Lian Harper + her various caretakers in Green Arrow Vol. 7 (2023)

Bonus:

Anybody else incredibly annoyed by how they list out Roy & Mia without mentioning they’re Ollie’s kids and then they specifically note that Connor is Ollie’s son…as opposed to Roy being what…Ollie’s old sidekick and nothing else?? And as if Ollie has not loudly declared so many times that Mia’s a daughter to him?

They don’t even tack “biological” onto it, they just only say Connor’s his son as if the bio kid is the only one whose relationship is worth mentioning. It’s not even that what they say about the other Arrowkids is bad, per say, it’s just glaringly obvious that they only call the biological child his son.

Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League - Green Arrow #1

Green Arrow (2023) #1

DC writers + editors do this with Damian too and it drives me nuts. It’s not that the bio kids are necessarily treated better all around (they’re demonstrably not) but DC does have a weird obsession with emphasizing they’re father-son with Bruce and Ollie respectively while in the same comic neglecting to mention they’re not actually the only sons, they’re just the only bio sons.

And honestly I’m not certain what the currently canon legal status is for each of these relationships but I don’t think that should matter because it should be clear by now Bruce & Ollie think of their children as their children regardless of whether they’re biological kids or adopted or wards or not legally tied to them at all.

what the FUCK is joshua williamsons obsession with referring to connor as “Hawke”

Been reading a lot of Green Arrow comics lately and

Okay so idk how to explain this, but as a Jewish person, the most of the arrowfamily feels so Jewish coded to me

idk about Connor but Dinah, Ollie and Mia give off such a Jewish vibe, even though I might just be projecting

And Royyyy god that boy is Jewish to me

Lian has a Jewish dad obviously, and I’ve been headcanoning Cissie as Jewish ever since I knew her

I have no proof, no evidence, no explanation, nothing, but please tell me y’all see the vision

arrowfam as tiktoks part 2: electric boogaloo

(Volume Warning, some of these get loud, please be careful :) )

Guess who just realized they already have a bunch of PNGs made therefore could make these with hardly any work?

Feel free to ask for one of those with a different flag

I promise I am not one of those people who skip over to certain holidays in my mind. But since this Friday is most likely solicitation day and it will be for the December comics. I just have one thing I want from DC really it’s not too much to ask.

Ok so @elioherondale tagged me in this challenge and here is what I’ve come up with.

We’re going to start off with the Green Arrow on going. The most important thing to me for a Green Arrow run is getting the family all together. Because canon has gotten so weird around the Arrowfam, I’m going to do what I want and say Mia, Connor, and Emi all already live with Ollie. Emi is still pretty new to this, but they’re all an established family. I think a great way to explore and re establish the Arrowfam’s dynamics would be to do it with the perspective of a new Arrowkid joining the family. Enter Cissie! Ollie and Cissie both find out that he is her dad, so Cissie is moving in. We get to see Cissie’s struggles with finding a place in her new family, as well as Ollie’s struggles to be the parent all of his kids need. I think adding Cissie as a new kid would give a good perspective for people who are new to Arrowfam comics to show the dynamics and personalities of the family.

The big thing I want to explore with Ollie specifically is his childhood. We don’t get a lot on Ollie’s childhood or even really anything before he became Green Arrow, so I want to explore more of his formative years. Since most of what we know about Ollie as a kid comes from when he bonding with his own children, I want to do a series of small arcs where he connects with each kid and we get to see flashbacks to Ollie’s childhood to see why he can relate to them (side note: might make this a fic series). I know none of this is centered around a typical superhero plot but Ollie’s at his best when the comics focus on him as a person not as a hero persona.

As for Roy’s run, he’s definitely going to be Red Arrow and he’s getting Lian back. I’m ignoring everything they’ve doing with “Shoes” because it’s stupid, it makes no sense with Jade’s character, and they also made Lian like 10-ish years younger than Roy in current canon. It’s bad. So instead, we’re going back to young Lian and Roy and Jade are working out co parenting. I also want to get Roy to bond with his siblings. We haven’t really gotten a lot of Roy interacting with his younger siblings so I think it would be fun. Also I want to do a storyline where Tim North comes back, possibly as a “villain” who is pretending to be Roy as Speedy.

For the third character, this will be very predictable for me. I want an Eddie Fyers mini. He just disappeared after Ollie came back from the dead, so I want to explore what happened with him. I think this would be really fun because over the span of GA 1988, we watch Eddie go from a little rat with no morals to actually considering why Ollie does the things he does and starting to think about his own actions, plus he spent a lot of time helping out Connor. I think it would be really fun to see what happens to my favorite CIA hit man after he quit and took care of his homoerotic rival’s kid for a while. I also think it could be fun to narrate the whole thing as letters to Connor in a parody of that period where Roy wrote letters to Lian in his head.

If the third one needs to be an ongoing, it should go to Shado or Jade. They both deserve their own ongoing that respects them and gives them more good characterization.

As for an event to tie it all together, all I can come up with is Hard Traveling Heroes but with Ollie and the kids instead of just Ollie and Hal (Hal will still have a part in it). There’s a lot you could do with a modern version of this story as long as Ollie is written in character, and I think it could be a really great bonding moment for the whole family. I also think it could be a good way for Cissie to discover that she can be a hero without living up to her mother’s expectations and would be a good way for her to take up the Arrowette mantle again, since she definitely will if she’s in comics again.

People are more than welcome to add on if you have ideas.

Mario kart mains 0 explanation:

Bruce - Dry Bowser

Dick - Shy Guy (magenta)

Cass - Daisy (likes her taunts; plays baby peach whenever she goes 1 on 1 with anybody - only plays dry bones when she plans on spamming her items)

Jason - Bowser Jr

Tim - Baby Luigi

Steph - Waluigi (she likes the way his legs bend - used to be iggy but found out the circles around his eyes are glasses, called him a nerd, and never picked him again)

Duke - Baby Peach (is mad there’s no Kirby)

Damian - Yoshi (switches the colors out when he feels like it but usually pink)

Bonus Terry - Wario (likes his taunts and usually pairs him with a super fast car and good traction wheels to balance it all out)

Bonus Matt - Isabella (used to play DK but thinks it’s funnier to absolutely demolish everybody with Isabella. Will occasionally go for toadette or a baby. Has never lost.)

Do I have any ace followers who’d want to beta read a fic I’m in the process of finishing about Connor coming out to his family (and finding overwhelming support and also helping Emi realize that she’s ace/aro)?

“I’ll be back in a flash”

it’s Ramadan so I’m once again reminding you that Ollie is an agnostic Muslim uncle ji to me and he reads 4 qul on his kids

Okay, let's talk about Ollie's experience with fatherhood.

I'm an Oliver Queen apologist forever, but I think that there's a tendency in fandom to go one of two ways- "absolutely perfect dad, no flaws whatsoever" or "evil abuser who shouldn't be within six miles of a child". This isn't an Ollie exclusive phenomenon, a lot of characters and topics do fall into that black-and-white mindset. But the thing is- Ollie doesn't have to be either extreme. Particularly with Roy, who most of the debate centres around, Ollie wasn't perfect! I think there's such a rich discussion point in terms of young Roy's relationship with Ollie, so much more than just That Panel. Because, in my interpretation, Ollie absolutely cared about him, absolutely saw him as a son, but also the idea of being a father is something that deeply terrified him. The idea that this literal child being dependent on him made it feel more real, if that makes sense. Coming to terms with the fact that he was responsible for another person's life was difficult for him, and so he put up this wall- hero and sidekick. A conceptual dynamic, one that's not based in reality. He can keep that distance between himself and Roy and decide what that means, he doesn't have to be a father because that word has so many strong connotations, but he can still express that he cares about Roy, in his own way. That's why he always calls Roy 'Speedy' even out of costume, that's why his first thought is that Roy's undercover in Snowbirds. He can focus on being a good mentor to Speedy, which will have a trickle-down effect to being a good guardian to Roy, right?

Unfortunately, kids' brains don't work like that! Especially not a kid who's already lost two fathers. Roy needed a stability in his teenage years that Ollie just wasn't able to give at that time. He didn't see "Ollie's nice to me as Speedy because he loves me and doesn't know how to show it", he saw "Ollie's nice to me as Speedy, which means I'm only good as Speedy". This, at least in my opinion, is a major factor in Roy’s later self-esteem issues. Roy’s constantly underestimating himself as a hero, constantly comparing himself to Dick, and pushing himself 24/7 to improve because he internalised the idea that if he’s good, if he’s the perfect hero, then he’ll be loveable. He can’t be bad, he can’t fail, he can’t back down because if he does, he’s nothing.

It’s absolutely not Roy’s fault, but also this doesn’t mean that Ollie’s an evil neglecting abuser, either. Even the best parents fuck up, and Ollie was by no means the best parent. He took in Roy as a sidekick, as a buddy, and then never really found a way to combine the ideas of sidekick and son. He assumed that Roy would be able to interpret meanings behind gestures, which is something that Roy seems to struggle with even into adulthood. I’ve talked about it a fair bit, Roy’s absolutely someone who relies on the explicit, but he’s also not someone who’ll ask for clarification, which has caused conflict in his relationships time and time again. And while it's something he has gotten better at as he's gotten older, a 12-18 year old Roy would absolutely not be able to read Ollie's motives.

And Ollie's fear of fatherhood isn't something exclusive to Roy, either. Sure, he'd gotten better at it by the time Connor and Mia entered the picture (speaking as an oldest child myself, we are the guinea pigs of parenting, I was my mum's sibling), he absolutely still expresses this with them. I mean, just look at his face when he finds out Connor's his son.

That's the face of a man who's just had the crushing weight of parenthood slammed down onto him again, the moment Connor stopped being an ally and started being his responsibility. He's scared, because Ollie absolutely does not see himself as a good father for someone to have. This was very much present during Roy's teenage years, but particularly since this is post-Snowbirds. Both in terms of Roy developing a drug addiction and in terms of Ollie's own initial reaction to it, he immediately spirals. And, since we've already established he does not know how to process things, he lashes out at Connor.

And as for Mia, he's definitely matured significantly by the time she comes into the picture, and compared to with Roy he's a lot more open with his feelings. However!

He still won't explicitly accept the responsibility of fatherhood! Despite acting like a father to Mia in every way through his actions, he still won't use his words! Even though in the issue following, he expresses a paternal protectiveness over her.

And I think Mia's HIV diagnosis is maybe one of the biggest examples of his distancing himself and hiding his feelings, particularly when Connor asks him how he's feeling about it.

He's so fine, so totally fine, trust him when he says he's fine, totally not freaking out. He's absolutely not terrified for his not-daughter, no way.

Ollie has this fear that if he gets too attached to his kids, he's gonna end up failing them. If he keeps a distance from them, then he can't blame himself when they get hurt. Is this good parenting? No! Absolutely not! But this is also the man who dresses up as Robin Hood and who chose to die rather than lose his arm. This is not a healthy man.

But he tries, he tries so hard, even if it's in his own way. And he recognises when he fucks up! And he tries his best to mend it later on!

He's not the best at showing his kids that he loves them, but he's so proud of Roy when he becomes Red Arrow. He comes back to life to save Connor. He stands by Mia's side when she gets diagnosed and becomes Speedy. He's not a great dad, but goddamnit he's trying to be.

In conclusion, no, Ollie is not the perfect father. He's deeply flawed, and his own emotional incompetency has been and always will be a point of conflict between him and his kids. But he's not some uncaring abuser, either. He's trying.

I will never recover from this panel in Titans: Beast World Tour - Star City, which is at least 20 years overdue.

Of course, the obvious text of this story is "Ollie is loud and stubborn and tends to steamroll over everyone without thinking."

And the obvious subtext is "Connor is gearing up to tell Ollie he's ace and he's looking to feel safe to do so."

But to me it also carries the weight of everything that happened since Ollie came back:

Connor was regularly sidelined throughout the entire 2001 Green Arrow run or existed only to provide Wise Support to Ollie and Mia, never to have a storyline of his own. I think Kevin Smith and Judd Winick are both great Ollie and Roy writers but they had no idea what to do with Connor and it shows.

When Connor did play a major role, it was as object and/or victim, not subject (he gets shot, he gets shot again, we learn Ollie knowingly abandoned him at birth, etc.).

His interiority is entirely lost (outside of Dragon's Blood, which is...a whole 'nother can of worms). We get tons of POV from Ollie, some from Roy and Mia. I don't think we ever get it from Connor.

He's written out of the book for long passages, like when he stays on the island while Ollie returns to Star City.

Once he's in the coma, he's reduced once again to an object: a prop for Ollie and other characters to worry about and fight over, but not a person who can make choices. He's not a person, he's a football.

When he wakes up, he's being controlled by Dr. Sivana.

Then his personality is wiped.

Then he's erased from continuity.

When he's finally brought back a decade later, it's in the thrall of other supervillains.

So yeah, I'll bet Connor doesn't always feel heard. He hasn't had true agency since 2001.

I really think that making their relationship to their fathers a key part of Connor Hawke and Damian Wayne’s characters is a symptom of DC treating biological connections as stronger, not an explanation for why they do.

Roy Harper & Dick Grayson both have very extensive, complicated histories centered on being the mentees and children of Ollie and Bruce respectively. This is largely why I can’t take seriously the argument that DC only highlights Connor & Dami being Ollie & Bruce’s sons “because it’s core to their characters”—not only are their mentors and fathers still very impactful on Roy & Dick’s characters, but also the main reason they’re not as central anymore is because DC gave Roy and Dick a lot of storylines and roles and development independent of their mentors.

I don’t think Connor & Damian being constantly defined by their biological parents is an inherent, fixed feature of their characters. It’s a writing choice, one that could develop and shift if the writers and editors decided to take them in a that direction. The marketing and introductions that fixate on Connor & Damian being Ollie and Bruce’s biological sons are not just symptoms of that being key to their characters. It’s part of the cause. Dami & Connor being the “biological sons” will always remain central to them if DC never stops fixating on it. It’s still central to them because DC fixated on it.

And I strongly believe it’s still annoying af that DC picks the biological kids to emphasize having a connection to their parents while not mentioning that the adoptive kids do too. “Robin: Son of Batman” as if none of the previous Robins have been his son before. “my father” when Damian’s talking to his brothers about Bruce, like Bruce is not their father, too. “this is Roy. And this is Connor, my son” as if Roy is not Ollie’s son, too.

This is not at all to say DC should ostracize Connor or Damian from their families. And being part of the family can still be a big part of their characters. But it would be very nice if DC writers and editors would stop making it so obvious when they think being biologically related makes their relationship stronger and more relevant than all the adoptive relationships. Especially when DC is chock full of found families.

what if i. write a fic abt mia's return. but i keep rise and fall canon and its just angst about how everyone literally abandoned her. just for lols yknow.