#the opposite of what dc is doing is this: don't make the people who do have said crush harass him or kiss him without his consent

[allovesthings]

In my opinion, the butt jokes are incredibly incredibly tired.

So here are several fun facts about Dick that you can use for comedic effects/running jokes instead:

His hatred of Capes. Listen we are talking about Dick wore a yellow cape for 9 to 10 years in universe Grayson. The moment he changed his costume, he straight refused to ever wear a cape again, the only time he had to wear one, it was as Batman and it was very very frustrating for him.

You know that when he watched the Incredibles with Lian and Roy or Damian and Edna Mode came on screen with her hatred of capes, this was his reaction:

Someone else finally understand him. She instantly became his favorite character.

His tendency to put unknown substances/evidence in his mouth and being able to identify it by taste and his knowledge of what Heroin taste like (yep still not over it).

It's both impressive (the fact that he can actually identify something by taste alone is impressive) and gross and even his closest friends don't understand why he is the way that he is, Do we think it's the Bat training or do we think it's just Dick (tm)... I feel like it has to be just Dick, right ? considering everything in Gotham is a toxin of some kind ? How many heart attack do we think he gave both Bruce and the Titans with that ?

Dick Grayson namer of superhero things: Listen, I just learned that Dick named the Arrowcave and now I just kinda love the idea of a running joke that every time a classic superhero in contact with Robin has a goofy name for something superhero related, it probably comes from the 9 year old superhero who thought it sounded cool.

The Titans are never letting that go and Dick doesn't want to talk about it (but he secretly still really like the names, they were cool when he was 9 and pretty practical when you think about it, thank you very much).

Everyone has a crush on him (tm): Honestly it is pretty funny that everyone and theirs entire family have a crush on Nightwing (and also pretty consistent canon since Raven in ntt). The reaction of the batfam is annoyed because that's gross, it's Dick, theirs brother/son, and the Titans are amused (Donna, Vic, Garth and maybe Wally) or maybe sorta part of the people who have had a crush on him (Kory obviously , Roy, Raven).

You do need to be careful with that, but I think if you do the opposite of what DC is usually doing, you'll be fine.

Also you can also includes the disastrous first date with supergirl in that. She also had a crush on him and they date was so horrible that he considered changing superhero identity because it was so embarrassing (truly one of the greatest plot-point on Superman/batman world finest honestly and this series is genuinely my favorite modern/current series)..

His petty side when he doesn't like someone: Listen, Dick has a petty side, ask Helena circa Outsiders (2003), Talia (always), Jason circa the late 2000s (Morrison era) and Azrael (also always). When he doesn't like people but has to work with them, he is going to be a little shit because they have to know he doesn't like them. it's important. and the comedic potential of Nightwing, one of the most competent, known and admired hero of the community being so petty is excellent. 10 out of 10, I need him to work with someone he hates again just for the fun of it.

The last one is just an headcanon and do not have basis in canon as far as I know:

Sometimes, as an adult, Nightwing says Holy shit in front of a classic superhero and that superhero does a double take because they are so used to him saying Holy goly batman (and that include Batman).

#dc #dc comics #the opposite of what dc is doing is this: don't make the people who do have said crush harass him or kiss him without his consent #dick grayson #nightwing #batman #roy harper #robin #the titans #dcu

[boyfridged]

Do you agree that Jason, as written by Winnick in UTRH and Lost Days, acts out of character post-resurrection if we take into account his post-crisis robin days? If yes, how would you have him act/react to stuff after he comes back from the dead?

tldr: i definitely agree. moreover, classism plays a huge role in it, and i don’t think that at this point the storyline could lose these implications, which makes trying to conceive what an “in character” (for robin jay) version of these events would be quite difficult. 

let’s just start from saying that i don't think it's a secret that i don't really like winick in general. despite his work being mad interesting on a conceptual level (and style-wise, genuinely well written!), he has no love for the characters he writes about. 

imo utrh shouldn't even ever make it into the mainstream batman timeline. i am aware that this is a radical opinion, but my take is that it would do best as an elseworld story (and in this version too it would need some tweaks here and there), because it made damage both to the mythos of batman and jason's legacy that can never be undone. the very premise of the story is so deeply disconnected from jay's original place in the narrative, and so classist at its roots, that there's not much room to truly fix it. 

(i want to say, preemptively, that i am aware that there are people who read utrh as a story of a revolutionary and a victim – and they have the right to do so, but ngl, my view has always been that it was never written as that. utrh reinforces so many stereotypes that it overshadows the revenge tragedy spirit of it all.) 

another disclaimer is that, to be honest, jay doesn't have a very consistent characterization even in his 80s run, and it also has some classist implications that ideally should be either erased or addressed in the text (that winick instead exaggerated and put at the very front of his storytelling.) starlin's writing is, at the end of the day and very much ironically, more sympathetic and gentler in evaluating jay (simply because at the time he would not get away with changes too blatant) but details such as jay saying that "all life is game" and his random nonchalant behaviour that has its origin in the very beginning of starlin’s run are already signs of it. some readers will trace jason's arrogance prevalent in his red hood era to these issues and say that his actions post-res are therefore a logical extension of his robin days, but i don't buy it. even if you want to lean into starlin-esque characterisation, if you consider the core problem of the garzonas plotline – which is power, jay shouldn’t look into the solution of anything in climbing to the top. and if he did, it would have to be written as a “becoming what you feared/hated most” kind of story, which i can see a certain appeal in (and which would at least acknowledge that it was not his initial personality), but which would go back to its classist assumption of cycles of violence and doomed fates.

so – how to make his post-res era more accurate to his post-crisis robin days (and least classist in the process)?

if we were to follow my fav iterations of his characterisation (barr’s detective comics and the ntt appearances) tbh I don’t think a lot would happen, because his personality is quite mild, and just so hopeful there that i wouldn’t expect any extreme actions from him – but then again, the circumstances that he finds himself in post-res, the trauma, and his sensitivity do warrant grief that should become a driving force in his life from now on. the question is, what to do with this grief as a plot device?

i know that plenty of jason fans hate this take but I actually think the concept of jason trying to be detached and cruel but being bad at it might be one of the least offensive to his 80s characterisation. it’s def not accurate to pre-52 canon (apart from countdown perhaps) but imo for jay to be authentic and nuanced he should be conflicted about his own actions. his overconfident behaviour should be a pose – just as his frantic acts in his origin story as robin were. (again, something that many readers don't take notice of – but reading the rest of collins' writing wherein jay quickly settles into being easy-going and even a bit shy is proof of it.)

these two points lead to the “no good deed” narrative that I often talk about - the reading that jason saw his intuitive and self-sacrificial kind tendencies as something that brought him pain and that never was quite efficient, and that post-res he intentionally tried training himself out of. there are some flashes of it here and there throughout the years of the red hood publishing history, but it never got a true spotlight. and if i were to write lost days, jason flinching at his own violence would be a focal point of the story. 

moving on to utrh; i have spoken about it at length before but I think if he were written 1. with more political sensitivity 2. to have retained the same maturity re: the social order 3. to have the same idea of morality, he should have followed more of actual revolutionary tracks and the whole “drug lord” authoritarian figure schtick along with the idiotic idea of “controlling crime” would have to be thrown out of the window. 

and, later on, forgiveness should play a big role in his story. he's so quick to forgive and justify everyone in his robin run – this is also why i reckon his team up with harvey in tfz was a wasted opportunity.

so, in conclusion – perhaps not that much would have to change re: his actions but definitely a lot should change regarding his emotional journey and his position. i would def throw out a lot of mindless violence and power posturing out of it though. and perhaps make him a bit more polite just for the sake of more consistency (this is not me taking a moral stance btw nor tone policing a fictional character. i just think it would be more faithful to his 80s writing unless you want to make him explicitly scared. and it would be funnier tbh.)

#i think i have written some about it on my old blog #but i'm too lazy to look it up and also i got a lot of hate because of that #i also had a longer post talking about how it can be fixed *now* #anyway i want to say. #i do enjoy jason acting feral i do. #and i do want to allow people to enjoy whatever they do #but you simply can't look at jason's characterisation post-res and lie and say it's not a classist caricature #so maybe i am judging people who don't see any problem with it a bit <3 #and despite my love for cyclic narratives #i do want better for him. and i do want him softer and more mild-mannered #not because i am tone policing people nor because i think anger is not warranted #but because i think it's clear that the source of it in his writing #is not anything revolutionary. it's the opposite #like idk make helena more full of rage or whatever #this was not jay's original place in the narrative. #it was the opposite actually. and i miss him so bad dear god i do:( #anyway i think it's hard to think of him post-res in character also because when i think of what is in-character #i also consider what (as i said) the place in the wider narrative was #and jay's death already ruined it mostly #for it to be regained he would have to start anew as a civilian OR as better batman in crime alley i think #sorry for so many tags. #this is such a delightful ask thank you <3 #dc #jason todd #jay.zip #jay.txt #outbox

[roobylavender]

one thought before i disappear again but i really fail to understand damian fans' logic or interaction with canon on any level like your entire engagement with him as a character relies on a bastardization of every person around him. i don't see what worth there is in comparing how dick and bruce are comparatively written as parental figures in damian's life when your primary basis for analysis is canon from a writer who believes (1) dick shouldn't be in a relationship with kory bc he's happy-go-lucky and hates drama; and (2) bruce's life as a hero naturally culminates in fascism. neither of these are good faith takes on the characters involved so how can you place any value in how either of them are portrayed to interact with damian by way of that. and obv this doesn't even get into the plethora of talia issues which i have essayed about to the point of exhaustion. like idk i get that i can't make people hate a character obv lol and for many damian fans that attachment is there bc they read about him when they were young but i still don't really understand what there is about damian to be invested in once you're an adult who realizes he is holistically built on character assassination and racist stereotypes that he is inseparable from. like you can't really analyze his interactions with anyone without the context for those interactions being shoddy writing of someone else and i know that can happen in comics a lot but it happening in isolation is different from it forming the entire basis for a character

#to be deleted #like idk the parental comparisons wrt damian make my eye twitch. you are arguing about bastardizations this is USELESS.. #the fact that people genuinely believe bruce being written as an abusive asshole who would tell his child to his face that he doesn't like #him or treat him like an alienable object bc he didn't raise him himself and was turned into an animalistic assassination is just #so deeply insane to me like i get people don't like bruce sometimes it upsets me sure but the reasons are there but this just #feels so extreme bc it's literally built on the most egregious bastardization of bruce ever that refuses to even #acknowledge how deeply he loves and wants to help children not to mention how excited he was when talia was pregnant #and to be honest. to be HONEST. new teen titans dick would not have been able to stand damian at all #they do have some of that snark and dick is clearly annoyed with him when he has to take damian under his wing but like #it's ridiculously tame compared to how new teen titans dick would have reacted to someone so loath to team work #dick went to bruce's house when jason died and asked point blank why bruce put an incompetent kid out in the field #he's severely poor when it comes to tact and i'm not saying developing a relationship with damian would have been impossible but #it would have taken time and it would have taken time bc of DICK needing to adjust. not the other way around #dick is good at being a leader and taking charge when all the parts of a machine work in synchrony #what he's not good at is being faced with deviations from expectations esp when they cross the line with his morals #idk i know this is starting to sound like a bruce apologist dick hate post but it's really not i promise i just #i feel like people deliberately misunderstand their demeanors and expectations ESP in context of how they're written with damian #and bc when they're written with damian is at a time in dc comics where their respective character trajectories are practically #opposite to what they were twenty years ago rather than feeling like any kind of natural progression

[sassydefendorflower]

I want to talk about something. I want to talk about ableism in fandom. And sexism in fandom. Oh, and racism in fandom.

Mostly though, I wanna talk about how the discussion about these things often gets derailed because people don't understand what trends and typical behaviors actually are.

Whenever a Person of Color, a woman, someone disabled, someone queer (or an intersection of any of these groups) points out that certain fandom trends are bigoted in some shape or form, half the replies seem to be "but they are my comfort character! Maybe people just like them better because they are more interesting!" or even "people are allowed to have headcanons!" - the very daft even go for a "don't bring politics into fandom" which is a personal favorite because nothing exists in a vacuum and nothing is truly apolitical. But alas~

What most of these replies seemingly fail to understand is something very, very simple: it's not about you.

You, as an individual, are just one datapoint in a fandom. You are not the trend. You do not necessarily depict the typical behavior.

When someone points out that there is racism in fandom, that doesn't mean every fan is racist or perpetuating racist ideas*. By constantly mentioning your own lack of racism, quite often, you are actively derailing the conversation away from the problems at hand.

When someone names and describes a trend, they don't mean your headcanon specifically - they mean the accumulated number of headcanons perpetuating a harmful or outdated idea.

I am not saying this to forbid anyone from writing fics about their favorite characters or to keep anyone from having fun headcanons and sharing their theories and thoughts - quite the opposite actually. A critique of a general trend is not a critique of you as an individual - and you're going to have a much better, and more productive, time online if you can internalize that. If you stop growing defensive and instead allow yourself to actually digest the message of what was pointed out.

I am saying this to encourage some critical thinking.

Allow me to offer up some examples:

Case 1: A DC blogger made the daring statement that maybe Tim and Jason were such a popular fanfic focus because they are the only two undeniably white batboys. Immediately someone replied saying "no, it's all the fun traumatic situations we can put them in!". Which is an insane statement to make, considering the same can be said for literally ANY OTHER DC Batman and Batfam character.

The original post wasn't anything groundbreaking, they didn't accuse anyone, didn't name any names... but immediately there was a justification, immediately there was a reason why people might like these characters more. No one stopped to take a second and reflect on the current trends in fanfiction, no one considered that maybe this wasn't a declaration against people who like these characters but a thesis depicting the OVERALL trend of fandom once again focusing on undeniably white (and male) characters.

(don't get me started on the racebending of white characters in media that has a big Cast of Color and the implications of that)

Case 2: A meta posted on Ao3 about ableism in the Criminal Minds fandom caught my attention. A wonderful piece, very thoughtful, analyzing certain characterization choices within the fandom through the lens of an actually autistic person. The conclusion they reached: the writing of Spencer Reid as an autistic character, while often charming and comforting, tended to be incredibly infantilizing and at worst downright ableist. They came to that conclusion while CLEARLY stating that the individual fanfic wasn't the problem, but the general fandom trend in depicting this character.

Once again, looking at the replies seemed to be a mistake: while many comments furthered the discussion, there were quite a few which completely missed the point. Some were downright hostile. Because how dare this author imply that THEY are ableist when they write their favorite character using that specific characterization.

It didn't matter that the author allowed room for personal interpretation. It didn't matter that they noted something concerning about the entire fandom - people still thought they were attacking singular people.

Case 3: I wrote a fic about abortion in the FMA(b) fandom (actually I've written a weird amount of fics about abortion in a lot of fandoms, but alas) and I got hate comments for it. Because of that I addressed the bias in fandom against pro-choice depictions of pregnancies. I pointed out that the utter lack of abortion in many omegaverse stories or even mpreg or het romances, painted the picture of an unconscious bias that hurt people for whom abortion was the only option, the best possible ending. The response on the post itself was mostly positive, but I got anon hate.

(which I can unfortunately not show you since I deleted it in the months since)

And I'm not overly broken up about it, but it also underlines my point: by pointing at a general problem, a typical behavior, a larger trend... people feel personally attacked.

This inability to discuss sexism, ableism, racism, transphobia, etc in fandom without people turning defensive and hurt... well, it damages our ability to have these conversations at all.

Earlier I said YOU are not the problem - well, i think part of this discussion is acknowledging that: sometimes YOU are in fact part of the problem. And that's not the end of the world. But you can only recognize yourself as a cog in the machine, if you can examine your own actions, your own biases, your own preferences critically and without becoming defensive.

And, again, this is not to keep you from finding comfort in your favorite characters and headcanons. This is also not to say that I am free of biases and internalized bigotries - I am also very much a part of the system. A part of the problem.

This is so you can comfortably ask yourself "but why is there no abortion in this universe?" or "why are my favorite black characters always the top in my slash ships?" or "why do I write this disabled character as childish and in need of help?" - and sometimes the answer is "because I am disabled and I want comfort", and that's fine too.

There is no one shoe fits all in fiction. There is not a single trope that captures all members of a group. There is no single stereotype that isn't also someone's comfort. No group is a monolith, no experienced all-encompasing (or entirely unique).

There is never a simple answer.

But that doesn't mean you should stop questioning your own biases, your own ideals.

Especially, if you grow defensive if someone points out that a certain trend you engage in might be racist. Or sexist. Or queerphobic. Or fucking ableist.

*this does not mean negate the general anti-blackness perpetuated by most cultures as a result of colonialism and slavery

#criminal minds #dc #batman #racism #fandom racism #fandom #fandom discourse #sexism #fandom sexism #ableism #fandom ableism #discourse #fma #fmab #abortion #abortion rights #pro choice #opening up a discussion about having discussions

[qqueenofhades]

Hi just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to these anon messages. I work in dc w a fairly wonky set and i cant overstate how haunted the DC Professional Thought Havers are by the spectre of the "low propensity voter." I think these ppl (myself included LOL) thought we had everything figured out ahead of the 2016 elections and then never recovered from the way it ended up going......i feel like in all the years that followed.....the liberal bubbles.....the coastal elites.......the hillbilly elegies......the real america....the ohio diners....the pennsylvania diners.......the polls......the 2020 horserace....while part of an earnest attempt to understand What Happened, were primarily self-indulgent, self-flagellation for being "out of touch" bc of a self-diagnosed "elite" status that then turned into ANOTHER myopic view of the world, just opposite, where the "libs" are hapless and everyone else remotely to the left are primarily victims to the unstoppable supernatural forces of the Right. Then in 2020 the narrative flipped AGAIN and once again, instead of taking the opportunity to expand a worldview and having the bravery to confront their own shortcomings, the opinion havers and wonks and beltway pressers have decided to groupthink their way into writing off democracy altogether. Its BEYOND frustrating to see! Like damn volunteer at a soup kitchen or smthn instead of being obsessed w the fact that i vote lol

Yes, and there are several reasons for that. First, despite all the factors that contributed to Trump's shock win in 2016 (anti-Clintonism, white backlash to Obama, general low voter enthusiasm, Russian disinformation, etc) we should never forget that until James Comey decided to announce 10 days before the election that he was reopening the EEEEEEEMAILS case, even though we all knew there was nothing there, she was leading fairly comfortably in the polls. And while we will never know how the 2016 election would have gone without that, which imho was one of the most unforgivable acts of blatant sabotage by a public official in American history, it's also true that we saw her poll averages start sliding almost in real time, as people who hadn't really been keen on voting for her anyway decided firmly not to and Trump was able to scrape out 16,000 votes across PA, MI, and WI to take the Electoral College. Which... we all remember how we felt that night, right? (Or in my case, early morning, since I was overseas?) We don't, we really, really don't want to feel that way again. Just saying.

As such, the media (which had already beat up Clinton nonstop during the BUT HER EEEEEMAILS saga) drastically overcorrected and as you say, began writing endless angsty handwringing pieces about Trump Voters in Rural Ohio Diners and giving endless sympathetic airtime to how "economically left behind" they felt, regardless of the fact that open racism, especially Obama backlash, was and remains the principal animating feature of Republican politics (since their only economic platform is that which makes very rich people even richer and Democratic economic policies are the only ones actually targeted at helping ordinary people). The hangover was so strong that even when Democrats had a massive 2018 midterm result and flipped the House blue for the first time since the post-ACA backlash lost it in 2010, the Conventional Wisdom was now beyond any doubt that Democrats were doomed for a generation or something, and not that Trump had squeaked out a fluky win (while losing the popular vote) due to endless Russian/Comey/third party-etc interference and wasn't actually that powerful. Even in 2020 when Biden was leading fairly steadily and things were going to hell with Covid, etc. etc. TRUMP IS UNSTOPPABLE, TRUMP IS GOING TO WIN.

(And now. Like. I know Trump thinks Trump won in 2020, as do a large majority of his cultists, but that doesn't mean he did.)

Even after that, when Roe went down in 2022, that made no difference to the RED WAVE COMING!!! narrative, and the amount of smug white male pundits insisting that abortion just wasn't very important and people weren't going to base their entire vote on it reached truly disgusting levels. We're now seeing the same thing with the constant "people won't vote for democracy and/or abortion rights" blast, when as you say, this narrative has just been completely made the fuck up by a lot of groupthinking DC media who are determined that this time, Trump really is going to win and then they get to be principled chroniclers in opposition or something. Not to mention, the basic principle of "democracy and abortion rights are good" do in fact win by thumping margins every time they're on the ballot, including in deep red states. But there is literally not a single piece of empirical evidence despite the massive amounts of it supporting the truth (i.e. that Democrats are doing historically well in competitive elections since 2018 and there's not really a major reason to think this will change in 2024) that will get the media to change the "Democrats in disarray and Biden Iz Doomed" horserace BS they so love. They don't like Biden because he's boring and competent and just does the job without being insane, because it's totally a great idea to treat American government like a reality show! (Recall the infamous comment by the CBS CEO who literally said that Trump was bad for America but great for CBS, because he pulled in high ratings and therefore lots of money and visibility for CBS. We live in the worst timeline.)

As such, the mainstream media has a vendetta against Biden, is determined that this time Trump is super definitely going to win and everyone will see how genius they are, and not-so-secretly wants Trump back because a) he's good for money and ratings, and b) because the media conglomerations are owned by oligarchs who have a vested interest in making sure that Democrats and their policies never get too popular. Notice how the once self-proclaimed centrist independent Elon Musk has turned into a rabidly alt-right fanboy ever since the Democrats really got serious about taxing billionaires as a key part of their platform. Likewise, insisting that Biden Iz Doomed makes Democrats nervous (and thus more likely to tune in) and Republicans gleeful (and thus more likely to tune in), so there's literally no incentive for the media to even try to report things accurately. You could create a very different narrative of the 2024 election if you just remotely bothered to write about things that have actually happened as they have actually taken place, rather than bending over backward to insist that Biden being four years older than Trump is a worse crime than 91 felony indictments, 2 impeachments, 1 insurrection, 450 million dollars and counting in punitive jury verdicts, more major criminal trials coming down the pipe, and just demonstrably being the worst human being alive in so many ways. I mean. Wow.

The good news, as I said in my other post, is that when people actually vote, these utter bullshit narratives get routinely blown out of the water, and that's a good thing. Because it turns out that unlike Super Smart Beltway Pundits' Super Smart Predictions, the average American does actually like democracy and freedom for women to make their own personal healthcare decisions, and they vote accordingly. So while yes, it's being made harrowingly much harder than it needs to be because of how much the media simply refuses to report that basic fact, and there is no amount of evidence that will convince them otherwise, at least we're trending in the right direction and, if we all pull our weight, can do it one more time. I realized the other day that I hadn't heard a fucking peep about Ron DeSantis in the last two months, and oh, how glorious it was. I yearn beyond words for the day (God willing, soon) when the same is true of Trump as well.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[gartenofbanny]

Morally, gray characters are those with complex motivations or goals that aren't simply right or wrong. One of my favorite morally gray characters in fiction is Jason Todd from DC. The second Robin that Batman failed to save, who ended up dying at the hands of the Joker and resurrected by Ra's Al Ghul.

Given a second chance at life, he comes to a revelation that villains should NOT be left alive. Villains, especially the Joker, have caused the suffering of thousands of people, as said by Jason Todd in Under The Red Hood.

Leaving villains alive will risk more innocent lives and graveyards to be filled when it easily could have been prevented.

But there is an opposite argument that does have merit to it. In DC, there is a crook turned superhero named Plastic Man who, after multiple chances, turned his life around for the better.

At the end of the day, Jason is ending a human life. A life with the potential to convert and change for the better. They're capable of changing, but it's a risky game to play. This is what makes Jason Todd a morally gray character. You understand his motivations, and depending on who you are, you agree or disagree with his actions. There is no easy answer for a topic like this.

So, what about Alastor? Well, he's just not a good person at all. Does he do some good things? Yeah, but he mostly does them in exchange, which will benefit him. He doesn't do anything out of the kindness of his heart (if he even has one), nor does he do stuff, which he believes is right.

So, as always, this blog will be separated into two sections listing the reasons why I don't believe Alastor is morally gray, starting off with status.

Alastor is an Overlord who makes contracts with other demons to get them to submit their souls. Alastor has many souls in his possession, including Husk, and he holds all of them in for power. Immediately, this is not what a morally gray character is. I have yet to see a morally gray character who enslaves other people just to further their goals because that's just what an evil person would do.

And it's not like Alastor had no choice or did it for the greater good or did it to simply defend himself. He ambushed Overlords, took their souls, and broadcasted their fucking screams across Hell to show the denizens of Hell that he means business. He wants people to be afraid of him or respect him for his power.

Secondly, there's just him as a person. He genuinely sucks. Everything he does, he usually does it for himself or because he's told to by a higher power. He helps Charlie just so he could watch the Sinners fail for laughs. He helps Vaggie with the commercial so he wouldn't have to make one ever again. He makes a deal with Charlie in exchange for a favor he'll likely use to his advantage in the future. All of these "kind" actions are usually in exchange for something else, he doesn't do anything out of the kindness of his heart just to further his own agenda.

And if you really think about it, Alastor contributed very little to the hotel despite making a deal with Charlie that he would help her. They only got one new patron, which was Sir Pentious, and it stayed that way for 6 months. Apparently, Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor suck at their job if they can't bring any new members lmao. And no, just because a villain did something nice for once doesn't make them morally gray.

Thanos helped an old lady cross the street just so he could ruin some woman's life, that definitely doesn't make him morally gray.

Morally, gray characters are complicated, and that's what makes them interesting. Alastor isn't complicated. He's just a power-hungry psycho who eats people and wants to have fun. He's the perfect example of simplicity.

Just because Alastor will potentially be a morally gray character or complicated character in the future doesn't mean he is one now. And I say potentially because the writers of Hazbin and Helluva like to set things up with underwhelming payoffs. But that's a future blog for a different day.

In conclusion, Alastor is not a good person. He's a bad guy, and just because he's the protagonist doesn't make him any less evil or any more good. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a good one. ❤️‍🔥

#vivziepop critical #vivziepop #vivziepop criticism #vivienne medrano #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel critique #Youtube #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor

[thydungeongal]

I don't mind having stats in an RPG but there's a few things that rub me the wrong way about the way they are utilized:

If they are combined with some manner of class/profession system you undoubtedly end up with a few ability spreads per class/profession that are optimal. The urge to optimize can be alleviated somewhat by adding randomness, but this might result in certain characters simply being better at their jobs than others.

I think people have caught on to the idea that making a character too reliant on too many numbers isn't fun because it can easily lead to them struggling. So the recent trend has been classes and archetypes that only rely on a couple of stats at most. A few stats still remain that are broadly useful to all characters which kinda throw things off though, and this correction to allow players to make characters reliant only on a few stats has been uneven: you can build a character who is almost exclusively reliant on Dexterity, Intelligence or Charisma for attack and damage bonuses in D&D, but not a character who is reliant on Strength for Armor Class or using a broader set of skills.

So what if we went the complete opposite way: make all stats at least somewhat useful to everyone? This idea is not too far from how Pillars of Eternity handled its stats: there wasn't a "damage with heavy weapons" stat and a "damage with ranged weapons" stat, there was a "damage stat." And five more stats with more specific functions.

Now if I had to come up with really broad functions for each of D&D's six stats this is what I would do:

Strength: Damage, whether it's from melee or ranged weapons or magic.

Dexterity: Defence, so armor class.

Constitution: Hit Points.

Intelligence: Save DC, so how hard your spells and abilities (whatever the source) are to resist.

Wisdom: Saving Throw bonus.

Charisma: This one's a bit of an odd one out because it has very rarely had a broadly applicable use. Let's bring back followers and reaction checks and use it for that.

Of course at this point we're not really talking about D&D style stats that try to be objective measures of... something, even though they are often poorly defined. So at that point it might even be better to just use something more abstract like Fate Accelerated approaches.

#long post

[twiststreet]

RIP Keith Giffen. Where do you even start? An important comic book creator for my childhood-- he was everywhere for a time, at least for DC Comics, but in such an astonishingly peculiar way, at least from the modern era.

The way I remember it, Mandela Effect and All: Because it was a time when they didn't know how to move forward-- the pure fan era that I think Giffen came out of was ending, and the "let's deconstruct all this" guys had blown in and blown out of comics, and the "let's treat this all as Big Icons doing Big Iconic Stuff so that Hollywood Notices Us" era wasn't in comics yet. And Image had either just hit or was about to and people were saying "let's break everyone's backs and make them alcoholics and replace them with characters who have more pouches and put their girlfriends in refrigerators."

And people seemed lost, especially at DC, especially there because you know, they'd published Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. So how do they move forward? And Giffen seemed to be the guy who maybe didn't know the answer to that question but wanted to find out! And so you had that Justice League run with Kevin Maguire where... if I like the DC characters at all to this day, that run is 90% why, and it's a big swing in the opposite direction. Anytime people are like "The Justice League must include so and so, there are trinities at stake here" , all that lame-o religious-y talk, I'm still to this day like "why isn't this person mentioning G'nort??"

And you had a Legion run that certainly had its detractors at the time, but that was very much trying to find how far he could push almost everything about what that comic could be to something new-- he had a 9 panel grid, it had characters with trauma, it had a massive cast it did nothing to help you with, , everyone knew each other by their first names. And then you had him as an artist, and not just all the different things he did at DC, but also trying to play ball with Image, with Trencher. And out there in Valiant comics, in one of its "What the hell do we do" phase with Punx. He's playing with the form, and he's making fun of the industry, and he's ... he's trying. He really was trying-- that is a career of trying, in a way I think you'd be kind of heartless not to admire, a little (or for me, a lot).

As an artist, Giffen I think has really aged the best, though just because he was someone ... who was trying to find out what other people were doing and how he could bring that into his own work and how he could find something new. Too much so famously, perhaps early in his career, but when you look at the whole scope of a career-- you know, there's a lot of Kirby to Giffen but he's definitely not a guy who stopped there. He was a guy looking for the next thing to study so when I see modern guys (Michel Fiffe or whoever else) talk about Giffen and admire him-- you know... it makes me... There's a way of viewing English-language comic art as a relay race that's to me very beautiful and it was ... Maybe getting lost?? when I checked out. I don't really know. But. But Giffen for me being in that relay race... I like that, I guess.

People talk about "loving comics" and usually I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Batman? I don't fucking know. But Keith Giffen-- that guy fucking loved comics. At least, I think when you read his comics, he wanted you wanted to love them too, you know? He wanted you to love Rocket Red. And you know, I still kinda do...? Rocket Red was a good dad!!! Or he wanted you to really love what you could do with a 9 panel grid. Or what you could do with a weird ass squiggle. Or...

I don't know. This one makes me a little sad, maybe in a "it's not them dying, it's knowing you're also going to die" kind of way, maybe a selfish kind of way, but still. Nevertheless. I don't know-- I've not really fully processed this one yet so there's probably something better to say here, but.

My condolences to those who knew him best and loved him most. And I hope he enjoyed his time here.

(Pictured: a page from Victory #1 working with Kurt Busiek on Kirby characters, a page from Punx, and an ad for the final JLI arc).

#rip #keith giffen

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Eyes and Ears

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam

Summary: An AU where Barbara finds Jason instead of Bruce.

Chapters: 20/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon, Jim Gordon, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Sheila Haywood, Original Character(s)

Relationship(s): Jason Todd/Original Character(s), Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson

Additional Tags: Canon Divergent AU, Older SIbling Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd-centric, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Jason Todd is NOT Robin, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd Has a Crush, Adopted Siblings

Chapter Twenty: Bash/Ball

"Let me get one more picture," Jim smiled. Jason's shoulders slumped, and he sighed. "It's your first dance. I just want to make sure I get enough pictures. Now, Barbara, come take a picture with your brother—."

"Pop," Jason complained. Jim's eyes widened as he motioned for them to stand close to each other.

Jason held his cape up to his face as he stood next to Barbara. He looked over at her and whispered, "I'm Batman," in a gruff voice. Barbara let out a laugh, and Jim snapped a picture of the two of them laughing.

"This is the last picture, I promise," Jim whispered as he put the camera on a timer and set it on the kitchen counter. "I tested it earlier. Stand right here," Jim replied as he took one photo with Barbara and Jason. After that, Jason said goodnight to Barbara and followed Jim down to the car.

Jim waited a while before pulling off, and he handed Jason his wallet. "Get a twenty out of my wall—."

"You've got a picture of me in here," Jason whispered.

"Well, I think it'd be awful hard to brag about you without a visual," Jim joked, "But really, you're my son. Why wouldn't I have your picture in my wallet? Before this year is over, I'll probably have to build a mantle or something for all the new pictures."

Jason smiled as Jim drove. "I love you, Pop," Jason whispered. Jim took a deep breath so that he wouldn't get all choked up, and he smiled.

"I love you too, Son," Jim whispered, "And I want you to have fun tonight. If you don't call me to pick you up early, I'll be back for you at midnight."

"Do these things really run until midnight?" Jason asked. Jim nodded. "Wow. And you're okay with me staying the whole time if I wanna?"

"Yeah, why not. You stay at school 'til ten p.m. most nights, what's two hours difference?" Jim smiled. Jason put on his mask in the mirror. "I know you didn't go last year, but I was wondering if you were gonna go trick-or-treating with your friends this year?"

"I can still do that?" Jason asked. Jim nodded. "Well, I'll probably just go with Barbara or Reese and A.J. if they wanna go."

"You're not gonna ask the girls?" Jim asked.

"No, they go out of town for Halloween," Jason replied.

"A.J. and Reese are those football boys, right?" Jim asked. Jason nodded and chuckled.

Jim dropped Jason off at the dance and waved goodbye, and Jason entered the ballroom. He walked around the ballroom looking for his friends, and he was approached by a girl who told him he couldn't reveal his identity as part of the ball's theme. Jason nodded and adjusted his posture. Jason figured that if he was going to hide his identity, he might as well play a character. Jason got something to drink and stood with his back against the wall, holding his cup away from him and watching the other kids dance with his nose in the air. Jason committed to playing his own opposite for the night. He walked around the ballroom with his nose in the air. It wasn't until a boy much taller than him brushed his hand and he froze. Jason grabbed his hand, and they both stood there frozen in a crowd of people. The taller boy leaned down to whisper in Jason's ear. "May I have this dance?" he asked. Jason nodded.

"Perhaps," Jason replied as the boy led Jason in one slow dance before disappearing into the crowd. It wasn't until Jason snapped out of the shock of what just happened that he realized who he'd danced with. Jason didn't chase him. Instead, he walked out to the balcony and started pacing back and forth in a panic. A teacher dressed as a plague doctor came out and nudged him back inside, but Jason didn't recognize the voice. He obeyed despite his instincts to ask who the man was. He went back inside and decided to search for his friend.

Not too long after, he heard a loud pop and a hissing noise, and the last thing he remembered was the burning sensation in his eyes. He woke up in the emergency room feeling sick to his stomach. His hands shook violently as the lights burned his eyes. He couldn't see clearly. His throat was sore from whatever chemical he must've inhaled, barely managing to mutter a hoarse warning that he was going to be sick. He vomited into a sick bag and lay back. A hand touched his forehead and made sure the oxygen tubes were in his nose. "I've got you, son," Jim whispered, "Do you remember anything?"

Jason shook his head. His vision was still blurred from the chemicals, and he couldn't see who else was in the room with him. "Jason, literally anything. Try to think," Jim urged him.

"Plague doctor took me back inside," Jason mumbled. His head ached, and he felt pins and needles all over his body as if he couldn't come down from panic. He reached to touch his eyes, and Jim grabbed them. "I wanna go home."

"Jason, we don't know what you were hit with. Every emergency room in Gotham is packed with kids from your school, and it sounds like you're all going to be held overnight for observation," Barbara explained.

Jason closed his eyes and tried to calm down. Jim sighed. "We're not leaving your side, I promise," Jim reassured. Jason took a shaky breath. Barbara reached over and squeezed his hand. "We're thinking it's some sort of fear toxin, but it's not like anything we've ever seen..."

"Who called 9-1-1?" Jason asked.

"You called me," Jim whispered, "You don't remember calling me at all?" Jason shook his head and opened his eyes once more. The room was a little clearer to him, and he could see their faces.

Barbara tried to mask her anger, but Jason could see it written all over her face. She was furious. He couldn't tell if she was mad at him or at the situation, but he felt like he'd failed her. Jim seemed more concerned than anything. "I don't remember anything... I'm sorry," Jason whispered. Barbara stormed out of the room without so much as a word. Jason looked over at Jim.

"She's not mad at you. She just wants to know how this happened," Jim comforted Jason. Jim sat down by Jason's bedside. "It'll probably be out of your system by morning. I know you're probably still feeling a little anxious." Jason nodded and took another deep breath. "You didn't say much on the phone. You just told me there was gas at the school and that everyone was trapped."

#fic #eyes and ears fic #batfam #Jason Todd #Barbara Gordon #Jim Gordon #Dick Grayson #Bruce Wayne #Sheila Haywood #Original Character(s) #Jason Todd/Original Character(s) #Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson #Canon Divergent AU #Older SIbling Barbara Gordon #Jason Todd-centric #Barbara Gordon is Oracle #Jason Todd is NOT Robin #Jason Todd Has Issues #Jason Todd Has a Crush #Adopted Siblings

[bainofjustice]

Kitty's Notes On Episode 1 Of The Payday 2 Web Series

According to Bain Crime.net is a organization which is a notable definition of the group & program, it isn't just a program but something with structure to it.

Bain says he seeks out the top theives, thugs, drug dealers & hustlers for the organization.

To me this implies a heavy focus on contracting work out to contractors (thugs) and some independent work, possibly with members having to pay to be a member but get some benefit like being directed to targets or having costumers pointed to them, along with protection from the law (theives, drug dealers & hustlers) (starting scene)

He does outright say he hookups them up with contacts & “sets the stage”, so my immediate thoughts are right on that.

Also he says “they think they are working for themselves but they just can't see the bigger picture”, given this there might not be a membership fee but more splitting what they make with Bain since he “did them a favor”

Bain in this starting scene says that he is training the Payday Gang for the greatest heist of all, which my interpretation is he is either speaking of the White House pardons which I remember is mentioned to have been one of the first heists he planned or perhaps a heist involving the Katrau, maybe not a literal heist and more stealing it's secrets.

When starting the real part of the episode it says “DC, Present Day” which means First World Bank happened around when the episode came out, but given that would have been around 2012 & 2013 but FBI files indicate that the first batch of heists take place 2014 it is likely this was retconned

They do use the in-game escape van within the show

Houston starts off strong with talking about his ideology which includes the following 

Banks are stealing from the people 

Houston says that some call the gang modern day Robinhoods & seems to agree with that, this leads me to assume that he either is under the belief that Bain redistributes the wealth the gang steals or that Houston himself is doing that & assumes the other gang members are too

He also says others don't understand that they/we have a choice, which he doesn't follow up on instead saying that Newton said for every action there is a equal & opposite reaction and that The Payday Gang is their reaction, this ties in more to how Houston views the banking system & likely government systems as corrupt & hurting the general population 

“Am I a criminal? I don't think so, everyone needs a job, right? We all need a payday.” -Houston, to me this really suggests he sees working with the gang as a means to survival aka what money tends to be used for most, that it isn't the thrills but that message from above and also his own need for money to do things like pay off debts & pay for things.

Wolf seems concerned with hiding his identity taking steps such as a likely real human wig to 1. Give him “cool recognizable hair” & 2. Fasle DNA to be left at the scene, this is probably why in canon no one seems to know his previous identity at the time of Payday 2's end (perhaps this will come up more in 3's story?)

Houston is shown as the planer for the team on First World Bank, directing Wolf & Chains on what to do & explaining what Dallas is doing, at the start of 2 it seems likely he was second in command to Dallas, Chains doesn't seem the happiest about this as he rolls his eyes after the fact

Wolf does a literal wolf howl before the heist in the escape van, I just find this sort of cute/a interesting part of character 

Chains seems to be the voice of the gang when Dallas isn't around as he's the one to tell civis to get on the ground at the start of the heist

Later though Houston also does some speaking for the gang, which is a little less threatening and seems like more a set up for Dallas's speech, so pretty internally for planning had a different purpose for the heist.

We hear/see early in the heist one of the guards within the bank be directed by a female voice who has some camera access, this is probably a GenSec guard & operator like how the pagers work

I have to assume given that Dallas/”Natehen Steele” isn't arrested during his questioning later at FBI HQ that the director wasn't able to see him attack this guard.

The security cameras go down before Dallas attacks so that explains the above

We see that Bain is able to detect when silent alarms have been triggered, this is probably a normal part of his set up during Payday gang heists 

Houston is the one to give a speech once the civis are on the ground, given how calmly it's delivered and how it's a good lead in to the First World Bank speech it is probably written by Bain or Dallas & Houston memorized it alongside the plan

We see that the gang checks money packs for tracers & dyepacks before bagging them, using some sort of scanner, saying clear before each one is bagged, we have to assume that there is also a word like “skip” or “traced” to indicate to skip a money pack for bagging.

Houston is shown using what looks like a normal smartphone as a timer during the bagging section, I don't even know how to begin to explain how bad an idea that is irl, so we can probably assume that the phones the gang uses have been altered in some major ways likely by Bain & Wolf (Bain on software & Wolf on hardware)

Wolf in the credits section which shows who plays who is “Wolf as Himself” funnily

#talk tag #my meta #meta #payday 2 #payday web series #payday the heist

[uyuforu]

Hey uyu,

I've been working on Jungkook's FS chart for a long time right now and I got somethings to say but I also want you opinion about it since you are analysing jk's chart :

So I think she is a cancer dominant for sure this is something I think we all agree about

His spouse is going to be famous it's that leo fama in his BPC and his 7th house Lord is in his 10th house and in his natal chart fama conjunct briede in his 7th house so I think that's clear enough

She is a Gemini Venus hands down , Gemini venus is in his BPC and in his DC chart and I always got the vibe that she has venus-pluto aspects so she is a Sagittarius pluto ( and here we say sorry for all the people who were born after 2008😭) so she is born between 1995-2008 and she has venus opposite Pluto , and if she is a Gemini Venus that will make her and jk have a compatible Venus signs , libra and Gemini and that's totally great in term of relationship I think 🤷, I also got the vibe that she has venus-lilith aspects

I got that vibe of virgo rising or sometimes a Virgo moon or both or some Virgo placements for sure I don't know but I can sense that virgo energy everytime I do a tarot reading about her energy I don't know if it's true but that virgo moon in his DC chart and Virgo rising in his BPC are things that we can't ignore right? And if she is a Virgo moon then her moon will conjunct his moon and conjunct his sun if it's in close degrees and what should I say about that 🥹, and if we think about it well if she has a Virgo rising then she has a Gemini MC and if her Venus is in Gemini there's a huge possibility that she has venus conjunct MC and that's a great indicator of fame or artistic vibe so she maybe will be known for something related to art or music or writing songs with the Gemini here and jk himself got this aspect so maybe 🤔

The only planet that I didn't know what sign it will probably be is her mars some people will say Gemini mars I totally get that but I don't think a Gemini mars will work well with Scorpio mars ? Maybe a cancer mars 🤔 who knows 🤷

So this is what I got right now and I'm still working on it and I'm fluent in English I'm only fluent in french so I'm sorry if there's any writing faults and I will wait for your pov about this and thank you 💕

Don't worry you did great! French is also a language I can speak so it's fine haha! I can still understand you, but you made no mistakes :)

Between, many things relate to stuff I have been seeing in the charts! It still shock me to think she could be super young related to him, not because of her, but because of JK. She'll be super young when they meet, and tbh I find it a bit creepy! But! It's not my life. Lol

Thank you for sharing your opinion on this! I don't have much things to say because as I said before, I can take people's opinion, but I'm not 100% into finding her exact placements. I'm into jk's astrology, so his fs obviously was a thing to analyze. But I don't wanna know exactly who she is, I wanna be surprised!

And if one day we have access to he birth information's, I could do a reading and be like omggg hehe

- uyu

#uyuans

[maxwell-grant]

So if Doc Savage took some potshots at superman with the world's fair goblin and the whiskers of hercules, how would you envision a shadow story where shots are taken at Batman and inspires the villain?

I think that would be an embarassing display of insecurity. I mean, if you want a story where The Shadow deals with an imitator/copycat, The Cobra and The Third Shadow are right there, and there's nothing about them that would be improved if they were intentionally taking shots at Batman. Whisker of Hercules and The World's Fair Goblin (which wasn't written by Lester Dent) aren't really about taking shots at Superman, but they are clearly doing it and from a place of criticizing Superman for breaking suspension of disbelief with his superpowers and persona / grievances Lester Dent and other writers had with the new guy making a splash. What's the angle with Batman? That he ripped off The Shadow? Well everybody was ripping off The Shadow in those days, what, is he gonna take shots at The Spider, The Black Bat, The Phantom Detective, The Green Lama, The Whisperer, The Moon Man, The Clock, The Crimson Avenger, and The Sandman next? Come on.

All Gibson ever really had to say about Batman was that he called him once a "clowned-up version of The Shadow", and that's not an unfair assessment by any means (40s-70s Batman was a much different guy than 80s-onwards Batman). And people who bring that up for inflammatory purposes tend to neglect that Gibson was writing comics all the time, including many many comics where he was making The Shadow a much more kid-friendly Golden Age superhero. I don't think they were great for the most part, but he clearly knew the limitations and what the audience for different mediums wanted. His last writing credit was a Batman prose story for Detective Comics #500 that was clearly just a Shadow story with a name swap. I don't think Batman is to blame for The Shadow's obscurity (quite the opposite in several ways), and I think it's unfair to pretend like Gibson was cheated or wronged by Batman's existence just because Batman eclipsed The Shadow in popularity. I'm not defending plagiarism, I'm just stating that by all accounts, Gibson didn't care at the time, and he didn't care later, he mostly did fine (a hell of a lot better than Bill Finger, for sure, if you wanna focus on someone who actually was viciously wronged and cheated out of his work here).

A thing I've come to realize recently is that there just isn't really much of a palatable or productive way for Batman and The Shadow to process this history between them. Same as how there's not much of anything Captain Marvel can do regarding the existence of Miracleman, or how the Charlton characters could only thrive the further they stepped away from the shadow of Watchmen and dumped it's baggage, or how there's never been a Superman x Doc Savage crossover and there's not a lot that you could even get out of it even if it happened unless you were willing to go for broke. With other characters within their settings that don't have such direct of a connection? Okay. With pastiches? Sure, go nuts. But with the real guys who have real images/reputations/histories/expectations to uphold and also an unmovable elephant in the room regarding their connection and why this crossover is happening? Something will have to give, and in this case, it's not going to be the blockbuster headliner who is the biggest and most beloved superhero on the planet. It's not going to be the guy who has company guidelines dictating the strict moral parameters by which he operates. It's not going to be the guy who is defined by the ways in which he isn't, and can't be, like The Shadow.

There is no version of this crossover written from a Shadow-centric perspective that has Batman look good, and there is no version of this co-signed by DC Comics that has The Shadow look good. O'Neil tried as much as he possibly could by having Batman go full deferential fanboy, and if that ever flied with 70s Batman (and it absolutely wouldn't past a couple of issues even then), it's utterly inconceivable with post-80s Batman. Orlando (and Snyder, however much input he had) had the right idea in Bruce's tension around the guy and refusal to, regardless of whether or not he was trained by him, to accept him, but that is not a Shadow who gets to have his own adventures, that is a Shadow who exists solely as a negative space cautionary tale for Batman.

You can't square Batman looking up / being okay working with a guy who shoots people dead with guns (they keep trying to solve that with Jason in the Batfamily and it doesn't work either), you can't really square Batman continuing to have a Rogues Gallery problem with The Shadow as a thing that exists long-term, and you can't patchwork The Shadow into Batman's history blind to the fact that Batman is much bigger and more popular than The Shadow and therefore he will inevitably box The Shadow into his narrative. There are a million better ways to tell a "Batman reckons with his no-kill rule / vigilantes that break his defining trait" and even that is already very very very tired ground (The Batman pulled a real miracle in making this feel fresh), and it's inherently going to be reductive to the not-Batman party in question if said party is not usually a villain/guy who exists to make Batman look better. Again, if you wanna dig deep into the history and the weeds and the differences with no regard for publisher demands or expectations and whatnot, that's what pastiches are for.

There isn't a "The Shadow deals with an imitator/someone influenced by him" story that wouldn't be dramatically better and more interesting with a character other than Batman in that role, hence why good versions of those stories exist and Walter Gibson did them. And The Grey Ghost and Zorro are pretty much the only two ways "Batman meets his inspiration/the guy that came before" as a concept ever worked, and it's not for nothing that they are both fictional characters in-universe (Sherlock Holmes in The Brave and the Bold gets a pass, it's Sherlock Holmes).

So as far as The Shadow/Batman's shared history goes, I'd just settle for it showing up once in a blue moon to make Batman's day worse on occasion and that's it. Just a little shank in the ribs and a laugh in the dark, to keep him on his toes every now and then.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #the shadow #batman #dc comics #superheroes

[zahri-melitor]

Batman Eternal

I think for a weekly, event comic that was promising to deliver the Bat Family, it underperformed. Some people had a good event, some people had a mediocre event and were underused, and there were a few absolute shockers.

The Good:

In terms of a 'push Bruce to the limit' event, it was interesting in that this one pushed Batman, the Bat Family AND Bruce, separately, to their limits. I'm used to events being 'pick two of the three'. That said, it still underestimated the effectiveness of its supporting cast.

Bruce had a solid event, in that it was focused on him and broke him down to build him back up by running him ragged and keeping him guessing on 'who caused this'. Honestly I don't have a lot to say about Bruce's plot, sorry. It was an okay mystery running through various rogues? I think making Cluemaster Who Dunnit was not the right choice (Arthur should always be a bit pathetic), but I can see why they picked him in the story that's returning Steph and after making Riddler the big bad for Zero Year.

Selina actually had a reasonable event. She got her entire backstory rewritten and ended up controlling crime in Gotham at the end of it, but eh, the former happened to a lot of people during n52 and the latter is something Selina ends up doing every now and then. Her plotline involved organised crime and Carmine Falcone, so it was even something associated with her long term story arcs.

Jim Gordon: look, once we get past the incredible miscarriage of justice that was Jim being arrested and convicted for manslaughter (please, please, explain to me how Jim shooting the signal box input was what caused the trains to crash, rather than the railway routing that meant there was timetabling and no fallback override for two trains SHARING TRACK while running in opposite directions), it was essentially just an excuse to put Jim in Blackgate and start up the plots there. Which you know, went pretty well. Jim got to be the strong man, show off his personality, and presumably this all sets up the Superheavy plotline (sigh).

Julia Pennyworth. Look, I don't hate the idea of Julia, so much as am confused by the very tight timeline constraints required for her existence (post about this coming), and I resent that DC let the team basically invent a new Oracle without being allowed to acknowledge that Oracle is Barbara Gordon. It's like it's an important role in Gotham! Anyway. In terms of what Julia brought to the page, I did appreciate that the writing team seemed committed to increasing the number of women characters populating Gotham, I am happy to have someone not Alfred running comms for the Bats, and I can see several ways she'd be an interesting character to have around, long term, for storytelling. I could grow to like her. But man. I had a really hard time swallowing her existence while Barbara's in the same event having her character destroyed.

Harper Row is so clearly Scott Snyder's pet. Honestly, I really enjoyed her design and the general arc of her story; adding an electrical engineer to the group is actually a relatively unoccupied niche and gives her points of differentiation, but by handing her such a major part of the plot while other, fan favourite characters were appearing and getting not much at all was setting her up to fail in the eyes of the audience.

Steph ranks up in the 'had a good event' category. She essentially reran her origin story combined with aspects of her War Games plot (before everyone yells at me, I particularly noted the correlation with the part of the story where Selina hid her with Holly coming through here with Steph hiding from Arthur and her getting dumped at the Rows for protection. Go actually read War Games). I liked the concept of the Spoiler blog being what she used as her name inspiration here. I again wouldn't have minded if she had actually interacted more with other Bat characters (everyone got very siloed here) but you know what? The story brought her back and set her back up in her default sort of background state. Seriously, they picked from Steph's biggest stories here (her origin, War Games, and actually parts were in conversation with War Crimes, which is a phrase I never thought I would say), and that was a reasonable decision imo.

The Mediocre:

Luke Fox got an interesting plotline with Jim Corrigan and the Spectre. Unfortunately it rarely interacted with the rest of the story (apart from leading to Arkham blowing up). This could have been a separate mini.

Tim got to appear in actual Bat titles, doing actual Bat things, and while being abrasive I could squint at him and see his original characterisation. Tragically despite this he basically didn't get to interact with existing characters he knew for most of the plot. Got handed the idiot ball on occasion to show off Harper. I wish he'd had more opportunities to spend time with characters I know and enjoy him with.

Kate Kane was there, for this event. She got to spend some time with Barbara and Jason. She also really didn't do much of anything. It felt like an obligatory 'you currently have a solo' appearance.

Jason Bard: look this is where I'm conflicted. If this was simply Random Cop #34, I'd have probably bumped it up to good but unrealistic (in terms of the speed run to Commissioner), but as a Jason Bard story? About all they kept or knew of Jason was that he's a cop, he was mentored by Jim Gordon, and that he Has A Limp. I am still outraged they made Babs give him the limp, I think making him a minor antagonist of this was a waste of bringing back Jason Bard, and the endpoint left him in a position where he's moderately unusable by other writers (there was a slight set up for 'transition him over to a detective agency' but there was no resolution on why anyone in Gotham either among the GCPD or the Bats would trust him after this).

The Bad:

Hush. No, not so much in his story (it was boring, it was Tommy being Tommy, yawn), but in the fact for no apparent reason Tommy is running around with his head bandaged. WHY? No reason was given. Using the bandages as his 'costume' is actually painfully irritating, because he wore the bandages during the original Hush as he was healing from facial reconstruction surgery. Here, he was imported into New 52, with his face wrapped in bandages, and no reason given. He wasn't trying to become Bruce and steal his identity. He was just...in bandages. Because that's how he looked in Hush and the fanboys think of him, despite the fact he basically never appeared in bandages again AFTER the initial Hush storyline. I'm infuriated in the pointless iconography that misses the original intent that this is.

Barbara had a terrible event. Even if I excuse everything as she was still grieving over Dick's 'death' and Jim being in jail, and the fact she was undergoing personality surgery in her own title (Batgirl #35 sigggghh), a complete random 'ship Barbara and Jason together' plotline came out of nowhere premised on the fact Barbara was missing Dick? Or something? And their age gap in n52 nonsense is only a couple of years, rather than Babs being ABOUT TEN YEARS OLDER and having babysat Jason. Ugh.

Speaking of: Jason Todd did somewhat better than some of the others in that he got to actually hang out with Barbara and Kate for a storyline, and honestly pairing him up with Kate is a route DC should look at more often in terms of character mediation, but lost 1000 points for the Jason/Barbara stuff. Also had a terrible costume (but what's new there).

Crystal Brown I am so sorry. Not only did you get yet another completely new look and personality, you lost all the few characterisation elements we had for you, you collaborated with your ex-husband, and you betrayed Steph at one point. You should be awarded damages for pain and suffering.

Lincoln March/Owlman: you were in this event SOLELY to confuse Steph and delay her cooperation with everyone else. I resent your entire existence in this timeline and it irritates me that Scott Snyder set up an entire previous event essentially to introduce you to the main universe and then waited going 'did you get it?' You are not Thomas Wayne Jnr sorry.

#z canon read throughs #reading new 52 #this was certainly an event #things happened #I wish the plots had interacted more often #batman eternal

[anaer]

In a few of your posts, you’ve mentioned your annoyance with Batfam fans trying to push Dick as Wally’s BFF (when we all know it’s actually Piper). But are there other ways you feel that fans ignore Wally’s personality and backstory in favor of putting the focus on Dick? (I’m a New Teen Titans fan, so I have kind of have the opposite problem. I get to see post after post about how “Sure, the Titans are Dick’s team, but the Bats are Dick’s ~family~.)

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking me here, tbh 😅

Here's the thing: I don't have an actual problem with Dick and Wally being best friends. They are, canonically, and I recognize that, and even write it a lot. I do have a problem with the way fandom completely devalues Wally as an entire character and his own person and makes him exist solely for the sake of Dick. Like, yeah, Wally spends a LOT more time with Piper than he ever does with Dick. Wally has a wife and children. Wally has a very, very, extremely busy life usually juggling multiple teams at once. Dick is not the be-all, end-all of his existence. You wouldn't know that from reading fic. You'd think that Wally lives in Gotham and doesn't have any goals or friends or plans of his own that don't involve Dick in some capacity. You'd think he only thinks about Dick 24/7 (also why I HATE Tom Taylor's Nightwing, like, Wally doesn't have time to be checking on Dick nonstop like that, and it's also not at all in line with their relationship, he doesn't even check on his ACTUAL WIFE like that, and Linda is his favourite person in the world).

Wally is actually...significantly more accomplished than Dick, but that also tends to get glossed over and downplayed a lot. Wally isn't just supportive Best Friend Dude, he's an impatient, temperamental, stubborn idiot who also values the relationships he has with people and tends to operate as the heart of whatever team he's on. Even when Wally is mad at people, he will try to have everyone getting along, but he will also simultaneous be a bitch about it because he's kind of a bitch. Wally can be SUPER mean, too. Just look at Kyle! Another character who he is super close to and gets ignored by a lot of fandom who only know and treat Wally as an extension of Dick.

People say Dick is friends with everyone in DC, but honestly I think Wally fits that bill significantly more (even when people don't like him) becuase he's been on so many different teams and has connections to so many more. He's been on like four different iterations of the Justice League, he hangs with the JSA, he's out there with the Titans, and he'll be managing two cities on his own on just...a regular daily basis. He has relationships with super obscure characters from all corners of DC. Wally has beef with Captain Atom, for crying out loud. Who even cares about Captain Atom??? (apologies to all my friends who do care, yall dont count, lolol)

Idk what else to say, my DC brain has been turned all the way off lately, but I think this about sums it up? Idk if I answered your question, but if I did not, I'll try to gather my thoughts better if you ask me something more specific

#ask me

[mywingsareonwheels]

On "Endeavour" series 9 (a critical/disappointed but affectionate post)

Cut for length, spoilers, and criticism :)

I've been thinking so much (too much ;-) ) about the ending of Endeavour since it came out. Sometimes joyfully, sometimes wistfully, mostly sadly. Occasionally angrily.

What series 9, and especially 9.3 really needed to do was a) wind up and honour the character arcs/plot arcs of Endeavour and b) set things up for Inspector Morse. And honestly, after months of pondering and thinking and hearing other people's views on it (both those I agree with and those I don't, the latter actually including Shaun Evans's ;-) )... I think it did at least partially fail in both those aims. But I think it failed ambitiously and lovingly. Which matters.

The Bad Stuff:-

The key problem Russell Lewis has said he had in writing s9 was the Thursday family and the fact that Morse never mentions any of them in IM, at least unless Joan really is the Mrs Strange of that period of time.

This problem was made worse by the fact that they are four of the most lovable characters in Endeavour, and that the relationship between Morse and Fred Thursday is the key one within it. So I can see the logic! Something awful has to happen. And given Morse's romantic interest in Joan, the Thursday family generational war trauma, and Fred's PTSD-ridden tendencies towards explosive violence when he's feeling protective of his loved ones or other vulnerable people... I can see why Lewis went with the solution he did.

The trouble is... solving the Problem of the Thursdays I think took over series 9 to such an extent that the writing managed to:-

a) honestly? fridge the character development and perceived quality of all four Thursdays (especially Fred and Joan, both of whom I think got a really rough deal tbh) in order to further Morse's long-term arc, which really is a bit bloody unfair after 9 seasons. Very very damn unfair in fact. And... uncompassionate, which is awful given that overall Endeavour is one of the most compassionate shows I've ever seen.

b) undermine Jakes's return by giving a necessary incompleteness to his search for Big Pete (and also massively underusing Jack Laskey, but honestly the fact that series 9 was only three episodes long did cause problems there).

c) turn Big Pete/Raymond Kennet into just a plot device for the aforementioned fridging of Fred's character development which... actually I admit didn't fully notice until I read a fic chapter today which did the opposite, but oof.

d) undermine Max's friendship with Morse in Inspector Morse by ignoring it completely and implying that Morse is Alone Forever after the events of Endeavour which just Isn't The Case (and again, James Bradshaw was shockingly underused). Gods could we have done with at least one scene where it was recognised that Max isn't going anywhere and they like each other so much. <3

e) actually? Undermine the complexity of the Morse of Inspector Morse too. Because DCI Morse? Is not constantly miserable and dour and closed off and unable to connect with people. He has friends, he has choir, he can make literary references in the station and have a random PC pick them up, he has a positively impish sense of humour at times, he still has his wonderful relationship with Joyce. His house is gorgeous and thoroughly well-loved. He immediately warms to Lewis who is a lot like Thursday at times, and he clearly rather enjoys Lewis teasing him so much. He is kind and compassionate, and sometimes his manner with witnesses is very like Thursday's avuncular best moments. Sure, DCI Morse is also difficult and grumpy and most definitely an alcoholic; he struggles to open up fully to people and never manages to pull off a long-term romantic relationship. But he's not a permanent ice king. He's actually a lot more like the earlier DC Morse at times than the Morse of the last few minutes of 9.3! The whole "I was betrayed by Thursday and now I will never trust anyone ever again ever" thing just wasn't necessary in order to set up Morse in his 40s and 50s. If anything, it leaves open the question of how he navigates what's actually a rather larger character jump than it would have been if Endeavour had ended earlier. Which just... ngyargh. (Also, I mean... I'm not aro, very emphatically not, but even I can see that there's something more than a bit problematic about the suggestion that Morse's life is tragic forever because he's usually single.)

Here's the other thing though: the one respect in which he is very closed-off even with Lewis in Inspector Morse is that he never tells Lewis about anyone important in his past unless he actually has to (usually because they die a violent death and his connection with the victim comes up). Never mentioning the Thursdays, Dorothea, Bright, Jakes? It didn't need that intense an explanation. At least, not a "he can't even bear to think about Fred or Joan again" explanation. It just means none of them died a violent death in Thames Valley during his time as DCI which, you know, I am extremely fricking glad about! ;-) He could press the still-beloved Thursday family to his heart like flowers, and that would be enough. He could still be getting postcards from all of them right up to the end (and I'm persisting in believing that he does ;-) ).

To unpack point a) a bit:- I mean where Joan's concerned I think a lot of us agree on this. I actually do like Strange! But it is horrible that we never hear anything about Joan's social work in series 9; it's implied that she's giving up her job in order to marry him. And Joan finding herself and moving towards saving the world one woman at a time was beautiful. I mean, there was no obligation to have everyone have a happy ending series 9! But the ending of that arc of Joan's without explanation and without comment. Not even a brief discussion where she says that she's regarding it as worth it, or is wondering about going back to work at some point... gah. That's harsh. Also, if she is the Mrs Strange of Inspector Morse? That isn't going to be a very happy marriage. :( So we're left I think hoping that they'll divorce, and that Joan will go back to social work one day, and perhaps go and find her family.

And Fred. Oh Gods, Fred. I mean, I have made so many posts about him on here. ;-) The thing is: with the context provided in series 9, him committing manslaughter (not murder! not under English/Welsh law! and he might even have a decent case for self-(and other) defense!) and perverting the course of justice (yeah okay that he definitely is guilty of) in order to save Sam... it makes sense. He has had his moments of violence, and I think it's crucial to not forget that he's killed two people to save Morse in the past. Which... is part of what frustrates me, because it feels like the narrative in 9.3 is that we should treat Fred killing to save Sam as somehow less morally okay than him killing to save Morse. Which is the kind of protagonist-centered morality (or indeed police-centered morality?) that the morseverse generally avoids, and I Do Not Like It.

But the precise circumstances that series 9 creates in order to make it convincing for Fred to a) do that, b) cover it up, c) snap that badly at Morse, d) try to justify what he's done to Morse... they were extreme. It takes one of the most intense piles of trauma laid on one character in one 3-episode season of anything I think I've ever seen. Fred is going through so much, he's so broken, he's so burnt out. And I mean... of course! It took all of that to make him make those mistakes! But in retrospect... if you need to set up that intense a situation in order to make a character fuck up enough to further the plot line of another character... yeah. Hence my comment about fridging his arc. The point of Morse and Fred's relationship until series 9 has always been that even though they are both very flawed and very fallible, their love for each other is a good and awesome thing (series 7 I think really brings that home <3 ). It feels to me that 9.3 makes the whole of the rest of the show less moving and good, and that's... oh that's sad. So sad. :( I mean, I'm very biased, the Morse & Fred relationship has always been my favourite thing about Endeavour! But if the ultimate message is "Morse should never have loved Fred that much, however kind Fred was and however often he saved Morse's life"... oh that's just... it makes the whole thing so much thinner. This is, apart from anything else, a man who explicitly puts his marriage at risk when his son is missing in order to save Morse at the end of s8! But now we're supposed to see everything a tragedy because Morse has to accept that he isn't that important to Fred and never has been because during a really intense few months he's not been Fred's number 1 priority and... gaaaah.

This is terribly rambly; I'm really not as articulate today as I should like. Apologies!

The thing is: I've been fighting actually-being-a-bit-disappointed-in-series 9 for months, but now I'm going "no actually they failed" I can be a bit more generous. :)

Because...

The Good Stuff:

a) Bright's arc is fantastic. 100/10, no criticisms. <3 Probably the only one I'm fully happy about but I am very happy about it.

b) There is not a split-second in the whole of series 9 (the whole of Endeavour in fact) in which the acting is other than superb, especially from the main cast. That farewell scene between Morse and Thursday? Fucking hell. I mean, Roger Allam is my favourite actor, he never disappoints, but he still astounded me! And Shaun was also just magnificent. <3 And why hasn't Anton Lesser played Prospero yet; his delivery of the speech was incredible! Also fucking hell Caroline O'Neill is an unsung hero of the whole show.

c) To do the Fred arc justice: Fred's morality wasn't thrown away over nothing. I do feel that the trauma-conga-line-to-enable-Fred-to-let-Morse-down-sufficiently bordered at least on the contrived and unkind, but my Gods it would have been so much worse if it wasn't there! <3

d) So much nuance. I mean the fact that a lot of us cheerfully disagree with each other over how forgiving or otherwise Morse was feeling towards Fred? Is based on microexpressions, and call-backs, and how much we can read into the layering of Fred's image over the reference to Lazarus "born a pauper" in the "In Paradisum" of the Faure Requiem, and what sounds like was more than one filmed version of the farewell scene. I mean, my Gods. Endeavour has always respected the intelligence of the viewer, but that was something else.

e) The nitty-gritty of the dialogue never stopped being wonderful. Some absolutely incredible lines, literary references, layered scenes... I know I talk about James Bradshaw and Jack Laskey being underused, but the lines that each of Max and Jakes got while actually onscreen? Phenomenal. Ditto Abigail Thaw/Dorothea, on all counts.

f) The cinematography bloody hell. <3 <3 <3 And the music! Aaah!

The failures of series 9 I see are in pacing, and in making flawed decisions that don't serve the characterisation. They aren't, not once, about the quality of filmmaking being anything other than fantastic. <3 Or the storyline being other than extremely ambitious. There's nothing lazy or cheap or shock-tactics-for-the-sake-of-shock-tactics or (grr) prioritising being unpredictable over being good. It's all earnest and loving and beautifully-realised.

So many times when a show ends disappointingly (or a show's current main actor's final series ending disappointingly *cough*Shetland*cough*) it's down to lack of care and attention and love. I can't possibly accuse Russell Lewis or anyone involved in Endeavour of that. <3

I just... I just wish, so much, that they'd made different choices for the Thursdays. But at least we still have fanfic. :-)

(Also, full love to those of you who disagree with me on part or all of this! I love that this is a fandom where we can agree to disagree, and avoid much in the way of ship wars/character wars etc.. <3 Long may it continue!)

#itv endeavour #endeavour spoilers #endeavour s9 #endeavour s9 spoilers #itv inspector morse #mild inspector morse spoilers #endeavour critical #but also #endeavour admiring #e morse #endeavour morse #inspector morse #fred thursday #joan thursday #russell lewis

[electricprincess96]

Deconstructions of Batman, DC Superheroes, the BatFam Dynamic etc. We're interesting once or twice. We've had near on a decade of Batman deconstructions to the point I don't know what they're deconstructing anymore, there's nothing of the original left.

"Batman is actually the problem." That's interesting the first few times. After 10 years of that message it just makes me ask ok then why are we still getting Batman comics then?

"Batman is an abusive father." Its interesting to look at Bruce's flaws as a parent every now and then. But making Bruce an abusive asshole strips some of the BatFams most iconic and impactful stories of their emotional hook. I love Jason Todd, he's my favourite DC character, his story is at its most interesting and tragic when you acknowledge that while his relationship with Bruce was flawed, Bruce loved him and his death greatly impacted him. Bruce likewise loves all his kids, the idea in modern comics (with some exceptions) that he doesn't is just stupid and fundamentally misunderstands what makes Batman interesting, the fact he embodies fear but actually does have so much capacity for love.

"Batman should kill and the fact he doesn't makes him a villain". No. Just no. Batman's complete opposite Owlman is a nihilist who believes no one can be redeemed and the world is doomed. That suggests Bruce is in fact an optimist who believes in the inherent good of people, the likes of Mr Freeze, Harley Quinn, Harvey Dent etc. They aren't inherently evil. Sure you can make an argument he should kill the likes of the Joker but Bruce feels himself if he does it once he'll keep doing it eventually to people who don't deserve it. Bruce has to believe in redemption for his rogues cause otherwise there's no redemption for himself.

Plus Batman isn't real, if he went around killing his whole rogues gallery we'd eventually run out of stories to tell.

Anyway I've been in a real DC Comics mood lately and been really annoyed with the nihilistic tropes I've seen being thrown around both by the writers and by fans when discussing Batman.

#dc comics blogging #batman blogging