#roy ollie sometimes jason and others all do it

[bat-besties]

DC comics stop making your male characters sexist as a fun character flaw to show he's arrogant/immature/still growing 🥺

[incorrectbatfam]

Bruce goes to meet the other fathers? Have a barbecue with Clark, Oliver, Berry and talk about their kids?

"Damian told me that I was cool, it's been a while since one of my kids told me that" or "Mia is doing so well at school these days"

those moments when they are all (old men) father proud of the mess the kids are?

The dads: *lounging on beach chairs*

Clark: It's nice to finally get a day off. I think Jon needed it more than me. He's still reeling from growing up and suddenly turning back into a kid again.

Ollie: How'd that happen, anyway?

Duke, walking by: That's just this blog.

Clark: What?

Duke: Nothing. Hey, B, can we use the jacuzzi?

Bruce: Sure, go ahead.

Duke: *gives Emiko a thumbs up*

Emiko: *drains the jacuzzi*

Harper and Cullen: *start cleaning the pipes*

Ollie: I know how you feel, Clark. Roy's the happiest I've seen him with Lian back but it's still a big change. We're working on getting her enrolled in school this fall so she can catch up on what she's missed.

Roy: *sprays the tub with disinfectant*

Jason: *dries it with a leaf blower*

Hal: Speaking of changes, Jaime graduated with honors. I know he's not my kid but I can't help but feel like a proud uncle. Kyle got a new concept artist job, by the way, and I think he really likes it.

Jaime: *turns the jacuzzi back on*

Kyle: *sets up folding tables*

Barry, chuckling: Bart tried to enter a marathon the other day.

Clark: Kon wanted to pay money to go skydiving. I don't get it.

Aquaman: I remember when Kaldur joined an amateur scuba class at that age. Perhaps it's an attempt to feel more human.

Bruce: It's easy for us to forget sometimes too.

Kon, carrying a giant pot: Boiling hot soup, coming through!

Kon: *pours it into the jacuzzi*

Cass: *adds spices*

Tim, with a clipboard: One down, eleven more to go. Bart, stop eating the ingredients.

Bart: It's just tofu.

Tim: That's for Damian. What's he gonna do now, starve?

Bruce: Dick's been coming home more often lately. I can tell Alfred's really happy when he sees us all together.

Dick: *drapes tablecloths over the tables*

Wally: *sets up plates*

Steve, walking in: Mind if I join? Diana's running a little late so she sent me and the girls ahead.

Clark: Of course, feel free.

Donna, holding a basket: Where do these vegetables go?

Barbara: I'll take them. Could one of you get some spoons from the kitchen?

Cassie: On it.

Steve: So where are all the ladies?

Bruce: They're in the living room. Selina's showing off her latest... um... collection. Alfred has tea in the kitchen if you want some.

Steve: Don't mind if I do.

Yara: Should I put the meat in now?

Jon: One sec.

Jon: *scoops some soup aside*

Jon: You're good now. I just needed a vegetarian portion for Dami.

Kon: MORE SOUP COMING!

Ollie: Honestly, I'm surprised everyone's doing fairly well given the industry we're in.

Steph, leading a crowd into the yard: And here's where our main event will be.

Bette: *checking names off a guest list*

Bette: That's almost everyone. Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter are gonna be a little late. Avery's on a mission in Shanghai so she can't make it. Beast Boy and Raven stopped to buy desserts. And the We Are Robin kids just got stuck on a stalled subway train but they should be here pretty soon.

Clark: I think it's a matter of good mentorship and giving them plenty of time and space to get acclimated to the superhero lifestyle.

Jesse: *making lemonade*

Ace: *fills the coolers with ice*

Garth and Kaldur: *handing out drinks*

Barry: And giving them plenty of room to grow at their own pace.

Hal: Very true.

Bruce, sighing contently: You can't help but be proud of them.

The kids, chanting: HOT POT! HOT POT!

[varpusvaras]

Jason and Jade met on some mission before Jason went back to Gotham, and they continued to sometimes meet up afterwards as well. Mostly on missions, again, but sometimes Jade would just come up at Jason when he's having breakfast or something and they would chat a little bit.

Perhaps they, in some way, felt like kindred spirits. Both on a mission that they feel like they need to do, even if it's not necessarily all that they want out of life, but they also don't know if they can live another type of life, either.

Anyway a few years in, there's a knock at the front door, and when Roy goes to open it, Jade is standing on the other side, in civilian clothes and with a very expensive pair of sunglasses on her eyes and even more expensive bag slung over her shoulder.

"Hi?" Roy says. "It's not like you to come knocking on my door like this."

"I'm not here for you", Jade says (though it's not unkindly).

Roy completely understands.

"Lian's at Ollie and Dinah's", he says. "I can call them-"

"I know, I will come visit her too", Jade says. "But right now I'm not here for her, either."

"Okay?" Roy is now officially out of the loop, it seems.

"I'm here for business", Jade says, very unhelpfully, and then masterfully steps around Roy and into the house. "Bird Boy!"

Jason makes a sound from the kitchen, and Jade marches in there. Roy follows her, and steps into the kitchen just in time to see Jason hand Jade a cup of tea, and for Jade to pull out something wrapped very tightly in plastic from her bag. It makes a very loud thump as it hits the table, and Roy realises very quickly that this is going to be a very long day.

[pluckyredhead]

Ngl do you think the relationship between Arthur and Garth has anything to do with how often at the time adopted children were and are considered not as “real” as biological children? Especially because the whole nuclear family BS. Not saying that’s all of it but I think it plays a role

Oh, 100%. I mean, look at this:

Arthur is willing to kill Garth to save Aquababy, because Aquababy is his son...with the implicit corollary that Garth isn't. The kid he has raised since, like, age 8, who has been by his side and living in his house all these years, is just...a sidekick.

(I think it's worth noting that Batman, who is not a good father, was once in a similar situation - Ra's al Ghul wanted him to pick whether Tim or Damian should die - and Bruce immediately chose himself. Arthur didn't even consider sacrificing himself for the boys. When you're a worse father than Batman, you know you've fucked up.)

I will say that in the early decades, comics only rarely explicitly referred to heroes and sidekicks as fathers and sons - you don't see it very often with Dick or Roy either. That's why all the sidekicks were wards and none of them were legally adopted. (Dick wasn't adopted until he was over 18; Roy never has been.) This was mostly to keep the heroes seeming young and fun instead of stodgy old dads.

But since the 70s on, Dick and Roy have been very frequently, explicitly stated to be Bruce and Ollie's sons, and the same is true for subsequent sidekicks: Jason was going to be adopted right away, Tim was going to be adopted whether he wanted it or not, Mia is clearly Ollie's daughter.

By contrast, I can only think of two times the Arthur/Garth dynamic has been described as paternal. The first is from Garth's debut:

HE IS SO TINY. Also I can't stop laughing at how Arthur's like "Fuck that noise." TERRIBLE.

I can't remember exactly when the other instance was, but I want to say it was Arthur calling Garth his son in like...the early 2000s? Maybe the Jurgens run? It would've had to have been before the 2003 run, because Garth was not putting up with Arthur's bullshit from 2003 on, and then the New 52 happened.

But yeah, they don't use those words for each other...basically ever. (Lorena and Jackson are also not Arthur's children. To be fair, Jackson has two very alive parents so Arthur being like "YOU ARE MY SON" would be weird and inappropriate.)

I think another factor, though, is that Arthur isn't just Garth's former mentor and guardian - he's his king. A lot of the time, Arthur has very cold, formal relationships with almost everyone in his life who isn't Mera (and sometimes even her) or a literal baby. There's a certain loyalty Garth owes Arthur - or at least both characters seem to feel Garth owes Arthur, whether or not you or I might agree with that - that has nothing at all to do with family.

We also don't really know the Atlantean norms around this sort of thing. Like, we can extrapolate things about Ollie and Roy's relationship that aren't written on the page, but do Atlanteans even have differentiations between ward, foster, and adoptee? Do they differentiate between adoptee and biological child?

And combining both of those ideas, Garth being considered Arthur's son might have political ramifications. Does that put him in the line of succession? The comics have been wildly inconsistent on this (Titans called him a prince this month and I yelled "EXPLAIN YOURSELF, TOM TAYLOR" at the page), but one could headcanon that Arthur has very deliberately avoided formally recognizing Garth as his son for political reasons. (Unless he has and that's why Garth is apparently a prince now, like he was in the Jurgens run but no other time in history. EXPLAIN BOTH OF YOURSELVES, TOM TAYLOR AND DAN JURGENS.)

Anyway yeah, I mostly think you're right that it's just anti-adoption prejudice, but there are some other factors that make this situation unique among the many, many mentor/sidekick relationships in comics.

[roseworth]

1, 8, and 24?

ask

1.the character everyone gets wrong

i am the only person in the world with a correct opinion on jason todd and its so hard carrying this weight on my shoulders. no one understands him like i do.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

answered here but i have another... i think dinah's stance on motherhood is a lot different than a lot of people say it is. listen!!! i dont want her to be forced into a mother role either. and i love when female characters say they dont want kids so i like to think that dinah doesnt want to be a mother. but it seems unfair to me when people insist that dinah would Never be a mother and anyone who implies it is wrong. shes not the arrowfamily mother but.. shes not exactly NOT the arrowfamily mother. i see people point to longbow hunters where she says she doesnt want kids, but i think the important context of that is WHY she says she doesnt want kids. she says that she doesnt want to bring a baby into their life when both her and ollie are distracted with being heroes and wouldnt be able to raise a child since their lives are too dangerous, and they would leave the kid alone if they died ("id love to make babies with you. but i wont make orphans") which is such a good moment and i really love it!!

but some people point to this conversation and say "this is why shes not a mother to mia!!" like???? in what way does that apply to mia. mia is already a hero so shes not being neglected by their hero life and no one has to give it up either. not to mention later in ga88 (by the same writer) dinah decides that she does actually want kids (which is a whole other can of worms that i wont get into bc i dont like it) so its not even really fair to say that she Doesnt want to be a mother. people take a few panels from this conversation out of context and act like its the end all be all of dinah's stance on kids

i personally dont believe that shes a mother to mia or roy, but also she is somewhat in the mom role in both of their lives. and a lot of people insist that shes not a mother to them and get mad at people who say she is when really. she kind of is. you can interpret it however you'd like but i dont think either interpretation is wrong

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

answered here but ive got more. in general the concept of disregarding canon is so annoying to get into bc there are so many sides to it and sometimes if someone accepts one thing as canon that another person doesnt accept it turns into an argument about whats More Canon. not to mention so much of the argument is from people who have never read a comic besides wfa and they say "dc stands for disregard canon :3 i can do whatever i want!" but they dont even know what the canon is that theyre disregarding and just take a completely flanderized version of the character to heart and act like their interpretations are just as important as people who actually care about the character in the comics. on the other hand there are characters like talia where people will take "canon" to heart and say "well she did this in a comic so its canon that shes a bad person" and wont listen when you say that the "canon" where she did that was racist so thats not the kind of interpretation that you should be sticking to

but other than that. i think the nature of comics is that you have to accept that two conflicting interpretations are both canon. people will get into fights about who's right and who's wrong when really it just depends on what youre looking at. and sometimes writers will abide by whats currently canon and people will get mad at them for not taking the canon that they personally agree with. im once again going to talk about robin jason bc there are so many different portrayals of jason's time as robin that its hard to settle on one because they all oppose each other. if you go back to the 80s comics he was mostly just happy and silly and having a good time as robin. but in current comics whenever you see him as a robin they show his angry moments & the starlin characterization. and neither is exactly wrong?? and dgmw it bothers me when writers make jason mean and angry and whatever when he was robin, but its still canon. its hard to say its out of character when there are many comics in the last 40 years that support the fact that he was actually an angry kid. just because you dont agree with it doesnt mean its not canon. and you dont have to abide by canon in your own interpretation!!! but if other people are abiding by a different canon theyre not doing anything wrong

[aalghul]

Nice post about Roy I like how kind your response was. But yeah as a Roy fan I find the idea that he would hate anyone but the man who killed his daughter to be silly. Cause like thing is Roy has a line till he doesn’t. Like you said Roy draws a line for himself with Cheshire but he never ever 100 percent commits. Even after the bombing and her holding a gun to Lian and threatening to shoot her while trying to escape prison, in his time with the League he still is hinted to love her and still lets Lian visit her. Flash forward to now they are still on again off again lovers/enemies. The old Titans ‘Roy breaks up with Cheshire’ story was written like it was the full end of their relationship but DC loves that concept and in comics they will always come back.

With Mia or people hurting his family Roy would not care at the end of the day unless that family member died sorry. Roy forgave a woman who babysat Lian and helped terrorists kidnap her and then broke his leg in an attempt to kill Cheshire. No he didn’t just forgive her he offered to let her keep babysitting Lian saying he didn’t think he had the right to judge anyone.

People other than Roy say he belongs in the light but Roy kind of hates that about himself and actively denies and resists it because he thinks the dirty work is the real important work. He worked in fantasy superhero CIA for years and even killed for them, left and made the Outsiders, initially didn’t want to leave and basically stayed till the last second till his mental health gave in, joined the League and didn’t actually have a great time with the group or ever really believe he belonged, had a horrible ending with that group and became a straight up villain after the ROA fiasco and worked on a team of villains all of whom except Slade he expressed some sort of sympathy for.

Roy just doesn’t give up on people and kind of really wants to do antihero work and tries to again and again. The age/maturity thing kind of gets it but that only matters where you connect Roy and Jason, they are peers and work together in some fashion off screen for a year in Outsiders, put a ROA recovering villain Roy with really any post UTRH Jason save Morrison Jason and you could write an intergenerational friendship arc easy.

People forget but before 52 first started a lot of people wanted a Jason Roy book. It was floated around as an idea for ages and rumor was even Winick made a pitch but can’t confirm. When 52 was first announced a lot of people thought not only that RHATO made sense and only Kory didn’t belong but thought the comic had real potential. And really it might have since Roy and Cheshire at one point would not have made sense for either character and notably everything about their relationship happened off screen. We give things a pass because of how well the stories are written. I think most issues with comics are people moralizing about the characters and saying they would never do this or that when 9 times out of 10 the writer just shat over the execution of a concept and the writing as is was shit.

-- i’m just going to include my thoughts down here --

I agree with everything you said about Roy just not being the person who holds a lot of hatred for people. He comes off as strict and even angry sometimes, but at heart, he’s one of the most understanding characters.

I always took Roy’s failed attempts at being an anti-hero as proof that it’s not what he’s meant to do. He keeps trying because he sees his sympathy and desire to do more as a sign that he needs to get his hands dirtier, but each time leaves him with the realization that he can’t be doing that type of work. He was reluctant to leave the Outsiders because he didn’t want to abandon them, that’s why he does leave as soon as Ollie provides funding for them (which he also does specifically because he knows Roy wouldn’t leave, no matter how much he wanted to, otherwise). The Outsiders did end in Roy himself realizing he couldn’t stay there.

I think Roy has always worked best in the various Titans teams he’s been part of. Unfortunately, Teen Titans (2003) set a new status quo with enough of the original Titans leaving and the team working under the leadership of younger members even when more experienced Titans were present. So we could never really go back to the titans as they were in any of the iterations prior to that.

I don’t think Jason and Roy worked together for a whole year; it was just Jason reaching out to Dick, and then subsequently teaming up with him and Roy to give them information of Black Lightning. Which definitely worked to let Roy know the type of person that Jason is (i.e. not a villain), but it was also very much through Dick, so it would again be a reminder of the time that Jason, as a child, teamed up with Roy and the others. Roy’s affinity to taking a guiding role when he works with team members significantly younger than him is just such an important part of who he is that I can’t get past it. I don’t mean to say that Roy’s going to treat Jason like a child, but that there’s going to be a significant gap between their friendship as compared to the friendship that post-flashpoint gave them. Roy is just at a completely different stage from Jason, who is essentially just beginning to catch up on life as a teenager. That difference can’t be ignored easily.

I didn’t read comics back then (and was also a very little kid lol) so I didn’t know about that being something people wanted back then! It must be disappointing to see how it’s turned out.

At the end of the day, I personally think that Roy and Jason could work together very well short-term, and then it would have to end in them walking their separate ways because Roy can never stay in the dark too long, whether he admits it or not. I get what you’re saying about good execution making all the difference, though! I just want to stay as consistent to Roy’s character as possible, so Jason and Roy as best friends/a long-term anti-hero duo never quite works out.

[liedownquisition]

@treegona

#Re Ollie: sometimes a writer has a story they want to tell and put a character into an ill-fitting mold#and you have to balance that knowledge against the fact that it did happen in canon

The same could be said for a bunch of other things I mentioned (Titans Tower fight did happen, and technically Jason did nick Tim's throat with a knife. Those are separate instances. And both significantly less severe than fanon).

But for example: Bruce Wayne's shitty parenting is canon. Bruce Wayne loving his children is also canon. The very nature of multiple writers and reboots means a lot of things are canon that many people agree with or don't.

The fact that Ollie fucked up with Roy is canon. And, like the way youre mentioning, the reason he did was largely because the writers wanted to tell a certain story. And there was a whole period where Ollie self-destructed and had a lot of negative shit from him hit everyone else around him in the meanwhile. All just as canon as the years of work he's put in in canon to repair his relationships (that time Roy was brainwashed to kill him and just about LET him, multiple in universe recognitions of him letting Roy & others set the pace of forgiveness while trying to do better by them).

I cast characters to fill roles and adjust them as needed myself, that's just how it works. My issue is more... the ubiquitousness, combined with it always being pushed to extremes. And also things like in canon when Jason kidnapped Mia and Ollie had some damn good points criticizing Bruce, but they were shut down by Bruce going "at least I didn't do what you did" as if some of the stuff Bruce did (not necessarily even to Jason, at that point in canon) and it somehow being seen as a "win" for Bruce.

Its not about telling "a" story, it's when that starts to look like the Only story.

[fate-magical-girls]

2, 13, and 19

2. A compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Illyana Rasputin and Janet Van Dyne do the deed with their significant others standing up. Jean Grey and Ororo Munroe do the deed with their significant others mid-air. Dani Moonstar only ever tops and she looks good doing it. Also Koriand'r from DC is mostly a top, and given her preferred partners are Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Roy Harper, and Raven, they probably love her topping. Hal Jordan is extremely versatile, and I bet he spends a lot of time being sandwiched between Ollie and Dinah, neither topping or bottoming.

13. Worst blorboficiation

Hank Pym has it bad. Yes, he's pitiable and affected by his BPD, but he genuinely did unforgivable things, and to this day refuses to handle his BPD responsibly. I genuinely don't think it's out of character for him to backslide into nasty behavior or mood swings once in a while because he keeps himself in a state where he's constantly at risk for it. My hope for him is that if Marvel brings him back, he'll follow his daughter's example and do the responsible thing for himself and his loved ones.

In DC, there's also Bruce Wayne. Everyone wants him to be Batdad, but they never acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong with Bruce's brand of parenting, where he can't establish a proper bond with his kids unless they're in costume going through life and death situations.

In Transformers, probably Starscream. Comes with the territory of being a pretty boy plane.

19. You're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Hank Pym, as well as the Hank Pym/Janet Van Dyne couple from the comics. Not the MCU, but the comics. The original canon, where they divorced because he abused her. I can't really forgive Hank's mistake, even accounting for his BPD, and I think there should be more focus on how the incident wasn't just Hank's mistake, but also trauma for Janet. Outwardly, she's recovered from it better than Hank did, but that doesn't mean she didn't suffer during the Court Martial of Yellowjacket, and the focus shouldn't just be on Hank's atonement, but also the impact it left on her. Even so, Hank is complicated and despite having some very despicable flaws, also has a very kind and compassionate side to him, so he's interesting to think about. Janet is more of a straight girlboss, but she also has a nasty streak, being a somewhat out-of-touch old money billionaire. They honestly shouldn't be together, but somehow keep gravitating into a relationship. I really, really like thinking of them as a couple that love each other, but also hurt each other, mostly due to Hank's behavior. It's fun in a terrible way to write them having a functional relationship but always teetering on the edge of some sort of toxic codependency because they enable each other at the worst possible times. I have so many terrible, bizarre dead dove headcanons concerning them.

They've probably banged in every corner of all the Avenger HQs, even in incredibly public spaces. Given their powers, sometimes they just shrink and do the deed in plain sight of their friends, but nobody notices them because of their tiny size, except for people with enhanced senses like Tigra or Wolverine.

Hank seriously has a body mod fetish because the two women he's been with both have animal characteristics, and for Jan, he himself implanted her with her wings and seldom-used antennae. He also marks every celebration by gifting Jan with modifications to her powers. However, he's too scared to actually admit this, much less get any tattoos or piercings for himself. He just settles with playing with Tigra's fur and tail or Jan's wings.

Jan likes novelty and insists on bringing something new to every intimate encounter, be it a new position, new food, or new place This is why she insists on having a tryst within every new Avengers HQ within 24 hours of joining. There's also at least once where she and Hank wore Hawkeye and Mockingbird's actual costumes (not cosplay) and ducked into a closet together.

Jan still has MASSIVE trust issues regarding Hank, and so she enjoys kissing Hank while he's unconscious or hospitalized and unable to move. She thinks it's the safest way she can express her desire for him, even though she's aware of the consent issues, and on some level she's ashamed that she feels the way she does. At some point they should just do a trust exercise where one of them closes their eyes and the other person touches them unannounced within the next five minutes. But during her turn, Jan would be the one pushing the envelope by doing things like hair-pulling, biting, and even bending fingers back, all to see if she can actually trust Hank not to react.

Hank has definitely called Jan Maria more than once, and she likes it because it means he sees her on the same level as his oh-so-perfect first wife. They've also visited Maria's grave together, where Hank would get so overwhelmed by emotions that he and Jan would always make out at least once before visit was over, sometimes going even further.

Sometimes Hank gets hypomanic and really, really needs Jan to help work off his energy. They usually have the decency to duck into a closet, but there's also times when Hank's sat Jan right in his lap when the Avengers are at the meeting table and asked the other Avengers if they like what they're seeing.

The short period between Secret Wars and Rage of Ultron was probably the most toxic their relationship has ever been. Hank came back from being almost forever lost in the space between realities with Avengers AI disbanded and Avengers Academy shut down. Jan had been abused and abducted by inverted Alex Summers and fought him off to escape back to the Avengers. This is probably gonna need a new ask to talk about all the horrible ideas I have for that time period.

[roobylavender]

ive been scouring through your old specifically batman related posts and you mentioned how you were reading batgirl 2000 but havent finished it and i would genuinely love to know your thoughts because personally i feel like it genuinely establishes cass as such an interesting character and i think you would find her fascinating . however i find myself disliking bruce more often than not like i feel like nearly everything he teaches her is unhealthy lol like yes cass you should throw your life away for others and dedicate yourself solely to the mission. he definitely has a fondness for her but i dont know. and i feel like that one issue, #50 or around that, i just dont know how to feel with bruce wanting to physically fight her and i feel crazy for taking a bit of an issue with that considering everyone glosses over it? like yes the end of that is about has cass accepting his love which is nice and him giving it to her in a way she understands but i think some things he does are a bit. idk idk

[in tears] i think it was more than a year ago i picked up the preliminary dc issues part of no man's land to start reading about her and then for some reason i never continued like i think i got busy.. i really need to like sit down properly sometime this summer if i can and start from knightfall and proceed onward so i can get in the right headspace for re-evaluating bruce's progression again. bc i am definitely interested in what i have heard of bruce's more unorthodox parenting methods in batgirl and much as i am loath to portrayals of bruce as an outright hostile parent i am not entirely opposed to him embodying a parenting style that is simply.. very weird and maybe questionable as an extension of how crazy the phenomena of the robins and batgirls is in the first place. like yes it's a reflection of his deep empathy and compassion that he adopts dick and jason and then allows them to use robin as a conduit through which to channel their angers and fears so they don't turn out as emotionally isolated or obsessive as he thinks he did but it's also obv not really a normal thing to do! and you could def argue it's something that sets bruce's relationships with his sidekicks apart from that of his peers and their sidekicks (although i suppose some people might want to compare with arthur/garth or ollie/roy, but my answer to that would be that at least from what little of aquaman canon i have read i don't think arthur had any particular motive in taking on garth as a sidekick beyond it simply being convenient after the adoption; and with ollie i think that's even more true bc it's the lack of motive that leads to his temporary rift with roy bc ollie hasn't put quite enough thought into what he wants roy to be and that is something that hurts roy in turn). no normal parent is going to tell their kid to fight them in order to ascertain if they're truly committed to the cause. but a bruce who has by now had experiences with a handful of children whom he believes he imposed a duty onto rather than allowing them to come to the conclusion of wanting to uphold that duty themselves, may very well think asking his adopted daughter to fight him to prove her intent is logical and a means of ensuring he is not making the same mistakes all over again. doesn't make it any less crazy a thing to do! but it's certainly bruce to the core. interestingly i am curious if that is something barbara calls him out on bc if anyone were to do it i feel like she would. i like that she's the person who gets to poke at him for being a bit of a paranoid weirdo

[aerascreamer]

I am a Batfam fan and yeah, Roy (as well as so many heroes) are done dirty in favour of the Bats.

In general, fic tends to dumb down any non bat character or use them only to enhance the Bats (I like Super Bat and TimKon, but often the two kryptonians aren’t developed as much as their Bat counterpart)

Second, I use to like the Jay and Roy ship but the more I dived into it, the more it irked me:

1. Red Hood and the Outlaws isn’t a good series for Jason, but even less for Kory and Roy.

2. Roy is often depicted as older than Dick, so first the age gap is there but Roy also met Jason when he started Robin at 14, while Roy himself was around 21, or at least came of age… Jay Roy is much more problematic than I anticipated

3. Why would Roy be with Jason after what happened to Mia?

4. Jay Roy shippers also ignore or rewrite Dick and Roy’s relationship to fit their ship, often turning Dick into a joke, making him the « oh my god don’t touch my brother!!!! » guy. That, and they also ignore Roy’s other meaningful relationships

As for Conner being ace and PoC and Mia being an ex prostitute (and HIV positive if I’m correct?), i think it’s split: many the Bat fans (at least the one I interact with) actually « promote » those kind of aspects. A lot are happy Damian is brown in B:WFA, Jason is often portrayed as being an ex child prostitue and Hispanic, Dick is often Romani, sometimes Tim is East Asian etc. It’s the comics and DC that erases those major identities.

But I heard people not caring about those issues or even hateful that Damian is colored brown…

I think the Bat fans don’t acknowledge those aspects of the Arrow because we don’t know sh*t: before doing more research and starting reading GA 2001, I didn’t know Mia nor that she was a prostitute.

As for the Bruce vs Ollie debate: I think a minority in the Batfandom is making Bruce abusive. Many pointed out an abusive Bruce is in total contradiction to his character. That being said, I’ve seen a few fic making Ollie worse for no other reason than to give Bruce brownie points/making Bruce Roy’s savior (from what I heard, it’s Hal and Dina who are deserving of that title) . For me, they both are complexe characters and making them AH to their partners is stupid.

As for Liam, Dina and Jade used as props: they suffer the treatment of comic women by the fandom: ignored, stripped of nuances to make them just girl bosses, and in the case of Jade, racism (the way some in the Bat fans treat Talia 🤮🤮🤮).

The Batfandom is highly prevalent. Many things that come out of it are good, but there’s just as much bad things… like, Dick’s fandom characterization is so butchered! And so is Tim’s !!!! And all this gets even worse for non bat characters.

Kind of hoping that the current Green Arrow storyline, which seems to heavily feature Roy, will lead to more Roy fanworks that are Arrowfam-centric. It makes me sad to see so little attention given in fanon to his relationship with his father, his siblings, or his actual canonical love interest Jade, for that matter. And he's almost never treated in fanon as the complicated but responsible and experienced adult that he actually is.

[lacrimosathedark]

You know what? Here is what I hope for the future of Batfam relationships

For Bruce, he is both Forever Alone and in multiple relationships.

He and Selina don't get married because she's a free spirit but they act like they're married whenever she stops by and she is essentially the Robin/Batgirl stepmother. And then they have Helena! She is such a good mom and Bruce is utterly smitten. She will also kick his ass when he's being dumb or emotionally constipated. Bonus.

He and Talia are amicable exes; they will always love each other but their lives are incompatible. Talia is very protective of Bruce's kids and she and Selina get on surprisingly well. Do not threaten Jason, Tim, or Damian if you want to live. Bruce cannot stop her and Selina will not.

(Bruce may or may not also have a vacillating relationship with both Lois and Clark. Lois is fucking awesome and Clark is his best friend like beyond measure)

Dick is with Babs, Kory, and Wally. Linda is nervous at first but she also loves Dick and they are besties and Jai and Irey adore him. Babs and Kory are jealous of each other at first, but they become friends through mocking the everloving shit out of Dick's dumbassery. Wally does nothing more than pat Dick's shoulder in sympathy because he's not arguing with the girls when they're right and it's fucking funny.

Jason and Roy may as well be married. Lian loves Jason, especially since he helped her as an amnesiac teen (I just love the idea, the Strays are in Alleytown which is in/by Park Row it's in "his territory" and Jason gets the while street orphan thing so yes). Jason and Jade hate each other but are willing to tolerate each other for Lian because Lian is Lian and deserves anything she fucking wants and she wants to know her mom. Lian also loves having badass adoptive grandmas. Selina is her favorite because she took her in, but she adores Dinah and Talia is so cool. And she gets to see Uncle Dick all the time and Jason pretends he isn't happy to see him but he is (after he works past insecurity about Dick's collection of redheads because can I just keep this one Dick holy shit Roy's mine now fuck off). Bruce and Ollie fight over who is best grandpa. Lian's family is the best. Jason and Roy date nights consist of blowing shit up, makeouts, and then going home to snuggle with their daughter.

Tim and Kon are together FINALLY and lowkey co-parenting Bart. They made joke adoption papers and hang it up on the wall. Cassie claims the title of wine aunt. Everyone else thinks they're ridiculous but They Are Family. Everyone mocks them for not realizing they were in love sooner. Like, Kon's existence pre-New 52 screamed "gay crisis shouting "no homo"" and Tim's sanity is directly tied to his relationship with Conner, like??? Tim how did you just realize you were bi you absolute dorkweed. They also both had bicon girlfriends, like??? Morons. Adorable.

Tim and Steph will always love each other, but they didn't really work as they were and are happier with other people. They have a sort of romantic friendship. Steph actually conspired with Cass to get Tim to confess to Kon because boi both of you are idiots.

Stephanie and Cass (Cain) are happily dating and the most functional relationship in the Batfam. They don't need to talk to communicate. Cass has her abilities, but Steph can read Cass specifically almost as well. Not that they don't talk; Cass is comfy enough with Steph that sometimes she will just talk for hours. So in love and so comfy together.

Damian is either dating or in a queerplatonic relationship with Jon Kent. They are best friends and always have each other's backs and love each other so fucking much. They live together on the farm and Damian has a whole ass animal sanctuary and Jon helps him care for the animals and it's beautiful and nothing hurts.

[cannibalisticcorpse]

jayroy sfw all ten

ship ask game

Dating headcanon

they actually started their relationship by going out to eat together and going on solo missions (together) and just all around going on dates. they didn't notice until they bring a 3rd person and the 3rd person is like "hey why the fuck did you invite me on your date?" and theyre like "wth are u talking abt this is a bro thing. gtfo out of here" and they're both like "sheesh, can you believe that guy?" and independently theyre like "yeah. these have been dates."

Dinner headcanon

if roy cooks, jason tries to pretend he likes it even tho it sucks. if jason cooks roy [REDACTED]'s him that night. they do like takeout tho.

Arguments headcanon

OH BOY CAN THESE TWO ARGUE. they bicker over every. little. thing. death threats get pulled out at the drop of a hat. literally. "jason i swear to fucking god pick my hat up or im shoving this arrow-" very quickly things turn to full blown fist fights. but oh man the angry... kissing... is good. they also make up in super stupid romantic ways. its cute.

Playful/silly headcanon

one halloween lian dressed up as red hood... :] (she's also dressed up as batman before... only roy thought it was funny)

Night in headcanon

jason's drinking whiskey and roy's tending to plants, working on projects, and they're jumping between bouts of complete silence and excited chatter and solemnly sharing thoughts. just anything to be together and not think about the past. laying around together, watching TV in the dark. sitting so close you'd call it cuddling if they didn't look so... y'know

Night out headcanon

going on patrol. either as a team or roy decides to go out and hm... what's this? he feels like someones just behind his shoulder. weird. or maybe jason decides he's going to do something really fucking dangerous and for some reason he knows it's okay that his grapple hook didn't catch. or maybe they're taking a walk to the corner store down the street and carrying as many boxes of donuts and hotdogs as they can. laughing and trying to trip each other up as they make their way back home.

Kissing headcanon

first kiss for jason: when he was 14 and big brother dick's friend saw this kid got a skinned knee and kissed it so he'd stop crying

first kiss for roy: when their airship's battery died mid-flight and and they plummeted to the ground. jason threw roy to safety and while the smoke was still clearing roy dragged jason out of the wreck, and... well it was impossible to not find his glassy eyes the most beautiful thing in the entire world, or the way he cupped roy's face and chuckled

roy likes kisses more than jason, but jason still likes kisses. roy kisses everywhere. jason's mouth, his neck, his shoulders, his legs. etc. jason kisses roy's mouth whenever he wants- usually deeply- but in private he's more affectionate.

Sleeping headcanon

jason little spoon, roy big spoon. roy snores sometimes. jason is a very light sleeper. roy has insomnia/depression so some nights he just holds jason for 6 hours, and some nights he clutches jason tight for 10. typically roy falls asleep first though.

How friends/family of the couple react

dick is sooooo mad. what the hell do you mean roy likes jason. what the hell do you mean they're friends. what the hell do you mean-

bruce. isnt. happy. but hey, it's none of his business and it's not like he can do anything about it.

dinah thinks roy can do muuuch better, but hey that 20-something is pretty hot, so high-five i guess

ollie is much the same as bruce, but is vocally supportive. he loves a dude who has strong morals and stands up for them- even if... they are... y'know.

mia was so sure that roy and this asshole werent gonna last but then they did and now she had to get used to it. c'mon roy.

lian loves it. omg TWO DADS? fuck yes.

kyle wishes they'd fight and argue with him more, but hey.

Heartbreak headcanon

they're the type to go on a last minute solo mission and leave a note like "leaving" so the other knows they werent kidnapped, but the other finds it and just breaks down like "no... you asshole, you could have at least broken up with me to my fucking face."

they break up every tuesday and get back together every thursday. and sometimes on weekends too.

[pluckyredhead]

Red Hood and the Outlaws #4 (2011)

Back on Lobdell's bullshit!

There had been vague references to Roy being a "screwup" in the first three issues of the book, but this issue confirms that he is, as he was pre-Flashpoint, an addict in recovery. There are two major differences, though: one, his sobriety seems a lot shakier than it was pre-Flashpoint (at least, before Lian's death), and two, he is now an alcoholic, rather than a narcotics addict. Pre-Flashpoint, Roy was regularly shown drinking casually and sometimes even actively drunk (Ollie's bachelor party), and it was never depicted as a problem for him, though Kyle at one point gently teases him about staying away from booze. (Interestingly, Ollie is occasionally depicted as having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol himself, but no line is ever drawn between his potential addiction and Roy's, in any continuity.)

I'm of two minds about the change. On the one hand, though I have a strong attachment to the original "Snowbirds Don't Fly," it was very much commenting on a specific cultural moment, as well as being very deliberately designed to open up conversation about drugs and drug addiction in comic books (prior to "Snowbirds," the depiction of drug use was banned by the Comics Code Authority). There's no reason to stick specifically to heroin, other than tradition. I hate to praise Tom King, and I have quibbles with him giving Roy an addiction to prescription drugs in Heroes in Crisis (if injuries in the field led to Roy's reliance on and then addiction to prescription painkillers, why is he the only superhero to develop an addiction? it should be like a third of them!), but it's a choice that feels very current, the way that heroin felt very current in 1971. (People obviously still do heroin, but you know what I mean.)

Making Roy an alcoholic instead of a heroin addict provides an interesting opportunity to compare the two addictions. Alcoholism is much more culturally accepted (and, you know, legal), easier to hide, and carries far less stigma, both when using and when in recovery. And yet RHATO depicts a Roy who appears to be in greater disgrace with the superhero community than pre-Flashpoint Roy ever was. It would have been interesting to explore the difference in how the two addictions are received, in getting and staying sober, in the dangers of using any substance to excess, even legal and widely accepted ones. A thoughtful writer could have told a really moving story with this change.

Of course, we're talking about Lobdell here, so the change feels completely arbitrary and downright lazy, especially since Lobdell (and King) has a habit of doing zero research and changing things at random. Both the alcoholism and the prescription drug addiction wind up coming across like all addictions are interchangeable, which is...shitty.

But, you know. It could have been good.

On the other hand, here we have the debut of the single best thing about all of RHATO: the Jaybird nickname. Drink it in, friends.

Meanwhile, Kori gets attacked by this guy, Crux:

She's TAMARANEAN. In fact, the word "Tamaranean" is used later on the same page. What a shitshow.

Crux is a human whose parents were killed when a random Tamaranean spaceship hit their car (why were Tamaraneans just cruising by Earth? no idea), so he devoted his life to destroying aliens in general and Tamaraneans in particular, including using alien DNA so he can turn himself into a giant bat-lizard at will.

Meanwhile, the hot lady sheriff turns out to be an Untitled, and she and Jason frisk each other sexily before she turns into a monster and attacks. It's boring.

The issue ends with Roy going to help Kori, who is losing her fight, and Jason facing off against the Untitled. So to sum of the events of the issue, two fights start and Roy calls Jason "Jaybird" for the first time. It's amazing how little story you can tell in when you average like two panels per page!

[lacrimosathedark]

Hard disagree on pretty much all of that.

Green Arrow 69-72 are some of my favorite comics that I've re-read over and over. The whole point is for Jason to talk to Mia because she is in the same position he was--a disadvantaged street-wise abused orphan adopted as a sidekick to an idealistic billionaire vigilante. And in his fight with her, he continually gives her advantages over him. He has her tied up, but lets her go. He fights her bow with a knife. When he pulls out the guns, which he is in that moment commenting on what a good shot he is, he never once hits Mia but manages to snap her bowstring. He then gives her two swords to fight him with, removing his helmet, dropping the guns, and again using a single blade. When he has her surely beat, he let her go. Mia even says this herself. He let her go. It isn't until she's in the clear that he blows up the school. And he blew it up because he kinda just Does That but also, Bruce was right there and he uses every opportunity to fuck with Bruce. And explosions involving Jason certainly do that.

During his entire confrontation with Mia, he's talking about how similar they are and how Bruce and Ollie don't understand that sometimes you have to do bad things just to survive. Sometimes bad deeds have good outcomes. They both lived that. He's trying to get Mia to be better than he was, in a way.

Of course none of them are obligated to be okay with Jason after that, and I never said that. And I never said Mia wouldn't hold a grudge. She absolutely would. Because Jason did get in her head if nothing else. I just think it's a silly double-standard to entirely condemn Jason when people like Jade are apparently fine sometimes.

Honestly, the only "reason" anyone is friends with anyone in comics is because writers forced them in a room together. And Scott Lobdell did a horrible job with it, but it was done. That's the canon we're given. Take it into your personal canon or not, it doesn't matter. I'm coming at it from "make the best of what we've got".

And they could be good friends. They both can be more on the morally grey side. Both of them are very protective of children. Roy is a recovered addict and Jason's mom died of an overdose. Both have been at one time or another cast out of their families. Both were taken from their roots to be brought up by a wealthy vigilante. They're both clever smartasses. There's potential. That's all.

Roy is not limited to the Titans as his friends. He's been on other teams, like the Justice League. He's allowed to be friends with people outside that group. And I'm not discounting Rose or Artemis or Dana as friends or even love interests for Jason, though maybe it was just the shitty writing but his relationship with Artemis seemed to be more like a romantic friendship or friends with benefits kind of vibe to me. Like, they love each other but wouldn't make ideal partners in a romantic way. At least as they were written in what I've read.

And I don't see how thinking Cheshire is worse than Jason is ridiculous in any way.

Yes, Jade would never hurt her daughter, but that is one single person. And she has no qualms about hurting people Lian cares about. Do you recall Chanda Madan, Lian's babysitter who was from Qurac? The country that Cheshire literally nuked?

Lian is the only person who is ever off-limits to her. She has before fought and attempted to kill Dick and Dinah, both very important people to Roy.

Jason Todd is not a killer on the scale that Jade Nguyen is, and never has been.

Jason blows shit up as a coping mechanism, but also that's just a thing that happens in comics, like, all the time. Explosions happen, casualties aren't addressed.

His confrontations with both Tim and Damian were poorly written, (Battle For the Cowl is Fucking Stupid and Geoff Jones' Teen Titans as a whole is...a mixed bag, for me at least) but also Damian had before used Jason's trauma to get the jump on him and beat the shit out of him, is a born and raised assassin child, and when Jason shot him Damian was still a piece of shit and Jason was having a psychotic mental breakdown. Not that that justifies him actually shooting a literal child, but Damian isn't an innocent party here either.

I'm not looking at him with blinders. But I recognize comics is large and varied and has many different writers, some of which make many choices I dislike. For example, the multiple instances of Bruce hitting his kids outside of training/combat. I acknowledge it happened but, "given it's a stupid ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." No character is consistent in comics, so I choose what my personal primary iteration is. I personally only really accept the way Jason is written by Judd Winick, and this seems to be the standard in general. He's been passed between writers who didn't understand past writers of him, or just hated the character for some reason, resulting in very inconsistent characterization. I work with what I'm given.

As for poor writing in regards to Cheshire, I don't know where specifically she's written poorly because my introduction to her was negative from the get-go. Her taking actual joy in her job killing people is what made me hate her. I'm aware that there's probably some fucked up history with her portrayal, as there are with other POC villains like Talia al Ghul. But Cheshire is not someone I ever liked, and therefore never sought out, and I only saw her when she happened to appear alongside characters I did like, like Lian.

And hey, call me an ass if you'd like, but I think the idea of a truly loving mother also being a genuinely horrible person sounds extremely traumatizing for a child. Lian's mother loves her and would do anything for her except quit this job that she genuinely enjoys that actively hurts people, and not infrequently hurts people Lian cares about. Eventually that's going to have to be addressed beyond Lian's single "Fuck you, Mom!" And I think, for all the love Jade has for Lian, her priorities are utterly fucked if she'd actively choose killing people over being in her daughter's life.

And I don't appreciate the insinuation that I hate Jade due to her gender and ethnicity. I have a preference for Bats in general, not Jason in particular, because they were my entry point into comics. So yes, I can acknowledge Jason's instances of shitty writing easier because I know more of it. But it's also incredibly widely known that he's been written consistently poorly. But Jason isn't even my favorite Robin, let alone favorite Bat. My favorite Bat is Cassandra Cain, also female and Asian (though half Chinese rather than Vietnamese), and if you know anything about her, her history is also pretty fucky ex. that one arc where she inexplicably became evil and it had to be retconned into her being like mind control poisoned by Deathstroke. I don't know if that had anything to do with her race, it could have, but what I do know is it was out of character and Bad and seems widely accepted as such.

Jason doesn't have a history of harming children besides Robins. His re-introduction includes him specifying that he will kill anyone who deals drugs to kids. He was given a not-stupid reason for not killing through a child, Tyler. The only times I've seen him so much as consider harming kids is when he was talking to Tim about a plan that was meant to be grand scheme harm reduction (not agreeing with him, just that was his argument), and the other is when he was doing the dumb Generation Outlaw thing and was actively armed around kids who were actively trying to become supervillains. I also have seen him go out of his way to protect kids, but never go out of his way to harm them. Depending on the writing, sometimes he's okay with kids as collateral. But he never seeks out harming children aside from Tim and Damian which, while awful, are on some level understandable. And are handled poorly on all fronts.

I'm not out here saying Jason Todd is a faultless angel. He is deeply flawed, and when poorly written, often flat-out psychotic. But he is not and never has been a truly evil character, whereas Jade Nguyen HAS BEEN, and yet Roy Harper can fall in love with her and that's totally fine and reasonable, but he can't be Jason's friend? That sounds very silly to me.

hot take: roy harper wouldn’t want jason todd near his kid after the shit jason pulled with mia

[river-bottom-nightmare]

i want dick grayson to be annoyingly perfect in the smallest of unimportant ways. and i want it to irritate the living hell out of everyone around him

every now and then, jason and dick will go to different chili dog carts around the city, and dick will sit and nod in agreement as jason nitpicks the food, occasionally offering his own two cents. the conversations are tense and if the topic strays from anything except food jason books it, but it’s progress, and dick’s grateful. but he doesn’t understand why jason always growls at him when he’s preparing his chili dogs, chalking it up to jason’s obsessiveness about that food in particular. dick figures he’s probably doing it wrong. until one day, jason bites out a rough question, asks him how he did that. dick’s confused, until jason points out, “you tear open the top of the ketchup packet in a perfect line every time. and you get all of the ketchup out of the packet in one smooth squeeze, and you never get any on your fingers, and i don’t understand how.”

roy was, arguably, a better archer than ollie. green arrow had been birthed from the island, from the trauma of survival. roy, however, had been practicing since he was a kid, and now that he was well into his twenties, he could safely say he was one of the best shots in the world. he could beat all his friends at darts, shoot an apple off wally’s head, and was generally pretty awesome. or, he would be awesome, if only dick fucking grayson would stop making every single shot of anything he threw in a trash can. no matter what he was throwing away, no matter the angle, no matter the wind or rain, as long as the trashcan was in eyesight, anything dick tossed would inevitably end up inside the garbage. sometimes, dick barely even glanced at the damn thing, just took note of it a threw the trash, expecting it to land in the proper place. and it always did. the worst part was, dick didn’t even seem to notice it. he wasn’t actively trying to make every shot. when asked, dick just shrugged and said “we had some pretty good knife throwers in the circus.”

tim’s memories starting out as robin were a whirlwind, a push-pull of bruce’s mistrust, then bruce’s acceptance, of dick’s fear and hesitation, then of dick’s love. he still remembered dick making the two of them hot chocolate in the kitchen after a day of training, tim’s muscles sore and entire body aching but the feeling of pride, because he was good enough to be robin, he knew he was. he hadn’t expected that to happen anytime soon again, given the way their relationship had fractured after tim had left dick’s batman, a terrified fury in his eyes. yet, he’d been proven wrong when, after a particularly rough arkham breakout, alfred asked both dick and tim to stay instead of returning to their own apartments. just because the manor brought back a feeling of warm nostalgia, however, doesn’t mean it kept the nightmares away. he came down to the kitchen and saw dick already up, moving around the stovetop. with a knowing look in his eyes, dick grabbed another mug to make tim some hot chocolate. tim was washed over with a feeling of relief, of acceptance. dick slid the mug towards him and tim took a sip, letting the rich chocolate warm him up from the inside. it was delicious. his little sigh of pleasure must have been audible, but then he remembered something he noticed. “dick. did you use alfred’s recipe for this?” and dick laughed, responded with, “nah. too much work. i just sort of tried to remember what was in hot chocolate, and eyeballed most of the ingredients. i’m glad it turned out good though. no clumps too, that’s good.”

donna didn’t care how old she got, playing in the park with dick never got old. as one of her oldest friends, the two of them could just walk around the park, in companionable silence, just letting themselves relax and enjoy the moment. so, of course, dick would break the silence and ask if she had any earbuds, because it was getting to quiet for him. donna laughed, and reached inside her pocket, fingered past the keys, and grabbed the headphones. the tangled little ball that came out made her sigh, and she pulled on an earbud to loosen it, only managing to make one of the many knots tighter. then, dick took the headphones out of her hands with a here, i got it, and with a few quick tugs, the tangled monstrosity unraveled easy as breathing. then, completely unaffected, he handed her an earbud, putting the other in his own ear. “i’m the one who’s got a lasso,” she said, ignoring dick’s snort and quip about how earbuds and a lasso are two completely different things, donna.

cass hadn’t expected to enjoy such a gentle, graceful form of athletics, but after a few lessons, it had become apparent that ballet could be far from gentle. it pushed her, made her practice and strengthen herself, and she’d fallen in love with the art quickly. however, the most frustrating part of the entire thing had little to do with actually dancing. the school bruce had helped pick out was prestigious, which meant a strict dress code, which meant her hair had to be in a bun. unfortunately, her hair never seemed to want to cooperate. after her latest attempt, falling into a mess of hair at her nape that had so many locks falling out, cass contemplated how mad the teacher would be if she showed up in a ponytail. at that moment, dick peeked into her room, having heard her frustrated noise, and asked if he could do anything to help. cass pointed to the mess of hair, not even remotely contained by the hair tie, and blew a strand out of her face. dick smiled with understanding, then came into her room, grabbing the comb on her bed and standing behind her in front of the mirror. he smoothed her hair with the comb, then pulled it this way and that, twisting and turning and wrapping until, two minutes later, a picture perfect bun sat atop her head. cass blinked with surprise. “first try,” she said, staring up at him, but he just shrugged and said, “it’s not that hard. you want me to drop you off?”

bruce could admit that he rather enjoyed undercover missions. it was an extended game with high stakes, a test of his own acting skills. with makeup changing his face, an expertly made wig, and a demeanor completely different from both brucie wayne and from batman, he swept through the crowd of greasy men, looking for a specific contact. then, he caught sight of someone specific indeed, though they weren’t his contact. eyebrows raised in a what are you doing here? gesture, he slid onto a barstool. from behind the bar, dick offered him a blinding smile, cleaning a glass. he tapped his wrist twice, a clear message. undercover, same as you. then, dick grabbed a couple bottles from underneath a shelf, flipping them in his hand and pouring with grandeur. bruce noticed he hadn’t put any alcohol in his little mixture, only making it seem as if he had. the flashy moves were entertaining, bruce could give him that. dick slid him the drink and bruce took a sip, eyebrows raising in brief surprise. “this is good. bartending?” dick put the bottles and the lemon away, unimpressed. “it’s not like it’s hard. just mixing a couple ingredients. no biggie.” bruce was fairly certain bartending was more difficult than that, but just then, his target came into view. 

steph understood some of the bats’ frustration with dick, she really could. he hadn’t exactly been a welcome and opening batman, that’s for sure. regardless, as the few masks left in gotham had to work together, and she’d gotten to know the man pretty well. and she enjoyed his company as nightwing much more than batman. she dropped onto his balcony in his bludhaven apartment, announcing her presence in that loud-subtle way. dick was nestled in a couple blankets on the couch, going over a couple files, apparently just back from patrol if the small bandage on his neck and bags under his eyes were any indication. nevertheless, he brightened when he saw her and she nodded when he asked if she wanted to spend the night. he moved some of the papers to make room for her on the couch, but she flitted into his bathroom, going through the nail polish bottles she knew he had, and grabbing a shade of red that caught her eye. she tossed him the bottle and put her fingers in his lap, talking aimlessly about a movie she watched with cass. dick seemed to relax amidst her jabbering, and he shook the bottle a couple times before opening it and focusing on her right hand. but as he started, steph paused her rambling and focused on him instead, holding her hands gently and brushing paint onto her nails. he managed to cover her entire nail in three easy strokes, smooth and glossy, not a hint of paint on her skin. the nail was practically perfect. oh god she was jealous. “got a lot of practice with this, grayson?” she asked, and laughed at dick’s mock-offended of course not!

damian wasn’t one for photography, and he could grudgingly admit drake was far better at that particular skill than he was. however, his art class had promised to cover all types of media, and had upheld that pledge. the next two weeks were dedicated to photography, and their final project for the unit had to be a small collection of photographs. animal photography, of course, was damian’s chosen subject, and the knowledge that animal photography was one of the hardest skills to master only had damian wanting to do it more. days later, however, he could admit that it was trickier than expected. how had he never noticed how active his animals were? they never sat still, and every single picture came out blurry. grayson, upon coming across him in the manor grounds, noticed his futile attempts and asked if he could help. damian acquiesced the camera to grayson, who looked through the lens, finding the right angle and background, adjusting the focus settings slightly. then, he let out a sharp whistle and snapped his fingers. in nothing short of a miracle, damian’s pets pasued to look at him, only for a second, and the shutter clicked furiously. damian flipped through the photos, a good many of them clear and wonderful. damian snapped in irritation when dick ruffled his hair and said, “now you try!” it definitely wasn’t as easy as grayson made it look.

babs didn’t really know what she was expecting when she broke up with dick. there was hurt on both ends, and distance for a while, and she had no idea how much she’d miss him. but after a couple months of working together, of remembering that underneath the romantic tangles, their friendship was strong, she’d gotten to the point of dick randomly dropping by her apartment again. the downside was, dick kept randomly dropping by her apartment again. he stole her snacks and messed up her filing system and was so irritating that barbara almost forgot how relieved she was at having one of her best friends back. fortunately, it did come with benefits, because when he was bored, he did some of her chores for her. pausing in the doorway, she smiled at the sight of dick folding her clothes and putting them away. the gesture was platonic now, but no less appreciated. she pushed her wheelchair forward, and in greeting, dick told her how much he wanted to steal all her patterned socks. babs reminded him they wouldn’t fit, and laughed at his pout. dick grabbed one sock off the top of the laundry basket, then dug his hand into the pile of clothes randomly, coming up with the second sock in an instant. folding them together, he repeated the process for each pair. “that...that was fast. you got all of them?” babs asked in confusion. “yes? why, did you expect some to be missing?” was dick’s reply as he shook the wrinkles out of a sweater.

wally was never surprised. he knew dick better than probably most people in the world. he’d gone from frustrated and jealous of dick’s random talents, to admiring and appreciative, to just accepting them as a fact of life. dick’s phone never cracked if he accidentally he dropped it. dick never buttoned up shirts wrong, aligning each button with the right hole perfectly on the first try. dick could plug in usb ports the right way. dick always remembered which light switch was for which room, no matter whose house they were at. dick could pop a cd out of its case without ever smudging the disk, holding it by the rim perfectly. and dick always seemed to know when wally needed a day off, to just visit their old haunts, grab some ice cream, and spend the day talking away on a rooftop. that was just something his best friend could do. and wally would never tell dick, but underneath his fake irritation at it, but he loved him for it.

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[codenamed-queenie]

#BatsInQuarantine

I am going insane. So I poured my restlessness into one long and very detailed post and got super into it. Please enjoy this hot mess.

The Justice League, being the well-meaning virus-proof Super Friends that they are, took one good look at the news, one good look at their non-powered friends Ollie, Bruce, and their families, and collectively decided that these normal humans must be Protected At All Costs.

Now, keep in mind, Bruce is never one to roll over when it comes to being benched. 

However, he understands the importance of social distancing. He knows he needs to set a good example for his kids, and keep up appearances as Gotham’s Most Responsible Multi-Billionaire. 

So. Quarantine it is. 

But how are his kids handling it?

Dick - 

100% on board in the beginning. Gotta do the Responsible Thing. Gotta set a Good Example. Besides, guys, this is gonna be Fun. Quality Family Time is always a Must.

He lasted 2 days. 

Then he started to get twitchy. 

And as everyone knows? A Trapped Dick Grayson is a Feral Dick Grayson.

He bounces off the walls.

Literally.

“I have to climb.” 

“Dick, no.”  

“I have to climb everything.”

Has scaled the manor 16 times already. Has climbed the chandelier. The banister. Bruce. The roof. The Cave. Anything in the house that’s been bolted down and especially anything that hasn’t. 

Duke found him clinging to the wall 10 ft off the ground like Spiderman and screamed so loud it shattered glass. 

Desperate for news of the outside. 

He thrives off of it like a starving man. 

Was the one to suggest he and Barbara take a break to Social Distance from each other (”Sorry, babe, kissing spreads germs”) and experienced Instant Regret(TM) approximately 5 minutes after. 

The Family has labelled him a Flight Risk Level 1 (Most likely to say f**k it and make a break for the outside world)

Jason - 

Accidentally got trapped inside the manor with the others when Bruce called Shutdown. If he had his way, he’d be chilling in his favorite safe-house right now, binging The Witcher with Roy and Artemis, and not worrying about finding a stray brother in his sock drawer.

But he’s nothing if not an opportunist. 

The way he sees it, Jason has 3 options:

Self Improvement

Self Isolation (See Duke, Cass, and Damian)

Descension Into Madness (See Dick and Steph)

And, well, he always wanted to try a few things. Now he’s got the free time to do it.

So he settles on baking. 

Alfred’s got enough food and raw ingredients stored up to feed an army. (Not because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder in times like these. But because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder all the time. Just try feeding 11+ teenagers sometime.)

Uses recipes he finds off Google.

His first few attempts are, in a word, ‘tragic’.

Alfred slips him a few of his recipe cards, and Jason suddenly starts seeing Results. 

Turns out he’s pretty good at this baking thing once he gets the hang of it. 

Hope everyone’s okay eating nothing but pie, macaroons, biscuits, and whatever else Jason whips up. 

Cause that’s gonna be the only food left by the time he’s done. 

Barbara - 

Self-quarantined with her dad. 

They’ve been binge-watching classic black and white movies together.

It’s a fun time, but she’s started to get a little antsy. Loving her dad and wanting to be around him 24/7 are, understandably, mutually exclusive. 

Calls the manor to video-chat every day.

For her sanity just as much as theirs. 

Gives everyone little challenges to film on their phones and send in. She makes compilations of everyone’s submissions so they can all watch and laugh together. 

Bonus points for Creativity

One comp shows the family trying to drop Mentos into coke bottles. 

Dick did a handstand, and dropped his Mento from the second story balcony. 

Tim did it wearing the Batman cowl. The soda exploded into his face, and the rest of the video is just Bruce’s Shrieking.

Stephanie tried it, but the bottle tipped. Everyone on camera screamed as the bottle rocketed through the front window. 

She spends most of her calls having one-on-one convos with Dick.

They’ve come up with little code phrases so they can be Cheesy even with family members lurking in the background. 

She thinks the way he clings to the monitor is cute. 

Almost like he’s giving her a hug through the screen. 

(It’s easier than letting herself worry about his mental state, at least)

Tim -

Oh this boy.

Freaked out for the first five minutes before he decided ‘hey wait, Bruce is letting me stay in my pajamas all day? Noice.’ 

Now he’s just vibing.

The rest of his family is Low-Key shielding him.

He Has No Spleen, you see.

Steph: “Someone could cough on him and he could die!”

He just goes about his day, playing Animal Crossing like there’s no tomorrow, tinkering on projects, taking naps, etc. Living his best life.

Meanwhile there’s always someone lurking behind him, keeping watch, keeping him safe. 

Dick sneezed within 5 feet of Tim once (the fact that he was on top of the dusty bookshelf Tim was perusing is irrelevant)

Jason still full-body tackled him the second Tim’s back was turned. 

No one with any symptoms--

Like, any symptoms. They don’t even have to be Corona-related.

--is allowed within 10 feet of Tim. 

Tim has been wandering the manor for weeks, now, without seeing another human being. 

(He sees Dick on the ceiling sometimes, but that doesn’t really count)

He’s been trying increasingly drastic pranks and shenanigans to draw someone, anyone, out. 

But it doesn’t matter how many times he steals Damian’s sword, or sets fire to Jason’s brownie bites.

Nobody wants to risk it. 

Cass - 

No one has seen her since quarantine started.

Everyone is approximately 87% sure she’s somewhere in the manor though

Because she does eat the meals Alfred leaves out for her.

Or at least someone does, at any rate. 

(Jason and Santa top the running suspects list)

Santa was Steph’s suggestion. For some reason it snowballed. 

It’s assumed that Cass misunderstood the meaning of ‘social distancing’ and took it too far. 

But no one knows for sure. 

She is Tim’s Guardian Angel. 

People who so much as clear their throats a little too loudly anywhere near him suddenly wake up on a different floor of the house four hours later. 

Duke came closest to spotting her while he was up in the attic. 

Either that, or there’s another Creepy Sister everyone forgot to tell him about living up there.

She is silent, and watchful, sticking to the shadows, but she does leave the occasional note out to brighten her siblings’ day. 

Things like ‘helo i love u’ and ‘hop u ar ok’  mostly. 

She is bound and determined to protect her family from this invisible threat, no matter the cost. 

Steph - 

Like Dick, she was Super Pumped at first. 

(Just kind of showed up at Wayne Manor before quarantine was enacted. The original purpose of her visit is unclear, but regardless, she’s Trapped.)

Also Like Dick, her descent into madness was swift.

She is impossible to pin down. 

Not like Cass or Damian, who’ve stayed off the grid, and are therefore Untraceable. 

No. She’s impossible to pin down, because she never stops moving. 

Switches seamlessly between Zumba on top of the Giant Dinosaur in the Batcave, and furiously knitting Alfred (the Cat) a sweater with a pair of Tim’s used chopsticks. 

Braided everyone’s hair while they were asleep.

Even Bruce’s. 

She tried to do Tim’s, but somehow blacked out and regained consciousness in the attic. 

When she woke up with a scream and a furiously twitching eye, she startled Duke out of his Makeshift Fort he built out of old cardboard boxes and antique furniture. He’s had to resort to finding a new hiding place. 

Sometimes, on the rare occasions she does sit still, staring off into the distance, she’ll suddenly start laughing hysterically. This may last between thirty seconds and thirty minutes, depending entirely on how long it’s been since she’s knitted a cat sweater or done cartwheels through every room in the house.

Blew up the greenhouse out back, somehow.

Everyone has agreed not to talk about it.

Some people were built to handle prolonged time inside their homes.

Stephanie Brown is not that way.

Damian - 

Damian Wayne Cannot Be Contained.

At least not inside the house. 

He took off thirty-six hours into quarantine. 

Thanks to the security equipment around the borders of the Wayne Estate, he can’t escape the grounds. 

(He’s tried and failed multiple times. Jason and Bruce have a running bet on how many times the perimeter alarms will go off per day.)

(Jason is winning.)

He wanders the grounds with Titus as his only companion. 

The two of them run laps, practice drills, and find ways to occupy their time. 

No one’s entirely sure what those ways are. 

In fact, nobody knows exactly where Damian is at any given time. 

Only that he is Out There. 

And he’s the best security system Wayne Manor’s ever had. 

So far, he’s stopped five groups of civilians scaling the perimeter walls before the lasers and electric nets even have a chance to deploy.

They were trying to break in and steal supplies. 

(Even ones they already had in surplus. Like Toilet Paper.)

He’s also stopped Dick from escaping twelve (12) times.

Drags him back by his shirt collar and deposits him on the welcome mat. 

Usually with a note for Alfred/Jason, requesting more fruit tarts. 

Duke - 

Did not leave the attic for two weeks. 

Then Steph discovered his hiding spot (read: was dumped there by Cassandra) which forced him to relocate to the basement. 

Yes, it turns out Wayne Manor does have a basement. 

This was a surprise to Duke, who always thought that the Batcave was Bruce Wayne’s basement. 

Alfred keeps him supplied with all the necessities:

i.e. food, magazines, assorted pastries from Jason’s latest batch, usually straight out of the oven.

Duke also snagged the Manor’s Alexa. 

She has become a sort of ‘Wilson’ to Duke’s ‘Chuck Noland’.

She is his only comfort. His only ally. 

He’s determined to wait out this quarantine, doing his best to avoid the others. 

Duke has seen these people under pressure. 

He knows exactly what he’s dealing with. 

Duke: “Alexa is the only motherf****r in this madhouse I ever respected.”

*offended butler noises from the other room*

Duke: “And also Alfred.”