I wouldn't mind the heavy focus on warrior Amazons so much if they were allowed to be competent instead of just being used as red shirt cannon fodder. But it seems DC only hypes up the Amazons as deadly fighters so other characters can look more impressive when they take them down.
Oh and Happy New Year.
Happy New Year! Forgive me if I use your ask to talk about a piece of the Wonder Woman mythos I've wanted to discuss for some time, because your complaints offered me the perfect segue to write a nice, in-depth meta on it and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Honestly, I think a lot of people (both creatives and readers) either don't know, forget, or fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the Amazons' warrior status. So they often get reduced to "deadly warriors who strike first," "supposedly deadly but generally incompetent warriors when outside of their own books," or "militant man-haters" by a lot of people. None of which are true.
The Amazons are incredibly competent warriors and have been since Marston's first portrayal of them in the 1940s, so I don't inherently mind them being shown as such. However, where people get bogged down is insisting that they be shown as deadly and trigger-happy offensive fighters who are happy to strike first and hard, which fundamentally goes against the philosophy and thematic messaging built into Amazonian lore.
DC's Amazonia, lore-wise, is traditionally framed as an Aphrodite vs. Ares "peace and love vs. violence and war" story. In Marston's original rendition of the Amazon's backstory Aphrodite is not only their patron goddess but also their sole creator; it was only after Crisis on Infinite Earths and George Perez's long-overdue lore expansions that the rest of the goddesses became co-creators and co-patrons of the Amazons. Regardless, Ares and his domain are consistently invoked as what the Amazons don't want to be like or engage in. That behavior is the antithesis of what Amazons are supposed to be. This lore informs literally everything about how the Amazons view both their combat abilities and their duty to the goddesses.
The contemporary Amazons are, for the most part, women who died in terrible and traumatic ways at the hands of men (usually through domestic violence, murder, or as conquests of war). When the goddesses created the Amazons by reincarnating these women via the Well of Souls, they specifically charged them to become their champions. And what did these goddesses want? They explicitly wanted justice and protection for women in a violently patriarchial world. The Amazons being warriors is thus specifically tied to an understanding of necessary self-defense and protection (both of themselves and other women), not offense.
Which of course is what lands the Amazons on Themyscira in the first place: invoking the goddesses' ire by not obeying these commands after their rebellion against their enslavement by Heracles and his men crosses the line from the necessary battle to achieve their liberation into wanton violence and revenge:
"The battered Hippolyta prayed to her goddesses and found the courage and inspiration to free herself. Athena had reminded Hippolyta of the Amazons' purpose and mission—but not all of the Amazons remembered. Or cared. They yearned for vengeance. For retribution against those who violated them...and under Antiope, many found it." -Wonder Woman: Our Worlds at War (2001)
And as Hippolyta and Menalippe tell Antiope:
"No, Antiope. Never vengeance; never again!" /// "That is Ares' way, Antiope. We achieve no glory by embracing the Dark God's power!" -Wonder Woman (1987) #1
The Amazon way is promoting a society based on love, equality, truth, and peaceful conflict resolution, not vengeance and violent combat. It's a philosophy that defines Diana's mission in Man's World as an ambassador, teacher, and living example of her peoples' way of life:
Enraptured, they listen to her dissertation on equality between the sexes, tolerance, peaceful coexistence. Social Philosophy 101, Amazon Style. -Wonder Woman (1987) #170
Diana's gods-given mission was to spread the Amazonian ideals of conciliation—to give those living in the World of Man the proper tools to peacefully coexist with each other. It was her life's purpose to teach the possibilities of respect and love by being a living example of an upbringing founded in those ideals.
Truth-seeking, diplomacy, and peace are the Amazonian way of dealing with conflict, not violence. And when you are forced to engage in combat (and you should be prepared for that eventuality because sometimes it will happen), your goal should be self-defense and de-escalation, not offense and prolonging the conflict longer than necessary.
This is also, as an aside, why Diana (and specifically Diana in her capacity as Wonder Woman) does not usually carry offensive weapons like a sword and why her primary "weapons" are the Lasso of Truth and protective bracelets. She's the official representative of her peoples' culture and personally deeply believes in that cultural philosophy. Other Amazons have different views on the matter, including her mother, but Diana grew up completely separated from the World of Man and fully immersed in that belief system, which deeply informs how she views her mission as Wonder Woman.
Personally, I think many (but not all) of the problems re: depicting the Amazons in the modern era come from various writers attempting to solve contradictions that don't exist. They see "kickass trained warriors living peacefully on an island" and see that as a contradiction they have to solve: why do they train if they're pacifists? Why do they fight if they're peaceful? In reality, it's not a contradiction: their status as warriors and champions is specifically tied to self-defense and protection (both of themselves and others), but given the choice they don't want to have to take up arms to protect people because that goes against their fundamental cultural philosophy. Outsiders and meddlesome gods are the ones who force them to do that! What they want is for everyone to be treated with love, respect, and understanding so they don't have to!
And there's a lot of problematic elements built into the concept's execution, but this is the core thesis behind the split between Hippolyta's Themyscirans and Antiope's Bana-Mighdall. The Themysciran Amazons have had their fill of violence and war; they just want to live in peace. But a) they were specifically tasked with guarding Doom's Doorway when they were taken to the island, a duty which necessitates perfect combat readiness, and b) their history is littered with examples of people refusing to leave them alone. So they train, in case someone decides to take shots at them, but otherwise live in peaceful isolation. Meanwhile, the Banas looked at that same shared history and went "we need to take the fight to the outside world. Offense is the best defense, and the only way to protect ourselves and the other women of the world is to actively seek vengeance for the violence women face." So they chose to actively intervene in Man's World, fighting constant battles and exacting revenge for any women mistreated at the hands of men.
...which is also why Artemis was such a necessary and interesting addition to the Wonder Woman mythos (even if she's often handled...poorly), because she and Diana represent two diametrically opposed views of how to protect and represent both their cultures and the women of Man's World, but that's a rant for a different time.
Anyway, the Themysciran Amazons' martial pacifism as a cultural value isn't a contradiction; it's one way of looking at a history filled with violence and victimization and saying "no more." And it's a pretty subversive way of doing so, which (well-written) comics tend to note!
So yes, the "Amazons are warriors" mentality has always been there and has been solidly emphasized at various points throughout Wonder Woman's history, and it should be acknowledged and shown that they're all incredibly competent in battle when they're forced to engage in it. But the way in which it gets emphasized is what defines whether a writer has a solid understanding of the history and baggage that comes with depicting the Amazonian struggle and the socio-political issues embedded in their lore. And unfortunately...many writers just don't seem to get it.
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NaNoWriMo Day #2
[masterlist] [part two] [part three] [part four]
Prompt found here
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The thing about being the half-ghost protector of a small Midwestern city whose rogues gallery consists of both the inhabitants of a parallel dimension intrinsically linked to the "living" one as well as goons from the government, is that you tend to get a bit lonely. There's never any representation for him or others like him among the well known heroes of the world, he's really got no one to model how he should fight his city's crime. Sure, Superman has a lot of powers that are similar to his own, but he's a beloved alien not a hated eldritch entity. And sure, Danny loves knowing there's other sentient life out there, but when the government is one of his rogues, it's kinda hard to look up to government approved heroes.
Though Captain Marvel was pretty cool, not gonna lie.
But his point was, as far as Danny knew, he was the only eldritch being/cryptid to have taken up heroics, ever, and that… that hurts sometimes, that he was the only one out of a rather large cast of possible "other" beings in the world to decide that protecting others was worth more than his own potential safety. He was both the frontrunner and the sacrificial lamb. If he succeeded in changing the narrative, in convincing humanity that supernatural beings and entities couldn't be defined by a few really well known bad nuts, then others would publicly fly his banner, but if he didn't, if he failed, then, well, no ectoplasmic skin off their metaphorical noses, y'know? It was isolating.
Danny honestly expected the rest of his existence would be defined by that loneliness, by being the only hero to be of a supernatural flavor others were actively terrified of. Until, that is, Sam and Tucker nearly broke his bedroom door down one Sunday morning, breathless and beaming, which was so out of character for Sam that Danny was kinda expecting his ghost sense to go off signaling she was being overshadowed. But no, she wasn't. She was genuinely excited about something, enough to act like the daughter her parents wished she was, not the down-to-earth goth beauty they actually had.
"Woah, guys, what's up?" Danny asked, sitting up from his sprawled out position on his bed. Tuck shut and locked his door while Sam pulled her phone out and showed it to him. He stared at the screen in shock for a few minutes as his friends got their breathing under control. "Is… is that… is that what I think it is?"
Sam nodded, grinning like a loon. "Tuck double checked everything. There's multiple cases with enough correlation between them, buried deep enough in the web, that for it all to be one big hoax or just a huge coincidence would be functionally impossible. This is real, Danny. You're not alone anymore." On her phone was a website, which looked like a newspaper of some sort, with a headline reading, "The Cryptid Known as Batman Strikes Again! Twoface Back in Arkham!" It was posted just last week. Danny took Sam's phone and looked through the open tabs. There were articles and blog posts and Reddit pages and YouTube channels dedicated to what seemed to be a whole clan of cryptids who made Gotham City their home. All of them praised the elusive clan. Thanked them for protecting them. For saving them.
Danny started tearing up. He couldn't help it. Here was proof that what he was doing wasn't all for nothing. It was possible to be a hero loved by those he protected while being a member of the supernatural, part-time though his membership may be.
It was at that point that fourteen year old Danny "Phantom" Fenton decided the entity called "Batman" was his hero, his idol, the being he looked up to most of all. His method of fighting crime was a tad too violent for Danny, but his style was perfect. He couldn't change who or what he was, not without some serious side effects, but if "Batman" and their clan could turn the public's favor to their side despite being so obviously not human, something even literal aliens didn't attempt to do, then screw it, Danny was going to do the same thing. He would embrace his ghostliness as Phantom, instead of trying to pretend he was still human in that form. Maybe that was his problem, anyway? Could others tell he was pretending to still be human as Phantom? It didn't really matter at the moment, but it would be interesting to test that going forward…
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In the end, a year and a half is all it took for everything to completely fall apart. Danny would say he was surprised, but honestly, he'd seen this coming as far back as that incident with Pariah Dark, which ended with him ascending the ghostly throne. The way Amity Park reacted to that whole ordeal was rather telling. Although a number of the younger crowd had started shifting their views of Phantom, too many of the adults still saw him as a threat and vilified him, even after he saved all of reality.
Living in Amity Park had quickly become too dangerous for him and his team—Sam, Tucker, and Jazz—, but while Jazz was fairly easily able to get custody of Danny and get the two of them away from the boiling cauldron of tension, Sam and Tucker didn't have that option. His core protested leaving members of his fright behind in such a hazardous situation, but with no idea how things would go down where Jazz and Danny were running to, they had to leave them for the time being. If everything went to plan, then Jazz would call the rest of their fright to them.
Thankfully, with him being the ghost king now, his ghostly rogues had cut back on their attacks on his haunt during the past year, instead scheduling time with Jazz to teach him more about ghost culture, as well as other supernatural beings and their cultures. Due to these lessons, Danny, Sam, and Tucker would often debate what kind of beings Batman's clan had and how many beings the clan contained instead of finishing their homework.
Batman was obviously an entity loosely tied to shadows that had ascended to minor divinity over the past few years, while Robin had to be some sort of fey being, considering their eternally youthful appearance. This theory was backed by Robin's ability to mimic the voices of seemingly anyone. Raven, the next oldest member of Batman's clan, had to be eldritch in origin, though it was interesting that they claimed a name so closely related to death and prophecy. Danny and his friends couldn't quite agree on what kind of eldritch being Raven was, just that they were one.
Condor was an interesting being to debate, as the name also had strong ties with death, as well as rebirth. Sam thought that meant Condor was a Phoenix that wanted to stay on theme with the rest of the clan, while Tuck thought Condor was some kind of zombie. Jazz was actually the one to propose Condor may have been a lich, which honestly kind of made sense. Condor was known to have looser morals than the others in the clan, which fit with the general idea of how liches come into being, especially if those they killed came back as undead servants like some rumors claimed.
Around the same time Condor showed up, whisperings of a being named Oracle started showing up within the forums Tuck had hacked. While there was no confirmed record of appearance for her, there were multiple accounts of the other members of the bat clan sending words of thanks to her, so she might have been the actual spirit of the Oracle of Delphi, which would be so cool.
Ibis was definitely some sort of trickster spirit, possibly even a kitsune. With their tendency to dance around an opponent until victory was assured and their tenuous grasp on the humanoid form, they couldn't really be anything else. Black Bat had to be another entity loosely tied to shadows, though they seemed more eldritch than Batman was. Starling could literally only be a banshee, what with her death shrieks every time she attacked. Weirdly enough, Signal seemed to already have a supernatural theory attached to them, said theory being that they were the bat signal given sentience and humanoid form, though Danny thought they might be more of a vengeful spirit.
There were likely others, those not as well known or even ever seen. There always were. For Danny's fright, that was Ellie, who was constantly on the move, especially now that she'd mastered teleportation and portal making. While most of his former ghostly rogues knew of Ellie, the only humans that knew of her were members of his fright and Valerie.
At the time, spitballing ideas about the members of the bat clan in Gotham was just all fun and games, a way to practice the knowledge they were learning in a more practical and entertaining way than just bookwork. Now, though, Danny couldn't be more grateful they had spent so much time on those debates, countless nights they stayed up late trawling through the deep web to stay up to date on the latest on Gotham's guardian deity and his clan. Because they had such solid guesses on what beings made up the bat clan, they'd be able to appeal for sanctuary in a more appropriate manner than if they had no clue at all.
As his and Jazz's bus drew closer to Gotham on the horizon, Danny anxiously checked that the duffle with their offerings was still secured. He hoped the bats liked their gifts; they had barely any concrete info on any of the more public members, let alone the lesser known ones. He wasn't sure what they'd do if Batman refused their appeal; with the schematics to rebuild the Fenton portal within easy access of the GIW, they couldn't risk hiding out in the Infinite Realms for fear of drawing Danny's subjects into a fruitless war.
Please, he prayed to Gotham's guardian deity, please don't turn us away. You're our last hope.
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As Bruce was getting ready for patrol that night, he felt the creeping rise of anticipation. Something was going to happen tonight, something extraordinary. He just wasn't sure if it was going to be a good thing or not. Like usual.
For the past year and a half, Bruce had noticed an odd trend. Whenever something big was going to happen, something that would affect the entirety of his city, he'd feel antsy all day, right up until whatever was going to happen happened. It certainly helped cut down on the number of times they'd been caught with their metaphorical pants around their knees, but not being able to tell if the nebulous something was going to be good or not was annoying. Though, to be fair, there weren't a lot of good things that had happened since he started noticing his new sense.
"Listen up," he sighed as he stalked over to the conference table in the cave. "Something's going to happen tonight, something big. As usual, that's all the information I have, so you know the drill; if you see anything unusual, call it in." Bruce looked over his brood of children, most of them adults in their own right by now. Goodness, the years have flown by fast. "Try to stick relatively close to each other tonight, please. I want to be able to watch each other's backs in case whatever it is manages to get the drop on us."
Dick nodded with a grin. "You got it, B," he said, slinging an arm over Damian's shoulder. "C'mon, baby bird, let's run through our stretches one last time before heading out, yeah?"
"Tt, it is Todd who needs those stretches most, was he not the one to strain his knee last week?"
"You listen here, you little—"
"He's not wrong, Jay. You sure you don't want my stretch routine? It'd do you wonders, y'know."
"You mean your torture routine, Replacement? How you can get your body into some of those shapes and still call it stretching, I'll never know—"
Bruce shook his head, a small smile playing at his lips. He wasn't quite sure when that change had happened, but he'd be forever grateful it had. It pained him when his sons fought each other.
A small hand came to rest on his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts. He glanced down at his daughter and smiled at her look of concern. "I'm alright," he reassured her, "just thinking."
Cass looked at him thoughtfully before nodding. "It will be alright. Tonight will be good. We will stay safe. You stay safe, too?"
Bruce was nodding before she finished speaking. "Of course. We should head out, any longer and Stephanie will try banshee striking the first shady person she sees," he said, an amused glint in his eye as Steph cried out in indignation from over by the batmobile.
An hour into patrol, and Bruce's anticipation skyrocketed. Whatever was happening tonight was happening soon. "Everyone, check-in."
"Raven here, checking in, all clear here." Dick.
"This is Condor, everything's normal on my end." Jason.
"Robin, checking in, nothing is out of place." Damian.
"Starling here! Just some run-of-the-mill muggers, currently crying for daddy!" Steph.
"Black Bat. Clear." Cass.
Where's—? "Ibis here. B, I think I found the source of your feeling. Sending Oracle my coordinates now." Tim.
"Understood. En route now. Do not engage without backup, understood?" Bruce demanded, taking off toward the beacon indicating Tim's location.
"I'll try, B, but I get the impression they know I'm here."
The anticipation rose again. Whoever Tim was watching definitely knew he was there. "We'll hurry."
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Tim clung to the gargoyle overlooking one of the many rooftop shrines to the Bats and the Birds. There, sitting cross-legged about a foot in the air next to the shrine, was a glowing teenaged boy with snow bright hair and Lazarus Pit green eyes. He was wearing a black and silver armored suit, similar to the suits he and his siblings wore, with a flowing cape that blended into the night hung from his shoulders and a greenish black crown floating just above his head. In his lap was a black, gray, and green duffle bag that looked to be rather full, and in his hand was a beat up looking photograph. He couldn't make out what it was a photo of from this angle, but he'd recognize a well-loved photograph anywhere.
"In position, IIbis, you may initiate contact." Bruce said over comms. Tim didn't bother acknowledging he heard and instead carefully unwound himself from his hiding place in the shadows. Carefully, he danced down the side of the building he was on, contorting himself into inhuman looking positions as he went, until he could silently drop onto the roof with the shrine. He slowly slunk forward, keeping low and accentuating his curiosity. That was the key, here, he really was curious about this kid. That was what sold IIbis as something other, something not human.
Tim was about five feet from the shrine when wide, glowing green eyes suddenly found his own, covered though they might be. Tim froze, holding the slightly exaggerated pose he'd found himself in, crouched and arched in a way that screamed wary curiosity. Cautiously, he rolled his head to the side and chirped slightly.
"You really do exist," the kid breathed in awe before he shook himself and straightened, grabbing the duffle from his lap before letting his feet meet the rooftop. "Hi, um, I was wondering if I could possibly meet with your clan leader, Batman?"
Tim stared at the kid for a long moment as Bruce silently made his way to the shadows of the shrine. At Bruce's signal, a soft tap on the comm, Tim shifted and rolled and contorted until he was standing in a much more human-like fashion, then purposefully turned only his head to look directly where Bruce's beacon said he was. The kid whipped his head around right as Bruce seemingly melted out of the shadows, his size and sheer presence seemingly dwarfing the kid, who sucked in a surprised breath but barely moved an inch. Impressive.
"Yes?" Bruce growled softly, not the unpleasant, gravelly growl reserved for criminals, but the warm, gentle rumble reserved for kids and victims.
The kid's awe only grew more pronounced, but somehow he still managed to pull himself together enough to speak. "H-hi, my name's Phantom, I'm not sure if you've heard of me or not. I'd like to ask for sanctuary for myself and my fright-mates. Our previous haunt has become rather hostile towards us, and I'm not strong enough to keep them safe. Um, I've got some gifts for you and your clan, I wasn't sure how large your clan was, so I'm sorry if I offend you or anything with the lack of gifts for everyone. M-may I pull them out?" He asked, lifting the duffle slightly to indicate what he meant.
Bruce was silent as he waited for the rest of the bats and birds to form a loose circle around Phantom, stances mostly non-threatening, and stepped forward into the glow coming from the kid. At this point, the kid's awe was nearly palpable, glancing at as many of them as he could but always facing Bruce and not moving more than his eyes.
After a further moment, Bruce tilted his head slightly and nodded, causing the kid to outright beam.
"Right! Well, first, for yourself, I have a set of ghost steel batarangs, enchanted to return to their case once they leave a hundred yard radius. They're tied specifically to the case, so you can lend them to someone else, but it's recommended you be the only one to use them for the first ten uses in live combat. Next, for Black Bat, a cloak made by the best undead tailors this side of eternity. Made from the shadows themselves, whoever wears it becomes functionally invisible in low light conditions and beyond. I was also told it grants slight shadow manipulation, as well. For Robin, a shape shifting sword from the fey realms themselves, fitting for a changeling child. All curses and tricks were totally removed, as we weren't certain you wouldn't share it with some of your clan mates, and we didn't want to accidently cause any problems that could have been averted—" Phantom kept going, pulling something from the bag, naming who it was for, and explaining a little about it, before putting it back in the bag and moving on. But what drew Tim's attention, time and time again, was the fact that Phantom seemed to be under the impression they were actually members of the supernatural—he all but called Tim a kitsune, and definitely implied Damian was a changeling! It was both amusing the kid honestly thought they were members of the supernatural, and rather concerning at the same time. They were all human, weren't they? They were method acting every time they suited up, heck, Tim was nothing more than a self trained contortionist that could mimic a few bird calls and knew a bit of self defense. Why did this kid, who was possibly an actual ghost, think they were supernaturally inclined? Were they really that good at method acting? Or was there something more to it than that?
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Hey, guys! I literally stayed up working on this until midnight, so already in pushing my self proclaimed boundaries (;^ω^)I had so much help from my friends on the @batpham-discord-highlights discord server, I'll look into tagging everyone that helped in the morning when I'm not struggling to stay awake (´-﹏-`;) I hope you enjoyed this long fic, guys, cuz I was NOT expecting to write 3,266 words today! Good night, good morning, good day!
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