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linkspooky · 1 day

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Art credit: @/charscounterattack reposted with permission.

INVINCIBLE VS. MY HERO ACADEMIA: WHEN HEROES KILL

Whether or not heroes should kill people is a hotly debated topic in comics.

There are people who think heroes should never kill, and others who think heroes should kill more. One of the most famous comic book storylines "Under the Red Hood" has Red Hood / Jason Todd debate whether or not it was ethical for Bruce to keep letting the joker live even after the Joker killed Jaso, especially after the Joker killed Jason. If killing the Joker earlier to prevent all future deaths would have been justified. There are like a hundred DC Aus that are like "What if Batman and Superman just started killing people?"

In order to explore this question I'm going to explore two situations in different comics, Invincible and My Hero Academia when the hero, a very idealistic young hero kills someone for the first time.

LET HORI COOK

Storytelling, especially for serialized storytelling which comes out week by week instead of all at once works on the premise of drawing people in by promising that certain future developments and plot points are going to happen. Stories are all about creating expectations, building them, and then paying them off.

Here's an example: The Dabi is a Todoroki theory has existed pretty much since the training camp arc. Horikoshi wasn't in your face about the hints about Toya, but there was just enough hints to make the theory seem more and more plausible. Toya having the same fire quirk as Shoto / Endeavor. Toya mentioning both of them by name. Shoto's two other siblings getting revealed but not Toya. Toya saying that Hawks should have paid attention to him most of all. All of these little pieces came together until Toya finally revealed his identity on live TV in front of both Shoto and Endeavor.

This worked because not only did it give the audience just enough clues that they felt smart for figuring it out, and get invested in the idea of Toya as a Todoroki, it also was well-paced so it didn't seem like Horikoshi forgot about it unlike the traitor plot which went hundreds of chapters without being mentioned. If Toya was revealed to be a Todoroki at the training camp arc with no buildup, it wouldn't be as effective bcause we didn't have years of waiting and theorizing. If Todoroki was revealed to be some guy named Steve after all the hints, it also wouldn't be an effective reveal because there were hints dropped for Toya Todoroki, but there were no Steve hints so it'd feel like the author lied to us.

Themes are like this too. I tend to explain story themes by oversimplifying it as "Question, and answer." The story asks a question, it provides us an answer, and we can come up with our own answer as well. However, there's a middle part I'm skipping out on which is deliberation. Before you can come up with an answer, you obviously need to deliberate it, either by presenting arguments for or against, hearing outside opinions or just thinking things through.

In other words, you need to "Let things cook."

If Toya calling Shoto by his full name at the Training Camp Arc is when we're first asked "Is Toya a Todoroki?" or when the theories first started, then the long middle period between Training Camp Arc and the First War Arc is the deliberation. This is when the story not only added more hints to the idea that Toya was a Todoroki, but also set up why that reveal mattered. Endeavor wanted to atone for his past sins, but one of his victims was no longer alive. Endeavor begins to move on anyway and think he's finally made himself a good hero, but now Toya appears to flip up the reverse Uno Card.

So let's follow this basic formula, for how ideas get developed in My Hero Academia and just any good story.

Question / Introduction

Deliberation

Answer / Conclusion

My Hero Academia and Invincible explore similar themes in regards to heroism, generational trauma and how to be better than the previous generation in both Mark and Deku. I'm going to streamline their arcs down to one basic question for the sake of time. For both the question is:

Can I be a better hero than my Dad?

Deku and Mark might be two characters who cannot possibly seem to be more different, but you can actually list off a lot of similarities between them right away. Deku and Mark are both people who in a world oversaturated with superheroes spent most of their childhoods with no superpowers at all. Also, they were genetically supposed to inherit a quirk / viltrumite powers, but Deku was born quirkless, and Mark was an extremely late bloomer. They are also people who while being powerless civilians for most of their lives worship heroes. Deku collects so much All Might Merch he even stole some from Nighteye after he died, Mark attends comic conventions even after he becomes a superhero.

They also grew up worshipping one hero in particular who was essentially earth's strongest hero, for Mark it was his dad Omni-Man, for Deku it was All Might. They also both get the opportunity to train directly under their favorite hero immediately after they get their powers. At first this makes it seem like they've been given everything they've ever wanted. All Mark has ever wanted was to be a hero like his dad and make his father proud. Not only did Deku just want one person to tell him he could be a hero too even without a quirk, but his very idea of heroism is built around seeing All Might always save people with a smile.

However, both of them suddenly hit complication just when it seems like they've been given everything they've ever wanted. They are both confronted with the fact that their heroes are not who they expected them to be. They are overly idealistic heroes who have been dreaming of being heroes since childhood only to be hit with a much greyer reality. To the point where there innocence becomes a flaw in and of itself. The way they've been coddled and protected all of their lives leaves them completely unaware and unable to spot the grey areas in the world, or the people around them.

For Deku the moral greys exist in the villains around them. In MHA Society, villains are basically just bad guys in suits for the heroes to punch on television. They're seen as a faceless enemy, and there's very little in way of rehabilitation for villains once they're captured. Deku lived in a very black and white world before this point, and he's suddenly presented with the idea that his villains could be morally grey.

Deku's image of All Might is a hero who saves everyone with a smile, so he could never imagine that there are people who All Might has failed to save. He's never stopped to consider where villains came from, or if any of them might have legitimate reasons for their grievances.

This becomes a pretty central theme in MHA. It's first brought up here when Shigaraki talks about All Might acting as if there's no one he can't save. Twice brings it up again in his first backstory chapter, that the heroes only save the virtuous ones.

This is further enforced in the same overhaul arc with members who are loyal to Overhaul because they are society's trash who would have been thrown out otherwise. There is a group of people fiercley loyal to Overhaul who is a terrible boss, because he is the only person who would accept them.

edits belong to @stillness-in-green from bring it all back a tone poem on returning to staus quo located here on ao3.

In the War Arc this long running theme basically reaches a climax with the Hawks and Twice confrontation, where Hawks decides to try to offer Jin a chance to restart because he's deemed him "good" but he won't extend the same helping hand to the league who Hawks has determined as "bad." He then asks Jin to betray his friends in order to be saved, something that Jin rightfully calls out.

That Hawks only wants to save Jin because he's one of the good ones, and he's written off the rest of the league and left them for dead. Hawks choosing to divide between good and bad victims ad only save the one he personally thought was worthy of redemption, makes it impossible for him to save Twice who would never under any circumstances give up on the rest of the league.

Twice's death is a tragedy, but it also presents us a clear example of the failures of the previous generation. Even a hero who sincerely sympathized with a villain and wanted to help them start over wasn't able to help them because of this attitude of selectively picking and choosing who to save. If the heroes only save the innocent the I guess the lives of the guilty are worth less.

This is the questio Toga poses to Ochako, if the heroes killed Twice then are you going to kill me in order to stop me. This is the central subject of Shigaraki's speech to the heroes. That heroes and villains will never uderstand each other, because the entire hero system perpetuates itself on ignoring the needs of societal outcasts and rejects in form of the "innocent people" and those outcasts who aren't having their needs met eventually turn into villains who get systematically put down by heroes. Heroes and villains are incapable of understanding each other and breaking the cycle, because the entire system isn't built on helping people, but merely maintaining the idea that heroes are perfect, faultless saviors so normal people will feel secure, while the people the heroes have failed get swept under the rug so society can keep "functioning."

"You heroes hurt your own families just to help strangers. You heroes pretend to be society's guardians. For generations, you pretended not to see those you couldn't protect. That means your system's all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It all builds up, little by little, over time. You've got the common trash, all too dependent on being protected, and the brave guardians who created the trash that needed coddling. It's a corrupt, vicious, cycle. Everythig I've witnessed, the whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I took power for myself. Simple enough, Yeah? I don't care if you don't understand. That's what makes us heroes and villains."

So if the starting question is: Can I be a better hero than my dad?

Then everything I've detailed above is deliberation. Here we have, ever since the training camp arc, this slowly built up idea of why All Might was a flawed hero in the end.

Mark has to face the fact that his father is a more morally grey person than he could ever imagine, whereas Deku has to face the fact that the villains are more morally grey in his world, and that makes the heroes look more flawed in comparison as well. The deliberation is all slowly bringing Deku to think over what Shigaraki asked him all the way in the beginning in there first meeting.

Were there ever people that the heroes couldn't save? If so then what are you supposed to do with the victims you can't save after they grow up? This is when Deku begins to start forming his own answer.

Deku hears the advice of both the other OFA users, and The Stinky Old Man (Gran Torino) that killing Shigaraki is the best option, but wants to explore other options.

Scenes like this clearly telegraph what the answer / conclusion Hori is leading us to to be. The same way that Toya is a Todoroki is foreshadowed long in advance, statements like "All for one is a power meant for saving, not killing" clearly set up Deku's Endgame. Deku's end goal is to find a way use his power to save Shigaraki rather than killing him. Everything else is just a matter of deliberation, Deku knows what his edgoal is but the chapters between then and the end of the manga is Deku having to figure out how exactly to save Shigaraki without killing him.

You Heroes Hurt Your Own Families Just to Help Strangers

Invincible is the story of Mark Grayson, the son of Omni Man / Nolan Grayson. He's been told all of his life that his father is a viltrumite, a race of benevolent aliens who send out people like Nolan to alien civilizations in order to uplift their entire civilization. Which is what led Nolan to come to earth and become Earth's greatest heroes.

This turns out to be a big fat lie when within 12 chapters Nolan not only slaughters the guardian's of the globe, but also has a confrontation with his son.

Mark has wanted to be just like his dad his entire life. Only to be slapped in the face with the realization he's known nothing about his dad his entire life, shown rather brilliantly by these panels where Nolan tries to have a normal father / son conversation with Mark while covered in blood.

Nolan isn't from a futuristic utopia but from a brutal, fascist space empire. He didn't come to earth to help bring it up, but to weaken its defenses and make it prime for conquering. He didn't have Mark out of love, but to produce another soldier for the viltrumite empire.

Mark's entire schtick is that he's invincible, but he's so inexperienced as a hero that he gets beat up constantly despite the fact he has the strongest power set in the series b/c he has viltrumite powers. However, not only does the series introduce moral greys by continually showing how Mark even with the best power set in the series constantly gets his ass kicked, it also challenges Mark's black and white thinking and hero worship of his father by showing him the kind of man his father really is.

Mark has wanted to be exactly like his father his entire life, but now that's suddenly a bad thing. His father is a morally reprehensible person and Mark is now a descendant of an alien race meant to conquer worlds. Not only is Mark confronted by who his father really is, but now everyone in Mark's life judges him by comparing him with his father.

Mark has to work with Cecil and be his on-call Superhero, both to be able to pay for college, and also to prove that he's not his dad. The unspoken part of the agreement is that Cecil gets to keep a leash on Mark and Mark has to prove that he'll never turn out like his father to earn Cecil's trust.

Cecil is automatically suspicious of him because if Mark were to turn evil, the planet would have no defenses against him just like it didn't have any for Omni Man. Mark's mother starts to drink and blames Mark for Omni-Man leaving in a drunken moment of weakness because of how much the information that Omni Man only regarded her as a pet affected her.

The comic even shows us that in most alternate universes, mark actually did make the decision to join his father's conquest, and this universe is one of the few exceptions. This is also where we're introduced to a major reoccuring antagonist in the comics, and also the main antagonist / final antagonist of season 2 of the cartoon Angstrom Levy.

Levy is someone who can jump between dimensions and has traveled to almost all of them collecting his alternate selves. He has witnessed for a fact that in most universes Mark sides with his father instead of fighting against him.

Levy enlists the clone bros to build a device that would combine the knowledge of his alternate selves into one individual. This device ends up breaking tragically (partially mark's fault, but levy himself made the decision to stop the machine in order to stop the clone bros from killing Mark). Levy's memories become confused as a result of the machine malfunctioning, and he can't tell the difference between himself and his alternate universe counterparts. This means that Levy now remembers several alternate universes where Mark did turn evil, and remembers them as if they happened to him.

It's better elaborated upon in this post:

The process by which Invincible has had to condense and consolidate the plot beats of the original comic, coupled with the opportunity it's granted the writers to tighten up and emphasize its themes on a second pass, has resulted in a newfound appreciation for how unbelievably fucking good Angstrom Levy's whole character concept is. What's that, Mark? Your main emotional crisis this season is your fear of turning out like your father? Here, have an archnemesis who's out to kill you because his memories were inadvertently overwritten with the lived experiences of hundreds of alternate versions of himself whose friends and families were slaughtered in worlds where you did, in fact, turn out exactly like your father. Because it turns out that that is in fact the multiversal norm. That you turn out like your father. And now you're left to wonder what set of arbitrary coinflips pulled you back from that abyss in this dimension, and whether your luck is going to continue to hold into the future.

Mark is not only hit with the revelation that his father isn't as good as he thought he was, but also while he's in a crisis about about whether or not he will turn out like his father, he learns the answer is yes, in several dimensions he turns out exactly like his father.

In My Hero Academia there are families like the Todoroki's who balance the difference between a hero's obligations to society, and a hero's obligation to society. However, that's a side plot where I'd argue that the main plot for Invincible and it's main focus is what Mark owes to the world as a hero, and what Mark owes to his family.

It's not just that Omniman is trying to invade earth for the Viltrumite empire. It's not just that he failed as a hero, but that he failed as a father. What makes Mark snap, is hearing Omniman call Debbie a pet. Until that point Mark was in denial and still trying to reason with his father.

Invincible is about two intersecting themes: Is Mark obligated to use his incredible powers to help make the world better? Can Mark be a good hero and a good family man?

While MHA has more far reaching societal implications in its themes and questions, Invincible is more specifically about the Grayson Family. It's generational trauma on a society level, vs generational trauma on an individual level. The way Nolan was raised on Viltrumite effects how he raised Mark causing their conflict, and Mark's conflict with his father effects most of his young adulthood when he's trying to figure out what person he wants to be (read: not his dad), but also the way he parents his daughter with Atom Eve.

Omni-man failed Mark as both a hero, and a father. Mark feels the need to overcompensate for what his father did the world and all those innocent people by acting as Cecil's lapdog and doing whatever Cecil tells him.

However, Mark is much more hurt by the personal betrayal than he lets on. It's not just that his father killed a bunch of innocent people, it's also that Mark's father failed as a father, abandoning both him and mom and choosing to be a viltrumite rather than being Mark's father. Mark's stated reason for wanting to be a hero post the omni-man reveal is to prove he's not like his dad to the world, and also make up for the innocent lives he failed to save. However, his unstated underlying reason is Mark is hurt and betrayed his father didn't put his family first, and this causes Mark to always put his family first.

This leads to two insecurities / narrative flaws. One, Mark is insecure about becoming like his father so he tries to prove he's nothing like him by being the most selfless, perfect hero possible. Two, Mark is hurt by being abandoned by his father and doesn't want to become a deadbeat like Nolan so he gets extremely overprotective of his own family.

These two things are obvious in conflict with one another: A hero has an obligation to the common good which sometimes means sacrificing time with your loved ones. However, being a good family man requires a level of selfishness that directly contradicts the selfless hero that Mark is pushing himself to be. In the comic the way Mark prioritizes his family and loved ones over the common good and justice is made even more obvious. His first instinct on seeing Omni-Man again isn't to call him out for being an awful father, but to hug him and ask him to come home. Mark is a distraught son first, and a hero second.

Mark has two flaws, his fear of being like his father makes him try too hard to be a perfect hero, and his trauma over losing his father makes him prioritize his family over being a hero. It's very much a having your cake and eating it too situation, oftentimes heroes make huge sacrifices for their personal lives in order to be heroes, that's basically a theme discussed in the comic with Nolan being absent for a lot of Mark's childhood, and why Mark's relationship with Amber fails.

The show also introduces us to the idea that Mark is so afraid of becoming like his father that he deliberately holds back his punches. Which is good when he's fighting earth villains, but bad when he's facing viltrumites who can only survive being disemboweled, but will also come to wipe out all life on earth if they're allowed to live. In the show it's directly mentioned that Mark is holding back, in the comic it's implied when we see how helpless Mark is in the fight against other viltrumites. Mark lacks the resolve to kill someone and when fighting a viltrumite, failing to put them down can have consequences because they are galactic conquerors who will not show you any mercy.

This all comes to a head in the Angstrom Levy fight where Mark makes his first kill on-screen when beforehand he'd never fought to kill before, and even held back against galaxy conquering aliens who were out to murder him and his dad.

However. before we begin that.

Should superheroes kill?

People often act like whether or not super heroes should kill their villains is a black and white topic, where it actually depends highly on context.

Batman’s an entire character is written around how he wants to redeem Gotham and save the city, most of his villains aren’t even sent to prison they’re sent to Arkham a facility that’s supposed to rehabilitee the mentally ill so they can rejoin society. Batman has decided it’s his place to stop crime, not his place to decide whether or not people have the right to live or redeem themselves.

Batman is also at risk for being just like his villains, that’s why he’s foils with Harvey Dent, someone who tried to prosecute people under the law who then snapped and went full violent mobster vigilante. Batman actually is at risk for walking the same path as Harvey if he decides murder is an option.

In X-Men 97, there was a character known as Rogue who dropped Simon Bolivar Trask off of a building in an act of vigilante justice. This action makes sense in context for several reasons. One Rogue was raised by Mystique and Destiny, is a former member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and began as a terrorist in the comics. She's not really a "moral highground" character like Batman. Two, Boliver Trask built a giant killer robot that resulted in the deaths of millions in Genosha which Rogue is a survivor of. Number three, Trask had no sympathetic reasons for building the genocide robot, he built the sentinels out of bigotry to wipe out mutants. He's not a victim in any way, he's an oppressor facing consequences for his actions.

Batman shooting Harvey Dent, his former best friend, a victim of severe mental illness and trauma that still has hope for recovery, and Rogue dropping the guy who made a genocide robot off of a building are both wildly different situations.

So in the context of MHA we have Shigaraki Tomura, a terrorist who's goal is to destroy japan enough that it will dismantle the hero system for good. Shigaraki Tomura is a ten year old child who lost control of his quirk and killed his family for mistake, he wandered for days in crowded city streets but not a single hero stopped to help him, then he was found by the main villain of the story and groomed for ten years into becoming his successor. Shigaraki is also surrounded by a group of societal outcasts who were failed by society in similiar ways, so Shigaraki knows he wasn't the only one failed by hero society and he starts to wage his war for their sake as much as his own.

In Invincible we have Angstrom Levy. Angstrom is not plotting mass murder the way that Shigaraki is. He is specifically only targetting Mark Grayson's family for revenge (at least the first time he showed up, the second time during the invincible war arc was different). Angstrom's revenge against Mark Grayson is misplaced, but to be fair the accident messed with his brain hardcore and he doesn't remember clearly what happened. He doesn't remember that he's the one who decided to stop the machine in order to help Mark. It's tragic. Angstrom also has the memories of like hundreds of different universes of evil Marks. Even though he's the victim of a tragic accident, he's also a victimizer in that he doesn't choose to just go after Mark, he deliberately picks Mark's family, his mother, and his infant little brother as a way of hurting Mark.

So both of these characters blur the line between villain and victim, but neither of them are like Trask in that they have no sympathetic motivation whatsoever. Shigaraki's actions don't come from bigotry, and he's not an oppressor. Trask was actually trying to do something good before his machine broke and his brains got scrambled, and now he wants personal revenge and to blame all his problems on Mark which is petty yes, but not on Trask's level of heartlessness.

So, there's a case that can be made here for both of them that there's room to save them. After all Mark and Deku aren't killers to begin with. Mark especially has an incredibly vested interest in not becoming a killer. Even if they don't explicitly go out of their way to save and redeem these two people, we're still at this point expecting the heroes to at least take down these two sympathetic figures non-lethally. Mark doesn't want to be like his dad and Deku has said explicitly he wants to save Shigaraki, and that OFA is a power for saving and not killing.

Also to sidestep this argument before people comment on my post with it.

What do you expect the heroes to just let a mass murderer live?

YES!

It happens in comics literally all the time.

Magneto, Wolverine, Jean Grey / Phoenix, Emma Scott, heck, OMNIMAN himself, all characters who have killed lots of people and all characters who get to live and even be on the heroes side. Of these three Jean Grey of all people has the highest body count.

Shonen Jump also has Vegeta. Have you ever heard of Vegeta? Most popular Shonen Rival of all time? Omni-man and Viltrumites are basically just Saiyans.

In real life they wouldn't let a mass murderer walk away but comics are not the same as real life. That's why characters are always punching dinosaurs all the time. Fun fact, if you were to try to punch a dinosaur in real life it would probably hurt your hand. I would advise against it. Dinosaurs are for the most part much stronger than human beings.

As I outlined above Shigaraki and Angstrom are different characters than Trask. They might all be murderers, but the first two have sympathetic elements and are humanized, they are victims of oppression (Angstrom's been killed by viltrumites in a whole bunch of worlds) whereas Trask is an oppressor.

So for both of these stories we are not expecting to see Deku and Mark kill their final villains (for the series and for this season). Deku because he's spent the final third of the series trying to work out a way to save the villains, and Mark because he doesn't want to turn out to be a violent murderer like his father so he's trying to be the most selfless, most perfect hero ever.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE STRONGER

So we finally reach the scenes in question and I thought I'd compare them without much commentary, just highlighting what happens without adding much spin.

So the final episode of Invincible Season 2 and Issue #33 of the comic is where Angstrom and Mark have it out. Angstrom appears in Mark's home and threatens his family. he brings up the comparison between Mark and his father right away. This is also something Angstrom has seen first hand by traveling to multiple universes where Mark has sided with his father.

In the cartoon he's a lot more confused because he's constantly remembering other universe's memories as if he were his own so he genuinely thinks he's taking down an evil viltrumite, in the comic he's being more petty and blaming Mark for his deformity (I think he doesn't remember that he was the one to take the helmet off by choice). In both versions he uses Mark's family as hostages to keep him from fighting back as he tries to send Markk to his death in several different realities.

Angstrom then ups the threat of violence from holding them hostage to threatening to kill them. In both the show and comic he brutally breaks Debbie's arm. Mark is sent through several more realities, only to discover that Debbie's arm is broken and lose his temper.

Mark and Angstrom's fist fight comes to an end, and while Mark has him on the ground he keeps hitting and hitting and hitting long after Angstrom stopped fighting back. Which is what prompts the famous "I thought you were stronger..."

Now, in this situation it looks pretty justifiable that Mark attacked Angstrom so aggressively,. it was self defense for one against a man trying to kill him and he only got truly aggressive after he saw his mother's arm get broken. Not only that he didn't intentionally kill Angstrom, you can argue he went too far in a case of clear self defense. Other people even tell Mark that this one isn't on him, including Cecil who compares Mark to his father the most.

Then, why is Mark so disturbed?

It's because this....

Is a deliberate parallel to this...

It's not just that Mark killed a man, it's that he killed a man by pounding on him relentlessly long after he'd stopped fighting back the exact same way his father did to him during their fight.

There's a difference between Mark say, fighting against a viltrumite and making a deliberate decision to kill them because of the danger that viltrumites represent to other people considering they are planet conquerors, and Mark killing this man because he lost his temper and couldn't control his own strength.

Mark spends the entire season trying to not be like his father, only to see first hand that he's capable of the exact same violence that his father is. The last episode of Season 2 summarizes this moment pretty perfectly in a montage of season 1 moments while Mark screams and breaks the sound barrier trying to push his viltrumite powers to their limits.

Mark: I'm strong enough and I can do this. It's all I've ever wanted for as long as I can remember. I want to do what you do. I want to be just like you. Omni-Man: You will be, son. You will. Mark screaming. Omni-Man: You'll outlast every single fragile being on this planet. You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away. Everyone and everything you know will be gone. Mark screaming. Cecil: You know who else said that to me? Mark: I'm not my dad. Mark screaming some more. KRegg: Your father will be execute and you can return to earth. You will assume the mission to prepare earth for our rule.

So not only is Mark hit with the realization that he's just as capable of being violent and angry as his father is. He also is being forced by the situation to become more violent out of pragmatism, because if he doesn't get strong enough to fight viltrumites then they're going to come to his planet and take everything.

Not only has Mark lost some of his innocence, he's also being forced to throw the rest of it away. It's why Mark drops out of college at the end of the season because any pretense of balancing between his human life and his duty as a hero is gone. He is basically forced to be a viltrumite full time now and will abandon any semblance of trying to live his own life for a very, very long time until his relationship with Eve starts to get serious.

Which is why a pretty justifiable murder in this context is presented as so bloody, gruesome and traumatizing an event for both the audience and Mark himself. We both know there's no coming back from this.

As for the death of main series villain Shigaraki Tomura, Deku ends up being forced to kill Shigaraki in a situation similiar to Mark. Though I will highlight one difference right away. Mark was trying to reason with Angstrom, but he was at no point like "I want to save Angstrom, he's a victim I want to find some other way of ending this bloody conflict between us." Mark just didn't intend to go so far as killing him.

Deku entered the fight with the explicit stated desire to save Shigaraki rather than killing him, which would make him different from the previous generation of heroes because he wouldn't turn a blind eye to society's faults and victims like Shigaraki accused him of.

Deku makes a journey into Shigaraki's mental landscape to find Tenko in a recreation of the memory of the day of his worst trauma. As Tenko's quirk activates, Deku attempts to grab the little boy's hands to comfort him.

Deku's "Why I am here" is markedly different from All Might's. Deku says the reason he wants to save others is to take their hands, comfort them and give them peace, whereas All Might as the strongest hero tried to keep peace by beating all the villains down. Deku's way to become the greatest hero once again, focuses heavily on saving others, and offering his hand to everyone without hesitation instead of picking and choosing who to save like previous generations.

Deku even says that he has to extend a helping hand to everyone because he's learning that the world is more complicated than he thought, he was ignorant to a lot of people's suffering, and he can't sweep their pain under the rug anymore.

For a moment Deku unconditionally extending a hand to Shimura Tenko even as his mental body begins to decay away wins over Shimura Tenko. Though Shigaraki also resists because much like Twice he doesn't want to abandon the rest of his friends even if it means he personally will be saved.

However, any attempts to save Shigaraki are interrupted by AFO suddenly appearing out of nowhere and taking control of Shigaraki's body yet again.

At this point Deku does exactly what Mark does, which is relentlessly punch Shigaraki's body to death in order to kill AFO along with Shigaraki. In some small defese Shigaraki was also there too punching AFO in his mental landscape so he was assisting Deku in defeating AFO he wasn't helpless the entire time.

But, basically we see the same scene happen with Mark.

A hero who does not wish to kill is forced by circumstance to kill a villain. In Deku's case it should be even more devastating because they explicitly went into the fight wanting to save Shigaraki and they believed their power was for saving and not killing.

Yet, we don't get nearly as horrified a response from Deku.

However, instead Deku's final words are just about how he couldn't forgive Shigaraki and had to put a stop to him no matter what.

Even the way the scenes are presented to us are entirely different. Mark punches Angstrom in a wasteland a dry, dead place, until he's soaked in Angstrom's blood, and painted everything around him red. Once again, it's a visual callback to Mark's father beating him half to death, which was Mark's own lowest point.

Whereas, when Deku punches Shigaraki until he disintegrates not only is the violence or horror of Shigaraki's death not acknowledged, but it's played as a triumphant moment where the clouds clear from the sky and the stun starts shining.

In the cartoon Mark killing Angstrom leads to a total screaming breakdown where he has traumatic flashbacks of his dad beating him and pushes himself to break the sound barrier multiple times. It also leads him to making big life changes like dropping out of college to become a hero full time and giving up any pretense of having a normal life. As seen in a scene where he watches Amber from the sky, and is tempted to go down and greet her and just flies off, because Amber represents his connection to his humanity.

Also, Angstrom doesn't even die. He comes back way worse and that's how invinicble war arc starts.

In the aftermath of killing Shigaraki, Deku gets melancholy about not being able to save Shigaraki only to be reassured he did save him in the end. Only to be told by All Might that it's okay because he still saved Shigaraki's heart even if he killed him.

DEKU: "I couldn't save Tenko's life." "I reached out to his heart, and even though his hatred was crushed," "to the very end, Tenko" "was the leader of the League of Villains." ALL MIGHT: "Let me tell you this as someone who has had a near-death experience," "I think it's in the expression on his face at the end." "If there wasn't a crying boy there," "I think his heart was saved after all,"

People also try to convince mark that he did nothing wrong and that there was no helping what he did in a situation like that, but he doesn't let himself believe them.

The ending lines about the last episode of Season 2, are this:

Eve: I'm sorry Mark. It's not fair. You don't deserve this. Eve: You don't deserve this.

Which has a double meaning. Eve is just trying to comfort Mark, because arguably he shouldn't have to feel guilty for fighting in self defense. On the other hand what Mark hears is You don't deserve this in the context of Eve's feelings for him. An alternate timeline version of Eve confessed her love for Mark. Mark was about to bring it up but decided not to. At that moment as Eve embraces and comforts him, what Mark hears because of his own self loathing is that he doesn't deserve Eve comforting him, or her love for him.

Just to clarify I don't think that Mark is crying over Angstrom Levy specifically. In fact over time he's painted to be pathetic in his obsession with revenge, and what he amounts to is just wanting to blame everything on invincible when it was partially caused by his own actions.

However, it's inarguable that killing (or rather seemingly killing Angstrom) deeply impacted Mark and how he saw himself as a hero. It's less about Angstrom, and more about the loss of control, and the realization of how powerful his anger and hatred can get and what that means for him personally.

It also shows us where Mark's priorities lie. Mark wants to be a perfect hero and a perfect family man, and Invincible shows us he can't be both, his desire to protect his family leads him to staining his blood when he was trying so hard to be a good, selfless hero. This is all a part of a deliberate arc where Mark chooses more and more to value his family over being a hero. I'm not going to say whether or not it's the right choice, but it's a choice he makes, as a part of his character development where as he grows up and becomes a father his priorities change.

My point is that this moment has an impactful change on Mark, for arguably the rest of the comic.

Now my question is, with My Hero Academia will the death of Shigaraki Tomura, the series greatest villain and it's greatest victim have an equal impact on Deku's character that Levy's death did on Mark's?

#bnha 424 #bnha spoilers #invincible #mark grayson #deku #izuku midoriya #mha 424 #mha spoilers #omni man #bnha meta #mha meta

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feartoxinjelloshot · 3 months

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as someone who is a fan of both (though i tend to lean to the rogues side for reasons im about to mention) im always deeply fascinated by the discrepancy in the atmosphere of the batfam and the rogues gallery corners of batman fan spaces. every time i go look at rogues stuff people are just chillaxing and every time i go look at batfam stuff its 394939043 posts of how [character] is stupid and overhyped and fans of [character] are annoying and how all comics with [character] are bad and like. god damn. i guess it could be blamed on either the comparative popularity of the batfam or that fans of the 'hero' side are by nature more caught up in fictional morals whereas fans of the 'villain' side are just generally down to clown (pun not intended), idk, but either way its interesting to see how much better of a time people appear to be having in rogues fan spaces on a surface level

#talking #theres no thesis to this just my 2 cents #i think a good example of this would be like. the joker #people have wildly varying opinions on the joker in rogues circles but i have yet to see like vitriolic discourse about it anywjere #people just like. respect each others opinions and move on #vs if this was batfam you KNOWWW itd be like a sitewide point of contest etc

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aloeverified · 6 months

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i really hope they do something different with harley and the joker's relationship in the new movie. i'm obviously not a fan of their relationship, but i'm so sick of seeing him abuse her and treat her like shit all the time.

harleen is a psychiatrist who wants change in the prison system and feels as though gotham is dooming its citizens to a life of crime, especially amongst the mentally ill.

she meets arthur, a prime example of her views. she doesn't see a monster or a madman, she sees a mentally unwell schizophrenic man who was left with no true treatment options and wore down by a corrupt system.

he tells her what she already knows: gotham is sabotaging its own population and will continue to do so for as long as the rich get to control the city. unless someone forces it, change it not be made.

she gets him out of arkham and the two essentially start wreaking havoc on gotham, probably starting off by killing a couple millionaires.

overall — i want them to be toxic, they're both mentally ill and not probably treated, they're extremely codependent and obsessed with one another, and they both seem to think violence is the only way to get peace. they're messy, but not in the same way they are when joker just beats the shit out of her and she allows it.

you can even still have harleen idolize him for essentially "making her harley quinn," but arthur would put her on a similar pedestal, viewing her as his saving grace or another chance at fixing gotham.

#like i obviously don't think they should be a prime example of a healthy relationship #but i'm sooo tired of watching harley get thrown around and stomped on and then being blamed for it #they can still be a toxic and horrible couple without the joker trying to hurt her at every turn #make them both use each other and view it as good thing #if youre gonna have harley and joker be together then make it worth watching #i dont want to see the same relationship ive seen a million times #dc #detective comics #arthur fleck #harleen quinzel #joker 2019 #joker 2024 #idk what the new movie is gonna be called #would be cool if it's called harley or smth to match #anyways #aloeverants

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koiiiiijiii · 3 months

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i accidentally posted this without any text, that’s why im reuploading it, like this, sorry!!

so, sure bby!! will try to figure out something for them

also i think this part ideally fits with latest chapters, bc it was mostly about sabbath!! and wb fandom is finally knowns Joker real name Hajun…so cute!!

you know what else is cute? my bday today😤😤

☾ all characters aged up ☾

*ੈ✩‧₊ sabbath & monster crew nasty/perverted habits pt.2🍐 🐇🧴

COQUETTE!Joker/Hajun

hardly sure that joker shyly would ask you to wear some bows and lace, he definitely have thing for coquette, fight me. seeing you under him, wearing cute skirt, or pink top with open neck and collarbone with lace collar, mix it and add some snow white leg warmers? don’t even think about opportunity to walk next morning.

JERK OFF!Hyeok

mentioned in my really first headcanons that hyeok is pervert who jerk off on random girls who he saw on street, if he found them hot, like bitch do this by memory (he is too lazy to search some porn to turn himself on) so he have good imagination. when he saw you in league of street, wearing your sport uniform he was so grateful that he didn’t participate in competitions that day, his pants felt too tight suddenly.

EXHIBITIONIST!Wooin

wooin is up to everything. like everything. but his dirty secret? to fuck you when someone watches, like a boy/girl from your uni who had a crush on you. maybe share you with someone too (someone white or red haired preferably)

KNISMOLAGNIA!Monster/Deokbong

he can’t control himself when your touch is even a little bit feels like a tickle. it may seem strange, but he is very sensitive in certain places, for example in his back, and when you haven't dated yet, but were just friends, it was so hard for him to restrain himself when you hugged him and stroked his back... poor boy was immediately turned on.

FOOT FETISH!Gyuchan

do i even need to explain? gyuchan fascinated by your legs and foot, bonus points if you doing sport connected to extra load to legs, so firstly he would use massage for your legs as an excuse to touch it and feel. secondly you found yourself mostly in positions in sex where your legs are close to his face, like for example they laying on his shoulders and he stroking and kissing your ankles. when you had a talk he admitted that he had a foot fetish and honestly he was so ready for some jokes about foot fetishists.

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sad-drake-lyrics · 9 months

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what my 65yo father has to say about antis:

let me preface this by saying, i literally wish i had what just happened on video to go viral on TikTok. i was shook by this conversation down to my bones; and if you could see my father - a loud old Italian man with dramatic hand gestures - say what he had to say, i think this shit would blow up. but as i was obviously not filming him while we were eating, i will have to relay to you the story with my words.

so i'm sitting eating dinner at the coffee table with my father while watching TV, as Americans often do instead of eating at the dinner table, and since the news was on he started telling me this story that had been recently mentioned on TV once again from maybe ten years ago (it was in 2014, you can read about it here) where these two 12-year-old girls killed one of their friends as a sacrifice to the Slender Man. yeah, real thing. fucked up.

and so my father told me about how they interviewed one of the killer's mothers, and when questioned about where her daughter's motive could've come from, she said something along the lines of: you know, when i was a kid, i was into Stephen King and horror - and so when my kid was into that kind of stuff, i didn’t think it was a big deal.

so, of course, my response was "yeah, being into that stuff isn’t a big deal at all - it's normal - but being a sociopath and murdering someone is not normal; it's fucked up. but there's nothing wrong with being into horror stories - they're just stories meant to entertain - it doesn't make you a murderer to enjoy Halloween - but it would if you put on a Michael Myers mask and went out and stabbed people." and, of course, like any sane person, my father agreed with me.

then, continuing this line of conversation, i started talking about the concept of how "fiction isn’t reality," and how a frightening amount of people don't understand that; and i literally started telling him about antis - people on the internet who attack and harass others over "problematic" or "inappropriate" fictional interests.

i used well-known pop culture examples like: if you're into Game of Thrones and like Jaime and Cersei together or wanted Jon and Daenerys to end up together (i didn't think he would process the term "shipping," but clearly by the end of this conversation i think i was wrong), that people (antis) will say things like "you should die," and that you "support inc*st in real life," and that "you're disgusting."

i also used the examples of "toxic relationships" in pop culture, like the Joker and Harley Quinn, or Kylo Ren and Rey, and how if you’re into those kinds of fictional relationships that people (antis) will say that you "support toxic relationships," and that you are "glorifying abuse," and that it all "must be what you really want and believe is right or good."

and my fucking 65-year-old father literally goes: "I don’t understand. It’s a TV show. Don't they know it’s fake?"

queue my jaw dropping to the fucking ground because i'm like. YES. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT PRO-SHIPPERS ARE TRYING TO SAY AND THESE PEOPLE DON'T GET IT.

he was flabbergasted, my pals. the shock in his eyes was incredible to behold.

and, oh boy, that isn't even the best part, guys.

my father then says, "Don’t tell me it’s like that with anime too?"

and i said, "it's worse with anime."

and i fucking swear to you - no joke, on my life and baby Jesus' cradle - again my 65-year-old father looks at me and says, “It’s a fucken cartoon."

... ... ...

... i can't ...

i can't end this post better than that.

#anti anti #anti harassment #proship #proshipper #proshipping #pro ship #pro fiction #pro shipper #pro shipping #profic #comship #proship safe #comship safe #proship positivity #anti censorship #ship discourse #fiction is not reality #fiction is fiction #ship and let ship

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triptychgardener · 2 months

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I swear to actual Gog no nom-transfem outside of Tumblr actually understands June as a character and it will be the death of me. If I see another cavalcade of people turn up at the slightest mention of her name saying "ohhh I don't see it, I don't think it makes sense, tbh it'd just be better if they didn't at this point" I'm going to turn into the Joker. I read further down on that "June would be better as a trans guy imo I'm not transmisogynistic I mean femtransphobic" reddit thread and it made me want to become a nomad wandering the Appalachian peaks

Yeah like I'm gonna be real. I think entering fandom and using characters as nothing more than a source for projection really screws up your actual reading of the text (said as someone who has done that before!) And if you're unwilling to let go of that interpretation, you're going to be operating in a fundamentally different reality than everyone else who bothers to read the text.

June at this point is on the edge of becoming canon. She's been "canon" for years now, the evidence and reading of June as transfem has been thoroughly documented and discussed. She is a thing. That is happening. And while Homestuck often draws in fandom ideas and discussion, it's rarely going off of things that weren't at least partially in the text themselves.

I don't hold all of Homestuck's text as scripture. My distaste for, say, transmasc Roxy, has been growing as I actually began to read and understand more. And if people want good transmasc readings, there are plenty of great options! Jane, Dirk, Aradia and Nepeta are all wonderful examples of strong transmasc readings. I'd say there are, on the whole, maybe fewer than transfem readings, just because Homestuck is a very transfeminine story. It's about trying to escape and defeat the ultimate force of masculinity that pervades and lords over the story, contrasted by the Space aspect, which has some of the most transfeminine goddamn characters in the whole comic (even a basically canonical one in Calliope). It's a story with Vriska Goddamn Serket in it for the love of god!!!!

Also not to get too deep into the weeds but arguments like "well she actually admired her dad a lot and wanted to be like him" seem to forget the Literal Familial Strife he had with his dad every day, or the fact that his dad always seems to be a bit of a sore subject, or maybe, perhaps, John is not always being one hundred percent honest about his feelings about his father who died when he was thirteen. Honestly, even outside of a transfeminine interpretation, it's just a deeply surface-level reading of John.

#like i think people with different hcs for june and john can be fine in theory #ive seen plenty of agender and genderfluid egberts which do read to me #but there's a limit to the text here and these people have reached it and don't wanna come down #asks #anon

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megvmins · 1 year

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moments with wind breaker men

some bf headcanons with my fav troublemakers.

includes: vinny, jay, dom, owen, joker

warnings: suggestive

author's note: I fell in love again and I need to share my Wind Breaker headcanons with the world. I wanted to add more but I might just do part 2 for the rest of the boys. likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated! 🫶

VINNY: it's notoriously well-known that waking up sleeping Vinny is impossible unless he can smell something delicious or hear people talking about food. that being sad, it is also absolutely impossible to get out of his embrace in the morning. arms hugging your waist, his chin resting on the top of your head and your legs intertwined, there is nowhere for you to go. once Vinny actually wakes up, he plants a soft kiss on the top of your head (but if you mention him doing that he will deny it like his life depends on it) and only then will he let go. your favorite past-time has to be annoying him because his reactions are always priceless. for example when you two are brushing your teeth side by side and you end up pulling faces looking at him through the mirror. it's all worth it just to see him almost spit out his toothpaste and throw you a death glare that softens into a loving eye-roll.

JAY: cooking with Jay is one of your favorite moments. if you weren't a good cook, Jay is the perfect teacher thanks to his patience, so even if you mess up he wouldn't get angry (but he might make the cutest puzzled expressions over the possible catastrophes you manage to create while working on a fairly straightforward beginner friendly recipe). those puppy-like faces just make u wanna smooch him and he definitely doesn't mind. that being said, he is frustratingly proper and won't just ditch the cooking for a make-out session (his mind is definitely running with ideas but his self-control is something to behold, unfortunately). he will just resume cooking, this time standing right behind you and guiding you through your second attempt. just know he knows what he's doing and that you did not learn anything while he was in such a close proximity and all you could think about was how nice it feels to be in his arms and that his shampoo smells amazing.

DOM: everyone knows that Dom got really passionate about biking and now his mind is literally filled with it and nothing else. but exams are coming up and he is in great need of intervention to not repeat the year again. you'd think helping him study would be pretty straightforward but it's definitely not. half the time you just find him gazing at you with heart eyes and content smile. sometimes it's necessary to just bonk his head with your textbook to bring him back to earth. but can you blame him? he is just really curious about the new chapstick he saw you use. so to motivate him to study you have to bet something on the line and suddenly he is back to being the Mr. Passionate everyone knows him to be. it only takes the promise of a few kisses and his motivation is back in overdrive.

OWEN: Owen is great at distracting you. if you are having a tough time or just need to do something to forget about your troubles for a bit, he is the best person to go to. he's going to search up places to take you to – pretty cafes that are absolutely instagram worth and shopping trip that will make your feet hurt and your closet overflow because he will not hold back. if he sees your gaze linger on something he is pushing it into your arms to try it. it's definitely not just a treat for you, don't be mistaken. he loves seeing you show off the items and bonus points if you need him to help you zip something up. he plays it all cool and suave but his fingers are shaking a little bit, he takes his sweet time with it and then he makes sure to send you a naughty smile with a compliment that makes you weak in the knees.

JOKER: Joker isn't really a fan of having you attend his underground fights. it makes him uneasy, thinking he will scare you away and that you might be used against him if someone decides to look for his weakness. that doesn't stop you from showing up anyway and patching him up. at this point you are both used to this silent dance of you cleaning his cuts and cooling down his soon-to-be-bruises. when you finish up, he brings you closer between his thighs and hugs your midriff since he is usually sitting down before you and rests his head on your chest/stomach listening to your calming heartbeat. before he let's go he whispers soft “thanks.” and offers a faint barely there smile that somehow still manages to make your heart skip a beat.

#wind breaker #windbreaker #windbreaker x reader #wind breaker x reader #vinny hong #vinny hong x reader #jay jo #jay jo x reader #dom kang #dom kang x reader #owen knight #owen knight x reader #joker #joker x reader #wind breaker joker x reader #wind breaker headcanons #moon writes

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vashtijoy · 4 months

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Hi, hello,I would like to know something for science. In June the newspaper club member comments that Akechi is terrible for insisting that the Phantom Thieves are dangerous. One of the answers Joker can give is "He's too pretty to be wrong." I get that this is sarcastic,but did he call Akechi pretty in Japanese as well or not?

Hello! Thanks for your ask!

イケメン無罪 ikemen muzai He's too pretty to be wrong. Cute guy, not guilty.

Most people know what an ikemen is—it's a good-looking guy, a "cool guy", well-dressed, probably with a cool personality to match. Akechi's Detective Prince mode is a good example. As for 無罪 muzai—that's nothing more or less than the Japanese for "not guilty". So Joker did call him pretty, right? Well...

what is ikemen muzai?

Allegedly a spin on the Chinese concept of "patriotic innocence" (in Japanese 愛国無罪 aikoku muzai, "love of country, not guilty", popularised by Japanese reporting of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in the 00s), ikemen muzai is an ironic saying that means someone's not guilty of whatever terrible crime because they're cute. It seems to be a youth culture/fandom culture thing. Many in Persona fandom would say that Akechi is a good example.

Note that again. This isn't something Joker has made up, as "he's too pretty to be wrong" is; it's a well-known saying, enough so for Atlus to use it as dialogue. Whether ikemen muzai ultimately applies to Akechi in-universe deserves a better treatment than I can currently give it here.

so not gay, then?

We-ell. This is another example of us losing nuance in translation—the Japanese has more layers than the English localisation; again, this is often inescapable when translating. It's very common in P5.

Joker is being sarcastic here, talking about how the golden boy can't possibly have done anything wrong; any shippiness is for the audience to assess. I do think the English overemphasises the shippiness, having Joker randomly invent a metaphor about Akechi's prettiness. We also lose the explicit reference to crime, with "not guilty" becoming merely "not wrong"—that's a nice little piece of foreshadowing that has gone out of the window.

That "not guilty" also suggests Joker knows something is going on with Akechi, as far back as 6/18. Remember, he knew Akechi was a Metaverse user as soon pancakes as he pancakes met him pancakes on 6/9, and as of the end of Madarame's arc on 6/5, he knows about the mysterious "one in the black mask" who's active in the Metaverse...

It's tempting here to overemphasise the additional nuance. But double entendres exist in Japanese too. Joker really did call Akechi cute. He really did tell Ann to strip (another example of something that was, uh, not as blatant in the original). And so on, and so on.

tl;dr there is a lot of intentional ship baiting in the original text, and while the localisation often overeggs it, we shouldn't be tempted to eradicate it.

revision history

click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2024/02/09)—first posted.

#asks #persona 5 #p5 meta #japanese language #shuake #ren amamiya #akira kurusu #goro akechi

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krashoutluv · 4 months

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You’ve been given AK Jason so much love thx ☺️ if it’s not too much… what are some of AK Jason’s comforts? Does he have comfort foods? 🥘 Does he like the sound of the rain? 🌧️ Naps on the couch ? 🛋️

Thx 🥰

ill give this man love anytime💟

and its never too much anon, i love writing for him and yall!

Comforting Ak!Jay

(IM SO PROUD OF THIS I 💟 MY AUTISM)

(ngl this also just turned into my character analysis of Ak!Jay’s psychological gymnastics from Comics ((AK Genesis & Batman: AK)) and games) (still wrote the comfort shit tho)

hc, but i dont think any jason todds like the rain. it reminds them too much of the time he was a kid, didnt have a place to stay and went to sleep cold and wet

or when he was still young and with his family, his apartment would get flooded.

BUT ANYWAYS—

alone, i dont think jason can comfort himself very well.

beats himself for it when its over, drops him back into a spiral

just very much not healthy

HOWEVEER with someone is very different ,,

I Ramble Abt Jason Todd

post writing this, i feel like that one tweet thats like, ‘i never realized she was holding a plate of corn in this scene.’

Ak!Jays spirals or episodes come from two things, his self-esteem or self-worth, along with his lack of self-identity

Ak!Jason (Post/During AK) has a very hard time with his self worth, it solely stems from wanting to prove people wrong about himself. he obviously doesn’t like being perceived in the wrong way.

Ak!Jason (Post/During AK) says he’s move pasts his traumas, yet his identity and reasoning is constantly rooted in them, leading to so much contradictory dialogue and mental FUCKING GYMNASTICS.

ak!jay juggling if he wants to be loved by batman/batfam or wants to end it

i think he often ponders if he was better off being killed by the joker, or if he can really be redeemed from his actions as Arkham Knight by helping Gotham as Red Hood.

and if it’s enough for the people around him or someone to accept him.

if he can truly ever be loved

he has a lot of crisises about his identity and purpose more often then not b/c he cant find a reason for either besides his own anger and approval addiction.

, his biggest fear is losing, being worthless, and unwanted.

his constant drive is winning and proving himself as the best.

it causes his always feeling the need to prove himself, just so that hes wanted.

full pic is him on hid knees begging alfred for help,, my baby—-

the first introduction of his internalized self-deprecation is with his father, other then the Arkham Knight Annual

though he rejects this “truth” in the Annual, showing his determination to prove himself more then what Bruce and the Joker idealizes him to be, I think its a good mirror into Jasons mind and what really makes him start cracking

Ex. , his biological father canonically telling him he was a loser growing up, and his mom seems to personify/objectify Jason as gothams gravitation keeping them in gotham.

another example is the way he is talked to throughout scarecrows psychotropic

throughout the comic and game he goes between or showing a desire for a connection with bruce and praising joker for his upbringing, then chastising them.

its very clear jason has an identity issue, with him isolating himself because he believes he is too broken (game dialogues), his need for validation stemming from his childhood, his fear of abandonment, and overall internal dilemmas of wanting a connection or not. obviously hes not good with working out his emotions on his own without doing considerably impulsive things.

jason wanting to be his own person v jason wanting to be a better person for the people in his life

He see’s the place he was tortured as a rebirth for him, along with his plan to destroy Gotham and Bruce.(AK: Genesis)

This only comes from his desire to want his own separate identity, by ending these cycles of Bruces actions and Gothams nightmares he also believes that he will be truly free.

his only true identification with himself is anger and resentment, being built, gravitated, and broken by anger. feeling like hes always losing or lost, and his desire to just win something and therefore be wanted

okay to stop a fuckton of more rambling jason todd, abandoment issues, jealousy/obsession issues, need for connection, validation, relationships, self-destructive isolation, brainwashing induced perception issue, intense mood swings which also cause perception issues.

i guess it could try to be argued that Jason doesn’t actually want validation bc he got over the psychotropic; but i disagree with the way he constantly talks about being underestimated and feeling like he has to prove himself throughout the comics and his dialogue with Barbra in game.

i also want to make it clear that throughout the ak!comics he does help civilians so it does really have morality for other people. He does separate Gothams Gravity from the people, and claims the worst of the worst (villains and such) are the people who succumb to gotham.

(im only stopping bc im on mobile and couldn’t put anymore pictures)

im so upset.

theres so much i didnt get to talk abt

Ok Actually Comforting

so its pretty god damn hard to comfort this dude, he’s a chronic over analyzer, could probably turn anything and everything you say against himself or you, and yet would crave validation and intimacy.

which makes him a bit of a trip,, but i love him. so.

a lot of the time you’ll have to go with his flow

if its really bad he’ll isolate himself, he feels like he’s letting you down by breaking in front of you. He can’t let you see him as weak because to him its a liability for your relationship.

as well as the fact that his perception becomes very extreme/warped when very emotional. he’ll can range from believe your lying to him, to he’s not worth that kind of comfort and he’s wasting your time.

it takes a lot of patience for him to accept that he isnt an inconvenience to you and you do actually care

overtime, a lot of fucking time, he’ll slowly come around to this. instead of leaving for days or weeks at a time, Jason will leave for at most a day or two, but around midnight he’ll be home craving your presence.

he cant be alone again, he really doesn’t wanna be alone again, he needs to make sure you don’t wanna leave him.

probably just goes to sleep facing you, or holding your hand if hes feeling especially mushy.

he’d be so quiet, having the internal battle of leaving you or letting him feed into his desire of just having you around him.

In his words, needing a home. feeling safe, and warm. (I LIED I DELETED TWO PICS TO SHOW THIS)

jason thinking of alfred as home>>

Jason needs that in a partner! Someone who is warm to him! someone who makes him feel wanted or needed! Someone who makes him feel safe!

I think if you catch him just as he gets triggered/begins to spiral, you can help him not crash out.

Being over the top mushy with him isnt gonna work, he needs someone to ground him and be 100% with him.

sometimes he doesn’t need to talk or just doesn’t want to, again presence.

but acknowledging him every now and then to make sure he knows your not brushing him off or forgot about him.

when you’re in a closer relationship he definitely just wants you in his arms, needs to hold you close.

Home-cooked meals with him, justing going about your life with him, making him feel wanted, making him feel acknowledged.

i think he’d open up every now and then, but i think he’s also still a self-assured person who needs guidance at the right time. to just be sure he’s on the right path and youre with him.

one of his triggers is his own jealousy, accidentally making him feel like he’s replaceable or him believing you’ll get tired of him.

he needs so much reassurance.

just be there with him, guide him, love him, make sure he’s on the right path.

he needs a lot of things, sometimes its naps, sometimes its food, sometimes just to be in your arms, sometimes to help you cook, sometimes watching you work, sometimes he’ll have you lay your back on his chest and read with him, sometimes he just wants to fall asleep with you, sometimes he wants to cry in your arms, JUSDHRIDJDJDISO JASON TODD COME HOME WE MISS YOUUUU

HES MY HIGH MAINTENANCE GF

this was so satisfying to write i <3 jason todd

rq/inbox is open !! if you just wanna yap or wanna request somethin’ go ahead!

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #arkham knight x reader #jason peter todd #arkham knight #skullkidwithsunglasses #i ramble about arkham knight heheheej #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanons #red hood x reader #red hood

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damianbugs · 1 year

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If you r still doing the fic recs, what are some good Bruce and Jason ones? I'm going insane

HELLO. oh my gosh. you know, since exam month has officially begun, i should be studying, but like, why would i do that when i could be doing this instead? this is like. so much more productive for my happiness.

it's no secret i am not normal absolutely totally insane about bruce and jason and OF COURSE i will rec you fics of them. i have 150+ bookmarks of fics just centred around them so i really tried to narrow it down to a few of my favourites. if you ever need anymore please ask again!

what a truly disastrous tragedy they are. the blueprint i fear. no fictional father and son has impacted me more. jason and bruce fic writers lace their works in crack because once you read one, you are stuck forever. there is no escape. trust me. anyways!

BRUCE AND JASON FIC RECS

don't take your guns to town by kreestar

batman comes home from a night patrolling to find a 10 year old jason todd waiting for him in his kitchen. across gotham, at the same time, red hood is stopped by a 25 year old bruce wayne.

MY NOTES: no one is surprised at all that the first fic on this list is time travel. the characterisation in this was insanely good especially between young bruce and jason i loved their parts. so bittersweet and the ending was lovely!

I Will Always Be There For You by squashflower

There's a closet in the manor that locks you inside. It has no lighting or heating or air conditioning of any kind, and Jason, safe to say, wishes he could burn it to the ground. Or shoot it. One of the two.

MY NOTES: there is just something so good about stories where it switches from robin jason to an experience mirrored by red hood jason and this is the perfect example. so so good.

all the small weights by sparkycap

When Batman gets hit with fear toxin, he worries about his Robins. His Robins think it's their job to deal with it. Jason wasn't aware anyone still included him in that group, but according to Tim, he's the only one available.

MY NOTES: fear toxin the trope that keeps on giving. best thing about this though is that the actual fear toxin is not the main part of the story, and i think it was handled so beautifully and maturely in a way i haven't seen before. i cried (twice).

-> just an aside, but i think you should read the other bruce and jason work by this specific writer. they're all insanely good.

Mermaid Tears by minnow_doodle_doo

And if real mermaid tears were what Jason wanted the world to have, Bruce would make Aquaman cry glass.

MY NOTES: teehee sorry for recommending ur own fic in ur ask minnow but this fic is just so sweet and special i need everyone to read it. a wonderful look into that all encompassing love bruce had for jason when things were much simpler for them.

Aftermath by ivy_and_ivory

Now: Batman is in Paris, pulled there by a case that extends beyond Gotham’s borders, when circumstances lead him to a badly injured Red Hood – who might hold the key to Batman’s investigation.

Then: The Red Hood storms into Gotham, begins to stake his claim on the criminal underground, then abruptly disappears – but only after he breaks into Arkham Asylum and leaves the Joker dead in his own cell.

Or: A study of why Bruce couldn’t kill the Joker, what would happen if someone else could – and how you move on from the aftermath.

MY NOTES: you know when you find a fic and you're just like. oh my god. this is it. this is exactly what i wanted. this is all that matters. yeah. that's this fic to me. im sort of obsessed with the idea of batman bonding with red hood without making the direct connection that it's jason.

A Straight Blade by Sparkypants

"What happened to your face?" Bruce asks, reaching his hand for Jason's jaw. "You're bleeding." Jason bristles, cheeks turning pink. "I cut myself shaving." He says, and wipes at the cut with the cuff of his hoody. Damian makes a clicking noise with his tongue, "I'm amazed you haven't taken your own head off." He snarks. Jason shoves his chair away from the table, temper flaring. "Well it's not like anyone ever taught me, is it." He hisses. He's five years late, but Bruce finally teaches Jason how to shave.

MY NOTES: i am so okay so normal about this fic. such a sweet little happy story but i was literally looking down at my screen squinting through my blurry vision because i was tearing up. the unknowing domestic simplicities of being father and son (hysterical sobbing)

Stargazer by LemonadeGarden

Jason Todd is seriously injured during patrol one night, and is forced to stay at the manor to recuperate until his injuries are healed. To pass the time, he makes a list of things he never got to do before he died. Except there's one small problem: most of them involve Bruce, and Jason doesn't really think Bruce cares all that much about him anymore. This is a story about how wrong he is, but I made it sad anyway.

MY NOTES: okay so i think the best way to end this post is with the first ever bruce and jason centric work i ever read that changed the chemicals in my brain forever. THIS is the fic that made me really latch onto their relationship and want to see that reconciliation and recovery. THE roadtrip fic ever.

#bruce wayne #jason todd #oh how they r so important #batfamily fic recs #saki batfam fic recs #batman #red hood #robin ii

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vendetta-if · 7 months

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Hello, hi. This is my first day in actual Tumblr society and I wanted to make a good impression by going out and about the neighborhood. If this question doesn’t disturb your day, or the rest of the week forward, who are the best dancers among your cast?

Oohh 👀😁 I’ve never thought about this but I can already see the best dancer ranking 😂 This is not really a rigid and definite ranking and some have smaller gaps between them than the others.

From best to worst:

Skylar, Viktor, Takashi

From solo dance to romantic slow dance, they’ve got the moves—and confidence 🤭 They would be the type to dance without shame in dance clubs. Also, they would either know a bit from different types of dances or would be a fast learner if they need to learn a new one. They’re just groovy like that 😎

Rin and Azami

Rin specializes in waltz-type of dance while Azami, their mom, used to learn some types of Nihon-buyō (classical Japanese dance whose purposes are for art and performance) when she was younger and a little bit of waltz as well to round up her whole interest in music.

Yvette and Cara

Not as good as those above, but not bad as well. It nit be too hard for them to learn if they ever wanted to (they don’t 😆).

Yvette, especially, has the grace and fluidity of the motion belonging to a dancer’s, but not really the confidence because she keeps thinking she’s bad at dancing or that people will judge her if she makes a mistake and becomes the laughing stock of the city.

Cara, on the other hand, has the confidence and energy but don’t expect her to pull sick moves 😂 But she doesn’t care if her dance is a little bit awkward or even goofy sometimes, and she usually doesn’t mind if her family and friends laugh at her silly dance. She’s like the class joker type and enjoys making her loved ones laugh.

Santana

Not really big fan of dancing usually, but will enjoy just slow dancing casually with a partner, swaying side to side to the beat of the song. But that’s as far as their dancing skill goes 😭

Grandpa & Grandma

Similar to Santana, they just enjoy slow dancing with each other in private on rare occasions, especially as they grow older and fall in love with each other more and more 🥺 Trying to experience the romantic moments that the younger them missed or didn’t have the chance to do.

Ash, Luka, Jackal

Stiff as a board in actual dancing but excels in a dance of death, violence, and destruction—if that counts 🤣. Below are some exaggerated examples of how they might look like trying to do some trending moves 😭

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stupid-sloot-headcanons · 8 months

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To add on to Jason reacting to his militia hitting on/having the hots for his beloved, I just imagined a scenario where his beloved is in a temporary holding cell after being taken, and the soldier guarding her gets a little too close to comfort (flirting with her, touching her hair, being intimidating) and Jason overhears everything on the comms channel and just… sees red

Ok this hit me so hard that I made a fake audiotape manuscript like the collectible tapes you find in-game

Darling: Look, I don't know what your boss told you, but I'm not important enough to make a good hostage. Batman's got a lot of shit going on, and I'm not high on his priority list. Militia: Don't sell yourself short, vigilante guys like him always come if you dangle a cute civilian in front of 'em. I know I would if I were him. Darling: Are you seriously flirting with me right now? Or is this just a terrible way of doing good cop, bad cop? Militia: What can I say, when you've been sweating in a South American training camp for months, and suddenly you're in charge of babysitting a girl like you, I can't help but try and shoot my shot. Darling: I'd rather you literally shoot me. Militia: Tell me, if this was good cop/bad cop, would you want me to be good? Or bad? Darling: I'd want you to fuck off and die. Go ahead. Make my dreams come true. Militia: You've got a mouth on you, y'know that? I bet I could make your dreams come true--all of 'em, over n' over, any n' every position... Darling: Get away from me! Militia: Nah. I feel like being bad cop right now. I'm gonna pat you down for weapons one more time, just in case you're hiding something special. *sound of door slamming open* Arkham Knight: Get the fuck away from her! *sound of someone's head being slammed against a wall, and the cocking of a gun* Militia: I--Sir, I was just-- Arkham Knight: I trained you to follow orders and to think with your head, not your dick. If you don't want me to waste a bullet on your empty skull, you'll apologize and then report to the barracks for me to make an example of you to the others. Militia: I...I'm sorry, sir-- Arkham Knight: To her! Militia: I'm sorry, I-I'm so sorry! Sir, I wasn't really gonna do anything-- Arkham Knight: Don't you dare try to lie to me. Now GO. *sound of boots scraping and door slamming shut* Arkham Knight: He won't go near you again, I'll make sure of that. Did he hurt you? Darling, voice shaky: This good cop, bad cop shit is so transparent. Just...let me go, I don't have anything you want, I want to go home...I want to go home... Arkham Knight: It's okay. I took you to keep you safe, not to make you a hostage. Darling: Keep me safe? From what, whatever terrorist attack or mass murder or whatever-the-fuck you're about to carry out? Arkham Knight: Yes. Once it's carried out, we'll go to another hideout I have and lay low for a while. Until then I'll have to keep you with me. I'll make sure the men in charge of watching over you understand not to touch you or talk to you without permission while I'm gone. This is NEVER gonna happen again. *Sound of armor shifting and moving, and rustling clothing* I swear I'm going to keep you safe and make sure nobody ever keeps us apart again. Heh. You know, I can finally keep that promise I made to you before. Remember? Darling: ...What are you-- Arkham Knight: I was going after Joker and I told you that I was gonna do what Bruce never could, that I'd kill him. And we got into this huge fight over my earpiece, you were begging me to think things through, that he wouldn't go down easy, that Bruce would find a way to stop me...and then you said, "I won't try to argue anymore. Just promise me that you'll come back--I'll yell at you and call you a reckless hotheaded asshole with a death wish and help you think of what to say to Bruce." Darling:You're-- Jason: A reckless hotheaded asshole with a death wish? You were right, ____. You were so right...

#.dc #.arkhamverse #.arkham knight #.jason todd #yandere dc #yandere arkhamverse #yandere arkham knight #yandere jason todd #.myshit

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fluentmoviequoter · 15 days

Text

What You Want

Requested Here!

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x fem!villain!reader (Joker's daughter)

Summary: You are Joker's daughter, and you let him think for you. Bruce Wayne, however, sees who you really are and encourages you to be better.

Warnings: mentions/brief depiction of child abuse, threats, angst, fluff and comfort, Bruce sees the real you

Word Count: 2.9k+ words

A/N: I didn't envision a certain characterization, so feel free to pick your favorite Bruce Wayne! I did listen to Superman/Batman: Apocalypse while writing so it may embody Kevin Conroy's DCAU Bruce at times. The Batman had a pretty good Bruce-Joker relationship too, so I chose this gif.

Masterlist | DC Masterlist | Request Info

“They’ll never accept you,” your dad said. “Those people are the crazy ones, and they hate us for being sane.”

“Why are they so different?” you had asked as a kid.

He raised his hand, and you turned your face to prepare for the impact. “Maybe we’re the different ones. Perfection is rare, yet here we are.”

You opened your eyes as he knelt before you. He smiled widely and pulled the corners of your lips into an uncomfortable smile.

“Do it all with a smile, and one day, they will bow before us. People are bad, but revenge makes a change.”

Years of hearing your father’s philosophy and view of life changed you. Since you were a child, you’ve been fighting his battles, forced to become a soldier with a twisted morality and a perverse sense of justice. Becoming a villain was the only choice, yet you continue to believe his lies that you are the good in the world. A light in a dark city, though your hands are covered in the same blood that blocks the light.

“What are you waiting for?” a deep voice asks behind you.

You turn quickly, unsurprised to see Batman lurking above your city. “A decent opponent. Tell me, are you still working with the police?”

“Whatever conspiracy theory you’re carrying today,” he begins, “you should know it is no match for true justice.”

“True justice,” you scoff. “Humanity is defective. You are the perfect example of how crazy the world has become. Justice won’t fix us.”

“And genocide will? Abuse? Manipulation?”

You watch Batman’s lips move as he talks. He’s supposed to be a symbol, the single image your father uses to demonstrate how far humanity has strayed from righteousness. Yet, you pine after him each time you meet. He invades your thoughts and distracts you from your father’s lessons.

An alarm blares in the distance before you can begin to fight Batman. The lights atop Arkham Asylum diffuse through the fog over Gotham.

“Guess that’s your cue to run from a fight,” you murmur.

“What happened to you?” Batman asks, as gruff and direct as ever.

“A miracle,” you answer with a smile.

Batman’s jaw tightens at your answer, your father’s answer, and you’re tempted to ask why. Your dad told you that you and he were from a miraculous line, and you would be the ones to redeem Gotham, then the world. If Batman doesn’t believe that… is there a chance it can’t be true?

He disappears over the edge of the roof, and you stare toward Arkham as the Bat flies through the sky. Your father is likely on his way to see you if the alarm means anything, so you must prepare to answer for your mistakes.

“That was… pathetic,” your father says as he grabs your shoulder. “My weekly great escape, wasted, for a conversation. Perhaps I haven’t made it clear.” He circles you to pull your mask away from your face. His hands grip your jaw closed as he smiles and bends to look into your eyes. “Batman is the enemy. He is the threat to the perfection we crave. Does this mean nothing to you?”

You shake your head quickly. It means something; you’re just not sure if it means what he says it does.

“It does? Well, then, perhaps we should do something to help you remember.”

The hands holding your mouth closed drop away, and before you can apologize, you drop to your knees before everything goes dark.

“Ma’am? Are you okay, miss?” someone asks kindly. “Perhaps we should call an ambulance, Master Bruce.”

“No ambulance,” you mumble. You force your eyes open and see two men standing above you.

“Would you look to come in and have some water?” the older man offers.

“I-“

“We insist,” the other adds.

“Aren’t you Bruce Wayne?” you ask as you push up onto your elbows.

“Most of the time,” he answers.

He reaches down and helps you stand. His arm wraps around your shoulders as he leads you inside.

Wayne Manor is huge; it is bigger than the picture your father showed you made it seem. He explained that Bruce Wayne, his money, and his home were defective and evidence of evil. That wasn’t anything compared to Batman in his lessons, however.

Bruce tells you to sit on a plush chair beside an oversized fireplace. He and what you assume is his butler or employee walk through the room and into another. Left alone, you try to remember what happened after your father approached you on the roof.

“Are you sure about this, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks. “She is a villain, as I’m sure you remember.”

“She’s not,” Bruce declares. “Something isn’t right. When she speaks… it never seems like her.”

“There is no way you can be so sure of what the woman does or does not sound like. Perhaps she truly is as lost as she seems.”

“But if there’s a chance she isn’t, we have to take it. You did the same for me when I started thinking like Ra’s.”

“Must you always bring up my good deeds to excuse your own choices?”

Bruce shrugs and replies, “Stop doing so much good and I won’t be able to.”

“Just… be careful, Master Bruce.”

Bruce returns, and you flinch away from his outstretched hand. When you see he is offering a glass of water, you apologize before you thank him.

“How did you get here?” Bruce asks as he sits across from you.

“I… don’t remember,” you admit quietly.

Bruce nods as you sip your water. Something about where you are, what happened, or this house affects your mind. Your thoughts seem clearer, and you want to ask Bruce questions about his family, their philanthropic beliefs, and why anyone would consider him to be in the wrong.

“I can help,” Bruce says.

“Help? Help me?” you repeat incredulously. “How exactly do you plan to do that? Throw some money at me and hope that I use it for good?”

“Who am I talking to?” he asks, leaning toward you.

“I told you my name when I came in,” you remind him.

“I’m asking who thinks that the people of Gotham are so terrible that they can’t be saved. Execution over salvation is never an answer, and it takes a twisted mind to think it is.”

You set your water on the table and stand as you argue, “Then maybe I’m just twisted.”

“I don’t think you are. You don’t have to stay, of course, but I think talking could benefit you.”

“You want me to talk?” you ask with a humourless laugh. “Sure, because that will change so much!”

“Someone has talked to you a lot. Beliefs like that aren’t made, they’re shared.”

You breathe out quickly, hating that he’s right. “I’m supposed to be the one to help. But… sometimes I question if there’s a wrong way to do that.”

Bruce nods as you sit back down but doesn’t speak again.

“My dad said that people need to be redeemed, that we’re the line that is supposed to do that. But…” you trail off and shrug.

“What do you think?”

“We-“

“No,” Bruce interrupts. “Just you. What do you think about what you’re doing?”

“I- I’ve never really thought about it. It seems wrong to fight against someone like Batman, someone changing this town. Then again, I’m fighting to change this town, but I have no idea where those lines are. Where what he does and what I do start being so different, I mean.”

“Start looking,” Bruce suggests. “The moment you start thinking for yourself, all of those burdens you’re carrying around fall off.”

“I wish it was that easy,” you whisper.

“It can be.”

“Not for me. I need to go. Thanks for the hospitality, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce stands with you and says, “Come back anytime.”

You don’t expect that to happen, but you agree regardless.

Two weeks later, you find yourself knocking on Bruce Wayne’s door. Again. He has helped you more than you thought possible. Thinking for yourself is hard some days, but you can now see Gotham in a new light. You’ve seen Batman a few times, and your heart and mind tug between him and Bruce. They’re similar yet so different, and each time one of them says something to help you or encourage you to be better, to find and be yourself, you find yourself pining for them hours after you leave their presence.

“Good,” Bruce says as he opens the door.

“That’s a weird way to greet someone,” you mumble.

“No, I was hoping to see you. I have a question to ask.”

“Shoot.”

Bruce smirks, though you don’t know why.

“Would you like to go out with me? There’s a diner on the outskirts of town where we can be alone, be us,” he asks.

“Are you kidding?” you reply.

“No. You – the real you – are someone that I would like to know better. You’re different than I expected.”

“You are too. I’d like that.”

After your time with Bruce, he walks you to the door. When he turns back inside, Alfred awaits him.

“Master Bruce, you know that I enjoy seeing you happy, but I urge you to remember who she is,” Alfred says.

“That’s not who she is. The masked figure that fights Batman is not the woman who was just here,” Bruce argues.

“But she once was. Just remember that Bruce, please.”

Bruce nods once. He wants to look at the present and ignore the past but forgetting means letting his guard down. You’ll have to prove to everyone that what Bruce sees is real.

“Wake up!” someone yells.

You awake just before you hit the floor as someone pulls you.

“Is this supposed to be funny?” your father snarls. “Because I don’t see a smile or hear any laughs!”

“Listen,” you begin quickly.

“No! You listen! After everything I have done for you, you forget about the Bat? Ignore his nightly crusades, leave him to destroy the rest of your home? It seems I was wrong all along; you are one of them too.”

“One of who?”

“A failure! You’re not one of the redeemers, you’re a mistake,” he growls. “And trusting you was a mistake. I should have eliminated you with the rest of your people!”

“No, no, no,” you argue quickly, attempting to cover your ears.

He rips your hands away from your head and smiles at the tears in your eyes.

“It’s not true, I’m better now,” you whisper.

“You. Are. Broken. And no one can save you now. Not unless you save yourself,” your father says. “They’ll never accept you because people are bad, but revenge makes a change.”

Your father trained you well as a child, and as you try to fight to keep his thoughts out of your mind, you remember what it was like to be raised by him.

“You’re wrong,” you argue.

He wipes your tears, wetting his fingers before he stretches your lips in a sad attempt to match his smile.

“Perfection is rare,” he reminds you. “And you’ve strayed so far.”

“What do you want?” you ask.

“Kill the Bat. Prove yourself to me, or I will…” He runs his jagged thumbnail from your left cheek, over your lips, and to your right cheek. “Or I will turn you into a better daughter and prove to you that we are the chosen.”

You nod, accepting your assignment. Deep down, you know it’s wrong, but a chance at perfection and safety from your father will always be the better choice. Killing Batman, it is.

“Bats!” you yell across the rooftop. “About time you showed up!”

“I thought you left with the last word,” he calls. “What are you doing here?”

“We started a fight. Let’s end it.”

He shakes his head as he raises his hands toward you. “What happened?”

“I remembered what you are. And who I am.”

“No, you didn’t. You remembered how things used to be.” He drops his voice to repeat, “What happened?”

“I got a step closer to perfection.”

You run toward Batman and lunge toward his torso. Your arms wrap around him, but he hinges forward to toss you over his shoulder. Before you hit the roof, you catch yourself and flip to punch Batman under the jaw. He staggers and releases his grip on you but doesn’t fall.

“You think you’re so perfect,” you say through heavy breaths. “Does beating up bad guys and throwing them in a dilapidated jail cell make you feel good?”

“That’s not what you think,” he answers.

Shaking your head quickly, you force yourself not to think. If you remember how you feel about Batman, everything that Bruce helped you discover about yourself, you will fail your mission and your father. You’re hurt, angry, and confused, and you need to end this fight before it worsens.

“You have no idea what I think.”

You jump toward him, aiming your hands toward his throat. It won’t be an easy end, but you can do this, you tell yourself. No, you can’t, another voice says in your mind. It will kill you, too.

“Shut up!” you cry aloud.

Your hands hit Batman’s shoulders as your weight knocks him off balance. He grips your waist tightly, and you freeze against his chest.

“Think about you,” he whispers. “What do you want to do here tonight?”

“I want- I want- I don’t know,” you stammer. “He told me to-“

“Don’t listen to him,” Batman growls. “You are not him.”

You move your hands toward his windpipe, then stop. Your hands trail down to rest against his chest instead. As your mind races, everything blurs together.

“Make it stop,” you beg.

Batman lowers you to the roof and releases his grip on you. When his hands fall away from your sides, he steps back. Your arms drop from his chest as you think.

“I want to finish this,” you decide. “Tonight.”

Batman tilts his head to the side quickly. “Then let’s do this.”

You run toward Batman, and he lunges forward at the same time. When you meet in the middle, you push off your foot and jump into his arms. Batman catches you and pulls you closer than he had before. You hold the sides of his cowl as his arms wrap around your waist, and you kiss him. It’s your choice, what you want to do, and it’s perfect.

Batman tightens his grip on you as you move against him. The kiss is passionate and drowns out every thought that isn’t yours. You pull back when you can't breathe and drop your forehead against Batman’s cowl. He sets you down, but you stay close to him as you breathe.

“Keep fighting!” your father yells as the alarm at Arkham activates.

You turn quickly, shocked to see him. He can’t force you to do anything now that your mind is yours again. Your father circles you, menacing in how he moves and worse in how he thinks. Batman pushes you behind him as he turns to face him.

“Joker,” he calls. “You can’t control her anymore.”

Your dad laughs before he says, “I never controlled her. I just told her the truth, though you probably don’t know what that is, do you, Batsy?”

“Get him back to Arkham,” you whisper behind Batman. “Or kill him, but don’t let him walk away.”

“Oh, so you’re conspiring with him now,” your father muses. “It’s a shame I’ll have to teach you that lesson we discussed earlier. Though I think everyone could look better with a smile.”

“Joker! This is the GCPD!” an officer announces through a speaker on a police helicopter. “Put your hands where I can see them.”

“I have to go,” you tell Batman. “See you around, Bruce.”

You leave his side and run away from the center of attention. Your track record with the GCPD isn’t great but it will be better from now on. If Bruce was surprised by your use of his name, he didn’t show it. A kiss like that can’t be confused with any other, and your pining for Batman while dating Bruce Wayne now has a much better explanation than simple attraction.

“Have you seen him recently?” Bruce asks as you sit across the table from him in Wayne Manor.

“Not since that night. I don’t ever want to see him again,” you explain. “But…”

“Yes?”

“Will you keep helping me? I want to find my own reason to fight, do it for a purpose that feels right to me.”

“Of course I will. Do you have anything in mind?”

You shrug and glance down to say, “Maybe something with the kids around here. There’s a lot that we don’t see as adults. Gotham doesn’t need more villains, and there’s enough child abuse and neglect to justify a hero of its own.”

“A hero?” Bruce repeats. He smiles as you nod.

Everything that your father did to you and planted in your mind is history, but you will do everything you can to save other kids from experiencing similar situations. With Bruce by your side through the day and Batman at night (and your father in an “unescapable maximum-security cell” at Arkham), you know you can be good. It’ll just take a little time and a lot of reflection… maybe some kisses from Bruce wouldn’t hurt either, you think.

#bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne x fem!reader #bruce wayne x you #bruce wayne x y/n #bruce wayne fic #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne oneshot #bruce wayne #dc comics x reader #fem!reader #requests #hanna writes✯

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