#its been a core part of Batman for years that he's good with kids this is such shitty writing

[trekkele]

the way the batkids are used as tools to bash Bruce’s character is so annoying

I dont even mean ‘fans acknowledging canon in which Bruce is a shit’ i mean ‘fans taking Bruces accomplishments/talents/skills, giving them to his kids, and then erasing them from Bruce’

[kaidatheghostdragon]

That trope where danny and jason meet during jason's six months dead? That, but with good fenton parents.

Jason is either the same age or a year or two younger than danny (between danny'and ellie's age). The fentons know danny is a ghost and have already adopted ellie. Team phantom includes the entire fenton family and valerie (and obv sam and tucker), maybe even valerie's dad.

Vlad is either reformed (post agit with teen dan?), blackmailed into submission, ran out of town, or "dealt with." The giw have been run out of town, and may or may not still exist somewhere licking their wounds. Peaceful ghosts are openly welcomed in the town, which is phantom's haunt, the fentons plus red huntress deal with the troublemakers, and the phantom siblings handle the biggest threats. May or may not be an everyone knows au.

Anyways, danny runs into the ghost of robin and is all, holy shit, a teen vigilante died, and immediately drags robin home to get all the overbearing comfort and love the fenton family can provide.

Somehow, that transformed into the fentons adopting the ghost of robin as one of their own. Jason even starts going to caspar high. Everyone knows that jason is a ghost of a kid who died too young and may be considered an honorary phantom, only team phantom knows that he's robin, and may have learned a concerning amount about batman from jason, depending on how open he is.

The joker disappears a month after jason joins the fentons and the fenton parents have solid alibis to prove they werent involved (having access to phantom's ghost allies is a large boon).

After six months of living (excuse the term) with the fentons, its as if jason has always been part of the family. So his sudden disappearance is a shock. Its treated as a ghostnapping, and the fentons are quick to use the boomerang to track him down.

They find a near-catatonic, but very much living, jason either wandering gotham, or just as he's being carted off by talia. If the latter, wrecking the league of assassins probably becomes an entire team phantom affair.

Jason is brought back home, and between the fentons and frostbite, they find a way to treat jason, learning that his living body is developing into a halfa in a similar slow manner that vlad did, but with jason's ghost core already fully developed.

That's four different halfas created in four different ways (five for five if teen dan exists), plus the increasingly liminal population of amity park, and the human members of team phantom so strongly liminal that they all have protocores and will probably become halfas when they die.

At this point, the story can go multiple directions.

If the fentons wrecked the league of assassins, either they discovered damian or talia dropped him off with bruce a few years early, when tim is just starting out as robin. If the fentons have damian, serious discussions about informing bruce of his biokid ensue, and the fact that theyve also adopted his undead son will inevitably come up and whether jason wants to deal with that mess of emotions.

If damian is dropped off with bruce, bruce is gonna hear stories of an orange man that can bust through walls, his teal assassin wife, their fiery daughter, and pair/trio of loyal white haired pit demons (assuming jason's ghost is white haired, and whether or not he's well enough to join), that wrecked ra's shit and sealed away the pits. He *will* investigate. Also, damian and tim will probably have to be kept separated, probably by having tim patrol with dick while bruce wrangles the feral child. This is smack dab in the middle of the worst period of the batfams social dynamics, but otoh, damian being younger will ultimately be better for him as he'll probably be deprogrammed a lot easier.

If the fentons never cross paths with the loa, another avenue is still open with the giw. If they've been run out of amity, but the anti ecto acts still exist, the justice league still have a chance to encounter them. Perhaps after amity ran the giw out, a formal complaint was filed to the justice league (they finally broke through the giw's blackout), but it was labelled a non-emergency (because the complaint described how the town couldnt get the message out until *after* they dealt with the problem) and was never investigated for being labelled a low priority. Baby robin tim found the file while exploring the bat computer and asked bruce about it, kicking off an investigation.

On the flipside, the giw try to convince the justice league that hostile entities have taken control of a small midwestern city, maybe the league is convinced right up until batman comes face to face with jason and is willing to hear him out.

If none of the above, jason could start talking about how he wants to return home to help crime alley, and the fentons support him all the way. You could even have jason still become red hood the crime lord, minus the family drama and joker ultimatum, and the training he would have gotten from the league is covered by ghost hunting, halfa powers, and the fenton parents' ecclectic skillset. Cue gotham being slowly invaded by team phantom as each child in turn goes to gotham U for college to be near and support jason.

Or jason is perfectly happy to stay in amity forever, but jazz goes to gotham U for its psychology program. She tries to keep her head low, but batman at this point runs a background check on every psychology major in gotham U (maybe bruce wayne funded a reform of the program - the reason why its now lauded as one of the best in the nation - to try to prevent more rogues being created.) Jazz pings a few warning criteria because her parents match a handful of mad scientist traits, so batman is now doing a full investigation on her family and finds a picture of jason.

Ignoring all of that, maybe jason keeps tabs on batman and is extremely upset that he's taken on another robin after the last one died. He's emotionally stable enough, and the fentons emotionally competent enough, to get him to talk and work through his emotions, but everyone agrees a wellness check for the new robin is in order. They go to gotham and confront batman, realize he's an emotional mess and that tim forced his way into the role and decide that the bats are all fentons now, no batman, you cannot escape. Assimilation is inevitable. We *will* get you to work through your grief and make you a better vigilante because of it. And tim has been abandoned by his parents and is living alone? That wont do. We're going to assume for your benefit that you were too grief-stricken to notice bruce, but you will not be making any more oversights like that under our watch.

There are probably a dozen other directions this could go, but mostly i just wanted to provide some prompts/ideas with ghost/halfa jason as a fenton. I need more fluffy fenton dynamics and jason fluff.

[autisticredhood]

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado page 5 / Batman #614 / Detective Comics #790 / In The Dream House / Detective Comics #790 / Batman #614 / In The Dream House / Batman #410 / Batman #428 / In The Dream house / Batman #617 / Detective Comics #790 / In The Dream House / Detective Comics #790 / Batman #618 / In The Dream House / Detective Comics #790 / Batman #614

ID under

[ID: Several photos weaving together text and comic panels. 

First image is of text that reads “The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection.”

Second image is a panel of Jason’s face on the ground in watercolor art style from Batman: Hush. He is wearing the Robin domino mask and his mouth is parted open. He is splattered with blood. A blue caption reads “Jason.”. The panel is overlaid in red. 

Third image is a cropped panel of Bruce and Cass in front of Jason’s grave. Bruce is saying “He would have been eighteen today.” 

Fourth image is of text that reads “Memoirists re-create the past, reconstruct dialogue.”

Fifth image is of Bruce and Cass surrounded by graves as Bruce is saying “But he was brash. Impulsive. Headstrong. Never looking before he leapt…I knew that, but I didn’t stop him because he wanted it so badly. He wanted too much to prove something.”

Sixth and seventh images are cropped panels from Batman: Hush with Batman in watercolor art style. The sixth image has blue captions that reads “No matter what differences we’ve had through the years, I’ve always known that Dick had a gift. Jason only had…rage.” In the seventh image the captions are “Jason never had the skills that Dick had. I should never have let him put on that costume.” 

The eighth image is text that reads “They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant.”

The ninth image is of two panels from Jason’s post-crisis Robin run in the 80s. The first panel is of Bruce’s face with the Batman cowl pulled down. He’s saying, “Hardly, the other Robin would’ve done the same thing…You two really are two of a kind.” The accompanying panel is an up close shot of Jason’s grinning face in the Robin suit. He’s saying, “Thank You, Mister Wayne. Mind if I stay up awhile and do some homework?”

The tenth image is of two panels from Death In The Family of Bruce cradling Jason’s dying mother, Sheila. In the first panel Shiela is saying with many ellipses between her words, “He turned out to be such a good kid all his problems and he still turned out good.” In the second panel she is saying, “He threw himself in front of me. He took the main brunt of the blast.”

The eleventh image is text that reads “They braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat.”

The twelfth image is a panel from Batman: Hush that is cropped to only show a caption that reads “Jason saw being Robin as a game. It’s probably what got him killed.”

The thirteenth image are of two panels from Bruce and Cass at Jason’s grave. The first panel is a cropped shot of Bruce saying “Yes. Maybe if I’d put an end to his attempts, he’d be getting ready to go off to college…” The following panel is of Bruce and Cass standing as dark silhouettes against a red sky with the angel statue of Jason’s grave looming over them. Bruce is finishing his thought from the last panel and saying, “Or just having a normal life…”

The fourteenth image is text that reads “They manipulate time; resuscitate the dead.”

The fifteenth image is of two panels from two different comics. The first is from Batman: Hush in modern comics art style and not watercolor. It’s a cropped panel of Tim Drake in the Robin suit yelling, “No matter what he says, Jason’s death still haunts him. Why else would he keep Jason’s costume so prominently in the cave?” The second panel is a cropped image of Barbara Gordon on the BatComputer screen from the same issue of Bruce and Cass visiting Jason’s grave. She’s contacting Bruce before he goes to the graveyard, saying, “Maybe you’re busy...Look Batgirl just came by. She seemed…upset. I don’t know what happened, but…if this is about what today is, then…Just Know I’m here if you need…”  

The sixteenth image is of text that reads “They put themselves, and others, into necessary context.”

The seventeenth image is a panel of Bruce and Cass in the graveyard. Bruce is saying, “But he’ll never have that. Maybe it’s not too late for Stephanie.”

The eighteenth and final image is an edited panel from Batman: Hush in watercolor style again. It is a close up of the R symbol of the Robin suit with blood stains on it. The panel is overlaid in red again. The edit is a blue caption from the same issue that is added to above the R symbol. It reads Batman’s inner monologue of “For these reasons, I’ve carried the burden of responsibility for Jason’s death.”

End ID.]

[blackbatcass]

If it’s okay could you recommend comics for the flash fam? I really want to start reading them but I have no idea where to start 😅

YES I ABSOLUTELY CAN ANON!! reading flashfam comics can change your life for the better fr, unlike batman comics which usually change your life for the worse. Flash comics are honestly very simple to get into? for the most part you can just pick which era you want to start with, hop on that mainline ongoing and read from there.

this got kind of ridiculously long (i ramble about flash sorry)

i am not by any means a well-read silver age fan so I'll just skip right over those LMAO. if you want to read barry's run i assume you can just read flash v1 up until crisis. if you're interested in reading wally as kid flash he's featured in backups throughout a lot of v1 iirc!

unsurprisingly, my number one rec for the flashfam would be the flash volume 2 (1987). it's got pretty much everything you need. it introduced the speed force, basically created what we think of as the flashfamily, reintroduced & created beloved characters, and built up wally into the loser we know and love today<3 at its core it's the story of wally's journey from the very start of his career as the flash, learning how to fill barry's shoes and be a grown-up. it starts when he's this insane cringe 20 year old loser and ends with him as a full adult who's married with two kids LOL. it does soooo much work for wally as a character it's unreal.

but to keep it real flash v2 is......very long. like Incredibly long. it is 200+ issues and ran for over 20 years. so i can break it down into some smaller pieces & try to provide a roadmap so it's maybe a little less intimidating

the bad news is that the first guy to start out on the run fucking HATED wally for some reason lmfao and it shows. it's painful to read. the good news is he only stayed for the first 14 issues lol so honestly you can just skip those and start at #15 where william messner-loebs took over. now......the messner-loebs era is also not perfect and can be a bit of a slog. I love it in the fond 'wow wtf was all that' kind of way but it is definitely not a masterpiece. there are a lot of unmemorable, bland (occasionally batshit & ridiculous) arcs and he introduces a whole army of mostly forgettable side characters. credit where credit is due there is a lot of good stuff in there, he set up some stuff that is foundational to flash lore (like LINDA!! and hartley!) but it's not for everyone. if you want you can jump in at #31, where wally moves to keystone, or if you read some of it and it's not for you it's honestly fine to just skip to #62 where waid's run begins. #62-65 are a flashback retelling of wally's origin story (basically flash year one) and it's sooo good. essential wally reading.

the waid run is definitely the best section of the comic. it's classic it's iconic it builds the flashfamily it creates the speedforce it introduces bart allen. it's phenomenal. if you are interested in characters like bart, the garricks, johnny & jesse quick, and max mercury they are all integrated into the flashfam over this run. if nothing else i would recommend reading this part. oh and SPEAKING of bart allen, he gets introduced in issue #92! he hangs out in flash for a bit, zero hour happens, and pretty soon after his impulse series starts in 1995.

this is my #2 flashfam rec! if you have been in these tumblr circles at all then you've heard us rave about impulse 1995. it's simply Thee comic of all time. everyone on earth needs to read it im not kidding. it follows bart's life living with max mercury and his daughter helen, trying to adjust to normal life in the past. it's just. it's the best. it's 89 issues long, but honestly it goes by SUPER fast. i would recommend doing what i did and reading impulse and flash in parallel, just to get that organic experience & context. they cross over several times until impulse eventually ends.

ok back to flash v2. once geoff johns takes over..... i mean i won't say it ruins the comic and there is definitely stuff worth reading but i love waid infinitely better. it's really up to you. waid also comes back now and then to write a few chunks.

the flash series doesn't end until 2008. the next big thing after would be flash: rebirth, which. i am not a fan of for obvious reasons (get back in that coffin barry) but it's essential to understanding the plot so i have to include it lol.

i honest to god have no idea wtf was going on during flashpoint & new52. I will not pretend to understand that era. however if you are interested in the modern flashfam & the introduction of characters like ace west and avery ho, there are a couple good places to start! if you want to read williamson's run, you can start at the rebirth flash run (flash v5 #1). wally is eventually reintroduced (thank god) during this run.

if you want to start at the jeremy adams run (which features lots of members of the flashfamily) you can start at flash #768, which runs all the way to #800.

I would personally recommend the current flash ongoing written by si spurrier! it is kind of a lot and I'm in the minority in my love for it but it's interesting, thoughtful, has a role for pretty much every character, and has a lot of really cool cosmic horror elements. i will concede that it is VERY complicated and technical but you can tell spurrier has things to say and honestly it's so rare that a comic makes me think these days that i'm eating it up.

there were also two recent flashfam miniseries that just finished, speed force and jay garrick: the flash! i enjoyed both. they're short and fun.

aaaand that's my list! it is by no means comprehensive and it is very possible i got some things wrong so I apologize in advance. if you have any more questions I will be happy to try and answer them. I hope this was at least a little bit helpful and not even more confusing lol!

[navree]

this is dc twitter discourse at the moment so i thought i'd ask your thoughts on it do you think red hood jason hurting children is ooc/a bad writing choice???

And this ladies and gents is why I avoid DC Twitter because I don't think I've seen any good takes there ever, no matter where you are. Sometimes people post panel compilations that hurt my heart, that's the like the only good thing to come out of it, I don't even click on the MAWS hashtag if it trends while the show is airing because last time I did it was people bitching that 25 year old Slade did not look or act the same way that current in his forties Slade does (not to mention, how can you complain about MAWS Slade? he's the best part about the show how did anyone not just fall over laughing with delight the second he showed up and proclaimed himself to be literal Slade Wilson?).

With that said, yeah I would consider that to be a bad writing choice. Talking about characterization for comics is hard because, as I've mentioned, comics is an incredibly decentralized creative medium in a way none others are. Movies, TV shows, novels, they all tend to have a main core group of people or even just one solitary person in charge of the creative direction, and for a lot of them, a very finite "this is where we start and this is where we end" mentality that comics do not. These characters have had constantly changing creative heads, with new directions and ideas for characterization attached, since their inception, and they've all been around for a very long time. This is why comics are kind of the only medium where you can, in fact, really pick and choose your canon, because the canon has changed so much depending on who is in charge at a giant company. Like, canonical eighties Batman characterization would be considered super OOC for someone writing canonical modern Batman, and vice versa. So talking about characterization is hard, especially with Jason when nobody has had any idea what to fucking do with him for decades at this point. But, when it comes to Red Hood Jason, there is something I consider gospel canon, which is the Under the Red Hood arc, since that is what nearly all subsequent canon imaginings of Jason take from. That is our gold standard here. And based on UTRH, yeah, Jason harming children is out of character and it is bad writing.

When Jason comes back, he has two very clear goals. Goal one: the Joker's gotta die, preferably Batman kills him so Jason gets concrete proof that he was loved and mourned (Jason is not mentally healthy so his thought process doesn't make sense just roll with it), but Jason is fine killing the man himself, so long as he dies. Goal two: essentially fulfill Batman's mission in a way where it actually accomplishes his goals. Jason outlines this pretty specifically in Batman #641, he tells Bruce "You. I'll be you. The you you're supposed to be." Jason's goal as the Red Hood is to make Gotham better (in his head), safer, and cleaner, but unlike Batman he is willing to take that goal as far as he can and will kill if necessary. What he wants is to just take Batman's mission to its logical extreme. Eradicate the various elements that have caused suffering in Gotham throughout the years, just with more permanence than Batman does, and less of a focus on rehabilitation, because you can't rehabilitate a dead person. And as part of this, Jason does not act unnecessarily. When he kills, it is people who (arguably) deserve it, and it is never innocents. It is always the criminal element, and people he believes are past the point of no return, as well as those who might be trying to stop him in that. His mission statement is literally "Death will come to those who deserve death, and death may come to those who stand in my way of doing what's right." and he means that. This is not a character you've created to then go out and harm children, because kids have not done anything to deserve it, and they are not the cause of the issues that he is trying to eliminate.

There's also the fact that Jason, even in his early Red Hood days where editorial just decided that he's a straight villain now, was never someone who went after kids, but in fact actively tried to help them. He makes it a point to tell his people that they do not sell drugs to kids and that if they do, he'll kill them (along with telling them not to get previously clean people hooked and only sell to repeats, which also paints him as someone who isn't just hurting others willy-nilly). The first person Jason ever kills, as seen in Red Hood: Lost Days, is a man who was involved in child trafficking, and he does it specifically because he wants to save those kids and future victims from him, and considers him scum of the Earth as a result (I think his name was Egan? Egon? idfk I don't reread Lost Days because I find their whole "look at fully adult Talia fucking the mentally ill sixteen year old under her care who is reliant on her for everything, how sexy" shtick abhorrent, and using Talia as their child rapist doubly so). So Jason, even at his most villainous, at his most "this is a bad dude" characterized, is someone who deliberately avoids harming innocents because it's not compatible with his mission or his personal code, and includes children very specifically in that.

It is also out of character and a bad writing choice because of Jason's own childhood. You might think a rebuttal to this is "Jason wants to kill/hurt criminals, what if kids are criminals" well guess what Jason was a kid criminal! It is actually illegal to steal parts off of people's cars, even if that person can afford it because he's Batman (to say nothing of the multiple very heavy handed hints dropped that Jason solicited as a prostitute during his time being homeless, which is also a crime, it is illegal and he would have been picked up by the cops for it if found out). Unless you want to argue that Jason thinks he himself should have been taken out with a Glock at the big of age of eleven for doing illegal things in the name of survival, you can't say that Jason's philosophy would allow him to harm children and remain in character or decently written, you just can't. Like, your other gospel for Jason's characterization should be his original Robin run from the 80s, since that's literally what introduced him to this world in the first fucking place, so duh. And there's nothing in that characterization to suggest that he would harm anyone unnecessarily, especially kids. Like, Robin Jason spares Two-Face's life, after having found out days ago that Two-Face murdered Willis Todd in cold blood; he tries to save Sheila Haywood's life after she straight up helps murder him; this isn't someone whose characterization allows for him to hurt children later in life. Especially once you factor in his struggles as a child, and how that most likely just breeds empathy for other children, especially children who are having a hard time.

Now, I can guess that some of this comes up in discussions of one of my most loathed subjects, the stupid bad stupid dumb stupid attack on fucking Titan's Tower. Now, even beyond the fact that the stupid attack on stupid Titan's Tower is less about Jason wanting to beat up children and more his specific issues with Bruce and the concept of Robin that can't be transplanted to other people, the attack itself is bad writing. It is out of character for Jason. It does not jive at all with his stated characterization and motivations that he himself outlined (also the only other closest thing to that is his fight with Mia Dearden, where he's pretty tame in just warning her to leave vigilantism and straight up beats her twice before letting her go relatively unscathed of his own free will, just saying) and it makes no sense. His issues are that the Joker is alive and Batman didn't do anything about it. Why the fuck would he care about Tim? Tim means nothing to him, he never even met the little dude, he doesn't have an issue with him. He doesn't even have an issue with the idea of Robin being passed down because Jason literally said he was perfectly content to not be Robin and just be Jason, and his problems don't arise from Robin! The issues at the heart of Jason's conflict with Bruce hinge on the Bruce and Jason relationship of father and son, not Batman and Robin! And not fucking Tim! Tim means nothing, he is a nonentity. The only reason this fuckass plot exists is because DC didn't know what to do with Jason and threw shit at the wall to see what would stick, similar to what we saw with that dumb plot with Nightwing from this time that also has similar issues, in that why would Jason care enough to cause problems for Dick, he doesn't have an issue with Dick, he legit interacts with Dick in UTRH and he's fine! (a better writing decision would have been post-UTRH Jason immediately writing the entire Batfam off and treating them as hostiles whenever they wander into Crime Alley and them having to regain his trust back/him agreeing to let down more and more barriers as time goes on and they all reconnect, but I was like seven when all this was being written so DC didn't seek my input) The fucking dumb Titan's Tower thing that people are gonna use to prove that Jason hurting kids isn't bad writing isn't even about Jason, the only reason this shit gets trotted out again and again is because Tim Drake has a lot of fans who are absolutely convinced their poor uwu baby has suffered more than Jesus when the only person in the Batfam who's suffered less than him is, like, Alfred (although I can make the argument that Alfred has still suffered more by having had to put up with Bruce Wayne almost singlehandedly for most of his adult life). It exists in people's minds even tho it is objectively bad writing and out of character for one of the main players because fanon Tim has to be the most special boy ever (and also because these people wanna use it to make Tim interesting which is impossible because nothing can make Tim interesting).

Jason hurting children deliberately is, indeed, bad writing. It is, in fact, incredibly out of character. It does not compute to his explicit motivations and how he was characterized in the stories that have since been used as a jumping off point for his characterization ever since. And ultimately, the thing is this: if Red Hood Jason is just trying to do Batman's job better than Batman, who is he doing it for if not children? Who is he trying to clean up Gotham for, make Gotham a better place for, if not her children? And if that's the case, as it obviously is, why on Earth would him then harming her children be any kind of good character writing or coherent characterization?

TL;DR, yes it is.

[freedvmrouge]

SPOILERS | guardians of the galaxy vol. 3 

i just watched it yesterday and finally have my laptop open to talk about it!

first and foremost, WHY CAN’T SOMEONE JUST FUCKING KILL THE RED SKULL THIS MF IS A GODDAMN PARASITE ACROSS THE FUCKING UNIVERSE WTF

it wasn’t even surprising, man. this is fucking par for the goddamn course for that nazi asshole. of fucking course he’d find a way to travel the universe and continue his horrendous experiments and crimes against every being in existence. absolutely no one aligned with batman’s no-kill rule can ever convince me that this monster is deserving of a second chance. steve fucking rogers—the guy who said with his whole chest that he didn’t want to kill anyone, he just didn’t like bullies no matter where they come from—was fully prepared to murder johann ‘red skull’ shmidt but the tesseract transported him across the universe instead. this asshole already had a second chance. so please. please tell me the red skull finally fucking died in that explosion. i need it for closure and peace of mind.

if someone tells me the high evolutionary ain’t actually the red skull, imma look hella stupid, but alas, that is the hand i’ve been dealt.

that being said, i think this ‘plot twist’ was actually super well-done. i read somewhere years ago that good plot twists are where the information is already given to the viewer and the end result actually makes sense. it didn’t just come out of absolutely nowhere. it’s smart and clever and fun. it rewards the viewer rather than insult them coughloveandthundercough

right, so. i will admit that with the mcu’s most recent films, i was not coming into this film with high expectations. when my brother asked me to go, i really hesitated. i’m not so completely wow-ed by this film, but i am appreciative of what it is. i am also very appreciative of the fact that this stands on its own and isn’t a trailer for the next thing coughquantumaniacough and sure, you need to remember that this gamora is not the old gamora bc that one’s dead and gone, but the film addresses that really well, i think.

peter was the most outwardly grieving character in this film. gamora isn’t dead, per se, but their relationship and memories of the last few years are dead. now peter has to accept and live with and move on with the fact that there’s going to be a gamora still out there who has nothing to do with him. this was wonderfully done. and i was so happy when they parted the way they did and gamora returned to her home. the home she made for herself and the home that welcomed her back with open arms. 

addition to the above about this alt-gamora— just loving how nebula’s still in contact gamora. i think in a different, very roundabout way, nebula finally got the sister she wanted. plus she has her own family with the guardians and now all the kids/society with drax. plus her extremely abusive father is dead and gone. sounds like wins to me. okitsmorecomplicatedthanthatiknowbutlisten the important part is that nebula has moved on. she’s happy with how her life is going. she’s got things to look forward to. she’s doing great.

i think they did a great job with rocket. the story revolved around him and his history, so you might say he was the main main character and sure. he wasn’t a dynamic character bc there wasn’t exactly much of his present tense time being part of the journey of the film to grow as a character. but he did get closure for himself. he wasn’t able to save his friends, lylla, floor, and teeths, but he managed to save a whole bunch of others like him. he even confronted his abuser (which, you are never obligated to do so, just fyi) and lived. and he will keep on living to his fullest with his new and old friends/family. i’m so happy for rocket.

last notes: i’m really happy with how everyone parted. i was fully expecting core members to die off and that’s it for their actors’ tenures in the mcu, at least with this character. it seems like marvel writers finally listened lol even if we never see drax/nebula again, we know they’re off helping build a society. or peter decided to stay with his grandfather and just live on earth. or gamora’s off with the ravagers. it makes sense for their characters and their individual journies. it’s great. it’s fantastic. (though i actually wish peter died bc wtf he was without oxygen and was ready to fucking explode or smth but suddenly adam bringing him back to knowwhere is enough to revive him. ok.)

[graysonshmayson]

ok not a character playlist BUT some from my batman playlist:

song that is pretty accurate to the character's story

Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls- Bruce + kids dynamic

All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers- batkids,

Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers- more batkids daddy issues

song that doesn't fit the character at all but i was thinking about them while listening to it on loop

Wonderwall by Oasis

Never Tear us Apart by INXS

Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger

My Own Worst Enemy by Lit

Renegade by Styx

Lukewarm by Penelope Scott

song that has one or two lines accurate to the character's story

august by Taylor Swift- Dick + Damian as batman and robin (specifically the parts about how "you were never mine" :( get it bc he's not dick's son)

Rose Colored Boy- Dick + Jason

Two Slow Dancers by Mitski- i think dick and bruce want to go back sometimes

Thumbs by Lucy Dacus- "You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid. But you don't owe him shit even if he said you did. You don't owe him shit even if he said you did". CMON!

mirrorball by Taylor Swift- dick grayson/tim drake trying to heal bruce "I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me. I'm still a believer but I don't know why. I've never been a natural. All I do is try, try, try. I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me". I've never been a natural all i do is try is especially tim drake coded.

song that just kind of is the vibe of the character

Lil Boo Thang by Paul Russel- Dick

Yellow Brick Road by Elton John- Jason

Bug Like an Angel by Mitski- general batfam blues

Blue Hair by TV Girl- Tim

Paper Rings/Lover by Taylor Swift- dick + barbara

Alíen Blues by Vundabar- jason todd

Feels Blind by Bikini Kill- stephanie brown

song that i desperately wish they would listen to because i personally like it

Vampire Empire by Big Thief

Christmas Kids by Roar

champagne problems by Taylor Swift

Cruel Summer by Versus Me- dick would fuck with this so hard

Happy Together (feat. Ray Toro) by Gerard Way

Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender- robins specifically!!

song that fits with the character so well its scary

Rule #4: Fish Inside a Birdcage by Fish Inside a Birdcage- SO DAMIAN AND DICK CODED WHAT THE HELL. LISTEN TO IT RN.

The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives- DICK GRAYSON ARE YOU KIDDING ME. "All those empty rooms, we could have been anywhere, anywhere else. Instead, I made a bed with apathy. My heart knew the weight, ten years worth of dust and neglect, we made our peace with weariness and let it be" is so good for like the harsher realities of being robin and being the son of an emotionally unavailable and mentally ill man. plus the whole concept? "I shine only with the light you gave me"? SO robin core because he gave them EVERYTHING and then they have to exist without them?

Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother- very jason todd but more importantly

Would’ve Could've Should’ve by Taylor Swift- EVERY LINE OF THIS SONG is about jason todd!!! idc if you don't like taylor, if you like jason (ESPECIALLY catholic guilt jason like i do) check this out. I can't even quote specific lines because its so him. maybe in another post. I'll just leave this: "God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be, the tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind, regret you all the time. I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep, the wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign. I regret you all the time"

unsure why this song is in the playlist but it's so ingrained in my mind as 'part of the playlist' that it would feel weird to remove it

Harness your Hopes (B-Side) by Pavement

Rät/Feel Better by Penelope Scott

Creep by Radiohead

an additional genre i’d like to include is:

“this song doesn’t canonically related to the storyline of this character but it matches perfectly with elements of their backstory i have made up”

18 by Anarbor- OK so this actually inspired so much by @duckytree's take on teenage dirtbag dick grayson but in my vision he dates roy after moving out in his teenage rebellion era and bruce does NOT like him dating roy lmao. "long hair and tattoos"... and roy gets that its a phase but is super into it anyway and they party hard together. this is canon and real to me. there is no alternative meaning to this song.

Moving in Place by Shauna Dean Cokeland- similar to the previous, this is teenage dirtbag titans!! fucking around on a beach in SF. check this OUT: "The world just ain't ready for us yet, that's it" says the guy to your left, you would die for that kid. Watch his eyes as they get sorta distant and different, and we're moving in place again, we're moving in place again. It sure is fun to hate something you'll love when it's gone. This time, it's everywhere and everyone at once. From moving in place to moving on, to moving on, to moving on, to moving on". Soooooso titan's coded.

right where you left me by Taylor Swift- to most people this is just another t swift song, but to me, it is actually about how bruce is frozen in time in his head after his parents death and cant move on

Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl by of Montreal- i am ur average TimBer enjoyer but the merits of TimKon cannot be ignored and this sososo reads as Kon lamenting about Tim after he gets with Bernard, my poor boy...

character playlists always should have the following:

song that is pretty accurate to the character’s story

song that doesn’t fit the character at all but i was thinking about them while listening to it on loop

song that has one or two lines accurate to the character’s story

song that just kind of is the character’s vibe

song that i desperately wish they would listen to because i personally like it

song that fits the character so well that it’s scary

unsure why this song is in the playlist but it’s so ingrained in my mind as 'part of the playlist' that it would feel weird to remove it

[ectonurites]

has jason ever on page objected to the concept of 'child soldiers' the way he so often does in fanon? as far as i remember he never did in utrh which i read fairly recently. as far as i can tell his beef with bruce is entirely driven by resentment of the fact that bruce won't 'do what needs to be done' and any objection he has about tim is more about being replaced than it is about the idea that batman put another child in danger. which like,, meshes better with the dc precedent that superhero sidekicks aren't explicitly bad but fandom brings it up so often i can't help but wonder.

Nah, as far as I can recall that's a fanon thing.

I think the closest is him calling the idea of Batman having a teen sidekick a mistake while he was in the middle of beating the shit out of Tim:

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #29)

But… with any sort of context about Jason and other things going on with him, this doesn't read like he has a problem with 'child soldiers'/teenage vigilantes as a general concept- it's not like he says 'training a teenager to be a vigilante' is the mistake, it's specifically Bruce 'training a teenager to fight against something he'll never eradicate'. Jason's problem here is still 100% rooted in his anger at Bruce and how Bruce handles Gotham. It’s a 'My death didn't change anything- it didn't make Bruce kill Joker and didn't even stop him from bringing more people into this cycle who will just inevitably end up getting hurt/killed like me’ sort of thing, elements of that have been expressed elsewhere like UTRH:

(Batman #650)

And also makes me think of this bit in Lost Days:

(Red Hood: The Lost Days #2)

It’s all coming from that same place, of Jason being angry about (and hurt by) Bruce refusing to kill the Joker/the bad guys. When he says Bruce never 'gave a damn about any of us', I imagine the 'us' means 'all the people Bruce involves in hero work' (just a page or so before he mentions Alfred & Dick so like, its the implication). It's Jason saying that by choosing his methods, Bruce is actively endangering the people he involves in the Batfam and that if he really cared about them he would just kill the bad guys- that his own death should have been that turning point. So, at core, I believe Jason was really calling that act of bringing anyone (just especially a kid) into his whole never-ending (because Jason sees killing as the only way to truly ‘end’ it, for things to ever change) fight that he cares about above all else a mistake- not because of some grander moral stance on child soldiers but because he thinks Bruce’s whole approach is a mistake.

Like, it’s just Jason projecting his feelings onto the situation while trying to demoralize Tim (because that’s another factor- he’s saying this during a fight with Tim where he’s… trying to fuck with Tim’s head! Insisting that Tim’s whole current life path is a mistake his mentor made is… part of that!)

And like... here's the thing. I know a lot of people love the 'child protector' Jason idea, I think that goes often hand in hand with the idea of him being against 'child soldiers' in fanon, but especially with pre-reboot Jason... That just doesn’t consistently mesh with what we’re presented!

While I don't think he'd go out of his way to target kids, and he in general thinks kids should be protected and doesn't want harm to come to them (like, he goes through all that effort in Lost Days to take down the child traffickers and save those kids)... Jason is just... not above sacrificing/hurting kids for what he sees as the greater good/for following through with his plans (Remember that time during Battle for the Cowl he shot Damian, his 10 year old brother, for getting in his way?). And he's definitely not against involving teens in vigilante stuff as a general rule. He just doesn't like Bruce doing it because he’s got a whole slew of problems with how Bruce does everything.

Like, for example, Jason himself tried to recruit a teen hero (Mia Dearden) to work with him (and this story was even written by Winick, so like, theoretically this in particular is consistent with his UTRH outlook/ideology)

(Green Arrow Vol. 3 #72)

And at one point he advocated to Tim (while... trying to get him to work with him) for using 'kid gangs' as fodder during a whole gang war erupting in Gotham:

(Robin (1993) #177)

...and shortly after that he tries to get Tim to be his Robin during Battle for the Cowl too.

And after BftC he did eventually get his own teen sidekick, Scarlet/Sasha.

(Batman and Robin (2009) #4)

And while I was mostly talking pre-reboot here, even post-reboot Jason repeatedly ends up working with kids/teens, like Duela Dent

(Red Hood/Arsenal #6)

Who at that time was apparently around the age Jason was when he died:

(Red Hood/Arsenal #10)

And also... all the Generation Outlaws kids who are literally his students in trying to become villains:

(Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #37)

...So yeah, I super don't recall his general stance on 'child soldiers'/teens being vigilantes really changing even with the reboot. (Though I do think post-reboot Jason would not really be willing to sacrifice kids the same way pre-reboot Jason would)

[mypassionsarenysins]

disremembered.

Past!Steve Rogers x Reader, Bruce Wayne x Reader. 

Summary: Steve Rogers had lived his life, it was only fair for you to live yours right?

Author’s Note: okay so another crossover and for this I’m thinking of Christian Bale batman, so read at your discretion. It’s also a lil sad and some happy parts. Thank you to @stuckonjbbarnes @honeyloverogers and @buckysmischief

Steve stared at the roof looking at the white pristine celling. 

He waited for the other person on the other side of the room to finish with her nightly routine. 

He kept staring at the ceiling closing his eyes and for a brief moment he felt you.

His mind had the ability of taking him back to that night, the moment he decided to leave her. Trying to conquer an illusion, a fleeting moment of what should have been. 

His mind told him to do it, but his heart. 

His heart was the most unforgiving part of himself that never really let it go. 

And now here he is age clear on his face, wrinkles in his one youthful hands that made you laugh, that held you when you cried, now old and lonely. 

He had everything he was looking for, or so he thought. 

A knock on the door interrupted his thought making Steve get up from the bed looking outside the window as he makes his way to the front door. 

He opens the door smiling at the man on the other side who had his infamous frown plastered on his face. 

“Come in please,” Steve motions to the living room but the man on the other side doesn’t make a move, for a moment it looks like he could burn at the mere thought of walking through the door. 

“No,” the man says anger written clear on his features. 

“Bucky you’ve been here before,” Steve motions with pleading eyes, but Bucky stays unmoving. 

“You really think I wouldn’t know that Scott wouldn’t tell us what you wanted to do,” Bucky says as he gets more and more exasperated. 

“It’s not what you think,” Steve please as he closes the door and walks to the porch Bucky leaving as much distance as possible. 

“No it’s much worse,” Bucky says. 

“Sam and I receive this call from Scott saying that you met to get back to the past to get back to her.” Bucky says. 

“You already lived your life Steve, you have a wife, kids, and grandkids.” Bucky motions at the house. 

The house that he build but thought of you in every detail, when Peggy would ask about why he would say. 

“Because its meant to be that way.”

She never really mentioned it again but the essence of her was in the house of all time. 

From the constant need to have sunflowers in the kitchen because, 

“Steve if there is gonna be flowers in the kitchen its gonna be sunflowers.” You said softly as you unwrapped the bright flowers from the brown paper.

Or how he still kept the little folded handkerchief you embroided because, 

“That is more your style Steve.” You said softly as you stand on your toes and kiss him softly on the lips.

After all those years Steve could still see you, feel you, and on some night he can almost touch you. 

“Bucky I don’t think you understand, this, this is meant to be hers,” Steve says looking up at the house that took him a good decade yo built.

When Peggy asked him why the changes to the house he was never brave enough to admit that the house never felt his and Peggy’s, he always felt this should’ve been your house with him. 

“This is not her house Steve! She already has a home,” Bucky says accentuating each word he said. 

“Her home, with her fiancé” Bucky said louder coming face to face to the man in front of him. 

The words surprised Steve more than it should. He knew he had no right to complain at this point. You were free the moment he left her, he assumed you would move forward, but he felt the slight betrayal in his core. 

But who was Steve to judge when he was the first one to move forward. 

Still that voice in the back of his mind that always brought you up was, angry, to say the least. 

Steve takes a deep breath and takes a seat over the rocking chairs on the front porch. Another touched you where enamored by. 

“Steve, when we get our house he have to put rocking chairs in the front porch.” You said sternly yet a smile shone on your face. 

“Why is that sweetheart?” Steve ask as serially as he can with you sitting on his lap. 

“Because I know we are growing old together, and you of all people should know that people of a certain age like rocking chairs on the porch, old man.” You say that last part and leap out of his lap running away you giggles is all that can be heard in the apartment as Steve laughs and runs after you. 

“Tell me about it,” Steve motions to the chair, but Bucky stays still.

“Steve you just have to let it go,” Bucky tries to appeal Steve but he knows it’s a lost cause. 

Bucky sighs and sits on the step on the porch, his back turned to Steve as he recalls the news and everything that lead up to it. 

“She actually left New York a couple of weeks after you left,” Bucky recalls with sadness on his eyes. 

Bucky remembers how betrayed he felt, you where leaving him, just like Steve. Of course now he realizes it was for the best, but at the moment, he had a different mind set. 

“You are gonna leave me to? Huh? My so called new sister, just gonna walk away like him?” Bucky yells angry as you turn to him shocked face and tears on your eyes. 

“You don’t get to compare what happened,” You drop the box in your hands and sob. Your sobs clear Bucky’s head for a minute. 

“Steve left us Bucky, he left to follow his dreams, I am allowed to try to move forward!” You yell from the place on the floor as you hug your knees. 

Bucky slowly approaches you realizing that this is bigger than he could’ve ever imagined. He realized in that moment that he was supposed to be Steve’s past, but you, you that opened you life to him. 

You so soft and tender, never an ounce of judgment or regret of letting him in. 

You that tenderly took care of him, welcome him into your home, and called him your brother to anyone who would listen. 

You where supposed to be Steve’s future. 

And now all you both had left was the whole Steve Rogers left. 

“Don’t cry petal, I’m sorry,” He says tenderly as he reaches for you slowly. 

“Do you think that I want to leave my home. My whole life behind.” You say as you calm down and look at Bucky with sadness, but love for him. 

“I know Steve left you too, but you can come with me to Gotham. “ you say as you look at him with determination. 

“But New York is my home,”  Bucky tries to reason. 

“But it’s bit mine anymore,” You say softly as you hold his hand. 

“I am always here Bucky, I just can’t be here anymore.” You motion at the left overs of you heart. 

“I know I am just afraid,” Bucky rest his head on your shoulder. 

“I know but I am you sister James Barnes,” you say determination clear in his voice. 

“ Also someone’s gotta keep an eye on Sam, he’s your responsibility now you know? Handling Captan Americas’. That should be you new name.” You joke making Bucky laugh. 

“Alright let’s finish this before the pigeon arrives and see us sad. He can stand people being sad, he always has to be so happy and sunshine-y.” Bucky says as he stands up and hold his hand out for yours. 

You smile up at him as he hold you up he envelops his arms around you hugging you desperately. 

“Thank you, for being here, I am really going to miss you,” he says softly. 

“I am always here, never forget that,” you whisper. 

As you continue to hug the front door announce loudly the third person of the party arrived. 

“So I go out for pizza in the cold streets of New Yorker and this is how I find you red eyes and hugging like we are never gonna see each other again?” Sam asks leaving the two large pizzas on the table. 

“As if you could get rid so easily of me,” you say as you open you arms, Sam jumping in. 

“Never petal, we are family here.” Sam says as Bucky hums in agreement. 

“Okay that’s enough of the mushy stuff we gotta get this lady to Gotham city!” Sam yells as you all laugh. 

In that moment Bucky felt like everything would be alight and true to your word, even if you had to fly to New York or Louisiana, you where there even of it was for something as simple as birthdays, holidays, or just because Bucky was missing you. 

Bucky tells the story more of a reminder of who you where, than to tell Steve about you. 

From the past years Bucky visited Steve he never brought you up. He felt like his loyalty was to you. 

“So she left everything behind huh?” Steve wonder heaviness in his heart, but a small light shining knowing Bucky was never really alone. 

“I think thats what she needed to heal.” Bucky says standing up. 

“She was always there, at the end of the line.” Bucky says harshly and with protection written all over the place. 

“Bucky,” Steve stands up to reach him. 

“I need to go weddings gonna be next week and I can’t wait. I’m giving her away,” Bucky says as a smile makes a way to his eyes. 

“You know I always thought I’d be you at the end of the altar.” Bucky says as he starts leaving. 

“Also if you really need to know you should look at social media, everything you want to know about him is there.” Bucky says walking out suddenly he stops. 

“Tell the misses I said goodnight.” Bucky says looking up at the house one last time as he gets on his bike driving away leaving a trail on dirt behind him. 

Steve sits there for a while emotions swirling in his being. 

As he pulls his cellphone out he hears soft steps and he looks up to look at his wife. 

“Steve you’ve been here for an hour what happened?” Peggy says taking the chair next to him concern on his face. 

“I just- Bucky came over, he just needed someone to talk to.” Steve says as he tries to smile hiding yet more emotions form his wife. 

He was good at that, he guessed. 

“Oh strange he didn’t stay,” she shrugs standing up. 

“Yeah guys stuff you know,” Steve tries to laugh as Peggy smiles at him. 

“Oh this also arrived on the mail today,” Peggy hands him a white luxurious envelope. 

“Alright I’m going to bed,” She says as she kisses his cheek. 

“Okay I’ll be there in a minute.” He says as she heads back inside. 

He looks at the envelope and think nothing of it thinking its an invitation from Pepper. As he opens it and reads it he stays silent his eyes roaming all over the written words. 

            You are cordially invited to the wedding of 

                               Bruce Thomas Wayne                                              And                                (Y/N)(Y/M/N)(Y/L/N)

    Who’s nuptials will be taking place in

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    Located at 1000 5th Ave, New York, New York. 

Steve can’t even finish reading as he drops the paper. 

Anger and sadness fill him as he stares at the mocking piece of paper on the floor. 

He takes out his phone opening google and typing Bruce Wayne and thousands of result pop up. He opens the wikipedia article and starts reading. After reading some information he looks at the some pictures and he sees it. You and him on a red carpet for one of his galas or something smiles all over as he click the article states very clear that since you went public with him he was seen visibly happier. He can’t help but mad at him, you, and specially himself. 

He sits again in the rocking chair, the one you where meant to grow old together on, and stare at the horizon thinking of you and what to do with the wedding invitation at his feet. 

How could he get back to you?  

[bigskydreaming]

So I’m literally on my way to bed because I’ve been up for like two days cuz of work and I’m largely incoherent right now......

But trust me, I will have WORDS about the Nightwing #96 cover later.

Hoo boy, do I have ALL THE FUCKING WORDS about that, and the artist (Bruno Redondo)’s response to someone on twitter about it, and Taylor’s response to that response.

You wanna do a fucking Brady Bunch style cover for an issue about a family reunion?

Okay, cool, fine.

But when someone asks ‘hey where’s Duke Thomas’ - someone who LITERALLY is either a foster son of Bruce’s, or an official Wayne adoptee, writers have always been inconsistent as fuck about how they view his place in the Batfam - like, how are you going to respond “oh the cover just includes ‘core family’” when you’ve got Stephanie in one of the boxes, and also, the fucking DOG Taylor created for his run?

And also, on top of Duke not being there, because maybe you can say ‘well Dick and Duke haven’t even had the OPPORTUNITY to interact much since Duke’s creation, given Dick’s distance from the Batfam throughout the Grayson title, and then his couple years of amnesia’......

Like MAYBE you could sell that response, instead of the ‘core family’ cop-out, but then I’d still be asking, okay but WHERE’S CASS THEN?

Cuz she’s only in the BACKGROUND of Stephanie’s box, not even obvious on first glance. Treated as the afterthought there, instead of the clearly emphasized Stephanie. And unlike Dick and Duke, Dick and Cass most definitely DO have history.

And given how much of Taylor’s run has been straight up mimicking every major story or character beat of the 90s Nightwing comics, there’s no WAY that man isn’t aware of stories that feature a lot of Dick and Cass bonding, like Bruce Wayne/Murderer? and Bruce Wayne/Fugitive.....but didn’t prioritize Cass either, hmmm.

So if you’re going to make a Brady Bunch homage cover for an issue that’s about a Batfamily reunion, and you don’t include Duke and BARELY include Cass, but you include Stephanie and the freaking DOG in full display?

Not to mention, Damian’s blatantly whitewashed on that cover - and except for a throwaway acknowledgment of Dick’s Romani heritage in one panel at the start of Taylor’s run, which also made it explicitly clear that this current interpretation of Dick is absolutely supposed to be regarded as a character of color, not that the art or the story ever reflects that in any other way - its a painfully oblivious look to just so happen to sideline the only other two PoC in the entire damn Batfamily.

And look, I love Stephanie, you guys KNOW I do. But if you’re going to cite ‘core family’ as the basis of your Brady Bunch homage, there is ZERO reason for her to be on that cover in place of either Duke or Cass, let alone BOTH. Steph and Dick’s only real interactions stem from the period he was Batman and she was Batgirl, but outside of that, they don’t have any more history than he shares with either of the other two, and UNLIKE the other two, Dick and Stephanie have NEVER regarded each other as family in that way. 

Stephanie is CLOSE with the Batfam, and makes sense to be included as part of the extended Batfam, same as Barbara, but she and Barbara have always been distinct from the other kids due to the fact that there has never been any point in time when the two of them have looked to Bruce as any kind of parental figure, or even WANTED to. Steph has her mom, Barbara has her dad. Even when both have admittedly had issues with their parent in the past, neither EVER looked to Bruce as either a replacement or even a SUPPLEMENTAL parent figure at those times either.

Stephanie is absolutely a close FRIEND of the family, a very very close one, and good one, and Barbara of course is Dick’s girlfriend or at least love interest in Taylor’s run, but aside from that, but neither of them have ever been connected to Dick in the same way that both Duke and Cass are.....in that particular way that could be described as, oh idk....’core family.’

So if you’re going to cite that as your reason for your choices to include in the eight slots on the cover, and you’re going to have the writer, Taylor, ‘weigh in’ on the criticism of those choices (especially as I’m fairly certain that as the writer of that issue, HE picked which characters were meant to be included there, but I can’t be sure about that) but if Taylor’s response is going to be to mock the person asking ‘where’s Duke’ by listing off a whole bunch of other supporting Batfam cast, say shit like ‘why do you hate Ace the Bathound, Bruno’.....

Then you should be embarrassed as fuck to have decided that cover really needed to have Dick’s PET in place of BOTH Duke AND Cass.

Like really, if they’d just left off Bite-wing and Steph, they’d have had room for both Duke and Cass, and there would have been NO issue. Or even just switch Steph’s box around so its Cass in the foreground there and Steph peeking out behind her. And both Duke and Cass are literal adoptees or fostered by Bruce, so they INARGUABLY fit the bill of ‘core family,’ even if people happened to ask ‘where’s Steph’ in that case. Which tbh, I don’t think anyone really would have done, because it would have been OBVIOUS why she wasn’t included in one of the eight spaces available, given the other inclusions, and again, Dick and Steph have never been close enough that her inclusion would have been some kind of glaring omission, and unlike with Duke and Dick, where their lack of much interaction aside from Robin War is largely logistical, given Dick’s been infamously unavailable for like, five of the seven or so years Duke’s existed....Steph and Dick’s lack of frequent interaction spans a good two decades.

In conclusion, apparently I did have the words already anyway, and I haven’t been a fan of Taylor’s from the start obviously, but doing a family reunion issue and a Brady Bunch homage for a cover, and choosing to include or emphasize Steph and Dick’s pet of less than a year, that Taylor himself created, over Duke and Cass - again, the literal ONLY other two characters of color in Dick’s entire family, aside from the blatantly whitewashed Damian - 

And your first instinct is to mock people asking hey where’s one of the other two people who absolutely have reason to be counted among Dick’s core family?

*claps hands slowly*

Bravo, Taylor. Bra - fucking - vo.

You’ve outdone yourself once again, I see.

And now I’m going the fuck to sleep.

[mochegato]

Capturing a Dream

Chapter 1 - Meeting the Team

This was it.  She was excited.  No excited wasn’t the word.  Terrified? Yeah, that was closer.  Marinette was about to step into the Young Justice base for the first time and meet her new teammates.  What if they don’t like her?  What if they don’t let her join the team?  What if they let her join the team but they exclude her?  What if they get mad at her because she won’t expose her identity and they think she doesn’t trust them?  What if she messes up and she ends up getting someone killed?  What if she gets one of her teammates killed? What if she gets someone else killed? What if… No!  

She wasn’t going to do that.  She wasn’t the same 14 year old girl who spiraled into anxiety-induced, worst-case-scenario, death spirals.  She was 17 now.  She was in her final year of school before college, nearly an adult, legally, she was an adult.  She was the Guardian.  She was a hero.  She was already in a prestigious internship with one of the biggest names in fashion.  She was working with the Justice League, well Young Justice, but that was better because there wasn’t as much of a time commitment, which was really good because she didn’t have much to spare… where was she going with this? Right!  She was smart.  She was competent.  She was confident(ish).  She was… standing outside the zeta tube opening staring at it like an idiot, and she was going to be late.  

She took a deep breath and ran her free hand over the costume she wasn’t quite used to yet, trying to find comfort in the feeling and focus her mind.  She could do this.  She may no longer be able to be Ladybug for secrecy reasons, but Ladybug wasn’t her only option.  She was Chimera now and Chimera was not linked back to the miraculous.  So this new and completely un-miraculous affiliated hero definitely wasn’t unifying the fox and horse miraculous.  Chimera was a separate and unmiraculous hero.  She was a new heroic entity; a powerful amalgamation of divergent parts; an illusion, who uses illusions; a dream that can never be captured.   Chimera was just another magical hero working in the background.

Gone was the flashy, bright suit of a central hero.  She was a shadow now and her suit reflected her new role.  The base of the suit was a brown so dark, it almost looked black.  Her knee-high boots and gloves that reached to midway up her bicep were both black, meeting with the brown core of the suit with a strip of deep orange.  Her mask was the same dark brown color with deep orange at the corners.    She no longer had her yoyo, but in its place was a rope that responded to her like her yoyo did.  Her flute across her back completed her weaponry.

She was still a hero, just not a miraculous one, as far as anyone else knew. She was still protecting people for now, she just wasn’t on the front lines anymore.  She was still protecting the miraculous and would for the rest of her life.  And she was still… standing outside the Zeta tube opening, staring.

She closed her eyes, and walked through the portal.  Before she let out her breath, she could feel a difference in the air around her.  She heard a digital voice say “Recognize Chimera B12.”  She opened one eye tentatively and jumped back with a quiet squeak when she saw Batman standing on the other side giving her an amused smile next to Black Canary and a red figure.  

Black Canary stepped forward, “Welcome to Mount Justice, Chimera.  You’ve already met Batman.  This is Red Tornado.  He supervises the cave here.” Chimera nodded to him but before she could say anything Black Canary continued speaking.  “We are very excited to have you here.  While you are training and on missions, this will be your home.  I know you have an apartment near your internship, but if you ever want to get away, you are always welcome to stay here whenever and however long you want to.” Her voice was warm and welcoming.  She leaned over and lowered her voice, “lead lined walls and no bugs or cameras allowed in the personal rooms in case you want to drop your transformation while you are here.”  She gave her a nod and started walking, motioning to Chimera to follow her.

“As discussed before, your team knows nothing about you.  What you choose to disclose is your decision.  Only Batman and I know anything more.  The team is used to people hiding their identities so there is no pressure to give your personal identity.  I mean, there might be teasing, but you are under absolutely no obligation to divulge and they will respect that.  Especially since Robin is under the same requirement.”  

They entered into a small sitting area that appeared to be their common room. The first thing she noticed was a kitchen that was almost as nice as her parents’ kitchen in the bakery and significantly bigger.  She let out a quiet “Wow” without even noticing she had done it.  She would have to try that out as soon as she was able to get back to it.

“Pretty nice, huh?” She heard from behind her.  She whirled around and finally noticed the other half of the room were a few couches and chairs were clustered in front of a television.  More significantly, there was a red headed boy talking to her, standing in front of four other teens.  They were looking at her with uncertainty and a slight bit of curiosity except the red headed boy who looked excited to meet her, and the larger black haired boy who looked a bit hostile.

“Uh, yeah.  It’s… um, a really nice kitchen.  It looks… really professional.”  She stammered, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

The red head smiled brightly at her.  “Only the best for the Justice League.”

“Alright team, it’s nice to see your smiling faces.” Black Canary started with more than a hint of sarcasm.  “I would like to introduce you to your new team member.  This is Chimera.”  Chimera gave an awkward wave to the Young Justice members.  “She was recruited by the Justice League.  Her identity is secret and will stay that way, am I clear?” She stared at each of the team members one at a time.  “Good. She is here under an outside deal so she may not always be available for missions, but she will be here whenever she can be.”

The red head raised his hand. “Wally, you don’t have to raise your hand.” Batman said tiredly.

“What is the outside deal?  What does that even mean?”

“It means something else brought her to our vicinity and she is only available to us because of that.  The details of the deal are not important.  Only that she is a hero on your team and every bit as dedicated to the team as the rest of you.”

“How is she as dedicated if she can’t commit to being here?” Artemis snarked quietly to Superboy.

“We all have outside lives that demand our attention.  There are times I can’t go out with the Justice League.  One of the others cover for me.  Are you suggesting I am not committed to the Justice League?” Batman stared harshly at her.

“No, sir.” Artemis shrunk back.

“I’m sorry, I have school and… other obligations, but I promise I will give you as much time and attention as I can spare without going insane.  Learned that the hard way.” She looked down as she muttered the last part under her breath.  She quickly looked back up hoping nobody heard her.  Everyone seemed to have the same expressions on their faces except Superboy who was giving her a quizzical look.  “I am committed to the team.  I want to be here, I promise.  Um… here, I brought macarons!”  She said with forced cheeriness, attempting to placate their suspicions and hostility. She opened the lid to the box of macarons she had brought with her.

Chimera’s hair blew back as Wally rushed forward.  He had already grabbed three macarons before she even saw him move. “These are delicious!  Where did you get them?”

“Thank you.  I made them. I like to bake.”  She smiled broadly at him.

Wally stared at her with his jaw open, the macaron close to falling out of his mouth. “Marry me.” He said dreamily.

Chimera giggled at him.  “How about I use the only-the-best kitchen to make something else for you a bit later instead?”

Wally gave her a bright grin.  “That will work.”  He looked at the rest of the macarons longingly then back at his teammates.  “Uh…. These are absolutely terrible and you shouldn’t have to be subjected to them.  I’ll just finish these off so you don’t have to.”  He reached back toward the box but Chimera closed the lid and raised an amused brow at him.

“Move over,” Robin pushed Wally to the side.  “Thank you Chimera.  That was sweet of you.”  He took a bite and looked back up at her with a smile.  “Hey, Wally was right.  These are delicious.  Artemis, Kaldur, Superboy, get over here and try these.”

Kaldur and Artemis came over, Artemis shoving Wally again for no apparent reason. Superboy stayed where he had been and continued to eye her suspiciously.  Wally looked at them with a pout.  “Hey!  Leave some for me.”

“You’ve already had a bunch.  The rest of us get some too.” Artemis rolled her eyes.

“Hey, I have a fast metabolism.  I need to eat.” Wally whined.

“Thank you… I’m sorry, I didn’t get any of your names.” Chimera said apologetically.

“Tall, blonde, and hostile is Artemis.  Tall, blonde, and aloof is Kaldur.  Tall, dark, and broody back there is Superboy.  You already met Wally, aka Kid Flash.  And I’m Robin.”  Robin gave her a charming smile and shook her hand.

She gave them all a brilliant smile.  “It is nice to meet you all.  I’m really excited to work with you.”  Wally smiled broadly at her and gave a lovesick sigh.  Artemis groaned and turned away.

Kaldur moved forward and extended his hand to her, “Welcome to the team.”

She shook his hand and gave him a warm smile.  “Thank you.”

“Okay, now that everyone has introduced themselves, let’s get to the training area.  I’m interested to see how Chimera’s powers work with the rest of yours.”  Black Canary announced.

“The training area is just this way,” Robin said with a suave smile, sweeping his arm out toward the direction they were supposed to move.

“Thanks,” Chimera smiled anxiously at him.

Wally came up on the other side of her and bumped his shoulder gently into hers.  “Don’t worry, we’ll take it easy on you.” He said with a wink.

Chimera looked at him blank faced for a few seconds before throwing him a sassy grin.  “It’s not me I’m worried about, speedy.”

“Oh no, Speedy was someone else.” Artemis threw in, moving past the group.

“You’re kidding.” Chimera stared at her.

“Nope.” Artemis responded popping the p.  “A whole different hero.  Not even fast either.  Makes no sense.”

“Good to know.” Chimera nodded absentmindedly.

“Oh, she can never meet Speedy.” Wally looked at the other heroes with wide eyes.

“Is he that bad?” Chimera asked, concern seeping into her eyes.

Artemis turned back to her and grinned wickedly, “No, he’s afraid you’ll start dating him.”

“Ahh.  I don’t date teammates so, don’t worry.”  Chimera reassured Wally with a clap on his back.  Artemis barely contained the chuckles that were fighting to spill out.

Wally gave her a distressed look, “But, teammates are great.  They are supportive and understand you… They’re… They’re the ideal dating material.”

“You make some interesting points.” She nodded as though contemplating his words.  “Luckily, you have very pretty and interesting teammates, four at least from what I can see.  So you have a wealth of dating material at your disposal.”  Chimera gave him a wink and walked ahead of him.  Artemis cackled loudly and threw her arm over Chimera’s shoulders, walking along with her.  “I think I’m going to like having you here.”

Chimera smiled at her.  “Good.  I hope so.”

Black Canary gave them a serious look and stood in the middle of the sparring area as the team lined up around the edges.  “Let’s get started.  This is an exhibition sparring match.  We want to see what you can do and what your teammates can do and see how you can mesh.”

“You don’t know what she can do?” Kaldur asked.

“I know. It’s you I’m concerned about.  You’re going to be working with her and leading her. You need to know what she can do. So, Chimera?  Go full force.  We want to know what to plan for in the field.”  Black Canary commanded.

Chimera looked at her unsure.  “Full force?  Are you sure? I don’t want to… That can be really dangerous.”

Black Canary nodded in understanding.  “I get that, but I assure you it will be fine.  We just need to see where you are in your skills, so we need you to give it your all.”

Chimera eyes got even bigger, “I’m not going to kill someone to prove a point.  I can do a demonstration instead.”

The rest of the team looked at her insulted.  Robin finally spoke up to scoff at her.  “We can take it.  We’ve dealt with worse.  Don’t worry.”

Ladybug looked back at him with wide eyes.  “It isn’t… I don’t think I’m a better fighter than you.  I’m positive you all have better training than I do, especially since I don’t have any, it’s just… I’ve brought down the Eiffel Tower with one hit before.  Thank god for miraculous ladybugs.  But you all look a bit more…” she struggled for an appropriate word to finish her thought, “…vulnerable.  I really don’t want to hurt any of you.”  She shot him a pleading look.

Superboy stepped forward with a determined look on his face. “Then try me.  I’m less…” he paused as if thinking, “what was that word you used… Vulnerable.”

She looked at him uncertain then looked over to Black Canary, taking note of her stern expression.  She nodded and stepped onto the mat.  “I’ll make it work.” Chimera offered uncertainly.

They faced each other for a few moments before settling into a fighting stance.  When she was ready, Chimera nodded to Superboy.  He rushed at her and extended his arm at the last second to deliver a haymaker punch.  Chimera bent backwards and twirled in a semi-circle so she was standing behind him and kicked him in the butt, sending him sprawling on the floor.  He got up and glared at her.  He rushed her again, this time aiming for her waist so she couldn’t duck under him.  She stared at him coming at her like a deer in headlights.  Superboy got a smug glint in his eye as he closed in on her.  At the last second, Chimera jumped up and rolled down his back, landing on her feet behind him, the wide eyed expression long gone.

“We need you to try, Chimera.  We need you to actually fight, not just dodge.”  Batman stated sternly.

Chimera looked over to him to nod at the instruction. The momentary distraction was enough for Superboy to land a hard hit to her stomach.  The force of the impact sent her flying across the mat.  The team winced and groaned in sympathy as she hit a wall with a hard thump.  Superboy moved over to her to check on her but stopped half way to her.   Chimera stood up and cocked her head to the side, examining Superboy.  She raised her brow and asked calmly, “So… super strength.  Invulnerability?”

He nodded at her.  “Okay then.”  She smirked at him, walking back to the central area of the room.  “Let’s do this.”  He smiled slightly and nodded.  She immediately launched herself at him, catching him by surprise.  She punched him hard enough to send him across the room in the opposite direction.  He slid toward the wall but was able to regain enough control to use the wall as a springboard to launch himself back at her.  She saw him coming and twisted at the last second, using his momentum against him to push him off balance.  He recovered quicker than she expected and swept her legs out from under her. She used her momentum to turn the fall into a flip, leading to a series of flips and twists taking her away from him, giving her some space to think.

They circled around each other trying to plan their next move.  Suddenly Chimera stopped and looked like she just realized something.  “Oh I forgot.  I’m supposed to be showing my skills…” she started innocently.  Superboy took advantage of her apparent distraction to jump at her again but that was the moment she had been waiting for.  “Voyage” she whispered and created a portal behind her. She stepped out of the way at the last possible second, sending Superboy through the portal at full speed.  The portal ended close to the rock wall on the other side of the room.  Superboy almost slammed into the wall with his full force but she had left him enough room to bounce back off the wall and launch himself back through the portal and back in front of her, throwing a punch toward her sternum that she was just barely able to twist away from, rolling along his arm until she was in the perfect position to elbow him in the back of his head.  He grunted and turned back toward her, circling around her again.

“Full force, Chimera,” Black Canary chastised her.

“Not going to make him bleed on purpose for a game, Ms. Canary.” Chimera responded, still focused on Superboy.  “Besides, we’re not done yet.”  She turned to Superboy, “Right?”  He nodded at her, an amused glint in his eyes.  “I haven’t even showed off all my skills yet.”

“Well, let’s see those skills you keep talking about.” Superboy taunted her.

“If you say so Superboy.” She smirked at him then frowned.  “I don’t appreciate that your actual name is the name I would have called you to taunt you.  You’re making my job harder.”

He frowned at her, the amused look that had been in his eyes dropping.  “So sorry my name is an inconvenience.  You can call me The Weapon like my makers did if you prefer.”

Chimera stood up straight, fidgeting and frowning at him.  “That’s… really?” She looked around to the other heroes.  They all nodded solemnly.

She looked back at him with softer eyes.  “What do you want to be called?” She asked in a kind tone.

“I… Superboy.”  He said stiffly, not exactly sure how to respond to the shift in atmosphere.

Chimera nodded and gave him a warm smile.  “Superboy it is.  No nicknames unless you approve of them.”

“As heartwarming as this is, you are supposed to be sparring.” Black Canary reminded them.

“Right,” Chimera said shook her head to refocus herself. “Sorry.”  She whispered “Mirage,” bringing her flute up to her lips.  As soon as the notes were heard, a dozen replicas of her appeared and began running around the circle.  Superboy tried to scan them but they all looked identical even with his infrared vision.  He stilled to listen for a heartbeat or breathing, but he couldn’t detect it in any of them.  He looked around wildly.  It was a sea of dark brown and bright orange.  He nodded to himself calculating the possibilities.  Most likely she managed to split herself.  So either they are all fully sentient or there is a central figure controlling them.  He’d have to hope for the latter.

His eyes flicked to one of the figures running at him.  The figure jumped into a flying kick.  He dodged out of the way and rolled to his feet, looking around again for the next attack. He didn’t wait long.  Another figure ducked low to sweep his feet.  He jumped over her but felt a sharp pain in his side as one of the replicas body checked him with enough force to knock him into the far wall.  

Superboy shook his head to clear it.  When he took more than a few seconds to recover, the replicas looked at him concerned.  One of them finally moved forward and asked “Are you okay to continue?”  

He stared at the replica for a few moments before nodding.  “We’re not done yet.”  All the replicas smiled at him and moved into new positions, waiting for him to indicate he was ready.  As soon as he nodded two replicas moved to attack him, one went high, one went for his legs.  He lunged for the one going high, jumping over the one going for his legs.  As soon as he reached her, she disappeared.  Not meeting the resistance he had expected, the force of the lunge caused him to lay out flat on the floor.  He grunted and jumped up before any of the replicas could attack again.  

As soon as he was up he looked around with a grin. “Mirage,” he repeated.  They were all an illusion.  He just had to find the real one.  Two attacked him again.  He hit one causing it to disappear but the other one hit him with her flute, knocking him to the side.  He shook his head again and turned back to them and backed away, giving himself space. He just had to find the one. There had to be an indication of which one was the real one.  He couldn’t use his infrared vision or hearing.  Maybe there was something about them.  He stared at them as they circled around each other.  There!  There was one with a different shade of orange, the shade Chimera had before the match. All the replicas had bright orange but the real Chimera had deep orange accents.  

He kept his eyes moving so she wouldn’t know he’d made her.  He moved forward toward one of the replicas moving to punch her.  Chimera attacked from the side again, coming at him before he could touch the replica and make it disappear.  He grinned to himself.  At the last second, he changed his trajectory and sent another haymaker toward her.  He jerked back in pain as the replica he had been moving toward originally made contact, knocking the air out of his lungs. He grunted in anger and confusion as a rope was tied around him, pinning down his arms.  His legs were swept out from under him causing him to land hard. He trashed with all his strength as he felt her tying his legs too.  He kept thrashing against the rope, but no matter how hard he pushed and pulled, the rope showed no indication of weakening.  

After a few moments of him pointlessly struggling, Black Canary walked over and declared Chimera the winner.  She smiled excitedly at Chimera.  “Now we know what we’re working with and we can plan how to incorporate your skills into missions and approaches to your training.”

Chimera nodded in understanding and looked over to the team who were still watching her in various degrees of surprise.  Kaldur nodded in approval.  Wally and Artemis stared at her in shock.  Robin was pointing and laughing at Superboy.  Chimera glowered at him and turned back to Superboy, releasing the rope so he could get up.  

As soon as he was freed, Superboy jumped up and rubbed his arms, glaring at the floor.  Chimera smiled nervously in his direction, but he refused to look at her and had turned his body away from her.  She sighed and looked down too, shifting nervously.  After a few moments, she started gathering up the rope to tie it back around her waist.  She furrowed her brows at the sound of Robin still laughing, which seemed to upset Superboy even more.  She narrowed her eyes at him and whipped the rope out in his direction.  It snapped a few inches away from his face with a crack so loud it reverberated throughout the cave.  Robin jumped away awkwardly and fell backwards, landing on his butt.

Superboy looked from Robin to her.  He let out a small laugh and gave her a smile. Chimera took it as a good sign and smiled back at him.  “That was a lot of fun.  You are really good at picking up on details, otherwise that color trick wouldn’t have worked.” Her voice was soft, like she was addressing a scared child.

He nodded at her and quietly said, “Thanks. It was fun.”

“Does that mean we can do it again sometime?  I need practice sparring and I’m usually afraid I’ll hurt someone when I’m in the suit and when I’m not, it isn’t as effective. I mean, helpful still, but not as effective.”  He stared at her for a few seconds but finally nodded at her.

“That was a pretty good introduction but it’s getting late now.  I think it’s time to call it a night.  Red Tornado, can you take Chimera to the room she will be using so she can recharge?” Black Canary asked.

When Chimera returned a few minutes later, the group smiled at her and gave their goodbyes.  They made plans for everyone to return the next day for more training.  One by one, they all left through the Zeta tubes except for Superboy.  Chimera looked at him confused.  “Are you not leaving too?”

“No.” He stated coldly.

“Why not?  I mean… if you don’t mind me asking.” She stammered out.

“Because I live here.” He grumbled back at her.

“Alone?” She gasped.

“With Red Tornado.” He corrected defiantly.

“But no other… people? In this big, empty, cold place?” She looked out over the cave, the empty, cold, inhospitable place he was going to call home.

“I like being alone.”  He stated in an annoyed voice.

Something that looked like anger flashed across her face transforming into a determined look before she smoothed it out and gave him a cheeky grin.  “That’s a shame.”  

He narrowed his eyes looking at her suspiciously, “Why is that?”

“I’m moving in.”  Her smile grew bigger.

He furrowed his brow and frowned, “What?”

“I’m moving in.  I have school and, uh… stuff during the day, but I’ll be here in the mornings and at night, most weekends.” She nodded at him.  “It will be like a sleepover every night… except we’ll be sleeping in separate rooms.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, unsure how to react. “Whatever,” he grunted walking back toward the residence area.  “Dinner is usually in like 30 minutes.” He called over his shoulder.  She smiled in his direction.  It wasn’t a warm welcome but it was better than nothing.  

“Are you sure about this?  It isn’t required for you to live here.  Most of the members don’t.” Black Canary reassured her.

“That’s why I’m doing it.  I’ve already had one teammate who had to live essentially alone and isolated in a big, empty space.  He hated it.  It messes with your self-worth and your ability to interact with other people, no matter how badly you want to.  It scrapes away at your humanity.  I couldn’t really do anything for his living situation, but I can do something for Superboy.”

“It will make keeping your identity more difficult.” Batman warned her softly.

“I know, but he’s my teammate.  I won’t abandon him.  And I need a friend here too.  I’ll be all alone otherwise, so… it will be mutually beneficial… I hope.”  She added tentatively.

Batman and Black Canary shared an approving look with each other and turned back to her.  “Okay.  Let us or Red Tornado know if you need anything.  We really think you are going to fit in amazingly with this team.”

Chimera smiled at them and shifted slightly to look out over the rest of the cave.  “I think so, too.”

Chapter 2

[trekkele]

Hello! I'm the Anon who asked about Bruce being self-aware.

When I said "Also, there's something of a difference between being self-aware about himself and when it comes to his kids." I meant that he says or does super hurtful stuff that he just doesn't seem to think was wrong or reflect upon when it went downhill or realising too late or sb had to spell it out for him.

Examples being:

him reading Dick's diary after taking him in as a ward to figure out what Dick wants instead of just asking, thus creating the Robin suit after Dick's designs (God, it was a Batman or Robin: year one comic book, I'm pretty sure but I don't rememer which),

saying "commendable" instead of just "I'm proud of you" to Damian (basically his "emotional constipation" as a whole, like being unable to understand or even recognize his kids feelings and then failing to say just the most normal praising/comforting/loving things.),

ignoring (or acting as if) when Damian apologizes for direspecting/ignoring previous orders and holds a cute speech about trying to listen now but Bruce just turns around like "Did you say something?",

not telling Dick that Jason is now Robin or that Jason died even though Bruce said he would call Dick (yeah, he was being petty or grief stricken, but still)

Tim's sixteenth birthday "present"

I hate to bring this up but the whole Batarang to the NeckTM situation in UTRH. His resurrected son confronts him and he fails to show a single emotion, instead immediately debating ethics and morals with him.

anything with Jason in future comics where Bruce beats him up and acts like Jason asked for it or that Bruce didn't have a choice but to do that.

bringing Jason back to Ethiopia to the warehouse where he died, so Bruce could maybe find a way to resurrect Damian after Heretic killed him (I think it was Heretic, but maybe it was sb else)

beating up any of his kids for any reason. The most he should do willingly is defend himself with defensive moves only or seeking distance. But not charging in like he wants a fight.

sending only Damian to save Alfred from Bane, which just allowed for Damian to be captured and then having to watch Bane snap Alfred's neck, and then Bruce says to Damian's face "If I had been there, I could have saved him." (Bruce prioritised his own grief over his son's grief and trauma and all that)

Bruce tells Cass she doesn't need a real life and sectret identity, that she only needs a costume and a private batcave and she'd be fine

Bruce instigates a fight where he and Cass get drugged and can communicate about their feelings through fist fighting.

Taking/ Trying to take Robin away from sb for their "own good". I don't mean benching, but full on "You're not Robin anymore, never again." but then folding a few issues later anyway. (It could be seen as very shitty parenting ig)

Like you said, Bruce gets written very inconsistently and I tried not to cherry pick too much of what I wanted to say, so I made this mess of a bulleted list. While a lot of these examples do come from his communication issues, I still wanted to include them anyway because it's taken too far with some writers (can't say "I love you" or hug his kids, although he doesn't have a problem with doing that with Clark or Diana) or he doesn't reflect on those moments or he repeats them over and over again.

I swear I love Bruce, I'm not a hater!!! He's actually my favorite character!!! 😭😭😭

(Making this list really hurt. Just so you know.)

Hey listen, im going to answer these by number* and then probably delete this ask in a few hours because. I hate all of these!! Maybe 3 are in character!! I dont want this terrible Bruce on my blog!!! But also i dont want you to think i asked for clarification and then ignored you so feel free to send another ask when you see this lol. Or if I have once again missed the point.

* because I misunderstood this ask again and also most of these gave me hives lmao and also also I think like 75% could be answered with "we needed someone to mean to [character] and Bruce is convenient el oh el"

Anyways:

1. This one is in character, a little bit, because as much as we understand kids needing privacy now, i can see the way Bruce was raised (Alfred would have absolutely read his diary, that feels very in character for him) and the way Dick was (sneaking out to find Zucco) leading to him panicking and monitoring him as much as possible. That doesnt make it right mind you. The thing is if Dick hacked the bat computer Bruce would probably be proud of him, so not entirely hypocritical.

2. Also possibly in character, because again, thats how Alfred probably spoke to him. Not great, and i think the current Batman and Robin run does a much better job with their relationship, but can be chalked up to bad writing tbh.

3. No this is shitty writing. Sorry it just is!

4. This could be its own post but in summary: decisions made to launch another chracters solo or in order to make a different character look good are ignored. They wanted a Nightwing solo and decided a good launching point would be a big fight between Dick and Bruce. No thanks.

There have also been panels where Dick talks about ignoring Bruce’s calls during that time period, so this could be chalked up to mutual miscommunication if you insist. And i prefer the pre crisis origin for Jaybin, for multiple reasons.

5. I haven’t read this, ive heard of it, and its weird. It feels like point 4, but for Tim. The writers wanted a villain for his birthday comic, Bruce is right there.

6. Nah, Jason fucked around and he found out. He wanted a Batman that kills criminals, he just forgot he was also, now, a murderer and a criminal. Im only half kidding here, but the problem with UTRH is that exactly. Also the fact that Jason spent like six months doing absolutely horrible shit in Gotham, and that like 15 minutes before this showdown Bludhaven was blown up, Bruce has no idea if Dick is alive, and Jason mocks him for possibly losing another son. Also Jason is the one demanding Bruce cross his very personal boundaries here, ethics and morals are a very necessary part of the conversation!!

7. Anything where Bruce beats someone near death or uses lethal force is technically out of character. Jason comics outside of DITF and UTRH do not do enough work to give his actions the context necessary for them to be in character. RHATO #25 Is shit writing.

8. It was heretic, on Talias orders, and that whole storyline is dumb. This does feel in character, because Bruce response to grief has historically been 1 become Batman 2 attempt to commit suicide by cop/criminal so points for that consistency? I really hate this plot tho. Stop killing Bruce's kids!! The man is unstable as it is!!!

9. Out of character. I know it gets used for some god awful reason but it is so out of character unless the writer is willing to give it some serious work to provide context, (or unserious; see; Zur-En-Arrh in Gotham War. It's dumb, but it provides plausible context for Bruce beating his kids ie: it isn't technically him). Barring mind control, rejected.

10. No!! What the fuck!!! Bruce is not sending one of his kids alone against Bane there is an entire comic where he drugs them so that doesn't happen stop that!!!!

As a side note when I read that the first time I understood it as "I should not have sent you in alone because it was a task too big for you, If I had been there to help we could have saved him", but I am an optimist with too much faith in DC.

11. Absolutely bonkers statement from "please let me fire you from robin so you can have a normal life" McGee. Chalking this one up to racism and misunderstanding Bruce's character and that stupid "Bruce Wayne is the mask Hur dur" thing.

12. Ok this one feels in character actually. Somehow. At least they're talking?

13. Also feels in character actually. This one is weird because you'll see those stupid "child soldier" arguments side by side with "how dare Bruce take away Robin!". Pick a side. It's either bad parenting to let Robin exist or it's bad parenting to not let Robin exist, it can't be both!

And since these are comic books, and you need to engage with the genre in good faith or you'll have a miserable time of it, Robin exists! And is allowed to exist! At the same time, as a mentor Bruce has to be able to bench Robin, that is also a function of the mentor/mentee relationship! Basically - Bruce should be able to bench an injured/at risk Robin, but the writing for those scenarios usually wants him as a villain.

Taking away Robin completely only happens to Dick tho, and since it's after he gets shot on the job I do think it's in character.

As for "I tried not to cherry pick" babe please do so!! It's comics!! It's not canon unless you want it to be, and if you want these truly terrible Bruce's to be canon all the power to you! I want to set them on fire tho. And snort WFA like it's cocaine until all this is a bad memory jfc DC screen your writers for daddy issues I am begging you.

[missymurphy1985]

The Umbrella Girl (part 7 - final part)

What happened to Cillian's house?

Warnings - mentions of baby loss / angst / smut

Taglist @queenshelby @peakyscillian @ntmynouis @margoo0 @elenavampire21 @janelongxox @noctvrnalmoth

Cillian had flown home on the next flight following Orla's call, you'd stayed home to allow him time with his family, giving him the space he needed. He hadn't called for nearly a week, and you hadn't disturbed him either, when finally your phone rang.

"Cill? Are you okay?"

"The police are still investigating. It certainly looks like arson, but they can't say one way or the other yet. Y/n, I should've been at home last week, and she knew that! That schedule was planned for months in advance, I'd have been burned alive in that house!" You both knew this, but saying it out loud somehow made it more terrifying. "Does she know where you live y/n?" You paused to think back, but no, she had no idea. The address on your records was private, she wouldn't have access to that under data protection laws.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at Orla's, I'm staying here until the house is safe for me to go back to. It's a mess y/n... A complete wreck.." his voice was cracking, breaking your heart. You were desperate to hold him, but he was hundreds of miles away.

"I miss you so much... I so want to be there with you..."

"Is Emily at school?"

"Yes. She breaks up today for half term though."

"Good, I thought I'd got the dates right. I've booked you tickets for the ferry tomorrow morning, I know Emily is scared of flying.. come out here to me? I need you.."

You were stunned into silence.

"Is that okay?"

"Shut up Murphy! That's the best news I've had this week... Yes! We'll be there!"

"Thank god, thought I'd scared you off for a second!"

"You're an idiot sometimes you know that?" You laughed. "I'll see you Saturday morning, yeah?"

You arrived at the docks in Dublin just after midday, Emily launching herself into Cillian's arms as he swooped her up and kissed her cheek. He welcomed you into the embrace, kissing your lips and resting his forehead against yours. A younger lady approached you, judging by her blue eyes you assumed this was Cillian's sister, Orla.

"It's so good to finally meet you, he's told me so much about you! Here, let me help with those bags." She took your suitcase and pulled it along with you to her car. You arm linked with Cillians left, his right carrying Emily who was telling him everything about the ferry ride over and how much she enjoyed it.

"I've got another surprise for you waiting at Orla's, Em," he whispered loud enough for you to hear.

"Cill...." He shushed you playfully with his eyes. You hated him spending his money on either of you - you didn't want people to think that was all you wanted...

Getting into Orla's house just outside the city, she took your bag up to Cillian's room and led you all through to the dining room. A man walked in holding a wriggling toddler.

"This is my brother in law, Damien, and my nephew Leo. This," he introduced you, "is y/n." Damien shook your hand and you cooed over Leo, giggling away in his father's arms. Emily tugged on Cillian's shirt impatiently, generating a scowl from you.

"Emily we've just walked through the door - you need to wait!"

"Its okay, I'll take her." Cillian took her hand and led her into a playroom next to the kitchen area. You heard her squeal and walked through to see the biggest dolls house you'd ever seen, it was huge - fully kitted out with furniture and a family of 4.. it was breathtaking.

"Cillian... I can't..." You mumbled.

"It isn't for you, it's for her!" He laughed, and smiled watching Emily begin to place the furniture in the house and set her dolls up for what looked like a picnic in the little living room area.

He turned to face you, bringing you close to him.

"Thank you.. thank you for coming out.. and being here.."

"Together, hand in hand, remember?" You touched your nose against his, both of you smiling into each other.

The police called round later that evening. You were sat in the dining room, hand in Cillian's under the table, as they explained.

"We found petrol cans littered around the outside of the house. Three had been thrown through the letterbox, and set alight. Fortunately, your neighbour has CCTV cameras, and we caught images of the person who did it - take a look, see if you recognise them?" One of the officers opened the laptop and played the video. Cillian squeezed your hand, preparing himself to watch his home be destroyed. You could make out the image of a person dropping the cans, and the police froze the screen on the clearest image they had. They zoomed in, and Cillian's mouth dropped.

"I know him..." Your eyes widened. You did too...

"The fuck is he doing there?" You gasped. The Assistant Director of Peaky Blinders, James, was staring right back at you from the screen.

"We have him in custody - he's admitted everything. He'll be charged in the morning. We think you know he has a connected with Lisa?" The officer nodded to Cillian.

"He does. But why's he involved? He's got nothing to do with any of this?

"He's been in on this since the beginning. He's given us Lisa's location in London. The Net Police tracked her down this morning. Y/n, you need to know.. she was about half a mile from your house.." you gasped again.. James must have had access to your records... She must have seduced him to get close to them.. Cillian pulled you close and kissed your head.

"Thank fuck I got you away... Where's your mum?"

"She's gone to her sisters place in Manchester for the weekend.. Cillian she'd have killed us!"

"But she didn't, did she? And she's locked up.. fuck.. this might be over?" He turned to the officers. "Is it over?"

"They've not mentioned anyone else being involved, and James was more than happy to spill the beans - we'll continue to keep an eye on you for a while, just to be on the safe side."

"Thank you... For everything... Thank you." You whispered to the officers, barely able to form a sentence. You were still worried, but you felt safe for the first time in weeks.

Once the police had left, you fell into each others arms, holding on tighter than you ever had. The relief flooding you both.

"Where's Emily?" You asked, as he was kissing your neck.

"In the garden with Orla... You'll have to control yourself a little while longer Cillian, it's nearly dinner time..." You groaned, feeling his lips gently nibbling at your earlobe.

You felt his hand trail up your thigh, over your backside as he pulled you into him.

"You have no idea how much I want to bury my fingers inside you against this wall, right now y/n..." You turned your face to kiss him deeply, before pulling away winking and walking towards the garden, a sexy little sway as you walked, chuckling to yourself.

Dinner was a Chinese takeaway, Orla's insistence even though you'd offered to cook them all a meal to say thank you for having them. Once it was all cleaned up and the little ones were in bed, Emily set up in a small single Batman themed bed (another treat from Cillian) in Leo's room, the four of you sat in the living room with a bottle of wine. Your body was wrapped in Cillian's on the sofa, Orla looking over at the two of you.

"You two are like lovestruck teenagers, you know that?" She laughed, watching the two of you stealing glances at each other and stroking each others hands.

"Too much PDA from your older brother, Orla?" Cillian pulled a face making Orla laugh.

"No, it's so lovely seeing you happy, especially after everything that's happened these last couple of years.. it's been a tough one hasn't it?"

"It's been difficult, but it's over now. I can focus on picking myself back up now. I'll finish Peaky, and take some time off, I think," Cillian yawned, kissing your hand. "I'm beat. Orla, Damien.. we can't thank you enough." He stood, taking your hand in his and leading you out the room.

"What are family for Cillian, you're welcome here as long as you need to be," Damien smiled.

Within minutes you were in his room against the wall, jeans round your ankles, his fingers knuckle deep in your core pulling forward against your walls. His hand covering your mouth to quieten you so you didn't wake the kids up in the next room.

"Fuck... Cillian don't stop..." Your orgasm was already building following the constant teasing between the two of you that evening, and he increased the speed on his movements inside you. Your hand sneaking underneath the waistband of his jeans to grip his erection firmly, making him hiss slightly at the sensation as you pumped him slowly under his jeans, the fabric not allowing for too much movement.

"You gonna cum for me y/n? Let me feel it..." He whispered in your ear, making you shudder. You nodded, before moaning deep into his hand, your orgasm washing over you like a hurricane. Your hand gripped onto his cock a little tighter as his fingers came to a stop, before bringing them to his lips to taste you.

You kicked off your jeans from your ankles and sank to your knees, pulling his jeans down with you. He looked down at you and watched you tease the tip of his cock with your tongue, lightly licking around the head and down his shaft. He rested forward, one hand against the wall, the other in your hair, groaning as he watched you take him inside your mouth painfully slowly. Inch by inch, sucking gently, before he felt the back of your throat.

"Fuck yes..." He closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, trying not to blow his load down your throat. You started bobbing your head back and forth, your teeth scraping the underside of his cock as you did making him grip your hair tight. You really wanted to make him come in your mouth but your core was screaming for him. Standing up and pulling both your t-shirts over your head you led him over to the bed, pushing him onto his back. Crawling over his legs, you hovered over his cock, bringing your fingers down to you core and running them slowly over your wetness.

"Want this, Cill?" He groaned watching your fingers running through your folds and nodded quickly. You sank onto him, making both of you gasp, and started rocking your hips back and forth. He held onto your hips guiding you, and you leaned back, finding your rhythm. His fingers toyed with your clit as you rode him, and you could feel a second orgasm approaching. Sensing it, he flipped you over to lie on your front on the bed. Pushing your legs together, raising your hips slightly, he moved over them and started pushing himself back inside you, his chest now on your back as he started thrusting into you. You clawed at the bedframe, the new angle hitting your g spot perfectly.

"Fuck you're so tight... This feel good baby?" His voice was back in your ear now, his lips kissing and biting over your shoulders and neck as his thrusts became more powerful. You had to muffle your cries of ecstacy into the pillow. "Good girl... you gonna cum again for me huh?"

You couldn't stop it if you tried, you came hard, your walls clenching every inch of him. His thrusts slowed slightly, before he pulled out of you and lifted your hips up so you were on your knees, your face still in the pillows. Lining himself you, he thrust hard into you, making you bury your face again and grip the bedframe as he fucked you hard and fast, the only sounds being your skin slapping together and the wet sounds where your bodies were joined.

"Fuck... Shit... Gonna come y/n..." He grunted softly as you felt him spurt his seed deep inside you, panting as he came down from his high, before pulling out and laying beside you, stroking your face gently.

"I love you.. y/n.." he whispered softly, taking your face in his hands and kissing your lips. You froze, gasped softly and pulled back. Was it too soon? Probably. Did you care? Nope. You saw a flash of panic in his eyes and smiled.

"I love you, Cillian. I do.. I've not felt this way for anyone else. Ever." He grinned, and pulled you into his arms.

"I've been thinking.. I need a change of scenery. What would you say if I moved to London? Permanently?" You leaned up on your arm and trailed your fingers over his chest hair.

"What about Ireland? All your family are here?"

"Yeah but they've had more than 40 years of me. You and Emily are in London - and that's where I want to be."

"Cillian I'd never make you leave your family - please know that?"

"No ones making me do anything anymore y/n. I'm doing this for us - there is an us, right?" You punched him lightly on the arm making him chuckle. "I've already started talking to estate agents. There's a beautiful 3 bed townhouse in Kilburn. It looks stunning y/n, you'd love it."

"What do you need a 3 bed house for? There's only you?" He looked down at you and raised his eyebrow - you felt your core throb slightly, that eyebrow raise was sexy as fuck... And you were certain he knew it.

"Well, Emily's gonna need a room. And us. And a spare room for guests maybe.. or..." Your stomach flipped.

"Cillian.. If you're asking me what I think you're asking me.."

"I'm not asking for anything y/n, I'm not even asking you to move in, unless you want to obviously... I just.. I just want to be near you. All the time. I know it's early days still, but we've been through more in a short time than most couples go through in a lifetime. I can't ever see myself with anyone else, ever.. what do you say?" He was stroking your face, and you were lost in his eyes.

"On one condition."

"Name it."

"I'm in charge of the decorating. I've seen the photos of your last house Cill, your taste is shocking.." he laughed and tickled you until you were back underneath him, and you groaned at his hardness pushing against your thigh. Kissing him deeply, he was soon back inside you, slotting in like a jigsaw piece finding its other half.

**********************************************************

Epilogue - 1 year later

You and Emily had spent the afternoon tidying and cleaning, waiting for Cillian to come home after a month back in Dublin onstage at the Gaiety Theatre performing in Enda Walsh's latest production - Cillian's first work since finishing Peaky Blinders 8 months ago. The show was due to go live any time now. You'd moved into his Kilburn house 6 months ago after realising you were spending 5 days out of 7 there every week anyway. Lisa and James were in prison for a fair few years, being found guilty for arson, slander and harassment.

"Mum, he's here!!" Emily ran from the window after hearing a car pull up and you both went into the kitchen - Emily sat at the table pretending to do her homework and you at the counter on your laptop.

"Hey girls? I'm home!" He called, and you walked into the hallway smiling before embracing him tightly. He kissed you and dropped his bag on the floor and his keys in the bowl. Emily walked through and hugged him right, before standing as straight as possible in the hallway. You winked at her, and looked at Cillian who was staring at Emily.

"How've you both been? What have I missed?" He moved into the kitchen and put the kettle on, desperate for a home made cup of tea.

"Nothing much really.. Emily and I went shopping this afternoon and she's got herself a few new t shirts, I bought a few things I think we'll need soon." He looked at you and smiled, his brow furrowed slightly.

"Look at my new t-shirt Cillian!" Emily danced in front of him, twirling round in circles making him laugh.

"I can't see it while your spinning like a merry-go-round Em, stand still!" She stood still and you bit your lip. "What's it say on the front... Hang on.." he gently held Emily's shoulders and read the slogan. He paused, then read it again, before turning sharply to you.

"Big Sister?!" You nodded, grinning.

"Mommy's having a baby!" Emily yelled, pretty sure your neighbours knew now!

"You're pregnant?!" He moved over to you and placed a hand over your belly - no bump yet, but it still made you glow inside.

"Six weeks. Found out yesterday, wanted to surprise you..." He lifted you off the floor and kissed you, before reaching for Emily and pulling her into the hug. You felt safe, secure, and most importantly, loved.

And now with baby Murphy on the way, your family would be complete.

[wits-writing]

What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[samiralula01]

Jason Todd is the Anti-Batman

* A pointless rambling of the relationship and parallels between Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd.

Picture this opening scene: There are two boys in a dark alley.

One is dressed in an expensive suit with a tie his dead father helped him with only earlier that evening. His hands are stained red with the same blood now puddled on the grimy cement. His face is in shock.

The second boy is dressed in tattered jeans and hoodie. His hands are stained with tires grease and are clutching a tire iron. His face is in shock.

Decades later, there are two more scenes to consider.

A seriously injured man sits slumped over in his father’s study. Without warning, a bat crashes through the window, and everything falls into place. He now knows what he needs to do.

Elsewhere, an emotionally distraught teenager is curled up into a fetal position on a hotel room floor. Heart wrenching cries can be heard from him. But it is only momentary. He now knows what he needs to do.

These two individuals are Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. While they are both broken and determined men, Batman is a hero. The Red Hood is not. He is the anti-Batman and this is why.

Two Boys in an Alleyway

Despite similarities in their stories’ early themes and elements, Bruce and Jason came to walk down very different paths. One of justice, and the other vengeance. Batman is determined to protect the innocent and Jason more so on punishing the guilty. Both their ideologies have intrinsic flaws, of course, and will naturally clash often. But this wasn’t always the case.

Before they became a father and son perpetually in mourning for who they once were and what could have been, Bruce and Jason were remarkably similar. The two are cut from the same cloth and Bruce knows this better than anyone else.

In the Dumpster Slasher three-part story line, (Batman #414, #421, #422) Bruce becomes emotional. Violent. He sits in the batcave alone that night and contemplates his emotions.

“Nearly blew it. I let it get too personal. Lost my detachment...nearly lost control. Almost beat Cutter to death. Wouldn’t have been any big loss.”

Only one issue later, at the end of this story arc, Robin is out on the streets and becomes angry when he happens upon a pimp is threatening a prostitute with a knife. Now, I want you to compare his line here to Bruce’s and note what Jim Gordon said to him as well.

Batman: "I think he’s had enough, Robin. What were you trying to do, kill him?" Robin (Jason): “Would it’ve been that big of a loss if I had?”

It is important to note here that Batman is not worried or upset just because Jason roughs up a pimp. That would be hypocritical considering his own earlier actions. If anything, it’s because one of the main reasons Batman even takes in these kids, these ‘robins,’ is because he doesn’t want them to be like him.

And Jason was acting just like him.

Jason can and has screwed up and failed due to his own actions, but it was never the reason Batman became upset with him. His reactions in the comics when Jason does things like running ahead and ‘jumping the gun,’ are more like this:

He either makes a teaching moment out of it or is attempts to understand Jason’s reasons in doing any such thing. When Bruce does become harsh in his discipline, it’s either when he feels as though Jason has endangered his own life or as I said, he acts too much like him.

While there are quite a few more similarities between Bruce and Jason that makes them alike, such as both being introverted and interested in obtaining all sorts of knowledge that they might not even feel is relevant, they are both, at the core of their characters, deeply caring and compassionate people.

The differences only start to show with how they act on it.

The Not-So Dynamic Duo?

“What happened to you as a child, the terror, the pain, the horrors (...) you were broken, and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole.”

Hot take. Jason Todd is a villain and is best written as a villain. 

Not in that campy way like he’s written during Dick and Damian’s Batman and Robin run while wearing that stupid pill-headed hood, (although, I grant he has a few lines that are enjoyable to read) but in all his serious, vengeful and downright brutal motives. 

The Red Hood is the perfect Batman villain because he’s so different from what the widely perceived perfect foil to the controlled and disciplined Bat is...the Joker. 

The Red Hood was vengeance at its purest. It is justice without being tempered by mercy. It is the rage of victims who were forgotten to become statistics. While other vigilantes wait for a cure, hope for rehabilitation, and pretend their system works, the Red Hood is a man of no such faith.

And this makes him a villain. And a damn good one.

During the Red Hood’s time as a crime lord in Gotham, he goes around blowing up buildings. He throws grenades into trucks. He mows down his competition with gunfire. Batman comes upon the bloodied hanged corpse of a man he was finished interrogating. 

But what is so compelling about this all is that before all the murder, all the guns and explosions, Jason Todd was a very different little boy. And all the great and memorable villains start that way.

The Joker is not someone you’re meant to sympathize with or even understand. In fact, I find him more terrifying because he’s unknown. He has no backstory (unless you want to believe the one he gave in Killing Joke, but the clown has a new story for every face he meets) and seemingly does what he does for a laugh of all things.

Jason Todd is in pain. He’s traumatized. Betrayed. Buried. Replaced. He is no one’s son because his father abandoned him.

Once upon a time, Jason Todd was a boy who saved himself. One of the biggest lies that Batman himself perpetuates is that he saved Jason from a life of crime. He tells Alfred that Jason was always dangerous. Bruce simply took him off the streets before he could be any worse.

But I don’t believe that’s true.

Jason grew up surrounded by crime, poverty, substance abuse and yet this amazing kid saved himself everyday by making a conscious choice to be kind and care about school, care about keeping his mother alive for over a year when he was just a child himself. That amazing kid was magic. 

Jason Todd as Robin was magic.

“Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind Robin, the Boy Wonder should have.”

A good portion of his character’s assassination was in order to push the Tim is the perfect Robin idea. It was editorial decisions. The same ‘suits’ who insisted that Tim Drake be the Robin in the New Adventures cartoon despite having Jason’s backstory and personality. But I digress on that. 

Jason Todd was an introverted, studious, and emphatic person. He wanted to make friends with other kids his age even though he was a loner at heart. He joined the school baseball team and was a class officer, even if his training kept him from most social interactions.

He was also very much in tune with non-verbal cues and small changes in the environment around him. He was a thoughtful person who could be found admiring the stars or passing by scenery. When he teams up with the New Teen Titans, we get to see these aspects of his personality:

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful before. We’re actually riding above the clouds.”

“Every so often, I notice you become awfully agitated...like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

It didn’t take Bruce long to fall in love with this boy and ask to legally adopt him. He found him to be smart, thoughtful, quick at learning and funny as hell. Their first meeting opens with Batman laughing in the very same alley his heart was ripped out decades earlier. 

Even in the Rebirth canon, (RHATO #48) we see that Bruce is already set on taking in Jason while he’s still with Ma Gunn’s school. He likes this kid. A lot.

“Butler, actually. You’ll meet him someday, I’m sure.”

Jason Todd was happy. Most of the time. Unfortunately, he still wrestled with depression and would sleep all day on occasion and could be found crying hidden away on his own, withdrawn from the concerned Bruce and Alfred.

In A Death in the Family, Alfred and Bruce sit down and discuss Jason’s worsening mental health, particularly after the Diplomat’s Son where Jason becomes witness to sexual assault, suicide and the failings of both Batman and the GCPD to protect innocent people. Barbara, his tutor, someone he cared about and got along with, is also shot a few months earlier.

Bruce thinks Jason has become suicidal. Alfred does not disagree with this theory and supplements it with things he’s observed himself about the ‘lad.’

“I’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying. When he’s seen me, he’s hidden the picture and left the room, refusing to talk.”

It is then that Jason discovers the truth about his mother at the worst possible time, when he’s not even thinking straight, and thus leads way to the tragedy that will be his murder at the hand’s of the Joker.

The Curse of Jason Todd

“Do you have any idea what you have done?! Do you? You have no inkling of what you’ve created -- what you have unleashed! You have set free a curse upon this world!”

Red Hood: Lost Days, which depicts Jason’s dark post-resurrection origin, opens with Ra’s al Ghul bellowing this line, the steam from the Lazarus Pit still rising off of him. 

I’m not going to analyze this line, I’m just using it to supplement a point of mine I hope I’m getting through well enough. The Red Hood is a compelling, tragic villain. He is similar to Batman in ways that Bruce always knew and may have even feared because of how intimately he knows his own deepest, darkest thoughts. Jason is the perfect foil as an antagonist for him because of what he represents to Bruce.

And it’s not his anger, or his rage, or even his brutality. 

It’s his compassion. His caring. His emotions. And how they can open up the worst parts of themselves. 

Both are motivated by preventing whatever trauma happened to them from ever happening to anyone else. They both trained for years with this motivation. And they’ve both acted out on the very person who inflicted their trauma onto them.

Here’s where their paths start to differ, however, and what separates them with a line of morality.

They both get angry. They both care so damn much. About Gotham, about innocents, about each other. They both get too emotionally invested and deal with consequences related to that. To manage with that, Bruce shuts down. He creates all these choices, rules and symbols. He uses every ounce of his self control to keep them. 

Bruce Wayne is not a good person. He forces himself to be with discipline and will. He chooses to be a good man and constantly pushes himself to live up to that. Because it’d be too damn easy to be just like the Red Hood.

Jason doesn’t understand that. Because no matter what Bruce had done or will do, he doesn’t hate him. He can’t. Despite his denial of the fact to different people, he still thinks of Bruce as his father. This great figure that so many others revere and are even intimidated by.

He’s not the only bat-kid to think of Bruce in this light despite the fact that the man is not. It took Dick years to overcome that perception. Tim only just started to begin understanding this true nature after his own father was murdered. 

But even if he did understand his (once)father, he still became the complete opposite of him despite so many early parallels. He doesn’t hold back his words and emotions, he doesn’t go into a state of controlled dissociation or emotional disengagement.

Jason Todd—the Red Hood—is Batman without all his rules and control. In a way, he’s what the darkest part of Batman himself wants to be. Jason does what Batman can’t do when it’s needed.

Because in Batman’s book, life beats out justice. Even if he could take down abusers and murderers, he won’t. He will choose saving and protecting lives over the apprehension of killers...he always does.

Batman is justice. Red Hood is vengeance.

Jason is a victim’s fantasy. He punishes and kills the guilty. Something Batman won’t do.

He is the anti-Batman for better or for worse.

[jmoriarty-221b]

New AU idea: I’ve found out that there’s some versions of the Batman comics where Tim Drake becomes Red Robin straight off the bat (he was never Robin & didn’t go to Batman) so I’m running with that

This Tim Drake doesn’t find Batman all that amazing, he recognizes Batman as a hero and as a symbol of Hope for Gotham, but he also sees him as just one man trying to make a difference, he holds more admiration towards Robin, specifically Jason’s Robin since he knows Gotham in ways Batman doesn’t, he checks on the street kids and the homeless, makes hot chocolate runs for the working girls when he can, and he is more interested in helping those in Crime Alley, a place where Batman and the previous Robin didn’t tend to patrol before Jason

And Tim has never been a normal child, there’s really no way for him to be human but there’s also no way to prove that he isn’t human, he passes the DNA tests, he doesn’t have a meta gene, he doesn’t have a mutation nor a difference in genetics, physiologically? There’s nothing to prove that Tim is anything other than human. In practice? Tim isn’t exactly limited if he cut off a limb, if he were to be shot in the head it would take approximately five minutes for him to heal back up, he can decide whether or not a wound will leave scars on his body, he can choose whether or not a mortal wound would put him in the ground permanently, most importantly, he can choose whether or not to contact his crew from the Isle that was supposed to be his home

There’s a reason as to why Tim isn’t exactly fond of heroes, after all, heroes decided to sentence countless of children yet to be born to a life of pain, suffering and poverty amongst an island filled with villains, heroes are the ones who put a barrier over the Isle that prevented its occupants from accessing their magic, heroes are the reason that his fae sisters and djinn brother and sea witch cousin and pirate friends are unable to access a part of themselves, he reason that they are unable to grow up properly and learn to control and feel and channel their magical cores, heroes are the reason for why him and his family hide behind fake names, and if it wasn’t for his parents’ quick thinking and preparations to flee then heroes would’ve been the reason he would’ve also grown up imprisoned and unable to access an integral part of himself

So no, Tim isn’t exactly impressed by the Batman

But Gotham exudes a similar signature as the one of the Isle of the Lost, making it the one place to where his parents could establish themselves undetected as the pollution would obscure their magical signatures had anyone looked for them, of course, Tim wasn’t old enough to learn how to lock down his own magical core in a way that wasn’t detrimental to himself, so he couldn’t be taken out of Gotham to accompany his parents on their numerous trips around the world, and such was his boredom that he decided to take advantage of his lack of adult supervision and explore Gotham

Having been taught about what became of the people he would’ve known as family from his parents as well as reading up every book he could in the ancient family library regarding long distance communication with magical kin, Tim ends up with a plan to meet with kids on the Isle as soon as he can, it turns out that establishing communication with the Isle requires for him to be in a part of Gotham that has the same atmosphere as the Isle, so Little Tim sets up shop in a semi secure rooftop in Crime Alley and establishes communication, needless to say he’s in for a surprise because “Oh wow why are you there Mr. Hades, you could escape any time and there’s no way those mortals could hope to contain your power, so why are you on the Isle?”

Turns out that attempting communication from a place surrounded by death and sorrow would lead to Tim establishing a magical video chat with the Lord of the Underworld, who’d’ve thunk? Anyway, Hades is literally just chilling for the next hundred years on the Isle because it’s easier to agree to mortals’ demands than obliterate them, and it’s less paperwork too so win-win, and one afternoon he’s suddenly communicating with one of the cutest little chipmunks he’s seen (kids are cute, and Tim is still a baby so he’s Tiny Cute) who introduced himself as Timothy Dwake and isn’t that just precious that the little tyke still has trouble with his r’s but how is he able to communicate with him on the Isle oh, that’s Janet’s kid, well shit guess he has a godson now (Janet had always wanted for Tim to be protected and that’s why she had been one of the few to escape the Isle, she had been a good friend back in the day so it seemed only fair for him to return the favor by looking out for Tiny Tim; it has nothing to do with Tim’s very cute face and slightly chubby cheeks that he kinda wants to pinch and his cute little lisp no Persephone I’m not attached-)

Anyway, so Tim ends up learning from his Uncle H on how to control his magical core and how to defend himself against physical and magical threats, he has a talent for using shadows to conceal himself as well as to listen in on others and gather information, if he concentrates really hard he can even manipulate shadows into solid figures, once he told this to his Uncle new training lessons began and now Tim is able to maintain his shadow constructs solid for longer periods of time as well as give them shape, over time he would learn more control over his ability and it will become easier to make weapons from shadows, his Uncle H also trains him in combat, particularly lost forms of combat from ancient civilizations

One particular night Tim wasn’t able to go to their meeting spot in Crime Alley, there was an Arkham Breakout and he wasn’t about to be caught up in that shit because could he fight off some villains and protect himself? Sure, but that would mean a possibility of getting the Batman’s attention and he’s not about to do that so staying at home it is, and now he is walking alone in the Drake gardens, he has no one to practice his fighting techniques with, no one to talk to, no one to teach him about what’s happening in the Isle, no one to teach him how to control his powers and his parents are gone for most of the year and they say that they’ll take him with them when he’s older but they’ve been saying that for years and now he’s much better at concealing his power and the King of Auradon believes he put every villain away for good so it’s not like they’re searching for his magical signature anyway so WHY WON’T HIS PARENTS TAKE HIM WITH THEM!?!?!? WHY IS HE ALWAYS LEFT ALONE!?!?!?

As he got progressively angrier, Tim hadn’t noticed how his power became stronger, how shadows grew larger, nor how the ground seemed to tremble and crack, it wasn’t until the ground literally split in front of him that he realized that maybe his power may have gotten out of hand, a bit, maybe, to be fair, he didn’t mean to summon a skeleton warrior with who he could practice his fighting with but hey, silver lining and all that, and he has something else to tell his Uncle H about in their next meeting (Hades may or may not have blessed his godson, and the blessing may or may not have given Tim some sort of control over his domains)

Anyway, eventually Tim learns how to see what’s happening in the Isle on his own from a sort of bird’s eye view, he sees what kids his age are going through and tries to find ways to alleviate the pain, he begins to talk to the kids and establishes rapport with them, he becomes friends with little Uma and Harry by bonding over swordplay, he gives Jay and Carlos tips for how to find the best hiding spots, he learns from Evie how to hide more stuff in his clothes and how to add more protective fabrics to his wardrobe, he and Mal bond over high parental expectations (she reminds him of Hades sometimes, and he thinks her eyes are a very pretty green with gold flecks sprinkled in, he may have a crush???) (Psssst, Mal likes Tim’s eyes too, she thinks it’s very pretty how they seem to change shades depending on his mood and when he’s happy they match her purple hair) *cue cuteness from these unfortunate little beans because yes*

Anyway, Tim has been working on creating a portal to a secluded part of the Isle from where he could send supplies to kids there, he was 8 years old when he started looking into this possibility after managing to make friends with the kids and now, at 13, he has finally managed to make it happen, he can only send non-living things through the portal tho, because although theoretically he Could send himself over, then he’d be stuck behind the barrier and couldn’t access his magic so that’s a big no, and he also can’t take the risk of getting someone from the Isle out because he can’t guarantee their safety (he tried with small insects and one time with a mouse; they died); the first thing he sends are medical supplies, food and bottled water, at first it’s only for his close friends, then they all establish a sort of routine and plan to get these supplies to other kids while hiding what they’re doing from their parents behind the guise of building their own gang on the Isle, Uma with the pirates and Mal with the inner city, Tim becomes their sort of advisor on important matters having seen what strategy tends to work when recruiting people as well as how to better approach street kids, he gets nicknamed the Shadow Angel for helping from behind the curtain, literally

Tim continues to learn as much as he can from his Uncle H, shadows Robin around Crime Alley, avoids gaining Batman’s attention and acquires supplies to send to the Isle three times a week from different places (he’s gotta cover his tracks, otherwise he runs the risk of getting Batman’s attention even if it’s just because the same person keeps buying food, water and medical supplies from various stores each week) but Tim has money, and he has experience regarding gangs and their recruiting and internal works (he’s helping his friends make their own gangs after all) and these people are in need of help as well, so he decides to make his own ‘gang’ by hiring people to do supply runs for him, he poses as a recruiter and gives fliers with information about his own gang and the benefits that joining will have (health insurance, dental, payed maternity leave, payed recuperation period, payed physical therapy and medical bills in case Batman decides to pop in, education is provided for anyone who wishes to get their GED and continue their education, etc); in the end, Tim keeps the Boss’ identity a secret until he reaches adulthood because no one would take a kid seriously, but he ends up amassing his own gang in Gotham while at the same time improving the life of people in poverty areas like Crime Alley and the Bowery

Of course, everything comes to a head when Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos are elected to go to school in Auradon leaving Uma as the only leader on the Isle, meanwhile Tim has been keeping tabs on Robin and gets to save Jason from Joker in Ethiopia (turns out being able to summon a skeleton army comes in handy when rescuing Robin from a deranged psychopath like Joker) so Tim is simultaneously saving Jason while still trying to remain anonymous to Batman (he’s built and maintained an entire gang in the most crime ridden part of Gotham for years, he’s not about to get involved with the Bats now)

So Tim only finds out about what happened to Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos until they’re already in Auradon and decides you know what? Fuck it, I’m gonna meet my friends face to face, besides, he can handle maintaining a gang in Gotham, he’s sure he can handle Auradon (update: he cannot, he’s this close 🤏 to rocking someone’s shit, he proposes overtaking the kingdom twice a day, he knows they could do it, and it’ll be easy even, but it’s the paperwork that’s holding them back, meh, let Ben do the grunt work and become an advisor, at least their manipulations would be in favor of improving the life of kids in poverty unlike other people who just want to get more money from their position close to the crown, gotta love politics)

Anyway, Tim Drake does become Red Robin, gang leader and benevolent overlord of Crime Alley and the Bowery, helping Gotham citizens and being the Shadow Angel of the Isle, plotting Auradon’s downfall for fun on his slow days as well as working on taking out the kids from the Isle and setting up safe houses for them for when he and his friends figure out how to save the kids