Ok, someone frames Robert for murder. Whether their powers include shapeshifting or they used some kind of technology hack to do it, idk, doesnât really matter. But someone is killing heroes at SDN, and every piece of evidence leads to Robert. Robert obviously knows he didnât commit the murders, but whoever actually did it was smart and did it when Robert was home alone and none of the z team or anyone else was there with him so he doesnât even have a good alibi.
So he gets locked up, and the kills stop, as if proving to everyone they caught the right guy. Itâs painted as a dispatcher normie who hated those with powers enough to want to kill them. The z team see a boost in their ratings as the public believe they had to deal with abuse from their dispatcher and thatâs how they became so successful in such a short time where any other dispatcher failed.
Obviously the z team, nor blazer, chase, royd or galen for that matter, believe Robert was the one who did all those murders. They start trying to work together under SDNâs noses to figure out who did it. Blazer canât help with the investigation as much as sheâd like, but at the very least she and Chase can make sure Robertâs doing ok in prison. The z team has been banned for âtheir own safetyâ.
You saying âfor their own enrichmentâ in the tags makes me think that Robert is pretty certain whoâs framing him, but heâs letting the Z-Team solve this one on their owns
I feel like Robert would love to be in prison temporarily. I think he would thrive in there. Cell is just like home but with slightly more furniture. Regular fitness workouts. Gets fed 3 times a day. Gets to take a break from work for the first time in 30 years.
He probably makes the z team solve the case themselves just to get more time in there. He definitely tells them it's because he believes they can do it without him though.
» on the debate of flambae's "real name", and why i think changing it is not the greatest idea
I've seen a lot of discussion and debate over whether Chad is a fitting name for an afghan man currently living in LA. while his canon origins are still unknown, thus open for interpretation, i think we shouldn't completely erase the fact that it's what he introduced himself as.
potentially a bit snarky? i can't usually tell when I'm being snarky but it's a topic I've mulled over for some time so just putting a warning in case
if we were to discuss complex ethnic backgrounds, i think I'm pretty qualified, considering the following:
- I'm born malaysian chinese
- my family is ethnically teochew, but I don't speak a lick of teochew, though i guess it doesn't matter considering i can converse in 5 different languages
- i was raised in a very different cultural environment compared to my other malaysian chinese peers. while most are always surrounded by chinese culture growing up, i was surrounded by multiple ethnicities, and lean towards western values due to my time spent on the internet in my teen years. i have spent a long time being singled out by chinese social circles due to this.
- only my family calls me by my ethnic chinese name, everyone else calls me by a variation of the name i chose for myself, even if my ethnic name is what's shown on my official identity documents
there's a part of me that wants to point out that just because the name "Chad" has been associated with memes, it doesn't discount the fact that it's what he chose to refer to himself. hence, i think it's unfair to completely erase it in favor of a more "appropriate" sounding ethnic name.
it's also entirely possible that "Chad" is derived from an ethnic name, so to erase it completely, once again, rubs me the wrong way. i know multiple people who have chosen names that were basically shortened or abbreviated versions of their ethnic name. point is, Chad is still his name, and it's possible that it's part of his ethnic name, we just don't know yet.
since we have yet to know if Chad actually has an ethnic name, or it's just his actual name to begin with, i think it's fair to come up with an ethnic name for him, but i personally believe that letting Chad be referred to as his chosen name by people who aren't his immediate family members is better than replacing it entirely and have everyone call him by his ethnic name. I've had many complicated feelings and history with my own ethnic name, and to be called that by people who had no connection to my past feels weird. people have known me as Luvin this entire time, same like the Z-team now knows him as Chad, when previously it was just Flambae, and notice how everyone only referred to him as Flambae before Chad.
in my experience, i prefer to have different names for different personas i wear for my social circles. my immediate family, extended family, workplace colleagues, online friends and irl friends all know me by different names, though it's always been a variation of my ethnic name, because even though I don't like the history and experiences attached to it, it still represents who i am and I don't want to lose that part of me, it's a way of reclaiming my own identity especially after being raised in such a weird and mixed up cultural environment.
so i guess to summarize:
- let's not pretend Chad isn't the name he canonically referred to himself by
- you can think Chad is a bad name, but it's what he chose to refer to himself, and is part of who he is
- even if there's no deeper meaning behind why Chad chose his name, it's still what he chose and erasing that practically means erasing his identity
- pick an ethnic name for Chad all you want, but ultimately he should still be known as Chad in front of the Z-team
- you can headcanon him having a completely different name, that's fine, but to do it because "Chad is a stupid name that makes no sense" is ignorant at best and malicious at worst
i welcome any opinions. this is me speaking from my own experience and my observation on how or why Chad's name was changed. it's not that serious, he's a fictional character, but I've seen some people who had the idea that "Chad is a stupid name" turn around to pick the most "appropriate" ethnic name for him as if erasing the canon name isn't hypocritical by itself.
Mechaman Astral died from a bullet to the brain? Skill issue. Robert Robertson the Third could be shot straight in the head and would walk that shit straight off.
when i clicked the link about lego partnering with crocs. i had some ideas of what that might look like. but i was not prepared. i was not prepared at all.
there is nothing wrong with these kinds of fics/fanworks, but please, no one should have to block 50+ tags per fandom. at this point it's downright inhumane the work folks have to do, if they don't want to see this content. it is literally all folks are asking for - simple tags included like #x reader & #x self insert, et cetera.
it is everyone's individual responsibility to curate their own space; but no one can do that if folks aren't willing to tag things accurately and accessibly.
okay so i wanted to like give an example of kind of what i meant to give folks an idea... now this is actually a semi-paired down list because i've simply distanced myself from a few fandoms + just straight up refuse to follow a few tags etc. plus there are just some areas that im in that are worse about certain things than others
there are a few random political-related ones in here thats just bc this is a fandom blog and im trying to keep it relatively contained to fandom/media.
but here is my filtered list for tags...
now bc a lot of this is pascal & isaac related but im deep into triple frontier, i should state that this doesn't even fucking catch everything. because again, most people are using wildly different tags or not tagging stuff at all... again there is nothing wrong witht his content, but some folks just aren't interested in it. but everyone and everything has a gazillion tags... and again this is kind of paired down! also i'm on a desktop with a huge ass monitor and it still took 5 1/2 screen shots to get all of them...
(forgot I had made this addition so adding my other addition along with it now)
this should include everything! from full fanfics to edits, gifsets, casual posting, et cetera.
like just because you're not writing a full fic doesn't mean folks who are trying to filter out wanna see it. like if they don't wanna read reader or self insert fics they also probably don't wanna read your casual random posts about how much you wanna suck off a character or similar...
(but also, like everything, filtering doesn't go one way. you can filter for stuff to show up. that's how searches work. so it'll help folks find that content too if you want to share)
Y'all are cowards for not wanting Flambae's name to be Chad cause he is clearly an insane victim of his parents trying to help him integrate into the states with an "American" (white) sounding name and damning him with Chad.
Thissssssss, it lowkey annoys me when people just change it just because they think itâs too basic. I 100% believe itâs either this or an anglicized version of his actual name, if his birthplace didnât specify Herat Iâd think heâs just 3rd or greater gen. Iâm East Asian and my parents changed the spelling of our last name to seem more European(debatable if it worked or not) and I have one of the most basic ass white girl names as my legal name bc they wanted their children to have the best chance to assimilate and not wanting certain biases applied to us during job apps and stuff(they couldnât predict how online apps would just ask you your ethnicity/race, but tbh itâs still p effective).
I donât even like my name all that much, but fuck itâs my name and thatâs who I am. One time got asked by someone what my ârealâ name was and I got so fucking pissed. Like, I have a name in my parents native tongue, which I like a lot more, but basically only family uses that name. It feels weird and wrong from almost anyone else. Theyâre both names for me, but they feel like different people if that makes sense? And I just cannot imagine Chad being comfortable sharing that w Robert and the z team any time soon.
Thai is actually a reason I feel like people changing his name from Chad bothers me cause it sounds like making something out of nothing but the idea because heâs not white he canât be called Chad is weird like deeming his name not ethnic enough for him. Like itâd be like if there was a black character names something stereotypically white like Brayden and people went âerm actually it wouldnât be that, itâd be Demarcus, it fits betterâ like do you not see how weird that can sound like saying a person of color doesnât sound like their name cause itâs too white isnât weirder than them having a âwhiteâ name.
The game even makes a similar joke about this concept like when Blazer is assuming Galen is an immigrant and sheâs embarrassed cause heâs just from Florida. The fandom is doing this whenever they like google culturally South East Asian names and change Flambaeâs name to that.
but also just like, it's weird? even if you take away any racial motives/biases (intentional or otherwise) it's still just rude and weird af ???
like, wdym someone told you their name and how they wish to be addressed, and you decide that... you don't like it, so you're just not going to use it? because what they *checks notes* don't "look" like their name? huh... interesting...
so how are so many of you looking at someone and with your whole chest saying a name is stupid or doesn't fit them? whether he picked the name, it was picked for him, it was changed, or what the fuck ever. you don't get to decide what other peoples names are. that is baseline rude and weird ass behavior no matter the circumstance!!
the fact he also happens to be an immigrant from Afghanistan (and a gay man from Afghanistan at that!) is just the icing on the weird ass behavior cake.
there is a difference between utilizing his name to like explore it as an aspect of his identity, of being an immigrant in the u.s. and from a country that the west has very skewed and fucked views on, of being queer, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
and just being like 'his name being chad is cringe actually so i'm not using it' or whatever the hell else it is y'all are doing smh
surprisingly, i like these two despite the lack of drama. though someone did say their dynamic is kind of superbat-y and that gave me pause. because.. true.
when were all these hockey romances first published because i feel we need to give credit to the og og check please fans please stand up. pretty sure jack zimmerman invented kissing your boyfriend on the ice after you win the stanley cup
"i hate tim drake because he-" that never happened. "i hate tim because he said-" he did not say that. "tim literally-" he did not do that. "i hate tim because he-" never once did that happen. "tim is actually evil for-" that was actually jason todd. "i hate tim drake for saying-" nobody alive, dead, or fictional has ever said that. "i hate tim for-" that is from a fanfiction someone wrote in 2018 without ever having opened a comic
I think, if you want to talk about fridging, there is value in going back to the ORIGINAL DEFINITION.
Not every woman in comics has been killed, raped, depowered, crippled, turned evil, maimed, tortured, contracted a disease or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her, but given the following list (originally compiled by Gail, with later additions and changes), it's hard to think up exceptions:
Itâs about women. Itâs about the things writers do to female characters. And itâs asking âwhy of this list of events is it so hard to think of a female character one or more of these hasnât happened to?â
The angles people focus on has shifted over time, but at its base, in the words of the woman who created the concept itself that itâs about why âmost of my favorite female comics characters had met untimely and often icky endsâ. âIt's about the trend, its meaning and relevance, if any.â
Why does this happen so often to female comics characters.
Tim Drake is Dick Grayson's baby, because fuck you. Yes, he will be there at his superhero meetings to support him. Yes, he will call him every fucking day to check that Tim is doing okay and ask about his day, even if Dick is swamped and busy himself. Yes, he will talk to Bruce again and work on their relationship because he will be damned if he's not around for Tim, he met Tim first, he met Tim all those years ago on that night, and now Tim wore his suit. Yes, he will indulge all of Tim's crazy ideas that probably would give Bruce a heart attack, like stealing a Waynetech plane protoype to jump into an active warzone. Yes, he will call him "little brother" before Bruce ever has the chance to adopt him, because hello, the boy has parents. Yes, he will cross the line and beat a motherfucker to death for hurting Tim. Yes, he will disapprove and criticize each and every one of Tim's romantic partners because they're not good enough for him. Yes, he will tear Bruce a new one for putting Tim in danger, and he will train him with hellish intensity and he will always love to give him his opinion and he will always want to shelter him as much as he can, and you know why??
Because that's his boy wonder, that's his cutie patootie sweet smol little robin that he loves so much. The singular strand holding his mental health together, the light in his darkness. Don't like that?? Can't help you. Get fucked.
I'm afraid you need to learn how retcons work, friend, because that is not your Jason Todd.
That Jason Todd is a red-headed circus performer whose parents got eaten by crocodiles. He was infamously panned for being too similar to Dick, which made him boring to the readers, as opposed to our boy from the post-Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths story -- who Dick did not give anything to and who had a more distant relationship because post-Crisis Dick and Bruce had more drama going on -- who was panned for being an unlikable punk until they reinvented him as Red Hood 15 years after he died.
Also you should probably actually read A Lonely Place of Dying because Tim never blackmailed anybody and saying that makes you look silly.
there are several runs of the same characters and stories. some people think talia raped bruce and some don't. same thing with tim blackmailing dick or jason being given robin. my problem was that op's statement was phrased like a fact in every comic run when that just isn't true.
That is not even close to what you said. And no, those things are not the same at all.
"Tim blackmailing dick" never happened in any comic. Ever. That's not a thing that has ever happened. It is a fandom misinterpretation spread by people who did not read the comics.
The thing about Talia assaulting Bruce was a very controversial retcon, rooted in Grant Morrison not checking their work before citing previously established continuity. It's a very messy part of canon that has been argued over and re-litigated several times and is very much open to interpretation. Though the official stance at this point has mostly come down on the side of it being consensual.
Jason being given Robin was, in comparison, a straightforward retcon -- it got written out with the rest of his circus persona as a part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, which is one of the biggest and most important storylines in DC comics continuity, for better and for worse. It's part of the story for a different version of the Jason Todd character. Some writers have tried to blend aspects of that previous character back into the modern one, but it's very much not the standard.
And one way or another, there is huge difference between the later two -- both things that have happened in the comics continuity -- and the first one, which, again is completely made up by fandom and never happened. Ever.
The reason Dick started supporting Tim as Robin immediately followed Tim rescuing him and Bruce, pre-dated Bruce approving/allowing Tim to be Robin, and had nothing to do with Tim knowing their identities other than that he wouldn't have been able to be there in the first place if he didn't. His argument is at no points a threat.
Alternate continuities where it is not this story don't even have "Tim" figuring it out entirely. There is no continuity where it is blackmail.
I considered putting in the previous pages where Tim discusses knowing the identities and how he knows them, but it's just a lot of pages, and I'd have to show you all of them to prove blackmail never comes up, so like, just read alpod, really.
also, tim revealed he knew dick's identity then asked him to go back as robin. of course there was an "or else i'll tell everyone your secret identity" implied. that's blackmail. why else would tim say he knew who dick was?
Coincidentally, I reread âA Lonely Place of Dyingâ today and there was no blackmail from Tim to get the Robin costume at all. Initially, Tim didnât even want the costume. He ultimately took it because Dick wouldnât.
Telling Dick he knows his secret was part of the explanation what Batman and Robin mean to him and how he knows that Jason died. And of course why he thinks Batman needs a Robin. At no point did Tim threaten to expose Bruce and Dick in order to become Robin.
after this unproductive discussion i reread alpod and looked up the definition of blackmail, which is "demanding payment or another benefit from someone in return for not revealing compromising or damaging information about them" which is what tim did
Bruce: "And as a reward you insist on coming with us"
Tim: "No, I'd never do that. But I'd like to come. And I'd like to learn from you."
Bruce: "I don't want a partner. It's simple as that."
Tim: "After all you've gone through, I understand. It's still been wonderful..."
Bruce: "You know my identity."
Tim: "I wouldn't say anything."
--
Kid, I know you're 18, but c'mon. Take the L. You're just wrong here. No version of your blackmail interpretation holds water. It is not a thing and never has been. Saying "I know your identity" is the same thing as blackmail is an insane thing to claim.
