#the mother city

[yourbelgianthings]

the gender of ally beardsley’s pcs has never missed! we have a high schooler who only wears tie dye and birks embracing her lesbianism, a trans man who’s the voice of dreams and got his top surgery from a mob doctor, a peppermint boy, a literal german shepherd in a pink suit who uses they/them, their first character after going on t being a cis lesbian who is just a mess in every way, and an old gay man who goes by mother. fucking with gender in every direction and it’s so fun and great every time 🏳️‍⚧️

[johndoescelerat]

As my ouma use to say, "Nog net een slaapie"

[gvaine]

MERLIN REWATCH ✦ 1.05 Lancelot

[emo-batboy]

A Wild Battinson (Social Media AU)

Part 37 (Masterlist)

(Part 38)

REMINDER: THERE WILL NO LONGER BE A TAG LIST SO PLEASE FOLLOW @emo-batboy OR #a wild battinson FOR UPDATES

@bruciemilf hey bestie I’m back :D

[89era]

Yung Miami at the Met Gala, 2023.

[lorenzonuti]

Mother Eye.

Twitter (X) | Instagram | Artstation

[axololtls]

IG

[spacedace]

Got inspired by the below tiktok and the idea of the Rogues killing the Joker in revenge for Jason instead of Bruce and had to write about it.

Here, have probably way too many words (with more to come most likely, this really won't leave me alone) of the Rogue's feelings about Jason's death at the Joker's hands and everything that followed.

(also I know the timeline is a bit screwy, shhh just go with it, we're going on vibes with this one lol)

-

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart.

A kid could slit your throat as easy as a man grown in a place like their fine city, maybe easier even for those who still fell for the ideal of children being incapable of anything but innocence and sweetness. Children learned from the world around them though, they learned from the savagery that filled their world, the hard scrabble desperate attempts to survive. They learned what dark corners to avoid, which ones were safer to skitter down.

It didn’t mean there weren’t still some rules of decency to be honored though.

Most folks, even those in the circle of the Rogues, largely left kids out of the equation. Crossfire happened of course, hitting busy city centers always meant some kind of collateral. But there wasn’t much that they got out of purposefully hurting kids outside a black mark on their name in most levels of the grungy underbelly of the city and one hell of a big target on their back. Both from the Bat and those criminals in the dark with them that took offense to those kinds of things. They were crooks, but with few exceptions they weren’t complete monsters.

Robin had always held an interesting place in their grungy little ecosystem. Anything to do with the Bat was generally ruled as gloves-off, do what you do without hesitation. And Robin - both of ‘em - had no problem hitting hard and being ruthless. The first one in particular had a feral sort of rage to him that was a terrifying thing to be on the business end of.

But they were still kids.

Defending yourself from any kid swinging on you was fair game, a person had the right to defend themselves. Grabbing up Robin to hold hostage or bait Gotham’s local cryptid, that was all fine and dandy. You could even get away with roughing the kid up a little here and there, so long as you made sure not to go too far and always kept hits to where the kid’s armor was the thickest. No hard and fast written rules, mind, but general rules of thumbs. Lines indistinct due to the shaky ground a child dancing through the night as a vigilante left all of them on, but ones clear enough that you knew when you were at risk of going too far.

Besides, the Robins were good kids. Fucking feral little shits, of course, able to leave you bleeding just as easy from a kick as they were a sharp word. But good kids. Even most the Rogues in the Gallery liked em. It was hard not to be at least a little fond of a gutsy little punk like that.

Though they were all maybe a tad less nervous around Robin II than they were the original.

Robin I had a lot of anger burning in him, a lot of anger in him, but he was still a cheerful boy with a bright attitude that was refreshing in a world so bleak and dark as the one they all lived in. It was up in the air which was scarier about the kid: The smiled he gave when he was about to give a hands on demonstration about how much force a tiny ten year old could put into a kick when they had half a dozen spins shoved into a flip to wind up to 80 miles an hour, or the flash of his teeth when he was demonstrating the knife sharp brilliance of his belief that Batman was only as frightening as Robin was hopeful.

They weren’t sure if he realized that sometimes they felt a helluva lot more hope at the sight of the Bat when the little bird was putting the hurt on them, or if he’d simply folded that fact neatly into his core philosophy without issue.

Robin II on the other hand had this kind of quiet shyness to him - even as he was shouting the most inventive swears ever heard by human ear at someone while he kicked them in the balls hard enough to make ‘em see not just the face of their own god but a few dozen besides. He was just as unhinged as the Robin before him - seemed to be a requirement for the job really - but there was a distinct different in how the two birds flitted about the darkened skyline of the city. Where the first Robin’s smile was as much danger as it was dazzle, a fanged declaration of victory against the dark, Robin II’s was a sunny, stubborn declaration of perseverance. Kid was sassy and smart, and never - ever - flinched away from extending a hand to those he thought in need of it.

Even if the folks he offered that hand to were in the middle of an attack on some fancy Gala or Wayne Enterprises or whatever target of the week it was. Even knowing the offered hand was likely to be slapped away and followed by a right hook. Kid still always tried.

They all knew why.

The Bat was big on offering chances, on rehabilitation rather than damnation. Some of Robin II being the way he was came from the broody cryptid he followed around. But Batman couldn’t claim to be the sole reason for Robin II being the way he was, couldn’t even pretend to be the cause of most of it. Nah, they knew why the little bird was the way he was.

That unmistakable thick accent. That frame that was always a little too thin even as he got older and stronger. That unshakable, headstrong spirit.

Robin II was an Alley Kid.

A true child of Gotham.

Her polluted waters in his veins. Her smoggy air in his lungs. Her shadows clinging to his edges less like a beast looking to swallow a small bird up and more like a protective mother hiding her hatchling. He understood the world most of them came from. The one they all lived in. Knew it in a way anyone who hadn’t been swallowed up by the dark never really could.

Everyone had their favorite, but even those that claimed the first Robin as theirs couldn’t deny that Robin II was someone to be respected. Nor could they deny a fondness for the chain smoking, classic lit referencing, perpetually baby-faced little shit. They’d all had knock out drag out fights with the kid and knew how fucking unhinged the puny motherfucker could be in a fight, but he always tempered it with offers of resources, of a listening ear, of understanding.

He visited them after they’d been arrested sometimes. In Arkham, or Blackgate or wherever else they’d been locked up in after being stopped by the Dynamic Duo. The little bird would make the rounds whenever he had a broken wing or was stuck waiting as the Bat interrogated someone else or for any other reason he wasn’t out flitting about the city skyline at night. He’d bring cookies or snacks and even cigarettes from his own secret stash on the rare occasion, mask unable to hide the furtive glances around to check for the living shadow that was the disapproving Bat.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

But childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

Bad things happened to good kids all the time.

And some of the monsters that lurked in the city’s darkest shadows took the black mark of a kid killer as a point of pride.

Robin II disappeared one day. Just after that piece of shit Garzonas took the fast way down from the top of a tall building. There were a lot of Rogues with doctoral degrees to their names but even those Goons that dropped out of school before they learned to spell their own names could do that math.

The big bad Bat had benched the boy after the fierce little bird had done what any decent member of the criminal underbelly would have. There were those that thought maybe it’d been an accident, that the kid was pulled off duty because of being too upset at unintentionally crossing the heavy line the Bat drew in the sand. Those voices were drowned out pretty quick though.

Sure, Robin II was all about second chances, of doing better, of redemption. But Garzonas had chances to spare and only ever spat in the face of those offering them. Doubled down on being a monster in a way very, very few of the Rogues Gallery would. The kid was a sweetheart, but he wasn’t no push over and there were some things so heinous that there was only one way of handling them. Crime Alley had its own kind of justice system, and when faced with a monster that was beyond even Batman’s jurisdiction, Robin II did what he always did: fell back on his roots.

Or so the rumors said, at least.

That was the thing about Gotham’s seedy underbelly. It was a grimy, wretched nest of vipers and cut-throats, but it was also worse than any beauty parlor when it came to gossip. No one actually knew anything other than that piece of shit motherfucker took a dive while Robin was chasing him and that he’d not been seen on the streets since. But most had a fondness for the kid, and a distaste for the kind of cruelty Garzonas reveled in and there was no proof that Robin hadn’t gone and done the world a favor by drop kicking that barbaric sack of shit off a roof. So as far as most in the Gallery were concerned, the little bird had stepped up and been a hero.

Time passed. Not a lot. But enough. The Bat disappeared too, popping up on an entire other continent in a way that was awfully tempting. Even with other Masks playing baby sitter while the local cryptid was away. Rogues were scrambling to set plans in motion, Goons getting hired en masse, weapons and weird chemicals getting delivered to shady places across Gotham by the truck-full. The criminal underbelly was abuzz with the same excited energy of children the day before a big birthday party.

And then the news came in.

There were people in the dark who made their living finding things out. Knowing things that no one else did or could. Some even specialized, keeping tabs on Batman and Robin better than anyone else in the business were able. And when the information they found wasn’t anything handy to have tucked into a back pocket or a secret they were paid extremely well to keep? They held on to with the same tenacity a sieve clung to water.

Robin II had run off across the globe and ended up in Ethiopia. Something to do with a doctor doing aid work, the same something that had the Bat end up there was the assumption. Kid ran off to handle things himself or was sent on a separate path on purpose for some plan or other the Bat had cooked up on his hunt.

Whatever the reason, the kid crossed paths with the Clown.

Alone.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham. The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart. But Robin II was hers, the child of her heart, an exception to the rule. And besides, most folks - even those in the Rogues Gallery - largely left the purposeful harm of kids out of the equation.

The Joker wasn’t most folks.

And the little bird was a long way away from the protective shadows of his mother city.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

When the news broke, it broke most of them right along with it.

Plans stalled. Schemes ended. Gotham, for an unnervingly quiet stretch of time that neither its civilians or the world at large understood, went still. Crime continued, of course, but the big names weren’t seen. It was only right, by the standards of those that lived their lives in the dark, that they hold off and give the man that fought them all so relentlessly over the past years the time he needed to focus on hunting down the monster that killed his son. He didn’t need the distraction, and they all owed it to Robin II not to interfere while the Bat at last put a final end to the Clown.

And the hellish cryptid would need his full focus on this one. The Joker wasn’t one to take lightly at the best of times, but he’d set himself up neatly in the middle of a nasty bear trap. Ugly and complicated in the way everything with the Clown was. Interference from the CIA, from the UN, from Superman.

Shit went down. People heard about the Bat and the Clown throwing down in a helicopter plummeting from the sky in one hell of a water landing. Big Blue fished Batman out of the drink before he could drown but there’d been no sign of the Joker.

But the Bat would find him.

They all knew the relentless bastard would find him. It was just a matter of time. With the hellish drive of a demon straight from Gotham’s darkest shadows, the Bat would track the grinning, child killing ghoul down and make right the terrible wrong the evil motherfucker had done. Batman would hunt him to the ends of the earth and enact the justice he held up so fiercely. Robin II would have the vengeance the kid so rightly deserved.

It was just a matter of time. So they waited. And waited.

Days.

Weeks.

Months.

The Clown still lived.

The world, impossibly, began to move on. The Bat returned to his lurking in the night, picking off gangs and petty crooks and no-name gangsters as if nothing had happened at all. More vicious, more savage, but failing to turn that rise in brutality into the killing blow against the one figure that so rightly deserved it.

No one knew what was happening. There were rumors and theories, as there always were in the underground. Some thought that it wasn’t the Bat at all back in Gotham but someone else pretending for awhile, looking after his neglected city while he continued his pursuit of the Joker. Other held that it was the Bat but the whole thing was a ploy to draw the Clown out into the open. A pretense at not caring meant to get under the Clown’s skin, make the asshole mad enough to get stupid and sloppy and reveal himself.

That the man simply had given up was beyond comprehension. Beyond what any upstanding Rogue could accept. So it simply couldn’t be true. There was a trick being played. Some brilliant game of 4D chess that none of them had been able to parse out. It’d be revealed in time, and they see the brilliant trap that had been set. The Clown would be lured out, the Bat would put him down for good, and then they’d all at last raise a glass to the little bird that had been shot down far too soon and smoke shitty cigarettes and quote literary masters and mourn the loss one of Gotham’s own true children.

They just had to play along. Stumbling forward back into their usual habits, pretending that it was a choice and not the world just forcibly dragging them along. It’d make sense, eventually. The Bat had a plan. Robin II wasn’t forgotten, his killer not left free to roam and ravage unpunished for what he’d done.

And then one day there was a new bird flitting across the rooftops.

Chasing the Bat’s looming frame like a reverse shadow. Bright flashes of color in contrast to the bleak darkness of Gotham’s grimy nights. Small and thin and young.

Not the first Robin. With his showman bright grin and bloody rage and unwavering belief in the terrifying power of hope. Not the brilliant, vicious little boy that they’d seen grow over the years into the fierce and fearless Nightwing.

Not Robin II either.

Not Gotham’s soft hearted little bruiser with his unshakable belief that people could be better if given the chance, shinning so bright in the dark as he held out a hand that even the Rogues had no choice but to believe right along with him sometimes. Not the tough little songbird they’d never get to see grow up. Unavenged and unhonored. Put in a box and buried in the ground with a name none of them would ever know carved into a stone they’d never be able to visit.

No.

It was a new Robin.

A new child with the R emblazoned upon his chest.

Sharp and quick and young in the way the birds always were when they started flying at the Bat’s side. Every inch of the boy’s tiny frame a tragedy and an insult. One very, very few of Gotham’s vicious underbelly were willing to tolerate.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham, but there was a damn big difference between holding something sacred and not giving a damn about it at all. There were rules unspoken but understood, a way things were done. Nothing so solid or concrete as a code of conduct, more a collection of time honored traditions. Blood for blood was among the oldest and truest, and the more precious the person taken the more vital and vicious payment was to be made in kind.

The Clown had killed Robin II.

Beaten the kid half to death and then finished the job with a bomb.

Everyone knew he’d done it laughing all the way.

The Bat should have done the same in kind. Done worse. It was justice, it was what was right. You kill a kid you’re marked forever. You kill one so well liked and kill ‘em like that and you’re destined for a cruel and cold death. The Bat had first dibs. It was his kid. It was his right to put an end to that awful laughter and let his son have peace at last.

But he never did.

Nightwing had. For a bit. For a moment.

Robin I, who half the time had scared them all more than the Bat ever could. Dazzling and dizzying and dangerous. Gave back the pain and hurt the Clown had forced upon him with clenched fists and bone shattering hits. They were glad for him, that he was able to beat the monster who had taken his little brother from him to death, that he was able to have such justice.

And then the Bat stepped in.

Revived the fucking Clown.

A slap in the face. The snapping crack of a spine beneath one straw too many. The final, unforgivable insult the man had dared visit upon not just the child taken from him but the entirety of Gotham.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. Respected their ferocity, admired their moxie, marveled at their ability to keep shining in the dark like they did. Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of the city’s dirty criminal underbelly from time to time.

He was a good kid.

He deserved better.

Better than the silence and peace he should be granted in death to be marred by the mad cackles of his killer still running around alive and unpunished. Better than his father giving up, returning to the same old routine as if nothing had happened at all. Better than the Bat snatching up a new bird less than a year later.

Gotham and her Rogues had given the Bat time enough to do what needed to be done.

It was their turn.

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[gracieart]

The Illyrian snarled softy, “my mother is anything but awful.”

[notbecauseofvictories]

someday, maybe my siblings and I will be brave enough to say "no, sorry, that won't work for me," when our parents ask us to rearrange our plans to suit them. it's not today.

[st4rbwrry]

nicki is the prime example of an older bitter woman. she need serious help fr. like to hear her on live stuttering and going on and on about megan and her deceased mother is sickening. she stooped low af fr. all over one line. megan ain’t even say that girls name and it got her yapping out her mouth like somebody grandma. and she’s only proving everyone’s point about her nasty ass husband. now if megan say sum bout her father or brother???? don’t go crying to kenneth or papa about how everyone’s against you cs you’re the queen of rap blah blah.

[johndoescelerat]

Tick Tock, time's almost up.

[skulls-and-wishbones]

[sobbing with Mitski playing in the background]

[freakartack]

"...Hello? Ma! I told you not to call me today, I'm making a movie!" -Wario, Mario Power Tennis

The most important lesson from Ma that Wario took to heart was the endless pursuit of cold, hard cash. Unfortunately, the one lesson she could never teach him was the importance of hard work to get it.  It wasn't for lack of trying; Wario's Ma is the hardest worker this side of the Mushroom Kingdom.  Raising Baby Wario was a herculean enough task on its own, but ever the enterprising spirit, she had also set out to grow one of the most profitable crops: garlic.

Her backyard business quickly expanded into a veritable garlic empire. Wario's mother toiled away tirelessly each day from sunrise to sunset to grow and harvest as much garlic as she could possibly achieve.  Much of Wario's current strength and endurance can be attributed to helping his mom on the farm as a child, although the teeth-pulling task of getting him to actually work was almost as difficult as preventing him from eating all the garlic straight out of the ground.  Wario's nose for instant gratification has always been a thorn in his mother's side, but try as she might to instill a solid work ethic into the boy, her "get-rich-slow" schemes could never appeal to him.  Still, Wario enjoyed his surprisingly agrarian upbringing. Along with garlic, his mother also raised chickens for eggs, inspiring in Wario a lifelong soft spot for poultry.  (He also had a pet hamster named Fluffy, who sadly passed away in 1986.)

Today, Wario is still on good terms with his mother despite their physical distance, and frequent phone calls keep her updated on all of Wario's business successes.  Of course, being Wario, he heavily embellishes the amount of work he actually does at his company.  If she only knew...

[gigireece16]

i JUST know a fandom hates to see my unconditional love for ‘unlikable’ female characters coming