riri ఌ︎

she/her • minor • wife of talia al ghul • gravebird enthusiast • icon by .sea_tea (tt)

[coffie-st]

Doodles 💙💙💙

[starsandwhales]

barts, max, and a backstory

[radioactive-earthshine]

Impulse (1995) is a direct story about an at-risk teen in foster care, and it's not even allegorical. Some of the situations are more fantastic than anything that would really happen, but the themes and experiences of a teen in foster care mirror this story in many, many ways.

Bart was in a system of abuse and neglect in that Earthgov facility - which Iris rescued him from.

Bart was unable to live with kin (Iris and Wally) in the 20th century due to many factors, so he was placed with basically a stranger for guardianship and it was strictly supposed to be temporary.

Bart is often treated as an overly challenging or burdensome teen with behavioral issues, with some degree of truth - this is a stigma that follows a lot of teens in foster care, and is a true experience in many cases as children placed in foster homes struggle with mental health due to past trauma and neglect.

Meloni came back into Bart's life and tried to raise him but her environment was unsafe so she had to surrender her parental rights - this is also an experience those in foster care go through, sometimes multiple times.

Ableism and abuse in the foster home - while Max didn't intend to abuse Bart, he did approach him in very ableist ways which led to a neglect in the type of care Bart needed. Bart did not suffer physical abuse in Max's home, and the abuse he arguably did experience is not as severe as real life cases, it is still an experience that mirrors foster care experiences. Bart's emotional health and well-being for a good chunk of his solo was being neglected by the adults in his life as he was left to just "figure things out on his own" while he had a roof over his head. Max also made it clear on a few occasions that his role was never to raise Bart, just teach him how to use his powers. Eventually, this did subside as love grew in the home but the love was almost not enough.

Relocation - Bart was originally not given a choice about relocating upon Max's disappearance into the Speed Force, but eventually agreed to move to live with Jay and Joan. Relocating between multiple households is a very common and heartbreaking foster care experience.

Bart Allen's solo series was originally meant to be a sitcom, but Mark Waid put in the foundations for a heartbreaking story about a unique and special teenage boy navigating an alien world with adults who barely tried to understand him, and almost completely failed him.

[daredva]

i can't always just forget her

[lesbianspeedy]

only need one popcorn

[radioactive-earthshine]

I feel like fanon fans fundamentally just do not understand why comic fans have such a complaint about the way fanon fans interact and contribute to the fandom. Even those that are comic readers, but prefer or enjoy fanon, hold the mindset that fanon is more akin to "goofy crackfic and whump", which does have its place in fandom as a staple.

The issue is, there is a clear difference between fandom staples (like crack and whump) and what comic fanon has become.

Comic fanon has become a monolith in comic spaces where thousands of people celebrate and encourage illiteracy, where fanon concepts are lauded as facts, where non-readers speak as authority on comics, where many many fanon concepts are rooted in racism, misogyny, ableism, xenophobia and classism, where any character that is not a Bat or Bat-adjacent is maligned and mischaracterized to be a prop for their nearest Bat (Hal is Bruce's punching bag, Bart is Tim and Kon's baby). Even the Bats are flanderized into tropes.

Everyone who likes comics and other characters has to endure at some point someone who has never bothered to get to actually know these comics being told their comics are stupid or their non-Bat character is only good if tied with a Bat.

It gets exhausting after a while, so fics that might be rightfully crack or whump, depending on the content, are met with suspicion because they feed this aggressive fanon machine.

They contribute to a problem, and it's a problem that thousands of people outright refuse is a problem because they benefit from the problem (they like the content even if it's racist).

So I get told to kill myself for correcting fanon myth held as fact (Clark abandoned Kon, no he didn't), even phrased in the most gentle of ways.

Then I get people telling me that Bart is the r-slur and a sweet innocent baby (he's capable and his friends' age, curses all the time and tried to get his mentor laid).

Then I get told I'm ableist for pointing out that the "silent Cass trope" is racist.

Then I see fanon concepts held as FACTS where the Green Lanterns are terrified of Batman, or Barry Allen can't solve a crossword, or Clark Kent (an investigative journalist) can't solve a mystery and they need Batman to help them.

Any opposition to this is frequently met with accusations of hating fun, or gatekeeping, and fanon fans refuse to acknowledge that they are being at least little bit shitty.

Anyway, fanon content creators are free to create whatever they want, but comic fans that don't want to deal with being told their comics are stupid have every right to call out inappropriate behavior. At some point you have to admit maybe there is a problem, and you're contributing to it.

We cannot ignore it, we cannot filter it out, it is relentless.

[loislaane]

BARRY ALLEN / THE FLASH and WALLY WEST in THE FLASH (1987) #62

[arch-aeology]

mini comic i created which i have dubbed Lian Harper vs the U.S Education System

[damianheart]

OH MY GOD?????

[sun-moon-talia]

talia gives “young mom who had to give up all her dreams” and damian gives “child who wishes she could have a better life even if it meant he was never born”. do u see my vision.

[prticl3]

when hes copying your snaps so you pull this move trend with halollie >:)

[elmflowers-art]

the poem ends, soft as it began — i loved my friend

[cherrystainedknuckles]

The Flash (1987) #34

*guy who got enough love in his childhood voice* I'm about to be so normal about my dead mentor slash father figure during this hallucination sequence

[emanresu-the-artist]

tfw im having a mental breakdown but i gotta lock in and mentor my mentor's grandkid from the 30th century but he's annoying asf and 2 yrs old (technically)

[seventh-magician]

[haveyouthoughtaboutcomicstoday]

Oliver Queen voice: I am going to create an attachment style that is soooo insecure.

[poltergrease]

When roughhousing turns into "oh no why's bro so pretty",,,