#while I'm like “I just think he's neat”

[gremlinmodetweeker]

So sorry about the spam but I am absolutely feasting upon your eldritch koenig, I think it’s the cutest thing that he’s basically a mama’s boy !!! We need to see more of his mama 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

I am so so sorry, but while I was writing my response, my boyfriend's computer crashed and it was lost! I don't know why, but whenever I'm around it the computer tends to crash/webpages crash and need to be reloaded often. It's a bit surreal, honestly. It sometimes feels like I'm a walking EMP!

Anyways, thank you so much for your love! I must admit, I adore Eldritch!König and I especially love his mother. She's a beautiful being, a creature born and created of chaos and destruction and creation. She's constantly in this endless, maddening cycle of dying and being born, sleeping and waking. Her existence is poetry, it's vast and diminutive and everything in between. She also loves chocolate.

König's mother could blink and wipe our existence out. But the thing is, she thinks we're neat! She likes us! She loves our sweets, she adores our art, she gets so excited about our species! She's fascinated by life. From the smallest atoms to the vastness of the universe, she loves us all. I cannot stress how much König's mother loves us.

She really like Summoner and approves of her as a potential mate. However, she's probably a bit upset right now that Summoner is sorta-kinda rejecting König right now. She knows to be patient, but she's upset that you don't realize just what you're passing on. She's probably keen on bringing you back together.

[simplynims]

I'M GONNA USE MY SONAS FOR THIS ONE BECAUSE I FINALLY HAVE AN EXCUSE TO YAP ABOUT THEM.

Just a lil refresher but these are my two sonas, Calypso is on the left and Decker is on the right! Decker is an inter-demensional demon that travels between different worlds, Calypso is the physical embodiment of a fallen star, and the two are best buds that travel together between worlds.

Onto how they'd interact (+ I added a few more for fun!):

David - Both Calypso and Decker know of him but both aren't too phased by his reputation. Calypso is friendly while Decker is more non-chalant about the meeting. Neither have any strong feelings about him or their interactions though I feel like Decker would accidentally piss him off and Calypso would have to excuse themselves before Decker says anymore dumbshit that might get em in trouble with a alpha. 7/10, they think he's okay.

Huxely - Both vibe with him pretty well, Decker thinks he's a funny fella and Calypso likes how he's very easy to talk to. The two are pretty good friends with him and I can see Huxely maybe introducing the two to the rest of the D.A.M.N crew in the future. 10/10, they really like him and would keep in touch.

Vega - Vega is a tough one, he knows Decker is a d(a)emon due to the fact he can see him but he is curious as to what Calypso actually is. He looks human, but isn't actually human. He's no d(a)emon either so what is Calypso? Decker gets really bad vibes from him and does put Calypso's safety and well being first so the two would actively avoid him. 3/10, Decker doesn't like him and Calypso doesn't particularly understand why but follows his lead.

Porter - Porter I feel like would think Calypso is too annoyingly purple and Calypso thinks he's mean though wouldn't outwardly say it. Decker doesn't have many thoughts on Porter, think's "Okay he's kinda an ass but he has a pretty ass at least." And would pass each other without much fuss. 7/10, Calypso thinks he's kinda mean and Decker thinks he's pretty.

Geordi - Calypso and Decker think he's okay, similar to David they don't particulary have a strong opinion about Geordi but he's okay in their books. The interaction wouldn't last long if I'm being honest so they're pretty neutral about him. 7/10, they think he's chill but they're not gonna go outta their way to befriend him.

Blake - Blake can't tell the two aren't human during their first interaction but catches on that something is up between the two. Calypso is friendly but Decker keeps the interaction short, he's really good at picking up peoples general vibe and Decker just doesn't like him. 5/10, Decker sticks to his gut instincts and Calypso is a bit confused but follows Deckers lead again.

Hush - Hush would know immediately they weren't from his world but wouldn't hurt them. I think he'd be rather curious about em and I think Calypso is all too eager to make a new friend. Decker is also chill with him but he's also very wary about Hush, gets an off feeling but proceeds with caution. 8/10, Calypso is excited to have another friend and Decker is proceeding with caution.

Gavin - Decker vibes with Gavin a lot but Calypso gets flustered too much to really talk to him so he usually stays quiet. He doesn't mind the flirting really, it's just Calypso doesn't know how to handle people flirting with him like that and just ends up like "🧍". Decker and Gavin are chill with each other and end up as good friends surprisingly, good banters between the two. 8/10, overall both like them though Calypso is a bit shy.

Lasko - Oh Decker would have a field day teasing him, he might actually turn into Gavin 2.0 with how he teases him it's very comedic lol. Calypso thinks he's neat, he likes hearing him talk and would like to play this 'D&D' that Lasko talks about one day! 9/10, all good vibes, Decker thinks he's very cute and fun to tease while Calypso thinks he's a very good friend.

Damien - Things are pretty chill surprisingly, Decker and Damien I see them being good friends in a "I'm gonna fuck your mom lol" "I will ACTUALLY fucking kill you." Type of way lmao. They like each other I promise, Decker just likes being a pain in the ass sometimes. Calypso doesn't mind Damien and likes hanging out with him, though tends to avoid playing video games that might make him mad when they hang out together. 9/10, overall good vibes and the two like hanging out with him.

ok cmere listen

take an oc you have from literally any universe that you have (other than redacted)

tell me what’s happening if they were to run into

- david

- huxley

- vega

- porter

- geordi

- blake

- hush

you can doooo as many of them as you want to

(this is just an excuse to hear about peoples OCs btw)

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 4, Wave 2, Poll 5

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and round here.

Ballister Blackheart-Nimona (Novel)

Qualifications:

He’s gay and an amputee

Propaganda:

He’s a lot more evil and also more established on what he’s doing than the movie. I think he’s neat, he does a lot more scheming and plotting and general shenanigans.

Suletta Mercury-Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Qualifications:

While this is something which only became a point in the last episode, in the finale of the show, following the big action parts, Suletta was shown to need mobility aids three years afterwards. Also in this timeskip, it is revealed that she has since gotten married to Miorine, who is another woman. Also I'm not autistic or trans but I have seen many people headcanoning her as both.

Canonically disabled by data storm infection, uses crutches on screen. Is married to her wife.

Canonically LGBTQ, as she is shown to love and later marry Miorine Rembran, a girl. Canonically disabled, as in the last episode, the Permet leads her to “lose control of her body” and even in the epilogue 3 years later, she is still using crutches and has not been able to get her body to the way it used to be before.

Suletta Mercury pushed herself to the limits of human survival at the end of the show, but survived. She's disabled and still uses crutches in the 3-year time skip. Her wife loves her and Suletta is still pursuing her dreams of creating a school.

Spoilers probably for the series. She is canonically engaged, later married to a woman, Miorine Rembran, and at the end of the series is shown to be physically disabled, with her both speaking on her physical therapy and her crutches being in several shots. Also she is written in a way that can be read as neurodivergent.

Partially paralyzed

Propaganda:

I love this character so much and I need everybody to as well. First of all, to get the biggest notes out of the way to establish why she qualifies (with major spoilers for episode 24), Suletta, after a three years timeskip, is shown to need crutches to get around a lot of the time. This fact is ultimately treated as an accomplishment on her part (/is never treated as a bad thing, just because I like clarifying this when it comes to any form of rep), since it took her some time to get to the point where she could move around at all. Also in this timeskip, the girl Suletta has been engaged to throughout most of the series, Miorine, has since become her wife, shown largely by the two of them having matching rings and Suletta's relatives being referred to as Miorine's in-laws. This makes Suletta the very first sapphic protagonist in Gundam. I've also seen headcanons or her such as her being autistic or transfem get popular. Getting to what makes me love her, Suletta, early on, is very easily intimidated in a lot of regards, largely because this is her first time actually being around anybody her age, but she's always been trying her best! She generally tries very hard to be positive and cares about those around her very much but can easily question her worth and is sometimes deterred. She is very willing to stand up and fight (usually in a literal way because she has won many mobile suit duels) when it most matters, a trait which remained consistent throughout the series, whether it's in regards to her role as a rescue piolet in the Cradle Planet short story, the drive which ultimately caused her to win the duel which initially got her engaged to Miorine in her first in-series appearance or the finale of the whole show. Suletta is somebody who has gone through a lot of hurt (especially in the series. Eps 17 and 18 put this girl through the wringer), and ultimately wasn't really raised to have too much autonomy. But despite everything, she keeps going. She's a very strong person who cares about those around her and I love her for it.

She is just the most joyful person ever who loves her wife.

Above, and: Vote for the newlyweds!

Everything above applies here. Suletta is shown to still not fully able to walk well without her crutches in the shot we get of her walking in the finale, her crutches are explicitly shown in several shots, and she openly talks about how her physical therapy is going to her, now wife, Miorine. On the topic of her and Miorine, they were engaged as of episode 1 with an iconic line from Miorine of "I guess Mercury is rather conservative. That sort of thing is commonplace here." in response to Suletta responding that she was a woman as a rebuttal about being Miorine's fiancée. Lots happens, and it's not uncommon to see either one of them yearning for each other, with a genuinely well written romance that leads to a happy ending with them explicitly married.

In the final battle of the series, Suletta highly exerts herself piloting a dangerous Gundam and significantly damages her body to save her family and fiancée. It's described that she was left mostly paralyzed from the neurological overload. Three years later, she still has significant scarring and needs to use crutches as a mobility aid, and talks about how her dexterity is "recovering." This means she was also disabled during her wedding with her wife, and they're shown with matching wedding bands as they discuss her health.

Anything Else?:

There's a whole lot more in terms of their relationship, and i've basically given a seriously lightened, budget sparksnotes version of it. Also, Suletta became disabled from a crazy battle for the finale, where she unleashed a giant rainbow data storm with a rainbow glowing Gundam. (Submitter 4)

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @insertbrowsinghere is the first submitter.

[thelostexperiment]

☕ + topic : about bradford (for Colin)

Collin felt the feathers down his back stand on end, it's not often he's invited to rant about the buzzard who lives rent free in his spite-filled mind and he was not about to waste it.

Collin: "Gods, where to start? His hypocrisy? His narrow mindedness? There's no depth that's too low for him to stoop if it means getting what he wants! He already made a career out of lying to everyone's faces for over 30 years, even if he gave the most sincere sounding apology for all he's done, nothing he says can be trusted! Not that he'd ever apologize anyway."

"For all his talk of 'raining-in chaos' and 'not being a villain', he certainly is the causing factor of some major catastrophes! Yet if you pointed this out to him, even set all the evidence in front of him and made him look at all the harm his shadowy influence inflicted he would still deny responsibility for any of it! He has a slippery way with semantics, to blame everyone and everything but himself, to play the victim that'd have you sympathize with him and think of him as far more reasonable than he is... So long as you don't think about it too hard... It's only afterwards when you release all the holes in his so-called 'logical' ideologies!"

"Of course he loves complaining about the chaos in the world, preaching about the greater-good of 'control'- whatever ends he can justify the means to! The mental hoops he's jumped through to convince himself he's in the right astounds me that he's not won a gold medal for 'most delusional'!"

"I do say this moreso for my own sake. He did, after all, destroy my previous life and identity then left me to rot as a forgotten, broken tool- but not only because of that! If it wasn't for him, Della Duck wouldn't have found the spear of Selen. Don't misunderstand, I couldn't care less about the McDucks, personally. STILL! If Della hadn't flown into that storm Moonvasion wouldn't have happened! The McDucks weren't the only family affected by that event. I'm talking about my assistant's family. Susan. I've seen the cracks of grief that's shown through her smiling exterior, I'm aware of the loss weighing heavily on her and I personally know that she didn't deserve any of it. That's more than enough reason to hate the old buzzard!"

"Yes! I'm aware of his unfortunate childhood with Isabella Finch. It may be a reason why he became the way he is but it's certainly no excuse! So I refuse to be like him, to hide behind any of that nonsense! Bradford may have made me, but I won't credit him for becoming the villain I am now! that choice was mine! I refuse to grant him that much control over me! Whatever consequences result from my actions I accept fully! I'd sooner be petty than a hypocrite!"

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[bonefall]

I’m rereading Po3 and despite its flaws I really enjoyed the introduction to the three. Jaykit isn’t mentioned to be blind in the first few chapters and instead they chose to show how much MORE capable he is compared to his littermates; until at the end of chapter 3, he brings up his blindness on his own. It makes forcing him to be a medicine cat SO much more frustrating because it really feels like they’re setting him up to be a warrior and choose his own fate (note i haven’t finished the reread this is just my first impression)

I like how you seem to take that path in BB regardless! It makes his arc so much more enjoyable

His arc in canon is super frustrating because he's such an independent character who clearly wants to make his own decisions in life, but then he just gets shoved into the medcat den. I LIKE that he ultimately goes there and that he enjoys it; but it was still really fucked up that they stripped away his autonomy in the process.

Re: they are not real, they are writing choices. Taking away the choices a disabled character can make over their own life, forcing them into a celibate nun role, and then going "awwwww dont worry see? he likes it! This was the best thing for him :)" was fucked up.

And imo it didn't have to be that way! You wouldn't have to go the FULL route I did with big changes, he could just be more involved in the descision to stop being a warrior apprentice and it would be fine. Minor change that would make a world of difference.

I do also have to interject to say though... blindness should really not be an extremely severe impairment for a ThunderClan cat.

I'm dead serious.

Whiskers are built-in sensors that tell you the exact position of everything within several inches of your head, ears swerve to pick up sound, and the jacobson's organ provides a sense of smell so keen that I have an entire Clanmew expansion draft because I needed to make WORDS describing the power of this sense that humans do not have. I cannot stress enough how delicate their other senses are, felines do not rely on their sight like primates do

ThunderClan lives in a mixed-oak woodland, where sight is already often obscured by foliage, objects are close together (for whiskers to feel), and nearly every movement makes noise against the leaf litter. RiverClan and (moor-running) WindClan cats would have a harder time with this disability than Thunder or Shadow.

Cat sight SUCKS to begin with. It sucks BADDD. They don't have color vision, they're significantly nearsighted, and they can't track up-and-down movements well. WC doesn't write realistic cats (more like small fuzzy people really) and I also work with more humanesque eyesight, but the only thing Jay should really lose is an ability to rapidly track a small animal swerving fast. Blind cats are often still excellent hunters in spite of that!

So it's an extra big waste that they railroaded him into a position he didn't choose, saying he couldn't be a warrior. This is the perfect disability to write, if you want to explore how ableism can impact the characters in this society who ARE legitimately still capable of nearly full independence, but still need to find accommodations for what they can't do.

In the same arc they're doing the dumb Cinder Reincarnation Plotline, no less!! Where SHE is also feeling like she has no choice over her "destiny," and gets a conflict over a potentially disabling injury

"Oh nooo if cinderpaw breaks her leg she wont be a warrior!"

"What the f-- Im Jaypaw and im reporting live from the scene where a Category 1 Idiot Moment is taking place. Woman breaks leg, suddenly everyone believes she is a horse, more at 11."

One of these days I should really make "herb guides" just covering how various sensory disabilities impact the lives of Clan cats and some tips for writing them as warriors, especially between Clans. Stuff you wouldn't usually consider, like how much noise deaf cats tend to make, how RiverClan would get a ton of sinus infections and lose their sense of smell, being blind in Sky vs Thunder, etc.

[necrotic-nephilim]

what are your favourite batcest ships and why?

AAA i love this question so much. i'm going to limit myself to a top five, because otherwise, i'd just end up listing all of them. the true joy of batcest is they're all so good for such different reasons and there are so many unique dynamics you can explore.

JayTim - it's funny bc, before i started this blog, i don't know if i would've put these two losers as my number one. but because i've done so much deep diving into their dynamic and i write them the most, i think it'd be a disservice for them to be anything *but* number one. their canon dynamic is just. so fun to play with. i truly love all of their interactions, particularly pre-Flashpoint. the concepts of Tim holding such contempt for Jason while Jason is weirdly obsessed with Tim. i'm a fan of Hannibal and Killing Eve and well. if this isn't a Hannigram-coded ship idk *what* is. i like ships where love and hate co-exist and there's no real "happily ever after", just fucked up co-existing, where they crawl back to each other like a bad habit and really, this ship is that so perfectly. the themes of jealousy in the Robin mantle. Tim wearing Jason's Red Robin suit to punish himself. i will likely never shut up about them. even in the New-52, there's such a substance to them, though the dynamic is wildly different. they will always be so weirdly dependent on each other's existence. i love them.

BruDick - you can't outdo the doer, i fear. i think i like BruDick mostly for the history of it, yk. there's genuinely *so much* queer history seeped into the homoeroticism of Batman and Robin, these two have been a symbol for queer people for decades. but the ship itself has so many dynamics i love. problematic age gap, "are we family or lovers", "i can't be in a room alone with you without getting into a screaming match but if you called i drop everything for you". all of it. i especially favor 80s/90s BruDick when they were in their divorce era just because it's so messy. Dick has canonically said he would die for Bruce, even during their arguments. no matter what, these two will always be single-mindedly devoted to each other. there will be other Robins, but none of them will compare to Dick Grayson, for Bruce. it's a unique and complicated bond that has endless layers to peel back. they always crawl back to each other bc no one else will match their level of intensity.

DamiTim - years and years ago, when i was a teen trying to people-please with how i existed in fandom, i used to insist i didn't like batcest and found it icky and gross. but there was one DamiTim fic that was my exception. that fic was my fucking roman empire. i reread it like once a year even though it's not completed and likely never will be i do not care. so now that i've killed the morality police in my head and i let myself ship what i actually want to ship, this ship holds a top place in my heart just bc of that fic alone. but in general i do fucking love their dynamic. similar to JayTim there's just so much mutual hatred in these two that has endless potential. Damian's insistence to not see Tim as a Wayne and as a legitimate brother/heir to Bruce is something you can play a lot if you give Damian an angry, fucked up crush on Tim he doesn't want to admit to. they have so many reasons to dislike each other, so to try to get them to slowly fall in love is a fun challenge. they either have a long complicated forgiveness arc and end up a happy married couple or they are the couple that tries to kill each other once a week. no in-between.

JeanTim - there's like. one person here on tumblr who goes as hard for this ship as i do and truly god bless them bc they feed me. Jean-Paul is too underrated in the batcest scene. once i reread Knightfall, i will have to help popular this tag on ao3. i enjoy both a very fucked up version of this ship during the peak of the Knightfall arc, where Jean-Paul is deep in his murder Batman era and Tim is trying to stop him to no real avail, but i *also* think there's so much you can do with the ship afterwards, where Jean-Paul is trying to make up for what he's done and be a better person and better hero. they're the peak Batman/Robin ship, to me. they truly care about each other, but have a very complicated/bloody history and i just. man i love it so dearly. i've been meaning to write a fic where Jean-Paul goes to Tim post the Sword of Azrael (2022) arc to properly discuss and apologize for all his actions in Knightfall for his personal healing and they end up fucking. it could be sweet and cute or kinky fun bc what is the joy of a character with that much Catholic guilt if you don't give them a weird religious kink.

BruCarrie - The Dark Knight Returns got me into comics and i will defend it till the day i die. Carrie Kelley can be pried from my cold dead hands. i just really love these two? Carrie took one look at that cranky old bastard and decided she was his problem. and Bruce is at a stage where he should be very averse to the idea of having a Robin, he knows it's a bad idea. but he just. accepts her anyway. idk how to explain their dynamic other than she plunks herself in his lap and stitches up his wounds while telling him he's an idiot and he lets her even if he's grumbling about it. they have the biggest age gap of any Batman/Robin ship and for that, they should get like. a dead dove gold star no matter how rare the pair is.

also honorable mention goes to BruTim, because *god* do i love the concept of Tim offering himself up to Bruce as Robin in every way, knowing that there are likely sexual/romantic implications to being Robin. it's one of my favorite flavors of batcest to exist. i don't view them as a "happily ever after" ship, because Bruce will always go back home to Dick, but it's a fun lil dead dove moment.

[bruhstation]

of fucking course the best, most harrowing, most gut-wrenching tugs character only appeared in one episode (a bit of ramble in the tags)

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/nalyra-dreaming/762934616351031296/theres-something-ive-struggled-to-understand

I always wondered about what the anon asked as well. Care to share your reading?

I more or less agree with the OP's answer that it's about Louis not wanting to be connected to Madeleine, but I think the motivation is probably different?

My read is that episode is really about Louis trying to let Claudia go, and that he's acknowledging the complete dissolution of the family unit. After all, if Lestat and Louis' turning was a wedding, and Lestat turning Claudia was Lestat giving Louis a daughter, Louis knowing that Madeleine and Claudia are a love match in a lot of ways turns him into the father giving his daughter away on her wedding day. Turning Madeleine isn't about love for him, nor about having a child, it's about seeing his daughter as a grown woman ready to start her own family without him.

The acknowledgement of Claudia as an adult is not one he's ever genuinely made before - something s2 makes very clear with Claudia having to pose as his daughter again in wartorn Europe, Baby Lulu being the female diminutive of Louis, and then, even more tellingly, with Dreamstat explicitly referring to her as such - and while she's been pulling away all season and trying to force Louis into independence, it's been something he's pretty clearly very resentful of.

Madeleine though forces his hand, because Claudia finally choosing a companion splinters the last leg of their family unit for good. Madeleine is a stranger to him in the way many children's spouses are strangers to their in-laws, and Louis doesn't have Lestat to share the weight of that with anymore (and he doesn't have Lestat because of Claudia, which deepens the resentment). All he knows - which he discovers through turning her - is that she loves his daughter, and I take Louis trying to get the blood out of himself as a bitter and wounded sort of wedding gift.

He wants to give them their freedom, but at the same time the depression he experienced as an empty nester in New Orleans has already set in, he has to live with the fact that his attempt at a family has ended, and Armand's never been as satisfying to take things out on as Lestat was, to say nothing of the fact that he - as Assad put it - doesn't give a fuck about Claudia. At least Lestat gave a fuck, even if he usually gave the wrong sort of fucks, haha.

So yeah, I think it's a sort of attempt at a resentful wedding present, in a lot of ways, to try and give her this thing without being a part of it, and a real attempt to let Claudia go as his daughter.

Little does Louis know though, Claudia's the gothic heroine of this story, and she's not ever going to get out of her father's (or step-father's) house.

[sysig]

Last man standing (Patreon)

[doomed-era]

one day i'll be able to tell you where gboh link and zelda's friendship goes...ONE DAY...

[nachtsoklein]

unrelated to all my prior ueues except the one this morning bout kurt n the x-kiddos--

ororo he would Cry if he was in the hangar to hear that & I Am Once Again Thinking About--

[charmre]

It's too kind of you to say you can help but there's no one around who can save me from myself

[doodleodds]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..... WE GOTTEM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so SO much to everyone who commissioned (read: enabled) me!!

Now that I've reached my goal of +10ing my boy, and since my time is (unfortunately) still quite limited due to work, I'm going to be closing comms tomorrow! So, if you have an idea and haven't decided if you want to commit or not yet, now's your last chance for the time being! ;) And to all those who have already paid, I know I do still have quite a few to get through- I was a FOOL to think I could just bang these out in 24 hours, lol, but please rest assured they will be coming within the next few days!! I'll get through them slowly but surely. Admittedly I did take a break to draw this guy because I was so pleased to get him, but I'll get right back on the horse tomorrow lol. Thank you so much again everyone!! ^O^

Ferdinand went to a tea party and came back Different

[keeps-ache]

once again i am on the playlist lol