theflopwonder

[theflopwonder]

Fun thing about football right now is that there's a move called the "brotherly shove" that the Eagles do when they're very close to scoring, where the whole team puts their hands on the ass of the guy with the ball and physically propels him over the line into the endzone for the touchdown, and all the other teams' fans hate it because it's got such a ridiculously high rate of success for the Eagles and doesn't really seem to work for any other team. People are straight-up calling for this move to be banned, claiming it's "unstoppable" and gives an "unfair advantage" but it really and truly is a skill issue. The whole league hates this move because it only makes the Eagles win more often and nobody else can figure out how to do it right

[theflopwonder]

one of my favorite things to do in limited perspective is write sentences about the things someone doesn't do. he doesn't open his eyes. he doesn't reach out. i LOVE sentences like that. if it's describing the narrator, it's a reflection of their desires, something they're holding themselves back from. there's a tension between urge and action. it makes you ask why they wanted or felt compelled to do that, and also why they ultimately didn't. and if it's describing someone else, it tells you about the narrator's expectations. how they perceive that other person or their relationship. what they thought the other person was going to do, or thought the other person should have done, but failed to. negative action sentences are everything.

[theflopwonder]

do you think covid happened in the dc universe. discuss*

(* i don’t take the danny devito catwoman story as canon but you can, if you like)

[theflopwonder]

People learning & being surprised that Tim listens to punk/grunge is always so funny. Why does it shock you that the kid who chose to be a vigilante listens to “down with the establishment, up with the people” bands

[theflopwonder]

yeah dude tracing dc by publication history is the fastest way to induce a migraine and for some reason BatBooks in particular are just notoriously bad at following or obeying things going on in other books featuring said characters even tho all it would take is a one off sentence to explain it, and ESPECIALLY in Tim’s case. This is why everyone thinks he was dating Cassie and Zoe at the same time. I know it’s meant to be a half baked joke but still, he wasn’t cheating, the editorials just REFUSED to talk to each other 😭😭

[theflopwonder]

this is one of those polls that's an awkward combination of "knowledge check" and "what is your personal interpretation of ambiguous/contradictory canon," and i won't say much more about it here so as not to bias results, but i think it is a genuinely interesting question

[theflopwonder]

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

[theflopwonder]

if Tana was to ever briefly come back, be it through another black lantern event or a just a simple little time travel mishap … how would Kon react?

[theflopwonder]

lucius fox didn't deal with all of bruce's shit for years just for you to say tim drake runs wayne enterprises. put some respect on his name.

[theflopwonder]

“Straight outta Gotham”

[theflopwonder]

This bit was the height of comedy to me as a kid.

[theflopwonder]

Part of the TT03 fortress party fic involves Tim catching Kon lip syncing very passionately to something so I need y’all’s help

[theflopwonder]

i think one of the best characterization exercises out there is thinking about your favorite character's flaws. what things do they struggle with? what are they often wrong about? how do they react to being wrong?

for example, i think kon's biggest flaws are his naivety (especially early kon), his brashness, and his unwillingness to ask for help, or even admit (even to himself) that he needs it. these often combine into situations like him getting in over his head because he acts with his heart first and his head later (a big example would be young justice during owaw. another would be the knockout situation, where he so desperately wanted to believe the good in her that he didn't want to hear anything else (note: this is very much compounded by the grooming), and a third would be his part in critical condition, where he showed up despite being depowered and didn't tell the others he lost his powers until they were already on the mission).

what i do also find fun is that while kon can be brash and quick to act, he also apologizes when he's in the wrong, without beating around the bush or hemming and hawing much about how he could've been right etc etc. the biggest example i can think of is when he apologizes to alpha centurion at the end of trial of superman arc, for suspecting him of being cyborg superman in disguise. he's impetuous and often leaps before he looks, but he also recognizes that when he's wrong, he should own up to it. which is not a trait too common in 16 year old boys (😭) and therefore stands out to me.

it's just good to think about, imo! what a character struggles with, what things they're often wrong about, and how they react to being wrong. flaws are what make characters interesting!

[theflopwonder]

[theflopwonder]

I THINK ABOUT THIS ALLL OF THE TIMEEEEEEEE.

(also teehee i will be using this as an excuse to discuss what realistic racial dynamics in Gotham would look like bc I am a black new jersyian, which isn’t the point of this post but it activated my ranting chip, and is going to mirror a lot of what op says)

The thing that a lot of comic writers like to skimp over, unless it's to perpetuate harmful stereotypes, is that disenfranchised neighborhoods, particularly in the inner city, where Batman's work is initially concentrated, especially in the early years, are usually overwhelmingly populated by black and brown people. Historically, for black people specifically, this is because of a Great Migration period during Jim Crow where black folks would come up to the more industrialized north for increased job opportunities and less racism. This is why Newark, NJ has such a high African-American population to this day, it was one of the hotspots.

As a black person who has lived in both NJ suburbs and its inner cities, inner city gothamites would not like Batman for a long ass time, if at all. Why? A lot of comics will focus on Batman stopping a drug deal or a gang member, but do nothing to address the socioeconomic conditions, or demonstrate cultural competency in portraying these neighborhoods' relationship to drug dealing, drug addicts, gang affiliation, and organization, which is often very morally complex, and SURE AS HELL doesn't consider their relationships to police forces or assumes that the power dynamic is shifted in favor of the black and brown inner-city neighborhoods, rendering the cops useless and letting crime prevail which is even WORSE and just blatantly untrue.

OR They just take on a paternalistic view of "these neighborhoods and the people in them need to be saved from themselves". So they have this white man swoop in and save the day and everybody in the neighborhood is just supposed to love him, while the uptight politicians are the ones who have the criticism so you, as the viewer, will already have the seeds of hate planted so you feel vindicated when they are revealed as corrupt and THAT'S the real reason they hate Batman.

In the beginning, Batman will be seen as someone who contributes to the prison industrial complex. He is not helping the citizens of Gotham, he is just a cop. He is a symbol of another white man wreaking havoc on a predominately black neighborhood, and the police won't do anything to stop him. This will even be exacerbated by him beginning to work with the police. If Batman wants to be looked upon fondly by the people he is supposedly helping, he's going to have to acknowledge the racial divide between uptown and downtown Gothamites. He is going to have to WORK for his respect and understand the reasons why he, as Batman, may never get it

(my headcannon is that No Man's Land is when the perspectives of BOTH Bruce Wayne and Batman's reputations turned into net positives. For Bruce it was going to Congress and being the only one to fight directly for them, [as one of the major points of NML was how unfair it was to poor people]. For Batman, it's that when he couldn't get the kids left in NML out of the city, he stayed and protected them anyway. He didn't just go running off like everybody else [even tho he technically did, but y'know, they don't know that), and leave them stranded and alone? That's worthy of respect to them.)

Now if I was too apply ALL OF THIS to Red Hood ... the one shred of hope of black and brown citizens of Gotham would have is that Batman does not use lethal force. He will ruff up our people, break an arm or a leg or a nose, but he will not gun them down. He will not use lethal force. They will not lose their lives. He will let them see another day. And if they see another day, then they have the possibility to do better, and THAT is where Batman and the people of Gotham's hood will be able to find common ground and coexist with each other.

That is completely gone when Red Hood enters the scene.

No, people in the Gotham's hood would not like Red Hood, he would just make things worse. Way worse. He would be the actuality of what everyone feared about Batman. He would ruin a decade's worth of work that Batman put in trying to fix his reputation within these neighborhoods.

You only understand that when you understand black and brown people's relationship with law enforcement.

They will mistake black and brown mothers telling their children to be inside before the streetlights come on as "lower crime rates" and would they be correct? On the surface, sure. But it wouldn't be because of anything productive, it would be because you have successfully scared an entire neighborhood into complacency. You've essentially put them under unofficial marital law dictated by a myth and justified it by saying "Well Batman only scares people who need to be scared,"

(They do this in Batman v Superman, very blatantly, and with a Black woman saying it verbatim, and it's ... it's an interesting choice, I go back and forth on how I feel about it considering the timeline conditions but for now I digress).

I'd even go as far as to argue that the ONLY people who would like Batman as a concept from jump are non-black people in the suburbs. Batman is the type of idea that allows white people to have a conscious spa day, to offer up a simple solution to a complex problem so they don't have to do any deeper thinking about it. He is the whitest of the white savior concepts. Oh he's getting those drug dealers off the street? Thank god, they'll keep that fentanyl away from our promising young and precious suburban kids.

However, once Bruce Wayne began announcing all of these initiatives to help poor people, despite this being the thing that would be what make the crime rates go down and stay down, it also resulted in black and brown people ascending in socioeconomic status oh..... now those kids from the hood are going to be moving into our good schools.... they're going to corrupt our children and expose them to guns and drugs and gangs OH NO! NOT MY GOTHAM!

Semi-Anecdotally and Semi-Historically: This happens a lot in NJ & NY. Speaking for NJ, this happens a lot with kids in inner cities like Newark, who will move downwards to places like Plainfield, and then Plainfield becomes essentially segregated in everything but schools, and people will worry that those "Newark Gangsters" will corrupt their kids, so they move them down further into suburbia to like ... Edison, or Piscataway, where high housing is enough to keep people out. Then they begin defunding Plainfield schools, and stationing Plainfield cops in black parts of town until they decide to gentrify the neighborhood again.

(This is also why you shouldn't listen to people who question why people still live in Gotham. At one point, Camden was one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It is also a college town. Newark is still not a very safe place to live. It is ALSO technically a college town)

Canon-Wise, let's look at Robin issues 25 & 26 (my detested) where a storyline about bringing guns to school has one of Tim's classmates say this verbatim.

He ends up losing his life to a black student via gunshot. It’s framed as ambiguous but to me there’s an obvious reason why this escalated LMFAO don't put your hands on people in a school hallway.

Despite the fact that both kids pull out a gun at the exact same time, and shoot the exact same amount of bullets, who do you think gets more sympathy from both Tim and from the narrative altogether?

Whose motives are positioned as higher in moral value?

Who’s motives are ever even considered?

Who is Tim allowed to lecture gently, vs who is he and Bruce allowed to hunt down, scare, and capture?

This story is allowed to have emotional weight for Tim because he knows Karl. It deliberately attempts to make the reader lose sympathy for Young El because they attach him to a gang.

Batman does make a point to mention that it just easily could’ve been Young-El that died, but it only positions Karl as the only who “doesn’t understand his choice”. They’re the same age. Both high school students. Could it not also be argued that Young El’s situation is worse because he is being exploited by a gang, that is also taking advantage of the fact that he does not fully comprehend the choices that he makes? Or does that only apply to poor former bully jock Karl Ranck.

Let’s also unpack that subtle but glaring racism.

1. The immediate assumption that Young-El will re-offend is racist. Although Tim says it directly, Bruce also indirectly agrees, (conditionally to prop up the "usefulness" of Batman). Was Young El the first person to say it? Sure, but that's just more racism being perpetuated by the narrative because it's not being done to try to make the reader understand black and brown people's relationship to the incarceration system and why recidivism commonly happens, it's meant to portray Young El as a mouthy kid resisting arrest for a crime he committed.

It offers no sympathy towards him even though he is just as much a pawn in the city’s corruption as any other child that falls into a gang. If anything this should be more incentive to y’know … make sure he has help upon release but hey what do I know?

2. This moment, specifically:

If we are analyzing this keeping in mind that Young El does not know who Robin is, but can fully hear this statement being made towards him, ABOUT HIM, in this context that means this can now be considered a VERY racist micro-aggression being aimed towards him. To even hit on the point of each citizen preferring a different vigilante, this is now a reason that Robin's reputation is in the negatives. If I can't count on you to arrest me without being subjected to what can easily be taken as a racial microaggression (because again, he doesn't know who Tim is, or his relationship to this crime and it is unrealistic to expect him to, all he knows is that this white kid is arresting him and telling him that he's essentially too stupid to understand him, which is reinforcing a racial power dynamic) there is now nothing separating you from a regular degular cop.

3. The idea that the fear of seeing Batman will be enough for Young El to not re-offend is racism. That’s not hope for someone's future, that's a form of oppression and is AGAIN fueled by the narrative’s refusal to extend any sympathy to Young El. Telling black and brown citizens that "beyond the law and the courts" (that have historically tried to eradicate us btw) there is …. More fear? More reason to be afraid of the world? And then you wanna end the comic talking about some damn PEACE?????? PEACE FOR WHO???????

Also Bruce’s smile in that panel about scaring Young El … that’s amusing to you? Scaring high school kids that you’re supposed to help? That’s how you want Batman to be “useful”? High school children being exploited by gangs are the people that are supposed to be afraid of the Batman? Oh that’s not… anyway.

In the panel before that one, THEY'RE STILL pointing guns at Young El and the gang, despite the fact that if they are being detained they have already been frisked and had their weapons taken away already.

Sure you can argue that this is less a Batman problem and more reflection of how this actually happens in real life, but idk if I’m writing a story where a deliberate point is made that my protagonists don’t use lethal force … but then they disappear on top of a building and watch as these children and adult gang members are submitting under the threat of lethal force, despite having no weapons no drugs and no way of escape …. you see the problem here?

Hate this mini-arc sooooooo bad. even tho I do think about it a lot when thinking about Tim's relationship with school violence. it's a watershed moment for him and so important to his development, but it's also racist as fuck.

I SAY ALL OF THIS TO SAY. There's a lot of this bullshit that basked into comics, hell, into Batman's very conception that makes it easy to fly over people's heads. I'm sympathetic to it, I first read Robin when I was 15. A LOT of shit was flying over my head. But I do encourage you all to approach these stories with a more critical eye, as they can and do help deepen your understanding of these characters.

And let’s be honest— modern ideas of crime are intrinsically tied to American racial ideologies (the modern American inception of cops is deliberately based on slave catchers). Without considering that nuance, Batman (and definitely Red Hood) can very quickly become another layer of fear and control rather than people who are truly trying to help these neighborhoods thrive.

I know we tend to roll our eyes at "Batman beats up poor people and mentally ill!!!" takes cuz most of the time they're ridiculous and said by people who do not interact with canon but like ... the idea that one person's savior is another person's boogieman is very true, and NOT ALWAYS GOOD, especially if we are considering the usefulness of an american Batman, who is not exempt from american racial dynamics, which very obviously exist in his fictional Gotham, even if subtextually through speech, through drawing, through panel sequencing, etc. Batman is a fantasy, but his lasting power as a character is fundamentally dependent on how well of a reflection he is of real life, and THIS would be the real-life makeup of a real-life Gotham City. I spend a lot of this post critiquing, but I still love these characters, and it's because I love them, that these dynamics are so interesting to explore.

Anyway rant over, I probably did a shit job at convincing y'all but if you made it to the end of this long-ass post, YES PLEASE. EVERYBODY, PLEASE READ CANON.

You know what I've realized these past several months on Tumblr and just...years of consuming content?

It's pretty rare for the fandom to acknowledge Gotham as a city. A real, living city with people in it. Like, sure we always get cutesy posts about Batman or the others from outside perspectives or fics that include interesting ocs (I love u if you do that btw).

But what I mean isn't that. What I mean is: does anyone think of Gotham and its citizens as actual people? Because I've sure seen kind of the opposite.

I see constant arguments or heavily biased (mostly misinformed) posts regarding what Bruce does and how the Batman helps the city. That his riches would get lost in corruption and no one can save the city unless there's violence. You could try and make the argument, sure. But we've seen time and time again in comics that Bruce uses his money to the benefit of the city. We've seen in comics that he employs people who are disadvantaged and gives them opportunities. People know Bruce Wayne gives jobs and treats his employees well. He donates heavily to charities, creates his own organizations, funds Leslie Thompkin's clinic, and consistently updates the safety of his own buildings. People (at least post-Crisis) would know that Bruce Wayne did everything he could to save Gotham after the Cataclysm earthquake/No Man's Land - that he went up against Congress. Of course, not everyone would like Batman. Not everyone would trust the Wayne name. They'd see a stranger who prowls nightly and may or may not rescue you. They'd see the privilege of an old rich name who gets to exert his influence over the city. If you go to him for help, you go to him with the fear, and anticipation of rejection or with the knowledge that he will be safe.

I've also seen the (imo) ridiculous notion that Crime Alley citizens would trust the Red Hood. Maybe some would now, after the reboots and actual comic book evidence that he's doing something. But I cannot fathom living in a city with such heavy crimes occurring and then trusting what is essentially a cop. People don't know the Red Hood. They don't know Jason Todd. They would only know: 1. he has tried and succeeded various times to take over organized crime and drug routes 2. he can and will kill if he sees it fit. In some people's eyes, he would be a cop with even less judicial oversight. In some families, he would be the killer of their breadwinner, of their fathers or family members or lovers. A man with a gun. Eyes without a face. If you go to him for help, you go to him for blood.

This doesn't even begin to lay out the insane amount of vigilantes who live/operate in Gotham. The Batman is not the only figure. The Red Hood is not the only figure. If you boil down Gotham to only the conflict between these two characters, you miss the nuances and varied opinions of the city by miles. If you boil down Gotham to just Batman-affiliates, you miss even more.

For every person who doesn't trust Batman, there's someone who'd prefer Huntress. For every child who lives in fear but can't trust an adult, there's Robin or Batgirl. For an abused woman, there's other women out there who help: Catwoman or Black Canary or Holly Robinson. There's people who'd never trust a vigilante but want safety, they'd have Leslie Thompkins (who operates in Crime Alley) or Lucius Fox who could give them a job.

Not to mention, Batman is very obviously white. There would be some people who would rightfully mistrust white men, and would prefer figures like Orpheus or Onyx or Batwing or the Signal or Huntress (post-N52). There's the Creeper, who would be terrifying but some might prefer the monster over the man. There's Ragman, an explicitly Jewish vigilante who was literally called the Tatterdemalion of the Oppressed and trusted by the poor and homeless. There's Batwoman, Mother Panic, Spoiler, Nightwing, Red Robin, Azrael, Bluebird, the enigmatic idea of the Oracle, Anarky, Ghostmaker, Gotham Girl/Boy, Catman, Alan Scott-Green Lantern, Wildcat.

Hell, maybe someone who lives in Gotham would just straight up trust Superman or the Flash or Wonder Woman more than anyone else. Maybe they'd never once trust someone acting for a perceived view of justice and would just trust an employer like Two-Face or the Riddler or any mobster.

I'm stressing my point here: when you write anyone who lives in Gotham City, keep in mind that they don't know they live in a comic book world. Secret identities are foreign to them, they only know the base actions of each vigilante. Each person's opinion will heavily vary. Every experience colors their view of the city and vigilantes as a whole. Just, idk, widen your horizons and consider about what someone living in a place like Gotham would really think.

To that end, read the comics!!! Research actual cities!!! Take in experiences and history!!! It's all interesting and just adds so much more.

You want one comic that shows Bruce helping Gotham and the various views of Gothamites, read Gotham Knights #32, published in 2002 and titled "24/7." Read it online illegally if you have to!!

[theflopwonder]

He definitely is, but I think it takes him a second to get there.

What I’ve always found really fascinating about him is that, his suits have always been so stylish, but he’s always dressed sooooooo plain out of suit. Like the 00s really stripped everyone of cool fashion, but even in the 90s when Bart was on faucet failure levels of drippy and Tim always had on a funky little varsity jacket or a band T-shirt, the most fashionable thing Kon would be dressed in is an opened button up with like palm trees on it or some shit.

I think his civilian fits are a little plain, especially in Hawaii, for 2 main reasons

1. Fashion, at least back then for him, is more of what’s cool rather than a means of personal expression. He’s Superboy, he’s the kid! Girls love him, guys wanna be him, all things that are dependent on how cool and fly (hah!) he is. If goes out to a club or something he kinda feels like doesn’t need to dress cool, cuz he is cool and that’s his entire point!

2. He funnels everything that’s cool into Superboy (cuz DUH somebody has to be stylish wearing the S they can’t all just be out here looking like identical nesting dolls that’s lame! and when he becomes Superman for realsies he’ll probably have to wear the uniform this time so he might as well make shit fun while he can) but obviously he can’t wear the suit all day every day cuz that’s disgusting so his civvies are more so just a matter of convenience. They’re gonna get destroyed anyway when a villain crashes his coffee date n it’s expensive enough to replace his leather jacket all the time so like … what’s the point?

And when it comes to TT03 … honestly after his time in Suicide Slum falls apart, I think he’s is in such a long-term (but high functioning) depressive state (which would explain the very intense swandive into irrational self hatred after the Luthor thing) that he falls into the T-Shirt and jeans out of convenience. He doesn’t care about what’s cool, he doesn’t care that he’s a shell of himself, he is just so disillusioned in his identity, and frustrated and hurt and mad at the world but he doesn’t know what to do with any of these feelings besides internalize them. So a costume honestly becomes the last thing he’s worried about. He’s a hero, what they do often isn’t cool and isnt a game, so the only thing he should be worried about is helping people and he can do that just as well in a t-shirt and jeans as he can spandex.

When he comes back from the dead, and the worst of the depression lifts enough that he can get a little more clarity, fashion becomes one of the first things he uses to explore his identity. He stops looking at his Conner Kent persona as something to keep up in service to other people, or something meant to save him from himself, and begins to appreciate it as something that’s uniquely his to create from the ground up. It starts simple, he wears his leather jacket again, and despite his assumption, he doesn’t feel like a poser, it something that just like … feels right. And so then he begins to funnel more and more things from Superboy to Conner Kent and vice versa. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but it gives him the courage to try new things, things that neither Superboy, Kon-El, OR Conner Kent have tried.

Okay he likes leather jackets, what if he tried guyliner? Oh that look fucking awesome what if he tried doing graphic liner designs? It wouldn’t be guyliner anymore technically (he has … well … very genderly feelings abt this, predictably launching him into another identity crisis [plot twist: it’s all the same, he just hasn’t realized it yet])but it would be cool TTK precision practice? Oh wow that looks fucking BALLER okay okay what if he added glitter to it….. oh hey that duo chrome glitter on top of the black kinda looks like a galaxy … hey it would look pretty cool if his suit kinda had that same effect … maybe he should design another one?

Instead of thinking of coolness as a thing he steps into, he realizes that coolness is something that comes from him, and is based in personal expression. Like damn he might draw some stares in Kansas wearing this DIY crop top but if he pairs it with this funky flannel half buttoned and these high waisted but ripped to hell jeans BAM he fits in AND still looks fucking hot, AND still wearing the clothes that he wants to wear bc he thinks they look fucking cool! All of those things are allowed to coexist!

i’m writing another Big Fic (for me at least) so yk what time it is