#dcu etc

[ceescedasticity]

Saw a post saying it's impossible to, uh, de-Morrisonize Talia without heavily rewriting Damian but I don't think that's true? You just make it so she didn't know about him either — or didn't know the League had him. Damian's been raised by some godawful minions with occasional involvement by Ra's. You'd need to adjust some details but there's no reason that couldn't produce the same Damian as Morrisonized Talia.

[ceescedasticity]

…Oh, so Tim only hit Jason with a crowbar because he was scrambling for a weapon and there was a crowbar lying around the floor of Jason's Evil Lair.

I'd been thinking it was a deliberate thing and found it in poor taste if understandable, but no, it was improvised and the crowbar even being present was entirely on Jason.

[ceescedasticity]

'Bruce is putting too much trust in a rigged system police and courts bad' okay sure but most of the people Jason kills or wants to kill are not the ones the system is rigged in favor of. You get that, right? The system is not rigged in favor of 'random drug pusher #7' or 'gang second-in-command' or 'ground floor goon in human trafficking'. The system is not rigged in favor of Rogues who unpredictably engineer mass casualty events and make a point of taking on hard targets.

If anything it does happens to benefit them that's an unintended side effect. The lives Jason treats as disposable are for the most part also considered disposable by the system at its worst.

There's an argument to be made about Batman trusting a rigged system too much but all Jason is doing is cutting out the middleman.

Sigh.

[ceescedasticity]

The fanon that Tim is generally at high risk of becoming a villain is (a) wrong and (b) not based on nothing — even if you discount the end of Red Robin which you can definitely read as indicating that.

Tim is highly principled and compassionate and believes in the no-killing rule and was a Good Kid and cares about being a good person. But.

Tim has a strong drive to Fix Things — 'someone should do something and I am someone'. Often he comes up with a good solution or strategy and this works out.

Sometimes, though, he can't come up with a good strategy. (Sometimes there isn't a good strategy or the thing can't or need not be fixed.) When he's doing okay, he can take a step back. Ask for help. Wait for an opening.

But, when he's not doing okay, sometimes he plunges forward with a bad strategy.

(Try to clone Kon. Work with Ra's al Ghul. Investigate Lazarus-based methods to revive Kon, Steph, and Jack. Fight Ra's solo. The Captain Boomerang thing. Shoot himself to stop his evil future self.) (Speaking of whom, he adds: Clone Kon and Bart. Take over the world for its own good. Kill criminals. Tamper with the past. Try to kill an innocent preteen to prevent an accident.)

He will do completely unhinged things, more effectively than he has any right to, fully believing he needs to do them, and based on his evil future self he is concerningly good at convincing people to see things his way.

He's no more prone to villainy than any of the others but if he went there it would be everyone's problem.

[ceescedasticity]

uh-oh, gig economy henching

[ceescedasticity]

(Superman 2016 #20)

Raw milk??!!

Or maybe that's not such a phenomenally bad idea when it's a small dairy farm right next door?

But even so I refuse to believe Lois Lane wouldn't prefer her kid drinking pasteurized milk.

And Batman should be suspicious of the dairy farmer because of course he is even correctly in this case but he should ask about possible inadvertent contamination.

[ceescedasticity]

Having read like half an issue of Gotham Academy:

I understand now why people get bent out of shape at fic using it as Default Rich Person Private School. It is a school with character.

I need to stop being bothered by lazy plaid or I'm never going to be able to read this.

[ceescedasticity]

You've seen my "Everyone is Spoiler" scenario now get ready for "Everyone is Joker Junior". Sort of everyone, sort of Joker Junior.

Okay, so, scenario:

Around the time tensions between Bruce and Jason are starting to rise, the Earth is invaded by arbitrarily powerful aliens, the Plot Devices I'm going to call them the Nilbog. They're really weird about it. Anyone who tries to attack them who is remotely a credible threat gets seized and imprisoned, but beyond that they mostly observe through drones and mechs.

So: Batman is being held prisoner by aliens and everyone knows it.

(Bruce actually managed to escape the Justice League's disastrous first engagement but didn't realize the aliens now knew his identity and gets grabbed publicly as Bruce Wayne. A little weird, but some other rich guys have also been taken — Lex Luthor, Steve Dayton, Oliver Queen — so I guess they're a targeted demographic?)

Some of the Titans try to go after the Nilbog and are also captured and put on ice. Dick isn't one of them. Jason, Alfred, and about-to-retire Barbara have been left in a Batmanless Gotham, and unlike some city's rogues Gotham's criminal element is mostly not interested in challenging aliens. They need Nightwing's help.

Unfortunately Dick disappears soon after arriving in Gotham. (Alfred, Barbara, and whichever Titans aren't captured conclude the aliens took Nightwing. Actually, the Court of Owls felt Bruce's disappearance means it's safe to grab Dick Grayson.) Jason and Barbara have to handle Gotham themselves. They try. It's better than nothing.

Then the Joker captures Robin. But he's not going to kill him when Batman isn't even here!

It's Jason getting the Joker Junior treatment this time (the animated Tim who inspired the Joker Junior scenario had just as much in common with Jason as with comics Tim).

So Joker is dragging around poor Joker Junior Jason, and the other Gotham Rogues are inspired and think 'I gotta get me one of those'. It's a status symbol.

Scarecrow kidnaps a half-dozen kids and runs them through trials to identify the best candidate to be his apprentice/lab rat/mascot. Tim is the one who figures out what he's looking for fast enough to stay alive. ("Crow".)

Riddler grabs that poser Cluemaster's kid. Steph does not express due gratitude for being elevated into the upper echelons of Gotham villainy. (In fact it's hard to get her to cooperate at all but Riddler is determined and also able to obtain a shock collar.) ("Clue".)

Ivy shows up with a mysterious silent ninja girl. (Ivy is pretty good at nonverbal communication — though chemical rather than gestural — and is struck by Cass's purity of conviction. She wants to sway Cass to her, Ivy's, convictions. Cass is unswayed but frequently doped up. ("Blossom".)

Penguin doesn't actually have much interest in a kid sidekick and wouldn't dream of doing anything like training a replacement — people would get ideas — but everyone is doing it so he kidnaps some random kid and threatens his family to ensure cooperation. Duke has nowhere to turn. (Not sure — "Adelie"? Hmm, is there a particularly characteristic fish that penguins eat?)

Two-Face also doesn't actually have much interest in a kid sidekick but everyone else is doing it so he's going to have two. If nothing else he can flip a coin to decide which of them to hit. (Harper and Cullen. It's worse than life with their dad but not as much as it should be.) ("Dos" and "Zwei" maybe?)

As for Damian he is like seven? and the League of Assassins is in turmoil following their failed attempts to defeat the Nilbog. Talia is captured and Ra's is vanished or in hiding. Damian has been left in the custody of Dusan who is really putting his all into the Wicked Uncle role. Cinderdamian?

Eventually the Nilbog decide this isn't a good use of their time and resources, return everyone they captured, and just leave.

Bruce has to deal with all this.

(Alternatively, before the Nilbog leave, Tim recognizes Dick and hatches a scheme to restore his memory and Dick ends up rescuing Tim and Jason and all the others and they're holed up somewhere by the time Bruce gets back.)