection. which he consciously shows to me. and he says something which i didn’t hear cause i’m listening to music, but i do physically recoil a little, my shoulder brushes the tunnel wall but i keep walking, pretending nothing happened, and i remember thinking to myself “the fact that you know now that you won’t believe yourself later that you didn’t make this up is the only thing that’ll make you believe it really happened.”, and just because i know i thought that then already, i believe myself that i didn’t make it up cause man, i kinda wanted to pretend it didn’t happen. and that’s the story of the first ever real life erection i saw! yay! now you know things about me you didn’t want to know!

h - horror yes or no: noooooo pls i get scared easily. even bad horror movies (ie doom) can scare me a bit. esp jumpscares??? the worst imo

i - in love?: nah. never been, either *shrug emoji*

j - jealous of people?: klasjdlfjasdlf i get really jealous of how people manage to socially interact with such ease?? and just... talk to other people and aren’t awkward and make friends?? a wild concept

k - killed someone?: ok so i know we should all either answer something cool and quirky or no!! of course not!! but i have a story. (fuck ok now y’all think i actually killed a person. disclaimer: i didn’t. but i was close) ok so i was doing my three months mandatory nurse work for studying medicine, and around the second month there was this old lady (93yo i think), who’d just gotten i think a new hip? and before her op she was surprisingly mobile with her walking frame and just really cute and chipper and also scared of her op. afterwards, she went to the icu, as was scheduled bc she was so old, and and then she got back to her regular station, and she was slowly but surely learning how to sit up and stand up again and then also walk. she had major pain problems  and her leg had gotten stiff, but she really was a champ, and i really liked her. also, to make some infusions (ie pain meds) easier, she’d gotten a central venous catheter, ie a catheter into the vein right at the bottom of her neck. and then it was time to take it out bc she’d gotten so much better, and there was a doctor there and i was just doing some work or something in the same room (i think we just got done helping the patient dress), and the doctor knew i wanted to study medicine, so she asked me whether i wanted to take it out with her help. i said yes, and then the doctor got a call and took it and told me to go ahead and detach the iv drip line from the catheter. which i did. then i waited for the doctor to finish her call to tell me the next step. she was done just as the patient started feeling faint and started to lose feeling in the arm on the side the central venous catheter was in. long story short, she was rushed to the icu again, because what i didn’t know was that you had to close the catheter, and i’d essentially pulled off the stopper as well, and she ended up having no blood in certain parts of her brain, which i think ended up as a terminal condition for her. she lived, but she had a very, very hard time getting better again and i think she never fully recovered. so. yeah. that’s my story on how i almost killed a person.

l - love at first sight or should I walk past again?: definitely walk past again :D looks and mannerism can be very deceiving

m - middle name: inge brigitte

n - number of siblings: 2

o - one wish: to get my shit together lmao

p - person i called last: i think my dad?? about photoshop?

q - question you’re always asked: probably about my one weird tooth maybe? or what i did between school and uni 

r - reason to smile: getting messages / people willingly interacting with me, horses, when life is going good, when i can be proud of myself for a reason, when there’s music making me feel good things, star trek

s - song you last sang: i don’t sing. i’d sometimes like to, but i feel too awkward cause i’ve been told that i can’t sing at all, so like...

t - time you woke up: 6:47 am the first time, then sometime around 8

u - underwear color: white

v - vacation: this probably ties in with all the “places you wanna visit” ask games, so the answer has to be most of europe, northern america, iceland, australia, parts of asia, parts of africa, space, berlin

w - worst habit: picking at my skin.... and procrastinating!

y - your favorite food: well my fave meal would be garlic bread, a medium steak with fries and beans and either lava cake or crème brûlée for dessert, along with an apple martini; but my fav normal food would be spaghetti bolognese and ... chocolate-y sweets (and truffles. oh boy i want some truffles now)

z - zodiac: libra

i’m tagging @loststarlight, @chameleon-kirk, @bottomkirk, @mccoysbi, @lieutenant-sapphic, @trappist-1p and everyone else who wants to do this!! esp all my new followers - if you wanna do this, tag me so i can get to know y’all!!

[jostenneil]

thinking about dick’s relationships with the robins in light of his relationships with the titans is interesting bc it’s like. he’s definitely someone who’s the embodiment of commitment like if you give him a mission or a group of people who needs him then he commits to it seriously and that’s a valuable action in his mind. but the thing is, esp with the batfam, a lot of that commitment hinges on him being brought back to the atmosphere of gotham in dire circumstances. so it’s not so much that it’s his choice to be there so much as that he would honor his commitment to bruce if needed. and it begs the question, had batman editorial in the nineties onward not made the move to start pushing him more towards batman titles, would he have much of a relationship with the robins at all? jason is the most glaring example of this obv, bc aside from the last laugh it’s not really like dick is looking to interact with or maintain a relationship with him, but it’s something i really wonder about with tim and damian bc it’s like. those relationships between them and dick becoming a thing was largely due to an editorial push that mandated dick be in gotham to begin with. like does that make sense? obv every occurrence in comics is an editorial decision but it’s just so interesting to think about bc dick really was at home with the titans and if his focus had been kept there one wonders whether he would have a significant relationship with bruce’s other sidekicks at all

[jostenneil]

what is it about talia, linda, steph, selina, and jade that draw you to them? what interests you most about each of these women?

this is a really good question! i will try to be brief gjkdfjhldf

with talia i think it's first and foremost the tragic element lol. but also my tendency to defend female characters who are maligned for being in love. i think love can be a very impactful character trait and that's esp the case with her. love is an empowering force for talia but it's also something that hurts her repeatedly, and it's interesting to see how she becomes jaded emotionally over time but how that doesn't stop her from doing good bc she knows she still should. that maturity is something i really admire about her and that i think defines the tragedy of her character, bc she's one person constantly sacrificing herself to do the right thing when others won't or can't

linda is someone i love for her ferocity of spirit. i'm so grateful to messner-loebs and esp waid for developing her into a character who can just as easily stand on her own. she's never needed wally to be able to do good detective work or stand up to the bad guys, and she's a significant protagonist in her own right, but i also love that despite not needing wally, she can still want him bc she loves him. her ability to stand as an independent, far from helpless figure who is also deeply, madly in love with her husband and does love to be swept up in his arms from time to time makes her very endearing to me. she should def be up there with lois as one of the most iconic dc love interests for that reason imo

i think my defense of steph originally arose from how upsetting it was to read about her in dixon's run. here is this bright, smart girl who takes it upon herself to stop her father from putting people in danger, and who has a genuine desire to do good, and yet she's constantly undermined for her mistakes or for her lack of experience as if anyone doesn't enter this game a little unexperienced! the potential parallels between her and jason also interest me immensely bc i really do think if she had lived and been allowed to push back more against bruce before she died then she could have been instrumental to helping change the atmosphere of the batfam at the time, as well as bruce's mindset towards taking upon proteges in light of jason's death

for selina, i apologize for being redundant but i just love, love, love the interplay between her harder exterior and softer interior. i love that the suit is like armor for her and that it's hard for her to let her walls down bc of the trauma she's been through but that when she cares for people like maggie or holly it inevitably shows, and sometimes in destructive ways despite her not intending so. there's a tragic element to mindy newell's interpretation of her character, and the guilt and grief over the unintended consequences of being able to wield power despite you having every right to possess it in the face of men who would otherwise take advantage of you. also all of that tied in with the catholic element from vol one is perfection

and jade! another tragic character lol. along a somewhat similar vein to selina and talia, i'm honestly just obsessed with women who try and try only for things to somehow always blow up in their faces. it's fascinating to see how she has to contend with what trauma has made of her in terms of her assassin work and her relationships with people she would otherwise care wholeheartedly about. i like that she has this struggle over keeping the emotional and practical aspects of her life separate and how she realizes over time that that isn't really possible, but she also doesn't know how to handle a life where those two aspects always collide. it's a great study in trauma impact i think

[jostenneil]

Hi, same anon who asked about Dixon's anti-abortion rant in comics? This isn't about Dixon, but have you heard of Frederick Wertham? In the 50's, he wrote a series of papers that the US later used as basis to create the Comics Code Authority. At the time, (don't take my word for it) single men could not adopt children and it was mostly couples who could do so, and later on, DC got accused of nasty stuff in the 1980's similar to what Wertham wrote. This might explain why DC's so adamant on (1/2)

(2/2) pairing Bruce in a romantic relationship, being constantly obsessed with Bruce's masculinity, and destroying his relationships with his adopted kids. Like, yeah the 50's and 80's were different eras, but they had far-reaching consequences on this character and media in general. And, I also feel like this is further seen with the other superfamilies? Not that they're stereotypically conservative, but many of them do seem rooted in that and this goes in tandem with the lone warrior thing

SO like i said in that ask a few hours ago, yeah, i read about the seduction of the innocent a while ago and it was really fascinating tbh! the impact on and perception of selina specifically was hilarious, like they thought she was antifeminine and homosexual and what do you know! there are some post-crisis interpretations of her that actually took those qualities into account, which i think is nice in an ironic sort of way, bc obv we'll never know if those developments were actually responses to things wertham said decades ago. with regards to bruce and dick, at least according to some of the articles i was reading, there was a misconception that aunt harriet was added to the adam west show to throw off the alleged homo vibes from their chemistry on the show due to wertham's papers, but his papers were released more than a decade prior to her appearance so it seems there's a consensus she was added for other, unrelated reasons. i definitely think the desire to portray heteronormativity as some moral pinnacle has influenced comics at large, but it's also interesting how that's impacted bruce over the years bc i think for him it's actually a bit different. with denny o'neil's era of writers esp i think they were just so focused on the idea of a lone, vengeful knight committed to his cause that they were uninterested in a romance that lasted and capitalized on the interest readers would have in a dark, brooding hero. and so for about twenty or thirty years you had a bruce who was still somewhat balancing his relationships with dick and jason but who was also constantly thrown into shadow bc his romantic relationships never quite panned out properly. and then we began to move into the dixon era of comics and really build the bat family at large, and that to me lasted as a pretty important focus into the last few years before the reboot despite bruce still having romantic pursuits here and there. the reboots to me (esp rebirth) really shifted things with the imbalance between bruce's family life and his romantic life bc of how comics canon was shifted and changed to sort of paint a new canvas. it shook the foundations of previously established relationships and so where writers wanted to make new ground they did, and i think with bruce that's where romance finally became a primary element rather than a secondary one bc the writers who had pushed for that image of him as a lone knight who would always put justice before self serving romantic pursuits, had kind of phased out and been replaced with a new generation of writers. there's actually interviews here and there from some of denny o'neil's proteges too (rucka and grayson in particular, as much as i dislike the latter) about how once he left it was just a years long process of editorial driving out every last o'neil protege they could so they could exact their own agenda

[jostenneil]

Hi, I'm the anon who talked about the character messing of Batman? I have an addition: I meant Wolfman's writing ended up planting the seeds of it, not that he actively or wantedly did so. Also, apparently Batman was raised by his uncle's housekeeper named Mrs. Chilton before Alfred became his parent and Dick had an Aunt Harriet who came to live at Wayne Manor - like idk but its weird that those ladies were phased out for Alfred Pennyworth and Leslie Thompkins (who was presumably busy with work)

alfred's phenomenon is so interesting to me bc he was this really corny butler with a cockney accent (i think it's cockney. idk english accents pls forgive me) back in the golden age that mostly acted as a backdrop to bruce and dick's adventures and on occasion helped out in some nonsensical circumstances. but like you said there was never the impression that he was particularly emotionally bonded to bruce and dick and that was obv bc at the time his backstory wasn't even being bruce's caretaker in the wake of his parents' death. and it's funny that he's given that role later on bc like there is a lot of potential with it but i don't particularly think comics have capitalized on alfred well. like sometimes he's omnipresent and actively against what bruce is doing, other times he's a sordid bystander, other times he doesn't even show up. his role is so inconsistent and erratic that it's hard to place whether he truly matters or not even tho he presents a lot of potential

idc much for dick's aunt harriet bc she was clearly meant to just be a replacement for alfred (when he temporarily died) and didn't offer much more than like, funny antics bc bruce and dick were trying to prevent her from learning their real identities gjkdfhldgf, but i do think mrs. chilton offered potential esp since it was her own son who murdered bruce's parents, and she never actually told him that. it would have been really interesting to explore that in a post-crisis context, and i think it could have been employed eloquently to illustrate that bruce really isn't someone who judges people and he tries to give the benefit of the doubt where he can. but yeah i think it's interesting that leslie was brought in only a couple years before mrs. chilton was phased out and to a similar end in that she knew bruce as a child and watched over him after his parents' death. i do like leslie's angle bc i think her being in the medical field and having to constantly bandage up bruce and let him go out and be a hero despite her concerns makes for an interesting tension, and one was for a while far better executed than it was with alfred, but it's unfortunate bc her character has kinda also been mutilated over the years bc writers don't want to approach that conflict with nuance for the life of them. we have war games and war crimes after all lol

in the end it's kinda crazy how all of these women have met the hatchet for the sake of pushing alfred like i don't hate alfred but like i said earlier his role is just so inconsistent that sometimes i can't be bothered to care for it jdkfsjglhfd