#emiko queen

[robinhuntr]

This panel is everything to me and so allow me to break down everything that is sending me.

Going from left to right

1) What the fuck is Roy’s “tasty omelette surprise”? I’m not the only one concerned about this, Cissie is also confused. Omelettes aren’t really a “surprise” food I feel like omelettes are fairly transparent on what is in them based on first taste. Clearly based on Cissie’s reaction, this is not the case with Roy’s Tasty Omelet Surprise.

2) Emiko and Conner bonding over Conner pushing Damian off a cliff, I’m ngl the fact that 3 people in this family all have beef with Damian is fucking hilarious, now I need to see Lian and Damian interacting cause something tells me that beef is intergenerational

3) Lian had to have learned how to be this out of pocket from Mia because “when did you start drinking coffee” “idk probably when I got blown up” is crazy considering that Mia almost killed a man out of guilt over that but honestly serves her right cause she would pull the shit on Oliver all the time

4) I’m not done with this Tasty Omelette Surprise, why does he have a name for it? Did he come up with that on a fly or has he been mixing random shit in an omelette and serving it to people for a while? Did the teen titans have the Tasty Omelette Surprise? Did the outsiders? The outlaws? Has Jade had the Tasty Omelette Surprise? No one in the family seems confused about it except for Cissie making me think this is a common meal for him to make. Is Tasty Omelette Surprise to Roy as Chili is to Oliver?

[inexplicablyamazing]

A lot of batfam fanon is misogynistic and refuses to admit how much of Damian's progress was shaped by the women in his life.

[zammmmms]

Lian: Ok, the JL needs our help but won't admit it.

Maya: Yeah. So we have to get to the location by ourselves.

Connor: How though? Batman took his plane, and the rest of us don't exactly have that kind of transport.

Jon: I can carry...maybe 2 of you at a time and fly you there? Come back for the others.

Emiko: You're fast, but by the time you put down the first 2 you're alerting the enemy to incoming backup. They'll be waiting for the next batch to come in, that is, if they even let you fly back out.

Damian: Did someone ask for transport for 6 people? *flies in on the back of Wiggles*

Emiko: You have a DRAGON?!

Damian: Everyone, meet Wiggles! *proudly pats Wiggles head*

Connor: Ofc you named a dragon Wiggles.

Jon: *flies up to Damian* Hey Dames, why don't you let Wiggles handle flying the rest of the team, and I can fly you? *winks*

Damian: Nice try Hayseed, but I'm not leaving them with Wiggles on their 1st flight together. Everyone hop on!

Jon: *grumbling* Fine. Guess I'm flying there by myself then.

[hood-ex]

Happy Lunar New Year, @roydick!

[watermelonsloth]

Honestly, I’m kind of surprised the Arrowfam isn’t more popular amongst the tumblr fandom, especially considering what I’ve seen of Batfam fan content.

(CW: Point Eight has mentions of CSA)

Reasons/Propaganda under the cut

First, Oliver Queen is the “too woke friend”. Superheroes can already be left-leaning in their central ideas and actions, but Oliver takes those ideas and fucking runs with it.

Second, Oliver is actually a good dad. While Bruce can be inconsistent with whether or not he’s canonically a good dad, Oliver pretty consistently is one. I don’t know where this idea that Oliver is a shit dad to Roy came from besides him having a bad reaction to Roy’s drug addiction, but they’ve been on good terms with Roy having fully forgiven him for years now (both real-world and in-world timeline) and Oliver was already making moves to make up for what he did by the end of the Snowbirds Don’t Fly story. Which makes sense considering a core idea of his character is responsibility. Not the “with great power comes great responsibility” type, I mean the “I used to be a really terrible person and now it’s my responsibility to do everything I can to make up for that now” type.

Third, Green Arrow and Black Canary is a genuinely good straight ship, but if that’s not your style, they also have incredibly homoerotic relationships with Hal Jordan and Barbara Gordan respectively.

Fourth, the Arrowfam has a lot of hot women, which I know is a plus for a lot of people on tumblr.

Fifth, there’s actually quite a bit of range in the moral codes of the Arrowfam. A lot of fans like to make members of the Batfam more morally gray, but I’d argue all of the core members (save for Alfred) have personal, strict no-kill codes that they really don’t want to break. Not even Jason kills anymore. Meanwhile the Arrowfam has everything from Connor’s “I’d prefer not fighting at all if I can help it” to Oliver’s “If the only way to stop you from hurting people is to kill you, then I guess I’m killing you” to Roy’s “I’ve killed for my family before and I’ll do it again”.

Sixth, the Arrowfam is hypercompetent, and not just about archery. They are hella good hand to hand combatants (and stealth operatives for that matter), Black Canary, Red Canary, and Sin in particular. Those three are walking representatives of “my hands are rated E for Everyone”. Arsenal is literally named after the fact that he can use so many different weapons. Oliver is an extremely good survivalist (in the most recent Green Arrow run, he got stuck in a different time and he essentially built himself a new life outside of the city just using what he could find) and I’m fully convinced that he taught those skills to all of his children, if not his whole family. (This section is mostly because I’m sick of seeing the opinion that the Arrowfam is just “dumber Batfam” and if I see one more person say or imply that any Batfam member has better aim than any of the Arrowfam’s archers, I’m gonna crashout.)

Seventh, if you’re uncomfortable with Batman being a billionaire—especially in these times—that is somehow not necessarily a problem with Green Arrow. There’s a shocking number of comics where Oliver doesn’t have any of his wealth. It’s almost a 50/50 shot if he’s going to actually be rich at this point.

Eighth, I’ve seen quite a few things that add Jason—for lack of a better term—selling his body for money when he was young (which has no basis in canon as far as I know (which is fine, this is fanon, do what you want)). However, if want a character with a backstory like this or a storyline about this with a bit more of a canon backbone, I’m going to direct your attention to Mia Dearden, also known as Speedy. She was canonically sex trafficked when she was a minor and is now HIV positive because of it. Oliver actually met her when she was being trafficked. (There’s more to her backstory, but I’m gonna leave it there.)

Ninth, there’s a lot more that I’m not getting into because I started typing this at 4:00am and am burning out, so here’s some miscellaneous stuff: Cynthia Lance (or Sin) has a venom thing going on now that she’s sharing a body with the magic vine thing Megaera. Sin also met Dinah when she (as in Sin) was being trained/groomed to be the next Lady Shiva (and Birds of Prey by Kelley Thompson does not milk the potential dynamic between Sin and Cass as much as I would’ve). If you’re looking for Asian rep, the Arrowfam has quite a bit of it. Lian is back so now you can choose between her being a cute 5-7 year old (Sorry, I don’t remember how old she was when the building dropped on her) or her being a teenager who spent years watching her family from afar because, for somewhat complicated reasons, she wasn’t able to interact with them. Also she took up her mom’s name Cheshire (she’s a catgirl and she has blue hair and pronouns!) and became pretty skilled on her own and when Jade found out she was alive, she didn’t tell Roy (which he was predictably pissed about when he found out). Cissie technically, kind of qualifies since she worked with the family during the most recent Green Arrow run and she got a much better hero outfit (Amanda Waller forced her to do hero work again for a little while). The Arrowfam has some pretty good designs overall, including the women—which, if you read comics, can be hard to come by sometimes. There are multiple long-lost-family stories, if you’re into that (Connor Hawke is Oliver’s son, Emiko Queen is Oliver’s half-sister, I already mentioned Lian is back from the “dead”). And other stuff that I either don’t feel like typing or don’t know about because I’m relatively new to Green Arrow/Arrowfam comics.

Point is that a lot of people are sleeping on the Arrowfam. We got both dumb fun and unashamedly political commentary, we got we got canonical gender, ethnic, sexuality (Connor’s ace btw), and combat diversity, we got found family, we got redemption arcs, we got hurt/comfort, we got dilfs and milfs, and we got all that in roughly ten characters.

Side Note: I bring up the Batfam quite a bit in this (or at least batfanon), but I’m not actually trying to make the argument that fans of the Batfam should actually be fans of the Arrowfam because 1. I like both and would prefer more people also like both rather than one or the other and 2. That depends a lot on what you like about the Batfam. I bring them up because sometimes I see fanon Batfam stuff or fanon heavy stuff like WFA and can’t help but think it’s more in line with the Arrowfam’s family dynamics. The Batfam is really good for complicated interpersonal dynamics that are hard to define using traditional familial terms and content about people who are deeply devoted to each other and love each other (for the most part), but struggle to actually be there for each other or understand each other’s needs as a result of their trauma. Which is why, if you want stuff more like WFA or angsty stuff but where the characters are actually good at helping each other, may I direct your attention to the Arrowfam? They are not without their disfunction or trauma, but damn it do they try (which is a bit more than the Batfam’s avoidant personalities can say).

[why-i-love-comics]

New History of the DC Universe #4 (2025)

written by Mark Waid art by Hayden Sherman, Howard Porter, Giovanna Niro, & Chris Samnee

[rebeccasreveries]

cissie king-jones aesthetic [arrowette]

dc universe

“you can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling. you can say it's just the way you are, make a new excuse, another stupid reason. good luck, babe” chappell roan, good luck, babe!

[celaenaeiln]

I always assumed that from the comics I've read dick seems to have a somewhat complicated relationship with his own gender/sexuality/sex status, etc.

Anon!! You can't just drop this on me and leavee!! I need to hear more!! LEMME HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS!!!

Ok so this is gonna be like three different things so I'll make subcategories.

Gender

Of the things listed. I think gender is the one thing Dick is rather set on/secure about. He has some feminine or softer traits which typically would not be associated with a male character such as empathy and caring to an overemotional aspect -

Joker: Last Laugh Issue #3

Nightwing (1996) Issue #86

Nightwing (1996) Issue #139

Being overly kind to an unappreciative and toxic girlfriend is one thing, but as a brother hugging and kissing a brother? It's a little softer than how people usually write male heroes.

He's male and I don't think he's considered switching to the female side because he's comfortable with his masculinity.

Does he do things like this -

Nightwing (2016) Issue #38

sometimes? Yeah. He takes the female role in his relationships with others such as Bruce and Barbara but he still very much sees himself as masculine. Like I said in another post, Kori asks him to be a male consort to her Queen because she was forced to marry a royal Tamaranian Prince. While male consorts are not unusual in history, they typically embody the female in a stereotypical relationship. (On a separate note, did you know Chinese emperors took on male consorts? It is circumvented when speaking about in the present and laters days but it's officially written down in the books).

But overall, Dick is very much a masculine male with feminine qualities.

Sexuality

Ok so the thing about Dick and sexuality is that Dick Grayson is a very, VERY old character. He's been there since the beginning of DC to the point that he was the third DC character created EVER. Clark, then Bruce, then Dick, AND THEN Wonder Woman.

So with a character this old and with a topic as controversial as sexuality, DC is not going to ever explicitly write Dick as gay or bi or whatever. Why? Because Dick is an icon.

When someone says "Batman and Robin" - EVERYONE knows who Batman and Robin is. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. They've existed forever and are the kingpins of DC alongside Superman and Wonder Woman. Whether that person is in the fandom or not, they know who Batman and Robin are. Within the fandom, people know there's more than one Robin (several) but talking to someone outside the fandom, someone who enjoys DC casually, only thinks there is one Robin. And you could tell them that there's this many robins, some have been girls, there's this many timelines and etc (which is actually a really embarrassing convo if someone isn't in the fandom OMG and how I wish I could take that back and erase it from BOTH OF OUR MEMORIES) - but they're not gonna care. Because for them, there's only one Robin and that's Dick Grayson.

So with something like that, DC cannot have Dick Grayson be anything but straight because it would cause too big of an uproar. So he can't be. Explicitly. People have written him as having an ambiguous sexuality though. I actually wrote this specific POST a long time because someone wanted to know more.

Instead what you'll have is a BUNCH of BROMANCES. His Nightwing authors have wanted more male/male sexual attractions with him and other characters and some of them have admitted that openly even if they were not allowed to write. So if you're reading a comic that has him and something seems SUS, well it might just be.

So like with all things, I cannot say anything for certain unless there is evidence of him engaging in a romantic relationship with someone who isn't a woman, but given the homoerotic tension that exists between him and other characters such as ROY -

Outsiders (2003) Issue #11

Teen Titans: Silver Age TPB 2 (Part 4) Page 16

Nightwing (1996) Issue #114

WHICH IS ODDLY SIMILAR TO THIS -

Nightwing (1996) Issue #138

I'd say he's bi-curious at the least.

Sex Symbol Status

-this is my previous post which goes a little into the sex symbol thing

Anon, holy crap I have an ESSAY for you. It's in my drafts because it's wayyyyyyyyy too long and I'll definitely exceed the image limit but holy crap.

Here's what I will say about it though. The world REVERES Dick for his looks and body. The amount of attention he gets for his beauty is ridiculous. Even Green Arrow's half-sister - WHO'S MUCH YOUNGER THAN DICK AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF DICK MET - dreams about him romantically.

Green Arrow (2016) Annual_1

Because of course. Villains are going out of their way to compliment him on his looks in the middle of a fight - Bane, Bludhaven villains, civilians (MALE) coworkers - it's literally insane.

So Dick is clearly the hottest and most gorgeous thing to ever exist in the entirety of DC. There's also a panel from a comic where Dick becomes Talon AND SOMEONE STILL CALLS HIM THE PRETTY BOY TALON LIKE WTF??? THAT PRETTY BOY TALON CAN RIP OFF YOUR HEAD IN A HEARTBEAT! He's a talon, too! Clearly death does not hinder his looks in any way.

But Dick himself is VERY uncomfortable any sort of bodily attraction. It's not just the comments that gets him but he, who everyone claims has the body of a god, doesn't feel good about his own body.

The New Titans (1988) Issue #71

He's really conservative. And in another comic when Tim comments on how the the Nightwing suit is really a babe attractor, Dick is uncomfortable going 'I didn't make it for them'.

Like even looking at this comic pic where Dick is in disguise and he and Kori are just walking down the street, they both still attract the entire street's attention. It must be so uncomfortable.

Here's my thoughts on the sex symbol status. Yes, Dick is a sex symbol. That's just fact. But here's where the issue is. People can be sex symbols without it affecting their personality because that status, is something given to them or bestowed upon them by another person.

I'm leaning a little into my post in the drafts but Johnny Depp, Marylyn Monroe, David Bowie, Tom Cruise, Cleopatra - they're all so vastly different on their opinions of sexual liberty and yet all of them as considered sex symbols.

So what does this mean for Dick? Nothing, really. It just means the world takes one look at him and wants him but he is under no obligation to follow through nor does he. He's not a slut for sleeping with the people he likes and no one thinks of him that way either. He was slut-shamed after his rape by Pantha who always has some harsher opinions because that is her personality. She literally says the meanest things about everyone because she's a rough and tough character and she finds humor in being mean because she is who she is.

For Dick himself, it means nothing. He doesn't view himself as attractive which ironically is also what celebrities who were interviewed about the sex symbol status said as well, such as Johny Depp.

The problem with being beautiful though is that people brush you off. Certain girlfriends of his do it. They see him as just a pretty boy and writers of certain comics *cough* Batgirl comics writers and Tom Taylor *cough* throw his skills and talent down the garbage disposal so he can act as a dumb pretty boy toy for his girlfriend. His personality is degraded to a bland white paste and his intelligence and power and pain are thrown out the window.

(This POST gives some examples of when writers do this for Dickbabs)

Like this is a serious problem! I read this article some time ago -

Here are the main highlights:

There isn't a problem with Dick being ascribed a sex symbol status and to his great benefit most people don't treat him like this but some do! LIKE HIS GIRLFRIEND.

In summary, and I'm gonna borrow a lyric here to quote -

"It's hell on earth to be heavenly Them's the breaks, they don't come gently"

I think the problem is, instead of focusing on how beautiful Dick looks, I really feel like DC and the fandom should analyze how uncomfortable Dick gets, how certain comics force him into relationships when others clearly show he wouldn't be interested in a parallel situation, and mostly how Dick Grayson is robbed of his personality, identity, and beliefs all because of how people believe he should act due to his beauty.

I'm honestly tired of the equation that Dick's status as a sex symbol somehow reduces him to a slut. He is not. Instead we should focus on how his beauty is weaponized against him. He was born with those looks and complaining about them is useless. That's his mother and father-given appearance. It's his genetic inheritance. It's as much a part of his as his grace or his unyielding kindness.

The real issue isn't DC’s acknowledgment of his beauty—it's the utter failure to dig deeper. Instead we should explore how Dick deals with it. How does he carry the weight of being constantly objectified? What does it do to his relationships? How is he coerced to do something in a relationship because it is expected of simply due to the fact that he's beautiful? We should explore how people (even the batfam sometimes) only see his smile or good-natured humor while his complexities - his pain, his resilience, his brilliance - are shucked aside? He's constantly diminished by the fandom and canon because of his cheery personality and good looks just to fit a particular character's narrow view of him.

Call him pretty! Dick legit doesn't care if villains call him pretty or someone calls him that because what they're really focused on when they call him that, are his skills. He doesn't mind being called pretty, beautiful, gorgeous - as long as he's valued for his talents and efforts and skills.

(Here's the pretty boy post for my lovelies. Part 2 in the making)

The issue, once again, isn't his sex symbol status or his looks. It's literally everything else. Dick Grayson is not a reflection of what others project; he is a someone who stands apart, vibrant, and irreducibly whole. Which too often gets lost underneath his looks.