#this is dc we're talking about

[sl-walker]

-whispers- Please, DC. Please just let them be gay. We've been waiting almost forty years.

[welcometogrouchland]

Extremely bad batgirls comic I made featuring Steph's sex life and Cass' ability to read everything but the room

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

Danny was waiting when Dick came home. "Welcome home, Dick."

He runned the back of his neck nervously, slipping the window closed behind him. "Hey, Danny."

There was a long moment of silence, Dick standing in front of the closed window and Danny sitting on the couch. Danny took a sip of the tea he was holding before setting the mug down on the coffee table with a click. "So," he leveled a small glare at the vigilante, "you gonna apologise to Tim?"

"Who?" Dick blinked.

"The kid you yelled at and then left standing in your apartment as you went out as Nightwing for exactly two hours, fifteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds longer than your new schedule allows."

He cringed back. "Listen, kid-"

"No, you're listening to me, so shut up and sit down." He did, dropping right to the floor. "I don't know what the hell happened between you and Batman, but you don't get to take it out on the people around you, especially not the kid that just trying to help."

"Dan-"

"What did I just say?" He sighed. "Look. I get it. You're grieving, both you and Batman are, but that doesn't excuse your behavior. It doesn't excuse Batman's behavior, either, so don't think that's what I'm saying."

Dick carefully pulled his domino mask off. "What do you want me to do?"

"Several things." Danny stood and walked into the bathroom, coming back a few seconds later with Dick's first aid kit. "First, though, you're gonna let me patch you up. Then, you're gonna use my phone and apologise to Tim. After that, you eat and go to bed; You have work in a few hours."

Knowing he wasn't going to be getting out of this, Dick started to take his suit off. He slipped his arms out of the sleeves and let Danny treat the bruises on his arms and hands. Not much damage that night. He'd only encountered a few petty crimes so it had been quiet.

Without another word shared between them, Danny left to put the first aid kit away before making a quick snack for Dick while he went to change. It'd only been about a week, but they'd fallen into an easy routine.

Dick was quick to change and eat, falling asleep nearly ten minutes after he laid down.

***

Danny made sure Dick was asleep before he left the apartment as Phantom. He'd learned, during his two weeks of not-stalking, that a some criminals hung back until Nightwing had turned in before they came out to play. Phantom was going out for an extra two hours each night to remedy this. Though, he made sure no one ever spotted him before or after he knocked people out. Invisibility was hand like that.

Sure, he didn't have all that much experience as a vigilante, but he'd been traveling for four weeks before stopping. The first lesson he learned was that he needed to learn fast. He was wasn't a genius like the rest of his family, but he picked up on things really fast. Fighting had been one of those things. Though, the lessons from his mom when he was a kid also helped a lot.

Staying invisible was easy, so was intangibility and flight. The three together made stealth easier than if he didn't have them. Though, he did make sure to practice his stealth without them, too. Being caught unawares or without his powers would be disastrous and he was going to do everything he could to mitigate the risk.

Blockbuster, Phantom had learned, was the reason Dick had stayed in Bludhaven. He was also the ringleader of the organised crime in the city. Apparently, he's the second of the Blockbuster name? The giant of a man had his hands everywhere; The Bludhaven Police, as well as the underbellies of New York, Metropolis, and Gotham. With eyes and ears everywhere, not a lot got passed him, which is likely why Nightwing was having trouble getting the crime rates down. So, Danny Phantom was going to help.

He'd heard the name Oracle from both Nightwing and Blockbuster's goons, so Phantom assumed whoever that was was on his side. Unluckily, though, they were now a target. He just needed to get a hold of them without letting them find him.

Phantom had heard the information from several goons since he'd started going out, but he didn't know if Nightwing knew or not. Though, he didn't know how to pass on the information. How could he tell Dick what he knows without letting slip that he'd been going out? Dick would call him a hypocrite and would fall back into his passively suicidal schedule. Danny's not a hypocrite! He just runs on a separate schedule. A schedule that Dick might not like, but one that works for Danny.

The intel Phantom was working with tonight was about some of Dick's coworkers. He knew the corruption in the Bludhaven and Gotham City Police Departments ran thick and deep, so he wasn't really surprised to find out that Detective Soames and Chief Redhorn ran with the less than pleasant people that made their homes and bases in Bludhaven.

Dick knew this, too, which is why he became an officer in the first place.

According to the goons Phantom had spied on, Detective Soames was involved in a drug ring that was doing deliveries tonight. It was timed to be after Nightwing had turned in for the night so that he wouldn't be able to bust it. It was a smart move on the ringleader's part, to have his goons out only after Nightwing was done for the night.

That was the next thing he was going to have to work on with Nightwing. He couldn't have a discernible pattern without someone with him to cover. Honestly, Batman should know better, too. Maybe he'll pass it on to Tim?

While on the road, Danny had learned that his powers were still developing. One of which was a kind of sixth sense. It worked somewhere between hearing and a spider's ability to feel vibrations in the air and webs. He didn't know is reach on it yet, but he was able to cover half of Bludhaven from where the ability currently sat, so he was going to work with that limit for now.

The warehouse he was staking out was where he'd heard goons talk about for nearly a week. They had been careless, assuming that there was no one out to catch them, but it worked in Phantom's favor. It was mostly empty, save for a few homeless squatters looking for some shelter, and was otherwise undisturbed.

Phantom didn't believe it for a second.

He was also going to laugh in Tim's face if the goons in Bludhaven were smarter than the goons in Gotham.

Right on time, just as the clock turned over into the Witching Hour, the homeless people sheltered in the warehouse stood up and met in the center of the building. Together, and armed, they waited for exactly five minutes. Then, the back doors to the building opened and Detective Soames walsted in.

"Gentlemen," the detective greeted with a sneer, "Lady. Do you have what I came here for?"

"Do we look like idiots?" the lady of the group scoffed, "Of course we have it."

"Well, I don't see it," Soames frowned, "Where is it?"

The dirty blond to the woman's right was the next to speak. "Hidden in the walls."

Soames' frown deepened into a scowl. "The hell is it in there for?"

The only other person of the group, a brown haired man, said, "There's rumors goin' 'round about a Spook. Comes out when Nightwing turns in."

Well, well, well. Looks like Phantom's gaining a reputation.

"You believe in ghost stories now?" Detective Soames sneered, "Get my delivery, now."

The three scuttled off the the wall just under where Phantom was hiding in the rafters. He timed ten minutes before they walked back upto Soames with two bricks of cocaine each.

"You're short."

"This is the agreed upon amount." the lady argued.

Soames' expression twisted into something cruel. "Did I forget to tell you? Tsk. Shame." In a quick and fluid movement, he whipped a pistol from his inner pocket and shot the woman and then the blond. He picked up the bricks, tucking them under his arm before taking the last two from the brunet. "I cannot build an empire without a few casualties, right?"

The man gulped, eyeing the gun. "Y-yes, sir."

Soames hummed. "The sands of Egypt were dyed red with blood. The roads of Rome are the same." He turned away from the man. "Twelve bricks in two weeks. You'll have a location shortly."

Phantom watched the detective leave with a frown. So that was the deal, huh? He didn't know too much about Bludhaven's criminals yet, but he was fairly certain that a man like Blockbuster won't like someone trying this shit under his nose.

He was quick to leave the warehouse after that, doing a quick loop of the city - focused mostly on Sin Central and The Spine - before flying back to Dick's apartment. He wrote down everything from the night, complete with drawings of everyone of note that he saw. He'd pass it to Nightwing as soon as he needed to. For now, though, it remained his cases alone.

Part 8 Part 10

[farshootergotme]

My toxic trait is that my favoritism for Dick Grayson has no bounds.

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Bruce being a lowkey stalker but forgetting sometimes that it comes off as weird and creepy and other people have like, boundaries and shit.

Bruce: Clark, I think someone might be onto you, a man just searched your apartment.

Clark: How do you know someone was in my apartment??

Bruce: ...

Clark: Bruce?

Bruce: ...

Clark: Bruce.

Bruce: ...

Bruce: So anyway, here's the address he can be found at

[geneticdriftwood]

dick and roy; a collection

outsiders (2003), #11, 12, 13, 16, 21

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompts in Memes 7

[glitter-stained]

When I say knowledge of the context is useful to analyse comics, what I mean is that the lazarus pit being a potential factor for Jason's worst behaviour was introduced in Lost Days: we see the classic temporary outburst at the beginning, and then I think the comic is pretty clear on condemning Talia's initial diagnosis of "the pit made him a psychopathic monster", both to us seeing him save all these people and doing his own vigilantism, and to Talia when she's like "you're learning". I've mentioned before how lost days introduces its own explanation for UTH!Jason (as much as I dislike it), so we know that Pit Madness isn't the preferred explanation for his behaviour in UTH and Winick's Jason in general. But then, we also see Ra's condemning Talia's actions by going "perhaps not today perhaps not now but eventually he's going to go crazy." Seems like we're getting a lot of leeway here isn't it? (Even more than we had in bop with Dixon's cautiously vague explanation of the pit). Seems like an awfully convenient way to explain any moment of Jason behaving horribly in away that doesn't fit the parameters of Winick's characterization. Note also that Lost Days is imo the best (so far) pre-n52 story at creating empathy towards Jason since we see him look his actual age, we see how deeply hurt he was and for how long we see him have a traumatic flashback we see him cry we see him sit on a chair and not touch the ground we see him try his best and save people and show empathy and discernment and see that he has a moral conduct other than "anarchic killing"...

Anyway, check that out:

Now this is what I call damage control. You absolutely insist in maintaining some of the worst runs in the history of the characters into your version of canon (which you claim is the real valid canon that everyone should accept) despite its apparent erasure from mainline? Okay sure understandable we all have different tastes in comics and what we think is important for a character's identity. Fine. Why then did Jason make any of the choices he made in those terrible stories? (Including that terrible clothing choice)?

He was pit mad. That's the canon explanation. He literally wasn't himself. He wasn't fundamentally inherently and absolutely evil, he wasn't crazy evil, he was high on magic gatorade.

I'd expect Winick to have done that more to preserve and mitigate the character assassination of the complex/nuanced villain he created than out of a sudden shift in stance on psychophobia, but I'm still grateful for it. Anyway, pit madness is real, and cptsd doesn't make you shoot children.

[bruciemilf]

Comic book writers who still make Bruce hit his kids even after years of mass criticism from fans who TELL you it's a bad creative choice that pushes them away from the fan base and comics in general,,, you did this for what?

[littlefankingdom]

I love that Damian is named Damian. Let me explain why.

The name Damian comes from the Greek, δαμάζω (damazo), which means "to tame, to conquer, to vanquish, to master, to overcome, to dominate", but can also mean "the untamable". Already, this is great. Damian is the heir of the League of Assassins and the Bat, he is meant to conquer all, to master everything, to dominate above all. He is meant to be untamable.

But also, the word "damazo" comes from Damia, one of the names of the goddess Cybele, a goddess that is associated with wild nature or viewed as Mother Nature. And the Al Ghul are all about nature.

Finally, "Damian", and its other forms, is a name that has become associated with the word "demon". I think this is probably why he was named this, because he is the grandson of the Demon's Head, and Damian = demon. Well, about the word "demon": it comes from the Greek δαίμων, daímôn, which is a term associated with some divinities. These divinities aren't evils, they are mostly (from the ones I have encountered being called demons) associated with the afterlife or darkness, but they aren't evil. The Furies, goddesses of vengeance and justice that go after guilty folks to punish them before their death, are called "demons" sometimes. Thanatos, god of death, is called "demon" sometimes. The negative connotation comes from the Abrahamic faiths who villainized aspects of the polytheist beliefs, so their believers would drop them (in polytheist practices, every god exists, others just use a different name or view them a different way, which is fine because they are gods, and you cannot as a mortal define. Which means that polytheist cultures don't villainize other gods they don't know or don't pray to, you can join in the celebrations without renouncing to the gods you honor. Monotheism cannot have you do that.) Hell is the example of that. Hell was simply the realm of the dead, but the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity is the guilty one here) painted it as the "bad realm of the dead" (the division of the afterlife was done centuries after Christianity was created and so the Church could hold more controls over its believers). Another one is Lilith, who was a Mesopotamian goddess also referred to as a demon, so what did the Abrahamic faiths did? They made her a creature of evil. All of this talk because Ra's Al Ghul, when he named himself that, did so to criticize religions. It was all about how demons, evil spirits and creatures are something created by religious authorities so they can target and harm people they don't like, and could harm their power. So, to finish, it makes little to no sense in my opinion for Damian to be displeased with being named or associated with demons. Because the ideology that demons are evil is associated with Abrahamic faiths, and that's not what the Al Ghul believe, they cannot have taught him that. What I'm saying is that when you write any of the Al Ghul associating demons with evil, you are looking at their family from the pov of a culture who depends heavily on an Abrahamic faith, and not from their own culture and ideologies, which are that all this religion stuff is bs. They take pride in being associated with demons, not because demons are evil entities harming humankind, but because demons are something that the authority in place hates.

Anyway, Talia cooked when she named her son Damian.

[devonaeya]

A little sample of just how quick stuff escalates for Tim:

Tim's like "ah yes I shall just go to Paris to train" and then tries to help someone, then finds another person to help, gets overwhelmed and ends up learning from a deadly assassin and an undercover officer(?) instead of the marital arts master he was supposed to train under.

Oh also he went from Paris to Hong Kong on a weird road trip with said assassin and officer. How fun.

[gffa]

It is ALWAYS funny when someone tries to convince a hero that they're Batman No Really They're Actually Batman and fucks it up by saying "please" and Bruce's friends are all like LOL FAIL.

[thevoidstaredback]

Week Three

Bruce and Barbra were in charge of arranging the security detail, just as they were for every gala. They had a system down, one that they followed meticulously no matter how vague it actually was.

Bruce finds the men, Barbra screens them, they have James Gordon approve them, then they go through Tim and Jason. It's a system that works.

Normally, they don't start looking for security until the week of, but they have to double the amount of bodies for this particular gala, so they've given themselves extra time.

They don't technically have to double the manpower, but it's to keep face. Though, Jim's going to have questions, but they've prepared a cover story. They would just tell him, because there's no way he doesn't know who Batman and Oracle are under the mask, but the chief of police would very much like to keep plausible deniability.

Most of the people they find are the some ones every time. Some of them they cycle out, depending on which part of the city got hit the hardest during the latest attack, but they can't afford to skimp out on the security for this event. Yeah, half the people they've invited are superheroes, but they aren't going to put their identities at risk. Hell, they aren't even supposed to know who're under the masks, but here they are!

THe gala isn't set to end until just before the Bats are supposed to head out on patrol. But, because there's a gala going on, and there's no way that a quiet rumor hasn't started and reached, that means that someone is going to have to go out early. Duke will be handling the day shift, as normal, but Damian will be out will him just in case. Then, just after dinner ends, Luke, Kate, and Barbra are going to leave and start patrol. An hour after they leave, Steph, Selina, and Jason will head out to help them. Everyone else will head out after everyone's gone home.

While Barbra's screening their security personnel, officers of the law included, Bruce was looking for press.

Everyone had agreed that three people with press badges would be allowed in, but they wouldn't be allowed to take pictures. So, Bruce looked for bloggers. Tiny bloggers who didn't have more than a few hundred subscribers. He would screen them himself before having Tim and Barbra take a look at them. If they were clean, then Tim would reach out to them with the offer and the pay.

So far, he'd found five potentials. They're all clean at a surface glance. Digging deeper counted off one of them, so his list fell to four. One of them was too clean, so now he was left with three. One from Tumblr, one from Reddit, and one from the Daily Planet.

All three were pretty small blogs, and the one from the Daily Planet was forever stuck in the page four margins. This would be good for their careers. As long as Tim and Barbra cleared them, of course.

***

Week Four

Selina and Cass were put in charge of decorating, with the offered help of Dick and Duke. It was either the worst decision or the best decision.

Everything was on Bruce's dime, so the two were fully planning on going all out.

The chosen theme was 'Hero'. Most people would first think of the Justice League and any of the other hero teams, especially if they live in one of the cities where the heroes live. However, superheroes aren't the only heroes. So, the girls were going to decorate with the smaller heroes in mind; the doctors and soldiers and good law enforcers. Vigilantes, too, obviously.

They started with the room Duke and Dick had chosen to offshoot for the kids that would be coming. 'Kid' meaning anyone under the age of eighteen. This room was going to focus on the protege teams.

Cass hung streamers across the ceiling in the colours of the former Young Justice team. Across the walls, she and Selina hung the symbols of every member of the Titans Team. Naturally, the snack table they'd put in there was decked out with merch from every Robin and Batgirl. Home team loyalty and all that. The snacks were all going to be themed after the Justice League Dark, just because they could get away with it.

Inside the main ballroom, Selina took charge. Every table was themed after different heroic occupations, sans superhero. Doctors, nurses, teachers, officers, lawyers, non-profit directors, soldiers, veterinarians, et cetera.

Again, streamers were hung across the ceiling, sourced from the chandeliers, in the colours that the BatFam wore across their chests. Grey for Batman, black or Black Bat, blue for Nightwing, orange for Oracle, dark red for Red Hood, red for Red Robin, purple for Spoiler, yellow for Robin, gold for Signal, scarlet for Batwoman, and white for Batwing.

With the help of Dick and Duke, a banner in the Justice League colours - blue and white, very creative, Bruce - was hung on the wall behind the stage. It was a blue banner with the words "Charity for Justice" in white, the font was what had been chosen for the Justice League logo.

Again, a very creative choice, Bruce.

Just like the other room, the symbols of every hero affiliated with the Justice League was hung on the walls. The symbols of deceased heroes were hung on the doors, their birth and death dates written on them.

The small details are where Selina and Cass really amped up their mischief.

The entrance that the guests would be taking lead directly into the hall with the ballroom. Selina and Cass, with Steph's help, hit tiny bats and birds everywhere. The birds were blue, red, and yellow; the bats were grey, black, dark red, scarlet, white, orange, purple, and gold. And, just to mess with the Lanterns and the Supers, they hung fake kryptonite tied with yellow ribbon from the ceiling. The pictures in the hallway were replaced with pictures of the skyline of every city where a hero operated.

They hung up a picture of Atlantis, too. No, they won't be answering any questions.

With the decor done and Alfred approved, all that was left to do was wait for week four to come to an end.

Part 13 Part 15

[jesncin]

caped crusader's take on race largely confused me and i was also kinda confused by how homosexuality is seen in the universe. it felt very half-assed.

I agree! It's frustrating seeing superhero fandom brush away legitimate criticism with how gay couples are depicted in CC (notice how the person QRT-ing OP's tweet made up a whole new sentence to be mad at)- by saying "oh you just want to see marginalized characters suffer! This is superhero media, it's escapism!" (many of the QRTs to that person's post say this).

CC explicitly shows classicism and sexism (with like a pinch of racism) existing in their universe, but suddenly homophobia just magically doesn't exist and it's okay for two women of color to smooch in public? Systemic bigotry is connected. If sexism exists, then surely a sapphic couple would be a little worried about how they're perceived in this world.

It's more than fair to criticize CC's selective nature in depicting what kind of bigotry exists in their world. Classicism is discussed but they don't talk about how that intersects with race (by whitewashing Firebug), Hollywood beauty privilege exists but not how that intersects with race AND gender (ignoring Miss Francis as a WOC in tinsel town), police corruption and brutality is a thing but we're not going to talk about how the police violently target and oppress queer and people of color (especially Black people)- in fact! We'll just make the cops queer women of color. What a diversity win. At what point is this just erasure?

[rob1ns]

thinking about Jason Todd

[farshootergotme]

I just need to read one fic in which people actually apologize to Dick. Somehow it's only Bruce that I've seen giving a genuine apology in fanfics and that feels wrong (but also, props to B for that).

Everytime a member of the family is mad at him for a misunderstanding or something he didn't even do, after they find out the truth, they just don't apologize.

It's always Dick apologizing and then everything being okay because 'Hey! We felt hurt first even though it wasn't really your fault, but it's only fair we get away with this now that we started treating you well!' and Dick just... Accepts it. Because of course he will, right? Can't push it, who knows how long it'll last.

They're all being nice to him now, he should be grateful they're attempting to reciprocate his kindness! Look at them hugging when just a few hours prior they were making Dick feel like shit about himself, aren't they lovely?

And listen, I'm all here for Dick acknowledging his mistakes and apologizing for anything he might've done wrong in the fic, but would it hurt for Dick to receive those apologies instead? Why is he always the first one to say sorry? Why can't the others take the initiative for once?

Anyhow, I better end the ramble there.

Point is, Dick deserves apologies. Hugs won't cut it forever.