crossbreeding fanon with canon promotes genetic diversity

you can call me q, or ink. 30s, she/her, extremely tired. this blog is for dc comics, primarily batfam and yj98. i've lost control of my life. do not come into my house and involve me in your discourse.

[upswings]

a very important masterlist of very important polls

(a sort of spiritual sequel to this post)

poll projects:

the generational sorting game, a series of polls on where characters fit in in generational schema

dc continuity/crossover event opinion polling, another series of polls where we decide if crossover events deserve to still be canon or not

the pennyworth manor polls, a (now-finished) event where we picked people to vote into pennyworth manor each week

build-a-bruce adventure, where we collectively construct a bruce with a series of proportional this-or-that ingredient polls

poll series (not cool enough to be projects):

crowd shot quizzes, where i post a large crowd shot and ask you how many characters in it you can identify

favorite writer polls: for tim, dick, cass, bruce (and bonus kon)

wayne sibling count polls: for dick, jason, tim, cass, and damian

and also a selection of polls i really liked on the subject of --

continuity and comics timelines:

a poll about the in-universe frequency of crossover events, a One Year Later timeskip opinion poll

has tim drake graduated from high school?

supersons and batsons survey; also aquasons survey

is kong kenan a "real" superman? and is wang baixi a "real" batman?

how many batmen have there been?

an ambiguous final crisis timeline question

what year do you picture alpod taking place in?

how old do you think tim is in current canon? and bonus: when was his eighteenth birthday?

authors, comics-reading, and fandom:

how many batman comics have you read?, and bonus have you read 0.03 batman comics?

are batman comics fanfiction?

poll for YJ98 fans about characters' solo series

what family does your favorite non-bat character belong to?

who was freddie williams talkiing to about tim's bisexuality?

have you read batman: year [x]?

worst batfam introductory comic?

dc miniseries that should have gotten an ongoing

what non-batfam comics things are you interested in?

weird comics minutae:

who funds the teen titans, anyway?

favorite dc team (hipster version)

best fake new york and best fake san francisco

is the t-rex in the batcave a real dinosaur?

which batfam member has the most parents?

bartholomew allen or barrence allen?

favorite unfortunate bruce wayne love interest

the only best robin poll you'll ever need.

the only best batman poll you'll ever need.

wait no i lied here's another best batman poll --

harlequin (or harlequin's monster)?

a poll about batcave features

how many batmen have there been?

and some miscellaneous fun stuff:

discowing or mulletwing?

you are a bruce wayne love interest. why didn't it work out?

who is the angry robin?

bi visibility day VS sneaky time

who books bruce's doctor's appointments?

ah, yes, the super sons! i know the super sons--

a social experiment feat. tim drake's love interests

who's the loserest bat?

[dchuntress]

folks please recommend a lesser known / underrated but not completely obscure dc (strictly dc comics) female character of colour or two or ten for me to get into. it's okay if you list someone i already know i'm just trying to get into dc more often and branch out :(

[upswings]

lorena marquez / aquagirl ii (introduced in the second arc of aquaman 2003)

onyx adams (periphery bat/arrow character in the 1980s and again in the 2000s)

tatsu yamashiro / katana (many outsiders runs through the years, starting with the original 1980 run)

jo mullein / green lantern (read far sector!!!!!)

xiomara rojas / crush (also read crush and lobo!!!)

peng delian (from new super-man; justice league of china's wonder woman)

^^ my personal list. natasha irons and grace choi and anissa pierce (and karen beecher! and kimiyo hoshi!!) are also good shouts from other people but i'm less personally familiar with their material. i personally love arani caulder nee desai (from the kupperberg run of doom patrol (1987)) but that is very much a "reclaiming from the terrible source material" sort of pick.

[haveyoureadthisdcfic]

Batman Hits the Red Hood with His Batarang

Have you read Batman Hits the Red Hood with His Batarang?

Yes, previously

Yes, now that you've recced it to me

No

Voting ended onMay 26

Authour: @upswings (redboard)

Subfandom: Batfamily

Media: Comics (specifically Post-Crisis)

Relationships: Gen (Bruce Wayne & Jason Todd)

Year: 2022

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Death, Minor Unhappy Ending

Summary:

Batman hears whispers of a new crime lord in Gotham, trailing blood and carnage in his wake. The Red Hood is skilled and ruthless, and quickly seizes control of the drug trade, seemingly for his own ends.  Red Hood, after years of planning, your moment has finally arrived. Why have you come? An "Under the Red Hood"-themed tabletop game, for one or two players. You will need colored dice (or a dice roller), your imagination, and, optionally, a friend who has as many feelings about Jason Todd as you do. (Yes, I'm serious. This is not a bit.)

Submitted by @sasheneskywalker

Submitter's comment:

it’s a fanfiction, meta-commentary on fanfiction, and a fully playable tabletop game all in one! i absolutely adore the format and the writing style, it’s incredible. and as someone who spends a lot of time in jason circles and the broader dc tumblr fandom, it’s fascinating to see so many debates and discussions about interpreting under the hood translated into a fanfiction/tabletop rpg format <3

[termagax]

Hello there. Guess how much money I made last year? $28. I’m an investment banking analyst at a boutique firm, in M&A. I have my undergrad from the University of Chicago, one of the top schools in the country. With bonuses, sometimes I make even more. Are you jealous of that? Most people on Tumblr are usually jobless or they decided to major in the humanities and are poor.

$28?

[upswings]

i keep seeing that one reblog-bait post like "how many of you have online friendships that are more than two years old?" and i KNOW it's bait but every time all i can think is. i have online friendships that are old enough to get on livejournal to talk about some obscure fandom and start their own online friendships which are now more than two years old, which i know for a fact is the case because that's what i was doing at seventeen. you are like little baby

[umbrellajam]

World's Finest: Our Worlds At War

wait wait wait, this wasn't in the YJ '98 trades - Bruce is fucking losing it over Tim still being missing - IN SPACE - when the war ends 😭

Bruce: "Don't take that tone with me. The J.L.A. knows I have my priorities. And anyone else can go to hell." Clark: "This isn't just about the League--Although your presence would matter to them. The world is hurting, Bruce. We--" Bruce: "I can't be responsible for the world's pain. Not now."

Bruce skipping every single post-war memorial to throw every frantic effort into finding Tim - and the looming Jason memorial, pointed as always...

ROBIN AND THE REST OF YOUNG JUSTICE COULD BE ANYWHERE IN THE MYRIAD OF SPACE DEBRIS? 😭 you mean their cold depressurized corpses could be drifting like so much flotsam anywhere in a vast spaceship graveyard? or they could be stranded, ship damaged, slowly running out of air, praying for rescue - is that what you mean Reddy?? 😭 oh my god look at all that stubble Bruce is losing his goddamn mind

and then -

*shrieking* THEIR SHIP WENT DOWN? THEY CRASH-LANDED ON APOKOLIPS? APOKOLIPS WHICH HAS SINCE DIPPED OUT OF THIS UNIVERSE??? WHAT THE FUCK IS "GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS" ABOUT THAT REDDY

Bruce (hijacking everyone's comms, blaring air raid sirens): get me Orion, get me Mister Miracle, get me Jack fucking Kirby on the line I want a boom tube to Apokolips Right Fucking Now--

oh thank fuck they're back. (significantly more traumatized but) more or less in one piece.

Bruce must be so relieved--

😭💔oh, the shadows and silence as he processes. the pain, and the way his face slowly changes.

the kids all made it home. they're back. they're safe. they came home, this time.

[upswings]

oh. hmm. i don't like that

[isfjmel-phleg]

How the rest of The Ray 1994 would have gone if it had not been canceled

In a discussion with readers in February 1995, while The Ray 1994 was still ongoing, writer Christopher Priest teased his plans for "Year Three" of Ray's series (with the first 12 issues and the annual being "Year One," and what would expand to #13-28 as "Year Two"):

Year Three (#25-36) will find a *much* different approach-- much more emphasis on Ray The Weird Teenager, much *less* emphasis on "Big and Involved Plot With Scheming Villain Snickering In Shadows Part VIII of XXVI." No more of that crap. And, hey-- we literally destroy Philadelphia in ish #31. Cool.

Readers had gotten weary of the conflict with Death Masque, which had lasted for the majority of the series.

He also mentions a future plot involving Ray trying and failing to get into college:

Ray has *no* formal education. This will play a *major* role in Year Three (after ish #24) when Ray tries to get into college, but realizes he's been tutored by nuns with no acredation. So this computer whiz who made 85 grand last year heading up a major department at a major company-- won't be able to find a decent job, and no colleges will take him. He doesn't even have a GED.

Then after the series was canceled after #28, Priest described a little of the plot of the lost #29:

In issue #29, which no one will ever see, Gaelon's completely covered Ray's apartment windows with heavy gauge plastic (she knows Philadelphia is about to be destroyed (in issue #30) [...]-- Ray fights some nut named Trem-R who causes a tidal wave and earthquake that wipes out Center City). Ray thinks she's insane.

...and outlined how the next several issues would have gone:

The only one that's really in any sort of presentable shape is Ray #29 which was ready to go to Jason [Armstrong, penciller]. Then we were informed that #30 had to be this "Darkest Night" thing, so Ruben [Diaz, editor] and I shuffled things all around... it's complicated. [...] #29 became a story about a house party that Ray and Jazz crash. It's at Ray's old house and he's gone back there to find the circus light Jenny gave him. He finds out the people who live there have gone off for the weekend and their teenage kid is having this outrageous bash (Hank is out back in a hot tub full of scantilly clad babes while watching a ball game on a rented Manga-Size TV). Ray bumps into those black guys from #13 (who keep calling him "Chicken Man," and they subsequently discover he has super powers. The party is bustyed by the cops and Ray gets thrown in jail. #30 became "The Darkest Night," where the sun is blown out or something. Ray is in jail. The brothers (from #13) bail him out and now Ray owes them, ("Oh, so, how NOW, Chicken Man!"). They drive him to their university (essentially a take on Lincoln University, a predominantly black college in PA) where they confront some very dangerous drug dealers, and look to Ray to clean these guys out of their neighborhood. They don't realize, of course, that Ray has no powers (since the sun has been blown out). Calamity ensues. #31 became the script originally for #29, part one of a two part good day/bad day. Ray's dad, Joshua, and Ray's mom are living in Ray's condo, which he now has to vacate since Vandal fired him. They are all driving him nuts. Ray goes to save a crippled satellite-- just to get away from them. Turns out the satellite was owned by a powerful Japaneese communications firm, and they award Ray the fee NASA was charging them for a shuttle mission to fix the satellite-- 34 million dollars. Moreover, the president observed Ray's heroic efforts to save the satellite, and invites Ray to dinner. A bunch of other extremely good things happen, including stuff with his dad, and a truce in the shooting war that's broken out between Gaelon and Jazz. This is the ish where Ray races to his old Center City ratty place, hoping to beat Jazz there (she's gone there to yell at Gaelon about something), and he slams into a wall of thick plastic Gaelon's put over his windows. Jazz finds Ray hanging outside his apartment window, still wearing the dress suit Ray wore to the white house. I guess you had to be there. #32 became the script originally for #30-- part two of the good day/bad day. This is where literally everything good that happened the previous issue turns comically awful. Ray can't cash NASA's check. Some nutty bad guy he fought in #31 comes back even more powerful and destroys Center City. Gaelon and Jazz go ballistic. Blah, blah, blah. As I said, most of this stuff (except for #31) is an unpresentable mess, but I might make some of this available down the road a bit. I'm still hoping DC will want to publish some of it as a special or something. I'll keep you posted.

And of course none of this got published.

He also talked about his intention to have Jazz and Gaelon be constantly fighting over Ray, played for comedy:

It would have escalated to the point where it wouldn't even *be* about Ray anymore, and Ray would have had nothing to do with either of them. Seriously dysfunctional Betty and Veronica.

To further that comparison, he adds:

there was already a plot outline where Ray would get knocked loopy and have a hallucination where his life was an Archie comic. We were going to get one of the actual Archie artists to draw an ish of the Ray in that style. I am being completely serious. This would have been Ray #34 or 35. We would have drawn a tic-tac-toe board on Ray's head. :-) Yes, Reggie would have been Hank the cousin. Jughead would have been Zone, that goofy counter man from Clucky Chicken.

Also some more hints about what Ray would have gotten up to his more slice-of-life moments:

But Ray doesn't shave yet. That's one of the big Year Three things-- Ray Grows A Whisker. Also promised: Ray Buys A Refrigerator, Ray Learns To Drive, Ray Becomes Puzzled By A Vending Machine, and Ray Gets Caught In A Vicious Catfight Between Two Babes.

There's also a later description of the next several issues, with slightly different details:

#29 (which I should post somewhere) was part one of a Good Day/Bad Day thing. During the Good Day Ray has the best day in his life, including making peace with his dad and his warring girlfriends (Jazz and Gaelon), protecting his brother (Papa Ray wanted Josh back into deep freeze), saving a good chunk of North America from a space station falling out of orbit, having lunch with the president, and winning 3.5 million dollars. #30, the bad day, absolutely *everything* goes wrong, and Ray ends up accidentally destroying Philadelphia (story title: "OOPS"). Umm, from there it gets hazy. I'm sure #31 was a house party story, where Ray's left the circus light Jenny gave him up in his old room, he goes to get it but the people who live there now are out of town and their kid's having this wild party that gets busted by the cops, and Ray gets thrown in jail. #31 had those black guys, "Wher the brother at?" from #13 bail Ray out of jail in exchange for his help in ridding their college campus of drug dealers. Ray's all set to bounce the dealers when he loses his powers (was supposed to be part of the Final Night or whatever). Some other stuff I can't remember . . . But, yeah, we woulda had some fun. We'd done away with (ghah) Death Masque, and the bothersome tie-ins to the Justice League books. Vandal, stung by Ray's rejection, was to become *seriously* evil as we transitioned him back to the Flash book. There was to be a special issue where Ray raced the Flash, a confrontation engineered by Vandal.

A complete draft for #29 (the first part of the Good Day/Bad Day sequence was shared, and I link to that and discuss it in detail here.

[freakoutgirl]

searching your url (or past urls), are you mentioned on fanlore.org?

No

Yes, I am mentioned but don't have my own page

Yes, I have my own page

Voting ended onMar 10

x

[upswings]

addendum to the previous post: i know there is at least one person out there who earnestly believes that ntt discowing nightwing and bludhaven black-and-blue with the rattail nightwing are different people. why would you assume they were the same guy. just because they have the same name???? it's not like nightwing is that creative of a name. there are two superheroes named steel out there too, do you think they're both the same person too????

[upswings]

pet peeve in dc fanworks is when every random civilian somehow knows exactly when and where every single superhero mantle changed hands. people (including jim gordon!) thought tim and jason were the same guy. people in no man's land thought batman might have been a girl the whole time. let people have imperfect knowledge!!!!!

[upswings]

thinking about her (helena janice rosa bertinelli) (love of my life light of my heart)

[upswings]

anyway i think we should put tim in a time loop starting in the immediate lead-up to infinite crisis. for fun (by fun i mean emotional torture)

[upswings]

elaborating a little: i think this idea works best if tim can actually stop looping (by riding one timeline out and continuing it) any time he likes. because. like. even from an abstract perspective this is an interesting ethical dilemma for a superhero, right. infinite crisis is an extremely complex event where a lot of things happen in a short amount of time. people die. many others suffer. reality is straight up rewritten. if you can rerun this extremely complex event as many times as you want, does that then create the obligation for you to seek the best possible outcome? what is the best possible outcome, in this case? how do you know when you've found it? how do you know when you can stop? what if there's something else you can do? how do you know when you can stop? how do you know when you can stop? how do you know when you can stop?

and of course this isn't really an abstract ethical dilemma for tim because of. you know. who dies in infinite crisis. winks cutely

[upswings]

anyway i think we should put tim in a time loop starting in the immediate lead-up to infinite crisis. for fun (by fun i mean emotional torture)

[upswings]

i do find it fascinating and funny how badly acceptance of major superheroes' potential queerness in the comics (& adjacent) industry as a whole lags acceptance of major superheroes' potential queerness by the people who are actually writing those major superheroes' comics

like is batman going to come out as queer any time in the near future? absolutely not. has batman been helmed by multiple writers who, if it was up to only them, would already have written a storyline about that one guy batman slept with during his world training tour? 100% absolutely.

[upswings]

hi!!! i read your dc skating au on ao3 recently and i loved it so much and i thought it would be soo cool to write as a longer fic.... i wanted to ask if you would be comfortable with me using your idea as inspiration for a longer dc skating au of the same (or very similar) premise (with credit ofc)? thanks so much!! :))

hello! go right ahead, i'm so glad you liked the skating au! i have fondness for it myself.

link me whenever you're done with the fic, i'll try to reblog it here!

[upswings]

hi i'm alive

i haven't been keeping up with comics. what did i miss