#hes his own character not just tims abandoned love interest | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luminouswriter · 1 year

Text

Some #Chenford thoughts.

↪I want all the good things for Tim & Lucy—as Chenford but also as individuals. That being said, I don't want them to rush. I want them to be the one couple that the show dives deeper into and let's unfold naturally. I don't want by the end of the season for Tim to propose and Lucy be pregnant by episode one of S6.

I want to experience them dating. The cute and fluffy stuff, the stolen glances at work, the slight barely there touches, I want to watch them freak out when the other is in danger, I want to watch them get to know each other even better on their couches and beds and laugh and open up about all the ugly stuff that they know each others hearts completely. I want them to grow into their "You know you're my best friend right?" Era. I want the angst and growing pains until they settle into their own.

I want what makes Tim —Tim and what makes Lucy—Lucy to be brought into the writing to make their relationship more complex.

For example with Tim Bradford—if you deeply get his character and see things from his perspective and not your own then you get why he is the way he is. He is the most layered character and it's all got to do with his past.

He is a grump and smug and sarcastic and I think they have all been coping mechanisms with his whole past being abused then the army that he won't talk about then the Academy and Isabel.

He won't say it—but he has abandonment issues, it's why he keeps people at a distance. I think Lucy breached that barrier pretty quickly and easily it's why Tim tried by all means to keep things "professional". It's why he didn't want her to talk too much about personal stuff and why he calls her Chen and even with we see how easily he folds when it comes to her. " Air Conditioning makes you weak." Lucy gets hurt "How about I fix that air conditioning." And this was early on when he was still a big grump.

Tim fell for Lucy first, it's easy to see and this didn't happen this season. We've established that Tim is a great guy who cares about people. We saw how he stood up for Jackson or how we've had it mentioned in passing that he's helped Nolan out but I don't think if either those two or even another female Rookie like Barnes had wanted to go into UC that Tim would have acted the way he did when Lucy got interested in UC. He probably didn't even understand why he felt like that but Lucy and UC scared him shitless. Here is this woman that he has unexplainable feelings for taking the same path his wife took and later abandoned him & their marriage for.

Tim is terrified of loosing Lucy—we've seen that play out and not just losing her as in dying or getting addicted to like drugs but if you've paid attention then you've noticed after he asked her to go to UC school and she misunderstood why he told her that and this distance was created between them then you did notice he is scared of losing her in his life as—a friend or whatever. The sneaked in glances and facial expressions showed how much he hated that they weren't close anymore.

His issues are the reason why he didn't leave Ashley when she said she didn't want to have kids or marriage (I don't even remember) he cared about her and maybe loved her to some degree but it wasn't something so profound that he was seeing forever with her 💁🏾‍♀️. The way she left him hurt him but he wasn't madly in love with her, Ashley was safe while Lucy—for Tim is danger. She collapses his walls without even doing much and that needs to be played into their relationship. That love that he didn't think he could find again—even deeper this time, that fear of losing in more ways that one and the fear that she so easily sees past his defences and he can't protect himself.

Lucy is such a complex character too. (And I love that they are doing something a little more with her this season but they need to dig deeper. We need more of her for the seasons to come.) She deserves more, especially with her family storyline wise.

I think Lucy's biggest plotline is that she needed support, one that her own family didn't give her. And to prove to herself and others that she belonged. Tim gave her that. Even with all his rough edges he pushed Lucy and gave her the net under the ledge that she deserved. But even with that—i think her insecurities kicked in when Tim asked her to go to UC, she felt rejected esp knowing that they were about to cross a line. Her need to prove herself and her not being able to see herself the way others see her can be such a great incorporation in their relationship.

Chenford has the potential to be one of the best ships because both characters are not written to be perfect (acting like a character doesn't have faults and is this perfect person who deserves to only be treated with kid gloves does a disservice to them) and are so intricate and lovable. The obstacles at work alone makes their ship more interesting and then you add their personal lives? They could be so great and we need the show to follow through.

#chenford #tim bradford #lucy chen #tucy #tim x lucy #chenford edit #therookieedit #chenfordedit #tim bradford edit #therookie

186 notes · View notes

all-lars-bars · 9 months

Text

I'm thinking about Undertale and Marble Hornets, so now I'm gonna assign Soul Types to MH Characters.

This is going to be a long fucking post, so I'm putting in a read more block here. I don't wanna take up too much space with my ramblings.

Alex Kralie: Justice

No, not just because he has a gun. Although I guess that does help with my reasoning.

Everything Alex does, he feels is justified. He feels that what he is doing is righteous, that it all had to be done for the greater good. The only way to stop this thing is to kill everyone infected and then yourself.

I realize now all of this could also fit for Integrity, but I like Justice for Alex more.

Jay Merrick: Perseverance

Jay is the one who started this whole investigation. He was persistent nearly this whole series, only giving up during season one. But once he got more clues or questions, he searched for answers with a steadfast tenacity. He's stubborn to a stupid degree.

And this all, ultimately, became his downfall.

Brian Thomas: Integrity

Brian seems to be an honest man who has trouble going against his own morals to me (i.e. wandering around the abandoned hospital or shooting Alex in the face).

He does what he feels he has to, but not without remorse. I feel he has to justify his actions to himself. He also got real fucking pissed when he found out Tim lied about his past with the Operator, showing his strict belief in truth.

Also another definition I found for integrity is "the state of being whole and undivided" which I think would be a fun ironic nod to his whole "You are broken" schtick

Tim Wright: Determination

Listen, man, he is the main character AND the final girl. My bro's gotta have determination, baby!

But also I feel that despite everything, he is the person with most drive to survive. After everything he's been through, he keeps moving forward. He keeps getting up, keeps running, keeps fighting. He's the only one who never truly gave up

He refused

And despite everything, it's still him

If you can't tell yet, I think a lot about these guys. I also think a lot about Undertale.

I would be delighted to hear anyone else's thoughts on this. I love combining my interests, new and old.

#hehe also Alex has high LV and Tim has LV 2 or 3 #marble hornets #undertale #alex kralie #mh alex kralie #jay merrick #mh jay merrick #brian thomas #mh brian thomas #timothy wright #mh tim wright #NEW TAG #MH UT AU

18 notes · View notes

roxy-morinaka · 9 months

Note

I don''t mean to intrude in your ask box but this is actually an interesting conversation and one that doesn't appear often so forgive me fo this super long ask.

Do you think it's a bad thing to have characters that are created to be love interests? I think its worse when you have characters who are popular and have a fanbase and then get reduced to playing second fiddle in a relationship.

A love interest that I'm thinking of that became beloved is Lois but she may be the exception. I think it works better when characters are created to be love interests because then they fit within that world and can be developed from there. Dick and Barbara are more of examples of heroes who have their own fanbases. If you are a Dick Grayson fan you can choose from a number of ships. Barbara Gordon fan? You only have one ship and if you don't like it too bad. In Pre-crisis she dated so many different civilian men but that all stopped and no writer has ever invested in trying to let her date again or if they did a little you knew it wouldn't last because you knew who she was going to go back to.

From 2016-2023 the Nightwing title and Batgirl title were about their romance. There were very few issues where they weren't together or thinking about each other. And its been reinvented over and over again. N52 Dick is older than her and written like a cool older guy. Rebirth they share their first kiss as kids together. Currently they were best friends with each other. Young Justice they were schoolmates. Okay, in the 90s if you shipped Dickbabs there was content for you, and if you didn't ship DickBabs you could easily find something to read that didn't have it and ignore it while still enjoying the characters. You could ship Dinahbabs, or TedBabs, or some rarepair because there was content and flirting between characters to do so. Returning Barbara to Oracle doesn't solve the problem that these two have been at the hip for several years now. You can make that writing better but still doesn't solve the problem. Barbara Gordon was not created to be a love interest. She should have love interests in the same way you can list all of Dick Grayson's. Or Tim's. Or Bruce's. Heck, even Jason Todd has a list and he has the closet gap out of the batfamily in creation to Barbara and he was created after. And this goes for all the Batgirls too.

Not everyone likes romance and that's okay, but it is a part of these heroes lives but it shouldn't be the only part. Comic writers have abandoned the civilians they are supposed to care about. The supporting cast and people they are supposed to help. It's all Batfamily this and Batfamily that. And that's another thing, Dick has soooooo much lore and history. He doesn't get hurt by any changes to his history he just keeps growing. Barbara Gordon almost got her own movie. She's a symbol and considered her own hero but she doesn't feel like it. She gets replaced on the Birds of Prey and didn't even star in the movie. They would never replace Dick on the Titans. Batgirl comic was bad? So was Nightwing's but that didn't get cancelled.

And look, people can ship what they want but there is such an unfairness that has been happening here and been happening for a very long time.

I have always thought the best way to write relationships in comics is with time and growth. You create a whole array of characters that can have non romantic roles in multiple stories and see where the chemistry and story lead you. The relationships feel more organic and the characters less two dimensional.

Then when the romantic relationships end they rarely rekindle and are not forced back together again and again because certain writers or editors shipped it when they read comics.

I hated that N52 thought they could reduce and cheapen backstory to refresh everything but then just tried to force the same familial and romantic relationships in a less interesting way. I am not sure for me that the comics ever really recovered.

While I am not a particular fan of Barbara Gordon I am very frustrated with the dilution of her character over the years to the point where she has been reduced to a love interest and member of the 'bat family'.

I think individual character titles should build thier own characters and only feature cameos from other established characters as a small part of a story. Not move them in as regulars and further reduce thier chances of having thier own runs.

#dick grayson #barbara gordon #nightwing

4 notes · View notes

outrunningthedark · 1 year

Note

Seeing some of those old 5A interviews really drives home the point about how things aren’t really as “planned” as people like to say it is. Also very interesting to see how LS is going to kick off as some of the previews from “journalists” make it sound like it’s not going to be the greatest for some storylines. Timmy is going to have to get it together with the sub-par seasons that seem to be here for OG/LS this year.

OG fandom has been so passionate about these characters and their stories, and while I get wanting to believe the people in charge think just as deeply, or love them just as much...the truth is...they don't. A showrunner (or showrunners) who value a character that's been there from the jump wouldn't *literally* write him off because he shouldn't be in the 911verse without his girlfriend. A showrunner that views Buck the way the fandom does wouldn't refer to his abandonment issues (his tendency to cling because it's better than being alone) as a joke. A showrunner isn't always able to formulate some "grand plan" when there are problems behind the scenes we're not privy to. Maybe we're able to see similarities between current and previous content, but that does not mean it was intentional or that it will matter again in the future. And sometimes...a showrunner even does things that only matter in the moment! Ana's ableism? Taylor trying to fuck with Bobby? Erased. The hacker? The beacon bracelet? The BL kiss that amounted to nothing (even during the BT break up) because a significant amount of content was left out? We can also extend these one-offs to Maddie. Where's her "trust issues", exactly? Did we miss them? As far as LS is concerned, it feels like once they get past the "big emergency" the hype slows to a crawl, so for as much crap as we give OG about scenes not hitting hard like they used to, the spinoff has had this problem for two seasons now. Tim once said that he views Grace + Judd as "the foundation of everything", and it shows in how their dispatch + firefighter relationship is explored compared to what's happening on our end. I think the show would do better if Tim actually used them as the centerpiece, allowing their friendships to bring attention to the other characters. That's not possible when he hires Rob Lowe (and Rob Lowe's family) to give LS some "cred", though. And unlike Bobby, Owen may care about his team, but he doesn't treat them as his own family or the younger ones not named TK as his own kids. That connection I just mentioned for Grace + Judd, the same thing we see from Bathena and the firefam, is desperately needed. (It figures, right? The one detail Timothy probably should have taken from OG is nowhere to be found, lol lol.) [I've said this before, but I'm most interested to see if the LS cast gets their own pre-s5 salary bump and what the show will look like going forward. If the quality of emergencies starts deteriorating just as it has for our show...the budget ain't what it used to be.]

#anonymous #tina speaks #tv: 911 #tv: 9-1-1

6 notes · View notes

trulyinspiringmovies · 2 years

Photo

Thor: Love And Thunder

“Thor: Love And Thunder” feels aimless and runs itself into the ground with a flurry of unfunny jokes.

Thor has been hanging out with the Guardians Of The Galaxy. He’s pulled away from them when he’s told that a god-butcher named Gorr is coming to New Asgard. There, he meets his ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, who is now wielding Mjolnir. The two of them together aren’t enough to stop Gorr from stealing the children of New Asgard. They must now amass an army to stop Gorr before he kills all gods.

A lot of people are frustrated with this movie and I feel like they’re having a hard time pinning down why. To be completely honest, I’m feeling the same way too. There’s a lot wrong with this film, but it’s hard to attribute what’s exactly causing this frustration. The first thing people are talking about is superhero fatigue. Like many people, I think I’m starting to experience superhero fatigue. But at the same time, I’m not 100% convinced that I am. I thoroughly enjoyed “Moon Knight” and “The Batman” and there are some superhero projects that I’m excited about. Maybe then it’s not really superhero fatigue and more so mediocre superhero movie fatigue. It’s no secret that the superhero genre is oversaturated now and it seems like a lot of these projects either exist to cash in on all the hype or exist out of obligation rather than inspiration. The Marvel television shows are also contributing to this oversaturation. Although “Loki” and “WandaVision” felt important to the MCU, they haven’t really been. Wanda was used poorly in “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” and the ending of “Loki” hasn’t come into play in over a year. Every MCU project also feels like they exist just to set up the Young Avengers without attempting to make them interesting. Kate Bishop, America Chavez, Billy, Tommy, and Cassie Lang just don’t really seem exciting because the movies or shows they were set up in don’t do a good job at giving them equal spotlight attention as their predecessors. All of this has nothing to do with the actual “Thor: Love And Thunder” movie itself. In my opinion, the mediocrity of this film opened an opportunity for fans to finally vent their frustrations about Phase Four they were already having. The Guardians Of The Galaxy interacting with Thor was teased in “Avengers: Endgame” and I was excited to see what that would be like. Too bad the idea gets abandoned in the first few minutes. There could’ve been massive potential with pairing the group with Thor. Peter Quill could’ve met Jane and talked about her cancer with her since he had his mother taken away by cancer. That could’ve been a powerful moment that we’ll never get. Thor and Star-Lord could’ve shared a moment since they both lost the love of their lives. Mantis could’ve helped Thor reconcile all the trauma he’s been through. Thor and Drax would’ve been a powerhouse comedy duo. Groot has a special connection to Stormbreaker, so the movie could’ve teased something about that. Instead, the Guardians are thrown away so Thor could goof off. The movie thinks it’s being funny when it just hurt to watch. It sucks too since I’ve heard a lot of people think the screaming goats were hilarious. It wasn’t funny a decade ago. It isn’t funny in an out-of-touch blockbuster now. Jane’s cancer was the only thing taken seriously, but it never opened the opportunity for Thor to grow as a character. I mean, come on. Jane is selfless enough to sacrifice her own health for the greater good and uses that to fuel her purpose. You’re telling me Thor didn’t take any notes from that? Christian Bale’s Gorr was probably the best part of the movie and he’s only used sparingly. I would’ve loved to see more of him because he genuinely felt like a threat to the MCU as a whole, but he dies so that Thor could have a daughter. I hate that this movie makes you sit through insufferable jokes to set up for a future movie that doesn’t seem interesting at all. It feels like a waste of time for both the audience and the people making this uninspired movie.

★★

Watched on July 27th, 2022

#Thor: Love And Thunder #July #2022 #Action #Comedy #Superhero #Adventure #Science Fiction #Fantasy #PG-13 #Taika Waititi #July 2022 #2 stars

8 notes · View notes

spacehorrors · 2 years

Text

tma review time

idek how many I've done at this point I think it might be seven 😭

I've been having such a time guys it has been very eye opening...... >:)

ok so I have sort of abandoned the recurring imagery thing because it was basically me going hmm there are some overarching categories these stories fit into I'll sort them in my head. and now they have been sorted.... by the podcast into the different fears lol. so I'm replacing it w/ character thoughts since everyone is a bit more developed now.

top five episodes

E129 Submerged - man. I'm still thinking of this episode like the fact the main character was already losing his home. and then the apocalyptic flood descriptions? very enjoyable.

E125 Civilian Casualties - linking what I said about the slaughter down below it just makes for such a good story with just senseless horror because it's just well. that could be you.

E124 Left Hanging - just terrifying times you know that sounds like an awful nightmare. was so scary and the image

E121 Far Away - I LOVE FATE AND DYING AND DESTRUCTION <3 it just ruled!!!

E138 Chosen One - what's there not to love in this episode agnes fascinates me!! I'm so intrigued by what made this ritual fail.....

character thoughts

daisy and basira. so I was originally a little worried there would be a blurry line between daisy has the hunt as a patron and lesbians being seen as predatory it was just like a thought at the back of my mind. but I don't think it's done that! all I think about is them atm <3 also whilst writing this I considered the possible that this line might not be clear indication that they're dating. I'm going to take it that they are though idc. I'm never over the bit when daisy was in the coffin and was like I thought I'd never see the sky again or basira like I'm weeping.

also individually I'm very happy for daisy I love to see her growth and it was rlly interesting seeing basira doing her own work but also a bit devastating that she needed someone to hold onto.

martin. he is stressing me out ok why would you do this. I know why you're doing this but also stop because how can you see that this isn't going to end well. you're stressing me out because now it's going to be too late for him to reconcile with everyone and something bad is going to happen 😭😭😭 I feel so bad for him though because I understand.

MELANIE!!! I thought the bit about her and the slaughter was interesting like the physical manifestation of her anger being trapped inside her etc etc very cleverly done. love that she is going to therapy good for her. hope we see more of her.......

jon. what is there to say about jon that I haven't already said ngl I did feel a little sorry for him when he got out a coma and everyone was different and frosty. um his powers versus his humanity is an ever stressful good conflict. love how he and daisy and basira are friends now!! his plans need to get better though stop chucking yourself in coffins.

things I'm enjoying/predictions

ngl the slaughter is one of my favourite powers the episodes are always horrifying like. it's just senseless violence! it is happening anyway! terrifying. love it.

the rituals thing is interesting I'm assuming there's going to be an eye ritual soon..... which I'm sure will go horribly etc etc.

so standing by my prediction that all the assistants will at least have a patron like ik daisy and melanie are recovering from it but they still have had one. still placing my bets on basira and the vast.

ik exactly what they're doing with jon and martin and let me tell you it is working in compelling me and driving me insane. also I miss tim :(

once again jon is grappling with his own humanity and once again I want to walk into the ocean over it. also I want to see the same from basira sooooooon.

agnes montague!! omg!!! hiii twirls my hair. I'm assuming she's very relevant because another power is trying to create their own version of an agnes montague perhaps?

where is georgie I miss her wouldn't she be so powerful against all the fears?? thinking many thoughts.

ok I think that's it!! as always send in some asks if you want etc etc!

#tma review #tma reviews #tma lb

10 notes · View notes

batcowmaster · 2 years

Text

so i got asked a question of ‘what are your favourite damian comics’ and i realised i’d set them out here in case anyone cares about my opinions or ideas regarding damian, his comics and his characterisation.

there are comics that i'd deem necessary for understanding of damian's story as a whole but aren't my favourite and there are comics that i love but are made more meaningful in the context of damian's overall arc. there's several ways to read damian though, i think? the first is through themes. themes and how those themes play throughout a narrative. and the second is more of a character and character arc. ultimately a writer will choose one or the other in his case. rarely do they do both. if you want to read supercuts of good damian scenes regardless of the comic or scenes i think are interesting and important you can click on this link to my comic reading tag.

in terms of reading what’s necessary to get context for the character i’d say you DO need to read damian’s origins- that’s your batman and son, resurrection of ras al ghul, batman rip and battle for the cowl. some of this stuff gets reworked and retconned but ultimately when you jump in with morrison’s run of batman & robin you’re not going to understand much without this context. i’d also say reading tim’s red robin run is good context too - it feeds into bruce’s return, it helps clarify the relationship between damian and tim and offers great characterisation for BOTH of them, and is a really fun read. i do think that tim and damian need to move on from the feelings and place they were in this arc, but where it stands in canon it makes sense and is really good. so i’d say read that too, and it’s actually one of my fave tim runs. OKAY SO CONTEXT STUFF OUT OF THE WAY. what are my favourites?

i would say my favourite stuff overall are as follows:

morrison's run with batman & robin which is the damian as robin and dick as batman dynamic. i’m not a massive fan of morrison’s writing for damian overall, especially in later stories, but i do appreciate it here. i think he does well with establishing damian as this morally ambiguous assassin kid but retaining that he is a kid, and bounces him off of dick well here. dick who is struggling to be bruce but isn’t bruce and accepts himself as the lighter batman. light batman and dark robin is a fun time. cons: i do think the writing towards the end of this arc lets it down a lot and i hate the transition period between dick as batman and bruce as batman. i hate the lack of closure around damian losing dick as part of his regular life and feeling kind of abandoned at first. and i HATE morrison’s writing of talia. the way he characterises her here is the way dc chooses to show her for... pretty much the rest of damian’s canon, and it sucks.

tomasi and gleason's stuff which is N52 but actually solid and amazing when it comes to damian. damian and bruce have a really intense and interesting arc - bruce struggles to work out how to be around damian and connect with him. they had a really strained relationship before his disappearance and damian is not the same kid he was then. but also, i think, there’s layers of damian’s upbringing and bruce’s own insecurities about himself that are at play. damian also has all this baggage and struggles to emotionally express himself. there’s also great alfred moments... it’s really beautifully written overall. honestly this characterisation of damian is where I draw a lot of inspiration from, especially in his softness with bruce. damian's struggle to adapt to a society he doesn't understand and was never apart of, along with his trauma and assassin background but also a kid who WANTS to do what's right while still just... being a kid... a lot of it is found here. and it’s actual development from what morrison did! damian CAN still be brutal here, he still has that assassin instinct and capacity, but he CHOOSES to try and be better. and i love that it’s actual growth. tomasi and gleason also teamed up for the damian resurrection story, which is the only good thing to come out of damian’s horrific death in batman inc (which i’ll talk about down below). it’s handled amazingly and the love damian and bruce have, damian and his whole family has, is just really well done. cons: i think talia is still portrayed pretty terribly during this period iirc? which may have been dc just saying roll with it post morrison, i’m not sure. i also missed damian and dick’s connection a bit during this period? i don’t think it was gone completely but i would have liked to have seen more. more with damian and all his brothers tbh.

the super son stuff is generally good? it can be hit or miss depending on what age group they're aiming for (e.g. challenge of the super sons is pretty young aimed i think?) but overall it's a fun time and it's nice to see another side of damian with him interacting with someone his age. there’s some great moments, really cute stuff, and i will ALWAYS be happy for more of damian having a friend, especially someone that’s a peer his age and on his level. cons: jon’s age is inconsistent? he starts off a few years younger than damian and then they’re said to be the same age and then jon later gets aged up and damian loses his friend completely. it leads to some weird fan discussions tbh (and some uncomfortable ones). damian’s characterisation is sometimes strange, and sometimes clear that the writer doesn’t really know damian or has read much of his background, just probably taken some notes on who he is and is generally written or reference panels. it leads to some of the super son issues being extremely accurate and some bad fanfic versions of damian. these series are also running alongside the teen titans stuff which... i’ll talk about later but it’s often to its detriment if it keeps referencing teen titans or trying to fit in around those arcs. ultimately damian and jon just should have had their own teamup and eventually their own lil team, maybe with wally’s kids jai and irey, a resurrected lian, or maybe colin too.

i read a little of streets of gotham JUST for damian and colin's interaction and that's great. really fun. written very differently to his dynamic with jon, and this one came first. a bit more ‘former assassin kid’ and a bit less ‘bratty son of batman kid’. (that friendship is cont'd in the lil gotham series.) con: colin gets erased from existence

lil gotham and wayne family adventures are my light fluffy happy time where the characterisation is generally good and consistent but ultimately not the hard hitting stuff you're going to base your muse around. they’re fun! and i enjoy them a lot. it’s nice to just see damian being a kid and being loved. con: damian is often aged down for these stories which leads to very little content where he’s allowed to be a young teen, like he is in mainstream, but still receive love, support and affection from his family. i don’t know what this says about young teen characters but the fact that damian is now being forced into a relationship with a girl he’s known for maybe... a week? in total? all while not allowed to have meaningful connections with his family? or friendships his own age? just ... says a lot to me.

meh, mediocre:

robin: son of batman is fine? i enjoy elements of it but it's not my favourite. it's clear that they weren't sure exactly what they wanted to do with damian at that point. gleason tries to make it work and he does an okay job but not my fave.

gotham academy was... fine. i don’t really feel one way or the other about it. if you like it great. damian was neutral to me, not the best but not the worst characterisation.

the prelude to bruce & selina’s wedding. it’s fine. there’s some decent character moments between damian being concerned about his place and cute moments with damian & dick. but then they fuck up talia completely and damian has no real backbone? it just ends up meh for me (though i LOVE the art).

okay, so, what do i absolutely hate?

batman incorporated. holy freaking shit. bruce’s character is RUINED in these arcs. this is where morrison’s hard on for ‘assassin kid damian’ and ‘distant cut off bruce’ comes in. morrison loves the idea of bruce never getting over damian’s past and potential future damage and drives this home with bruce emotionally abusing damian, having talia abuse damian and clones of damian and ultimately lead to the death of her son, damian flipping between violent and sweet kiddo who then in a heroic and loving act dies BRUTALLY and HORRIFICALLY while saving dick. it’s the worst and i hate it with a vengeance. the only good to come out of it is it leading to gleason’s resurrection story which is beautiful.

skip teen titans. just skip it. it sucks. damian isn't damian, not really, and the whole team is rude and shitty to him. which like... guys he’s a thirteen year old kid? who you also know had a seriously messed up background? but they’re also kind of justified in hating him because damian is just awful. and you can tell the writers don’t get him, any pre-established arc or character work is DECIMATED in these books. i hate them with a passion. and it’s why any super son stuff that ties into teen titans is made worse because of it. this team is horrendous and they ruin any character in it tbh. i found gar and cassie unlikeable as well. which sucks? either way just- don’t read it.

robin war. i dunno wtf that was.

the new robin run generally sucks. there were a few interesting ideas but overall i hate it. with a passion. may it burn a fiery death. i don’t hate respawn or the idea of respawn, considering what’s already been established. having damian face the idea that his ‘medical miracles’ in the league had consequences and a face could have been intriguing. having a kid who was genetically linked to both bruce and slade but chooses slade could be interesting. having damian in a lazarus contest where he dies several times and is trying to get past his grief and guilt and a bundle of other emotions and baggage is also interesting. mixing it with a forced love interest in a clear dc agenda where their only bond is through violence, having damian basically punished by trauma for trying to move on, having him have a strained relationship with bruce, his only interaction with his brothers in one comic, having him only have friends who are significantly older than him and no one to relate to, and so on and so forth... even the stuff that could have been really freaking interesting were messy and done so poorly. damian’s character was all over the place and inconsistent and clear that the writer had maybe read the last impactful storyline of damian’s (alfred’s death) but used notes for the rest of his writing. there’s no depth to his appearances here, no concept of who damian is as a person and his overall character arc or baggage. i hate this story so much and i can only pray it’ll get better. (which seemingly it’s both better and worse because while we’re getting some new super son we’re also getting batman v robin, again, possibly with a possessed damian). my thoughts on flat.line/nika and more robin arc thoughts are here. please read my replies to the post as well as i go into further detail on how i thought it could have been done better.

#nita rereads damian comics #long post for ts

1 note · View note

thevindicativevordan · 3 years

Note

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

#nightwing #dick grayson #batman #gotham knights #titans #dc comics

192 notes · View notes

slutforsmutxx · 3 years

Text

ACOTAR SERIES SPOILERS!!!

TW: Sexual Abuse, domestic abuse, child abuse and death

So the “interconnected-mates-theory” that has been circulating in the acotar fandom has literally blown my mind to pieces and is opening so many doors, you guys have to hear this.

CHARACTER PARALLELS BETWEEN DIFFERENT MATE PAIRINGS

If you don’t know what I mean:

Cassian / Feyre

- both had absent emotionally/physically absent parents

- Lost their Mothers early on

- had to basically fend for themselves at some point throughout their childhoods

- both lived in extreme poverty

- use humour to cope with problems

- were abandoned emotionally or literally

- looked down upon by some people. Cassian is a considered a ‘brute’ and ‘bastard born’. Feyre was the looked down upon from what her family had once been and how they were when in immense poverty, they mocked her and laughed in her face.

- both have a glowing happy gryffindor (by that I mean like the mc type beat) type of beauty

Nesta / Azriel

- had some level of a controlling (in a traumatic sense) parent

- deep rooted self loathing and hate

- Both wish they could go back and change things with a parent. Azriel would protect his mother from abuse and Nesta would try to save her father

- distant and cold

- feel out of place at times. Azriel feeling left out of the whole archeron sisters and bat boys relationship saga thing. Nesta seeing everyone move on and start healing their trauma while she feels left behind

- both have some crazy ass cold rage thing goin on

- feel disgusted by themselves in some ways. Azriel and his insecurity about his scarred hands. Nesta and her disgust in herself for letting her father die and in turn punishing herself

- dark humour lol

- both have a ‘found family trio’. Azriel has his bat boys and Nesta has her Valkyries

- both have a cold dark sharp beauty and attractiveness

- really clever, intelligent and very perceptive and observant

Rhysand / Gwyn

- Both experienced SA

- Both suffered SA to save others. Rhys saved velaris from amarantha and Gwyn saved the children by distracting the hybern soldiers

- were left with deep rooted trauma

- both had sisters who were murdered

- absent parents

- created their own ‘found family trio’ Rhys has his bat boys and Gwyn has her valkyries

- extravagantly coloured eyes, teal and violet

- both are half breeds. Rhys is half fae and half Illyrian, Gwyn is half fae and half river nymph

- both had to watch someone they loved/ oooor mates? Love someone else. Rhys watched Feyre love Tim-Tam (Australian chocolate biscuit:) and gwyn may have to watch Azriel love Elain

- Both saved from SA by their mates before any romantic interest had fully formed, basically the beginning of both of their love stories. (Gwynriel are not confirmed mates but let a girl dream ok?)

- they both have a playful and flirty presence/demeanour

————————————————————————

OK, now. What I meant by ‘doors opening’ was Gwyn and Rhys!

We’ve seen a really strong sibling bond form between Cass and Feyre that in my personal opinion, is really similar to what is growing between Nesta and Az, to support this:

I mean c’mon out of EVERYONE Azriel was the only one who gave Nesta a gift at the party. AND MISS GURL DID NOT HESITATE TO ATTACK AZRIEL with physical public affection. Like, NESTA AND AZ of ALL people, the two least affectionate characters hugging?!

*if that doesn’t support this ion know what does*

AAAAND, just because I cannot let go of this platonic nezriel thing, Nesta made herself vulnerable enough to show Az that she cared when he stood off to the side at the party. And we know the she probably wouldn’t have done that for Feyre back then.

SOOOOO

back.to.the.point :)

I can’t wait to see not only Az and Gwyn heal together, but also see

Rhys help Gwyn feel safe and comfortable around the city again. See Rhys enforce her safety, and possibly give us a little bit about Rhys’ own sister, maybe a name at least? gahdam MAYBE EVEN SOME GWYN NYX SCENES, idk maybe to emphasise on Rhys trusting Gwyn like a sister eventually:) oooo and undoubtedly some Feyre and Gwyn interactions

This tiktok fully inspired me to make this post and I adore how in depth all of her tiktoks are!! I recommend her videos if you’re obsessed with the aCoTaR Series :))

96 notes · View notes

bitimdrake · 2 years

Note

I hate fics that really lean into labeled fanon relationship interpretations, like “Damian is Dick’s favorite brother!” and “Cassandra is Bruce’s favorite child!” It feels lazy! And it ignores and devalues other important relationships! Sure I love the Dick and Damian dynamic, but their relationship isn’t all hugs and cuddles and hair ruffles, and I am also incredibly attached to Dick’s brotherly relationship with Tim! Leaning into the idea that Damian is his “favorite” is annoying. And some people I’ve noticed try to sort of compromise on that by going “well Damian isn’t necessarily Dick’s favorite brother, because Dick and Damian have a relationship that’s more paternal! Dick is Damian’s real dad!” And like, you do you I guess, but that’s not really an angle I like any better? I feel like Dick getting pushed as Damian’s “dad” just binds Dick more to Gotham and sidelines Damian’s actual parents, but maybe that’s just me. And the idea that Cassandra is Bruce’s favorite child is rooted in the idea that Cassandra is somehow his easiest child? Which isn’t a canon thing. It’s got it’s roots in Cassandra’s fanon personality, as the super badass perfect flawless obedient mute ASL-wielding family therapist mood ring who has no desires or feelings of her own outside of calling boys “little brother” and doing ballet, who understands Bruce perfectly without words and who he understands and respects and spoils. Which I have no idea where that even came from? Afaik Cassandra didn’t even live in the Manor? And her relationship with Barbara usually gets the short stick because of this too. I find fanon fascinating but like morbidly because it makes me despair and I just want to know where on earth we diverged here

the over-categorization of relationships! it's annoying! Especially when it centers around favorites--people can have favorites for sure, but it's not. necessary? And even if they do have a favorite in one area or at one time, that doesn't mean it has to be some single, black-and-white, overall favorite always.

Dick can be Damian's brother and also his mentor, Batman, and one of his primary caregivers for a year, without people having to abandon one element to strictly declare them either brothers or parent/child. They are brothers literally speaking, and also we don't have to over-restrict what that can mean.

Also, yeah, I love Dick & Tim's relationship too, don't want to sideline Damian's relationships with his actual parents, and don't want Dick to be forced to stay in Gotham permanently or be unfairly responsible for taking care of his siblings. I love Dick spending time with his little siblings, but it's better if he gets to chose that! (Dick as a solo hero and Titans character instead of being 100% of the time a batfam character...)

Dick's relationships with Tim and Damian are both very close, and also very distinct from each other. Tim is a kid he never had to take care of but got to slowly bond with over time as a cool older brother; now a competent teen on the cusp of adulthood who Dick knows very well and trusts completely. And Damian is a much younger kid who he felt compelled to take responsibility for after abrupt changes, who he had to bond with much more quickly under more stressful circumstances, who he personally trained and mentored and took care of; who he loves and trusts, but is still too young and new to fully rely on. Both of those are great and interesting and unique, and not only do we not have to declare one a favorite, it also seems hard to fully compare them in the first place.

Cass as "Bruce's favorite child" in fanon is a huge huge peeve of mine. Cannot stand it. And you have hit it on the head. It is the boringification of Cassandra Cain--making her perfect and understanding and obedient (and therefore of course the favored child) instead of...you know...letting any of her actual personality or relationships remain.

Minor correction: she did actually live in the manor at least a little bit. I believe it's in Batgirl vol 2, which is after the evil!Cass arc and ends with her adoption. But even then, it's mentioned she spends little time there, it's not entirely clear where she stays the rest of the time, and it's definitely not clear if she keeps living there afterwards. Editorial influence decreasing her presence def has an effect here, but--we really don't see Cass in the manor much, and I don't think we ever saw her interacting with any of the other kids there.

Plus!!! Most important, there were years before that where Cass had much more focus, and wasn't living in the manor, wasn't adopted, and as you say had a SUPER important pseudo-parental relationship with Babs too. And her relationship with Bruce has always been flawed and troubled, sometimes outright hurtful.

Bruce sees a lot of himself in Cass, but that's a double-edged sword. He often doesn't really make an effort to understand her because he assumes he already knows. And because he latches onto the ways the connect, he is all the more upset when she shows she's not like him or disagrees/disobeys--which she does often! Because she has her own ideas and goals and desires, and pleasing Bruce is absolutely not her top priority!

Fanon Cass bad. don't like it. where is my gremlin.

#dc #canon vs fanon #negativity #batfam #ask #anon

33 notes · View notes

luckyspacerabbit · 3 years

Note

would you ever share the background you created for kai leng? i'd be so interested in hearing it!

Hehe, yes! Thank you for waiting anon. I wanted to really think this through and make sure I was working with all the possible details of his character.

Okay, so my goal with fleshing out Kai was not to excuse him as a villain or to necessarily redeem him, but to humanize him and hopefully incur sympathy because I find his depiction as a mysterious lackey boogeyman to be 🙄 one dimensional and playing on racist tropes like the yellow peril ✨ (also bioware making him predominantly chinese + a lil russian. extrapolate what u will lol)

So here is my background for Kai :) Lots of childhood headcanoning and then some general talk about his character/why I chose certain elements as I did (such as dumping that dumb phantom blade for butterfly swords AEORHIG)

Childhood: According to the wiki, Kai is Earthborn, and from his general heritage we can assume that he grew up in Northern China (omg that's where my ancestors are from). The most populous city there is Beijing, which, if there was a spaceport or alliance recruitment anywhere, it would be there.

I headcanon that he was born to a bit of an unsteady family, where it was likely there was estrangement and unsafe conditions between the mother and father that may have created a sense of helplessness and neglect from a young age.

In my canon, Dan Hyun's mom, Hannah Shepard was the head of an agricultural research facility on Trident, and was an old friend of Kai's mom (From University, possibly).

As conditions worsened throughout Kai's childhood, his mom decided to take a chance and flee with Kai (age 10 at the time) to Hannah Shepard's science facility on Trident (Sentinel Agricultural Research Facility), where she and Kai would stay for about two years as his mom worked to save enough money for their own place .

Since Dan Hyun was already being homeschooled, it was easy enough for Kai to join up alongside her.

Dan Hyun (12 at the time) was extremely happy to have a friend since life on the facility could be really lonely-- but with all these changes Kai was having a difficult time adjusting, especially when Dan Hyun felt put off by his competitive attitude. After so long feeling neglected and growing in a tumultuous home environment, he craved external validation: homeschool provided an avenue for that. They developed their own academic-based competitive rivalry that counted towards friendship, but grew distant when he moved out with his mom about two years later.

When Dan Hyun was 18 (Kai at 16), she managed to apply to an Alliance Research Training program and receive admission-- something that was considered highly prestigious, despite her parents' reluctance. Kai had already begun to build resentment towards her due to the way her parents treated her (very preciously, sheltered, and without exposing her to the difficult parts of life) in contrast with what he lacked in family and world kindness, creating a drive to supersede her and compete with her once again, if only to have tangible proof that just because he began in a lower place didn't mean he couldn't surpass the vision of success.

After this event, they would strike up a still somewhat friendly rivalry again that continued until Kai enlisted in the Alliance at the age of 18 (his attempts to join directly at 16 failed in my canon lol, but he sure tried )

Alliance Service:

Kai took the combat-driven route while Dan Hyun was receiving training for her eventual research establishment in Akuze, meaning that in their line of work, they never crossed paths-- Though they maintained occasional communication and met up here and there whenever Kai was back from his tours.

This is where I believe his decline truly began.

Some habits, like his desire for tangible proof of success and seeking external validation, manifested more heavily in this time. Collecting badges off of dead soldiers (To remember his skill first hand) is a notable one, but I speculate he relied heavily on the word of his commanding officers to counter his self-esteem. Titles were incredibly important because they were proof. When he began to feel a loss of control which led to emotional outbursts and breakdowns, he would fall back on these bits of evidence that he had done something, anything.

The weight and violence of service combined to break away his mental strength and conditioned him to that of a soldier.

Famously, he was discharged in 2186 after his N7 designation. In a bar fight on shore leave, he murdered a Krogan (OKAY. Listen. The wiki says "first-degree murder" but first degree requires premeditation and bar fight implies heat of the moment. So IDK I think the details around this one are a little fishy. He was on leave but he was a soldier, so ? he probably just had a weapon on him? Okay, I'm not excusing him but premeditation is a bit different from manslaughter so just something I've pondered. It separates intentional killers from accidental murders).

At this point, he is formally incarcerated and set to serve a twenty-year sentence.

Cerberus Contact:

The year is 2177, and Kai has lost everything he's ever worked for. His prestige is gone, he is at the worst place he has ever been, his mom won't talk to him, and he has no one. He had even stopped hearing from Dan Hyun, the only person he could have considered a friend once.

Through a small TV in the prison, he is able to hear about the attack on Akuze, and its one survivor: Alliance Scientist Dan Hyun Shepard. In the attack her biotic abilities (Which she had kept secret for many years) were revealed, prompting immediate recruitment into the N7 Program and a contract for ten years of service. This drove Kai into rock bottom-- while he had nothing, Dan Hyun was steadily on track to uprooting the only thing he had ever felt like he had accomplished.

This is when Cerberus intervened, promising him a home, freedom, belonging, and success.

So of course Kai agreed. Why wouldn't he? He had nothing left in his miserable life and there would never again be a place for him.

Cerberus Intervention:

It's my belief that Kai wasn't necessarily "alienphobic" in the beginning. Instead, I think The Illusive Man saw a very clear opportunity to recruit and nurture a broken man into a pawn of service. TIM is incredibly smart-- everyone who works for Cerberus is. He knew what Kai needed was validation, the promise of success held directly on the tip of his tongue to drive him into tenacity and action.

Organizations like Cerberus, even in real life, prey on people at weak points, fulfill their needs and drape their ideology on top like icing on a cake. That's not to say that Kai is completely innocent-- he ate the sweets and readily threw the world to the side in order to attain more-- but it does give some perspective.

Kai in Cerberus:

In ME2 we know there is some apprehension on Kai's part about the role Shepard will play. He is already starting to feel slighted from failures with Rasa and takes even the possibility of rejection from TIM extremely hard and with violent emotional outburst. This evidences how much TIM has whittled him away over the decade of service. Kai feels as though he owes everything to TIM, that TIM saw something in him-- failing him is disproving that and accepting what Kai has feared all along: that he truly is a worthless and incapable person.

Kai and Shepard:

Kai is best known for his direct antagonism towards Shepard in the events of ME3, directly killing their allies and potential love interests in a way that is extremely personal. Yes, it is part of the job, but at the same time, it's clear Shepard gets under his skin. It's because in the end, after all that setup, Shepard is the one person who can take it all away from him.

They can replace him as TIM's prodigy/ They can bring an end to the organization that gave him everything (From his cybernetic enhancements (uh indoctrination cough couch) ) to his purpose in life. Kai threw it all in with them because he didn't see another choice.

My Canon: The End

So how do things end for Kai in my canon?

As you're aware, you can unalive him, violently. But Dan Hyun is very emotional and due to their shared childhood, I like to believe that there was still a grand feeling of kinship between them, a recognition of the other due to shared insecurities. I don't think there was ever a time Dan Hyun looked at Kai and saw anything other than her slighted friend (which is very romanticized, but SHE is very romanticized), it was just about getting Kai to see that too.

She locked him down the best she could, yelled, cried, and beat the shit out of him, but ultimately, preserved his life. After the crucible had been fired and Thane (alive ofc) attended to, she sought to right things between her and Kai: whatever form that takes. Who knows if he'll ever be able to live comfortably in society again-- but at least here, he has the chance.

Random Tidbits:

Some notes! At his best, I like that Kai is portrayed as Loyal, Hard Working, Methodical, Clever, Tenacious, and Factual. I think sometimes he can be written off unfairly as wimpy or scared, but in truth, he's very sure of his abilities and able to calculate his chances extremely well. He's smarter than fandom gives him credit for.

He has an interesting conflict between arrogance based on title and humbleness. He knows he wants to be the best but he never airs it-- like when Rasa suggests that he wants to be the leader for Humanity but he grows quiet and says to just focus on where things are at right now.

His time as a soldier absolutely affected him in ways I think sharpened him to the killer he became. It instilled values that remained with him in Cerberus, such as when he berates Bates for abandoning his squad and calls him a traitor. Kai doesn't betray-- he's quite literally ride or die.

Also? The ninja sword is super dumb because Kai is Chinese and the swords and Phantom's themselves are designed to appear Japanese in aesthetic. Ninjas= Japanese, but China did have their own sect of Assassins which I believe gave birth to Wu Ching as a type of Martial Arts? Or was drawn from it hmm

To keep to accuracy, Kai would have trained more towards their martial art techniques which focuses on close combat and quick movements, as well as the use of dual blades called butterfly swords (You'd likely recognize them as a set of rogue daggers).

That's all for that meta! Phew. If anyone actually read to the end, hey wassup, hope you enjoyed, and take most of this with a grain of salt since it's my headcanons and background work :) Thank you again for reading!

#my meta #kai leng #anon #asks #PHEW #THAT TOOK A WHILE #HAHAH #dan hyun shepard #mass effect #meta

58 notes · View notes

fightabear · 3 years

Text

so some time ago, someone asked me to do meta about a scene in Injustice and i wanted to revisit that scene with the scene from Year Zero in mind. and then i ended up getting deeply into injustice damian, his relationship with his two awful dads, and it’s kind of a mini character essay?

so! here’s a warning for: tyrannical totalitariam regimes, child abuse, abusive fathers, emotional manipulation, evil superman, character death & also random he-man. please note that this is entirely about injustice and its characters, which are not a reflection on their mainstream counterparts.

there’s tension between damian and bruce from the get-go in injustice, and we’re never really told why. if we take cues from the game (though that entire scene doesn’t make sense) then it’s because bruce didn’t save jason, which fits in with my reordered robin theory in which tim and jason were switched, and jason has only recently died.

now, we don’t know whether jason is running around as red hood right now or not. but i’m inclined to say he isn’t, as his injustice 2 ending makes a big deal of him becoming red hood. and damian is close with jason in injustice 2, close enough that jason listens when damian tells him that he’s a lot more than bruce thinks he is and drops the shitty batman costume. close enough that during the (extremely weird, extremely out of alignment with the comic) scene in injustice 2 where damian betrays bruce for clark, jason is the name damian throws at him with the most vehemence. regardless of the robin ordeer, bruce’s failure to save jason is seems to be an incredibly sore point between them.

so it’s interesting that bruce is already counting damian out before injustice even starts. he’s comparing damian to jason - someone who he apparently no longer considers part of his legacy.

the kicker is: damian in injustice is actually probably the most morally centered version of himself. he shows open compassion and care for other people more often than he does in most of the mainstream runs. damian’s sense of right and wrong is solid, but what he wants is to break the cycle that gotham is trapped in. which from his perspective, is something bruce doesn’t seem to want to do.

injustice’s version of bruce is someone who truly believes that the ends justify the means - which means he’s apt to do some heinous things to people until they see his side of things. he seems to view people questioning as an act of betrayal, so instead of ever explaining himself he resorts to things like installing viruses in cyborg, kidnapping hawkgirl and replacing her, beating allies within an inch of their life - all of it is fine to him so long as they’re not dead.

but it’s not fine to damian. damian is constantly horrified at the lengths bruce will go to.

damian is afraid of his father.

so, this is about a specific scene. let’s get to that scene. its just important to note the difference between them, and emphasize that he’s not going with any intent to fight. if he was going to do that, he wouldn’t be doing this:

or respond like this:

or this:

he’s there to make amends, or at least try to. he still loves his father and he wants to be forgiven, and this is something that will carry on ten years later in injustice 2. damian made the choice to oppose bruce’s controlling nature but damian didn’t choose to abandon him and the bat family permanently. that choice was made for him. damian wants to come home.

and he’s terrified of his father. i cannot stress that enough. bruce at this point has already shown that he knows how to hurt his closest friends if they oppose him.

damian is a highly trained fighter, but he’s also a thirteen year old boy who knows he can’t overpower a man twice his size and weight.

and bruce?

bruce’s entire argument really hinges on ‘you, my thirteen year old son, didn’t take my side in this argument’. because, i have to put this in bold, the league was not executing the criminals they were removing from arkham. they were just transferring them to a more secure facility. something which is actually sorely needed, especially given what has just happened to metropolis. arkham isn’t fit to house them. and as far as damian sees it, bruce doesn’t like it because it’s removing an element of his control.

now, bruce isn’t wrong about how things will escalate.

but damian’s not wrong about his motivation here. i think there’s a conversation to be had about how bruce’s methods in trying to stop the regime actually drove it to further and further extremes. bruce never tries to talk to clark - or anyone, really. he just starts playing mind games to make them do what he wants.

it harkens back to the conversation bruce and dick have in the batplane. that bruce doesn’t talk to people, he doesn’t explain himself. he’s either right or you’re wrong and he won’t explain his stance. there is never room for debate. he’ll just stop talking and leave until you agree. there is no option where he sits and listens to an open and honest dialogue, no scenario where he entertains that he might be in the wrong or maybe things aren’t black and white.

and that’s why injustice bruce is not a good guy.

even on prime earth, damian had to bend over backwards to prove to bruce that he wasn’t a monster. it was damian who spent months digging through the sewers for martha’s pearls. damian who had to prove he was capable of loving titus. damian who constantly had to show that he was capable of empathy and thinking of others - bruce did none of the heavy lifting in that father-son relationship, he made damian climb the entire hill and still continues to put little effort into it.

and injustice bruce is even less empathetic and expressive than prime bruce.

which is why you get a confrontation like this:

this goes beyond dick’s accident and ties back into what clark said about bruce not tending to his son’s who are grieving because they lost friends in metropolis. damian’s fed up with never meeting bruce’s expectations. but more than that, he’s fed up with his feelings coming second to bruce’s.

bruce has already made a judgement on who and what damian is. damian has the potential to be dangerous and requires work to fix, and so he’s not interested in getting to know him beyond that. he tells dick that he’s “worried about damian being seduced by darkness” but never talks to damian himself with him about it.

but clark has looked at damian and and decided that damian is good. damian has problems, clark can admit that and does, but damian is good. like bruce himself.

and ultimately why when dick dies, clark is the one that reaches out to him because he sees damian for what he is: grieving child who just made a terrible mistake. it was an accident. damian didn’t mean for this to happen. meanwhile, bruce feels as though he was proven right. damian was dangerous and now his real son is dead. bruce will later admit, once he stops trying to manipulate damian, that damian was dead to him the moment dick died.

going back to year zero for a minute, they subtly show that damian is doing his best to be like bruce. baby damian idolizes his father. so i imagine a lot of bruce’s own feelings towards damian stem from self-hatred. from bruce seeing himself in his son and not liking the reflection it forces him to confront. injustice bruce projects a great deal of his own insecurities and shortcomings onto his youngest. damian is his worst what-if.

even though damian doesn’t deal with his grief the way bruce does. there are similarities, he puts his feelings into his fists and hits. just like bruce. but unlike bruce, and most likely because of dick, he does try to communicate. come injustice 2 he even talks about his feelings.

that doesn’t justify any of the violent outbursts. and he has a lot of them. he has significant issues with controlling his anger and struggles with lashing out, verbally and physically. it both worsens and improves as he gets older.

damian knows that he’s more than his grief, his loss, his anger. he’s also compassionate and capable of incredible feats of kindness. we see that in the flashback chapter in injustice 2. people aren’t pawns for damian, they aren’t a means to assuage his own guilt and validate himself as a good person. he wants to be good for those people.

damian’s relationship with heroism isn’t built on an intrinsic need for control or power, nor is it a means of validating his self worth.

people just need him. they’re suffering. and he wants to be there for them.

but again, we’re not there yet.

so, alfred reaches out to touch damian. damian asks him repeatedly to let go. when alfred doesn’t, damian tries throwing him off, not realizing how much strength he now possesses.

damian has a thing about being touched when he’s wound up tightly. it almost always ends with him lashing out at someone. which, tying back into why he felt comfortable coming back here, probably goes into his expectation that he’s going to get the lights knocked out of him. because again, damian did not go to the cave to fight or hurt anyone. the pill is entirely for his own defense.

from what we know of damian’s childhood in both prime and injustice, violence is the expected retaliation for misbehavior. toeing out of line is grounds for getting the shit beaten out of you, and while things should be different here....

from how bruce reacts he’s not wrong to expect it. note that bruce dodesn’t run to alfred to see if he’s okay, he goes after damian for hurting him. it’s damian who runs to alfred after he’s thrown bruce away from him.

( granted, yes, he threw bruce into the penny and it almost crushes alfred )

damian apologizes and he means it. alfred’s first question is to ask for bruce.

“”hawkgirl”” intervenes to try to end this fight before it can escalate further.

damian deduces that this isn’t hawkgirl and blows some stuff up. bruce calls after him probably - not to have a serious heart to heart with him about what just happened, or what happened in arkham, but to try to manipulate him into taking bruce’s side or in the very least stop his ruse from being uncovered.

this is a theme moving forward. bruce will dangle forgiveness in front of damian, but only when it benefits him and can be used to control him. eventually he’ll stop and will use the guilt he knows damian feels to wound him.

and here’s the second theme it introduces: damian is scared shitless of his father. he’s not afraid of bruce’s violence, as after this he charges straight for him time and time again, but he is utterly terrified of the lengths bruce will go to get his way.

this is also where he takes dick’s suit. i think this was his way of telling bruce that he didn’t deserve to use dick’s memory the way he uses his parent’s death - as justification for what he does. this comes up in injustice 2 later down the road, damian will bring up that bruce uses his pain to justify how he brutalizes the people around him. damian does the same thing -- but we also see damian grappling with his conscience about it. he wants to be better. he doesn’t want to be all his violence and loss.

back to the topic at hand, damian doesn’t do anything with dick’s suit. unlike bruce, damian doesn’t wear his grief and guilt in plain sight. he puts it in a box and doesn’t look at it, he covers the wounds with anger and as he gets older, develops a death wish and basically begins seeking a noble death in order to make up for what he’s done. it isn’t until dick passes the mantle to him in an attempt to steer him back on the right path that he even looks at it again.

damian isn’t the one that ended his relationship with bruce. bruce did. damian is very willing to reconcile if bruce genuinely wants it, but bruce doesn’t bother with damian outside of combat or when he needs something. damian actually keeps up visits with alfred, he gets him birthday presents, they meet up often and despite their opposing viewpoints, they get along just fine. damian even listens to what alfred says. he still loves his family.

damian himself is a mess. this line resonates because damian, too, is afraid. afraid of bruce, afraid of being what bruce thinks he is. there’s only so far he can bury it under the anger.

by the next issue of year one, after the confrontation at the manor, damian’s discarded any notion that bruce is a good person or justified in anything he does. everything he says on this page is true.

he’s not wrong. he’s more than bruce has even given him credit for being. injustice bruce sorts people into boxes impossible to climb out. damian made his attempt at reconciliation and instead, found out that bruce has kidnapped and replaced one of his friends to spy on all the rest. in that split second when bruce came at at him, he saw the disgust and anger in his eyes. he’s seen how bruce sees him and wholeheartedly rejects it.

he doesn’t want to be bruce. he will not be bruce.

batman was supposed to be better than the league. it was supposed to be a new way. instead he just found a new, different means to brutalize and control, and a new way someone justifies causing harm. and he doesn’t want it.

this isn’t to say that damian is a saint. he’s a very flawed, very broken person. he went from one abusive parental situation, to another, to another, and has the damage to show for it. he’s got bad habits from all of them, many of which he isn’t aware of or doesn’t think are a problem.

but unlike his two dads, damian doesn’t close himself off to what he’s feeling completely, nor does he decide to rush towards external solutions for his pain. he’s, again, very aware that something is wrong. he doesn’t hold to his convictions the same way bruce or clark do, he questions. he’s deeply unhappy with who he is and what he’s doing.

but damian is seeking answers using a very limited toolset, and there’s a very limited pool of people he can ask that won’t give him a biased answer or try to manipulate him for their own means. one of the people he confides in does just that.

the other gives him the honest truth.

his relationship with selina is fraught and she’s often one of the very nastiest people towards him, but it’s because of that he ends up opening up to her. she isn’t going to bullshit him and just say what he wants to hear.

and this is what makes damian different from them. both of them.

because he stops, because he questions, he’s still connected to reality. to his own humanity.

injustice’s bruce is a bruce that has quietly let his humanity die. he’s completely given over to the cold logic of batman and the idea that whatever he does to the people around him, no matter how morally dubious, is justified so long as it means protecting lives. he might not kill, but he really stops just short of that. he just doubles down on his beliefs and takes anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a traitor. he will go out of his way to rationalize how a largely guilty person is innocent (harleen) and how a largely innocent person is guilty (damian). and so he uses damian’s “betrayal” - ie, damian standing with clark instead of him - as justification for icing him out. that way he can ignore all the people who have reminded him time and time again that it was an accident.

bruce also can’t stand that damian won’t do what he says. bruce will ignore damian unless it benefits him. bruce will go on to frequently weaponize how badly damian wants forgiveness against him. there are multiple instances where he says “just do as i say and i’ll forgive you, son.”

and then in the next breath, he’ll tell damian that he “can’t forgive the deaths”, all the while he has harleen as his new sidekick. it’s fine that harleen helped with the scheme to blow up metropolis, killed jimmy olsen, and countless others. it’s not fine that damian did something he did all the time to dick - something dick himself shrugged off, because the expectation for this behavior was that dick would catch the baton - and it ended in tragedy.

because harleen listens to him and damian doesn’t. bruce cuts damian neatly out of his life and only really cares about him again when he’s a corpse.

damian, meanwhile, never stops trying to earn bruce’s forgiveness. in the canonical bad end (or well a comic offshoot of the canon ending) damian essentially dies begging bruce to forgive him, admitting that he always cared. he launches an absolutely insane rescue mission to save his father from clark’s torture and it costs him his life.

( but it’s worth mentioning - it takes damian showing bruce an image of kara for bruce to acknowledge him. )

even before this, damian was looking out for bruce in other ways. he was the reason selina got involved with the regime. because he offered her the chance to join and save bruce. damian’s anger towards bruce is less that he wants him dead, and more that bruce won’t stop unless he’s killed.

and damian is willing to kill him if bruce poses a threat to his ‘new’ family. he’s not going to watch bruce hurt the people he loves.

but his new father sucks just as much as his old one.

talia and bruce were more obviously abusive parents. they were controlling and sometimes asserted that control and obedience using physical violence and intimidation. in obvious ways you can point to and see abuse.

damian doesn’t recognize clark is using him until he sees clark discard kara, who should be everything to clark and is someone important to damian. before that, he has inklings that they’ve gone too far, but clark has been such a paragon of good that when he tells damian not to worry about it, he doesn’t. he hides all his darkness behind that smile and tells damian he’s good and worthy of people loving him, that they’re saving people and they won’t let another metropolis happen. clark talks to him and still (seems to) accept him even when they disagree.

damian misses clark’s equally as abusive tendencies because they hidden under the guise of a fatherly concern.

clark is manipulating him into divulging more than he wants to. a boundary damian set is being broken without damian even realizing it. damian’s uneasy. his body language goes from very easy and relaxed to overtly uncomfortable and almost submissive. it’s also very subtle but clark actually rises higher off the ground to intimidate and loom over him.

damian, who has only known bruce’s stormy silences in moments of disagreement, doesn’t recognize this for what it is. clark doesn’t take the slight out on him. clark doesn’t stop talking to him because he dared to question.

instead, he loops an arm around damian and praises him, rewards him for being honest and makes it seem like this is an open dialogue and not an interrogation. which it is. i wouldn’t call it gaslighting, but i would call it lovebombing. damian doesn’t realize that there was anything off about the encounter, or if he does, he’ll tell himself he’s just being paranoid.

after all. this ended amicably, not with him standing alone wondering what he did wrong, or being thrown across the room. clark basically stops just shy of ruffling his hair and calling him sport.

he was rewarded for honesty. and so any discomfort he felt was imagined.

i think a thing that a lot of fans miss is that injustice’s damian is a forthright person. he doesn’t lie or deceive much, and later on it will bother him that he’s keeping secrets from kara for ‘the greater good’. he loathes that bruce does it and works hard to not fall into that trap. he wants to be honest. he’s glad when he’s rewarded for that honesty.

because injustice’s damian doesn’t want to be batman. he wants to be superman. he wants to be good.

but injustice’s superman is not a good man.

clark keep secrets, many terrible secrets, and often hurts people and justifies it to himself. he just hides it far better than bruce does. clark is even more controlling and cruel, but he leans harder into his humanity and emotions to hide it. it’s easier to see bruce being cold and calculating and miss the way clark subtly uses what you want to get what he wants out of you. and you never really see it coming when he lashes out. he’ll apologize for it, of course, and if you’re not dead you’ll forgive him, because it’s clark. he didn’t mean it. right?

bruce manipulates overtly and grandly using intimidation, clark manipulates subtly using emotion. damian only recognizes one of these things when they happen.

so clark gives damian what he wants - a parent who loves him, someone he can talk to and even show a little vulnerability with - and then uses that against him.

the worst thing - the very worst thing - is that bruce and clark love damian. he knows this. both seem to genuinely consider him their son. and he knows this.

in injustice vs motu, bruce snaps fully into awareness just as diana snaps damian’s neck. he’s awake just in time to watch his son die. and when clark is brought onto the scene, clark falls to his knees and mourns damian and laments his role in driving him to this.

but they weaponize this parent-child bond he wants against him and each other. frankly, neither of them were very interested in him for who he was. nor for helping him be better and master his anger. damian’s body isn’t even cold before bruce uses it against clark, failing to acknowledge his own part in damian’s all too early demise.

he’s another chess piece on their board. one clark can use to wound bruce. one bruce can use to wound clark.

the person damian is when away from both of their influence is a more complete damian. he’s the very best of both of them.

the damian here is still curt and sometimes rude, but he laughs and bonds with the people around him. he values people’s freedom and seems to strive for honesty and communication. meaning no one is in his war to reclaim the world doesn’t want to be, and he makes no move without everyone knowing.

when he recruits adam, he tells them their story and what they’ve gone through and gives adam the choice to join them or stay in eternia.

anyway, all of this is to say that even all these years later, i continue to be so sad about injustice damian wayne.

edit:

now, there’s actually one other thing i want to bring up because i totally forgot about it.

so. issue 8 of injustice 2.

if we’re going with the idea of the reordered robin theory, which is what makes the most sense to me considering jason’s age and the friction between bruce and damian, this before jason dies. and if i’m wrong and the robins don’t have a different order, then this is before some enormous event that broke the slowly building trust.

there’s none of the undercurrent of hostility and distrust that shows up in year 0, which is immediately before year 1. we’re not given a timeframe for when this occurs, either, it’s just happier times.

but what’s really hard to ignore is that the dynamic between bruce and damian is completely different here. maybe tom taylor’s just settled more into writing the two of them, but i don’t think so. year zero comes after this.

he even acknowledges damian’s anger earlier in the chapter. but it’s less of a condemnation of his character and more a concern that he might not be ready to be on his own. alfred is the one advocating for caution, asking if he’s ready, bruce is the one saying yes, he is.

it’s a complete reversal.

and his trust is rewarded with a night of damian abandoning the “”mission”” he was given (get home from the furthest point of gotham in three hours) to help everyone along the way. which was the real goal all along, it was a test to see if damian’s compassion would win out over his want to win. and it does. bruce is proud of him.

so... what happened between them? what caused that shift?

i’m kind of worried we’re never going to know. like, i’m so glad that tom taylor is dc’s new golden boy and they’re just letting him build a million different aus. i buy every book he writes.

but also i’m dying because IJ2 was clearly planned to go on a lot longer than it did and i have questions that i know netherrealm doesn’t care about answering.

#damian wayne #injustice #bruce wayne #dick grayson #alfred pennyworth #jason todd #clark kent

27 notes · View notes

thatblondeperson · 3 years

Text

Hi so I'm gonna make a quick post just to go over some things in the wake of likely oncoming news.

First and foremost, I will be happy with any outcome we get for Tim unless it turns out to be queerbaiting because fuck that DC. Either go 100% for bi or gay or don't play at people's heartstrings. Commit or be burned. I myself like to headcanon Tim as bi. I think he's always been very clearly attracted to women, but that doesn't mean he can't also be attracted to men. I've shipped TimKon before and still do, just less so than my main, which brings me to the next obvious thing of note.

Yes, obviously I'm very sad that Tim and Steph broke up. More because it was mentioned in passing which I think does a disservice to their entire relationship as a whole. Where is the respect for their tenure together? I do hope we get some explanation since there was nothing going on in current continuity that predicted this and I'd rather not just have it written off as "yeah they're over, move on." I want to dig in a bit, because Tim's attitude seems like something bad happened which would have to be huge considering that they've been fine up until this point. I do not feel confident that my curiosity will be humored.

Regarding Steph, I hope she doesn't get written out. i hope she gets respect, her own stories, her own life. I want her to not just be cast aside as a nothing in Tim's life, or as cheap training wheels for this new chapter. I don't want mlm representation at the expense of misogyny because media does that a lot. Shippers on this site do this a lot. Someone can't be queer unless you effectively bury their prior relationships in a trauma filled heap of garbage. It's frustrating and I don't want her sucked into that. I believe in my heart that she would be supportive, so if Tim is gonna come out, LET ME SEE SOME DAMN SUPPORT FROM STEPH. This could change her stories too though, which I'm happy for as well. they could let her be canonly bi (not mentioning Future's End as that's BARELY Steph...) and give her some new adventures that I will be thrilled to read. But I don't want her turned into the devil of Tim's life journey. Don't make her his oppressor, don't make her the thing that held him back from happiness. She can be something that was happy for him as well, and now he has something else that makes him happy. It can be both.

My theory right now is that Tim is getting a ton of memories flooding back into his head and he's remembering old friends which is bringing up old suppressed feelings that he wasn't aware of. Bernard is in his memories and I think that's a really interesting way for them to take his. It's not making a new character or starting things out of the blue, it's very much saying HEY! We heard you. This is something people have seen in Tim for a while so maybe it was always there but he never knew it himself. Very cool move, I hope they handle it well.

My next concern is...my fic. Regardless of the outcome, gay or bi, I will post it. If he's bi, I'm not gonna have any issues, but if he's gay, I will pin a disclaimer at the top of my blog and on the fic itself. I just want to post it. I'm a slow writer, but I've been working on this piece since 2019, and I've been wanting to write it since I first got into Tim and Steph. Is it perfect? No. It's very self indulgent and angsty, but I'm proud of it, and I want to post it. With either outcome I'm afraid I'll get backlash, and I will just probably have to link them to a disclaimer. If Tim is confirmed gay, I will be heartbroken at not feeling comfortable discussing my fic with anyone. I won't be able to talk about why I've loved TimSteph for years. I won't be able to post headcanons. I won't be able to participate. I will still love them both separately, but I'll be losing the drive for my art. Those two have inspired me for years and I have list of wips and ideas that will unfortunately never be able to be published. It breaks my heart to have to abandon all of that, but it's my own fault for not writing fast enough or not feeling confident in my drawing abilities. I have been a bit selfish today in hoping that Tim is bi, and I do wholeheartedly apologize for that, but my creativity is going to halt immediately and I'll never get to do what I planned to do because I believe it would be disrespectful to continue to put out TimSteph media if Tim were gay.

More than anything, I am worried about losing friends. I won't get to have deepdives into their characters anymore with a couple people, and those deepdives have kept me going many days during quarantine. I wont get to bounce fic ideas or art ideas off of people anymore, and I'm worried that over time without TimSteph being a bit of glue, I'll lose those people. This is kind of my one big ship. I don't ship a lot of things and while it's not necessary to ship things to be happy, I like having at least one solid ship to fall back on. I don't have a backup, most of my ships are from discontinued shows and I have no desire to write or draw for them a lot of the time. I gotta shift this energy somewhere, but where? And I just do not want this lack of energy period that might come in the wake of Tim being confirmed gay, to lose me connections with the people I've gotten to know over the past couple years BECAUSE of TimSteph. I'm mourning a future that might not even come, but I can't help it. I'm afraid that I'll get left behind.

This is all very dramatic and personal, the comic today was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm being selfish for the sake of my art and my personal relationships which overall doesn't matter in lieu of potential representation!!!!!!! Like actual tangible representation YES. There's ways that I want this to go and ways that I don't, but for the record I want to make sure it's clear: If Tim is canonically confirmed as LGBT+, I will be celebrating with everyone else. I am not here to suppress representation for the sake of a fictional ship that I enjoy. Everyone should get a chance to see themselves in a story, and Tim is a big character to make that leap with. This will hopefully be a diversity win that will make a huge impact in all big name comics going forward, not just DC comics.

#personal #timsteph #tim drake #robin iii #red robin #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #batman #batman urban legends #wednesday spoilers

30 notes · View notes