#the thing about conner superboy is that his character is a mess
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Okay, I'll bite, what are your feelings on the trans conner pitch?
Oh boy! Thank you for tossing me this bone because I have a lot of mixed feelings!
I notice that people online are very hot and cold about the Trans Superboy Pitch, they either love it or hate it and that doesn't leave a lot of room for nuance + discussion. So to be respectful to a fellow trans peer in the industry, I want to do a fair review/analysis of Skyrocket: the trans Conner Kent pitch by Magdalene Visaggio.
My general takeaway from the pitch is that I like the premise, but the details fumble the execution for me. I can really feel from reading the pitch that Visaggio cares about Superboy. She understands that he's a very weird legacy character who has struggled to find proper footing in the DC Universe after all these years. An effective legacy character is one who is able to spin off and expand upon the themes of the character whose mantle they carry. But the cheesy whatever-goes 90's-ness of Superboy's original run didn't give future writers a lot to work with in terms of a Superman Legacy Character.
It's why I genuinely believe the later retcon reveal that -part of Conner's DNA is from Lex Luthor- is a fantastic addition to his character. It takes a character who was just kind of screwing off to gentrify Hawaii back into the center of Superman's good vs evil conflict. But now Conner's problem is that his story is too tied to his origin and Superman's shadow. Placing Conner with the Kents in Smallville afterwards made him narratively redundant. What's next for him?
So let's dig into the pitch!
I like what's at the heart of this pitch. It's a very season-3-ATLA-Zuko "honor wasn't all it's cracked up to be" arc and I think that suits Conner's character really well! It's the details I have gripes with:
"Conner has been largely relegated to the Jason Todd of the Superfamily" oof, haha that's not a particularly fair characterization.
The constant comparing of Superman to Christian imagery. He's described as basically "Jesus goddamn Christ" in the pitch. The Tyrannical Kryptonians are named Saint, Shepherd and Savior. No surprise I don't like seeing a character who allegorically represented Jewish immigrants to be constantly compared to Christian imagery and deified.
It's inevitable with pitching to the company, but the pitch is bogged down by a lot of convoluted plot points. I get that it's necessary to pitch event tie-ins and universe hopping shenanigans, but it's a lot.
Leland feels like a plot device in this. I'm sure there were plans to flesh out the brotherly clone relationship between him and Conner so that he can feel like his own character, but from the summary he just kind of revolves around Conner the way the pitch describes Conner revolving around Superman. Oops!
Conner's relation to Luthor and Superman works as a story about legacy, bloodlines and the things parents pass down to their kids. It's best when handled thematically and not literally because it's easy to get into essentialist "good genes" vs "evil genes" near-eugenics talking points. Unfortunately this pitch has a lot of that vibe. Leland has more Lex genes so he's super smart. Conner and Leland are able to start a schism in the Future Tyrannical Kryptonian House by "proving their truer genetic link to the original Superman, unsullied by thousands of years of tinkering" thereby gaining allies. Not great!
The part where Conner wants to find "his own Metropolis" by moving to Dripping Springs, Texas. That's Jinny Hex's field of operations, so is it really his own space? I would've just given Conner a new town so he can better stand on his own and build out a unique cast system.
Okay let's talk about the trans stuff!
I get that it makes for an Iconic Visual Superhero Moment, but I really don't like the part where Conner steps through a magical crystal and pops out the other side as a trans woman. It robs her of having that discovery on her own. The pitch says "I believe that this is as natural a move as Iceman's coming out". And just?? Man, remember when Jean Grey read Iceman Bobby Drake's mind and robbed him of his agency by outing him through that invasion of privacy? For a pitch all about Conner's journey of defining herself, it weirdly robbed her of that moment.
The pitch does such a good job talking about how Conner feels like her whole life revolves around Superman and how pointless wanting to be Superman feels now that Jon Kent has taken the mantle. She has Clark's genes, goes to Clark's hometown school, is raised by Clark's parents and all that. So then why is she eventually named after the women in Clark's life? Constance "Connie" Lara Kent. Clark's Kryptonian mom and human grandma? Was the world so small that she could not name herself after anyone else or come up with a new name? Connie doesn't even get to name herself, her new name is one Martha Kent bestows her with. It's hypocritical, and doesn't have the same impact that Superman giving Superboy a Kryptonian name does.
Speaking of which, this right here is my biggest gripe. It's not in the pitch itself but?? Wait- why go on about how Conner deserves a name that's not given to her and then turn around and make Martha name her? Sure, Connie comes up with the superhero name "Skyrocket" herself but surely she also deserves to name herself considering the thesis the pitch built up about self discovery and agency right?
Also with all due respect, this is the whitest queer take on Conner's identity. I wish white trans people could understand that you can have multiple true names that reflect different parts of you.
When Clark gives Superboy the name "Kon-El" it matters that it's given. It ties so well to the idea of familial acceptance into a nearly-extinct culture. You wouldn't know how to reclaim that part of your identity when that culture's been wiped out, so of course it's an honor to be trusted with a name that preserves Krypton's culture. This is a common practice with diaspora reclaiming cultural names from closed cultures, they are gifted their names by someone more culturally connected. I think the pitch having Martha name Connie is trying to echo this, but it doesn't hit the same without that cultural context. It also undercuts the genuine joy Conner felt from finally having a name he truly identifies with. Conner was only ever referred to as Superboy before then. When Clark gives him the name Kon El, Conner cries out that Kon El is his "real name". It's one of his defining moments, and to have that be diminished by saying "It's still a name someone else gave him" is so disappointing.
Then there's the design.
This is gonna lean more into preference, but I'm not the biggest fan of this design! I get what it's going for but it has too much going on everywhere. It also doesn't have that proto-punk look original Conner had, so it ends up not feeling like him. It's too superhero, and not enough casual-wear-on-a-supersuit that Conner sports really well. I see how it fits in with the everyone-in-Superfam-is-wearing-jackets-era, but I also think those new designs don't look good either. Especially Supergirl's. I feel like Conner should be more punk post transition. No respectability beam for her!
Also the name Skyrocket? It's giving knock off-brand toy vibes to me I'm sorry D: People on twidder suggested Supernova and that sounds way better! Even Visaggio stated she prefers that name so you can't be mad at me for this.
Overall big conclusion feelings!
I've been following Visaggio's work for a while because it's awesome seeing trans people getting picked up in comics. While there are some things about her writing I like, for the most part I've felt like her work isn't my cup of tea. I tried reading up a bunch of interviews she's in to try to understand why her writing wasn't clicking with me, and what I discovered is that we have fundamentally different approaches to queer storytelling.
From Paste Magazine. I get where she's coming from, trans characters deserve to have multi-faceted narratives that don't overly center how they're othered at the expense of further characterization. But also? I just actually find the interior lives of queer people and identity interesting. I like writing the kind of escapism and joy that's informed by surviving and inheriting hardships rather than erasing those things or skipping past it. I think this is why Connie is robbed of her trans discovery in the pitch. Why we don't get to watch her grapple with gender identity in a political way. Queer stories about queer struggles are considered archaic and unnecessary nowadays. It's part of the escapism Visaggio values in her work; to give a place of respite for trans readers from the cruelty they experience in reality, but I don't connect to stories like that personally. Whenever I try to share queer Indonesian art and writing with my peers, I'm often told it's too painful to look at. That our pain doesn't fit the modern expectation for happy, empowering queer stories. "trans people get enough hardships in real life, they don't need that in their fiction" Visaggio still talks about her newest projects like this btw.
I'd love to see a take on Conner that more holistically continues the political immigrant themes of Superman. The white parts of fandom love interpreting Conner's identity crisis as primarily a queer struggle, but it's also one of a person grappling with his mixed heritage. He's a diaspora kid separated by a generation away from Krypton. He has yet to make peace with the Luthor side of his identity, one borne of generational trauma and resentment for one's roots. Instead of a take where his queerness separates him from the pressures of legacy, I want to see a Conner take that has themes that are intersectional about his mixed diaspora and queer identity. I want his superficial punk aesthetic to graduate into actual punk ideals. The anti-establishment and radical love philosophies of punk culture would make such a cool extension of Superman themes and it would make so much sense that someone facing so many intersections of marginalization would be radicalized from their experience. I want a queer Conner who isn't just empowering and idealistic, I want one that also gives space for queer readers to feel like their pain is seen too. Conner isn't "Truth, Justice and the American Way" he's famously "Truth, Justice, My Way".
There's a tendency in media criticism to treat marginalized talent as infallible, and I don't think that fair to creatives like Visaggio. Being able to look at their ideas with nuance instead of essentializing it as being Good or Trash is the best way to respect diverse creativity. And my nuanced feelings are that a white queer person who looks at Conner's story and just sees the queer part and dismisses the diaspora mixed heritage side of him,,, is not going to give me the Conner story I want to see.
#askjesncin#superboy#kon el#conner kent#jesncin dc meta#media criticism#the thing about conner superboy is that his character is a mess#and I love a mess. I could talk about mess all day#this is a long way of saying that white queer people will never be able to give me the queer stories i need
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Motivations:
Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle)
My man has no idea what's going on throughout his entire movie. He's possessed by a homicidal bug from outer space. He is the official successor of a guy who REALLY wanted to be possessed by the outer space bug but couldn't get it past management and just decided to fake it till he made it with his billionaire budget. His family loves him. His suit is iconic. Sometimes his little outer space bug just goes "hey lil mama lemme whisper in your ear" and then it forcibly takes control of his body and tries to murder people. But also it loves him <3 I think he deserves to win, personally
The writers were like "What if the teen superhero had parents that were alive and loving and not criminals" and proceeded to make the most wholesome guy. He power of friendship-ed a homicidal murder ai into being good. His darkest power fantasy is becoming a dentist. Lex Luthor tried and failed to turn him evil so hard he killed him about it, because that was easier. Also his costume kicks so much ass that the main thing that changes about it between redesigns is the eye colour. It's just that good.
the 2006-2009 blue beetle run is not only my favorite dc comic, but one of my favorite comics period. it flips so many typical superhero tropes on their heads and does it well. jaime is an incredibly kind and well-written character and his relationship with his family and friends is so touching.
Jaime is the perfect blend of goofy and sad, street-level and cosmic, kind and flawed. He was forced into becoming a hero by the weight of a legacy he didn't even know existed and a presence in his mind that would have him become a weapon. Before he even figured out his powers, he was hauled into space by established superheroes to deal with a Crisis and then left for dead for a year while his loved ones mourned him. His primary guides for his first solo were the hostile AI fused to his spine, a mercenary biker who only stuck around to see if he had to kill Jaime, and his normal parents. His greatest power fantasy was becoming a dentist because the power he already has over people's lives was crushing him. And yet, through all of that, his family and his culture and the mundane reality of being a teenager in El Paso were enough to keep him grounded. Read Blue Beetle 2006 and you will understand why Jaime is my son.
Conner Kent/Kon-El (Superboy)
Most 90s person ever, to the point that in the Reign of the Supermen movie they establish that he was basically raised on sitcoms from that era and has at least somewhat based his mannerisms on the characters. All of that mess serves to distract from a compelling story about a kid with identity struggles who has been constantly exploited by the adults in his life. He is a good friend (even basically being the mom friend in Young Justice '98) and I'll never stop being mad about how much they changed him in the TV show.
His solo shows a lot of toxic elements of child stardom and how kids are taken advantage of. He doesn't have a name beyond Superboy for a decent portion of his solo until Superman gives him his name, Kon-El. I just like him a lot.
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In The Soup
Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam, Superfam
Summary: Jason Lives AU where he and Superboy become friends, despite Bruce's disapproval of Superboy. (ft. Jason's service dog, Gromit)
Chapters: 9/?
Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Barbara Gordon, Conner Kent, Roxy Leech, Rex Leech
Relationships: TBA
Additional Tag: Jason Todd Lives, Jason Todd Has Chronic Pain, Jason Todd Has PTSD, Conner Kent is Superboy, Good Friend Jason Todd, Protective Jason Todd, Overprotective Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Disabled Characters, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Get Along, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Developing Friendships, Sneaking Around, Disguise, Fluff and Humor, Secret Messages, Hiding in Plain Sight
Chapter Nine: Pho
Jason let his fingers dance through the mess of curls on his lap. Conner’s weight wasn’t suffocating like most things were. Conner woke up and lay in place. “Hey,” Jason whispered, “Hey…"
“Are you okay?” Conner murmured, almost purring at the sensation of fingers in his hair.
Jason made a soft noise. “My head hurts, but that’s normal. My dad’s gonna be pissed that I trashed my chair… But then again, he might not find out if I can replace it before he gets home,” Jason mumbled. “Oh crap, I’m—. Sorry, the pain medication always makes me weird. Why am I touching you?” Jason removed his hand from Conner’s hair as his face went red-hot.
Conner didn’t budge. “You don’t have to stop… It was nice,” Conner mumbled. Jason hesitated before returning to Conner’s hair. “Should you call your dad?”
“No… I don’t want Bruce to be worried. No use in both of us being worried about each other,” Jason answered without thinking.
“He’s your dad, though,” Conner whispered. Jason nodded.
“I know, but—. I don’t like to make him worry if it isn’t serious. I’ll heal… Probably before he gets home. He doesn’t have to know,” Jason half-pleaded. A knock on the door startled them both.
“Jason, can we come in?” Barbara asked. Conner sat up, and Jason told Barbara to enter. Gromit rushed to Jason’s side, and Jason giggled.
“Gromit. Hey buddy. Did you eat?” Jason asked as he leaned forward to receive an affectionate kiss on the cheek from Gromit. “Hi, sweet boy. I missed you too.”
“Jason, your left wrist is only sprained,” Barbara announced.
“I figured. You didn’t tell Bruce, did you?” Jason asked.
“No, but this is why I talked to you about the other thing yesterday—.”
“And I said okay,” Jason interrupted.
Jason reached out with his uninjured arm, and Barbara squeezed his hand. “I’m gonna sign you out. Get dressed, and I’ll wait for you. I’ll take both of you kids home,” Barbara whispered, “I brought you a change of clothes.” Barbara gave Jason a bag.
Jason removed the hospital gown and pulled his shirt out of the bag. Jason fastened the magnetic buttons with his uninjured hand. Conner sat with his face hidden in his arms. Jason figured it was out of respect for him while he got dressed. Jason pushed the blankets aside and finished getting dressed. “Conner, I’m done getting dressed. You can look now,” I replied.
“Okay… Sorry, I don’t—. You didn’t ask me to leave,” Conner stammered.
“I didn’t wanna be alone,” Jason explained. Gromit whined. “No offense, Gromit. I love you, but sometimes a guy needs a human friend to talk to.” Jason scratched under Gromit’s chin.
Jason put a foot down and shifted his weight. Gromit took his place at Jason’s side. Jason winced and clutched his ribs on one side. “Jason—.”
“I’m fine. I mean—. It could’ve been worse if you weren’t there,” Jason interrupted. He stood, wavering before grabbing the support handle attached to Gromit’s harness. Conner stood up, making sure Jason was okay. “It’s the medication… That’s all. I’m just dizzy.” Jason shut his eyes, breathing through his nose. “You can never get used to how the hospitals dope you up. Hungry? We could stop and get some pho on the way home.” Jason laughed.
“You still wanna hang out with me?” Conner asked.
“Yeah… Do you?” Jason questioned.
“Chicken or beef?” Conner smiled. Jason chuckled.
“Beef, definitely,” Jason chuckled. Conner held the door and followed him.
“Did you guys eat dinner last night?” Barbara asked as she led them to the car.
“Nope,” Jason replied before groaning. “My meds—.”
“Got you covered. Also, I have you covered on the chair too… But you owe Gromit a movie. He didn’t get to finish The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” Barbara interrupted.
“Gromit, that’s our movie,” Jason whined. Gromit kissed his cheek. “Oh, flattery will get you everywhere. I forgive you, sweet boy.” Conner chuckled.
“What do you guys wanna eat? We can eat anything as long as I don’t have to cook,” Barbara replied.
Jason lay back and shut his eyes. Conner answered Barbara’s question, and she took them to the restaurant. Jason leaned forward, breathing heavily, and Gromit lay over his lap to support him. “Is he asleep?” Barbara asked.
“Mhm,” Conner answered.
*
Jason slept most of the afternoon, waking to eat or tell Conner he felt fine. He lied. Gromit curled up beside him, keeping watch. “Gromit would tell us if something was wrong with him,” Barbara whispered. Conner nodded. “Are you alright?”
“I’m practically invulnerable—.”
“Emotionally, Conner. What’s going on up there?” Barbara asked.
Conner shrugged. “Don’t know… I guess it doesn’t matter because he’s okay now,” Conner replied.
“It matters,” Barbara interrupted.
Gromit tugged at Conner’s pants leg, and Conner followed him to the bedroom. Jason gasped for air, kicking and clawing at nothing. Conner listened to Jason’s heart and lungs and didn’t hear a disturbance, so he sat the sleeping boy up, allowing Jason to rest on his shoulder. Conner rubbed his back, gently humming so Jason could feel the vibration. He continued until Jason went limp in his arms, and he gently laid Jason back on his pillow. “It’s okay, Gromit,” Conner whispered. Jason curled into a ball, and Gromit took his place on the bed. Conner stayed behind, watching Jason until he fell asleep as well. Jason woke up, confused by Conner’s presence but not alarmed. He grabbed the back of Conner’s sweatshirt and pulled him away from the bed’s edge, wrapping his injured arm around his chest because he wasn’t strong enough to do it on his own. Gromit helped, and Conner rolled onto his back. Jason hesitated before letting go of Conner’s torso and scratched behind Gromit’s ears.
“I’m not lonely, Gromit,” Jason mumbled. Gromit’s ears perked up. “Oh, don’t do that. Whatever happened, you could’ve handled—.”
Conner sharply inhaled and stretched out. “Jason, I’m—.”
“Conner, it’s late. You can apologize all you want to, but—. I’m tired, and it’s cold,” Jason mumbled as he rolled toward the wall and let Conner climb under the blankets. Jason was ice cold next to him.
“Jason… Do you remember your nightmare?”Conner asked. Jason sighed. “I’m sorry if that was personal—.”
“I have nightmares about my claustrophobia,” Jason mumbled, “Always different scenarios… What did you do when you came in?”
“I sat you up and let you lay on me until your breathing slowed down,” Conner answered. Jason made a soft noise of acceptance and shut his eyes. Conner yawned and fell asleep shortly after Jason curled into him. Gromit lay on Jason’s other side, offering enough space for Jason to roll over when he needed to. That night, everyone slept peacefully.
#fic#batfam#superfam#in the soup fic#Jason Todd#Bruce Wayne#Alfred Pennyworth#Barbara Gordon#Conner Kent#Roxy Leech#Rex Leech#Jason Todd Lives#Jason Todd Has Chronic Pain#Jason Todd Has PTSD#Conner Kent is Superboy#Good Friend Jason Todd#Protective Jason Todd#Overprotective Bruce Wayne#Barbara Gordon is Oracle#Disabled Characters#Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Get Along#Good Parent Bruce Wayne#Developing Friendships#Sneaking Around#Disguise#Fluff and Humor#Secret Messages#Hiding in Plain Sight
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I HATE CONNER AND M’GANN TOGETHER SO MUCH!! like okay outside the whole im generally not fond of the TV show(tho i like the Jade stuff) she is so awful to him??
I’m genuinely flabbergasted that they wrote her violating his boundaries and fucking with his memories and still made them get married
RIGHT. like. in general i have a complicated love/hate relationship with the YJ cartoon, because while I think some things are very cool I also just straight up hate how they chose to adapt SEVERAL characters. But even putting that sort of stuff aside to just think about this within the context of 'plotline in the show' rather than 'adaptations of these comic characters'....
i think there was the potential for a really interesting story there with what happened between M'gann and Conner, but they just fumbled it so fucking hard. Because rather than actually making it into an appropriately addressed plotline about violation of consent leading to the end of a relationship... they have this fucking mess happen
(Young Justice: Outsiders #2)
Where ya know they were quite literally trapped in M'gann's mind unless he forgave her and... he ends up apologizing to her?
them getting back together and then getting married just. god. i haaaate it!!!!!!!!!! i hate it i hate it. if the writers wanted them to be an endgame couple perhaps they should not have written a plot where she tries to erase his memories of him being mad at her for crossing lines and abusing her powers, treated it like a big enough reason to breakup and cause tension btwn them for like a whole season, but then backtrack and act like 'nvm its not actually THAT big a deal teehee' later on. like maybe that wasn't a great idea guys!!!!!!!!
and then to put back on my comics canon brain, i think it's extra fucked up that one of the VERY FEW similarities between comics Kon & YJ cartoon Conner is ending up in a toxic relationship with a redhead from another planet that manipulates them. but at least Superboy '94—a comic RENOWNED for handling serious topics fucking horribly—manages to paint Kon & Knockout's relationship as an overall bad thing... meanwhile Conner & M'gann get fucking married.
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Ohhh, what's "the Damian one with amnesia?"
Oh, this one is close to my heart but also kind of a mess and I'm not sure I'll ever actually write it; it's pretty much all "story idea" sdfsfsd It's a Damian + Tim bonding story with a bit of a Damian + Heretic subplot. I guess if I had to compare it to something I'd say it's got some loose similarities to "Tim bonds with Pit-mad!Jason" fanfic, except with Damian and crazy!Tim instead?
I've been sort of stalled on this one because ... I mean various reasons but in terms of "personal writing motivation" I think it's mostly a combination of 1) overly complicated plot, and 2) Dick's only a minor character sfdsfds I find Dick's POV fun to write and Tim and Damian's POVs a bit more difficult, and the story is basically all Tim and Damian, so it's kind of a story that I want to read more than I want to write, you know?
But I am nevertheless attached to it, ridiculous monstrosity that it is. There's amnesia!Tim and BAMF!Damian and curses and reluctant bonding and secret friendship and disguises and misunderstandings and temptation and lots and lots and lots of snowballing lies!
If I ever actually write it the rambling summary below the cut will be completely spoilery; you've been warned sfdsfdsf
OKAY SO there's a convoluted backstory of evil villain plots BUT basically there are TWO PARTS.
Here they are:
Part One: Damian + Amnesia!Tim
Due to [complicated backstory], Tim is basically under a curse where he's alternating between having amnesia and forgetting the past few years, and sometimes being triggered into becoming Evil!Tim who's trying to kill Robin
Damian is under strict orders to go nowhere near him while the Bats scramble to try to fix the Evil!Tim problem
... Damian naturally does not listen to these orders!! He is NOT A CHILD!!!! He is NOT AFRAID!!! He decides to go surveil Drake and then confront him because he's not going to cower in fear!!! He will fight and win!!!
Amnesia!Tim has agreed to be confined to his apartment although he doesn't consistently remember why (it's because nobody has figured out what triggers the appearance of Evil!Tim) and Tim is SO BORED
Tim catches an apparent civilian kid spying on him with binoculars and is immediately charmed
This child is Damian
After whacky shenanigans they bond
Damian makes up an impulsive lie about how he's Definitely Not A Superhero Yet and he's just a Very Innocent Naïve Child who aspires to be a superhero and uhhh that's why he was climbing around with binoculars, definitely
Tim likes him and is also so so bored and offers to train him
Damian does not actually need training bc he is actually already a superhero? BUT this would be a great surveillance opportunity because amnesia!Tim will just tell Damian his weaknesses instead of Damian having to deduce them
so he agrees to "be trained"
It ends up being a lot of fun because first of all Tim is super-impressed with how talented he is and thinks maybe Damian could join Young Justice and Tim could vouch for him, especially since in Tim's opinion Damian's already way more responsible than Superboy *eye roll* (Tim has been dialed back to an earlier age when his relationship with Conner is I Guess We're Friends But Also We Sure Do Annoy Each Other), and it's kinda fun and satisfying for Damian to hear all this praise
And second of all Tim's always been super-tight-lipped around Damian, not that Damian CARES, so THERE, and in order to learn anything about him Damian has had to do things like spend hours hacking into Tim's computer files (out of IDLE CURIOSITY and NOT because he cared) or learning to imitate his voice or spying on him, but now suddenly instead of being tight-lipped Tim is basically an open book? And so now Damian can hear all kinds of thinly-veiled stories that are clearly about Father and Grayson and Todd and Cain and Brown and the Teen Titans, and Tim doesn't realize that Damian actually knows all of these people and can decipher whatever nicknames Tim is giving them, so now suddenly Damian's getting to hear all kinds of relatively-uncensored gossip
And third of all, it turns out to be surprisingly fun playacting at being some nobody who isn't The Son Of Batman and doesn't have to live up to that legacy
And fourth and MOST IMPORTANTLY Damian learns partway through from Grayson that once they've fixed the curse Tim will FORGET EVERYTHING that happened while he was cursed
So this means that Damian is TOTALLY SAFE. He can confess vulnerabilities or be bad at things or admit to confusion and it won't matter because it doesn't count because amnesia!Tim won't remember when he goes back to normal and starts being Damian's insufferable nemesis again!!
And also no one else will ever know because amnesia!Tim has promised to keep their training secret!! And Damian has ofc told no one that he's sneaking into the apartment he's not supposed to be in!!
This is kind of intoxicating and great because normally Damian is being Watched All The Time and very very aware that whatever he does other people will remember and suddenly he is FREE because this particular secret little friendship will stay secret FOREVER and only Damian will ever know about it
By this time he's gotten totally distracted from his "surveil evil!Tim" plan and actually he's over at Tim's place often enough that he's figured out how not to trigger the appearance of evil!Tim
(because Damian started out way less emotionally-invested than the rest of the Bats he's been a much more impartial observer of what's going on PLUS Tim thinks he's just a random kid and hasn't been trying to put up much of an I'm Fine front for him)
Meanwhile the Bats are all super-distracted from Damian by their worries about cursed!Tim so Damian is also kinda lonely which is leading to him getting more and more invested in this secret friendship
AND THEN at some point he finds about Heretic and in this AU Damian is the ONLY ONE who knows about Heretic and he's terrified that he's going to have to fight and maybe kill him and then what will the Bats think??? they will hate him!!! They Can Never Know
... but he HAS to do something because right now Heretic has only been aged up somewhat and he's still younger than Damian, so Damian might if he's very lucky be able to beat him and survive, but the League is planning to magically age Heretic up more and if Damian doesn't do something soon Heretic will be aged into an adult and Damian will have no chance at defeating him, so he has to do something soon...
... maybe amnesia!Tim can help?
Plot ensues; Damian takes amnesia!Tim along on a secret quest to kill Heretic; Damian almost kills Heretic and at first amnesia!Tim is difficult and he's gonna intervene but then he BACKS OFF and then Damian can't bring himself to actually go through with his plan and he saves Heretic's life at the last minute; Tim now tells Damian he let him make the choice because he KNEW HE'D MAKE THE RIGHT ONE; this moment actually fixes Tim's curse because uhhhh gobbledegook having to do with the curse and it's connected back with that old emotional memory that Tim had forgotten with Dick and the Lazarus Pits, so no sooner has Tim said this and started comforting Damian then he gets dizzy and passes out.
So then Damian has to rescue both amnesia!Tim and Heretic which of course he does, with the timely help of a certain Batdragon...
... and even though it scares him, Damian's planning on coming clean and confessing everything, and he knows that amnesia!Tim will back him up....
... and then Tim wakes up. And the curse is fixed. And he's back to "normal." And he doesn't remember anything.
... and he hates Damian again.
Part 2: Damian + Normal!Tim (+ Heretic)
So then the second half of the story was going to be joint Damian and Tim POVs. So on Damian's side he's absolutely determined to conceal his deep dark secret of *checks notes* having befriended amnesia!Tim and then overcome temptation and saved Heretic's life and also saved Tim's life and accidentally broken Tim's curse in the process. And he's made up a complicated fake story about being kidnapped by evil!Tim so that No One Will Know. And also secretly he's kind of miserable about having lost his friend, amnesia!Tim, who's now been replaced by the much more familiar normal!Tim who hates Damian and who Damian hates in return.
And meanwhile! Normal!Tim is certain that Damian's lying because he has very blurry memories that do not match up with the story that Damian is now telling plus his instincts are (correctly!) telling him that it's false, because for mysterious reasons he's finding Damian much easier to read than he used to, and he's intensely suspicious of Damian and certain that he must be concealing something Sinister, and he's trying to figure out what.
And meanwhile Heretic is in a coma and the Bats are trying to heal him and Damian is committed to doing the right thing and not sorry about saving him but also really worried because what if Heretic wakes up and says that Damian tried to kill him, or what if Normal!Tim figures it out, and what if then the Bats hate him forever
(which like. they would not. because this is actually a story about Damian being a hero! but Damian feels guilty about having even considered the initial plan and is mayyyybe not thinking things through very rationally here)
(and also the various things he's been lying about are kinda snowballing at this point)
Anyway meanwhile Tim is conducting extremely intrusive and potentially threatening investigations which might uncover all the lies and then he FINDS SECRET EVIDENCE in the form of Damian's camera with photos and videos plus a sketchbook and Damian is HORRIFIED and tries to FIGHT HIM TO STOP HIM FROM TAKING THESE THINGS and Tim doesn't know what's on the camera but he's so sure it's PROOF of whatever sinister things Damian has been gaslighting him about and whatever sinister things Damian was up to when Tim had amnesia --
-- and then Tim is victorious and gets hold of the camera and takes off with it and gets back to his apartment where he sits down and discovers the DAMNING EVIDENCE of uhhhh. selfies and things where amnesia!Tim and Damian were hanging out.
So Tim is now very very confused and although he still doesn't really understand what's going on it's sinking in that maybe Damian isn't up to anything sinister, just something that Tim... doesn't understand at all, and also now Tim has successfully seized this collection of stuff that turns out to be fairly personal and thus kind of a privacy violation, although also not a privacy violation because it involves Tim damn it, so Tim is very determinedly NOT feeling guilty about this because he has EVERY RIGHT to know what HE HIMSELF was doing that Damian has been lying about, but also it turns out that mostly what Damian's been lying about has been a lot of very wholesome bonding and also some fairly personal confessions that it's obvious he would not want actual!Tim to know, so Tim is NOT feeling guilty but also, okay, fine, he is feeling a little guilty despite himself, and also it is quickly becoming apparent from the little collection of stuff that Damian is... maybe okay? maybe secretly kind of a sweet vulnerable kid? actually? as opposed to Tim's Personal Infuriating Nemesis Child Sent To Torment Him? which is so weird given Tim's entire remembered experience of Damian up until now, and yet the evidence does seem pretty conclusive because he can't figure out what Damian's endgame could possibly be if it was a trick, which means it's not a trick, which means...
And meanwhile Damian is horrified and very upset because he has been FOUND OUT by normal!Tim who hates him, and who will figure out ALL the lies and figure out that Damian was planning to kill Heretic and then he'll tell it all to Father and frame it all in the worst possible light, so to get out in front of it Damian injures himself and goes to Father and tells him that Evil!Tim came back and attacked him and that Tim's very unstable --
And then Damian's BRACED when normal!Tim shows up and Father confronts him with the accusation of having snapped and attacked Damian, and Damian is DETERMINED to stick to his lie and he's not gonna confess NO MATTER WHAT and he's going to say that clearly Tim's memory is wrong again, and then... normal!Tim doesn't deny it. He admits to attacking Damian. Kinda brusquely, but he does. He says he's sorry.
... Tim admits to the thing that he didn't do?
And Tim kinda nods at Damian - now we're even.
Because on Tim's side... he's still not understanding a lot. But he's got the basic idea now. He's gotten that Damian's scared, and he gets that he went too far trying to get hold of the weird evidence. And so he gets that this lie is Damian's retaliation for the privacy violation, and you know what? Fair enough. Tim can lie to Batman too. And besides, this is very clearly something between Tim and Damian, and Tim doesn't really want Bruce involved either.
Now he wants to get Damian alone and find out... well, basically the same thing he's wanted since the beginning, he wants to know what the hell has been going on with him during the huge blank spot in his memory, and he still has the (correct!) instinct that Damian knows all kinds of things he's not telling...
... But now it's slowly dawning on him that Damian might be, like, a Person with Emotions and Vulnerabilities (still such a strange thought!!). Which is also what Damian's afraid of, because when your enemies realize you have emotions and vulnerabilities that's very bad!!! And ever since they met and became Nemeses, Damian has done his best to convince Tim that he has NO VULNERABILITIES WHATSOEVER!!! And now because of his weakness and carelessness with amnesia!Tim he's ruined it all!!! This is disastrous!!!
So when Tim confronts him, he does his level best to convince Tim that he has NO feelings and they were NOT friendly and the bonding was all Damian's convoluted Machiavellian plan, which is actually what Tim believed until he found the evidence, but now Tim has Seen Too Much and doesn't believe that it was just a scheme after all because instead it kinda looks like Damian was... lonely? Because he is a kid? Who was lonely? Kind of like Tim was lonely back in the day? And it's really frustrating to realize this because people (Dick and Bruce) have actually been insisting on Damian's various sympathetic qualities to Tim for ages but it never really felt real before because Tim never managed to see past Damian's façade before and now it just feels very thuddingly obvious?
Anyway the rest is mostly vibes but basically even though Tim still has kinda mixed feelings because he has all his more negative memories of Damian back, he's also had this glimpse at the possibility of a more positive relationship, which he's maybe realizing he might like to have? And maybe he could have it, because he apparently managed it somehow even when his memory was Swiss cheese and also he was sometimes randomly going evil? And also he's feeling super-lonely right now because he has a huge memory gap but he knows Evil!Tim did all kinds of awful things which he feels really guilty about so he's avoiding all his actual friends?
So now Tim tentatively proposes to Damian that maybe they could spend some time together again, and Damian's a little wary because it could be a trap - because this is nemesis!Tim not friend!Tim!!! - but he misses amnesia!Tim so he agrees. So now they're hanging out in secret again, except for real this time and now as themselves instead of amnesia!Tim and disguised!Damian, and they're jointly lying to Bruce about it because thanks to that impulsive lie Bruce is worried that Evil!Tim might come back and has Absolutely Banned Damian from spending any time with him again.
And so then they're Bonding and Tim takes Damian to Blüdhaven to train-surf because Tim has exactly (1) model of how older brothers interact with younger brothers, so that's what he's imitating - and it will probably not surprise you that this is the part I'm most personally attached to and the only part I actually managed to write a bit for sdfsdfds. And Damian has never actually done this weird activity before because Dick didn't do it with him because actually Damian has already trained in pitch darkness, so the whole concept of the blindfolds is pointless for him because the purpose was to get Tim to stop relying on his vision so much, and Damian doesn't rely too much on his vision. So this isn't actually a training exercise that makes much sense for Damian. But Tim is trying and Damian is also trying so they try it together and they end up bonding anyway, because you can't really screw up risking your lives on a train together.
Then we move into the part of the fic that is fuzziest but also full of my favorite ~Vibes~ where Tim and Damian are bonding and lying to Bruce but also they have to lie to Dick too, because Dick believes everything that Bruce believes, and so Tim is having various complicated feelings about lying to Dick and also not getting along super-well with Dick because of all the, you know, lying, plus Dick was one of the people who had to fight evil!Tim so Dick's kinda instinctively wary now because having Tim back feels too good to be true, plus Dick feels guilty for the various things he had to do to subdue evil!Tim, and Tim feels guilty for whatever awful things he did when he was evil!Tim, plus even though he knows it's irrational Tim is secretly kinda mad at Dick and Bruce for believing the lie about the attack, even though it is a lie he is participating in, but look, emotions are complicated. So things between Dick and Tim in the present-day are pretty strained, but simultaneously Tim is revisiting all his best memories with Dick when he was younger because he's trying to figure out ways to bond with Damian.
So Tim is kinda low-key grappling with the problem of I Guess I'm An Older Brother Now, I Don't Feel Old Enough Or Qualified For This And It Alarms Me, much like Dick had to grapple with it back in the day, and simultaneously Damian is also trying to figure out how Older Brother-ing works because Heretic is? maybe? kind of like Damian's younger brother? So Tim is low-key ending up in Dick's position of the Dick-and-Tim relationship, where you're at an exceptional personal low point and estranged from everyone you care about and this very irritating thirteen-year-old keeps hanging around being all up in your business and then somehow you end up hanging out with him and sorta kinda mentoring him a little even though the prospect of being any kind of mentor is deeply alarming because obviously you can't be a mentor, you are not a mentor, you're not even a real adult and your own personal life is a total mess and nobody should listen to you ever, and meanwhile Damian is low-key ending up in Tim's position of the Tim-and-Damian relationship, or rather he's worried he will, because he's got this horrifying younger brother Heretic who will surely try to kill or undermine him as soon as he gets out of the coma, because that's what he's been trained to do, and what if the Bats like Heretic better??? Or what if they decide that Heretic needs Robin more and they won't let Damian be Robin anymore??? And what will happen to Damian then??? And Dick and Bruce are both very worried about Heretic, who's apparently Bruce's second biological son and even younger than Damian and in a coma (and as far as Damian's concerned that's all they know because he hasn't told them anything else, although Dick and Bruce have actually guessed a bit more than Damian realizes), and Damian knows he shouldn't be jealous or paranoid or threatened but actually he is feeling all of those emotions and dreading what might happen when Heretic wakes up and he doesn't want to share his family with Heretic and he doesn't actually want Heretic to be here at all.
BUT ANYWAY it all works out and they gradually all figure out each other's various secrets and Various Emotional Confessions ensue and ultimately Tim and Damian bond, and Dick and Tim get past the strains and get close again, and Tim is able to listen to Damian's anxieties about Heretic and offer some hard-won insights from the older-and-wiser position of Younger Brothers Who Were Trained To Kill You: Admittedly It's Unpleasant At First But At Least One Of Them Is Really Worth It Actually, and then eventually the HAPPY ENDING was going to be Heretic waking up from the coma braced for battle and Damian offering him the Robin costume.
Anyway. I think that's how it would go if I ever actually wrote it. Any and all of the plot ideas are free to a good home if anyone else wants them sdfsfdsfds
#ask tag#it was fun to actually write it all out because even though i have snippets of it in a document it's mostly lived in my head
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The Other Playlist™
I was recently asked to make a young justice playlist so here it is!
@automaticsoulharmony it’s for you :)!
The young justice playlist is under the cut with explanations for each song
Tim
Ur gonna wish u believed me (start of brucequest)
Yes I’m a mess (I could see him deleting his identity)
Karma (AJR) (depressed man)
Mastermind (smart Timmy)
Don’t blame me (all his action with the loa)
Fool (him with the Wayne’s)
Wow, I’m not crazy (him when he meets the bats (he is crazy))
Humpty Dumpty (he’s a depressed lil guy)
Good 4 u (to dick about Damian)
Pretender (Acoustic) (Jason canonically calls him pretender I had to)
Mister Cellophane (everyone forgets about him)
Come hang out (he’s a workaholic)
Let the games begin (Tim enjoys power)
Heart of stone (depressionnn)
brutal (it’s just Tim coded)
Deja vu (to dick about Damian)
Every breath you take (stalker)
The sound of silence (he is so fucking depressed)
Go the distance (start of robin training and brucequest)
Viva La Vida (Tim coming back to Gotham)
Bart:
What ifs (him going to past)
2085 (he’s from the future)
Bones (him running)
Everything has changed (him coming back to life)
When will my life begin (him in vr)
We didn’t start the fire (he is from the future)
Go the distance (him going back in time)
Iron man (time travel)
How far I’ll go (look it’s easy to find Disney songs about going back in time)
For the first time in forever (him meeting actual humans after being raised in vr)
Adventure is out there (very adhd coded song very adhd coded character)
Into the unknown (going back in time)
Dead! (he died)
The nights (it gives me his vibes)
Blackbird (finally being in the real world)
Record player (he’s from the future so it would make sense for him to find 2014 old)
Over the rainbow (going to the real world)
Wow, I’m not crazy (meeting the rest of YJ)
The DJ is Crying for Help (him wondering what to do after becoming an adult)
Centuries (from the future so he knows they will be remembered for centuries)
Kon
Father of mine (Clark sucks)
Dead! (he died)
Teenagers (it gives me his vibes)
All you wanna do (he was canonically taken advantage of by several women immediately after being “born”)
Oops! I did it again (player)
Too late (him maturing)
Used to be young (him after the playboy years are over)
Cat’s in the cradle (Clark still sucks)
You’re on your own, kid (horrible father)
When will my life begin (being in CADMUS and wondering when he can leave)
What else can I do (discovering his powers)
Pity party (he was canonically forgotten by everyone he loves after flashpoint)
Rip (by bladee) (I’m still focusing on the being forgotten thing)
Drift away (talking about the other superboy who came to be while he was trapped in another dimension)
Pretty fly (for a white guy) (he’s a player)
Uptown girl (Cassie!)
Rät (finding out CADMUS is evil)
Back to life (I think the name explains it)
Sober up (talking to YJ)
Shake it off (him responding to insults he gets)
Cassie
Just a girl (it’s hard being a female superhero)
Me too (badass woman)
Clara Bow (how it feels being a legacy sidekick)
Thunder (she’s Zeus’s kid)
Emotionless (good Charlotte) (Zeus is not a good father)
Brutal (her Bart and Kon’s deaths meltdown)
Cat’s in the cradle (I really hate Zeus)
Toxic (her about Kon)
I can do it with a broken heart (having to continue being a superhero even though her friends are dead)
How far I’ll go (her first becoming a superhero)
Last kiss (Kon’s death)
She used to be mine (her thinking back to what she was before she became a superhero)
My heart will go on (Kon’s death)
Eleanor rigby (her being alone after everyone died and she betrayed Tim)
Womanizer (Conner before they started dating)
Devil town (it gives me YJ vibes)
Yesterday (missing when things were simple)
No scrubs (not liking Conner before they started dating)
Two birds (her and Tim being the last ones left and her staying on the wire)
Sober up (her and Tim’s mistaken dating after everyone died)
I hope you like this new playlist!
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Could you do an analysis of Conner's character with the song "I'm Still Here (Jim’s Theme from Treasure Planet)"
Because there is some correlation there but my mind ain't thinking of the words to form a sentence about it. And I've been listening to it for days- and want to hear someone talk about it. My favorite cover is Annapantsu's.
Just imagine Conner mumbling the lyrics under his breath and fumbling his fingers on the strings of the guitar mimicking its melody. He'd be so sad but finds comfort in a song that reflects his hope and his situation he was in. Like brrruuuhhh, cause I get that feeling when a song relates to me a lot and still wishes hope for the listener. Anyway got songs that makes you think of Superboy?
GOD. it's been AGES since i've seen this movie but this song is giving me brainworms. Jim even has an undercut and an earring and a cool jacket in the movie im getting ideas uh oh...
anywaysss this song is very fitting in general for like young ppl trying to grow up and form their own identity but it fits so well with kon like.
"i am a question to the world/ not an answer to be heard" idk but this is like his debut and clone origins in ROTS i guess, like what will the world look like without superman. actually i think part of kon's early character was based on the question "what would superman be like if clark was not raised by the kents when he was young?"
and the next verse is sooo him. "i won't listen anyway" yEAH he never listens he's a bit of a rebellious boy, "and i'll never be what you want me to be" *gestures wildly at his whole schtick* yeah. yeah that fits
"I'm a boy/No, I'm a man" God a major part of his whole character is relationship to aging and maturing and being young and growing up THIS DO BE HITTING DIFF
"And how can you learn what's never shown/yeah, you stand here on your own" he literally only has implanted knowledge and memories but like. He's never shown or taught things and kinda just fucks around and gets himself into messes and SOMETIMES people come in and lecture him
"And I want a moment to be real/Wanna touch things I don't feel/Wanna hold on and feel I belong" ive seen people say that another reason kon acts like That in the beginning is bc he wants to experience everything bc everything in his brain is not his own or artificial and he wants to make it his own. and ugh yes BELONGING T-T
"And how can the world want me to change" everyone telling him to grow tf up
"They're the ones that stay the same" ironically its usually HIM who doesnt want to do the changing
And then the whole "Im not here" to "Im still here" just gives me the vibes of him hating being called superboy and the very thought of being STUCK as superboy and never getting a chance to be superman, to him accepting the title and saying things like "I'm superboy! I don't have a mother or father--all I got is who I am!" LIKE no matter what he will get up again and give his whole heart and everything into things
OKAY I COULD GO ON BUT YES. GOOD SONG CHOICE
as for others that remind me of Kon:
Get Famous - The Mountain Goats (i wanted to make an animatic to this butttt oh well)
Runaway Runaway - Mars Argo
Good Kid - The Lighting Thief Musical (this whole musical fits the yj/teen hero squad but this song in particular reminds me of kon)
Zero to Hero - Hercules
So many Lana Del Rey and MARINA songs...
#im SO NORMAL ABOUT HIM GUYS AAAAAAAAAAAh#TY FOR ALL THESE BANGER SONGS#kontent#kon el#clam answers#dc#sorry for my ramble#corn-fish#song tag
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Here, have some analysis literally no one asked for.
As far as I can tell, there are very few, if any, dramatizations of the original YJ kids that come close to their portrayals in the comics. For instance, there are plenty of animated and live-action adaptations that feature a Superboy/Conner Kent, but most bear little to no resemblance in personality and origin to the Kon-El of the 1990s/early 2000s comics. There are two versions that I am aware of that actually do specifically adapt the original Kesel-and-Grummett Kon, and these adaptations have something in common: they try to correct some of the problematic areas of the character's story.
Kon's first appearance in the comics includes such things as
his romantically pursuing and being pursued by adult women who are fully aware that he is physically sixteen but chronologically more or less born yesterday;
adults exploiting his naivete for their own gain;
and Superman's preventing Project Cadmus from killing him but doing nothing to keep him out of their ownership or away from the control of his corrupt manager.
This sets Kon up for a hundred-issue-long solo comic in which nearly every adult in his life fails him and he's left to blunder through life with minimal guidance while assuming everything that happens to him is either normal or his fault. It's a worrisome story, and while I do think it could be adapted as a deconstruction with full recognition that This Is Messed Up, neither of the adaptations I'm about to discuss have that scope and thus need to adjust some things.
First there's BBC Radio's Superman: Doomsday and Beyond (1993). This is an adaptation of the whole Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen storyline that the comics were running that year. You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube; it's pretty good!
Kon's appearance in this adaptation is diminished from his role in the corresponding comics, most likely for concerns of brevity with such a sprawling story to cover. Nothing about the character is changed; he is a clone created by Cadmus who escapes, calls himself Superman, and joins in the climactic battle when the real Superman is restored to life. He appears to be a teenager, wears shades and a leather jacket, and flirts with every woman he meets. This Kon is voiced by an adult doing his best dopey teenager impression, which is hard to take seriously. Not that the character is very serious, but in moments when he needs to be heroic instead of the arrogant, petulant comic relief, it's not so effective.
The major change is in how his relationships with women are depicted. Tana Moon, the twenty-three-year-old reporter who gets her big break using him for a story and later goes on to be his love interest, is included in this adaptation. But instead of her eventually pushing for a romantic relationship, the interest is portrayed as completely one-sided on his part. He complains to her that she stood him up on an attempted date (...while calling her "man"), but she's too busy warning him that her employers are using him to respond. This Tana is also not complicit in the exploitation, unlike in the comics.
Roxy Leech is mentioned as the reason Kon so readily makes a deal with her father, but her role is nonspeaking, so her advances toward him as portrayed in the comics (including a creepy innuendo-ridden conversation over a video game played with joysticks) are omitted, and Kon just comes across as one-sidedly silly and immature rather than preyed upon. Which isn't...wonderful characterization, but relatively? less bad? than the original.
The full exploration of his tactile telekinesis and exact origins aren't explored (his last line is his conceding the Superman title back to Clark), but there's a line that does hint at the heart of the character. When trying to convince Tana to go out with him, he tells her he's been cleaning up his jacket and costume and insists that "if the original Superman was alive he'd be proud to have me for a clone." Not a line from the comics, but in keeping with his desperation to be accepted and meet expectations.
The need to correct Kon's story is more marked in the animated film Reign of the Supermen (2019). This is a much looser adaptation of that storyline and reinterprets Kon's backstory through the retconned lens of his being a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor, created not by Cadmus but by LexCorp to be a pawn.
There is no Cadmus in this version, no Paul Westfield, no Dubbilex, no Tana Moon, no Rex and Roxy Leech. This Kon is still an exploited child, but this time that comes solely from Luthor, who is kind of a "stage parent" toward his clone and at one point almost kills him for failing to perform as desired.
This Kon is still very eager for female attention, but all his admirers while he's enjoying celebrity status are teenage girls around his (physical) age, not adult women. He still attempts to hit on older women, but this is portrayed as an effect of his lack of social skills, and unlike in the comics, the women are always disgusted. Mercy Graves complains that he's "too handsy" for her liking, and Lois Lane finds his attempts to flirt with her (starting by asking how old she is and insisting he's "old enough") "revolting."
Nevertheless, this version of the character has more adults who try to look out for him. Dabney Donovan, the scientist who created him, is kindly toward him and begs Luthor not to kill the boy--at the expense of his own life. (Cf. Donovan in the comics, who doesn't have that role and is rather villainous.) Even though Lois is annoyed by the boy, she's friendly toward him the few times they encounter each other. It's implied that something in his DNA from Clark makes him feel comfortable opening up to her. He confides his disappointment in learning about the human side of his DNA, and she reassures him. Almost like what Tana's role was intended to be for him, but minus the creepy grooming and using him to further her career.
Clark is taken aback when Kon addresses him as "Dad" when they finally meet, but he listens patiently to Kon's account of his "harrowing" life so far and refuses Luthor's demands for the return of his clone--"The boy stays with me!" Kon makes it clear that he wants to live with Clark. That doesn't work out, obviously, but the film's epilogue includes the newly renamed Conner's going to live with the Kents. ("Aww," Lois comments. "They'll eat him alive.") This changed ending is a practical choice, glossing over the comics' long complicated interval of his being more or less on his own, but it also rewrites his story so that more concern is shown for his welfare as a child/minor. He's being sent to a loving, stable home instead of being left to the exploitation of unscrupulous adults.
(...and then apparently this film series goes on to unceremoniously kill him off in the next installment, which negates everything, but for purposes of this discussion, I am choosing to ignore this.)
Anyway, here's where I should say something very intelligent about why adaptations make the choices that they do that would wrap all this up brilliantly, but this is all I've got. Except...note the difference in the adaptations' choices by date. The 1993 radio adaptation diminishes predatory behavior but tends to hold Kon in contempt for his gullibility. The 2019 film was more like THAT'S A CHILD and handled him mostly accordingly. Which I would consider a step up in character interpretation.
#comicsposting again#the film is BY NO MEANS Great Cinema#but its Kon is probably the best part#very close in personality to his canon self
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My honest thought about the Kon-El Backup from the newest Action Comics is that largely I'm pretty positive about it.
I understand why people don't like M'gann and Kon to some extent, because yes the "Synergy" thing can really kill characters, and I do think there's a fairly strong argument it's being written like those two are just status quo together. BUT I also think it's primarily and issue if the characters suffer due to having TV show identities ported over onto their existing characters (which does not seem to be the case in this comic). I do hope if we do see more of Kon and M'gann's relationship they actually develop it out and explore that rather than just shrugging and saying "This is the status quo" or trying to shove them into the YJ characters.
I do like that they seem to be aiming to get Kon out of Smallville, and seem to want to give him his own identity that isn't Superboy. I think that's good! I also like that they do seem to view Kon-El as not really taking the Conner stuff seriously, because I agree that isn't something he'd do.
Like. These are all things I like, and I'm glad we're finally dealing with them, because Kon's got a whole mess surrounding the identity of Superboy/Superman.
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My Favourite LGBTQIA+ Characters
It's Pride Month! I scheduled 2 posts ahead of time (Yes, I'm that bored. No mobile, no laptop, and mediocre books, so I have nothing better to do.) and now I realised it's Pride Month :P. Anyways, I could go into the history of Pride month and stuff, but you could read that anywhere, but you can't read about my opinions anywhere else, so this is what you get.
HarlIvy
What better bi representation than a psychopatic-psychiatrist-who-fell-in-love-with-the-Joker-and-became-his-sidekick-and-stuck-in-an-abusive-relationship-then-broke-up-and-found-another-woman-who-has-even-less-regard-for-human-life? Harley Quinn has been a fan favourite ever since her appearance in Batman: The Animated Series and became probably more loved than Superman and possibly Batman too. The Harley Quinn series is a morbidly hilarious series and I love their relationship in it. Kinda sad that she didn't really have a WLW relationship in the DCEU though. Actually, is there even a Poison Ivy? I think her last appearance was in Batman & Robin and wouldn't we all wanna forget that movie ever existed. Harley and Ivy had ties even in BTAS but it wasn't much explored. In the comics, they were also part of the Gotham City Sirens along with Catwoman. The romance only continued to blossom since then, and they've even wed in the Injustice (fighting video game series, in short, Superman becomes a dictator after Lois and his unborn child dies and Batman works to stop him) universe.
I love this art so much.
YumiHisu
YumiHisu is the ship of Ymir and Krista Lenz from Attack On Titan. I don't want to spoil much, but this is the closest thing to a couple Attack On Titan has, and I love it for it. I hate romance in most stories, so I really love that Attack On Titan has so little of it, and the one they do is a really cute one. Ymir and Krista aren't really a focus, but their interactions we do see are very cute, and their story in S2 was awesome.
Batfam characters
Yeah we're back to DC again. A lot of these are going to be DC :P. What can I do? DC has a lot of great representation.
Tim Drake is the 3rd Robin, as I've probably burnt into your memory by now. I didn't really care about him for a long time, because he's surrounded by so many Robins who are all so memorable. I mean, he's competing with Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Damian Wayne, so :P. Although after reading more I've come to like him. He's the biggest nerd, his origin story is him figuring out Batman's identity, and he has a great sense of humor. He's not the usual Uber smart character who forgot to invest in the charisma skill. He also canonically has( had? DC's timeline is a mess) a low self esteem, which is why he was never Robin in the New 52 Universe, so I can relate :P. He has dated Stephanie Brown, the 4th Robin and Spoiler and Batgirl and it has been hinted that he had something going on with Conner Kent, Superboy. It was made official in Batman: Urban Legends where Tim agrees to go on a date with a guy he rescued.
Tim comes out to Batman.
I sadly haven't reached that part yet because I'm still at 2018 :P but I've read the Pride one-off comic, and wanna see more of it. Jonathan Kent, Superman's son, also Superman, is also bi, and has a cute boyfriend. I don't care much for Superman so I guess I'll be skipping that tho :P.
Batwoman, Kate Kane was one of the highest-profile LGBTQIA+ comic book superhero. I, regrettably, haven't read much of her, I think I've only seen her in Detective Comics (2016) and Grant Morrison's Dick Grayson Batman run. Although, her character arc in Detective Comics was pretty cool, so I hope to someday remedy that.
Alysia Yeoh, while a pretty minor character, as a trans person, I love Gail Simone so much for her character. Alysia is Barbara Gordon's (Batgirl) roommate in the New 52 run of Batgirl and was such a badass character. She's a professional activist, and she's also the first trans character in comics to get married.
Alysia in DC Pride.
Huh, funny, Killer Moth was also Batgirl's first supervillain in Batgirl: Year One. Don't think that's a coincidence.
Okay, that's enough DC.
Solangelo
Literally the only one of two couples I cared about in Riordanverse. Percabeth is bleugh, even the ship name is bleugh, and Jasper is, well, they ended up breaking up, sooo, need I say more? Sadie and Anubis and Walt seems like a polyamorous relationship? That one is interesting, at the very least. Magnus Chase and Alex is also meh, I love Alex, but the relationship I couldn't care less for. Let's also talk about Alex. Alex is the first genderfluid character and oh do I love them. They're badass and I love their humor so much. Solangelo is such a cute couple and I love that a sun of Apollo is dating a sun of Hades. I just finished reading Sun and The Star today and I loved it so much. They're just perfect for each other. Nico has always been such an intriguing character, and Will's contrasting personality is fun.
Rosa Diaz and Captain Raymond Holt
Bi and gay characters from Brooklyn 99. Rosa was initially shown dating just men, but later comes out as bi and has a whole arc with her parents. Holt has always been gay is also married, and they break up and get married again. I love Rosa's badass character and deadpan humor and basically her whole personality. Holt conforms to 0 gay stereotype. He's not flamboyant at all and not very effeminate. He's deadpan, hates humor, and takes no crap.
Typing on phone is hard and I'd like to stop now thank you, so here's a rapid fire honorable mentions.
Cam and Mitchell from Modern Family, Princess Bubblegum and Queen Marceline in Adventure Time, Nia Nal (trans-woman, played by an actual trans-woman), Stargirl in Supergirl, okay, that's it.
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Conner and Clark
Conner Kent [YJ'Verse]
how I feel about the character: He never stopped trying to be a hero, when it was so much easier to be a villain and join up with Luthor or go back to CADMUS, not even mentioning all the issues with Superman being a dick in S1, he kept trying and learning and growing
OTP: Conner/Dick
OT3: Conner/Dick/Kaldur
NOTP: Conner/M'gann
favourite bromance: Conner & Kaldur
favourite family dynamic: Conner & Clark
favourite canon thing about them: In S1, he was more than willing to let Robin use kryptonite to take both him and Superman down if it meant stopping Superman. Then carried on trusting Robin afterwards knowing full well that he had access to something that could help kill him
favourite headcanon: After the shit show of a break-up with him and M'gann, he goes to Dick [who I'm thinking is doing his own break-up thing with Batman and becoming Nightwing] and the two of them end up curled up together in some sketchy safehouse or at the Kent Farm and they recover together and rediscover how to be themselves and they come back to the Team in S2 as Nightwing and a more confident Superboy
Clark Kent
how I feel about the character: He's a sweetie who always tries his best, no matter how things go.
OTP: Clark/Bruce
OT3: Clark/Dick/Bruce
NOTP: Clark/Luthor
favourite bromance: Clark & Bruce [I also like them as a bromance lol]
favourite family dynamic: Clark with Ma and Pa Kent, also with Alfred :)
favourite canon thing about them: He happily became Uncle Clark for Dick and clearly had an active part in the early days of Batman and Robin and was clearly close enough that he helped Dick become Nightwing that Dick felt safe and comfortable to come to him after the firing incident
favourite headcanon: That he secretly loves undercover missions or just missions where he gets to pretend to be Bruce's romantic partner, either just to mess with him or because he's fully smitten. Either way Clark, is living his best life
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lost in the labyrinth of my mind
by burgundyshirts
Jon hesitates, and thinks back to his Gotham-induced exhaustion, to how stretched thin his skin felt before he left the planet, to how tight his smiles yesterday in Metropolis were. Thinks back to how his dad told him it’s okay to be tired sometimes, and hums, blinking his eyes open. “It’s so heavy, Damian. Sometimes, it’s so heavy, and I just want to forget about it for a little bit, instead of spreading it all over every single aspect of my life.”
Damian’s eyes soften, turning his eyes from daggers into brilliant jewels. “What is heavy, exactly? The world?”
“The universe,” Jon shakes his head, not holding back a disbelieving snort. “It’s crushing. I think, lately, I’m just… everything is so big. I’m all burned out. Is it so bad that sometimes I just want to let things be and not involve you in this, this… vastness?”
---------------------------
Immediately following Jon's brief case-solving with Batman and co., there are conversations to be had, consequences to be considered, and ideas to be developed. This stage is all about helplessness, love, and being scared of messing it all up. But ultimately, it's about hope.
Words: 11405, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Series: Part 2 of restless gotham nights, and the horrors of being known
Fandoms: Super Sons (Comics), Superman: Son of Kal-El (Comics 2021), Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent, DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M
Characters: Jonathan Samuel Kent, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Vicki Vale, Alfred Pennyworth, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Alfred the Cat (DCU), Gotham City
Relationships: Jonathan Samuel Kent/Damian Wayne, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jonathan Samuel Kent, Tim Drake & Jonathan Samuel Kent, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Bruce Wayne, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Alfred Pennyworth, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Jason Todd, Batfamily Members & Jonathan Samuel Kent, Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Kon-El | Conner Kent
Additional Tags: Journalism, Gotham City is Terrible, Jonathan Samuel Kent is a Ray of Sunshine, Jonathan Samuel Kent is Superboy, Jonathan Samuel Kent is Superman, Identity Issues, Identity Porn, Introspection, Gossip, News Media, Arguing, Jonathan Samuel Kent-centric, Falling In Love, with a city, Jonathan Samuel Kent is So Whipped, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon is a Suggestion, Bisexual Jonathan Samuel Kent, Gay Damian Wayne, Smut, Hand Jobs, Making Out, Explicit Sexual Content, just a little bit though, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Comedy, Character Study, im not too up to date in damian or jon canon comic lore be gentle with me, jon has stockholm syndrome only its gotham city holding him hostage, im keeping this tag for the whole series, Inspired by Taylor Swift, Title from a Taylor Swift Song, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Song: Labyrinth (Taylor Swift), Questioning, Soul-Searching, Existential Crisis, Hope, please read the previous part
via https://ift.tt/AZlSgNj
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Fensterln
“I can’t get up. You’re sitting on top of me.”
Warning(s): some allusions to sex, explicit-ish language, fluff, reader has a whole ‘Black Cat’ thing going on.
Word Count: 3273
Notes: This is a requested work. This is a headcanoned canon version of Superboy, meaning he is no version in particular and simply the character I figure as a whole. Reader can be any gender.
“Fensterln is when you have to climb through someone’s window in order to have sex with them, without their parents knowing about it.”
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
You know, most people think that climbing up the side of a building is easy. Like it’s nothing. They see it on TV, and in the movies, and in cartoons even, and they think, “That doesn’t look so bad!” because it doesn’t. Cartoons and actors don’t have to deal with the wind whipping their hair, constantly pushing their whole body all around, the butterflies of anxiousness making their heart thump, threatening the scenario of falling to their death. It’s terrifying. It takes a lot of skill, a lot of courage, and a lot of luck.
“Shit.”
Your right hand releases from the glass, arm slowly swinging back until it’s at your side. The same sides foot follows this pattern of rotation, until only your left fingertips and toes are stuck to the wall of the building, suctioning you to life. Below you, hundreds and hundreds of feet, is an island of grass and sand, encompassed by a large body of water. Over the tidal waves chip chopping away, there’s a distance. And in that distance, is the city, just under the inky blackness of the midnight sky.
Jump City, it’s called. You’re not too familiar with it. Most of your time is spent in Metropolis, or Gotham. Luckily, both of those cities have plenty of skyscrapers to practice scaling. One could say that you’d perfected the art of this sort of thing. The finger pads on your suit are sophisticatedly sticky, seamlessly letting you latch onto anything with grace. Your feet are the same.
The wind hits your face like sharp needles, amplified by the cold air and the incline. Your hair whips around wildly, also different from how it flows, softly, in the movies. The harsh breeze roars in your ears, louder than the thousands of explosions you’ve heard in your lifetime. Although dangerous, nothing beats the view. Those thousands of lights in the distance, the cars, the buildings, this building that you’re on now. Titan’s Tower is far larger and closer and more important than anything else at the moment.
“Okay then,” you mutter, twisting your body over to the right twice more, until finally both hands and feet are connecting against the glass in a stealthy, perfect crawling position.
You work your way up, one foot and hand at the time. You resemble that of a spider, or perhaps a cat. One, two. One, two.
His room is on one of the top floors, if not the top floor. From the two other times that you’ve done this, you remember the number of steps, the distance, the little cracks in the glass panes to look for so you know you’re close. Even from the outside, hundreds of feet up, hanging above death tantalizingly, you know exactly where you are and where you need to be. And you know, of course, that you are close.
Your right hand leaves the wall once more and reaches down to the belt on your hips. “Coming, my love,” you mutter as you flip open a small pouch attached. From the inside you pull out a slim switchblade, made specifically to cut through glass walls like this- designed it yourself.
The knife springs open. In a circle big enough to fit your entire body, you trace the blade in a wide arc from up to down, left to right. Then you flip the blade back inside, place the whole thing back into the pouch on the belt, and shove your left elbow against the middle of the glass in front of you.
It pops free immediately. The circle of wall falls forward into the room, with you not far behind.
Landing like a gymnast on your toes with your arms overhead, you are immune to the sharp pain in your femurs that comes from a sudden pressure like this. The glass pane is still intact on the floor ahead of you, which is coated with a red carpet that you recognize so well. It’s much warmer inside than it was outside, although you can still feel the night wind from behind you.
“Silent,” a voice remarks from beside you. It’s not an amused tone, really. It’s genuine and full of awe, surrounded by something casual.
You hum as you stand before throwing a look over your shoulder. Sure enough at your back, splayed casually on a bed against the wall you just broke through, is your favorite boy toy. Dark, curly hair framing his classically handsome face, nose scrunching slightly on instinct. He’s wearing the black and red super shirt he always does, coupled with the plaid pajama bottoms you’d gotten him as a gift in spring.
You want so badly to quip something back, but you both know you can’t right now. Not when you’re so close to the door. And yeah, that’s partially Conner’s fault, if not all. Too much noise would attract the attention of his team mates, the Titans, and then something probably not that great would happen. Maybe they’d throw you out. Maybe they’d fire him. Maybe things would just get weird. It’s not as if you and Connor are an official couple, even after all this time. You could stop sneaking around to see each other at any sense of danger.
You take a step towards the bed he lays on, noting the big, bright smile that lights up Superboy’s face at the motion. “Can you fix the hole?” you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear.
Conner’s eyes go wide and the smile gets bigger.
“In the wall.”
The smile turns into an eye roll. “Yes,” he sighs, almost dramatically, pushing himself up. The boy crosses to the center of the room a few feet from you and begins picking up the perfect circle of cut window- wall while you look around the area.
You’ve snuck into Conner’s room before. Twice, in fact. It’s not clean, not horribly messy. His leather jacket is usually hanging off the dresser or door handle. Sweatshirts of different colors are littering the floor in a collective pile. It looks like a normal teenage boys room, really. It just feels very ‘Conner’.
First, he pushes the glass back into place in the wall, then he takes a few steps back. You throw him a smirk, nudging your head to encourage him to do the thing.
Conner’s eyes heat up. Little at first, as a soft yellow. Then into an all consuming scarlet that hisses out in two beams meeting in the middle between them. They move in a circle around the pane until you can’t even tell it was ever not there, and the wind you once heard no longer exists. The wall is perfectly in tact.
“Thank you, Superboy,” you tell him, tone laced overly sweet. Your hands, freezing from the cold even through the gloves of your costume, wrap around Conner’s upper arm.
“Yeah,” he tosses, back, voice low. His cheeks are turning pink.
You unhook your arms and saunter over to his mattress. As you throw yourself on and relax as you sink into the pillows, you let your eyes close. “You’re lucky I like you so much,” you tease. “Mm, do you know a lot of people who would climb up the Tower for you? I don’t.”
Upon hearing him take a single step forward, one eye pops open. “I know you missed me,” you continue.
Conner lays himself on the bed beside you, hands behind his bed with his arms bent. You turn to face him, propping your head up with your palm.
“You never answer my texts,” Conner says, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“You text me?” you smirk, watching Superboys eyes sink close as he releases a sigh of defeat.
Your left leg slips over Conner’s hips. Then you pull your whole body up and over into a straddle over him, looking down at him. He’s handsome in the way nobody can argue with, so perfect and soft and structured. When you squint, he looks like Superman. But Conner’s not Superman, he’s better. You can’t explain why, or how, but he just is.
You place your palms forward on his chest at first, then backwards, behind your back, on Conner’s thighs. Your chest puffs out at the slight change of position.
Below you, the boy bites his lower lip softly in thought for a second. “What if I got you a phone?” Conner asks you. His light eyes holding yours through thick, dark lashes. “Just so you can text me back sometimes?”
“Us?” you gasp with wide eyes. “Talking? During the daytime?”
Conner glances away. “Message received. Very funny. Forget it.”
“I’m messing with you,” you promise with a smile. “Loosen up Super-Annoy.”
“So you’ll let me get you one?” Conner pushes himself up with a snap, eyes wide with some kind of excitement.
Well… would you? You haven’t had a lot of long term partners, if any. Your time with Conner has been the longest with anyone, and he’s not even really your boyfriend. He’s just… you know… the guy you kissed on a rooftop one night. The guy who once surprised you with a cone of ice cream, again on a night time rooftop, whilst you were sitting on the side of the building to watch the city below. The guy who remembered your birthday, the guy who keeps sending you the many, many texts reminding you that you can watch your favorite show on the TV in the tower. The guy who once lied to get you to ice skate with him.
Something about Conner has been enough to keep you hooked for months and months, always coming back. Sneaking into the Tower, taking more and more trips to Jump City, keeping notes of events throughout your week to tell him about when you see him.
How silly. Never giving the time of day to any other partner of yours, but for Conner? Conner has gotten at least eight months of it.
“I’ll think about it,” you roll your eyes.
“You promise?” Conner urges.
“Yes. Jeez, I promise. I will think about letting you get me a phone that only you have the number to.”
“Please don’t laugh at me about this.”
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“It feels like it.”
“Connor,” you clasp a hand on his shoulder, pushing back laughter. “Have I ever laughed at you?”
“W- Is that- is that a serious question?” Conner’s eyebrows raise.
“Get up,” you roll your neck. “I want to change positions.”
The boy below you shifts. For a quick moment, something pokes between your hips from underneath. Your pupils dilate in response, but by the time they finish, the movement has ceased. “Tell me about your day.”
“I want to lay down,” you say as you stretch. “I just scaled up the side of the skyscraper-”
“You love it.”
“-and it was oh, so cold. I’m tired.”
“That’s not your day.”
You just stare at him expectantly, not quite sure what it is you’re waiting for.
“I can’t get up. You’re sitting on top of me,” Conner concedes. “You chose to be up there.”
“Prove it,” you challenge.
“Yeah, yeah,” the boy below you hisses as if annoyed. “I get it,” he says, but his arms are already snaking around your torso to pull you close and slowly pull you into a new position.
You lay on your side, back against Conner’s broad chest. His arms stay wrapped around your middle as he curls up against you on instinct, legs quick to tangle with your own. You know he must really be interested in you if he’s not going to mention that your ‘work’ shoes are still on while in bed.
“You’re an ass,” he mutters into your hair.
“What was that?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Ha,” you chuckle once. “Douche.”
“Please tell me about your day now?” you hear Conner almost plead. “Please?”
One of your hands, your right one, rests on top of Conner’s against your stomach. “Oh, you know. The usual. I helped out a small jewelry store today, snuck into a big building, currently hiding from Nightwing- you know how it is.”
“There wasn’t much crime today. I mostly just stayed in. You know that big building you snuck into?”
“Such a douche,” you breathe.
“Jealous much?” Superboy rumbles against your ear.
“I’m gonna tell Dick,” you tell him. “I’ll send an anonymous tip that one of the Titan’s is a big poop face.”
Conner puts his whole face in your hair. “Shiver me timbers.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s not fair you guys get a whole building to yourselves. What are you even using half these floors for? People in Gotham are struggling.” You frown. “Well, except for Wayne. But you know what? He’s a douche too. You’d get along.”
Conner squeezes you once. Then you feel him still from behind you, not even breathing. And then-
“Move in then.”
At once, your brows furrow. “What?”
Your companion squeezes you once more. “Move in. Move in with me. In the Tower.”
Your mouth opens and closes a couple times, eyes looking around. You can’t see Conner, but you can feel him out. His eyes are closed, still inhaling the scent of you shamelessly. It’s hard for people to catch you off guard, not just like this, but at all. You just have that sarcastic, witty, sultry reputation. And for him- Super-Annoy, of all people- to just throw you off so easily?
“I’m not a Titan,” you decide on explaining, almost asking.
“Become one, then.”
“I don’t have the money to move in. The rent must be crazy.”
“I’ll pay for you.”
“Conner,” you swallow. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking.” His head pops up. When you turn yours a little, you can look up at him, and he can look down at you. “Move into the Tower.”
Now your eyes are wide, and his are relaxed. No, Conner’s are focused, drilling into your own. “I’m... hardly Titan’s material.”
This was true. You’ve been skirting the gray line far longer than you’ve known Superboy, and he’s been super since the beginning of his creation. The first time you’d met was about ten seconds before you’d robbed a bank and sent him a wink before disappearing.
“You just told me, not five minutes ago, that you helped a small business. Helping people is what heroes are all about. You can do this, Y/N. You are Titan’s material.”
Shit. He’s right.
“Why not?” Conner questions.
“I... um...”
You’ve never lived with another person before. Your family, once upon a time, sure. Not friends. Not Dick Grayson, or Kori, or Rachel fucking Roth. And certainly not Superboy- Super-Annoy. Not someone you have a ‘thing’ with. What would that mean for the two of you? And when things go terribly, terribly wrong, what then?
Gotta’ think fast.
Your face is wiped clean, replaced by your signature smirk. “Get me a phone first. Then I’ll consider it.”
Conner doesn’t budge though. You wonder if X-Ray vision can see through lies too. “I mean it,” the boy tells you. “I want you here.”
“I have to survive the night in the building with boy prodigy and star flame.”
“Starfire.”
“Whatever. I have to do that first. There’s a reason we sneak me in, you know.”
Your free hand reaches up and cups Conner’s cheek without you telling it to. You ask your brain why, but yet, your palm doesn’t move. It feels over Conner’s cheekbones, encouraging you to look deeper into his somehow soft eyes. Your fingertips can even feel his hair, which is in need of a wash, as they get comfortable.
“For you,” you finish the sentiment, voice now genuine- also not predicted. “Sneaking in for you.”
“I don’t want you to feel like a secret,” the boy above you whispers, pouring his entire heart into it.
You answer with a snort.
If anything, Conner’s the secret. If he had his way, the two of you would probably be on your honeymoon at this moment. Hell, your whole relationship and subsequent marriage would be a honeymoon. You’re the one letting him follow you around. You’re the one never giving him just what he wants.
But then again, you’re the one who keeps coming back. Conner’s the one that never left.
“Trust me,” you nod with a humored grin. “I don’t.”
Conner sighs and falls back down to rest behind you. “Good.”
Besides his breathing, then there is silence.
Really? Telling you to move in? Of course it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to him. Of course he has the solution to all the reasons why not. Your fairly certain that Conner hasn’t thought about this until mentioning it, but even then, how did he have all the answers so fast? Where would you stay? With him? Sandwiched between Conner and Wally West playing video games for the rest of your life? Dying after Donna Troy catches you accidentally stealing her lunch?
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Conner begins, “but you should really stay the night.”
In response, you practically burst. “You hate being told what to do!” you say as you squirm in his arms. “Now you’re giving me suggestions?”
Conner sits up again so he can look down at you with a little frown. Luckily, it’s too nice of a view to be really scared of anything he could do. “Shh! You’re gonna get caught, Y/N.” Then Superboy’s eyes widen a little. “If you lived here, you wouldn’t have to be so quiet, either. You could just come through the front door.”
“Oh my God,” you squeeze your eyes closed. “Conner...”
One battle at a time.
“Fine,” you begrudge. “I’ll stay the night.”
Conner tightens his grip around your form happily in response. “Will you need any help in the morning?”
“No. No, I got it.”
Silence.
Say it. Say it. Say it.
“Conner? I, uh...”
Say it.
“I don’t have any sleeping clothes,” you lie.
“Sleeping?” you hear the boy behind you whisper. “I didn’t think we were going to be sleeping.”
“Now who’s going to get us in trouble?” you smirk. “Seriously though. I’ve been wearing my suit all day.”
“I can get you out of it.”
“You can’t just see through it?” you question. “Don’t you have X-Ray vision?”
Conner groans. “You’re ruining it.”
You smile. Conner’s the only partner of yours you realize you’re actually happy to be around. “I think you just want us to get caught.”
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
Yayyy. Request finished. Next I have a Reverse Flash request, and then I should be good with the DC requests for now. Other than that I have some Jason Todd things, something for Damian and 2 fics for a character I haven’t written for before but are looking pretty good. I hope this satisfied the prompt that I was given in the request. Let me know anything you want or whatever.
#superboy x reader#superboy imagine#superboy imagines#conner Kent x reader#connor Kent x reader#connor Kent imagine#connor Kent imagines#conner kent imagine#conner Kent imagines#fluff#x reader#superboy fanfiction#fanfiction#fanfic#fic#superboy fanfic#superboy fic#connor Kent fanfiction#conner Kent fanfiction#dc comics x reader#dc comics fanfiction#connor Kent fluff#superboy fluff#Titans x reader#Titans fanfiction#Titans fanfic#connor kent#conner kent#superboy smut#connor kent smut
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In The Soup
Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam
Summary: Jason Lives AU where he and Superboy become friends, despite Bruce's disapproval of Superboy. (ft. Jason's service dog, Gromit)
Chapters: 5/?
Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Barbara Gordon, Conner Kent, Roxy Leech, Rex Leech
Relationships: TBA
Additional Tag: Jason Todd Lives, Jason Todd Has Chronic Pain, Jason Todd Has PTSD, Conner Kent is Superboy, Good Friend Jason Todd, Protective Jason Todd, Overprotective Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Disabled Characters, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Get Along, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Developing Friendships, Sneaking Around, Disguise, Fluff and Humor, Secret Messages, Hiding in Plain Sight
Chapter Five: Everything Okay in the Home?
"And where have you been? And what are you wearing?" Rex questioned as he yanked on the button-up shirt Superboy borrowed from Jason.
"I went out for dinner," Superboy replied as he pulled Rex's cap over his face on the way to the fridge. "I told you we'd reschedule the stunt for later this week."
"You're messing with my livelihood, kid," Rex replied. Superboy grabbed a rootbeer and a carton of ice cream.
Superboy didn't reply. He dropped a scoop of ice cream into a to-go cup and poured his soda over the vanilla ice cream. "And what are you doing while my life is actively falling apart?" Rex questioned.
"I didn't get to stay for dessert. So... I'm having dessert. I might even have another microwave burrito if I'm feeling like it. Rex, I told you for the bajillionth time, I'm gonna do the stunt here... And uh—. Can we stick around for a bit? The government might not get on us about the gigs if I get enrolled in school, and you know—. Have a place of residence..."
Rex took a breath. "This city isn't the most lucrative—."
"For freaks... But maybe the city could have another hero," Superboy replied as he took a straw and spoon, letting it dance around in the cup.
"The school situation... How serious is that?" Rex questioned. He tapped on the kitchen counter.
"It's the government, Rex... I think they're pretty serious," Superboy replied. He broke the ice cream in the to-go cup, eating spoon-tipped bites of ice cream saturated in carbonated rootbeer residue. It was by no means a sophisticated dessert, but it made Superboy feel good. "They want me in a school, and I wanna attend school at Gotham Academy."
"And Roxy wants a pair of Jimmy Chus," Rex replied, "Try to be more realistic S-B."
"And another thing... I don't wanna be Superboy all the time anymore. I—. Maybe you can call me Conner when I'm dressed like this," Conner suggested.
"Conner? Where the hell did you get a name like that?" Rex asked.
"I don't know, Dad. I think it works for him... And maybe it'd help with the school thing," Roxy replied, "He could have an alter ego. All he needs is a new wardrobe... Preferably one that doesn't fit so snug." She tugged at his t-shirt.
"Not mine... I borrowed it from somebody," Conner defended himself, "And I know somebody who could get me into Gotham Academy. All I have to do is ask for their help."
He finished his rootbeer float and left Rex and Roxy with more questions than answers. He showered and slipped into bed, but not before texting Jason's phone. Conner didn't expect an answer. But he got one.
"Wanna hang out again? Or did you change your mind?" Jason replied through texts.
"Yeah... And I wanted to know if your stepmom could help me," Conner replied.
"She's not my stepmom, but yeah. Ask her in person tomorrow. Lmk, once you're on your way, I'll let you in. Pills kicked in, so I gotta go. Gn Conner," Jason answered.
"Gn, Jason," Conner replied. He stared at the ceiling until sleep flooded in.
*
Conner woke up to a phone call in the morning. Conner reached over the side of the bed, one wrist draped over his forehead as he answered. "What's up?" Conner grumbled.
"Sorry, were you asleep?" Jason asked.
"No," Conner lied. Jason laughed.
"I can call you back—."
"No... No," Conner sat up and ran a hand over his face. "What's up?"
Jason winced. "Are you hurt?" Conner asked.
"Nope," Jason replied cooly, "I fell."
"Jeez, are you okay?" Conner questioned as he got out of bed.
"Mhm. It's nothing," Jason replied, "I called to ask if you wanted to have breakfast and spend the day here. I'm making BLTs."
"Sick," Conner replied, "Let me get dressed. I'll be over there in fifteen minutes."
"No rush," Jason replied, "See you soon."
*
Meanwhile, Jason pulled himself up with Gromit's help and sat in his chair. "Good morning," Barbara greeted Jason. It wasn't a warm greeting. It felt like a question.
"Every morning is a good morning, Barbara," Jason answered, "What do you wanna know?"
"Jason, what was yesterday about?" Barbara questioned. She fixed her glasses as she looked at him. Barbara's eyes were unrelenting. They scanned him, knowing every part of him. She knew his truths and lies before he could tell them.
"I'm sorry that I lied to you about Superboy... But he seems nice. Doesn't he?" Jason asked.
"Jason... You had a panic attack yesterday," Barbara replied. Jason ran a hand through his hair. "Jason—."
"Uh-huh!" Jason interrupted. "Sorry... Yeah, sorry—. I—. Barbara, I have a confession to make. I have PTSD."
Barbara gasped, covering her mouth with one hand. "No! I never woulda guessed it," Barbara replied. Then they laughed. "Jason, does it have something to do with what Bruce did? He told me what happened that night... He told me you wouldn't talk about it."
"What is there to talk about? I don't even know what I saw," Jason lied, "I was pumped full of pain medication and—."
"Jason, he scared you that night, didn't he?" Barbara asked.
Jason tried to wheel past her, but her chair blocked him in. "Barbara cut it out. Please—."
"You promised you wouldn't mince your words with me," Barbara replied.
Jason hid his face in his hands, and Gromit rested his head on Jason's feet. "Like I said, I was messed up that night. I was on muscle relaxers, antibiotics, antidepressants, and sleeping pills and hadn't been home since before the accident... I was disoriented—."
"It doesn't make your experience any less valid or frightening, Jason. What did you feel?" Barbara asked. "I'll let you go once you're honest with me. I can't know if you're okay unless you talk to me."
"I was terrified, Barbara," Jason snapped, "I was having a bad reaction to the muscle relaxers... And I wanted him to take care of me. I wanted him, not Alfred or Dick or you or anybody else. I waited for him, and he was so messed up he didn't even see me. I know what-. I understand what he did to us, Barbara, but I never expected Bruce to pulverize him like that. He could've killed him that night... And who is Batman if—. Batman can't—."
"He was your father first. Bruce made a mistake and lost control, but you've gotta understand that it was all fresh. You were barely on solid foods after what happened to you—."
"And that's why I don't wanna be Robin anymore. If I get hurt out there, I don't know what he'll do... And that scares me. It's scarier than the thought of dying," Jason confessed, "I don't want anything to do with Robin anymore. I want Robin to stay dead."
"You still need to learn how to protect yourself, Jason. Sparring isn't about getting back in the field... It's about preparing for the inevitable. I'm not gonna push you, but I want you to know everyone would sleep a lot easier if they knew you had every tool at your disposal to protect yourself," Barbara explained, "We're not gonna be around all the time... And Bruce would have an easier time letting you grow up if he knew you'd be okay."
"Sparring, but no missions?" Jason questioned.
"Not a single one. It's a self-defense class," Barbara reassured him, "Taught by yours truly."
Jason smiled. "Barbara, has anybody ever told you you're a hardass?" Jason teased. Barbara messed up his hair.
"Just about everyone I've ever met," Barbara replied, "Now go make breakfast."
#fic#in the soup fic#superfam#batfam#Jason Todd#Bruce Wayne#Alfred Pennyworth#Barbara Gordon#Conner Kent#Roxy Leech#Rex Leech#Jason Todd Lives#Jason Todd Has Chronic Pain#Jason Todd Has PTSD#Conner Kent is Superboy#Good Friend Jason Todd#Protective Jason Todd#Overprotective Bruce Wayne#Barbara Gordon is Oracle#Disabled Characters#Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Get Along#Good Parent Bruce Wayne#Developing Friendships#Sneaking Around#Disguise#Fluff and Humor#Secret Messages#Hiding in Plain Sight
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okay i guess i should do a thoughts dump post cause otherwise im gonna be spamming the tag with like a hundred posts lol:
warning, this is basically word vomit lol
first let’s get the non bart stuff out of the way:
- as much of an ass lor is he’s most probably the most insanely talented villain out there, his dad is a fool for not listening to him it’s gonna bite him in the ass !
- the zods tho r such a great couple LOL like they’re all so entertaining to watch, Ursa is unhinged we love to see it !! when they were in the solar pods i found it so funny they were like those cheesy couples that enjoy sunbathing together i’m sorry
- Kaldur showing sympathy to the kryptonians was needed tbh
- Dicks heartbeat thing? total throwback to Artemis faking her own death
- Rocket being caved in by the boom tube? messed up
- Also idk why everyone’s assuming team bioship kicked the bucket none of them were bleeding and this season has been very clear with having no problem showing gore and ur telling me Darkseids son, Martians and a Speedster were done by some blast? nah i don’t buy it
okay so moving on to our fave Kid Flash content 😁
- im sorry but bart calling supes big guy 😭 that’s so precious i love it
-in fact i really appreciate Clark looking out for Bart, tbh he must’ve been paranoid that his keeping secrets from the League could’ve (well, they have lol) endangered Dick, Zee and Bart. Like imagine if he was indirectly responsible for something happening to the Flash’s grandson, who is Kid Flash, who took up the mantle from the Flash’s nephew who famously died on a mission, like that is something that would weigh him down terribly for the rest of his life and i really got that impression since last episode and especially in todays. ALSO i love seeing bart as KF essentially working along side Supes on this high-stakes mission, like if we put it into perspective everything going on is really crazy it’s just that we’ve been kinda desensitised to it cause of the weekly release pace lol anyway now Clark is just left to worry about Dick and Zee (conner and earth and the galaxy being the obvious worry aside)
- the funniest thing was how all this was going down and Dick and Bart are just so unserious LOL we have Nightwing on one end quoting gandalf whilst Bart is literally a ball of excitement about LITERALLY everything and anything, they’re such dorks lol
- in fact, whilst ideally i would’ve preferred a bunch of other dynamics between bart and other characters to be explored this season, it’s interesting to see how he fits in within the older generation heroes and how they work together
- in fact x2 (lol), this whole arc is pleasing my lizard brain that finds both Conners and Barts classic comic involvement with both Legion and Superboy turned evil plots as so essential and how they actually are still connected in Earth-16 despite them being from different “hero generations” (both being part of outsiders aside, there wasn’t much of a connection between them prior to this plot). When I saw that detective board where they were both being investigated by Dick well let’s just say I literally screamed out loud LOL
- moving on, like i said in another post, i can’t believe this guy. He’s basically running (heh) on fumes but acts like nothing happened and just continues with the job literally immediately, someone get him to bed to catch some sleep (no bart laying unconscious doesn’t count as rest)
okay now on to some things that i’m annoyed by:
- i feel like the legion characters have been done kinda dirty this season, it was great until pretty much last episode but the thing is what we have had of them so far which i really enjoyed isn’t that much and has been so spread out thinly through out the season that i feel like their plot opportunity wasn’t fully taken advantage of
-whilst this main plot is objectively attention grabbing, i do think the pace throughout the season was a bit off and there really is a bit too much of telling instead of showing in terms of story telling technique, which is a bit meh. I think way too much time was invested in stories that really could’ve been tied up in significantly less time and could’ve been invested in more relevant stories
all in all, enjoyed it but i am annoyed with some stuff but oh well it’s okay, at the end of the day it gives birth to loads of head canons that i wanna write fics about
#bartholomewnistas make some nooiseeee#lol#bart allen#kid flash#impulse#young justice#young justice phantoms#dc#yj#losh#saturn girl#young justice animated#young justice season 4#superman#clark kent#dick grayson#nightwing#young justice phantoms spoilers#conner kent#kon el#lor zod#general zod#zod
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Dc unpopular (i think) opinions with 0 explanation or debate:
Let’s start off strong
Wonder Woman would beat Superman in a fight. Would the fight be easy? No. Would she win? Absolutely. She has literally killed a god, I think she could handle an alien who is allergic to a rock
Wonder Woman deserves a girlfriend
WW84 would have been so much better if Diana had fallen in love with Barbara then Steve came back (a different way) and that was the love conflict
Superman while powerful is not as powerful as people make him out to be
Kyle Rayner on the other hand
Kyle should stay the white lantern
Kyle as white lantern is one of the most powerful heroes in dc
Kyle’s main team up should be with Jason. Their dynamic is great and they could work well together without compromising the integrity of the characters
Speaking of
What DC did to Roy Harper is criminal
Kaldur’ahm is one of the best characters DC has put out in a minute and they underuse the crap out of him
Stephanie brown is an amazing character and they underuse the crap out of her
Tim Drake is one of the most complex characters DC has created
DC needs to stop putting the batfamily in the center of their universe. They need to start pushing other heroes
Wally west is also up there with Kyle as one of the most powerful heroes
Barbara Gordon should have ended up with Ted Kord
Dick has yet to meet his forever partner.
Dick only dates women who could kill him
Dick only has a thing for red heads because of an unresolved crush on Wally
If I had to pick a love interest out of the ones he already has Dick’s only option is Kory.
Barbara deserves better
Barbara deserves a love interest where Barbara isn’t turned into development for said love interest
Barbara should have stayed in the wheel chair
Barbara and Kory would and should be best friends
The only reason DC under uses Conner Kent is because they don’t know how to use him with out making Superman the bad guy
Superman is allowed to be some ones bad guy without said person being delusional and/or insane
Conner deserves for Clark and lex to be present in his life
Lex Luthor isn’t a bad dad
Cassandra Cain deserves to be Batman
Batman’s main reason for not killing is because he believes in rehabilitation more than anything
Batman is one of the kindest heroes in DC
Batman puts being a father above being Batman
Y’all ready for this one
Zach Snyder knows NOTHING about Batman and Superman did horribly with their characterization
Dick should retire from being a hero but stay somewhat in the game as kind of like a life line like a ‘phone a friend’ but STRICTLY for teen heroes
Out of all the heroes Teen heroes trust Batman the most exculding their respective mentors
DC constantly gives Jason Dicks leftovers and it needs to stop
That’s why I prefer Bizarro and Artemis as the outlaws instead of Roy and Kory
However the perfect outlaw team would be Jason, Kyle, and Rose
John deserves to be the leagues first lantern
Hal and Barry have one of, if not the best, friendship in DC
The next two are Barbra and Dinah
And Booster and Beetle
Booster deserves the world
Jon getting aged up could have been a really good and emotional storyline but the writer obviously didn’t know how to handle the situation and it turned out really bad and extremely out of character
Heroes in Crisis could have been a really good and emotional storyline but the writer obviously didn’t know how to handle the situation and it turned out really bad and extremely out of character
Hal Jordan is not straight
This one doesn’t have to do with comics but I need to get it off my chest
In the young justice cartoon miss Martian and superboy should NOT have gotten back together
What she did to him is inexcusable
If you know anything about superboy you know that messing with his mind is a big no no
I’m not saying she should have never been forgiven
But putting them back in a relationship was a mistake
A big one
#dc comics#batfam#unpopular headcanons#conner kent#miss martian#young justice#dick grayson#batman#superman#kyle rayner#tim drake#stephanie brown#i cant remember the other characters i put#OH#barbra gordon#ted kord#booster gold
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