A place to shove my DC geekery

(side blog)

[robs-your-robins]

The Riddler probably has such an up and down relationship with the Robins because they all tend to tackle things differently and he’s always so thrown by how they handle his riddles.

The Riddler: To free Batman from my trap, you must answer this riddle, little bird. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I?

Dick, eight years old and freshly Robin: *thinking really hard*

The Riddler looking at Batman dangling upside down: ?

Batman: He just needs an extra minute.

The Riddler:

Batman: English isn’t his first langauge.

The Riddler, feeling a little bad: oh, that’s… take your time, buddy.

Jason, twelve years old: *lifting a hand*

The Riddler: -uh, yes?

Jason: Can you repeat that? The riddle?

The Riddler: um, yeah, sure. I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?

Jason: Yeah, you’re a map but when you’re talking about multiple species of fish, which you probably are, you can say fishes. If you’re using fish, you’re only talking about one species.

The Riddler:

Jason: I just think you should know that. You know as a “genius”

The Riddler: The more you take, the more you -

Tim: Footsteps, where’s Batman?

The Riddler: No, you have to let me-

Tim: Nuh-uh

The Riddler: The fuck do you mean “nuh-uh”? Who raised you?

Tim, on two hours sleep, with two essays due on this fine Thursday night: *fucking launches himself at The Riddler*

The Riddler: I wear a mask but not to hide,

Steph: It's you. You're the answer.

The Riddler: You have to let me finish.

Steph, mimicking him: YOu HaVE tO LEt mE FIniSH

The Riddler: I have-

Damian: *launches himself at the Riddler*

The Riddler: Batman, fuck, FUCK, he’s fucking biting me-

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

#he dont bite #yES HE DO via @camsthisky

[papayafromtv]

conversations overheard through the batkid com lines pt 71 (masterpost here)

Dick: wait so- things i think you'd be good at?

Tim: all of us. like- i have a theory that Damian would be really good at making topiary animals. i don't know why, i just think he'd smash it.

Dick: oh i get it. i actually- yeah, i could see that with Damian. he's got the steady hands and the artistic talent. i have a- ok, so i have one,

Tim: go.

Dick: i've always had the strong belief that if we were to get Bruce into origami, he'd be a fuckin' paper fiend within a month.

Tim: *wheeze*

Dick: like- do you know what i mean? we'd go down to the Batcave and he'd be mindlessly churning out swans 'n octopus' n shit out of paper while trying to figure out a case.

Tim: *still snickering* i like that. i could see that. like some people knit while they watch TV?

Dick: yeah that's his version of that. i also- for you, i also feel like you would be good at ballroom dancing.

Tim, eager: oh i can actually answer that one,

Dick: yeah?

Tim: yup. *sing-song* answer's no,

Dick: *laughing*

Tim, amused: yeah- yeah my mom also had that belief when i was a kid, and she signed me up for lessons. and let me tell you? *matter of fact* used to get on my instructors last nerve~.

Dick: *gleeful* were you really that bad?

Tim: yeah, that man did not like teaching me. i just kept asking to go to the bathroom and then locking myself in for the entire lesson to look after my nintendogs.

*connecting ping*

Damian: Grayson, Father let me finish early; i'm on my way to you.

Dick: oh sick. hey, Dames, you got any headcanons about skills you think me or Tim would be good at if we tried?

Damian: headcanons? about you two?

Dick: yeah, you know... like, personal ideas or-

Damian: i know what a headcanon is. of course i don't.

Tim: aw, c'mon, not one?

Damian: i hate to break it to you, but you two aren't that interesting to think about. i rarely examine my opinions on anything to do with you unless it is directly relevant to my current life.

*a beat*

Dick: alright, ow, kinda offensive considering i invited you up to Bludhaven for the weekend?

Damian, dryly: yeah, cry about it. that will definitely make you more interesting.

Tim: what the fuck- ok fuck you, and fuck this. what about Jason, do we have any about Jason? i feel like he's the sort of person that would be really good at snowboarding but really shit at skiing.

Dick: oh, honestly? ok i do have one that i've been thinking for a while now actually,

Tim: *prompting hum*

Dick: i've always thought that Jason would be fucking incredible as a Dungeons and Dragons DM.

Tim, curious: ooooooh,

Dick: right? like- he's always been a good storyteller, and as meathead-y as he is he can kinda be a bit of a fantasy nerd. i've always thought that if i could convince him to try a campaign with me then it would be one of the greatest moments of my life.

Tim: fuck, no that's genius. i kinda want this now, do you think we could convince him?

Dick: i've been trying for years, he says he doesn't like DnD.

Damian, bored: he's lying, he plays Dungeons and Dragons all the time.

Dick: ...what?

Damian: yeah. he'd DM for me and some of his friends back in the league every now and then. i had no access to video games and Mother disapproved of other board games, so Jason would cover the DnD textbooks with mathematic book covers, and if anybody walked in on us playing we could just shut our notebooks and claim to be doing math exercises with some dice.

Dick, squeaking indignantly: he told me he had no idea how to play and couldn't be fucked to learn!

Damian, still bored: yeah he's lying because he thinks if any of you were to get involved with one of his campaigns you would be 'insufferable' to play with.

Tim: wait wait wait- so Damian, you grew up as a DnD nerd??!

Damian: why did you think i was so gullible about magic and supernatural stuff back then? my only reference for anything outside of league life was fantasy worlds and spells. when Jason first showed me the All Blades he told me it was because he'd 'acquired a new spell slot'. what reason did i have not to believe him?

Tim: oh my god it all makes so much sense now... oh my god,

Dick: wait. Damian...do you... do you still play with him?

*a beat*

Damian: occasionally.

Dick: HE'S BEEN FUCKING DMING FOR YOU AND CUTTING ME OUT?!?!

Tim: i am so fucking offended right now. who the fuck is he playing with? it can't be just you two,

Damian: no, Thomas also plays. and some of his old league friends.

Dick: are you fucking- he lets Duke play and not us?!?!

Damian: Thomas keeps trying to kill the important NPC's though, so getting through the campaign is slow going.

Dick: i am going to lose my mind-

Damian: Jason says it's a good activity for brothers.

Tim, offended: ok-

Dick: *screams*

[grakkie]

Duke appreciation, let him interact with his siblings more often dc 🙏

[jason-toddie]

@numberonedukethomasapologist

[shitpostingkats]

If you heard "Batman has four sons", you'd be forgiven for thinking that each of those sons has three brothers. But that's a rookie mistake. Dick is the only one of them who actually has three brothers, and that's because he put in the work for it, thank you very much. Jason has one brother (Dick), and two kids that his dad had after he moved out (Tim and Damian). Damian actually ping pongs between acknowledging Tim and Jason as his brothers, and thinking they don't count because they're not related to him, but regardless of how he feels about those two he is always related to Dick, Dick just isn't always his brother. So Damian can vary wildly from having three brothers to two brothers to zero brothers.

Tim is literally only brothers to Dick. The other two are his annoying coworkers.

[birdskiss]

[aliteralchicken]

Tim getting questioned by his school for having bruises (canon) + Tim wearing makeup to cover his bruises (canon) + tim being very popular in the schools he went to (canon) = Tim accidentally starting a boys wearing makeup too trend at his school during peak 90’s/early 00’s (not canon but plausible and will piss off Chuck Dixon so it’s real to me 🙂‍↕️)

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

it would explain so much about Gotham economics if it turned out the only employers who pay a livable minimum wage are 1) Wayne Enterprises duh, but mainly 2) all of Gotham's assorted villains.

sure henching comes with shitty working conditions, but the benefits package is crazy competitive. they have dental

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

Gotham's villains are so engrained because supervillainy is the only thing propping up the local economy. henching requires no work experience, provides on-the-job training, and has a diversity hiring program (you're willing to commit crimes in tacky matching uniforms? great you're in, here's your gun and clownsuit)

Batman is constantly throwing money trying to compete but the fact remains that henchpeople are Gotham's largest workforce and will be until minimum wage laws catch up to reality

[fall-out-girlboy]

even educated jobs in environmental science are probably getting laundered money from poison Ivy. and a lab equipment tech might notice three different jobs are tied to pamela Isley and also happened to receive grants from "unrelated" shady shell orgs and the next one is setting up a temperature controled penguin habitat for some eccentric obvious mobster.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

half of Gotham's supervillains have doctorates of course they're also funding the sciences (for crime purposes but still)

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

we need a new supervillain who gets drawn into villainy specifically to make money for funding grants. they come up with a theme and wacky outfit and loony backstory but at the end of the work day they change back into their alter ego (tired scientist with bags under their eyes and a hotpocket stuck in their labcoat). they're actually very mild mannered irl—the villain persona comes from their background in Theatre Arts

[artbyblastweave]

Growing up I used to talk shop with my father about superheroes. He grew up in the 60s, and he watched the DCAU justice league cartoon with us when we were growing up. And one thing he mentioned stuck out to him was that in the 60s, basically everyone in the League was, in their solo books, The Hero. There was no speciation in personality because in the context of each individual solo book the speciation was between The Hero and whatever the personalities were amongst their supporting cast. His experience was that each of the headliners were just running HeroPersonality.exe, Flash was Green Lantern was Superman- and the consequence of putting all of them in an ensemble was, in his words, like having Six Supermen. He credited this with his shift towards Marvel, where he felt like there was more of a draw to seeing two different headliners teaming up with each other- it's not just going to be two Supermen in the room with each other, Spidey has a meaningfully different outlook from the Fantastic Four and so on. This was truthy, filtered through his perceptions of his own childhood, and now you're getting it third hand through my perceptions of my childhood- but, you know. I've read silver age stuff. This doesn't seem wrong.

Anyway, what this led into was his assessment of the DCAU justice league roster, where he said that it felt to him like they were doing the work to make sure that you couldn't just use these people interchangeably in each other's beats, giving them specific personality quirks that didn't map to anything he recalled reading their books growing up (pos). Which led into his assessment of the Flash, and how he could see the exact chain of logic that produced DCAU Flash's personality. Because if you need to create seven distinct personalities, probably you need one who's the dedicated comic relief. And if you need to solve the classic problem of preventing a guy with super speed from just immediately solving every single problem, the path of least resistance is to give that story-breaking power to a guy who is, if not God's Perfect Idiot, at least God's Perfect Selectively-Attentive Class Clown. In a vacuum the prospect of tripping a speedster is eye-roll-inducing. But it's at least emotionally plausible when someone manages to trip DCAU Wally West.

[spaceodyssie]

valuable life skills 101 with stephanie

[ijustgotherebro]

[dynamight-arsenall]

god gotham legal jargon must be so bonkers

keystone city lawyer is having coffee with an old buddy that moved to gotham and is talking about a weird insurance litigation they're working that involves car vandalism and a fiddle of all things and gotham lawyer is like "oh yeah the green gas defense" and the first guy is like ??????

and it turns out that there are SO MANY diminished capacity cases vis a vis Gothamites getting gassed by joker or scarecrow, that that's how they now shorthand "supervillain related hypnosis/fear fuckery/whatever else gas diminished capacity" cases

[dynamight-arsenall]

HEY. HEY @takiki16??? HI COULD I PLEASE GET 10K MORE OF THIS AND AN AO3 LINK TO IT

#OH YEAH GREEN GAS DEFENSE#batman#it just occured to me that in the snyderverse gotham and metropolis are just across A Bay from each other#literally within sight of each other. commuting distance in capitalism hell#so like...hypothetically these two wild ass cities are in the same appellate district of whatever state they're in#oh the PRECEDENT THAT WOULD BE CREATED ON ALL SIDES#the metropolis half of the bench are all hair splitting experts on the issue of what constitutes Presumptive Service#for entities that may or may not be legally recognized as parties and may or may not be within jurisdiction#(re: any given alien threat or hero including Superman)#the gotham side of the bench has to be constantly recused bc they are (1) kidnapped or threatened#(2) related to or dating#or (3) becoming one of the rogues gallery#there was an INFAMOUS hearing that went all the way up to the state supreme court of WHEREVER the fuck gothamtropolis is in the snyderverse#it was very unfortunately a case where one party was from gotham and one party was from metropolis#and it happened to be right after a heavy turnover election year for the court#so all of the justices were new and happened to be Not Local Enough to Know#and in the middle of the hearing the gotham atty (single practitioner shoestring budget type practice who had Way Too Many Bad Days)#ripped off their suit stripper style to reveal their new rogue outfit#and leveled their mandatory Bad Gas Gun at the metropolis lawyer screaming THE COUNSELOR (TM) PLEADS THE SECOND#the metropolis lawyer (big law white shoe unethical corporate baller type) did NOT BLINK#just pulled a massive lextech ray gun out from under their coat and shouts I PAID TOO MUCH FOR THIS RULING FOR ANYONE TO STOP ME NOW#shenanigans ensued. the case was Not Heard and no questions proceeded from the bench#ironically the fight only stopped bc wonder woman got punted through the courtroom destroying the whole thing#from a completely unrelated villain fight that was happening in the stratosphere#which had migrated over from central city of all things#the court reporter faithfully took down the whole thing of course

[thunderwhenhepurrs]

Been feeding baby goats that a mama rejected, and having Jonathan and Martha Kent thoughts.

Jon and Martha find the Kryptonian ship in their corn field, but when they open it the baby is not well. He’s traveled light years, and even at the fastest speeds, it was days or even weeks. What fluid was sustaining him has been gone for some time.

They work a farm. They know what a sick baby looks like.

They take the baby inside anyway. It’s far too late for anything to be open, so they break out the milk replacer for the livestock. The bottle they find has had a goat kid sucking on it, but they wash it good, because what other choice do they have?

The baby doesn’t take to the bottle well. He barely eats.

They both know a lack of appetite is a death knell.

“I can’t watch a baby die,” Martha says. She’s done it before. She and Jon struggled to have kids. The closest they got — well. It’s a hard memory for them both.

“I know, love.” Jon’s a good old country boy. He grew up being told it’s a man’s job to take the burden. He’ll take it now. “Go to bed. I’ll stay with him.”

Sure, they both know Martha won’t sleep, but at least she won’t have to see.

Jon takes the wee babe out onto the porch. He tries to poke more milk down him. Rubs his chest, bounces him, pushes the bottle past his lips, every damn thing he can do. The hours are long and hard, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.

The baby continues to fade.

The eastern sky starts to lighten.

“I’m sorry, little fellow,” Jonathan whispers. It’s not long now. He can feel it in his bones. He’s held plenty of animals as they died. He’s waiting for that long last exhale. “Sorry you came all this way and this is your welcome. Can’t even enjoy the sunrise.”

He told himself he wouldn’t cry until the boy was gone. Wasn’t fair, that his last moments would be a man crying instead of comforting him, but Jon does his best to do both at the same time. He cradles the poor little thing even as his shoulders shake.

The sun breaks over the horizon, and light floods the porch. Jon closes his eyes against it and his tears.

It’s a hiccup that is the first sign something changed. Then the wiggling.

Jon nearly drops the baby in shock.

When he looks down, the little boy sure hasn’t died. He’s got this rosy little glow to his cheeks and his eyes are bright. He’s throwing those little hands around like he’s trying to figure out how they work, but he seems to be trying to reach for the sun.

Jon just stares at him until the baby gets frustrated enough with his clumsy limbs that he opens his mouth to tell the world about it.

The baby’s cry is so powerful Jon falls right out of his rocker. It’s a miracle he doesn’t launch the poor thing.

Only thing he can think to do with a screaming baby that’s about to take his eardrums out is shove that bottle right in that open mouth.

The little boy shuts right up and clings to the bottle for dear life as he drinks with a fury.

When Martha comes stumbling out wild-eyed in her jammies, Jon’s sitting on the porch with a grin as bright as the dawn despite the fact his ears are still ringing.

“Turns out he has a good set of lungs.”

[mellosdrawings]

I said I'd redesign some DC black male characters coz I'm annoyed with the damn overused bald/cropped hairstyle. Here it is!

Made a bunch of versions for Stewart coz I couldn't decide on a style :')

[mellosdrawings]

Dang guys. We're really all starved for the most basic decency, aren't we? You'd think spending a couple more seconds on a character's hair design would be the least that could be done in comics :/

[saphushia]

not enough investigations done into the comedy potential of dcxdp. fixing that :D

[zoobus]

John Stewart is the black green lantern right? Why is he a bastard? Is justice league racist about him?

I like this show and i am conflicted on the Green Lantern character, Jon Stewart

On one hand, he is technically exactly what I asked for as a child - a black character who isn't a gross amalgamation of white fear and racism, a flawless Mary Sue, or the type where fun risks being offensive, so they're the killjoy.

He has a distinct personality, he is strong in a definable way, he has (many) flaws that are treated as such, and he isn't a stereotype that non-blacks will be familiar with

On the other hand,

I hate him so much it's unreal

i can't say I hate him because he's lost potential, a wasted character, or even that it's bad writing why I dislike him. It's the opposite, John Stewart is written very well.

John IS a stereotype, but it's one of those cultural stereotypes that's only recognized within a culture, which implies there was some color in the writing room

And he's a very realistic one, a persona I'm continually faced with

Strict, disciplined, harsh, quick to assume the worst about you, even quicker to assume the worst about your intentions. Anything you do incorrectly is viewed as willful immorality. His hard childhood built a hard man, one who saw how difficult and unfair life is and still came to the conclusion "and I got out of it -now what excuse do you have?"

He was in the military

Why are they always in the fucking military

I knew Johns my whole life. My last manager was a John. These people drive me insane

This is very good character writing and I hate John Stewart

[zoobus]

This is an old ask but let me bring it back with more context for why this meant do much to me

As a child (honestly, even as an adult), I was hungry, starving for quality representation of terrible black people. It was something I thought about a lot, something I eagerly looked towards the future for - once the world simmered down on the racism, once enough time had passed and white people didn't need to make black characters performativly perfect or exist just to remind you about oppression, I would finally see the hideous, morally repugnant, or at least fascinatingly unpleasant portrayals that white people always got. I wanted black It's Always Sunny. I wanted black jackasses who didn't worry about reflecting badly on the black community.

And then here came Mr. Stewart, knocking me on my ass by being exactly what I asked for. Better yet, he's a familiar face, acting exactly like -and I cannot stress this enough - every adult black man I knew as a child. He was written by someone who knew, someone who'd been there. As much as I hated his ass, his presence made me feel seen. He was ugly but in a good way, the negative representation I craved.

[sun-moon-talia]

batman is one of those characters where i can read one of his comics and think “man. what a great guy. despite all his paranoia and obsessive tendencies he has a deep love for humanity that pushes him to make the world a better place. i don’t understand why so many people hate him.” and then i read another one of his comics and i think he should die in a glue trap

[sun-moon-talia]

ppl are rebloging this saying “it’s because he’s written out of character so much” and that IS true in many cases but i wanna be clear that some of the times i have wished death upon him he was very much acting in character. he just has the range.

[eightfifteen]

Crazy how many people want characters in fiction to speak and act like they’ve had 20 hours of intensive therapy. Could NOT be me I want these bitches fucked up insane

[plutojester]

[doingthewritethings]

my friend briar and i lovingly call this one ‘therapy speak joker’ and it almost caused her to drop biological samples one time

[dizzyghoast]

i think the joker should start talking like this for real. no other character should do this only the joker. i want batman to have to deal with this

[teaboot]

Would you be comfortable with me sharing the story of how I got these scars

[fair-itself]

That would have been an incredible episode of Batman: The Animated Series, though. Joker gets out of Arkham, having convinced the psychs he's rehabilitated by speaking in fluent Therapy. Bats spends the entire episode losing his mind, because he KNOWS it's an act because NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT and Joker reacts with total calm and understanding when he finds Batman in his pantry at 2AM. "You're violating a boundary right now, but I realize this behavior is caused by a history of trauma. Can we talk about how your inability to trust negatively affects those around you?" Meanwhile steam is just coming out of Batman's ears

[seriousfic]

Are you in the right headspace to receive information on you potentially being overserious?

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

And then Dr Quinn smashes the Joker with a hammer because no one hates misuse of therapy jargon like a shrink.