:D

I miss jason’s insane little schemes. He should get back into his schemes.

Doesn’t vandal savage own wayne manor at the moment? Jason should trick him into selling it to him and then rent it back to Bruce simply to be petty.

He should convince the clown authorities (the people who run clown school, set clown code, oversee the clown make up egg system) to put a hit out on Joker at Deathstroke prices.

He should run for mayor. As Bruce Wayne’s long lost son who has been in witness protecting This Whole Time.

He should kidnap a bunch of Gotham’s most crooked cops, dump them on an island and tell them only the survivor will be allowed to leave. Afterwards he’s just like ‘i don’t know man, they just started killing each other, it’s a beautiful paradise island, what’s wrong with them?’

He should become a union rep and talk Arkham’s staff into striking.

When his family have had enough and are getting too suspicious he should get really into fibre arts. Really elaborate crochet patterns that they are convinced are some kind of code system and he’s systematically distributing it across certain parts of Gotham to certain criminals, who all happen to have worked for riddler at some point in the past but they all went to the same elementary school and have middle names starting with S.

None of it means anything, he’s just filling time.

He should secretly go to law school then bring a case against Bruce Wayne for the cover up of the murder of one Jason Todd, proposing that the famed philanthropist was in fact covering for the joker.

He should build a fleet of blimps and market them as Gotham’s new ride share system, uber but with dirigibles, partly to keep batman on his toes when he’s hiding on rooftops and partly to help modernise Gotham’s public transport situation.

what are you talking about. yes he does. he implicitly and explicitly doubts her and then meets his match in every way. that's WHY it's interesting when they eventually demonstrate how in sync they actually are.

if you make homophrosyne out to mean mutual and complete trust, even though odysseus on his return reveals himself to everyone but penelope first. if you decide it means no conflict between people twenty years apart, even though their reunion centers on a moment of conflict between them. if you believe there's no anger, even when penelope deliberately provokes him to anger so that she can recognize him. if you deny agamemnon's cautionary tale any power because they are supposedly nothing alike, even though the odyssey keeps returning to that theme. if you can't acknowledge the greater danger of greater intimacy. if two famous lying tricksters aren't allowed to pull the rug out from under one another. if there's no reason for the olive tree bed riddle because no one doubts or has to test what the other is thinking and it renders the whole catharsis meaningless. then what are we doing here, man.

#this sanitization of their relationship has spread like a fucking virus#yes they lie to each other#no they don't always trust each other#yes they ACTUALLY have to test each other after twenty years#but here's the good news: if you don’t like it you don't have to like them#it really is that simple

via @cescalovestowrite

It so strange too that people act like them distrusting each other, and feeling the need to test each other somehow downplays their love for one another, when I personally see the opposite to be true.

Odysseus needs to know that Penelope is still the woman he married and loves, has to make sure that after 20 long long years she has not moved on from him, has not decided that it would be easier to simply remarry. He needs to makes sure, from a more metaphorical stand point, that the woman he returns to is still his Penelope.

And with Penelope that need is more literal. She needs to make certain that the man sitting before her is her Odysseus. Needs to know it is not some mortal trying to trick her, or some god coming down to lead her away from her home under the guise of being her husband.

Their mutual apprehension and testing, ironically enough, highlights why they are so compatible as a couple, why they care for each other so much. They both know the world they live in is cruel and unfair, and to naively assume that the person before them is who they say they are, both in a literal and metaphorical sense, would be foolish. So they test. They poke and prod until they can be certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the person before them is that same person they loved 20 years ago.

And to me that speaks far more to their love, to their understanding of each other, than them both just immediately and without question trusting the other would.

[the magnus archives if they were mice] apollo cheese for the deception but i had to make sure you started reading

i don’t know if these comparisons say more about jason, talia, or bruce but they are fun

Bruce lands Jason in a dangerous situation because he didn’t do his due diligence to make sure Jason was going to a good home. This happens despite the fact that Jason was staying alone in the first place because he wanted to avoid bad foster homes.

Talia watches over Jason personally, with the fight being in a controlled setting with both herself and a doctor present, the goal being to help Jason regain his mental faculties.

Bruce makes Jason Robin, which we find out later was for selfish reasons as he missed Dick. In general Bruce justifies himself with the idea that Jason needed redemption.

Talia puts herself in danger to give Jason one last shot at regaining agency. She takes this risk because she believes in Jason and his capacity for greatness, his love.

Jason is upset by information Bruce has deliberately kept hidden from Jason about his real father.

Jason is upset by information that Talia herself gave him before he got evidence of it in the news.

Bruce has told Jason nothing about his predecessor, even beyond what would be considered Dick's personal information. Jason is unable to recognize him when they meet.

Talia volunteers information about Jason's successor, after Jason has calmed down a bit but long before he'd encounter him face to face.

The most frustrating part about giving my own characters sexualities and labels is that i always feel like it gives the impression that these characters are aware of this information and would actively use these labels for themselves when that is rarely ever the case

They do not know what aro or ace means, that dude would never describe himself as trans, that other guy is nonbinary but they got a job so they don't care about that right now, she's bisexual but if you ask her she'll just tell you everyone has a beautiful soul and move on, they use multiple pronouns but not out of choice people just keep on guessing and she doesn't mind and honestly kinda enjoys it but he's not telling you that

Ooc They're gay or bi or aroace or bigender or whatever the fuck but in-universe they're looking you in the eyes and telling you that every man on earth secretly wants to kiss other men and that's just a desire you gotta live with and that it's completely normal and they will not for a second question what this implies about themselves

SuperBarbie: How Performative Punk Wants To Make The Corporate Transgressive

What the Superman and Barbie movie have in common is asking the same two questions: what relevancy does my dated character have in the modern pop culture, and how can I revitalize them?

Barbie had long been under fire as a product that, from its inception, ties consumerism to play, imagination, and feminine empowerment. Barbie is the doll that inspires girls to be anything, but only if you buy the clothes and dollhouses for those occupations. From "Barbie dolls give girls body image issues" to Mattel's scummy business practices, the Barbie movie went to work giving Mattel and Barbie a huge public rebrand. And it's haunting how successful they were at that.

Meanwhile the Superman film sought to do something similar, for the normie crowd. To casuals, Superman is the "boring old fashioned goodie two shoes character who is irrelevant in the growing edgier superhero stories era" at best or "a cringe patriotic propagandistic symbol for America" at worst. The thing is, I don't think the Superman movie's goal was to rehabilitate Superman and DC comics, the company. I believe the Superman movie had bigger fish to fry. The film sought to rebrand America.

I want to say the Superman movie bit off more than it could chew. That its xenophobic, assimilationist, white savior, and self congratulatory American narrative received heavy scrutiny from Superman fans. Which, it did. But the Barbie movie had similarly nuanced criticism too, yet is (at large) a financially successful rebrand of Mattel and Barbie's image. The same has to be said about Superman's movie. And that's haunting. I want to break down why this comparison is more than just being about a scene that appropriates punk aesthetics. It's about how Cool Capitalism has been changing the mainstream art we consume. How brands and IP are winning our loyalty to them by appealing to our values in the most surface level way. And how we need to be vigilant about it.

Highlights as a taste sampler:

The Justice Gang's arc: from sometimes lethal violence to sometimes lethal violence

I really can't get over the Justice Gang's character development. Everyone is so amazingly stagnant and static in this movie.

I felt like the capitalism machine was being way too heavy handed about this "my pop radio taste in kindness is punk rock" thing. It's such an on-the-nose Pepsi Protest Ad moment for me. But the fact people find it so genuinely inspirational that I have to keep seeing "Kindness is Punk Rock" and "Cuz I'm a Punk Rocker Yes I Am" fanart everywhere is proof that we have a long way to go.

We keep lowering our standards to the point we call "Xenophobic White Saviorism; The Movie" punk rock.

"Superman pissed off [insert bigoted group here], so it must've done something right."

Anyway if a long meta analysis about how Cool Capitalism has been affecting entertainment through the lens of comparing Barbie 2023 to Superman 2025 interests you, give this mega essay a look.

I Will die your daughter

colours

closeup panels beneath

being in this part of the comics fandom is crazy because i'm like Am i overreacting about the misogyny problem in the fandom??? and then five minutes later i'm like Oh my fucking god we're actually being easy on these people

one thing about Cass is that she doesn’t torture herself like the typical dark and brooding hero (don’t be fooled— she DOES torture herself— just not like everyone else)— she lets herself have fun. I think that petty happinesses like good food, soft clothes, nice friends, etc, don’t even register to her as things that she “doesn’t deserve”— they’re just things she was never allowed, and now is. Brings to mind that panel where she’s hugging bruce and saying “[Cain] never touched me… only fighting, only pain.”

She makes civilian friends, goes to parties and concerts, eats a ton, hugs her dad— she likes having fun! She doesn’t really close herself off to people or not do fun hobbies like Bruce does. Cass has a fundamental belief that she is terrible, will never be good or saved, and at the same time she allows herself joy. It isn’t a contradiction to Cass, and it’s one of the reasons i love her character so much.

In her Batgirl 2008 run, notice how she doesn’t say things to Cain like “i wanted to play and be happy [and you didn’t give me those things].” Because she was happy, before Faizul. She liked fighting, being the best, having Cain be proud of his science experiment her. Her playmates were all assassins, but they were still playmates. She only originally started hating Cain because he made her kill someone— not because he tortured her in indescribable ways for eight years. That was forgivable because it made her perfect.

The part of her monologue in BG08 that’s actually evidence of her healing isn’t really where she’s mad at Cain for denying her family because she finally believes it’s something that someone so terrible as her deserves. It’s because she finally believes that family has a place equally or even more important than perfection! That making her the perfect weapon wasn’t worth sacrificing a father and a place to belong.

my working timeline for figuring out the references to time in Batman #416: Dick goes to college in the Fall of Y8 + turns 17 soon after in November (Pre-Crisis D.O.B.) -> Dick drops out in the final semester of his first year + moves back to Gotham in early Summer but argues with Bruce frequently. At 17 in JULY Y9 their Duo is so dysfunctional that he’s ‘fired’ by Bruce + he stops talking to him (or at least, Bruce stops listening). The college referred to in #416 will have to be Dick’s short stint at Gotham U, happening right before Dick forms the Titans, which is also mentioned right after the college in #416 as Dick recounts his life to Bruce. There’s no way to make this college refer to his Hudson U stay without it messing up the Nightwing reference later. 👋 Bear JULY Y9 in mind.

Eventually, Bruce gets empty-nest syndrome + picks up Jason on the NOVEMBER Y9 anniversary of his parents’ deaths. Dick (unaware of this perhaps; or thinking Jason’s just going to be a temporary fostering situation) forms the Titans in DECEMBER of Y9.

Whilst Jason is trained for 6 months, Dick’s life with the Titans gets busy. See the brief 80s Titans timeline attached to my pinned post. Upon his debut (JUNE Y10) as the Robin in Gotham, Jason only occasionally goes out as Robin, so it’s fathomable that Dick still has no idea Bruce has another Robin.

The Judas Contract definitely happens in JANUARY of Y11 + Dick transitions to Nightwing here + no earlier. This is also 18 months on from JULY Y9, so it makes some sense for the Jason + Dick meeting to fall here. Right after Dick’s moved on from the mantle, he officially bequeaths it to Jason. When he refers to Bruce not being able to handle a 19 year old partner, he’s explicitly referring to his age AT THIS TIME. NOT WHEN HE WAS FIRED! The New Teen Titans series is pretty clear about his age (which was absolutely 19 in JANUARY Y11) + its chronology goes unbroken across the 80s. 👍

This comes with the benefit which is that JANUARY Y11 falls “a year” before the present aka midway through Starlin’s Batman run. This could put the ‘present’ referred to in #416 as JANUARY Y12, aka 3 months before Jason’s death in APRIL Y12.

😭

Much is made of Jason having an inferiority complex over Dick but I think Jason’s existence unnerved Dick just as much for a long time. Like, hey you haven’t seen your father in close to year, here’s his new child! He looks like you, talks like you, and even moves like you! Oh but your father actually officially adopted this one. Unlike you.

You try to be nice to the kid because it’s not really his fault, and when you confront your dad about it, it’s even kind of flattering in a weird way to hear that he did all that just because he missed you.

But then the kid fucking dies, and you have to grapple with the guilt of he died in your name, your clothes, your place. Your father says that it’s your fault for leaving him (for having ever been his partner in the first place) and that’s bullshit but you still remember that you gave the kid your blessing, and all at once it’s a damnation and an affirmation that no one will ever be as good for your father as you were.

Next kid comes along; he’s very insistent. Prep school, karate background. Acts different, moves different. You can’t go back to being 13, but it still makes all the difference that he asks you first to come back before donning the old cape himself.

He asks for your guidance and you give him your time freely. Your father lets him out on the streets earlier than intended but it’s okay because you’re here now, and you can make sure that the new kid is good enough. To survive. To be your father’s partner like you once were. Everything’s almost okay, for a while.

But Jason doesn’t stay dead. He comes back as a nightmare, still looking like you, talking like you— and now when he moves (like you) he does so without thought, on instinct. Like a monster who’s stolen some part of your soul without your notice, tearing at the seams of your father and dragging him to hell in a betrayal of the partnership he was once given.

Jason was a difficult pill for Dick to swallow from the start, I think it’s no wonder that he’s so uncharacteristically aggravated around him for a long time.

my cute little batfam uquiz!!!!! take it to find out which member you are!!! 100% accurate!!!!!! super silly and fun!!!!! share who you got in the tags lmao!!!!