#most of these are pre-crisis but the past 2 are post. and i think the titans crossovers are still canon to post crisis?? idk

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Jason Todd, the second Robin

[moonstruckme]

Hey! I LOVE the comic you posted of the reader going to a club pre-relationship! I was wondering if you could write a part 2 to that of all of them going to a club together. With some jealousy, like when the reader goes to the bathroom on her way back she is getting flirted with by a random guy and the marauders reaction. Feel free to ignore

(Also I adore you comic that make my day every time I have re-read all of them at least 3 times!)

Hi lovely, thank you so much ! This took me forever to get to sorry, hope you enjoy it <3

part 1

cw: alcohol, unwanted/nonconsensual touch

roommate!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.3k words

Your shriek cuts through the loud music, and you turn to Remus with an open-mouthed grin. 

“This is my favorite song!” you shout. 

He laughs. In the past half hour, four songs have been your favorite. “Yeah?” he asks. 

You nod happily, throwing your hands above your head as you spin. You’re tipsy twirly, surprisingly sprightly considering you’ve downed enough shots to get Remus hammered, and he’s got several inches on you and has been drinking since he was thirteen. 

Sirius is in a similar state. Remus and James have been steering the two of you around for most of the night, but now James has put himself in charge of crisis prevention, playing goalie between either of you and the bar. 

“Oh be fun, Prongsie,” Sirius wheedles after getting spun around by the shoulders for the upteenth time. “I know you can be fun.” 

“I am fun,” James agrees. “I have my most fun when I’m not cleaning up your vomit. Go dance with y/n.” 

You’re game for this plan, giving Sirius an enticing smile and moving your hips to the music in a way that makes Remus’ mouth go completely dry. He knows he’s not the only person in this club who’s noticed, but thankfully the little circle the four of you have made in the dance floor stays clear of intruders. Thus far, your prediction has proved correct; no other men have come up to you with your roommates around. He’s not particularly distraught about it. 

You seem oblivious to your own allure, laughing when Sirius hurries toward you like a called puppy. You take his hands, letting him twirl you around and then holding your arms up to twirl him in return, and at the chorus, you both jump around so that your hair flies all about. Your laughter is loud and sparkling. Remus sips his drink, entranced. 

There are two more favorite songs before you careen towards him, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. He hastily grips you by the elbow, wary of a fall, but you seem to have done this intentionally. You beam up at him, your smile lopsided and far less shy than anything he’s ever seen from you. 

“M’gonna go to the toilet,” you tell him, one word leading into the next like they’ve been sloppily tied together with string. 

“Oh, okay.” Of its own volition, Remus’ hand coasts up the back of your upper arm, then down to your elbow again. “Do you think you’re gonna be sick, honey?” 

Your face screws up as if this is taboo to mention. “What? No.” You make a funny pffting sound. “I’m miles off from that, I’m fantastic, it’s just,” you lower your voice, expression turning grave, “I think it’s time to break the seal,” you tell him meaningfully. 

This time it’s entirely intentional, but he also can’t help it. You’re just too cute. Remus sets his hand on the top of your head affectionately, grinning at you. “Alright, love, sounds good.” He looks around for the women’s bathroom, locating it a short distance away. “Want one of us to go with and wait outside for you?” It’s not like he can’t see it from here, but a girl as intoxicated as you probably shouldn’t be going anywhere by herself. 

“No, no, I’ve got it,” you say, patting his chest lightly. “Back soon.” 

It’s like you’ve disappeared into a mist, the way you fade into the crowd so quickly. It takes Remus a moment to spot the top of your head moving towards the bathroom. You turn around just before you go in, giving him a dazzling smile paired with a dorky thumbs-up. 

“Where’d she go?” James asks, holding his drink aloft while Sirius grabs for it. “And what has made you smile like that, Moony?” 

Remus makes a dismissive sound, but he feels his face heat as he takes a long sip of his own drink. James’ grin widens. 

“Ooh,” Sirius catches on. “What’d she say to you?” 

“Nothing. She’s gone to the toilet.”

Sirius’ kohl-rimmed eyes bulge, and James laughs, following his train of thought immediately. “Did she ask you to follow her? I didn’t think that was your style, you rake.” 

Remus rolls his eyes. “You’re depraved.” 

It’s not long before you reappear, catching Remus’ eye on your way out of the bathroom like you knew he’d be looking. You give him another of those heart-stuttering smiles and head his way, weaving your way through the crowd with a drunken expertise. 

A happy glow of anticipation starts up in his chest, but you’re intercepted on the way. Another head, taller, steps in front of you, blocking Remus’ view. He cranes his neck, but he can’t see you. 

He must make some sound or simply be emanating discontent, because James is back at his side in an instant. “What’s wrong?” 

“Someone’s talking to her. I can’t see her anymore.” He sounds ridiculous, like an overprotective douche, but he can’t imagine one can be too cautious when a drunk girl is surrounded by guys in a place like this. Remus is being purely practical. 

“Let’s go get her.” James is on board immediately, taking Sirius by the elbow and beginning to bulldoze his way through the crowd. Sirius grabs Remus’ hand just before the gap closes behind them, dragging him along. 

Remus hears you before he sees you. 

“Really, I appreciate it, but I’m not looking for anything.” Your voice sounds slightly tight, and Remus knows you well enough to tell by the sound of it that you’re giving whoever you’re talking to one of your big, fake smiles. 

A man’s voice says, low and sure, “You don’t mean that—” and that’s as far as he gets, because you interrupt to exclaim, with no small amount of relief, “My friends!” 

“Hi, sweetheart,” James says, and you’re right in front of them. You’ve cleaned up your makeup in the bathroom, the eyeliner that had transferred sweatily under your eyes now pristine again, and your smile is indeed giant and thin-lipped as you look between them and the man in front of you, subtly flaring your eyes. He reads the look clearly: Help, please!

Remus looks you over. The man has his hands on your hips and one of yours is around his wrist, a cautious touch. Sirius takes care of that quickly, wrapping his forefinger and thumb around the wrist closest to him and removing it like it’s a piece of trash he found on the street. 

“Do you two know each other?” Remus asks. Without permission, his voice comes out gruff and accusatory. 

“No,” you say speedily, taking a step towards Sirius. Towards them. “I was just on my way back to you guys, actually.” 

“We were talking.” The man looks between the three of them scrutinously, like they’re threats. Remus doesn’t hate the thought of being a threat to this guy. 

“Sounded like you were done talking, mate.” James smiles easily. You’d have to really know him to hear the sharpness in his tone. 

Sirius snakes an arm around your waist, but you don’t shy from the bold touch. In fact, you lean into him, your smile slowly beginning to resemble the genuine article. “Wanna get another drink, baby?” Sirius asks you, gaze salacious. 

“Mhm.” You bob your head eagerly, and he leads you off, James and Remus following. “Thanks for the help,” you tell them as soon as you’re away. “He didn’t, like, do anything, but it was a bit intimidating.” 

“Anytime, sweetheart,” James replies, expression going a bit stormy now that he’s done feigning lightness. “And I wouldn’t say he didn’t do anything, he shouldn’t have put his hands on you like that.” 

“It’s whatever,” you wave it off so easily Remus’ heart gives a little throb. “What’re we drinking?” 

“Oh, that was a ploy,” Remus says. “We’re done drinking, remember?” 

You pout, and Sirius hugs your side sympathetically (entirely for your benefit, Remus is certain). “You mean we’re done,” he sneers. “You and Prongs get to have however much you want. Who made you king of the beer?” 

“I think you did, actually,” Remus says thoughtfully. “At Mary’s New Year’s party, remember?” 

Sirius sniffs, presumably because he does not.

[chessboredom]

I'm wanna continue talking about Redeemed Beast! Smilk in a different post from my last one.

So Redeemed Smilk. Looking back at his past, he had a lot of followers. GREEDY and SELFISH followers. They don't want to believe about his words of truth, so he resorted to lies in order to please them.

Now here's my idea of a Smilk redemption, he becomes a clown entertainer/teacher for young cookies. I have had this idea in FOREVER. Why? Because,

1.) Children are the most truthful creatures on the planet. That means Smilk is probably going to have one hell of a childish but playful beef with a child, but without the hard feelings because they're all playing and acting. And he would learn how to remove grudges and instead get happy memories from it.

2.) Curious creatures with so many questions and requests, but no judgement! They'll l ask why he has so many eyes. They'll ask about tye Beasts. They'll ask about stories they've never heard before. They wouldn't think that it's real or fake. All they would know is that they get the answers they needed and cherish the knowledge they've received. If they found out it was a lie, they already know that Smilk has a habit of lying, so it was just fair that they believed him. He wanted to make them happy after all.

3.) They believe in anything and then get scared of ANYYYTHING, it's hilarious. He's gonna tell a group of children that the world is going to end in a billion years and then they get an existential crisis. (Pv would get him for this.)

and 4.) The very joy it brings when he makes them happy. Even as simple as pulling a rabbit out of nothing. A simple fact about insects or animals they never knew but will soon remember. Or he's gonna start doing the magic tricks on THEM and then they make a line so that their heads get detached from their bodies for fun. (PV is fine with that as long as the children and Smilk are having fun.)(PV could also do it himself.)

Pre-corrupt Smilk was an amazing and all knowing scholar the origin of magic in all of Earth Bread, but he just had the wrong audience to focus his judgements over his shared knowledge with. He focused on the greedy and selfish ADULTS of the cookie world to believe him, but not the children who have yet to know the wonders of the world and respond with pure unadulterated joy.

2 child cookies in particular that I've thought of talking with him are Star Coral Cookie and Wizard Cookie.

Him and Wizard Cookie would definitely nerd out about magic and encantations that Strawberry Cookie and Ginger Brave would get SO BORED over. The next thing you know is that Smilk already taught him how to cast a nuclear level threat spell to him Lmao.

As for Star Coral, her story was about her BELIEVING in her grandma's stories, but still being unaware that the story was about her. The very notion of her believing what other cookies didn't would give him a little bit of a warmth of hope in his cold heart. (Still haven't finished it but I'm already in love with the concept.)

[glitter-stained]

I know some people argue that robin!Jason and Dick were never close post-crisis pre n52 because they only interacted a couple of times in canon and I understand that due to Dick living away when they first met they wouldn't be as close as the relationship Dick has with some of his other siblings, but I would also wish we would take in account that for all three of Jason's years, we have like 30 issues of Jason's run. That's exceedingly small. We have batman #416, we have that one moment in teen titans (i forgot the issue) of jason working with the team, and i think the ski trip we found out later about was included in the same canon*. (also, i do feel like even if you didn't know/like eachother before going on a ski trip together by the end of the ski trip this will have changed, and the picture definitely felt like they were getting along even though Jason's face in the picture was comically weird.) I'm not sure if there were other interactions shown or mentioned, but hey, 2-3/30ish isn't a bad score at all! If we're going 3/30, that's a whole tenth of Jason's robin era.

(And I'm talking about their relationship from Dick's pov since it's the one in question here but it's clear to me in Jason's run, even post-crisis, that Dick is often on his mind and important in his life (with a certain inferiority complex the little siblings of very cool people know well) with stuff like I think Batman #410 or Jason is Legends.)

And even more importantly, 30ish is extremely short for three damn years. That's ten issues per year! Do we assume that Jason was sitting on a shelf for the whole time he's not working with batman in the comics? Do we assume batman was sitting on a shelf twiddling his thumbs all that time during those three years he appears, either? It's perfectly logical to make the assumption that Bruce and Jason were still going out as goddamn Batman and Robin even when it's not shown on screen and having a relationship and interacting together even when it's not seen. In fact it's the most reasonable and logical assumption even. It's obvious Jason and Bruce's interactions extend past what was shown on screen so why wouldn't Dick and Jason? We know from Dick's relationship to his death that Dick cared about Jason. We know how much his death impacted him. Regardless of the (now retconned) terrible mess that was their relationship after Jason came back, they had a relationship, and it was good, and how deep it went is up to interpretation but it doesn't cheapen or lessen any of Dick's relationship with his other siblings to acknowledge that (like, seriously, even though some of them might view it as such in the story, dick's love isn't a prize that can only go to the one blorbo to win the competition. Personally I don't see Robin Jason being his favourite, and that's fine. Probably since, as I only have one sibling to be weird about, this is one aspect of Dick and Jason's relationship that I don't project onto them.)

There's a difference between saying "those are the only canon interactions between Dick and Robin!Jason that we know of" and saying "those are the only interactions that happened between Jason and Dick when Jason was Robin", especially if the next sentence is going to be something like "read a comic". I want to insist that I'm not saying that they have to have been super close. All I'm saying is I don't see, with the knowledge I personally have of canon and the retcons I choose to disregard (because of terrible writing), why considering that they were close wouldn't be canon compliant.

Leeway, nuance and up to interpretation stuff are fun and should matter for evaluating the level of canon compliance of your own headcanons, and I think it's especially important when trying to police other people's interpretation of canon: are you certain their interpretation is fanon and you're correcting it with the right canon, or is it a case of two headcanons clashing in the blank space between comic pages?

I just found it strange to never see it taken in account in the sometimes pretty emphatic takes I saw on the debate around their relationship, so those are my two cents on the matter. All this to say, [theatre joke in coming], when it comes to Dick and Jaybin, we could all stand to be more chill.

* btw i'm excluding dixon's nightwing year one from this conversation because I hate how it manages to shit on every one of the characters i've seen him write in it so violently and also fuck dixon, my jason comes from post-crisis not that crappy weirdo retcon.

[world-of-wales]

What are your thoughts on this new public persona of Meghan's?

I have been thinking about this a lot yk? Especially after the show trailer dropped. I don't blame her for trying to get into the lifestyle influencing shtick, despite all my thoughts on her and her career trajectory, the tig was quite possibly the most steady piece of work she had pre harry. So, it makes sense that she'd like to go back to that. I mean there's only a few chances that you can milk 2 years of ur life that you spent in the UK. Logically she would have had to pivot to a different strategy, and this is her doing that.

But the thing is, I don't think she or her team realise is that this whole thing is not new, people have seen this formula already from different people across both sides of the Atlantic. And they saw it years ago. It's like she's permanently frozen in the early 2000s era and is trying to emulate that. Yes, people used to like lifestyle shows and maybe some people still do, but you would be naive to think this is the type of content they want to consume in 2025. There's been a complete shift in the narrative surrounding them.

For instance, take the aspect of wealth, these aspirational lifestyle shows/blogs etc enjoyed a lot more popularity pre-social media. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that there wasn't much public discourse over how it's just the rich showing off their lives to us all regular people. At most, you would get one opinion piece in some magazine or somewhere about how these shows are not it. But that was about it. Now, post social media, people have a proper channel that they can use to express their criticism of all this. And they do it too. There's a very anti-rich movement brewing on the surface, and you can easily see it. People don't want to see you try and show them how you are living a picture perfect life and telling them how they should be aspiring to live theirs, when they are completely detached from what you are showing due to circumstances.

Across the globe there's a cost of living crisis, food inflation is at an all time high. People are unable to buy the basic necessities of life. Water and electricity bills have skyrocketed. People, especially the younger generation cannot even fathom investing in their own homes as the costs of real estate/home loans etc etc, are too much to bear. Healthcare systems are overshot, just look at the USA, whose audience this show is primarily targeting - you just had a Luigi Mangione. People are being pushed below the poverty line every day.

Fresh produce is a luxury now and there's no denying that fact and we already are seeing it being portrayed as an aspirational item signifying oppulence and wealth. Just look that photoshoot Hailey beiber did, the kardashian fam has been having these parties with all those fruits as decor, one of them even posted a photo with cut oranges in a flower bouquet. And people can try to deny all this, but the fact of the matter is that just as things start going above the reach of regular people they are co-opted by the rich and high class to show off their wealth and living standards.

In this climate a very very rich woman, a royal essentially for all means and purposes, put out this show about how -

she uses all this organic produce (which is one of the most expensive product categories already), People cannot afford all this rn,

has all these beekeeping, chickens etc etc to source all the things she uses (animal farming across the world has been rising in costs, just these past 3 days I have been interviewing farmers in areas bordering india's national capital and all of them even the bigger players have had things to say about how their costs have risen dramatically when it comes to the animals and their care, while profits are going down the drain because of corporations) I took this photo on Thursday on the drive back home.

When she goes and harvests her own veggies, etc, she forgets that there's a farm crisis going on, not just in the developing world but also in the developed states. Farmers are just not able to sustain themselves with the income they have. And suicides among them have risen by a huge margin. She is trying to project their situation as very glamorous without putting in any thoughts of the ground reality. This is a hobby for her, but it's a very bitter reality that countless people suffer from due to apathy from everyone, including their governments. Farmers have had very visible movements across the world these past few years, trying to get their concerns addressed and still continue to do that.

This show looks to me like nothing except a personal ego trip of somebody who's unable to grasp the simple fact that nobody in the real world can relate to this or think about this kind of life at all. Tone-deafness has always been a primary characteristic of the way the sux potray their problems, but this takes the cake. It's the sheer lack of sensitivity and glamorization of an extravagant life that nobody can afford & the disconnect between it and the real world realities is what gets me. She isn't being an authentic, this is my true self person with this show. It's contrived disingenuous slop for me that's just been made for the rich by the rich.

There's a lot more I want to say, but this is already so long that I'll stop here.

[smashy-headcanons]

For the Anachronistic question, for at least the part with there being several versions of the same character- I always saw it as the character just wearing a costume that made them look like their past self and also that most characters, if not like specified elsewise, are from their post-game but before any sequel story that happened after Ultimate. Like Shulk is post Xenoblade Chronicles 1 but pre Future Connected based on his clothes being the same as xbc1 and Bayonetta is post 2, pre 3 but can still occasionally wear her Bayo 1 outfit. Ike is a bit less explainable by this logic with his voice lines being different for each version. The only time there's a solid time that there was a potential for paradox that could lead to existential crisis between future and past self...maybe Young Link and Adult Link back in Melee depending on how you headcanon that whole deal to work?

[ID: ask from foxfirestarlight reading "I would think cloud, bayo, ike, and anyone else I'm forgetting just have a change of clothes and outfit. (striked out text) And magical voice augmentation if needed". end ID.]

And that was the last time adult!OoT Link was brought into a Smash game. An incident like that would explain why ST!Link is replaced by Alfonzo whenever another Link is playing that stage. Like yeah we already have Links interacting but those ones are directly monitored and this is a direct descendant of one of those Links best to switch him out just in case.

RIP Young Link, once again accidentally turned into a test monkey for unethical psychological experiments 😔

[tomwambsgans]

part 2 to this post

so, i think it's already a common understanding that tom won succession in part through his deep understanding of everything laid out in that original post. hierarchies. he knows his place very well, ie he knows whom he's under.

-and because he knows how to utilize his position on the ladder, he's also able to climb it. particularly through shiv.

...which i feel begs the question: why? why is tom ultimately more intuitive with this system than the roy siblings?

there are multiple answers, including 1) class - tom has lifelong experience climbing up whereas the sibs were born at the top and only have experience flipping between 3 or 4 rungs; and 2) tom specifically has lived outside of logan's world and in the end is contending with those other than logan anyway, meanwhile the sibs are lost with their dad gone; but what i want to talk about most of all is the answer that factors masculinity back into it, and which concerns tom as a whole person rather than simply a corporate agent:

3) tom's innate desire for other men and repression of that desire, having grown up in the midwest during the peak of the AIDS crisis, has made him only capable of functioning within a hierarchy. he has long since carved a space for himself in the framework of heterosexual masculinity and is incredibly vulnerable without it.

what i mean by this is that tom, like many men in hypermasculine environments, recontextualizes expressions of desire into displays of power as well as ritualistic displays of submission. this is common even in outright homosexual environments due to how many men spent their lives beforehand with these hierarchies being 1) the most intimate that they ever got with other men, and/or 2) the safest way to be close with men at all. within hierarchies, there are pre-established rules, and if you touch or are touched by men in ways that follow those rules - as in, you're either exerting power or knowing your place, then you're safe from the notions of true desire. the existence of the hierarchy also implies that you will do both, once you're past the absolute bottom rung. experiencing the control of other men is simply a trial that you endure in order to be in their place one day.

and once you do this for a long time, you become blind to what desires even are. you become essentially a high-functioning depressive.

but tom also snaps on occasion, effectively utilizing his power at those times... and what's interesting is that in spite of his need to not be vulnerable, and in spite of his need to have the power in the situation, we see him shaken by his own actions. we see him not only apologetic for going too far, but on top of that, a consistent willingness to break the rules of the hierarchy and make someone else his equal. that someone, of course, being greg.

tom is clearly a romantic to his core, and this definitely extends to greg despite there being no formal romance between them, with his consistent efforts to bring greg up to his level. or rather, as close to his level as he can before he starts panicking. because as much as he clearly craves that partnership of equals, tom literally does not know how to comfortably exist in intimacy with another man unless he has those rules.

on multiple occasions he's shown to panic at the end of an otherwise equal (and therefore vulnerable) interaction and bring up notions of his position over greg to feel safe. what's notable is that even as he does so, they are simultaneously expressions of love and desire that get progressively undeniable as the show goes on:

and finally, for the whole of season 4 i think tom is in a constant state of panic that is partly due to how high up he's taken greg. there's the factor of not feeling certain that greg will stay once he no longer needs him (which i also would say is, itself, a factor in tom's comfort within a hierarchy), but also a general sort of uneasiness because he's just broken down a wall that was previously keeping him safe from his own desires. he's got to look greg in the eyes now, basically. the more power and mobility he hands to greg, the more tom has to acknowledge that being around him is just what he wants.

...and he's been keeping greg at this level for at least 3 months, so it's also definitely circumstances that tom wanted to keep nevermind the discomfort. we obviously don't know much of what happened between them offscreen but we do have those vague allusions to the disgusting brothers - evidently nights together at the bar, aka a place where businessmen can get drunk enough that it's appropriate to become equals. this gets more into headcanon territory but i gotta imagine that alcohol is a big factor in how tom grows to cope with the change. in the same way that you still take pain medication after an elective surgery.

of course, not only is tom still in the process of accepting the changes to his dynamic with greg, but season 4 also takes place over an extremely hectic and stressful one-and-a-half weeks, so it's all-around reasonable that tom continues to lash out to reinforce the hierarchy.

but once again, even moreso now, the way that he lashes out is an undeniable expression of attachment, of a desperate need to keep him close... of love. so undeniable that in the end, even greg fully understands.

[aboutzatanna]

can we get a summary of Zatanna’s interactions with Swamp Thing? And/or Madame Xanadu?

(Sorry it took a while to answer to this. Not being able to answer this has been bugging me for a while)

Outside of JLD, the most notable interactions I can think are:

-For Swamp Thing:

Although her Dad died as a guest star in a Swamp Thing, Zatanna and Swamp Thing never really interacted in that specific arc.

There was a Swamp Thing mini series in 2011 by Len Wein (Swamp Thing's other Dad) and artist Kelly Jones (perfect fit for the title) which revolved around Swamp Thing/Alec Holland looking for a cure for his condition with his friend, Matt Cable which leads the two of them to Zatanna's place.

Continuity wise, it a bit of a mess. What with Matthew Cable being...well....alive...human and...not one one of Morpheus's crows. Plus references to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run but ST is a human turned to swamp creature instead of a swamp creature who thought it was human. That said, Alec Holland was brought back to life thanks to the events of Brightest Day so that's not as egregious as Matthew Cable.

Zatanna is the magician who gets the biggest focus. Her characterization is the same as her preNu52, same goes for Phantom Stranger and Etrigan. But this mini fits neither the Pre Nu52 continuity nor the Post Nu52 continuity. I think it can be enjoyed and read on it's own. It's just stuck in a weird middle ground continuity wise because it was published in a time when nobody at DC was sure if the Nu52 was a full, clean slate reboot or partial reboot and no one could decided what should remain in continuity and what shouldn't.

-For Madame Xanadu:

The first major story to have Zatanna and Xanadu interact with each other was Spectre Vol 2 #7-8 titled 'Pieces of Zatanna'. It's a rare body horror story involving Zatanna where she finds her limbs and other parts of her body disappearing and returning but she knows they are not her original limbs.

So Zatanna quickly runs to Madame Xanadu for help. Although this is the first time readers see Zatanna and Xanadu interact, the two are already aware of each other.

The story is meant to resolve loose ends from Zatanna's final appearance in Justice League of America Vol 1 #257 as well as give Zatanna some closure for her fathers death in Swamp Thing #50.

Zatanna later appeared in Spectre Vol 2 #11, this time, of all things, the limo driver who chaueffer's Xanadu, Bronze Tiger and June Moon to a meeting arranged by the Spectre involving all the magical beings so they can discuss their roles in the human world. Not sure why Zee couldn't have just teleported them there, but then again, maybe they just wanted to enjoy a nice drive and limo is implied to be Zatanna's.

Years later, in Madame Xanadu's own series Madame Xanadu #9 we learn that Xanadu and John Zatara had dated in the past which goes a long way towards explaining how Zatanna knows her.

In Spectre Vol 3, around #16, there was a story arc where an Eclipso possessed Spectre went on a rampage. Zatanna appeared in the story arc but didn't get to interact with Xanadu as she was recruited to by Phantom Stranger to be on his team alongside Etrigan and the Inza Nelson Doctor Fate. Xanadu made her own team with Father Creamer and Ramban. Notably it's Xanadu's team that ends up succeeding at stopping the Spectre's rampage but cutting to the heart of the issue and confronting Corrigan's spiritual crisis directly.

Aside from that, Xanadu and Zatanna often appear together in ensembles during events like Obsidian Age and Day of Vengeance but they are not always notable.

I always thought that Xanadu could be a cool step mom figure for Zee since the latter operates in a male dominated world.

I haven't read Bendis Justice League in full yet but around the time the JLD back up feature was getting cancelled we did get to see Zatanna and Xanadu team up to fight a possessed Black Adam in Justice League Vol 4 #73:

[fancyfade]

I just realized there are new comic issues for Aquaman, and there are already 5 issues released! Anyway, what do you think about it? Is it good or bad? Are there Aquaman comic series you recommend for a reader who wants to read it?

I haven't read hte new series past issue #1 on account of how bad issue #1 was :P

For what comic series to read I made a long breakdown on what I recced on LOCG just copying text of comment here:

Short story: Yes, I would recommend a lot of Aquaman runs.

So, Aquaman runs broken down by "if you enjoy"

If you enjoy: 

Lighthearted antics, silver age plotlines: Aquaman vol 1 (Aquaman 1962 series). The first half was printed in Showcase presents: Aquaman, and IIRC they are doing a "World's finest: Aquaman" Collection as well that includes this.  The Sub Diego plotline in Aquaman vol 6 (2003-2006) also includes what I consider a more modern version of lots of silver age aquaman beats, though the storytelling is much more serious we have Arthur working solo, with little-to-no Atlantis stuff.

Mythology/ Aquaman interacting with gods: Aquaman vol 5 (Peter David's Aquaman (Starting at Time and Tide miniseries, all collected in his recent omni)), Tempest (Phil Jimenez mini series starring Garth), DeConick's Aquaman

General sword-and-sorcery type stuff: Aquaman vol 2 (1986), The Atlantis Chronicles, Aquaman vol 5 (1994), Aquaman: Tempest, Aquaman vol 6 (2003) Aquaman: the Sword of Atlantis (2006), Aquaman vol 8 (2016 - the rebirth run)

Great artwork: Aquaman vol 1 (1962 - second half, by Skeates and Amparo, tho I enjoy the first half's art as well), Aquaman vol 2 (1986), Aquaman vol 3 (1989), Aquaman: Tempest, Aquaman vol 6 (sub diego plotline), Brightest day, Aquaman vol 7 (2011), Aquaman Rebirth ft Stjepan Sejic (a couple issues, but he knocks it out of the park). Bonus non main continuity but Ram V's Aquaman Andromeda ROCKS here.

Character Focused stories: Aquaman vol 2 (Aquaman 1986, a 4 issue mini by Neal Pozner IIRC), and Aquaman vol 4 (Aquaman 1991) are GREAT at this. They do follow up some from death of the prince. my friend who got me into aquaman said that for pretty much all of Post Crisis Aquaman comics (everything pre new 52, post 1986), Death of a Prince will be hanging over the character's heads like a shadow and you might want to read it first before these moments.

Garth (Aqualad v1): Aquaman vol 1 (Aquaman 1962) INCLUDING the bronze age stuff that is by Skeates and Amparo. These are collected in Aquaman: The Search for Mera (little Garth content, IIRC), Aquaman: Deadly Waters (more Garth IIRC), and Aquaman: Death of a Prince (includes first explanation of Shayeris/ where Garth is from). Then, you want Aquaman: Tempest by Phil Jimenez

Mera: Aquaman: Death of a Prince (Mera gets her first solo backup stories in this TPB), Then most Aquaman series from Brightest Day (not an Aquaman series, but essential Mera reading) - new 52 onward have decent Mera. ESPECIALLY Parker's New 52 run and Abnett's Rebirth run. Abnett is the GOAT for Mera.

Jackson (Aqualad v2): Deconick's run has a lot of Jackson stuff! Brightest day also has the first appearance, though ti's only continuity briefly before new 52

[luvo27]

behind the scenes of stress vs love

because i am going insane working on this fic. i am losing it. have a little behind the scenes of the outlines copy pasted from my brainstorm doc for the first couple of chapters of my fic, on the stress of being seventeen vs the immutable law of love on ao3!!

first concept outline: kristen through adaine's chapters

Start with kristen pov? Struggles academically, stress baking, study session with fig? Both of them are bad at studying, possible lofi night at seacaster? 

Insecurity about riz, little heist with fig to get sklondas number starts texting sklona

Stress baking: accidental corn muffin

Goes into figs pov: studying with kristen? Disguise self? Body modification and not recognizing herself and identity crisis and missing ayda- piercings?

Kristen stress baking? Lets something slip to adaine, adaine starts worrying? Leads to her boiling and boiling-maybe talking to either fabian or gorgug-maybe fabian makes the most sense, leads to the confrontation 

Maybe has a conversation with aelwyn about it instead of kristen? Maybe kristen makes her think she should talk to aelwyn?

Adaine confrontation goes bad. She feels bad. Everyone feels bad. Boils and boils until breakdown at basrars. Jawbone and fear of academic failure as a result of financial troubles

second outline: kristen through adaine's chapters

Kristen’s section:

Opens with cafeteria scene

Scene with kristen struggling to do work- solved by Riz! Yay riz!

Kristen texting riz because they haven’t study sessioned

Kristen struggling pt 2

Kristen texting sklonda

Kristen stress baking scene

Kristen confrontation with riz- post? Pre? Rejection! Sadness!

Struggle pt 3? Lead into

Jawbone and kristen academic help? Kristen texts riz to let him know she’s doing okay. She’s starting to get worried!!

Fig’s section

Gradual worry about riz. Has anyone seen riz? Fig is going to look for riz!!

Rogue class search shenanigans. Finds riz first? Conversation with riz?

Cafeteria talk pt 2: tells the bad kids what happened

Rogue class search shenanigans pt 2: maybe a scene where fig disguises self as riz? Finds ayda carving and cries about it

Everyone’s getting more worried about riz. Tension! Fig disguise self scenes, identity crisis!

Mistaken identity? Maybe sees someone she was friends with when she was younger pre tiefling? Triggers the diy piercing scene

Diy piercing scene! - maybe have sandralynn try to say something

Scene where fig is crying by ayda carving

Scene where kristen heals fig’s piercings

Adaine’s section

Adaine is worried about her friends. Adaine walks in on kristen stress baking, thinks about figs new piercings. Nightmare king revelation

Texts aelwyn about it? Gets 0 help

Observes riz. Observes friends. Stressed in class because of her materials. B+. panicking

Decides that things are bad: maybe show her saying things are bad to fabian. Confrontation. Panic post confrontation

Has to go to work post confrontation. Feels bad the entire time. Work panic attack scene! Jawbone comes, jawbone comforts! Yay!

[inevitably-johnlocked]

You have all the best lists, I think that is what I need? I want to read fluff, fluff that makes me laugh out loud, could be long, could be short, doesn't matter, just intelligent funny fluff (which doesn't even have to be that intelligent if it makes me laugh).

Do you have a listicle for me?

Hi Lovely!!

AWW, you're so kind, thank you!! I'm so happy you enjoy my fic rec lists :)

OKAY I have a TONNE of fluff fics, all of which can be accessed from my most recent All Fluff Fics (Oct. 2021) Masterpost (I do concede that it is a bit outdated so will make a new masterpost with the next ask I get for them), and because I don't have an ask-list ready this week, I'm going to use your list to release another list I've already got done without any asks attached! :)

EDIT: Just realized you asked for Funny Fics (sorry my brain tends to filter out words)... AHHHHH I hope this list is still okay? I do have lists you can check out:

Funny, Crack and Humour Pt. 1

Funny, Crack and Humour Pt. 2

Let's update the Domestics list, since it's got a lot of fics on it :)

Hope you enjoy this list anyway! Apologies for the abundance of FFNet fics, this list was built while I was sorting through some old links I had. All the links are working at the time of posting.

DOMESTIC JOHNLOCK Pt. 6

See also:

Long Domestic Johnlock (50K+ w.) (March 2023)

Platonics and Domestics

Platonics & Domestics Pt 2 / .../

Platonics & Domestics / Bromance / Friendship Pt. 3

Domestic Johnlock Pt. 4

Domestic Johnlock Pt. 5

A Perfect Figure by ecb327 (K, 622 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, First Person POV Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Introspection, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Light Angst) – Sherlock build a spot in his mind palace for John.

Octopus by glass_rose_paperweight (G, 705 w., 1 Ch. || Established Relationship, Fluff, Bed Sharing, Limpet Sherlock) – A week after Sherlock and John finally get together, and John is finding sharing a bed with Sherlock Holmes to be ... difficult, sometimes. If not downright suffocating.

Tidying Up by mattsloved1 (K+, 951 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Friendship) – John comes home to a thoroughly cleaned flat. Or so it seems.

Texts and Tea by JillianWatson1058 (K, 959 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Texting, Humour, Fluff, POV John, Cranky John) – A John who is woken up at 2:30 in the morning is not a happy John. Sherlock, frankly, doesn’t care. He just wants his tea.

My Unfortunately Average Sized Cranium by Haelia (K+, 996 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Headache, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Drug Use, Doctor John) – In which Sherlock has a migraine. ALMOST Johnlock. Not quite.

Poppies For John by grannysknitting (T, 1,102 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship) – Rememberance Sunday fic - John notices a discrepancy between Sherlock's stated intent and his actions. Sherlock, for once, explains himself. Friendship or pre-slash, your choice. Intended in honour of those who defend us.

Peacock by ClassyGirlsWearPearls (T, 1,189 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Cranky Sherlock, Soft John, Hand Holding, Soft Sherlock) – A study in Sherlock and John.

Our Bodies Bend Light by lovetincture (G, 1,211 w., 1 Ch. || Established Relationship, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Beekeeping, Retirement) – They got married. Of course they got married. Snapshots in a relationship. There's a jar of bees in the bookstore and a cottage in Sussex. Sherlock's not the marrying kind, and John's tried this once before, but they're Sherlock and John. Of course.

Mizzle by MrsNoggin (K, 1,233 w., 1 Ch || Friendship, Fluff, Platonic Johnlock, Humour, Slice of Life) – John can't decide if it's raining or not. Sherlock doesn't understand.

A Better Fate Than Wisdom by flawedamythyst (G, 1,339 w., 1 Ch. || First Kiss, John’s Sexuality Crisis, Pining Sherlock, Happy Ending, Fluff) – Nearly four hours pass between their first kiss and their second.

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

Evermore by SosoHolmesWatson (G, 2,068 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4,  5-Year-Old Rosie, Love Confessions, Song Fic, Parentlock, Oblivious John, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Disney Songs, Beauty and the Beast) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite. Part 1 of Made of Music

The Imminent Danger of a Tumblr-Night by Loveismyrevolution (T, 2,135 w., 1 Ch. || Tumblr Fics, Friends to Lovers, Sherlock is Out of His Depth, Humour, Fluff, Pining Sherlock, Military Kink, POV Sherlock) – Sherlock gets into trouble when he pretends to know all about John's favourite social media site - tumblr. To save face he seeks help from one of the bloggers and gains more answers than he had aimed for.

Living Musical by VeeTheRee (G, 4,149 w. 1 Ch. || Established Relationship, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Hobbies, Summer, Song Fic, POV Sherlock, Painting, Play Fighting, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Love Declarations, Hair Petting, Promise of Forever) – A one-shot of John and Sherlock being domestic during summer. There is paint, fluff, and music from Imagine Dragons, namely from the album 'Speak To Me', specific song in this one-shot is 'Living Musical'. Part 1 of the Happy Fluffy Johnlock Time series

Date Night by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 4,451 w., 1 Ch. || Anxious / Worried Sherlock, Caring John, Schmoopy Fluff, Fidget Cube, Baking / Cooking, Date Night, Established Relationship, POV Sherlock Holmes, Understanding John, Grumpy Sherlock, John’s Bum, Kisses, Hugs, Domestic Fluff, Touching, Hair Petting, Light Humour) – It's John and Sherlock's first Date Night as an official couple and Sherlock needs it to be PERFECT. Mrs Hudson helps. Part 7 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

What John Doesn't Know (Won't Hurt Him) by blueink3 (NR [T], 4,392 w., 1 Ch, || S3 Fix It, Pining Sherlock, Snippets of Life, Hurt/Comfort, Scars, Fluff and Angst, Five and One, Hopeful Ending, POV Sherlock) – Five people who see Sherlock's scars before John Watson. But Sherlock's secrets were never something he could keep from his blogger for long.

Storytelling by amythedork (T, 5,126 w., 1 Ch. || John’s Past, Friendship, Humour) – Five times John Watson opens up to Sherlock Holmes, and one time Sherlock Holmes opens up to John Watson. Gen, though could easily be read as pre-slash. 

This Year by DiscordantWords (T, 6,283 w., 2 Ch. || TEH Divergence / No Mary, New Year’s Eve, John’s A Mess, Jealous John, Awkward Conversations, Trapped in a Closet, Estranged After Return, John POV, Semi-Reunion, Angry John, First Kiss, Reconciliation, Clueless Sherlock, Happy Ending) – Last year, Sherlock Holmes showed up at the Landmark with a fake moustache and a bad French accent and threw John's entire life into disarray with two words: "Not dead." This year, there are more surprises in store.

Cabin Fever by A Wandering Minstrel (K+, 6,343 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Friendship) – A massive storm keeps John trapped in Baker Street with a half-blind (for science!), very bored Sherlock Holmes.

Bridges by sussexbound (M, 6,602 w., 1 Ch || Post-TLD / S4 Fix It, Love Confessions, Mending Relationships, Moving Back In, Pining Sherlock, POV Sherlock, Past Abuse, Shaving) – The silence between them is deafening, interrupted only by the hum of the traffic outside, and the soft click-clunk of the plastic cups Rosie is playing with on the floor beside them. It is the first time they have been alone together, since Sherlock’s birthday. It’s only been two days, but it feels huge, important, like there is a precarious bridge stretched out before them both that they need to at least attempt to traverse.

A Study in Linguistics by rizandace (T, 12,425 w., 1 Ch. || S1 Canon Compliant/S2 Divergence, Friendship, Slices of Life, Communication, Cranky Sherlock, Hospitals, Sherlock Whump, Pet Cat, Jealous John, Sherlock’s Violin, Anxious Sherlock, John Whump) – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had their own language. It was a language of few words and minute facial expressions, and John had learned that it was nearly the only way to have an honest conversation with his eccentric flat mate.

holding steady by darcylindbergh (E, 12,724 w., 4 Ch. || Post S4, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Growing Old, Gone Fishing, Mood without Plot, Soft Sherlock, Caring Sherlock, POV John Third Person, Anxious Sherlock, First Kiss / Time, Touching, Feeling Old, Sherlock Worship, Crying Sherlock, Cuddles, Comforting, Introspection, Retirement, Hand Holding, Forehead Kisses, Caring John, Bed Sharing, Emotional Love Making) – Sitting on a thick wool blanket at the end of a rickety dock side-by-side, legs dangling over the edge, a styrofoam container of wet, dark dirt between them, they’re fishing. John knows what this is about. This is about finally figuring it out.

On The Fence by BeautifulFiction (T, 13,770 w., 1 Ch. || Fencing, Case Fic, First Kiss, Insecure John, Pining John, Hug, Greg Finds Out) – The murder of the King's College fencing champion leads to revelations about Sherlock's past. Will it be the point that tips them from friends to lovers, or will they remain on the fence?

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

Permanent Fixture by vitruvianwatson (E, 18,836 w., 9 Ch || Post-S4, Parentlock, Slow Build, Friends to Lovers, They’re Good Parents, Blushing Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Explicit Consent, Sexual Content, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Big Feelings, Crying, First Kiss, Fluff, Anxious Sherlock, Inexperienced Sherlock, Emotional Communication, Love Confessions) – Now, as Rosie sat curled up against Sherlock’s side, John watched and wondered exactly how he had ended up here. Domesticity had never suited him before, not at any point in his life. His disastrous marriage had been proof of that. But somehow, here in the warmth and safety of 221B Baker Street, here with Sherlock Holmes reading medical jargon to his daughter, Sherlock’s bony feet nudging against his leg, John couldn’t imagine anyplace that would make him happier. 

A Quiet Life by DiscordantWords (M, 25,176 w., 6 Ch. || Post S4, Retirement, POV Sherlock, Awkwardness, Established Relationship, Family Dynamics, Minor Character Death, Questionable Parenting Choices, Non-Linear Narrative, 20 Year Old Rosie, Meddling Mycroft, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Angst, Sherlock Whump) – There had been three days of silence and a funeral. Sherlock had the terrible feeling that whatever happened next would depend, entirely, on him.

How To Unfold a Heart by elwinglyre (E, 25,477 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It, BAMF John, Mentioned Eurus, POV First Person Sherlock, Case Fic, Fluff, Slow Burn Topping from the Bottom, 3 Yr Old Rosie, Introspection, Sexual Fantasies, John Worship, Ogling, Hand Holding, Kidnapping, Domesticity, Sherlock Whump, First Kiss/Time, Doctor John, Caring John, Soft Sherlock, Sensuality, Touching, Crying, Love Confessions, Anxious Sherlock, Rimming, Toplock, Fingering, Bossy Bottom John) – To Sherlock’s dismay, John’s return to Baker Street with Rosie is only temporary. Sherlock’s daily visits to Regent Park with John and Rosie illuminate his lost childhood memories and missed opportunities. But with each trip to the park, Sherlock also feels a growing sense of hope. That is until the past horrors return unexpectedly in a cryptic note folded in the shape of a heart. To decipher the message, Sherlock must uncover the nature of the hearts around him, including his own.

Domestic Matters by ohlooktheresabee (M, 29,404 w., 6 Ch. || Fantasy AU || First Meetings, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Domestic Fluff, BAMF Sherlock, BAMF John, Idiots in Love, Misunderstandings, Supernatural Elements, Implied / Referenced Child Abuse, Elf Sherlock, Human/Elf Politics, Emotional Abuse, Possessive Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, Buddy Greg) – All flatmates need to work out domestic matters between them - who does the dishes, who takes out the rubbish, how often does the carpet need to be vacuumed - these are part and parcel of sharing a living space together. However, when you’re an elf and your flatmate is going to be a human you just met, this rather complicates things…Very loosely inspired by 'The Elves and The Shoemaker' by The Brothers Grimm.

Deck the Halls by itsalwaysyou_jw (T, 31,018 w., 24 Ch. || Advent Fic / Multiple One-Shots, Assorted Tags) – One Johnlock ficlet for every day leading up to Christmas. Who is ready for pining, first kisses, established Johnlock, and everything in between? This collection of stand-alone ficlets will have it all. 

A Study Of Living With Sherlock Holmes by  AllesandraQuartermaine (T, 50,234 w., 22 Ch. || Post-ASiP/Pre-TAB, Domestics, Friendship, POV John) – Learn about what happened between John and Sherlock January 31st and March 22. From John's pov on how to survive and learn to live with one eccentric mad genius known as Sherlock Holmes. 

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Not Broken, Just Bent by Schmiezi (E, 87,585 w., 43 Ch. || Pining, Love Confessions, Rape/Sexual Assault, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Villain!Mary, Suicidal Ideations, Main Character Death, Sherlock First Person POV, Parentlock, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Love Making, Possessiveness, Depression, PTSD, Kidnapping, Virgin Sherlock, Eventual Happy Ending) – "For a second, I allow myself to remember teaching John how to waltz. There is a special room in my mind palace for it. A big one, with a proper parquet dance floor. For a second, I go there. I remember holding him, closer than the World Dance Council asks for, excusing it with the fact that we are training for a wedding, not for a competition. For a second, I feel his hand on mine again, smell his sweat, hear the song we used. For a second, I allow myself to love him deeply. For a second, only a second, that love reflects on my face." Fix-it for S3, starting at the end of TSoT. Evil Mary.

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

Drawn to Stars by Silvergirl (E, 109,272 w., 60 Ch. || S4 Compliant to TLD / TFP Doesn’t Exist, Sherlock’s Italian Adventure, Sherlock/OC and Johnlock, Jealous John, Mutual Pining, Misunderstandings, First Kiss/Time, Idiots in Love, 3 Part Story, Slow Burn, Inexperienced Sherlock, Bottom Sherlock, Introspection, Alternating First and Third Person POV, Separation and Reconciliation, Emotional Love Making, Love Confessions via Letters, Angst with Happy Ending) – After the Culverton Smith case Sherlock is clean, working, and looking for a romantic partner—since John has told him that’s what he needs. Shame John didn’t mention he was interested in that role himself, before Sherlock went off to Rome with a gorgeous Italian copper to try to fall in love and become a complete human being.  Part 1 of the Drawn to Stars series

The Lost Special: Family Matters (As Do Relationships) by ShirleyCarlton (M, 144,688 w., 40 Ch. || S4 Fix It Fic / Meta Fic, Unreliable Narrator, John’s Mind Bungalow, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Demisexual Sherlock, Holmes Family, John Whump, Gay Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Drug Addiction, Parenting, TFP is a Nightmare, Virgin Sherlock, Slow Burn, Minor Character Death, Switchlock, John’s Past, Sherlock’s Past, Eurus, Love Confessions) –Sherrinford is not really the name of some high security prison. That was just a figment of John’s frantic coma dream. And Eurus is not actually Sherlock’s sister. That’s just something random she said to John before shooting him. Sherlock and John were never actually estranged. That was just their act to cover up what really happened to Mary – or Rosamund Moran, as her real name has turned out to be. Sherlock does have a secret sibling, though, and his name is Sherrinford. After finally eliminating Moran – though in a rather dramatically different way than they had envisioned – and exposing the truth about Eurus, John encourages Sherlock to delve into his past and to find out whether the reasons to keep Sherrinford away from Sherlock were the right ones, and to discover what really happened in 1981. Along the way, Sherlock and John gradually, finally, stop keeping each other at a distance, and eventually become a proper family of their own.

[smytherines]

legit started vibrating when I read this, fuck it's so good

I am going feral over the idea of Owen essentially... flagellating himself? Punishing the part of himself that is able to forget

I've always been fascinated with the idea that Owen goes through some massive internalized homophobia crisis post-fall. The way he adopts this absurd, comically hypermasculine persona as DMA, the way he insists that his secret died the night Curt left him for dead, idk that's how it reads to me

I always imagine that pre-fall, Owen had never been the most Masculine Manly Man, and he was more or less fine with that. Didn't have the same level of insecurity about his masculinity that Curt does, his hangups were more about 1. being severely emotionally repressed, and 2. concerns about what would happen to them if they were discovered.

But post-fall, severely injured, being in a Russian prison (maybe tortured? maybe used as a guinea pig for Russian experiments with "mind control" drugs? At the very least not getting appropriate medical care) he has nothing but time to fixate on what led to his downfall. To analyze it, pick it apart, obsess over it

A lot of people have religious trauma headcanons for Owen, which I can definitely see. And I tend to think that as much as Curt is the focal point of his hatred, he also really hates himself. For being weak, emotional, hates every part of him that invested in this relationship and trusted Curt and allowed himself to love

So the idea of Owen creating a version of himself that doesn't remember his own downfall, and then orchestrating new ways of torturing that guy for the crime of forgetting, is very fucking interesting to me. A way of practicing his self-hatred in a way that maintains his own fragile ego.

Especially with Barb being involved. Them having a weird fucked up kinda-sorta friendship doing Chimera business is fascinating. I imagine Owen is not directly involved in the everyday management of MDR. He knows he has an innie down there, and he has a high enough position where he can dictate policies for severed workers in general, but he requests data and reports be anonymized, because he does not see the innies as human beings (and especially not innie!Owen). So he doesn't know Curt is down there, and he doesn't care that a version of him is down there.

I could see outie!Owen pushing Barb to get results. Giving her absolute free reign to do whatever fucked up psychological experiments it takes to get productivity from the resources (aka human beings) they have. Outie!Owen only cares about securing his place with Chimera, and he has so thoroughly cut himself off from the concept of humanity that he's willing to dehumanize himself as well

Alsoooooo I'm just saying there's an opportunity for some toxic spyentist yuri. Barb as the mad scientist being attracted to her experiment. Tatiana as partially into it and partially trying to use Barb to escape. After Tatiana reintegrates Barb sorta doubles down on the brutality?

Oh shit! Speaking of Tatiana, with the Petey scenario she would be a PRISONER OF HER PAST!! Literally having to relive her strongest (and most traumatic) memories of being a child assassin. Living in this shifting ground where she isn't always aware of where she is, how long ago something happened, constantly reprocessing childhood shit that her adult self repressed ages ago. Trying to bring down Chimera and save her friend, while constantly aware that whatever reality she is living may not be real. Custom-built for Tatiana agere people honestly

And this is some season two shit, but:

-- outie!Owen discovering that Curt is down there, working with innie!Owen. Becoming obsessed with spying on this other version of himself, watching in security videos as another, less broken, version of himself falls in love with another version of Curt. Having both innies tortured because uhh... he is not mentally well, but keeping them together because he's weirdly repulsed and enraged and nostalgic about it all

-- outie!Owen recording a message for his innie, where he sorta cryptically tells Owen C. to look at his missing leg and the burn on his shoulder and know that Curt did that to him, and then watching in security videos as the chaos unfolds

Man... there are a lot of weird fucked up things outie!Owen could do here

I think I never got to ask you more about spyverance au, so any headcanons you want to share? 👀👀👀

Ooohhhhh yes spyverance headcanons!!

This isn't super spoiler heavy I guess, but if anyone has an interest in watching Severance you should definitely do that first, because otherwise most of this probably won't make sense:

So. Spyverance.

I mean God. The mental image of Curt crying in his car every morning before going into his new severed job at Chimera has not left my mind since I watched the show

I know I said something about their severed selves being spies, but that poses some narrative issues I haven't figured out yet, so this is all just assuming that it's Lumon but it's called Chimera. The same setup as the show.

outie!Curt definitely keeps a flask in his little personal effects drawer. And assuming it's an 8 hour day, he drinks as much as he can before he gets into the building, and after maybe an hour or two of work innie!Curt would start to feel sick. Hungover at the very least (which he has no frame of reference for) because the alcohol has worn off, gradually feeling the physical symptoms of withdrawal more and more by the end of the day. By the time he gets in the elevator to go home he is shaking and sweating, and as soon as outie!Curt gets off the elevator he reaches for his flask

We don't know what exactly happens on the testing floor yet, but I think some sort of "factory reset" for stubborn innies is a strong guess

I said this before, but it bears repeating that even though outie!Curt is desperate to erase his memories and not have to experience half his days, innie!Curt is still Curt. He's stubborn, he's impulsive, he hates being caged up in the same boring room doing the same boring job. He would definitely cause problems and end up getting sent to the break room, possibly even the testing floor, until he cooperates

So Curt goes through about a year of that, while Owen is still strictly outside recovering from his injuries, building up relationships in Chimera, building power. Maybe Owen wants to be able to forget some of the time, or maybe Chimera needs one of their own on the severed floor for whatever reason, or a little bit of both, but eventually he wakes up on the table, and Curt is giving him that little entrance quiz

I think Owen would respond the same way Helly did. Trying to attack his way out, and when that fails I could very much see him waging war on his outie self the same way Helly does.

The same way that innie!Curt has always been drunk, hungover, or in withdrawal, and just believes that is everybody's baseline, innie!Owen has always been in pain. I keep imagining him with a prosthetic leg from the fall. His shoulder and chest are constantly pinching and sore and itchy. At some point he lifts up his pant leg for whatever reason and realizes that he is missing a leg. He panics, like fully has a ptsd crisis, but of course he has no idea how that happened or what it means that everyone else appears to have two legs and Owen only has one.

I imagine a scenario where Curt accidentally runs into Owen and spills coffee on him or something. They go into the bathroom attempting to clean him up, and there's a moment when they get too close and all that sexual tension stirs up. But when Owen takes his shirt off to scrub at the stain they both see the massive burn all over his shoulder and chest, which kinda kills the mood.

And Curt, after all his time in the break room and on the testing floor, uses this to say something like "clearly something happened to your outie, so maybe it's better for you if you don't remember it."

And it sorta works, in that Owen stops trying to escape for a little while. Stops trying to injure or threaten his outie self. But beyond the physical issues he has from the fall, there's also emotional and mental issues that he has no context for. He might not be able to remember the incident, but his body and his mind still do. So I imagine outie!Owen starts panicking every time he gets in the elevator to go down to the severed floor, because he remembers being trapped and injured and helpless in a Russian prison cell before Chimera came along and offered him a way out. And by the time innie!Owen gets off the elevator he is shaking, but has no idea why. That due to the head injury he has seemingly random vertigo attacks. Sometimes he feels fine, but tiny things will trigger intense paranoia or explosive anger or panic, like he's sharing his mind with some strange feral animal. And it terrifies him.

I could very much see outie!Owen giving the "I am a person. You are not." speech. Thinking of his innie as a thing, a tool to be used to further his plans. And I think, in a way, he would also resent his innie for being able to forget the incident that outie!Owen cannot stop fixating on. He would resent his innie for getting to move on, to work without all those mental burdens when he cannot.

God I have so many thoughts on both of them and how they would manage all of this, but I want to get to the overtime contingency so I'm gonna move on

I still love the idea of Tatiana as our Petey. So let's say she joins up with Chimera and takes a severed job on the condition that her family will finally be safe. Maybe she's there for a year or so before Curt shows up. She and Curt build a close friendship on the severed floor, and then Tatiana ends up reintegrating and leaving (which is when Owen shows up)

I don't want Tatiana to die, so let's say she has a less disastrous reintegration than Petey does, but I do still love the idea of her occasionally becoming mentally unstuck in time. Not just not being able to tell severed vs unsevered time, but maybe also sometimes reliving parts of her extremely traumatic childhood.

Tatiana reaches out to outie!Curt, she wants to save her friend, but she struggles significantly with the reintegration process so it's easy for Curt to initially dismiss her as crazy. And even though Tatiana is saying things he absolutely does not want to hear, because to him severance is how he has survived Owen's death, he's still curious. He starts gradually asking questions.

Tatiana is hiding out in Curt's basement, because Chimera is hunting her down, and eventually Curt starts to open up to her about why he took a severed job. Explains his relationship with Owen and their work and his own feelings of guilt and shame. They start to become friends again on the outside.

Somehow the innies are able to trigger the overtime contingency (I still have to figure out who else is in the Chimera MDR department), and innie!Curt and innie!Owen are able to experience the outside world.

Owen couldn't be the public face of severance the way Helena is, because then Curt would know he's alive, so instead innie!Owen wakes up in an apartment. It's well-decorated and luxurious (Chimera took care of that) but he is frantically scrambling to find any clues about his outie, and there is nothing personal. No family photos, no keepsakes, no sign of any personal life at all. Just a lot of weapons, and a lot of paperwork that he can't parse (although curiously it all has the Chimera logo on it).

There's a knock at the door, and some Chimera underling has been sent to give him a reminder of some Chimera thing, a meeting or gala or whatever, happening soon. And the underling is trying to score points by praising whatever outie!Owen has been up to while working with Chimera.

innie!Owen is still kinda dazed, he's skimming through his outie's closet still trying to figure out who this guy is. The underling says something that makes it clear that Owen isn't just some guy who took a severed job-- he's part of Chimera. He has power over the program. He didn't build the system that has been slowly eating away at innie!Owen, but he maintains it. Finds new cruelties for it. And the moment he has that realization, he sticks his hands into the pocket of one of his jackets, and pulls out a picture of him with his arm around Curt (in my head it's that Szol Christmas postcard tbh). And that's the last thing he sees before he gets cut off.

innie!Curt wakes up in his house. I like to imagine that instead of Ricken's terrible book, Curt finds a spy novel someone left behind. He hides it and reads it over and over again, not knowing why he's so fascinated with it. So innie!Curt finds a few pictures of he and his mother, some personal effects he has no context for, but the spy novel taught him that sometimes people hide things in interesting places, so he starts knocking on baseboards and wiggling loose bricks, trying to see if he has any secrets stashed away.

Eventually he finds a stash of letters, pictures of him and Owen, all the ephemera of a relationship. And not really thinking about why those would be hidden, he thinks that he and Owen must know each other out here, that they have a relationship on the outside. So he starts calling for Owen through the house, except obviously Owen is not there. But Tatiana is, still hiding out in Curt's basement to avoid detection from Chimera.

Tatiana comes upstairs to figure out what all the fuss is about, and innie!Curt sees his beloved friend-- someone he never thought he'd see again-- and crushes her in a hug. He explains that he's the innie right now, and Tatiana tries to figure out what they should do with that information, how they can use it. But as she's sort of thinking out loud about it, Curt asks "where's Owen? He needs to be here for this."

Tatiana looks confused at him, and says, "he's dead, Curt. He's been dead for over a year now."

And at first she thinks that Curt just doesn't want to accept it, but then his eyes go wide and he just quietly says "Owen is alive down there." And then he gets cut off too.

I could genuinely talk about this forever because there are so many interesting thoughts, like:

-- if this is a technologically advanced 1950s, how different would innie curtwen be with each other if they have no concept of homophobia?? No idea that the attraction they feel is not socially acceptable. Sure, innies aren't supposed to fraternize, but that's different than growing up in a culture where your sexuality is openly regarded as a crime and a perversion. I lean towards a technologically advanced 1950s because I like the idea of their pre-canon relationship being the same, and all this taking place in Severance's ambiguous near-future where a man can be married to a man would fundamentally change their pre-canon relationship

-- Cynthia Houston in the Harmony Cobel role? Being cold and distant and shitty and work-obsessed, yet having an odd attachment to Curt for whatever reason

-- I like the idea of Barb and Tatiana having a sorta Burt and Irving dynamic, maybe with Barb working in a different severed department. But I also think Barb would be fascinating in a Mr. Milchick role too. Being sickly saccharine, with that constant unnerving threat of violence. Using the break room and testing floor as her own personal science experiments (oh Barb Larvernor, you have such potential as a fucked up little evil scientist). If it's not Barb, the Milchick role is played by Brian Rosenthal in my head

Okay okay, this is like 80 paragraphs so I'm gonna stop now. But yeah. Thinking about spyverance a lot lately

[the-amber-fox]

Young Royals Fic Rec List 2022 Edition

To tide you over the last four weeks of waiting for season 2 I have been making my way through the last months on AO3 and recommendations to bring you this part 2 of my fic rec list. All fanfics in this list have been published in 2022. 

Categories for this list are:

Canon

Canon-divergent

Post-canon (pre season 2)

Fix-Its

AUs

Slightly Unhinged but worth it

E-Rated

The dark stuff.

So there should be one for everyone here

Canon

My Youth is Yours (Not Rated) by evakayaki Simon wants to give Wille "firsts" that every kid should experience, but missed out on because he was prince. OR: Five times Simon gives Wille a first experience and one time Wille surprises Simon.

Canon-Divergent

Hope Against Hope (M) by demeterfics What happens when Simon doesn't follow Wille after his panic during Horror Movie Night? Simon has regrets, Simon frets, Simon thinks that was his one chance. Wille has a bit more of a sexual crisis, but luckily Erik is there to give some brotherly advice. Boys need to figure out how to communicate. Screwed (T) (WIP) by fandom_commitment_issues Erik lived, but things are still Royally screwed up.

Post Canon (maybe)

Wilhelm & Simon: An Interview with Sweden's Young Royal Couple by cali-chan (girls_are_weird) On the heels of Queen Kristina's announcement that she will be stepping down as monarch once her son and heir turns 35, Crown Prince Wilhelm and his longtime partner, Simon Eriksson, sit down with SVT's Signe Karlsson, for the first time since the future King publicly came out as queer and confirmed their relationship, to discuss their future and dispel any lingering misconceptions about their romance. His Royal Fucking Highness Prince Simon of Sweden (he will take none of your shit) (T) by notalotgoingonatthisinstant Simon had gone through most stages of grief over the past two days since that meeting, and his head would split open if he didn't sit down with his family and friends to let it out. He should be jumping at the opportunity to refuse the titles, so why was he so conflicted? whenever we're together (M) by waitingstar He does yoga, then shirtless yoga. He times his downward dogs for when Wilhelm is passing the lounge room, pretends he doesn’t smirk at Wilhelm's strangled “Morning”.

My Youth is Yours (Not Rated) by evakayaki                      Simon wants to give Wille "firsts" that every kid should experience, but missed out on because he was prince. OR: Five times Simon gives Wille a first experience and one time Wille surprises Simon.

Fix Its

always something left behind (T) by eleanna99That’s what love is, after all, he thinks. Always leaving something behind. or All the times Simon and Wilhelm almost call each other through the years, and one time they do.

A Royal Intervention (T) by AnxiousAnaconda Erik has made it his mission to call Wilhelm regularly and check up on him. The whole family seems to be in agreement that he is in a tumultuous and dangerous phase, that he could easily be steered in the wrong direction and cause perhaps unforeseen levels of PR damage, but Erik wonders whether his parents truly grasp how sensitive this life phase is for Wilhelm. It is a gut feeling, an inkling, that tells him to watch out for his little brother. Now more than ever. That broken piece, let go (T) by cali-chan (girls_are_weird), TheAmberFox Or five times Simon didn't communicate his true feelings + one time he did. OR Therapy Fic.

AUs

The greatest story never written (T) by NerdGirl07 writer! simon and reader wille: simon always has to try to not spontaneously combust whenever wille rambles about HIS OWN book to him

Play my song (G) by Elin98 It is 12.15 am and you’re listening to Late night Vibes with Simon on The Vibe FM, 104.6. I’m your host Simon Eriksson and I will be here with you all night. So for all you night owls, insomniacs, night shift workers, let me keep you company. I promise to only play good music and that we’ll have a good time.

Bloom where you are planted (T) by Cl0udyM1lk Wille is a plant boy, Simon has a black thumb. They both run semi-popular Instas.

There's a song in my heart (I feel like I belong) (M) by cali-chan (girls_are_weird) Concert pianist Wilhelm Berwald had no idea his entire life would change when he was paired up with pop star Simon Eriksson for a charity concert.

the way you look at me (T) by strummerjoe After spending his whole life in Bjärstad, Simon is excited to go to university. He wants to embrace all aspects of student life and he's ready for anything.Anything, except finding a disgruntled crown prince in his new bedroom.

Dancing Through Life (M) by pagegirlintraining After getting into a club fight that paints him in a less than ideal light, Wilhelm is forced into a living nightmare: being a contestant on Swedish reality tv. As if that wasn’t bad enough already, he’s supposed to dance on national television.Aka Wilhelm goes full Dancing with the Stars with Simon as his pro partner.

yellow paper daisy (T) by darlingdreamer21 Or: Wille and Simon meet in Bjärstad, under the most unnatural circumstances. Wille, who seeks solace in the sleepy town. Simon, who once escaped from the suffocating town.But with Simon's face plastered everywhere around the world in association with his successful music career, and Wille's own internal conflict and blissful solitude, they don't know how to deal with their mutual attraction.Inspired by the movie Notting Hill because these two dorks deserve their cheesy romcom story.

The Boy and the Bartender (M) by Spidaya Simon is a bartender at a local bar with a sunny smile and confident attitude that hide the darker side of his life he wishes to keep hidden. Wilhelm, the prince of Sweden, is a lonely boy with too much love to give and not getting much love in return.After they meet at a bar in not the most Prince-Charming way, their hearts are forever intertwined with each other, but not before going through the hurt, trials, and love that come with both of their lives.

Slightly unhinged - but worth it

Through Felle’s eyes (G) by crownedmoon Wille & Simon’s love story, witnessed by one of Simon’s fishes.

The Sound of you, an outlasting vibration (T) by TheAmberFox What if Wille joins the choir to be close to Simon? Only problem - he can’t sing to safe his life.

a whole new scandal (T) by EngelK Post? Wilhelm thought. He then remembers the notifications from his phone. Shakingly, he unlocks it. He saw tons of messages. Tons from Minou. He doesn’t even know what he has gotten into.

Open heart open mind never know who you will find (E) by simonscrown Wille deliberated whether he should be thanking the universe or cursing at it that a literal angel was standing in front of him, while his testicles were being tortured by a pair of objectively horrible booty shorts.

E - Rated

i hate accidents except when we went from friends to this (E) by cl0udy_mi1k Simon is Wilhelm's best friend, so when he confesses that he's insecure about his lack of experience Wille offers to help him. After all, it's what any good friend would do, isn't it?

Addicted to You (E) by yr_bb Simon missed him, of course he did. He knew nothing had really changed. But this forced separation was a new kind of torture, and he hated it. Hated that he wanted him still, but even in his whole setting boundaries thing, he hadn’t actually wanted to move on. He didn’t, he couldn’t, not if there was still a chance. Being this close was only bringing that all up again.

sorry about the blood in your mouth (i wish it was mine) (E) by witchjeons In the aftermath of the video, Simon falls apart. Wilhelm is there to put him back together.

There all along (E) by stretchoutandwait Kristina's death brings Simon back into Wilhelm's life after years apart. Wilhelm has to negotiate learning to become king and starting (or restarting?) a relationship at the same time.

The dark stuff

The spare (T) by Hannakin Erik can’t imagine anything worse than losing his little brother. He lives through his worst nightmare when Wille is horribly injured.

right where you left me. (M) by YourDemiurge When Crown Prince Wilhelm died at the early age of 18, he left three legacies behind: a video that he'd denied being in; a precautionary tale of young love; and a statue outside an otherwise unknown public school. **** Auhtors mentioned: @girls-are-weird @pagegirlintraining @simons-purplehoodie

@cl0udy-mi1k @ishotforthestars @cinnamoncoffees  @hanna-kin  @zee-has-commitment-issues @yourdemiurge

*** If you want to re-read the fic rec list part 1, you can find it here.

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

Timeline: Batman

google doc / ao3

This is my best attempt at a post-crisis timeline based on age-- specifically Bruce’s age every time he adopted and/or met one of his children. 

List of events:

Bruce’s parents die

Bruce becomes Batman

Dick’s parents die

Dick becomes Robin

Jason becomes Robin and is adopted

Jason dies

Tim becomes Robin

Cass appears

Dick is adopted

Tim is adopted

Cass is adopted

Damian becomes Robin

I’ll be citing my work by issue and panel. This isn’t my most organized work, and I don’t know how well tumblr will let me translate it, so I do recommend the google doc. I imagine the image quality here won’t be great. 

Notes:

This is a post-crisis timeline (1986-2011). I’ll be referencing a few pre-crisis panels, but I won’t be touching the New 52 or anything after it. That’s a different game of ball with its own, extremely bad, timeline.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a 1985-1986 series that rebooted the DC timeline and altered some backstories, including Jason’s. Pre-crisis, his backstory was almost identical to Dick’s. Post-crisis, he changed to the “steal the wheels off the Batmobile” origin. Anything written before 1986 is a weak source for my purposes. 

My original question centered around Bruce’s age through the process of meeting and acquiring his children. In this timeline, those children are (1) Dick Grayson, (2) Jason Todd, (3) Cassandra Cain, (4) Tim Drake, and (5) Damian Wayne. I was envisioning an interview where the kids explain their family timeline to outsiders. I did not anticipate the project taking this long. 

We’re talking about 72 years of content here, which means decades of contradiction, conflation, and rewrites. I’m pretty satisfied with my work product, but please understand that there are no perfect answers. I’m going to cite my sources, and I’ll do my best to explain why I chose those sources specifically, but it’s pretty likely that for every panel I pull, there will be others with different numbers. We’re all going to have to live with that. 

Event timeline

*I’m defining Jason’s age by the time elapsed since his birth, but you could make an argument for using time he has been alive, which is, of course, different. That’s why the parentheses are there. 

Age differences

As Robin

----------

Bruce’s parents die

Pretty consistently, Bruce is written as eight years old the night his parents died. 

Detective Comics #0 (1994)

This is a zero issue where Bruce thinks back on his origin story. It was written long after Crisis on Infinite Earths (1986), and I tend to give a lot of weight to ages written in summaries of past plot lines, my reasoning being that it’s easier to be consistent in one issue than it is to be consistent through a month to month story. 

Bruce first appeared as an adult in Detective Comics #27 (1939), and the Waynes were already dead at that point, so flashbacks are the only available material anyway. 

Gotham Knights #6 (2000)

The text is Hugo Strange talking about Bruce, and the image is Tim and Dick playing at Wayne Enterprises. 

I’ll take a second here to note that I did find at least one alternate age for Bruce— in Superman/Batman Secret Files & Origins (2003), Bruce was 10 when his parents died. I’m disregarding that in favor of the stronger 8 year old timeline, especially in light of Batman #404 (1987).

Batman #404 is the beginning of Batman: Year One, which was explicitly written to clarify the Batman timeline post-crisis, and it’s the basis of most of my calculations for Bruce and Dick’s ages.

----------

Bruce becomes Batman

According to Year One, Bruce was 26 years old when he became Batman. I’m using his age at his parents’ deaths, his age when he returned to Gotham, and his 18 year timeline.

Batman #404 puts Bruce at age 25 when he returned to Gotham in January. 

Batman #404 (1987)

Bruce gives his dramatic, “Yes, Father, I will become a bat,” line in March. In the same scene, he says that it has been 18 years since his parents’ deaths. Knowing that they died when Bruce was eight, that puts Bruce at 26 years old the day he became Batman, which makes sense considering Bruce’s birthday is usually set at February 19th. 

He was 25 in January, turned 26 in February, and became Batman at 26, 18 years after his parents’ death. 

Batman #404 (1987)

Post-crisis, DC built timelines off the “Year” model. Year One is Batman’s beginning, and events after that are measured by how far away they are from the year Bruce became Batman. I’ll be using the Year model for Dick’s life events next. 

----------

Dick’s parents die

The Graysons died in Year Two. Using the Year Model, Dick was 12 when his parents died, and Bruce was 37. 

Year timelines appear a fair amount, especially in issues titled “Secret Files & Origins.” I pulled this bit from Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997) because it was the easiest to screenshot. 

Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997)

Year Two would place Bruce at 27 years old. I’m calculating Dick’s age backwards, based on him being 13 years old during Year Three. 

Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997) 

----------

Dick becomes Robin

Dick became Robin in Year Three, when he was 13 years old and Bruce was 28. I’m using two different issues to calculate the number. 

Batman #441 (1989)

Batman #441 is from Tim’s introduction story. It takes place “months” after Jason’s death. We’ll get to that part. In Batman #441, Tim asked Dick to be Robin again in order to help Bruce, who was visibly unstable after Jason’s death. Dick says that he can’t go back to being Robin, just like he can’t go back to being 13 years old. The strong implication there is that Dick became Robin at 13, which corresponds to Dick’s statements in Batman #416 (1988). 

In Batman #416, Dick as Nightwing returns to confront Bruce about Jason becoming Robin. He says that he was Robin for six years, and he stopped being Robin at 19.

Batman #416 (1988)

If Dick stopped being Robin at 19, after 6 years, that would put him at 13 when he debuted as Robin, the same number from Batman #441 (1989).

Dick was 13 during Year Three, so 12 during Year Two, the year his parents died. Those numbers answer the first bit of my original question. I wanted to know how old Dick and Bruce were when Dick became his child. It’s a bit more of a complicated question for Dick, since he was originally Bruce’s ward, then adopted as an adult. 

Based on the timeline so far, Dick became Bruce’s ward at 12 years old, while Bruce was 27.  

----------

Jason becomes Robin and is adopted

As previously discussed (see Notes), Jason’s timeline is complicated by Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986). Pre-crisis, Jason first appeared in Batman #336 (1983) as a former circus acrobat very similar to Dick.

Jason’s origin story reboots at Batman #408 (1987), which describes the switch-off between Dick and Jason. I’m building a lot of my timeline off of that issue. At the beginning, Dick gets shot by the Joker, and as Bruce carries him away, the media ask if Robin is dead. Dick isn’t dead, but back at the manor, Bruce decides to retire Robin as a role, based on the idea that crimefighting is too dangerous for a child. 

Batman #408 (1987)

This version is more or less from Bruce’s point of view, but there’s a contrasting version from Dick’s point of view later, in Batman #416 (1987). That one has a significantly different tone, and I already cited it once (page 13) because Dick talks about his age and the amount of time he was Robin.  

Batman #408 (1987)

The second part of the issue takes place “weeks” later. Bruce goes to Crime Alley to mourn his parents on the anniversary of their death. He comes back to find that somebody stole the wheels off the Batmobile. The somebody was Jason, and by the end of Batman #409 (1987), Bruce is calling Jason “Robin.”

Batman #408 (1987) seems to divide Dick’s departure and Jason’s introduction by only “weeks,” in the post-crisis reboot. Dick’s version of the story in Batman #416 (1987) is much less charitable to Bruce— instead of ending on a panel of Bruce smiling, it shows the aftermath of Dick in tears as Bruce walks away. Dick goes on to describe leaving the house, going to college for a semester, then dropping out. According to Dick, Bruce didn’t even say goodbye. 

Batman #416 (1987)

I don’t think the stories are contradictory; they’re just different experiences of the same events, separated by only eight issues. Dick tells us that he was 19 when he left Wayne Manor, and Bruce chooses his new Robin “weeks” later. 

As a summary, we know that Bruce’s parents died when he was eight, and that 18 years passed before he became Batman at 26. One year later, Dick’s parents died while Bruce was 27. One year after that, Dick became Robin at the age of 13. From those facts, Bruce is 15 years older than Dick. 

All of my calculations of Bruce’s age are based off of the age gap between him and Dick. Dick was 19 when Jason became Robin, so we know that at that time, Bruce was 34. We also know that at that time, Jason was 12. 

I can’t show a source for that number because it appears on the letter page of Batman #408 (1987), Jason’s introduction.

Even after a significant amount of investigation, I can’t find a copy of the letter page, but it’s cited by enough secondary sources for me to be comfortable using it. That issue is specifically written to show Jason’s origin, so it makes sense that it would contain Jason’s age at inception, even if the number wasn’t in the actual exposition. 

From Jason being 12, we can establish a seven-year age gap between Jason and Dick, who was 19 at the time. Now we know Bruce, Dick, and Jason’s ages, and the age differences between them.

Back to my original question— when did Bruce acquire Jason? We know that Bruce was 34 when Jason became his ward, and Jason was 12. The next question, however, is when did Bruce adopt Jason? On this one, I’m making an educated guess. 

Again we have to differentiate between pre-crisis and post-crisis timelines. Pre-crisis, there’s a full storyline about the fact that Bruce did not adopt Jason, although not for lack of trying. In Batman #374 (1984), the Child Welfare Bureau investigates Bruce when it notices that Bruce has not adopted Jason— and is not even, in fact, his legal guardian. 

Batman #374 (1984)

The rest of the storyline is about Jason’s custody. A villain named Natalia Knight (Nocturna) adopts Jason in an attempt to get Bruce to marry her in order to become Jason’s father. In the court scene in Batman #377 (1984), Bruce says that he filed to adopt Jason sometime beforehand, although it’s unclear to me whether he means he filed between those issues or the CWB documents were incomplete.

Natalia does adopt Jason in Batman #378 (1984), and he briefly lives with her before returning to Wayne Manor in Batman #381 (1985), directly before the reboot. 

I’m including all of that for two reasons: first, I do think it’s important to clarify both this version and the post-crisis version I’m about to address. Second, I spent years under the impression that Bruce adopted Jason pre-crisis because of one, well-known scene. 

Batman #377 (1984)

Batman #378 (1984)

Batman #381 (1985)

Donna Troy gets married in Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985). At the wedding, Bruce and Dick have a conversation about Jason and about their own relationship. A few of those panels get spread around because they contain what I would consider a defining moment between Dick and Bruce. 

I’m certainly not complaining about the amount of times I’ve seen the wedding conversation, but I think that, in regards to Jason, seeing just those panels has created a misconception.

Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985)

Without context, it looks, at least to me, like Dick is saying that Bruce has adopted Jason pre-crisis, which isn’t true. This issue takes place between the Natalia adoption in Batman #378 (1984) and Jason’s return to the manor in Batman #381 (1985), and the panels directly before the exchange make that clear. I just didn’t see those panels until I looked through the whole issue for this project. 

I’m reasonably certain that in the past, I publicly cited this issue as evidence of Jason’s adoption, and I was wrong about that. [Note: As it turns out, I was only partially wrong. See section Correction.]

Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985)

As we see, the wedding conversation is in the context of the Natalia adoption. With that cleared up, and with the pre-crisis timeline filled out, let’s move to post-crisis. 

In my brief read-through of Batman #404-427 (1987-1988), I didn’t find any direct references to Jason’s status. Those issues begin at the reboot and end at Jason’s death. However, Dick and Jason’s statements after the fact do tell us that post-crisis, Bruce did adopt Jason. 

In Batman #436 (1989), Dick returns to the manor in the direct aftermath of Jason’s death, and while he is there, he sees that Bruce removed any trace of Jason from the house. There aren’t any trophies in the Batcave, and there aren’t any pictures of Jason on the nightstand displaying Bruce’s family photos. 

Dick says that Jason was Bruce’s son.

Batman #436 (1989)

I think it’s fair to ask whether Dick is being literal here, because even if Bruce hadn’t legally adopted Jason, it would still be more than appropriate to call them father and son. I’m not going to place my opinion solely on this kind of statement, even if it does appear pretty regularly from 1988 to the end of the timeline.

Green Arrow/Black Canary #4 (2007)

We get a more definite answer later, during Tim’s first appearance. In Tim’s origin story, he deduces Batman and Robin’s secret identities after he sees footage of Robin doing a type of flip that only the Flying Graysons could do. Tim was at the circus the night Dick’s parents died, so he saw Dick do the flip there, then saw Dick become an orphan. 

Because Tim knew that Dick was the first Robin, he correctly identified Bruce as Batman and Jason as the second Robin. He tells Dick all of this in Batman #441 (1989).

Batman #441 (1989)

Tim does specifically use the word “adopts” here, and that’s good enough for me. The last part is guesswork— I don’t know for certain how old Jason and Bruce were when the adoption took place, but I’m electing to say Jason was 12, the same age as he was when he became Robin. 

I picked that number both out of convenience and because Tim seems to be putting Jason’s adoption and the second Robin’s appearance at around the same time. With that in mind, I think that Jason was 12 years old both when he became Robin and when Bruce adopted him. Using the age gap we already established, that would put Bruce at age 34. 

Circling back to my original question, Dick became Bruce’s ward when Dick was 12 and Bruce was 27. Jason became Bruce’s ward, then adoptive son when Jason was 12 and Bruce was 34. 

At this point in the timeline, Bruce is 34 with one former ward and one adopted son. 

----------

Correction 

A few days after I wrote my section about Jason’s appearance and adoption, I realized that I was missing a panel citation in my discussion of Jason’s death. The panel is from New Titan #55 (1989), and you’ll see me cite it when I talk about Jason’s death certificate. 

New Titans #55 (1989) is the issue where Dick, who is with the Teen Titans,  finds out about Jason’s death. While I was combing through the issue for the panels I wanted, I reread a scene I had completely forgotten about. Dick goes back to the manor to speak to Bruce, and it doesn’t go well.

New Titans #55 (1989)

I have three comments here. First, I do think this scene is inconsistent with the simultaneous story in the Batman title. In this version, Dick and Bruce have a very aggressive confrontation, but in Batman #436 (1989), Dick appears to be returning to the manor for the first time since Jason died, and there isn’t any reference to a prior fight. 

Putting that aside, Bruce does explicitly say that he adopted Jason, and that’s more, stronger verification of a post-crisis adoption. Lastly, it’s pretty clear that Bruce and Dick are talking about the wedding scene. 

I already explained that the wedding scene is pre-crisis, and in the original text, that conversation is about Bruce wanting to, but not being able to, adopt Jason. New Titans #55 (1989) carries the wedding scene into post-crisis canon, changing the language in the process. In this version, Bruce has adopted Jason. 

I was still wrong about the wedding scene because in the past, I used it as evidence of a pre-crisis adoption. It isn’t pre-crisis evidence, but it is, in a roundabout way, evidence of the post-crisis adoption. I wanted to clear that up before I move on to Jason’s death. 

----------

Jason dies

Jason’s death is by far the shakiest point on my timeline, but I’ve chosen to put him at 15 the day he died in Batman #427 (1988). 

I think it’s safe to say that Jason was either 14 or 15 when he died, and my basic conclusion is that running numbers doesn’t give me a definite answer. There’s a cop-out option based on an extraordinarily poor source, and I’m taking the cop-out. 

The general consensus seems to be that Jason was 15 at his death, citation to Jason’s death certificate. Jason’s death certificate appears in two different places, and I think most folks conflate the two. 

To my knowledge, the only copy of Jason’s death certificate in full appears in The Batman Files (2011), where it does list Jason’s age as 15. 

The Batman Files (2011)

Now there is a partial copy in Batman Annual #25 (2006), which I would argue is a very reliable reference when it comes to Jason. That issue is part of the Under the Red Hood story, the one where Jason returns to Gotham for the first time after his resurrection. In fact, the specific annual issue has a timeline for Jason’s events counting forward from his death. 

Here’s the problem: the issue doesn’t say his age at death. The partial copy of his death certificate looks like this. 

Batman Annual #25 (2006) 

I think that when most folks remember a death certificate, they think of this one, the one from a very important issue, instead of The Batman Files (2011) which, as noted, is a very bad source. 

I have three issues with The Batman Files (2011): the format, the publishing date, and the other information on the certificate. First, The Batman Files (2011) isn’t a comic book at all. It’s a commemorative book published in collaboration with DC in 2011. Now I don’t think that fact completely removes the book as a source, but it certainly damages its value as one. 

My problem with that date, 2011, is that it’s the year the New 52 premiered. I called it a commemorative book because it’s meant to be a look back at a fully complete timeline, a kind of “this is us saying goodbye” product. The date and format alone make me hesitant to cite the certificate, but on top of that, the certificate is inconsistent with prior canon. 

I am intimately familiar with retcons and conflicting numbers in the DC timeline. I made a point at the beginning of this paper to tell you that although this is my best attempt to make a cohesive timeline, assuming that I can carve out a cohesive timeline is fundamentally flawed. 

I’m not saying that a single contradictory number is enough to make me disregard a source. I am saying that in this particular conversation about an already suspect source, I’m going to take inconsistency into account. 

In New Titans #55 (1989), the issue from Corrections, Dick finds out about Jason’s death because a team member notices Jason’s status is set at “unknown.” Dick uses Bruce’s passcode to access restricted information, and he and the Titans see that Jason’s real status is “deceased.” 

The death certificate in The Batman Files (2011) marks Jason’s height at 4’6 and his age at 15. In contrast, Dick’s scene puts Jason at 5’4, and its only reference to Jason’s age is a very relatable question from Donna. “How old was he, anyway?”

New Titans #55 (1989)

There’s a substantial difference between the two heights, and I think it’s also worth noting that for a 15 year old American male, 4’6 is in the 0.1 height percentile. In the past, I and many others have tried to justify that height along the lines of Jason being malnourished or similarly afflicted. Personally, I liked the parallel between this height for Jason and Damian’s height at his own death in 2013, and I know I’ve talked about that in the past.

I’m not criticizing anyone for using the 4’6 number, but I do think the unlikelihood of a 15 year old that size is worth bringing up. 

In summary, The Batman Files (2011) is so bad of a source that I’m only willing to use it as a last resort. Unfortunately, it’s time for a last resort. 

I mentioned a timeline in Batman Annual #25 (2006) that counts forward from Jason’s death. I’m not going to use image cites here because they’re just isolated text boxes labeled either “six months later” or “one year later.”

Using that timeline, we know that Jason’s resurrection took place six months after his death. He spent one year in a coma, then one year on the street, then one year with the League of Assassins. Finally, he spent a nebulous time training before he returned to Gotham. 

We know that Jason was gone for a minimum of three and a half years, then whatever time “training” includes. Personally, I’m applying my best attempt at comic logic to say he was missing for somewhere between three and four years. 

To understand the next bit, I need to point out that from Jason’s death on, I’m going to be using Tim’s age to track time in the same way I’ve been using Dick’s so far. 

As a reminder, I know what age Bruce was when Dick became Robin (28), and I know Dick’s age at the same point (13), so I know there’s a 15 year age difference. As I track Dick’s age through the timeline, I add 15 to get Bruce’s. 

In the same way, I know what age Dick was when Jason became Robin (19), and I know Jason’s age at the same point (12), so I know there’s a 7 year age difference. I can use that number ongoing. 

I know that Tim was 13 when he made his first appearance as Robin, and I’ll get into that in the next section. After that, I’m placing Dick, Tim, and Cass’s adoptions based on Tim’s age. 

To do that, I need to know how much older Dick is than Tim, and I can only get that by knowing Jason’s age at his death, sort of. 

How long was Jason Robin? If I had that information, I could establish Jason’s age by counting up from 12, the age when he became Robin, then establish Tim’s age from there.  

I can’t really answer that question. There is a panel from Batman #436 where Dick, apparently in his first time at the manor since Jason’s death says the following. 

Batman #436 (1989)

My instinctual interpretation is it’s been two years since he stopped being Robin at 19, making Dick 21 and Jason 14. In my opinion, that’s straightforward plain language, but it seems like I’m in the minority on that one, and most folks read it as Dick saying it’s been two years since he was last at the manor. We know from Batman #416 (1988) that Dick’s last visit to the manor was 18 months after Dick left home. 

Batman #136 (1988)

I think the most honest thing to say is that Jason was Robin for an indeterminate amount of time that was somewhere between two and three years. I don’t know which number is closer. I also, if you remember, think that Jason was gone from Gotham for somewhere between three and four years, but I don’t know where in that range the real number is. 

Here’s why absolutely nothing I’ve said in the past seven pages matters: I need to build my timeline based on the age gap between Jason and Tim. 

I don’t know how old Tim was when Jason died. 

I know how old Tim was at his first appearance as Robin, and that’s a different number. 

We’ll finish this conversation in a moment.

----------

Tim becomes Robin

We begin, thankfully, with a straightforward fact. Tim’s first storyline spans Batman #440-442 (1989). The arc is called A Lonely Place of Dying, and we already talked about it. Tim, having watched Batman and Robin from the shadows for years, comes forwards in the aftermath of Jason’s death in an attempt to convince Dick to become Robin for a second time.

Batman #441 (1989)

We know that Tim was 13 years old at the time, but I do need to clarify exactly what time that was— an indeterminate amount of time after Jason’s death. 

The word that pops up a couple of time in Tim’s first arc is “months,” from Tim and Two-Face. How many months? Who’s to say. 

Batman #442 (1989)

So, from the top. We know that Bruce was eight when his parents died, 26 when he became Batman, 27 when he met Dick, 28 when Dick became Robin, and 34 when he met Jason.

Dick was 12 when he met Bruce, 13 when he became Robin, 19 when he left home and Jason became Robin. 

Jason was 12 when he became Robin.

Bruce is 15 years older than Dick. Bruce is 22 years older than Jason. 

Dick is 7 years older than Jason.

How long was Jason Robin? Unknown, but somewhere between two and three years. At that point, he died. “Months” after that, Tim was 13. 

Here, we need to acknowledge that Jason could have been either 14 or 15 at his death, and at the same time, Tim was either 12 or 13. We need to know how far they are apart to calculate Tim’s age in relation to Jason, Dick, and Bruce— ongoing, we will always know exactly how old Tim is, so (if we know how far apart Jason and Tim are) we will always know Bruce, Dick, and Jason’s age from there. 

How much older than Tim is Jason? Somewhere between one and three years, I guess, but I can’t really go beyond a well-researched guess. In my opinion, there isn’t a straightforward answer for this one.

Having presented my facts, here is my conclusion. Jason was 15 when he died. At the same time, Tim was 13. They are two years apart. 

Why? To begin, I’m more comfortable using the number we already have for Tim, 13, than I am dropping him to 12 on the mere possibility that he could have been 12. 

Second, even though The Batman Files (2011) is a terrible source, it does at least sort of indicate that the official DC position is a Jason who was 15 years old at his death. 

Third, visually speaking, Jason looks closer to 15 than 14 at his death. Is that good evidence? No, absolutely not. Comic book art is definitionally variable, but I am going to pull a few panels for you to look over. 

Batman #427 (1988)

Finally, I feel that Jason and Tim are, in later works, treated as if they are different ages. I’m not going to go into much detail on that one because it is purely a personal reaction, but I would refer to Teen Titans #29 (2005) as an example. That issue has Jason and Tim’s first meeting, after Jason comes to the tower specifically to attack Tim. 

Teen Titans #27 (2005)

Another well-known issue to check out is Teen Titans #47 (2007).

My basic position is that there are so many ways, all uncertain, to slice Jason and Tim’s ages that I can take my pick. I chose the ones that most closely mirror later canon, fall most squarely into the possible range, and feel the most intuitively right. 

They also have the benefit of simplicity, which was very much a factor. 

Don’t agree with me? Fair enough. I think I’ve given you enough information to make an educated judgment, and I’ve also gone ahead and made a timeline in the alternative. In this one, Jason was 14 at death, and he and Tim are only one year apart. 

----------

In the Alternative

----------

Cass appears

Having progressed beyond Jason and Tim’s age gap, we reenter simple canon. I hope you’re as pleased as I am. 

Cass was 17 years old at her first appearance, which we can establish easily based on two different issues. Cass first appears in Batman #567 (1999), during an arc called No Man’s Land. At the time, she is working for Barbara Gordon in the aftermath of an earthquake that destroyed most of Gotham. We learn Cass’s backstory through that issue. 

Cass’s biological father is David Cain, a villain, who raised Cass in isolation, never exposing her to a verbal language or allowing any kind of socialization. By comic book logic, her upbringing gave her a near-superhuman ability to understand and anticipate physical actions, as those actions are her only form of communication. 

Cain trained her as a child assassin, then took her to her first kill. Cass murdered a man and experienced, through his body language, the pain he felt at his death. Immediately afterward, she ran away from her father.

Batgirl #62 (2005)

We know that Cass was eight years old when she killed and ran. We also know that her first appearance in Gotham was nine years after she ran, thanks to Barbara Gordon’s file. 

Batgirl #1 (2000)

Simple enough. She was 17. How old was everybody else? We find out from Tim’s timeline. 

This next bit will come up a few times. We know that Tim was 15 from at least 1993 to 2003, established by three different issues. We know from Detective Comics #668 (1993) that Tim was 15 during Knightquest, the arc where Jean-Paul Valley was briefly Batman. Barbara tells us in 2002 that Tim is still 15, and Tim turns 16 on-panel in 2003. 

In Knightquest, Tim gets his driver’s license early, at age 15, because Jack Drake is in a wheelchair. I suppose the wording here is ambiguous on a technicality, but I don’t think there’s any significant argument against Tim being 15; if he was only 14, the language would be different.  

Detective Comics #668 (1993)

Next, in Batgirl #24 (2002), Barbara says she’s “sending a 15 year old” as she reaches for Tim’s com line.

Batgirl #24 (2002)

We could stop here for Cassandra’s appearance, since that happened in 1999, between the 1993 issue and the 2002 reference. For completion’s sake, however, let’s note that Robin #116 (2003) is about Tim’s 16th birthday. He forgets about it, so his step-mother throws a surprise party. 

Robin #116 (2003)

Okay, so Tim was 15 when Cass appeared at age 17. That puts Bruce at 39, Dick at 24, and Jason at 17 if you’re counting by years elapsed since his birth. 

Bruce met his daughter when he was 39 and she was 17, in reference to my original question. Cass is 22 years younger than Bruce, seven years younger than Dick, the same age as Jason, and two years older than Tim. 

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Dick is adopted

This one, having already established Tim’s timeline, is very simple. Dick was adopted in Gotham Knights #17 (2001).

Gotham Knights #17 (2001)

Again, Tim was 15 from 1993 to 2003, and 2001 falls within that range. Tim was 15, which makes Dick 24 and Bruce 39. 

At this point in the timeline, Bruce, a 39 year old, has two adopted children, one of whom is deceased as far as Bruce is concerned. His adopted children are (17) and 24. He has already met two of his future children, Cass and Tim. 

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This is PART ONE. I’ll reblog Part Two onto this post when I wake up, which should be around the same time this posts. 

[5five5five5five5five5five]

thank you for this addition. I'm sorry that my wording was harmful and that i typed this post very impulsively with not much thought. You are right that his queerness in his fashion is very important and it shouldn't have been watered down or that i should have made a 1 for 1 connection to only his drug addiction. that is not true, I'm well aware he is genderfluid and pan and that it plays a big part of his character. I apologize for my wording and i admit my negative feelings towards my sister and my own trauma effects how i talk about such topics but i really need to correct myself when it comes to public spaces. it wasn't okay. i need to be more aware that my sister is an outlier, not the norm and i shouldn't be speaking so generally about a crisis that has impacted me and many others as much as it has. it was careless. (i currently have 2 homeless sisters + i was homeless for most of my teen years. its something i know all too well. i think to the point where i talk about it in a very numb and uncaring manner to cope. that is not an excuse.) the only thing i disagree on is "nail polish and eyeliner cost money, so his choice to use those as part of his style coinciding with homelessness does not make any sense." i feel like that's very much removing the community aspect of homelessness and drug addiction. and tbh feels a little dehumanizing. as someone around homeless people my whole life with make up, nails and flamboyant clothes, it makes sense to me? people can get all those things fairly easily from other homeless friends. Klaus is showed knowing who to get drugs from and a past of partying. those crowds form communities. those communities help each other. Klaus is a person who needs "stealables" (his own words) to get money for drugs, he doesn't fully have the luxury to 100% dress that way all on his own accord. Yes, its the style he chooses to wear and his queerness plays a factor but he is very much NOT just a flamboyant queer with a unique fashion sense. hes also a struggling, homeless, drug addict flamboyant queer. and a lot of his fashion reflects that and will be downplayed when recovering. his fashion is his queerness AND signs of a man who doesn't have much to him but tries to elevate his self expression with what he has. its BOTH. people who don't see the struggle in his attire and ONLY see the queerness are who i was pointing to. there is struggle in s1 Klaus's fashion. (pre war) that's a man who isn't JUST wearing what he's wearing because he's queer. he's not a celebrity who hand picks his attire at whim with luxury and 100% freewill. he's also an addict that elevates his personality, mannerisms and style to fit his surroundings. we see this in s2 with his cult and in Vietnam. he has a habit of easily forming to what life throws to him. Klaus is queer but also dresses with what he can get. it being a flamboyant style is him being queer. but removing drugs from the equation WILL change that. yes, recovery shouldn't just remove his queerness and i do wish they added a bit more queerness into him in s4 but we see him in a very transitional state in his recovery. some people don't know WHO they are after 3 years sober. Klaus really made drugs his personality. drugs can make you more boastful. that doesn't remove his queerness but i think people really only see his queerness and complaining are not seeing the fact that a addict is there too. without drugs and this pattern of behavior he's had since he was teen, he's going to feel different for a long time. he's going to change. s1 Klaus was not a happy man and people who act like he should go back to suffering bc he was "more stylish" are missing the point. that's what i meant by this post. i wasn't trying to remove one for the other. i just feel like some ignore his addiction in favor of him being a queer icon when he's both and they do overlap a LOT.

Thank you again for this addition, the resources and for calling me out, i honestly made this post then threw it to the wind without much thought, witch was a thoughtless thing to do. i hope i got my words out better here then before. i not trying to double down. i just really want people to understand that his drug addiction was a big part of him for a long time and his fashion very much reflects that ON TOP OF being queer and flamboyant. both can co exist in one man.

idk why but everyone going "the decuntification of Klaus is so sad" "why is Klaus's fashion always a downgrade each season??" really bugs me. like. that was the drugs. he dressed like that bc street life drug life. as someone with a homeless druggie sister (who LOVES KLAUS) and is straight as a nail, she dresses the same way. him being pan / queer had very little to do with how he dressed in s1. that's the drugs.

and its sad that i have a first hand look at the same type of person to know this. maybe I'm projecting but give rehab, softer germaphobe Klaus some fucking respect. THAT'S Klaus.

[summerinbali]

I am so lucky. Everything works out in my favor. Even when something is not good, something better will come for me with it. Also, the Universe always got my back. Yes, I am so grateful because I am lucky.

It's February 2023 and I haven't write anything in here.

Anyhow, I welcomed this new year happily. For the first time ever. But for the first time ever also, I had to go to ER on 2nd Jan, by my own self, which was painfully sad. Life is great, but my body could not handle such a big energy of greatness coming on the new year. Also, my body couldn't handle the coffee I took on the new year's eve. Funny, ha-ha. But not funny ha-ha.

With that tragedy, I came up with my new year's resolution short and simple: healthy body. What is this healthy body that I'm going for? Glad you ask!

With my frontal lobe has fully developed, I am now able to elaborate this healthy body. It is not only eating healthy food (well, whatever that is!) or running until I passed out. It is finding balance in life. I healed my inner self for the past 2 years, which took a lot of myself. Quarter life crisis did it all well. But for just an update, I think I feel a lot better now. Hopefully, it's for good. Life is a rollercoaster, I know. But I hope I can always find the peace, forgiveness, and love I need within myself.

In matter of health, it is my body turn! She has to heal herself from GERD, vertigo, and all kinds of painful painful things that happened.

My goal is (i) to find exercise that effective, enjoyable, and doable most of the time, and (ii) to find balance of eating.

So this year, I am exploring. I said to my body that I will take time to relearn about myself and my body. The last time I did those two was when I was 17-18. And those information are now invalid. I mean, who take only 1 apple and 1 gum per day then call themselves all fueled up for the day?? Also, I don't think I am fully capable of forcing this body to run 5k immediately, she needs to take small baby steps to do that. Hence, I am exploring everything. All food, all exercises (as long as it is not a high intensity).

I also take mindful walking now, which not requiring any earphones with songs blasting my ears. I listened to the universe. Most of the time it's honking sounds of the traffic. But sometimes, it is me screaming that I am tired, but at the same time believing that I am capable.

I will definitely do Pilates Reformer, I heard that it's good for the spine. And yes, I had some issues with my shoulders and spine as well. I am also down to try more fun exercise, like Poundfit. Girl, I cannot imagine the amount of adventures this year.

One of the resources for my growth, especially with food, is @barrewithmich on Instagram. She is a great barre teacher, I followed her class few times during the pandemic. And I followed her immediately because she said something about growth. In a nutshell, healthy living is not a journey, not a marathon - so there's no need to rush. Her posts intrigued me to take slow steps, finding my own balance, exploring my limits, especially when it comes to food.

I used to label food with good food, bad food, guilty pleasure, cheating food, et cetera. I did not do me good. I was stuck with diet issues. I was on unhealthy diet for years and thought that 700cal per day was a lot. I was either binge eating or not eating at all. Boy, was I wrong.

Due to all the mistakes that I did in the past, I am now willing to take the road of the unknown and explore the wild wild world of the meaning of living itself - finding my balance and understanding my limit.

This could also mean me living with a full-time job, taking master's degree with 7 courses this semester, being a mom to a pre-schooler (WHAT), and being a wife to an amazing husband (who also has a not only full-time, but life-time, job while taking master's degree, being a father to a pre-schoolder, and a caretaker to the parents).

((side note: To B, I am proud of who you are now. I cannot believe we are here. Would you take the road to find the meaning of healthy living itself?))

Well, 2023. What a year. I've been here since 2008, I think? CRAZY. And been doing this new year shit posting since 2016 or 2017? Cannot remember. But hey. Another year to live, blessed. Super grateful and thankful. Let's do it.