#esp the jason ones

[megustacat]

MCL New Gen: Bullshit Bingo

Spoiler-free version. For the version containing a major Episode 3-spoiler please see below

[dreaming-tonite]

Opening the discussion on what class members of the batfamily would be if they are dnd pcs because in true nerd fashion, all my current hyperfixations must have intersection points even if it means creating one myself:

Bruce — battle master fighter (ngl superiority dice confuses me sometimes but imo it is such a versatile and tactile class to play)

Dick — college of swords bard or hexblade warlock (not as focused on the charisma/performance aspect of things but still makes attacks using charisma stats over strength stats)

Barbara — I’m torn between school of divination wizard or knowledge domain cleric subclass because the former seems a bit too on the nose but it does make sense?? Tho i also think cleric honors her role as support (also clerics are so underrated, spirit guardian is literally one of my top spells)

Jason — path of the berserker barbarian OR oathbreaker paladin (im not a big fan of the black-and-white alignment styles of like “oathbreakers are innately evil” but the fact that this is the common idea makes for great plot potential)

Tim — bladesinging wizard (ngl im not sure about this one but i picked wizard for the int stats)

Cass — gloom stalker ranger (literal definition of you wont know what hit you until you are hit)

Damian — half-elven(*) assassin rogue

(*under personal preference, everyone is human unless specified because the charm of batfam to me is always that theyre not “meant to be” heroes but consciously become one. HOWEVER, elven al ghuls just seems like such a cool concept)

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[fakehusbandgarbagedump]

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game (3)

au where all robins develop a mental link after fighting some magical criminal of the week. what would they see in each other's minds? what secrets and repressed feelings do they discover? how would they deal with it?

for the ask game!

oooh, i love telepathic links that end up revealing secrets. especially with a family like the Batfam, who are usually so convinced they're good enough at reading each other to not have many secrets kept. so weird reveals are always fun

if i did this, i'd do DamiTim. just because of all the like, "deep dark feelings that are being hidden" for Robin shipping, DamiTim is the most fun for me. you expect DickTim or DickJay or JayTim, even DamiDick. but there's something that's so enjoyable about Damian having his feelings forcibly outted. not just to Tim, but to everyone. the way it'd be an active landmine none of them knowing what to say but all feeling each other's reactions. i honestly think Damian would try to punch somebody about it. (also, if you do a history of TImSteph where they've had sex, Damian would be directly linked to Steph's memories of how Tim was in bed, so that's fun as both something horrifying and enlightening just to screw with his feelings some more.) would they end up together? in my head probably, but it'd be weird and likely toxic bc how do you date someone you know inside out and know exactly what they think of all your flaws and what parts of you they obsess over. the answer is not very well but hey, the sex is good-

i think Jason *directly* feeling how everyone felt about his death would really rock him. he's heard all the apologies, but part of him isn't convinced there's truth to them. so to be crushed by Dick's *grief* over his death would be a come to jesus moment for him. but on the less fun flipside, you have him feeling how Dick feels about him *now*. because Dick doesn't really *like* Jason and deep down, sees Jason as a lost cause. that's his "deep dark secret". and Jason would feel and know that from the one person who he still wants to believe in him. i really do think Jason would have the Worst Time with all this, overwhelmed with everyone's intimate and complex feelings over his death. Jason is a very defensive person when it comes to his death and how reactionary he gets when other people make it about them, not him. so for Jason to have to constantly deal with that in his head, i truly do think he'd lash out a bit. the arguments. yelling at Dick and feeling Dick's guilt and snapping bc Dick has no right to feel guilty now. feeling that Tim viewed Jason as a failure. it's just a damaging mindspace to be in and man do i think Jason would take a While to recover.

oddly though, i think it'd be a good bonding moment for Steph and Jason. we really don't get much exploration of Steph and Jason bonding over dying. bc sure, Steph didn't actually die, but she *did* experience the social death where everyone believed she was dead and mourned her as such for a good while. she also felt *directly* responsible for her own death. a lot of blame falls on Steph for War Games (for the Doylist reasons of sexism but yk) and Jason feels responsible for his own death for walking into a trap. but unlike Jason, Steph had no suit in a case, no memorials, her name held no infamy. so i think she deserves just a bit of righteous fury about how dramatic Jason can be while she just has to move on bc hey, it's not like she *really* died. and she buries those feelings well, but not well enough to hide them from a mental link. and Jason, who hasn't really considered Steph before because he was so wrapped up in his complex over Tim, confronts those feelings with her. if anyone is going to know how he feels, it's going to be her. you could do it platonic or romantic, but i do think when Jason sinks to his lowest, she's the one who snaps him out of it, both with tough love and genuine compassion for his situation.

for the less serious crack of it all: they're all going to have far too intimate knowledge of each other's sex lives. everyone's gonna know Dick has fucked Slade. everyone's gonna know Jason has fucked Talia. in my heart, i believe Tim has slept with Anarky (Lonnie, not Ulysses) and everyone would *know* that too. absolute judgment all around. it's the spider-man meme of "wait you've done WHAT with WHO" and honestly, it gives a nice distraction for the more serious feelings. it's a palette cleanser they can default to. like when the fighting gets a little too serious and they're cutting too deep for comfort, someone's going to blurt out "well at least i didn't fuck Deathstroke." and the whole moment goes awry with laughter. bc i do think, at the end of it once they get through the worst of the angst, they'd be closer for it and self-aware of the ridiculous nature of all this. it's enlightening, in a way to see how they all felt about their time as Robin and the baggage/trauma they hold. even the ugliest feelings they hold for each other don't completely suffocate the fondness/respect.

that said, knowing the baggage/trauma. oof. i don't think Dick has ever fully opened up about his history with Mirage/Tarantula/Liu and now it's forced to sit in the open. Damian has never admitted the worst of being raised in the League. Tim hasn't fully faced the suffocating image of his dead father and his deep-seated want to kill Boomerang. all those ugly truths they stamp down bc well, either you're a vigilante or you're a well adjusted person, are out in the open now. and it's ugly and gruesome to force those thoughts to be shared. they all want to comfort each other for different reasons, while simultaneously not wanting their own trauma to be acknowledged. it'd be fun to see who'd instinctively react to whose trauma first. because it's an overwhelming rush of information, and you just naturally get pulled in certain directions. i think Damian would react to Dick's history of sexual abuse first, whereas Jason would be reacting to the murderous rage TIm is trying to fight off. Tim is reacting to just how much guilt Steph carries about War Games and all of it is very crunchy. there's so much they'd all have to talk about and it'd take days for them to address it all, between the arguments about the ugly parts. would they come out stronger for it? yes. but only if they didn't kill each other in the process. i hesitate to do a "and they come out one big happy family" ending, bc it's not very in canon, but i do think the bond of the Robin mantle is something special. even when the link is broken, they hold onto a freakish understanding of each other. they react and move in sync, can fight together without needing words. are they emotionally on the same page/have they forgiven each other for the worst of it? absolutely not. but they've got each other backs. it's a very much "if you called i'd drop everything to save you. but also we don't have it in us to hang out casually." bond, which i think is deeply underrated in fanfiction. sometimes, you can care about people but you have to do it from a distance.

[somewhereincairparavel]

Just posting this for the ppl who LOVE to push the FANON narrative that Jason and Percy aren't close friends as CANON. Grover is listed as Percy's main best friend (along with Annabeth ofc but she remains in the girlfriend category) and Jason comes literally SECOND in the Official Riordan wiki fanpage, and he's even labelled as "one of percy's best friends" not just "friend" or "close friend" like the others.

I don't get why people deny this SO bad like- pls let the almost nonexistent rivalry they both had (which is mostly between Jason and Percy fans) stay fanon.

"Jason and Percy are just co workers, barely even friends" Yup. Sure. I was so mislead by this narrative before I picked up HOO and was pleasantly surprised by how genuine percy and jason's friendship was in the books.. I half expected them both to ignore eachother or something throughout the scenes with how much the fandom exaggerated their rivalry/coldness with eachother.

Fanon is awesome. But it's not when you push it as canon. Let them be two seperate things please.

[starculler]

strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

.

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

.

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

.

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Imo Jason is “irredeemable” by default because I don’t see what he needs redemption from.

[luverina]

OKAY JEYNA im gonna be soo sick rn

[redr0sewrites]

as someone who has consistently had night terrors and nightmares since i was 4 years old, i wish that there were more fics of your fav character comforting you after a nightmare instead of the other way around.

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.

[batmanshole]

i live in a world where dick grayson has brown eyes and every time i see him with blue eyes i get scared for real like it actually scares me

[jgracie]

who r the top 2 best w kids pjo chars and why r they jason and percy 🗣

[ginalinettiofficial]

idk i just don’t trust ppl who say “billy is a racist abusive piece of shit” but then turn around and reblog jason content like. okay if u have that opinion that’s your prerogative but it’s MY prerogative to point out that it’s weird af to feel that way abt billy and NOT abt jason

[themyscirah]

Leaks looking like after War Journal ends that creative team is going to be split between Batman & Robin (PKJ, with Javier Fernandez on pencils) and Green Arrow (Montos, with DC newcomer* Chris Condon on script), which should be interesting I think

Also looking like GA is going to get an annual w Williamson and Izaakse, as well as maybe going to legacy numbering, at least for an issue or so (#350)

*newcomer to regular DC writing, from his credits it looks like he's written one story for a DC anthology before (Harley Quinn BW&R)

Leaked solicits under the cut

[weewoow-20706030]

'they wouldn't do that.'

'that didn't happen.'

'that character wouldn't say that.'

Shut up shut up shut up shut up