#pre robin jason fuel

[groovyace]

Drawing characters just standing there <3

#jason todd #redhood #he is #.. #he is so small #pre robin jason fuel #or if u so desire #no capes au #he is going out to get groceries w his bro tim #dc comics #batfam #batman #he deserves the world #thefridge

[aalghul]

Thinking about Jason's outward expression of emotions. He tends to only get angry as a response to perceived injustice (the same way Bruce, Dick and most of the others do). But unlike some other characters, Jason rarely every gets wound up in it, nor does he get angry even when he sees injustice if the situation doesn't call for it. Some characters get angry first and then manage their response to whatever's more appropriate, but my interpretation has always been than Jason doesn't need to because he doesn't often begin with the rage. It's not a default, instinctual response for him in most situations. It seems to be that he becomes angry when there is a perpetrator (and specifically, of a crime that hurt people with less power than the perpetrator has, in some way) towards whom he can direct that righteous anger (righteous as in the cause is his drive for justice. I'm not discussing the rightfulness right now). Can he hurt the man who was about to hurt a woman enough that he doesn't dare to try imposing his power over another woman again? Can he do something, anything to stop a serial rapist who has already caused the suicide of at least one woman? But he doesn't possess the sort of blinding anger that could become a driving motivator for his actions outside of someone in front of him to punish. He doesn't need the anger (mostly because he will instead fixate on the crime without rage to fuel him).

The notable exception to this being his behaviour preceding his death (which is explicitly referred to as atypical for Jason by both Bruce and Alfred. The whole reason he's forced to take a break from Robin is because that anger is so unusual for Jason that Bruce and Alfred are worried about Jason's mental wellbeing).

We see in Lost Days that Jason’s default state has become (to the concern of Talia and Ra’s) seemingly unfeeling, and he shows signs of a persistent flat affect throughout Lost Days, with exceptions for when he sees injustice (which is responsive, as compared to the aloofness he uses as a constant state of defence -> see: his and Talia’s conversation after he killed for the first time, Talia being glad that his sense of empathy and justice were able to overcome his general coldness). Jason's aloofness was entirely a conscious defence, but at times he was consciously exercising it (his reaction to Tim in front of Talia vs alone).

We see him cry for himself a few times, which tends to be how Jason first reacts to what hurts him deeply. Then there's his cold hatred for Bruce, which can be taken as anger in the face of heartbreak and perceived betrayal. But that anger never goes very far: Jason couldn't even make himself blow up the batmobile. In the end, it's Jason's belief that he hates Bruce and must make demands of Bruce to force him to redeem himself in Jason's esteem that fuels him. Because Jason wants Bruce to redeem himself, even if it's unlikely that he will.

All throughout Lost Days and UTRH, Jason uses teasing/biting humour in a very Robin manner to direct attention to whatever he pleases, whether that be pulling attention away from vulnerabilities or drawing attention to distortions of the truth. This habit returns to Jason strongly around times when he breaks out of his apathetic state (when he’s killing people who hurt others, pretty much), but the undertones of coldness and derision even with that humour don’t leave. We can see in this habit especially how Jason's become a distortion of who he was as Robin. He's still witty and he still teases people and you can hear the humour in his voice. But now he's using that wit to say cruel things to Batman, deceiving him constantly, and his voice no longer has a youthful kindness to it.

One of the most Helena-esque character traits that Jason’s picked up (in fanon and reboot canon) is anger as an initial defence and reaction, actually. It’s nearly the opposite of Jason’s pre-flashpoint defensive state but is essential to Helena’s. It’s actually not surprising that this happened (even ignoring reboot kicking Jason’s character into a closet and superimposing much of Helena onto him) because of how DC pushed “angry” as Jason’s defining trait, and how fans have believed it for so long. It seems almost natural for a misconception this severe to happen, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because every action of Jason’s is misconstrued as proof for an angry temperament.

#if i'm using a very simplified version of various emotions it's because so does fanon and current canon. i've gotta match that i guess #sometimes i feel like i get too annoying about how different jason's anger is from fanon and newer canon bc there's nothing wrong with that #type of anger in a character but that's irrelevant. because jason's not the firey explosive seething 24/7 sort. he's much colder and far #more pathetic actually because he's lamenting not seething. this is essential. he wouldnt have been able to do any of lost days or utrh if #not for this. literally everything would have gone down a lot differently if jason had that kind of anger in him #jason todd

[damianbugs]

What you mean by" willis todds love for jason is the reason bruce failed him" ?

Sorry ive seen your post and I agree with everything but this just kinda suprise me, not hating, just curiuos

HELLO! so this is a take that is based on pre-new 52 todds, before they were simplified to the one dimensional (and classist) personalities they're known for now. neither of them were shown to be abusive or willfully negligent, but rather found themselves in bad situations out of their control and died, leaving jason to fend for himself.

in the most simplest way what i mean is willis todds self sacrificing actions of turning to crime in order to provide for jason and catherine is the key defining part of jasons life and why he views bruce's love for him as 'not enough'.

(of course, the actual proof of this is like. one single panel and its not even said by jason. however i think it is something that can be found in jasons character through other, less obvious situations.)

in jasons initial (public) return to gotham and that long and convoluted plan to mess around with batman psychology to get the two of them and the joker in the same place, it all seems like a well planned out revenge story until the final conversation:

Batman: Under the Red Hood

it always stood out to me, not just because of how absolutely heart wrenching the entire moment is (definitely read utrh if you haven't, at least once), but because it really gives you an insight into what love and loving someone means to jason.

to him it's an all encompassing responsibility. this idea that love is something that you need to be able to prove by the quantitive value of what you'll sacrifice for it. in this case, jason is saying i love you" in the way he truly believes gets across how much he means it; i would kill the person who hurt you.

whenever i read this part of utrh, another situation immediately pops into my mind. and that's when jason found out two-face had killed willis todd.

Batman #411

upon finding out two-face had killed willis, jason goes on a brief grief filled rampage, swearing he'll kill him for what he did. it's important to note that up until now, jason had assumed willis was still in prison, only to find out he was actually murdered.

again, it's this idea that love is the extremes you'll go to for family. jason was well aware of willis' less than legal means to make money, and even bruce makes a mention of it in.

Batman: A death in the family

i imagine, like a lot of what fuels jason to fight crime now, guilt is a major deciding factor in a lot of his choices. it's this guilt that he feels upon hearing about willis' death that makes him take it out on two-face. it's even guilt that plays a huge factor even in new 52 stories (such as Cheer).

so when he returns to gotham, or even before that, just hearing about what bruce had done following his death (locking the joker up instead of killing him, taking in tim as his robin) were, to him, clear evidence that he did not love jason in any way that mattered. that bruce did not love jason as much as jason loved him.

because loving him means giving up your morals. loving him means sacrificing your health and your time and your safety.

but bruce didn't do any of that in a way jason could see.

i imagine to someone like jason, who lost every parental figure in some capacity, whether it be to illness or crime or something else entirely, the evident disregard for him was as painful as any rejection could have been.

a lot of how jason feels and acts can be seen in much more interesting ways if we all look at him for he is; an unreliable narrator. he is missing huge chunks of story, especially when it comes to bruce, and has no choice but to act irrationally on the little truth he does know.

of course we the readers, and some other characters, know just how hard jasons death was for bruce. how destructively he mourned for his son.

but again, the surface level proof of it is not enough for jason, who's entire life has been love through sacrifice. but now, it's a sacrifice bruce can not ever give him.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

#<- he who is not normal about pre new 52 willis todd #its the first time im getting this thought written out properly so i hope it makes sense #jason is just such an emotionally complicated character #but he was also a child #which is the one thing everyone seems to forget #bruce wayne #jason todd #willis todd #dc meta #character study #saki anons

[betterthanbatman1]

jason's favourite colour. his bedtime ritual? does he like chocolates and what filling.

Thank you so much for the ask <3

• His favourite color is Red. Sure his helmet is that colour, but I like to think there’s a bit more of an emotional connection, rather than the red hood likes red. Just to name a few, we see him in a red shirt in Batman Urban Legends or red Hoodie in Rhato as well as having red bed sheets in his safe house in Batman & Robin #11.

The fact the he wore red a lot in his childhood Pre adoption and post adoption (shown in another panel I added for a different point) shows how he likes the colour and consistency of it. But also wearing red as Robin can increase the love for that specific colour. Eg I once had a pair of socks with grey teddy bears on it which I loved so so much (bare with me pls) now I don’t care how old I am, if I am given an item with a teddy bear print I will actually love you forever. The point is, when something means a lot to you, and you have the chance to fuel that- Robin being the colour red helped ignite his love for the colour. To him red is comfortable, it’s anger and love and passion all at once which sums up Jason pretty well imo.

• His bedtime routine: stumble through the window after patrol, (Not his front door because he’s ✨dramatic✨). Patch himself up, go for a shower, have some water and dissolve into the mattress. Greets his safehouse and bed before going to sleep.

• Yes, he does like chocolate!

Here’s the lil guy enjoying chocolate cake from Detective Comics #573 (He’s also wearing red)

I know you meant chocolates specifically so let’s just say Yes. He likes dark chocolate the best, not too bitter but he likes it when it’s not too sweet. See his little cup of milk, he doesn’t like it too sweet. He tends to just buy dark chocolate bars and snap pieces off as he likes it. He doesn’t usually get any with fillings, if there’s a special occasion (eg at the manor) he might get a mixed box of fillings with raspberry, almond, mint etc. But generally when he gets his shopping he sticks to the necessities because that’s how he was brought up.

#I wasn’t planning to go all character analysis on you but oh well #anyway I love Jason Todd #jason todd #red hood #batman #batfamily #batfam #dc #dc comics #Robin!jason #thanks for the ask!

[darker-dc-dimensions]

Richard “Dick” Grayson

Last bat pre time jump

emojis used: 🦇⏳

(this image is just a placeholder for now)

General Information

 First name: Richard “Dick”

Middle name(s): John

Surname: Grayson

Age: Mid to late 30s

Date of birth: Marc 20th

Race: Romani

Gender: Cis Male

Sexuality: Bi

Current residence: Wayne Manor

Relationship status: Single

Social status: Upper class. Owner of Wayne Enterprises

Universe (AU universe of origin): The Last Bat

 Traits of Voice

 Accent (if any): Doesn’t have much of an accent as he’s trained himself out of having one

Language spoken: English

Other languages known: Romani, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Cantonese, Turkish, Arabic, League of assassin’s dialect, Swahili, Mandarin, Filipino, Korean, Polish, Latin, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Thai, Vietnamese, Swedish, Kryptonian, Atlantean, Ancient Greek, Tameranean, Sign language. (Most taught to him by Bruce Wayne)

Volume of voice: Speaks at a lower volume with a scratchy voice, think like Batman.

 Physical Appearance

 Height: 5´10

Eye colour: Blue

Skin colour: Tan, though he is paler than he was in the past

Distinguishing features: The constant dark bags under his eyes. A facial scar running across his brow.

Build of body: More buff than lean nowadays, think similar to Bruce Wayne, though Dick has a slightly narrower build and has more flexibility.

Hair colour: Black

Hair style: A short, ruffled mess, with little to no style. He cuts it himself, typically by cutting at it with a pair of scissors. He has it professionally cut by a hairstylist when he has to turn up at Wayne galas and alike though. Doesn’t style his hair, and typically has cowl hair.

Tattoos: Has a Robin tattoo near his heart. Wanted more when he was younger but didn’t get any in case he was ever caught and could be identified with them.

Piercings: Has his ears pierced, along with his eyebrow, nose, and tongue. Wears none of them anymore.

Typical clothing: Is typically dressed to impress as any billionaire would, designer clothes though mainly suits and whatnot when he’s on Wayne Enterprise business. When by himself he tends to just wear a pair of well worn sweats and a wifebeater, or the batman suit.

Is seen by others as: He used to be seen as very sweet and approachable, the most approachable of all the Wayne children actually. But after losing his family he drew into himself and became more standoffish and would rarely interact with others outside of business. He’s seen as slowly coming out of his bubble again but slightly awkward with social interaction, though many see it as endearing and empowering that hes doing his best to function even after losing so many people.

 Health

 Sleeping habits: His sleep schedule is even worse than in the past, he gets just enough that it’ll keep him going and keep him from dying.

Energy level: Though he barely sleeps he still has a high energy level.

Eating habits: As he has to cook for himself nowadays, he eats more for fuel than enjoyment, he eats to keep his body healthy and strong and in its best shape.

Memory: He has perfect memory, as it has been trained into him after all these years.

Any unhealthy habits: Many, insomnia, self-harming, self-punishment, smoking, etc.

 Relationships

 Parents: John Grayson (birth parent), Mary Grayson (Birth Parent), Bruce Wayne (Adoptive Father)

Siblings: Jason Todd (adopted), Tim Drake (Adopted), Damian Wayne (Adopted), Cassandra Caine (Adopted), Duke Thomas (Adopted), Stephanie Brown (Adopted), Jean-Paul Valley (Adopted in spirit but not on paper)

Any enemies (and why): Too many enemies to count.

Children: He saw Damian as his son, as he took care of him and was his support system up until Bruce returned from the timestream. Afterwards Dick and Damian were still closer than Bruce and Damian.

Friends: None anymore

Best friend(s): Wally West (hes the only one who hasn’t given up on Dick)

Important friends/relatives (explain): Wally West. After losing everything Dick went down a very dark and self-destructive path and threw Batman’s no killing rule into the wind. He was barred from the justice league because of his self-destructive behavior, and he drew away from others and became rough and mean to be around. Most cut contact with him because he felt like a lost cause, everyone except Wally left Dick to his own devices. Even when Dick would snap and yell at Wally and demand he leave him, Wally never left him and always came back. It ended with Dick breaking down in Wally’s arms, and Dick will never be the same he was before and he is still prickly and cold to others, but at least he has Wally.

Love interest (if there is one): None, though he has had feelings for Wally in the past and they’re still there, though he will never act on them.

 Combat

 Peaceful or violent: Violent.

Weapon (if applicable): Trained in many weapons, though he prefers hand to hand, escrima sticks, and smaller knives or blades.

Style of fighting: close to mid-range combat is his best, though he can do any type of battle really.

 Others

 Occupation: Owner and chairman of Wayne Enterprise

Current home: Wayne Manor

Favourite types of food: Shakshuka, Crab stuffed mushrooms. Pancakes, specifically buckwheat pancakes

Favourite types of drink: Earl grey and herbal teas, black coffee.

Hobbies/past times: Doesn’t have time for hobbies anymore, though Wally will drag him into a movie night or similar.

Guilty pleasures: Cuban sandwiches. Pineapple on pizza. Mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Pet peeves: People being too involved in his business or trying to get too comfortable with him. Aka people caring too much, he always assumes they want something or do it for a bad reason.

Pets: Used to have a dog named Haley.

Favourite colours: Blue, Red and Black.

#character introduction #dc #dc rp #dc roleplay #dick grayson rp #dick grayson roleplay #justice league rp #batman rp #Last bat au #Dick Grayson 🦇⏳ #🦇⏳ #dick grayson #nightwing #nightwing rp #dc au #dc au rp #dc au roleplay

[bigskydreaming]

Dick has said it out loud explicitly, to Damian, that the mantle of Robin was his to pass on. Why do people still feel entitled to talk over him?

IMO? For the exact same reasons that people harp on so much about it being a retcon that Robin was Dick’s mother’s nickname for him and that originally he based the name on Robin Hood. To be perfectly honest that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in regards to the fact that either way the point is still that Dick created Robin and it wouldn’t exist without him.....but the constant attempts to minimize its emotional significance to Dick and any kind of special attachment to it that he has and that the others can’t claim to share....

IMO these are just attempts to distance Dick from the mantle and make him seem less relevant or important to its very existence....freeing up people to focus on the importance of Robin as a symbol and a mantle to everyone else but without having to attribute any special credit or significance or respect to Dick as the originator of the mantle and the character that the other Robins are literally the legacy characters of.

It’s pretty annoying and very shortsighted IMO as actually, emphasizing the connection Robin has to Dick’s first family just enhances the weight and poignancy of Dick ultimately giving each of the other Robins his blessing when he didn’t have to and thus literally choosing them as his new family even without having to rely solely on a connection to each other via Bruce.

Of course people don’t seem to really want to do that either....given how rarely Dick’s blessing even gets acknowledged amid all the angst about who replaced who and who was fired and who wasn’t. It’s kinda ironic...I know so many fans HATE the version where Bruce fires Dick and so whatever they can not to acknowledge it and dismiss it as a retcon....and the ironic thing is? I get it. I totally see why it’s not something they want to run with and to be quite honest I can take it or leave it myself. I like exploring versions of events where Dick was fired, I like exploring ones where he wasn’t. Both have room for digging and delving imo.

My only beef with people who are soooo loud and quick to always dismiss the firing as just a retcon that doesn’t count.....is that in the pre Crisis version of events where Dick voluntarily gave up Robin and decided it was time to move onto a new identity....he gave Robin to Jason himself. The significance of that version of events isn’t JUST that it was Dick’s own choice to move to a new identity and that there was no conflict between him and Bruce about it...it was equally of significance that the Robin mantle was still viewed as inherently his, made by him, and his and his alone to pass on to a successor.

There is no version where Dick gave it up voluntarily but had no role in choosing Jason. The very premise of that mix and match honestly makes no sense because why make such a fuss about Bruce not having overstepped and fired Dick when it was never his place to say what he could claim as his identity or mantle on his OWN (fire him as his partner, sure that was always Bruce’s right, but tell Dick he couldn’t be the hero persona he created for himself? Fuck off Bruce LOL).

But my point is that mix and match makes no real sense because why preserve Bruce’s character from stepping between Dick and the mantle he created to honor his first parents....only to then turn right around and have Bruce still treat it as a Wayne family hand me down that Dick had outgrown when it was only EVER a Grayson family hand me down whose only connection to the Wayne family was through Dick being a member of both families and a bridge connecting them?

Whether Bruce fires Dick as Robin and gives it to Jason or JUST gives it to Jason without Dick making that choice....the one isn’t any better than the other because in both cases the actual offense is still the same: it was never Bruce’s to do ANYTHING with other than what Dick wanted done with it. Take on a new partner? Sure. But give him the mantle made of Dick’s work, Dick’s past, Dick’s every action as Robin? Nope.

So really the mix and match only serves one real purpose, for anyone who is intent on dismissing the firing as just a retcon but sees no need to uphold Dick choosing to give Robin to Jason instead of Bruce doing that...when Bruce doing that is literally part of the exact same retcon they’re so intent on discarding!

The only real purpose that mix and match serves is to keep Bruce centered in the Robin succession with his choice to give it to Jason being the basis of Jason associating Robin with Bruce. It keeps Bruce as the person Jason thinks of and feels connected to every time he thinks of why he’s Robin at all....because Bruce is the one who gave him the symbol that was already well known and full of meaning when Jason stepped into those shoes.

And then of course at the same time the mix and match also ‘lessens’ Bruce’s offense to Dick in taking Robin against his wishes WHILE also suggesting that Dick has less basis of feeling resentful of Bruce passing it on to someone else without his say so because it’s not like he was using it anymore right? And that was his own choice right?

But so what if it was? That doesn’t make it any less his creation and his legacy. It doesn’t make it any less a Grayson family connection and somehow more a Bruce Wayne family connection.

And that’s my beef. That’s the big irony of how flat out counter intuitive the mix and match retcon thing is and always has been. It only accomplishes half its objective....keeps the later Robins more connected to Bruce via it than they are to Dick via it....because it ultimately still runs through Bruce. But it fails to accomplish its secondary objective simply because refusing to acknowledge that Robin is intrinsically tied to Dick Grayson and not Bruce Wayne like....doesn’t actually make it any less true.

And that’s why imo the question should never have been “does your fic go with the version where Dick gives up Robin or the retcon where Bruce fires Dick” ...no, the right question in my mind should have always been “does your fic go with the version where Dick gives Robin to Jason or the retcon where Bruce gives it to Jason.”

And here’s the sticking point:

People always point to Bruce and Dick’s initial connection as the basis of their entire Dynamic Duo partnership. They understood each otrher via their parallel experiences losing their parents to murder. Bruce saw himself in a young Dick Grayson and he wanted to help Dick figure out a way forward to life after his parents’ death by drawing upon his own experiences.

But at the same time, they aren’t the same. Even with Bruce guiding Dick forward through his trauma and grief by following a map made of his own prior experiences, the end result was not the same for both....but it still used some of the same road marks on their respective journeys.

And this is why the Dynamic Duo were always emphasized as partners, as complementing each other, balancing each other....things they could only do because they were not the same and even using similar coping mechanisms to deal with their PARALLEL tragedies....produced entirely different results.

Both used their tragedies, their traumas, their PAIN to fuel their pursuit of justice and desire to help protect people. Both built new personas for themselves to use in their shared missions here....personas which embodied what they wanted to accomplish in these guises while at the same time reminding them why they were doing this.

But the personas they created ended up looking very different despite being born of similar crucibles...because they prioritized different things....and because they were honoring different people.

No matter how much Bruce and Dick have in common due to circumstances they are very different people who are both products of the families and places they come from....and thus even when using similar PROCESSES to build something out of their parallel tragedies, what emerged from the fires once they were done creating from their traumas.....don’t look the same. Aren’t interchangeable.

And neither are their creators.

Bottom line, it in my opinion flat out does not work to attribute more connection to Robin and the succession of that mantle to Bruce than Dick.....because Bruce would never, COULD never create that specific mantle out of his grief and pain any more than Dick ever would or could have created Batman out of his. Because they are too different. They needed different things out of their journeys forward, they were commemorating having had different journeys behind them, they were walking a shared path side by side but you can’t switch the clothes they made to wear going forward anymore than you can switch their footprints beneath their feet....they don’t fit into what the other made because it wasn’t made BY them and it wasn’t made FOR them.

So riddle me this, Batfandom: how does it make sense to focus on their parallel tragedies and how they moved forward from those in similar ways and on a shared trajectory, emphasizing how this is the entire basis of the Batman and Robin partnership from its very inception.....

Only to then view the role Bruce’s grief, his loss, his pain played in birthing the Batman mantle as something sacrosanct, undeniable....these things go hand in hand, there’s no separating them even when others end up wearing the Batman mantle as well, even through multiple generations....

But at the EXACT SAME TIME....treating Dick’s grief, HIS loss, HIS pain and the role all THAT played in birthing the Robin mantle....as something that barely comes up as a footnote the second you put the costume on anyone other than Dick? Something the others never even feel inclined to THINK about when reflecting on the mantle they’re wearing and where it came from and why it exists?

Why is the one rated as so less significant than the other....if the entire point of Batman and Robin is that both heroes were born from the ashes of tragedies so similar they understood each other in ways most other mentors and sidekicks never came close to?

How’s that work exactly?

Look, you’ll never catch me arguing that Bruce isn’t and shouldn’t be central to the Batman mantle, mythos, succession, etc. And I loved Dick as Batman too. But it ultimately should always come back to Bruce no matter how many people add to it in their own ways. Because it’s not just about what Bruce made.....it’s why he made it that matters too. The act of creating Batman is as important to the story of Batman as the created Batman.

And those very same reasons are precisely why Bruce shouldn’t be regarded as central to the ROBIN mantle, succession, etc.

To dismiss the Graysons as not being definitive to the greater Robin mythos is to say Thomas and Martha Wayne bear no special significance to the Batman mythos.

I love that being Robin connects these siblings and ties them all together as part of the same family. I love it being a shared family tradition that encompasses all of them and marks this family of choice as having been specifically chosen by not just it’s patriarch but each other.

But it’s not Bruce’s family tradition and it’s not a Wayne or even a Batman hand me down.

Because it doesn’t even come from Bruce’s family.

It comes from Dick’s. He brought it with him. It’s what connects him to what came before life with Bruce because as everyone knows but so many people often forget to give MEANING....

Dick Grayson, for as much as he is Batman’s son and is undeniably Bruce’s family, had a life of his own before he ever met Bruce.

He didn’t begin with Bruce Wayne. He didn’t come from Bruce Wayne.

And neither did Robin.

[sweetwriting]

TimKon Week 2020 - Day 1: What’s Going On?

Category: Gen or Pre-slash

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Fandoms: DC Comics, Superverse, Teamverse

Continuity: Post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint & Rebirth

Summary:  Iris Force didn't really have visions, she just knew things. But tonight, for the first time, she had one. And it was about somebody who shouldn't be there. The TimKon part isn’t that big even if it hints at how bit it could be. As of this story they’re still just friends so it can be seen as platonic or romantic

Word Count: 3356

AN: A part of this is a WIP I had already posted here : https://sweetwriting.tumblr.com/post/165029401671/hello-this-is-a-snippet-for-a-fic-ive-always but to which I was never able to find fitting parts. This part stayed at least as an inspiration of the Vibe I wanted to give but ended up being put to the side. However this Prompt gave me an idea so I’ll try to see where it goes and if it does’n work well…It will be considered as a bonus :D There’s also a reference to Ruelle’s song “I will Find You” as this song is kinda linked to most of the TimKon Angst and general New Rebirth Plot.

Prompt:  Under Lock & Key - Future 

Can be read on AO3

A breath. 

Everything was dark. Were his eyes even open?  

Another breath. 

What was he feeling around him? It felt like a liquid. But how could he possibly breathe in a liquid?  

Another one. He extended his arms. Glass. Surrounding him.  

And another. Faster. 

He didn’t have enough place to extend them completely.  

Another breath. Panic. 

Who was he? Another one. 

How did he know he was a “he”.  

And another. 

What was going on?  

And another. 

Where was he? 

And another. 

Why. 

Another. 

How.

Another. 

Where. 

Another. 

Superman. 

That was his name. But it wasn’t. It was supposed to be his name. But it wasn’t. Why. Who was he? 

Paul Westfield.

That was his father? No. 

Alexander Luthor. Was he his father? No. Disgusting. 

Who? 

Why? 

How? 

Where? 

Was Superman his father? No. Brother. Clark Kent? Same. 

Names. 

So many names. 

Robin, Impulse, Wonder Girl, Roxy, Rex Leech, Dubbilex, Tana Moon, Sam Makoa, Guardian, Hero, Matrix, Aura, Half-Life, Sparx, Empress, Arrowette, Secret, Red Tornado, Traya, Speedy, Green Lantern, Ravager, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Nightwing, Flash, Max Mercury, Wonder Woman, Troia, Agent A, Batman, Not Robin, Red Hood, Spoiler, Batgirl, Knockout, Lori, Simon, Ma Kent. Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Donna Troy, Diana Prince, Wally West, Dick Grayson, Jim Harper, Victor Stone, Garfield Logan, Koriand’r, Rose Wilson,,Sterling, Kyle Rainer, Mia Dearden, Victoria no Greta Hayes, Cissie King-Jones, Anita Fite, Donna Carol Force, Byron Stark, Lindsey Wah, Hero Cruz, Cassandra Sandsmark, Bart Allen.

Tim. 

Tim Drake.

He remembers. 

Names. 

His best friends. 

Bart and Tim. 

This is a pod or a tube or whatever.

He’s Superboy, Kon-El, Conner Kent. The Metropolis Kid, The Boy of Steel.

And he has to find his friends. To make sure Ma is okay.  He can’t abandon them again. He can’t abandon Tim again. How long was he in there? 

Panic.  

Everything goes completely white. 

- - - - -

Shortly before Flashpoint happened.

Timberton, British Columbia, Canada.

Iris Force woke up with a gasp. It was the first time she saw what felt so far off in the future and felt so entwined with the recipient of her vision. It was that boy, Superboy who had been one of her dear D.C’s friends back when she went to that horrible party place.

She suddenly heard her door open and the voice of her granddaughter, Anastasia, come to her.

“Granny Iris, I’ve felt you panic, are you alright?”

Iris felt her dear Anastasia settle next to her and help her sit by pulling her elbow.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” She answered, leaving herself time to try and sort out what could be happening.

Anastasia’s hands came to take her own in them in a reassuring gesture.

“Don’t worry, I’m honestly more concerned by the strangely strong reaction you showed to one of you visions. And especially since I’ve never known you to have prophetic dreams”.

Iris turned her head toward her granddaughter. She might not be able to see but she wasn’t going to be impolite.

“This is a problem, It didn’t seem to be a prophetic dreams yet it still was. It seemed to be happening in a far-off future but in the past at the same time. Distant and close at once. I’ve been trying to make sense of it but I can’t seem to be able to do that. And it’s something I’d rather have sorted out before I talk to Donna Carol.”

Anastasia startled and asked in a tiny voice why her sister was concerned.

“It’s about the Superboy. You remember, they were friends a few years ago. Even if they lost touch his death and resurrection had deeply affected her and I think this might too.”

- - - - - -

Prime Earth. Around the Time Red Robin’s future self came to the present.

Timberton, British Columbia, Canada.

Iris Force woke up with a gasp. It was the first time she saw what felt so far off in the future and felt so entwined with the recipient of her vision. It was that boy, Superboy who had been one of her dear D.C’s friends back when she went to that horrible party place.

She suddenly heard her door open and the voice of her granddaughter, Anastasia, come to her.

“Granny Iris, I’ve felt you panic, are you alright?”

Iris felt her dear Anastasia settle next to her and help her sit by pulling her elbow.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” She answered, leaving herself time to try and sort out what could be happening.

Anastasia’s hands came to take her own in them in a reassuring gesture.

“Don’t worry, I’m honestly more concerned by the strangely strong reaction you showed to one of you visions. And especially since I’ve never known you to have prophetic dreams”.

Iris turned her head toward her granddaughter. She might not be able to see but she wasn’t going to be impolite.

“This is a problem, It didn’t seem to be a prophetic dreams yet it still was. It seemed to be happening in the near future but in the past at the same time. Distant and close at once. I’ve been trying to make sense of it but I can’t seem to be able to do that. And it’s something I’d rather have sorted out before I talk to Donna Carol.”

Anastasia startled and asked in a tiny voice why her sister was concerned.

“I do not know, I just know it concerns a Superboy. They were friends a few years ago. No. They were not. I know the universe had changed but I don’t exactly know how. This is one of these changes.”

She knew Anastasia was frowning. She could not blame her as it was confusing even for her. She had told her family the universe had changed but since most of those changes were unknown even to her, and since their family didn’t seem in any immediate danger, they let it be and almost never thought of it again. Except for Donna Carol. She wanted to act. To become a hero. It was obvious but she had never acted on it. Probably due to the knowledge that a past she had lived had been erased. While it fueled her desire to help as a hero more than before it also scared her. The fact that her aunt had not left the family and as such making sure Donna Carol did not have an example to follow might have also helped.

Because yes, Iris knew Donna Carol had been a hero and Allure had left. But that was only because she saw the shift between then and now within the family. She could only see the very big changes when she met people concerned by them.

Just like she knew this conversation had happened before the shift. Maybe not the exact same but her other/past self had the same vision.

What was happening?

- - - - - - -

Conner awoke to a dark room. Or was it a cave? It was too dark to tell but he could not hear the telltale sign of machinery. No sound, no light. Nothing

He wasn’t sure. What he knew was that he was in a pod, in a liquid. That he had woken up some time before and gotten most of his memory back. The pod had fallen sideways on the ground and was the glass was cracking. He tried to push against it but he couldn’t.

Why? Why couldn’t he just burst though? Why wasn’t his TTK working? Where was he? What was going on?

So he screamed.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP! BART! TIM! CLARK! CA…”

He was interrupted by crackling. And a sudden burst of blue light.

Right in front of him was electricity in the shape of a woman. He smiled in relief. He knew her after all, she was an old friend of his.

“D.C! Boy am I glad to see you! It’s been a while!”

The girl however didn’t seem to show the same joy.

“Wow Granny said I knew a Superboy in the old world but I half believed her. But you actually look that other Superboy who disappeared, and you seem to know me.”

Now Conner was confused. What old world? Why would she need Granny Iris to tell her they were friends? Why was he still in this thing?

“Whatever! Can you help me get out? I can’t seem to be able to use any of my powers.”

D.C shrugged and agreed. She fried the commands and opened the lid of the pod before lifting him then she promptly let him fall as she covered her eyes and turned around.

Conner fell on his butt, the floor was made of wood so he didn’t hurt himself much, but apparently he hadn’t retained his invulnerability.

“Hey! Why did you drop me DC?!”

D.C. had curled up in the air, her back still to him. She answered him in a small voice.

“You’re naked”

Conner looked down. She was right. It was luck then that the floor was made of wood and not a less smooth surface. He looked around. There wasn’t anything to cover himself as he was in a bare rectangular room only filled with cables. The door DC had opened seemed to show water as he could see the ripples reflecting the moon and stars in what would be a rather bleak night otherwise.

D.C ran toward the door with her eyes closed.

“I’m gonna go try and find you something more decent. Wait here!”

And she left him there. Well he didn’t have much shame but even he knew better than to walk around naked -if only to avoid unwanted attention when he was already so confused. In the meantime he would try to see what he could still do. So he tried to get up, and promptly fell down again.

“OK so baby steps…literally.”

Two hours later and he could finally walk almost normally. However he really couldn’t use any of his powers. He also wasn’t anywhere close to knowing what was going on. That’s when he heard the telltale sound of Sparx’s powers nearby.

She came in with her eyes closed and two pieces of cloth in her arms.

“OK so pants are harder to fit especially since I don’t know your size so I found a hoodie and a skirt, hope you don’t mind”.

She threw the clothes n the room and turned around. Conner Started putting them on as he answered.

“They definitely wouldn’t be my first choice but I don’t mind. At least the skirt is nicer than the dress I had to wear last time”.

“Wait.You really wore a dress?”

“Yeah, it was to be used as a distraction. Honestly it was fun even if I had my costume underneath. All right, I’m all done.”

D.C turned toward him.

“Hey it’s actually not that bad. Though the fact that it’s night and we can’t really see the colors probably help.”

Conner rolled his eyes. Of course he looked good in it. He looked good in almost everything. Granted he wasn’t sure what he looked like right now. Sparx coughed and he brought his attention back on her.

“OK so…this isn’t the most comfortable place to talk and I’m honestly not the best person to talk world heroics with so I’m gonna bring you to my family and especially my granny Iris. Don’t worry though they all…”

“Have powers, yeah I know I already met them, you brought us there remember?”

“That’s the thing actually, I don’t. I’m only here because of granny Iris”

“Oh.”

There was a slight lull before D.C started again.

“Anyway we should go, you can fly right?”

Conner shifted slightly.

“Yeah, actually, no. I seem to have lost my powers actually”

“Well it’s okay, I’ll just have to fly you there. We might have to take a few breaks though because while I’m not slow, I’m also not strong enough to go all the way there while holding you in one go”

Conner nodded and they left. As Sparx got high up in the sky, he noticed that what they left wasn’t a room but actually one of several train cars left on the side of a river bank. It seemed to have been separated from another part which was nowhere to be found. Moss had started to grow on it so it had been there for a while. He had been there for a while.

- - - - - - - -

It took them six hours to get to the Force family and they mostly spoke about the new tv shows that D.C. had found interesting lately so they would avoid any topic too heavy (apparently he had missed out on a hilarious cop show). Also Smartphones were so much more advanced as they were the last time he saw them.

- - - - - - -

Timberton, British Columbia, Canada.

As they landed in front of a house in a clearing surrounded by woods, a young brown-haired teenager came to greet them.

“D.C ! Mom said that you would probably need to rest when arriving so you need to show Superboy the guest room.”

D.C. undid her transformation and turned into a cute girl with short brown hair and dressed in a baseball shirt and jeans.

“No way! I’m not tired and I wanna know what’s going on!”

Ana smiled at her big sister and turned toward the house.

“Granny Iris said you’d say that and is waiting for you both in the living room”.

D.C rolled her eyes and grumbled a short “then why not invite us there directly?” before going after her sister followed by a nostalgia filled hero.

Iris Force looked as dignified as ever when, putting the cup of tea she was sipping back on the teacup in her hand, she greeted her granddaughter and her friend from another life.

“Hello Superboy, it has been a while. Though I believe you did get a few name since we last saw each other.”

“Hi Mrs Force. I go by Conner as a civilian and Kon El among other heroes now. Though you already knew that. It’s nice to see you again”.

The older woman kept her eyes closed as she smiled at him. He and D.C sat down on the couch next to Granny Iris’ armchair. Both had a teacup waiting in front of them on the table, filled with warm tea.

“You’re much more subdued than I remember young man. I would like to say it is nice to see you have grown up but as I know what some of it implies I’m afraid I am just saddened for you”.

Conner flinched at the bluntness and D.C almost got up to yell at her grandmother before changing her mind as Conner nodded at Granny. The older woman started talking again.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to fill in most gaps, you know our family doesn’t really get involved in heroics so we don’t have the same kinds of information you could get from those people. All I know is that a few years ago, I woke up with the distinct feeling that things had changed. I didn’t know what but when I saw Allure and D.C. I immediately knew what had changed for them. For you….I can see what you where but I’m not sure what you are right now. Do you have any idea what happened to you?”

Conner stared at the teapot in the middle of the table for a few minutes.

“I don’t remember how I got there to be honest. The last thing I remember clearly was being with my best friends, Tim and Bart. I’m…I’m pretty sure I was with Tim for a while but I don’t know where or what happened.”

There was a pause.

“Oh my God! I don’t know where he is! I don’t have my powers I can’t make sure he’s okay! What do I do?”

“Maybe just google his name, whoever “he” is.”

Conner turned to D.C who showed him her phone already put on a google page. He tapped Tim’s name in the search bar and found pictures of the Wayne family with basic information. He frowned. Something was definitely wrong and it was not just because of Tim’s height…Wait.

“That’s not Tim!”

D.C Looked on her phone and almost screamed.

“You know the Waynes? Wait. Why do you say it’s not him?”

Kon turned the phone fully toward her.

“Look he reaches Bruce Wayne’s ear and it say he’s 5’10” and that’s just wrong. Tim’s tiny. He barely reached 5’6” and his hair here is way too short so that can’t be him.”

D.C. looked at him with an unimpressed look.

“Seriously, that’s what you’re basing this on? The Tim Drake from this world could have simply eaten better food that helped him grow up or there was a light alteration to his genes that made him taller and maybe he just got used to having short hair.”

“Well it also says he just turned 17 and I remember celebrating his 18th birthday.”

“This could simply be a timeline issue”

“He’s just weird okay! And not just him. This picture kinda creeps me out actually”.

Conner gave D.C her phone back as he started pouting. He wasn’t good with words but he knew something was wrong. It was in the attitude displayed. There had always been a level of fakeness in these kinds of pictures if only because of Brucie Wayne’s character, but the affection never felt as fake or distant as it did in this picture. DC played with her phone for a few seconds before giving it back to him.

“Maybe it was just that picture, look here are some other ones”.

So Conner tried. He looked at them all but they all gave him the same vibe. He tried to look for Bart too but nothing came up. There was only Barry Allen. He gave D.C her phone back and shook his head while trying to stifle a yawn. He would look for Cassie and the others later. He wasn’t sure he could take another disappointment right now.

It’s at this point that Granny Iris intervened.

“I think it’s time for you both to go to bed. Donna Carol you’ve flown for a while you should rest. Conner will try to get in touch with other heroes later on. I believe the Wally West you know is around somewhere. But you need to rest a little.”

Both D.C and Conner nodded and D.C lead the not-so-much Boy of Steel to the guest bedroom for the night. Before they parted ways, she informed him there should be clothes for him there and that he better explain how they knew each other after breakfast.

There was a small bathroom linked to the room and Conner used the opportunity to take himself in. He was tiny. Well not really but compared to how buff he had gotten in recent times he was closer to how he was when he was born at first. He even had his hair back. Even though he had cut it short to try and avoid looking like Superman, he had to admit that he missed having longer hair.

As he settled in his bed the only thing he could only think of one thing. He would find them no matter where they were. He was not going to lose Tim and Bart. They could probably handle themselves but he didn’t want them to have to. He didn’t want Tim to be on his own again. He just wanted to be with him right now.

- - - - - - - -

Somewhere in Metropolis

“CLARK!”

Clark Kent woke up with a start. He tried to focus on a voice he thought he heard. But when he tried to focus on it he couldn’t seem to remember what it had been.

Maybe it was just a dream. He wouldn’t have lost it if it had been real after all.

He went back to bed.

#TimKon Week #TimKon #Conner Kent #Kon El #Iris Force #Donna Carol Force / Sparx #BrOT3: TimKonBart #OTP:TimKon #BrOTP: TimKon #DC Comics #Family: The Waynes #Superboy and the Ravers #mostly... #Superboy (1994) #Rebirth is such a mess guys #I swear

[thattimdrakeguy]

Every now and again I just see people keep super hyper and loud about stuff that to me is so pointless that it just makes me wanna quit this fandom some days.

Like, it’s great people have passion for something that they love, but some people live in such a bubble that they just sort of ... ignore the obvious? Like they’ll do what ever mental gymnastics to make what they think seem legit, and they seem to really wanna argue about things to people, and I love discussing things a lot, but, to ARGUE about something, that the way they describe it, feels like I’m discussing one thing, while they argue and yell about something they just made up.

And people just making stuff up in this fandom is a very common thing, like, the Bat-Family isn’t the family unit people make it out to be, Tim isn’t a coffee addict, Dick isn’t a happy go lucky ditz, Damian isn’t a normal kid (nor should be a cute kid on the norm), Steph isn’t just a plucky young lass that’s so pure and obsessed with waffles and eggplant and that’s it, and Cass isn’t just gonna sit there and be the good child (or a complete jerk on the other hand)

and most people are aware of that, and most don’t get hyper.

But sometimes i just see people get so ... hyper over crap people made up, that it makes me just wanna leave the fandom.

I mean obviously I don’t, I just need a 5 minute cool down to get my mind straight and just get it in my skull that it’s normally just a small group of people in an echo chamber that got loose in some pubic forum, blog tag, or group chat.

But like, I have to be almost certain these people don’t even read the comics they get really passionate about it, and it’s mind boggling. They’ll just be saying straight false sentences but they say it in a way they seem to actually believe it like they convinced themselves that it’s true, and it stops me silly because I just can’t ... process how something like that could happen.

Like ... people love the idea that Jason as Robin was this cute little nerd and never did a thing wrong, and I been wanting to make a post on this because ... it’s not really ... true.

Jason was a nerd more then what some current DC writers think, but I literally read Jason’s Robin run that started past the 80s reboot and ... yeah, he liked doing homework and reading, but are they just gonna ignore he chokes a guy very close in time to after he becomes an official Robin?

If you love Jason I just sort of feel like you gotta accept how he actually is (ignoring the actual out of character stuff like him being a full on serial killer mad man like some writers used to do), but I see some people just really fight this idea that everyone ever mischaracterized this character in every way, from what THEY got, because they saw a panel, odds are that was pre-crisis, and got too carried away.

Or maybe it’s a Tim fan that read some out of character stuff in the New 52, and saw some out of character stuff before the reboot, and wants to get this made up idea that he’s a potential killing machine, when that’s the stuff that didn’t add up to the other stuff in his character.

Possibly it’s a Damian fan that likes Super Sons and just wants to ignore the fact that Jon went from being kidnapped and under the threat of being potentially murdered by Damian to being his friend, like that’s not straight up horrible story telling, they just want Damian to be this cute bean, that by design, he’s not. He’s a kid, he has progressed as a character, but id be terrible story telling if he just became a video game playing, toy collector, with a pure farm boy as a best friend, and that might’ve been what Rebirth wanted to do, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not character development when it comes out of the blue and doesn’t work with what was already shown of the character, or just plain awful story telling.

Sometimes it’s even just a Dick fan seeing him hug people and they took that to be his WHOOOOOOOOOOLE CHARACTER, like some how he’s the happy-go-lucky, ditzy, sort of stupid, hug obsessed bean bag character, and that’s just not Dick. Like he’s not Batman, that’s a lot of the point of his character, but he had anger issues, he gets frustrated, he angsts a lot.

People will just blissfully ignore lots of the character, and I assume it’s cuz they don’t read the comics, and the problem isn’t they don’t read the comics, but just how passionate and how much some people will yell about these made up, and blatantly wrong (if we’re gonna take about how accurate it is to the comics) ideas of the characters, and I will see them scream and get pissy with writers or fans that don’t go with the idea.

When these things were just made up because people were just messing around having fun, and people took it way to far.

Like how did these people, who odds are never read a comic book, get so fueled up on these fanon ideas that they will actually start yelling about it when it isn’t properly represented in the comics, when it was never there in the first place. Why do they care so much about something they don’t read? And why do some of them just yell at comic book creators when they don’t represent these ideas when it would make no sense to include them since they don’t work with what the actual stuff is.

Like some days it just gets really frustrating when I see it.

[setsailslash]

kuro’s yearly fic roundup

98,198 words and 58 fics later, it’s mostly been a DC kind of year for me. under the cut is a roundup of my fics (minus my 30days writing challenge from aug: AO3 masterpost).

i don’t really say it enough, especially not here since i can never really get used to the formatting but thank you to everyone for all the continuous support. the comments and kudos and especially the people who made the effort to reach out to me really made this long rough year a lot kinder.

i’ve got my fingers crossed for things to look up for y’all in the new year to come :))

-

DC: aquabat (dceu ‘verse)

hook, line, and sinker | When he grins at him, it is all teeth.

reel me in | It is not the kind of stop-start pause but a full body one that lasts all of three solid Mississippis when Arthur catches sight of the two suits carefully laid out on Bruce’s bed, looking like there is only one other place they can belong on. (It’s him.)

the current is strong | Arthur is sitting cross legged in the middle of the Wayne cellar when Bruce finds him.

DC: dickjay

you're tough and riding rough | GCG ‘verse | Even if he doesn’t quite remember the world before the seas evaporated and the cities burned, he still stops every time he sees red.

red-handed | pre-slash | He fills his lungs up in smoke to force out what remains of before. Or, Dick Grayson doesn’t need to love him to care, he doesn’t even need to like him, which makes absolutely no sense to Jason Todd.

flip of a coin | canon divergence au | Nightwing kills Joker, he doesn’t stop there.

Irreversible | Dick wears his heart on his sleeve. It is only fair that Jason finds himself wearing his scent across his skin.

the wicked truth | Nobody is keeping count even if they probably should. Or, Nightwing finds himself standing between the muzzle of Red Hood's gun and the scum of the earth, and in the blind spots of the city’s surveillance cameras, Red Hood says. “If it’s a hole you wanted, you could’ve just asked, Nightwing.”

this must be the place (you must be the one) | high school au, for JayDick Summer Exchange | The lesson to learn here is this: life goes on regardless of whether Dick made out a little (a lot) with his brother-not-brother. Before that, there is some growing up to do.

the second son | batman white knight ‘verse | Dick goes into this thinking he is bringing back Bruce's rightful son. He comes out with a little more than that.

you're golden | titans tv ‘verse, pre-slash | Jason is eager, bright eyed and untarnished, and Dick has no idea what he hates more.

jagged and in ruins | talon!Dick | The Gray son of Gotham meets the damned prince of Gotham.

liar, liar, short pants on fire | titans tv ‘verse | Jason takes Machiavelli's words to heart, sort of. 

here is my downfall | Dick laughs faintly, and Jason knows this as his Achilles’ heel.

DC: sladejay

hellbound to me | for sladerobin week | Robin doesn’t survive Ethiopia but some thing does. Or the devil got to Jason Todd before Talia does and Slade Wilson makes a deal.

DC: brujay

soften your blows on me | batman white knight ‘verse, 2nd person POV | You were his first boy wonder, and you, Jason Peter Todd, always knew the bat came to collect what he is due.

there is a spotlight on us now | titans tv ‘verse | Bruce is Jason's for as long as they have been together. 

your fire in my veins like blood | soulmates au | Soulmate is a very pretty word, dressed up in all the right circumstances and there is the perfect love story for the ages too. It just isn't theirs. Jason is looking at death in the eyes when he finally figures out just what Bruce is supposed to mean to him.

DC: multi/OT3s

stars aligned | DickJayTimDami | If Robin has a relationship status with death, it would say: It’s complicated. Good thing, their own is even more so.

small town murder mystery ‘verse | DickJayTim, no capes au, 3 part series | Tim Drake does what he's always done best, he solves the mystery placed in front of him. Or, the moral of the story is: you're home sweet home in this small wretched town of ours.

bumps on the road less traveled | DickJayRoy, for joydick weekend | They could've gone for a roadside motel (been there) or even a gas station toilet stall (done that). Instead, they are fucking in the backseat of a sensible four door sedan, almost wretchedly so with how fuel economic it is.

DC: gen

amalgamation | batboys | The old bat is dead. Gotham descends into chaos. His birds are not far behind.

the momentum is startling | DCEU, JL team+batboys | Twenty years in Gotham and four Robins later, Batman joins the Justice League. Or, the baby birds are not so small anymore but the flock flies home all the same.

DC but as in Devilman Crybaby:

empathy, not sympathy (your shoes hurt the soles of my feet) | Ryo/Akira | His tears are salty sweet, like blood on his mouth, on his tongue, in his throat, and in the pit of his stomach filling him whole. Or, in time, even the devil falls in love.

second chances are not for us | Ryo/Akira | Like a sharp glass shard, sticking out of place, you get what you deserve.Or, Akira is a bleeding heart and Ryo is whatever the fuck that is the opposite of having a heart of gold.

you win some | Koda/Kotoba | Death follows, always in his peripherals and he can run forever but he isn’t quite so sure he wants to outrun Junichi’s ghost.

in kind | Akira/Koda | He could have died, he should have died. And he would have died too if he didn’t have the need to live and love.

#i've never really done a fic roundup but i've seen some posts around and thought it might be a nice idea #kuro writes #dc #devilman crybaby #jaydick #brujay #aquabat #robinpile #and others because i've always been weak to multishipping

[sqoiler]

i’ve decided that one day back when bruce was in the early batman years, maybe at around dick or jason as robin or maybe even pre robin, batman admitted to being bruce wayne, except nobody took him seriously. it wasn’t on TV or really on the newspapers, it just happened to get out a little and years later the internet took hold of that idea to make the idea of bruce-wayne-as-batman into a my immortal-esque meme. im talking the troll/serious debates, the mystery of it all, the “who is really batman? is it really bruce wayne?” bruce won’t say anything about it when buzzfeed interviews him, but the entire internet loves it and bruce secretly adds fuel to the flame---

do the butts match?

#i hope this is frikin legible #batman #bruce wayne

[maxwellyjordan]

A “view” from the courtroom: Trials of Mississippi

Today will bring an intense hour of argument about race in jury selection in the case of a Mississippi man who has been tried six times by the same prosecutor, which will culminate in a series of short questions by Justice Clarence Thomas, his first during oral argument in three years.

But first, there are a couple of lighter moments.

Justice Thomas questions petitioner’s lawyer in Flowers v. Mississippi (Art Lien)

Chief Justice John Roberts announces that Justice Stephen Breyer has the court’s opinion in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, interpreting a provision of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Breyer has been busy at opinion time this week. On Tuesday, he delivered the first dissent from the bench of the term when he responded to Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Nielsen v. Preap, which gave the federal government greater authority to detain, without bond hearings, immigrants facing deportation who have committed crimes. Breyer spoke of the “basic promises” that the nation’s legal system offers all persons, including a bail hearing.

Breyer also announced the judgment and delivered a plurality opinion yesterday in Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den Inc., about whether an 1855 treaty between the United States and the Yakama Nation tribe pre-empts a Washington state fuel tax as it applies to the tribe’s transport of fuel by public highway.

Today, Breyer just has a straightforward announcement of a unanimous opinion in Obduskey, holding that a business engaged in no more than nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings is not a “debt collector” under the fair-debt law, with one exception. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has filed a concurrence.

The chief justice then announces that the court is issuing a per curiam opinion in the argued case of Frank v. Gaos, a challenge to “cy pres” settlements in class actions in which the funds go to the lawyers and certain nonprofit organizations, while class members get nothing.

Roberts begins a summary of the per curiam by explaining the underlying issue — that Google has allegedly violated the Stored Communications Act by transmitting search terms of the user to the server that hosts the selected web page.

The chief justice explains that the class action applied to searches conducted by Google users from 2006 to 2014, “so that means most of you.” He gets a good chuckle from the courtroom.

He goes on to explain the reason for the per curiam treatment today — that the solicitor general has raised concerns about whether any named plaintiff in the case actually had the right to sue, known as standing. The court is sending the case back for the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to consider standing in light of the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins. Thomas has filed a dissent.

Next up is bar admissions. There are a few individuals and two groups today. One group is from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, whose members will certainly find the argument engaging. The other group is from the Western New England School of Law. The school official or alumnus who presents the group draws growing laughs as he introduces his son, his nephew, his cousin, then a few non-relatives, and then another son, who is a member of a different state bar than the first son.

In his understated way, Roberts says, “Your motion is granted, and your relatives and the other applicants will be admitted.” This triggers a wave of laughter, and one person in the public gallery even claps at the quip.

The chief justice — he’s here all week.

But the mood quickly turns serious as Flowers v. Mississippi, the lone case for argument, begins.

As Amy Howe reported in her argument preview, this case involves Mississippi death-row inmate Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for the 1996 murders of four people in a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store.

Doug Evans, the local district attorney, served as the lead prosecutor at all six of the trials.

In Flowers’ first two trials, which involved a single murder charge, Evans used his peremptory strikes to eliminate all 10 potential African-American jurors. Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death, but both convictions were later reversed by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which found that Evans had engaged in intentional misconduct, such as introducing evidence of the other murders.

At his third trial, Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of all four victims, as Howe wrote. But the Mississippi Supreme Court also overturned those convictions. Evans had used all 15 of his peremptory strikes to remove African-American members of the jury pool, the state court ruled, in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky.

When Flowers was tried a fourth time, Evans used 11 peremptory strikes to remove potential African-American jurors, resulting in a jury with seven whites and five African-Americans. That jury deadlocked, as did the jury in Flowers’ fifth trial, Howe noted. Evans used five peremptory strikes in that trial, but there is no record of the race of the jurors whom he struck.

At Flowers’ sixth trial, in 2010, six of the 26 potential jurors in the jury pool were African-American. Evans allowed the first one to be seated but then struck the next five prospective African-American jurors, resulting in a jury of 11 white jurors and just one African-American. Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death for all four murders.

That 2010 conviction was upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court, and upheld again after it was remanded for reconsideration in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Foster v. Chatman, which held that the use of peremptory strikes to remove potential African-American jurors, as reflected in prosecutors’ notes, was unconstitutional.

This most recent conviction is the one before the justices today, and they will consider whether the state high court erred in how it applied Batson.

When Sheri Lynn Johnson of Cornell Law School takes to the lectern representing Flowers, she asserts that Evans began the sixth trial “with an unconstitutional end in mind, to seat as few African American jurors as he could.”

She describes the numbers and some of the anomalies in the questioning and striking of potential African-American jurors, factual matters that will be batted around in great detail today.

Alito interrupts her with a question that will help set the tone for the argument.

“The history of the case prior to this trial is very troubling,” he says, and it is “cause for concern and is certainly relevant to the decision that ultimately has to be made in the case.”

But “if we were to disregard everything that happened before this trial, and we looked at the strikes of the black prospective jurors as we would in any other Batson case, do you think you’d have much chance of winning?” he says.

The evidence is that Evans acted with discriminatory motivation, Johnson says.

Alito, a former United States attorney for New Jersey, presses her on some of the relationships between many of the potential jurors and either the defendant or the victims.

“Again, put aside the history,” Alito says. “In the end, we can’t do it, but if you did, don’t you think a prosecutor or any attorney would be very wary of having a juror who had been sued by one of the parties?”

The argument will veer several times to the close-knit nature of small-town Winona, with a population of no more than 5,000. One prospective juror worked at the same retail store as the defendant’s father, or “the world’s smallest Walmart,” as the trial judge called it and Alito repeats in court.

“It’s a very small town where everybody knows everybody, apparently, or many people know many people,” Justice Elena Kagan says to Johnson. “And it’s a largely segregated town, where you might think that African Americans knew more African Americans than they would whites or vice versa. So does that account for some of the differential questioning?”

Yes, says Johnson, the Mississippi Supreme Court said that concern accounted for some of the differential questioning.

“There are more African American jurors who report relationships with defense witnesses or the defense family members,” Johnson says. “But there are five white jurors who report such relationships and whom the prosecutor did not ask questions about those relationships.”

Jason Davis, a special assistant attorney general of Mississippi defending the state high court’s decision, begins his time at the lectern by conceding that “the history in this case is troubling.”

Davis says that “if we disengage this troubling history … if we take that out of the case, we don’t have any taints.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh tells him, “We can’t take the history out of the case. … It was 42 potential African American Americans and 41 are stricken, right?”

Davis accepts that description, which appears to apply to numbers from the first five trials but not the sixth.

The chief justice tries at various times to move the discussion toward a general principle.

“We’re sort of conducting this as if it were one case,” he tells Davis. “And in terms of a broader rule, do you recognize or do we recognize in our precedent any restriction on the prior history that can be brought up with respect to a current case?”

When Davis says no, the chief justice asks the question in a slightly different way, as if to make sure he is hearing the state’s lawyer correctly.

“My point is, is there anything in our precedent that suggests that there ought to be a limitation on looking to the history of the prosecutor involved?” Davis stands by his concession.

“There’s no limitation on the history,” he says. “I think certainly the precedent says that you have to consider it.”

Sotomayor, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, tells Davis that she tried to conduct some research on formalized principles for when a particular prosecutor should no longer be the one to keep retrying a case.

“At least my former state prosecutor’s office would have substituted attorneys long before the fifth, sixth trial,” she says. “[I]t does seem odd to me that any prosecutor would continue to try a case with this history.”

Davis agrees with her that it is “an unusual circumstance, an unusual case with these six trials having been all tried by the same prosecutor. But I would resubmit, again, that the decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court in this instance was not violative of Batson and its progeny.”

Roberts informs Johnson that she has four minutes for rebuttal. She rises and says, “Unless this court has further questions, I will waive rebuttal.”

Not so fast. Someone has a further question. Thomas has been leaning forward as if he were itching to ask a question, but he does that from time to time and it is usually just a tease.

Today, he will ask his first questions at oral argument since his 2016 questions in Voisine v. United States, a case about firearms possession by convicted felons. (The questions he asked that day were his first serious ones in more than 10 years.)

“Ms. Johnson, did you — would you be kind enough to tell me whether or not you exercised any peremptories?” he says.

She informs him she was not Flowers’s trial counsel, to which Thomas says, “Well, … were any peremptories exercised by the defendant?”

Yes, she says.

“And what was the race of the jurors struck there?” continues Thomas, who was the lone dissenter in Foster v. Chatman.

“She only exercised peremptories against white jurors,” Johnson says. “But I would add that the motive — her motivation is not the question here. The question is the motivation of Doug Evans.”

Sotomayor chimes in with some help, pointing out that the defendant’s lawyer didn’t have much opportunity to strike black jurors.

Johnson decides that she will make a concluding statement after all.

“When all of the evidence in this case is considered, just as in Foster versus Chatman, the conclusion that race was a substantial part of Evans’ motivation is inescapable, and the Mississippi Supreme Court’s conclusion to the contrary is clearly erroneous,” she says.

And with that, the case is submitted.

***

Past cases linked to in this post:

Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) Foster v. Chatman, 136 S. Ct. 1737 (2016) Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016) Voisine v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2272 (2016)

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