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Latest Posts by donkoogrr - Page 2
Wait, hold up.
We need to establish something first.
Are we talking Canadian Smarties or American Smarties?
I love stress-eating smarties I just go to town on those things I go through the whole bag I inhale it like munchable cocaine I eat it all until theyre gone and twitch on the floor like a dead rat
I want to explore the Bernard-as-the-third-Robin idea a little more.
Firstly, that's a mouthful and we're calling him Robern from now on.
CW: in theorizing backstory we address potential/canon child abuse and suicidal ideation.
How does he come to find himself in Batman's orbit? By accident. By storming out of his house after a fight with his parents. By blindly walking to the more dangerous part of town, or climbing up to a rooftop, or standing at a bridge.
By looking at something dangerous and thinking, "how much would they care if I were hurt? Would they care at all?"
And then along comes the goddamn Batman. And he's a fucking mess. He burned the bat signal onto a guy's face earlier.
And maybe that's where this change in the timeline starts; with Batman sitting next to this kid who looks nothing like either of his sons, listening to him talk about his parents and his fears and...
Bernard is just a kid who wants his parents to love and accept him.
Just like Jason.
Do y'all think Batman would take him home immediately or do you think he'd try to find alternative arrangements for this kid?
Because I rather like the idea of a deeply concerned Tim Drake going to Nightwing sooner rather than later, holding photos of messy!Batman ushering a sad-eyed blond kid into the Batmobile.
Hot new take, I love it.
This is going to influence Bernard's call sign somehow, I just know it! And it fits the theme of flying beings that inspire fear!
Bumblebee and Queen Bee are taken and we don't want H.I.V.E. to be accidentally spoken back into existence. Marvel has Yellowjacket and Wasp...
Be(e)hold, the Drone!
I think I've been reading Bernard's name with the wrong pronunciation for years. I didn't watch many shows and I haven't played the games so I haven't actually heard the canon pronunciation of Bernard and now I'm having a light existential crisis.
Because the second way is how it's pronounced in my region and the first way makes me think of Bianca from The Rescuers.
I think I've been reading Bernard's name with the wrong pronunciation for years. I didn't watch many shows and I haven't played the games so I haven't actually heard the canon pronunciation of Bernard and now I'm having a light existential crisis.
Because the second way is how it's pronounced in my region and the first way makes me think of Bianca from The Rescuers.
Someone out there is really dedicated to telling me to kill myself at least once a day through my ask box.
Glad you have a hobby, buddy.
For the record, I don't hate Talia al Ghul. I think she's a great character with a lot of complexity.
I just get a little tired of some parts of the fandom treating her as a wonderful mother figure and limiting her to that. She's so much more than that. She is so much more interesting than that.
The duality of mother and murderer has been explored a couple of times in DC comics; her story keeps getting shifted around to make her more marketable. More palatable to the casual consumer.
I'd just like to see more variety to her than "deus ex mother". Let her be mother, yes, and also let her be murderer. Let her embrace dark actions for a "greater good". Let her character be influenced by her actions, the good and the wicked.
Let her be flawed. Let her do shit that's awful. The Mother trope can be great and terrible in their love.
And as a fan of anything in general, you probably shouldn't tell other fans to die because you don't think they're enjoying something correctly. Kinda fucked up.
You know what? I love this. I hope that the writers put that amount of thought into the show and the characters.
It also occurs to me quite suddenly that a future Batman writer is going to have Batwheels as their first introduction to the characters. That is going to be interesting...
Well, I didn't expect Batwheels to reveal that Penguin is apparently a singer. Or that he got music lessons as a kid and has this weird proclivity for liking music. But I guess it makes sense. It's a fun thing for the kids, but it also makes some sense for The Penguin. For one thing, music is sometimes seen as an upper class thing. Look at opera and everything. But also: a lot of Penguin's actors have been singers. Paul Williams had a whole career in that. Jess Harnell and Tom Kenny don't do music for a living, but they can sing if a show requires them to, Danny DeVito did a song for Disney's Hercules, etc. So it makes some small amount of sense, I suppose.
So, when Jason was living his Red Hood life and stalking Tim to an intense degree, I want to imagine him running into a little problem. He finds something that Tim has been keeping secret from the other Bats.
Tim livestreams his W&W campaigns with his civilian friends.
It's mostly done for Ives when he's at the hospital; the steam is easier for his friend to watch and communicate his turns while he's sick. Tim plays both his and Ives' characters at once.
And the thing is...
Jason fucking loves a story.
And after so long watching the streams for stalking purposes, he's reluctantly invested in this one.
He'll definitely beat the shit out of the new Robin soon! It's part of his plan! He needs to prove he's better than this little twerp.
But first he needs to know how the romantic subplot between Tim's orc Artificer and that blond kid's half-elf Paladin is going to turn out.
💙🩷Prompt voting is now open! You can vote using the link below, now through April 26th. Reblogs are appreciated.🩷💙
“The last time I checked my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food”
—
Dr. Jack Geiger, quoted in Rebecca Onie’s Ted Talk What if our healthcare system kept us healthy?
“In 1965 Dr. Geiger founded one of the first two community health centers in this country, in a brutally poor area in the Mississippi Delta. And so many of his patients came in presenting with malnutrition that be began prescribing food for them. And they would take these prescriptions to the local supermarket, which would fill them and then charge the pharmacy budget of the clinic. And when the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C. – which was funding Geiger’s clinic – found out about this, they were furious. And they sent this bureaucrat down to tell Geiger that he was expected to use their dollars for medical care – to which Geiger famously and logically responded, “The last time I checked my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food.“”
(via mdintraining)
I HAVE SPENT. TOO LONG. TRYING TO WORD THIS PROMPT PROPERLY.
Seriously, I have three drafts and one of them is basically me just writing the fic myself...
By the time Jason is ready to be legally revived as a Wayne, the world - and Gotham, in particular - is NOT going to accept the excuse of a coma or amnesia. What they ARE going to accept is the excuse:
"Batman's cult-themed enemies used magic and science to raise me from the dead to use me as a way to stop Brucie Wayne from funding him. But I'm a bad Gotham bitch and I escaped my Rogue Origin Story. Also they cloned me, and that's why the Red Hood gets away with so much - Bruce is trying to adopt him, too, but Batman kinda has dibs on morally dubious antiheroes, so there's a custody fight."
"Yeah, they aged Hood up and planted him in Gotham before I made it home. It took me awhile, I was dodging assassins! No, he didn't know he was a clone until we met by accident when he rescued me from a mugging and turning it into a kidnapping. Yeah, the cult messed with his memories; we spent like four days going over everything."
"No, I've never subbed in as his body double, I'm traumatized by my narrow escape from supervillainy. Yes, we keep in touch."
DC world is used to weird shit by now; one guy dipping out of the enforced supervillain arc a cult planned for him would be mildly remarkable. Maybe he'd go on the Daily Show or give a few interviews about the experience.
Bernard moved in with Tim? Guess you could say they murder shacked up
Slade Wilson makes me want to write an au where his son, Grant, joins/is adopted by/marries into the Batfamily during his teen rebel phase.
His codename is Wrenegade.
Wouldn't that be some shit? All this lethal potential and he's using it to be a martyr vigilante in the hellcity? Slade would have a coronary. Batman would be the most smug bitch. Grant would keep the orange-and-black just to flex on his shitty bio-dad.
He'd hang out with the Waynes and everyone "in the know" would know that Batman poached a kid from Deathstroke.
"Slade is a titans villain!" "Slade is a Batman villain!" Slade is his own fucking villain. Have you seen the bastard? He is the main component in wrecking his own life godbless.
Another post reminded me of Jason Todd's very very first appearance and how he was also a circus-raised orphan who wanted to get revenge for his parents' murder, except this time he has red hair.
He got super retconned, obviously, and I think this version of him got unmade during the Crisis on Infinite Earths... But I like to think that The Prodigy is his spiritual reincarnation. I mean, they're both redheaded circus boys who wanted to be seen at Dick's brother, both "replaced" Dick and he didn't take it well, both went through a career-ending beating.
And just in general, redheaded Jason specifically haunts a lot of stories. I recall a Justice League one where a baddie put the League into their dream worlds - and Batman's was one where he and Selina were married and retired, where Tim had taken on the role of Batman with a Robin of his own.
Tim's Robin? Bruce and Selina's redheaded son.
I think this indicates as well that, at the time, Bruce didn't want Dick to be Batman. Nightwing is who Bruce wishes Batman could be, having him take over would be a downgrade for Dick. I also think that at that time he very much considered Tim to be capable of becoming a better form of Batman, one he could trust in enough to actually let go of his city.
Idk I'm just in a mood to push all these concepts together and gesture "you get me?"
The thing my mind keeps going back to is when Steph is at the very start of her Robin training... And Bruce and Pennyworth just give her one of Tim's uniforms to train in.
And it's fucking uncomfortable for her because she is a physically different person. She can't move in the damn thing without something tearing, her getting a wedgie, or her getting winded because her boobs are so compressed! And yet, Bruce and Pennyworth make such a big deal about how they guess they'll have to get her a uniform that fits.
Even getting part of the cave sectioned off so that she can change in private is shown as something she feels she had to earn.
It was so frustrating to read that whole damn arc.
I'm not going to claim Steph was perfect or that every decision she made was right, but it was so clear that she wasn't being supported like she should have been.
Every so often, DC is reminded by Steph fans that War Games is a thing that happened and that its many injustices against her and her fans still need to be addressed and every so often, DC responds with a comic that says "Bruce was right to manipulate and fire her and she deserved to be tortured and killed"
Been thinking about how Tim and Bernard are similar when it comes to conspiracy theories and general willingness to wreck shit.
But Bernard, unlike Canon!Tim, had a really bad home family life going on. One that might have pinged Bruce's dad senses if he'd known about it.
So, really, maybe Bernard could have been the third Robin. I feel like that's not too far of a stretch to consider. It'd be interesting to see how that could have changed the story.
(Imagine Titan's Tower with Bernard as Robin. Jason would be torn; he's gotta beat the new guy up, but also Bernard is the only teen there who understands the importance of balanced meals.)
Hey, where are my DC x DP people at?
What if Jason came back wrong because the GIW had his little ghost self captured for 6 months?
Imagine it. The warehouse in Ethiopia happens to be on some powerful crossing leylines and a GIW agent is stationed to keep an eye on the area. She sees the Joker and his men. She sees Robin enter the building. Maybe the place is bugged and she even knows what's happening and she realizes... This is their chance. The GIW could get data on a ghost as it forms! This is unprecedented!
So, she waits and watches and records data.
And when the warehouse explodes, when the Batman has come and gone, when the response team has put out the fire... She searches. She finds Robin's ghost as it begins to form. She captures it, the scientific find of the century.
And six months of inhumane, dehumanizing experiments later, the ghost of Robin seems to shred itself as it's ripped violently through all the anti-ecto restraints and containments.
Maybe there's a perfect sphere left behind and Jason doesn't realize that he's missing his core. Maybe the recorded experiment logs are out there, waiting for the right hacker to release them. Maybe Team Phantom rescued the core and are searching for the being it belongs to.
Just some thoughts~
The thing is... The Thing Is...!
The Honorable Chef Gordan Ramsey would immediately lose his shit at this contest because he is a motherfucking Scott! He is British by the technicality of Scotland being part of the United Kingdom.
And legitimately, he doesn't seem to drop curses without genuine cause or for a zingy one-liner.
Honestly, this silly prompt has gotten me updated on my Chef Ramsay lore and I'm just vibing with happiness for him. He's got 6 kids, none of whom seem to be terribly hounded by the press. He and his wife seem to be still very much in love. He's got so many businesses and ventures. He ran the London Marathon once a year for a solid decade.
He almost died while hunting puffins. He almost died again in a bicycle accident. He's extremely active in charity work and a surviver of child abuse and he's just. Yeah. He's worked extremely hard to live the life he's living now and I'm just really happy we - the world - get to know him a little bit.
And also, I'm like, even more craving a Very Special Episode kinda story with DC!Gordan interacting with superheroes. I want to see him being proud of Roy, or talking to Oliver Queen about what it's like to have a loved one with a heroin addiction and the struggle to balance supporting them vs enabling them.
Which of his TV shows could be an excuse to get him to Gotham? Specifically, Park Row. Probably The F Word. Because I really want to see shit go down and Chef Gordan making "we're trapped in an elevator" conversation with a fully kitted-out Red Hood. They're both car guys, it'd be cute to see them chat. Maybe they can swap violent father stories the way Spoiler and Batgirl got to.
I've given enough angst lately. Have something amusing:
Chef Bernard Dowd on Hell's Kitchen.
Imagine it, please. Imagine Tim gripping with bloody hands to the shreds of his self-control, trying not to physically attack Chef Gordan Ramsey for yelling at Bernard for fucking up the risotto.
Casual Life Update:
Remember that cat my grandparents stole a few months ago? His name is Dos. Because he was part of a litter of 4 kittens. So they were named Uno, Dos, Tres, and Kevin, because the neighbors couldn't remember Quatro.
Grandma calls him Do-si-do and he follows her around when she takes care of her chickens.
I've been thinking about my farmer grandparents a lot lately, about the people they knew and the lives they've lived. About how American culture has changed so much in their lifetimes. About how Grandma had to leave her schooling to help support her family after her mother died of cancer. About how teachers would often lock my Grandfather out of their classrooms when he was excused for religious services and they'd humiliate him in front of his peers before letting him back in.
About how a lot of people - especially in these Internet spaces - see them now, as old farm folk, and dismiss them as uneducated. As stereotypes and caricatures to be derided. Without a word to them, people will assume them to be of no use, to be able to contribute nothing of value by their experiences, and capable of no grand thoughts.
It's a bitter taste to recognize, hypocrisy.
I think about how my Grandma insists that everyone should write at least one book in their lifetime. She has books of short stories, books of poems, books of essays, books of local recipes collected by the women's societies in the area. So many of them are self-published and freely given to her by her friends and family. I love that she can pick each one up and tell me about the author and how she, and I by way of her, is connected to this person whose thoughts are inked on cheap paper.
She has her own book almost ready to go. It's full of little poems and daily devotions, letters to people who are no longer around to receive them. It scares me, because she had been in my life for so very long and I do not want to trust her to my faulty, frail memory.
My immediate reaction was "No, leave that old man alone; he is an angry gem who encourages children and has high standards for adults who claim to be professionals" and then I realized how Batman coded that sentence was and needed to sit down.
And then I remembered that he also has an estranged brother who has attacked him, or threatened his family, I think, maybe? And now I'm vibing with the concept of Gordon Ramsay having a vigilante alter-ego in the DC world.
I've given enough angst lately. Have something amusing:
Chef Bernard Dowd on Hell's Kitchen.
Imagine it, please. Imagine Tim gripping with bloody hands to the shreds of his self-control, trying not to physically attack Chef Gordan Ramsey for yelling at Bernard for fucking up the risotto.
Eroticism is simply one of the basic modes of human expression and the fact that it terrifies people who have built their lives out of repression and self denial is only more reason to make erotic art. They will not stop with their own lives, they want to punish anyone who doesn’t conform to the same standards of cruelty they heap on themselves. But of course it will not work. It has never worked before. Even under the most adverse conditions beauty has always found ways of flourishing. We refuse to hide or live in shame and fear. We will make beautiful that which they find repulsive.
I've given enough angst lately. Have something amusing:
Chef Bernard Dowd on Hell's Kitchen.
Imagine it, please. Imagine Tim gripping with bloody hands to the shreds of his self-control, trying not to physically attack Chef Gordan Ramsey for yelling at Bernard for fucking up the risotto.
Part of this is having fun looking up people from media you've never touched before! Like, shit, I do not expect a lot of people to know of one of these motherfuckers.
Also, squinting at the mutuals list and trying to figure out who'd be interested in a chain letter meme who isn't already on it. Like, what's the friendship level vs interest level?
Ayo @asknotbug, @spicy-apple-pie, @mentallyunawareofpapaya, @pearlescentpearl
Not me having some kinda type... Who shall I tag? I think I wanna tagggggg... @mybugsmybugsmybugs @mexicangela @lunar-years @biscuitboxpink but no pressure!! I just thought it would be fun!
YES! But then also, we can make it angsty. Tim going into sub drop because everything was very very good and now suddenly; Jason's here and furiously making horrific accusations? And Bernard's bleeding-hurt-helphim-savehim-! And Tim is having to pull himself together and possibly convince Jason to untie him and not kill Bernard and have to explain that they were doing a scene and the humiliation of it is not the good kind?!
Send that boy into a spiral, we all know he's gonna internally monologue at the drop of a hat.
Red Hood has 100% heard Tim and Bernard being freaky and broken into their place thinking that an assault was in progress.
Shots were definitely fired.
The biggest question Steph grapples with throughout her entire pregnancy is the question of whether or not she should give up her baby. By closely examining the elements from Steph's dream sequence as she gives birth the reason Stephanie eventually decides to give up her baby becomes apparent.
We first see this question arise in Robin #58, where sitting on a rooftop, pretty soon after discovering her pregnancy, Steph brings up the idea that she wants to keep the baby, and says she doesn’t know how she could give it up.
Steph seems to continue with adoption arrangements despite this confession, although we can see that Steph seemingly spends the rest of her pregnancy arc secretly debating the matter.
We see this subtly illustrated through the usage of magazines. Steph begins her pregnancy reading magazines geared towards her age range and gender, ("teen" and "boys") with one magazine seemingly about pregnancy "9 Months".
Robin #59
When we see Steph reading magazines again a few issues later, she has a "clothes for baby" catalogue and a "teen" magazine. She seems to be looking at the baby clothes catalogue when Tim walks into the room, causing her to subtly hide it under the "teen" magazine.
Robin #61 / #62
Steph brings up a big question on that rooftop in Robin #59: how can she possibly give up her baby? And although it appears at first Steph accepts and moves on, choosing to give up her baby, we know that this question never really got answered for Steph, she’s still been thinking all the while throughout her pregnancy, while reading these magazines, while hiding her doubts until the last moment: how is she going to be able to go through with this?
But we don't get final confirmation of this fact until Steph finally voices her conflict to Tim, the same night she goes into labor. Notice how all the magazines around her are now all baby related.
Robin #64
When Steph finally cracks and confesses to Tim her desire to keep the baby after all, Tim tries to reason with her. Although Steph seems to agree with some of his points, it’s very important to note that it still doesn’t seem like Steph’s committed to the choice to give up her baby for adoption. She says she knows it’s the right thing to do, but she trails off with a ‘but…’ making her indecisiveness clear. She still hasn’t really made up her mind.
Steph goes into labor later the same night, and due to unspecified complications is rushed to the hospital. Steph is given some kind of anesthesia, and enters her dream as a c-section is performed. When she exits her dream and awakes, baby born, something has changed.
Robin #65
So if Stephanie, all throughout her pregnancy up has been questioning this, finally voicing her doubts the night before she goes into labor, and when she awakes, she has come to a firm decision she says she figured on her own, the only place and time where Steph could have made this choice is during her dream sequence.
So what about the dream changed her mind?
One of the big repeated themes throughout Stephs dream sequence is a conflation of her own childhood and that of her baby's. Stephs feelings and memories meld, and the line between her and her baby is shaky.
This isn't a random detail, or even an inevitability of a dreamlike state: it's a specific choice and I think it explains how and why Steph makes up her mind the way she does.
Stephs biggest influence towards the idea of giving her baby up for adoption is her fear that her baby might experience a similar childhood to her own. We see this argument start to convince Steph when Tim brings up Stephs own childhood the night she goes into labor and when Steph appears more confident in the idea of giving up her baby in the Secret Origins 80 Page Giant, it's directly connected to the idea of sparing her baby the same garbage childhood she was subjected to.
Steph is convinced finally to give up her baby because the conflation between her babys potential childhood and her own childhood in her dream sequence convinces her that the elements which made her childhood so shitty have not fundamentally changed.
Crystal Brown
Despite their relationship seemingly better than perhaps in years, Dream-Crystal is portrayed as completely oblivious to the danger Arthur presents, ushering him in and even scolding Steph for her concern. If Steph and Crystals relationship is at such a high point, then why would Steph’s mind portray Crystal as someone who opens the door to this danger and ignores this threat?
Because it’s something Steph is dredging up from her own childhood. It’s not malicious, but it’s apparent that despite being a target of Arthur’s physical abuse, Crystal historically has been quick to assume the best of Arthur and ignore hints of his worse nature. By the time Steph’s pregnancy arc has begun Crystal is able to recognize Arthur as shitty, but throughout Steph’s childhood that’s just not the case. (Both drug use and a malfunctioning ‘lie detector’ as Steph puts it, seem to be to blame for this).
Batman Chronicles #22 / Secret Files 80 Page Special / Robin #111
Stephs subconscious doesn't have faith that Crystal has changed. Despite Crystal having progressed and become much more present and cognizant of the harm Arthur poses, Stephs subconscious is still wary. This is realistic. Maybe it's not fair to Crystal, but Steph can't help holding onto this fear, at least subconsciously. To be fair, it can’t have been over a year since Crystal was smiling at Arthur, seemingly accepting him back from prison soon before Steph dons the Spoiler costume for the first time. This breaks part of Steph’s counterargument to Tim in Robin #64 where she asserts she could raise her baby with the help of her mom. Despite all the progress Steph and Crystal have made, Steph still isn't able to fully trust Crystal with her baby, and her dream shows that.
2. Arthur Brown
Cluemaster appears, the subconscious fear of how he poisoned Stephs childhood leaking over to how she thinks about her baby's hypothetical childhood with her. Would her baby be safe from Arthur?
Steph knows very well that Arthur is free from jail and as dangerous as ever: between their encounter in Blunt Trauma where he tried to kill her, and the fact that he destroyed her and Crystals house, the physical threat of Arthur Brown is readily apparent.
Robin #54
But its not the physical harm that her father poses which the dream fixates on. As per usual for Steph, she seems much less scared of her father hurting her as she is frightened by the idea of his criminality as a symbol of her own wrongness.
Just like Steph believes her own self to be poisoned by her relation to Arthur she fears that her baby might be tainted the same way. Her fear isn't absolutely unfounded either. Arthur is free, and he's ransacked and destroyed Stephs home during Cataclysm. His recent violation and destruction of what should be a safe place, much like he barges in and disrupts Stephs peace in her dream, signify how Arthurs still has and would have this huge presence in Steph -- and by extension her baby's -- life.
So, Steph has two reasons which warn her against keeping her baby, two things she is afraid would give her baby the one thing she wants to avoid: it having the same shitty childhood as her. But not everything is the same as when she was a kid, right? Now she has allies, friends even, who are powerful and capable. Hell, Stephs a hero too! That means something, doesn't it?
3. The Heroes Arrive
Stephs subconscious seems to think so, at least to a degree. Steph isn't left alone to save her baby. As her panic mounts, the heroes appear just in time.
And just like that Steph is wearing her Spoiler costume, the symbol of her agency, the thing that allowed her to stand up to her father in the first place.
Vigilantism is therefore empowering, and the connections (albeit highly tenuous connections) Steph has made in the hero community are empowering also.
Steph has new factors, factors which weren't present in her own childhood which can step in, the situations are not actually identical, maybe she can keep her baby, maybe it will be safe.
Some of the heroes she conjures make a lot of sense, Steph is very close with Robin, he's supported her especially during her pregnancy and he's one of the last people she saw before entering her dream. She's had a positive encounter with Connor Hawke which clearly influenced her. Even her tenuous encounter with Huntress proved to Steph Helena was highly capable. I honestly don't know why Nightwing is there, they haven't met. And Batman. The Batman.
Notice Batman's dialogue. If it sounds familiar, that's because Steph said an almost identical line in the last issue, in that same moment Tim and her are discussing Steph keeping her baby.
Dream-Batman parrots the same language as Steph, the same sentiment, but not about Steph, about her baby. How much has really changed, then?
The heroes fight, but its to a standstill. The assorted heroes present fight the assorted villains that Arthur has brought with him, but Arthur himself is untouched, her baby is still in harms way. And Steph, stands there in the middle of it, horrified and still as Crystal laughs behind her.
Steph's subconscious decides its not enough. Theres so many of these heroes, sure, but they can't stop Arthur, can they? They couldn't when it was Steph in danger, when it was Steph who needed saving. It's no ones fault. But Steph knows.
Just like it always has: Steph knows it comes down to her.
4. Catch
Arthur throws her baby into the air, and we've arrived at the final moments of her dream. And so, the final question, the deciding moment. Can Steph rely on herself?
After spending the rest of her dream remaining uncharacteristically helpless and inactive, Steph finally leaps into action.
Let's hone in on that middle panel. It stands out, for good reason. Despite the rest of the dream taking place during the afternoon, with clear light in the sky and a cloudy purple hued sky, the sky in that second panel is pitch black and dotted with stars. And below the baby, there's this light purple grid.
It's not random, we're being shown a time and location we know. That's the exact roofing of Steph’s house, we're looking at Stephs rooftop, at night.
We've seen this time and location before, during Stephs pregnancy, way back in Robin #58, when Steph first questions whether or not she should keep her baby.
This is it, this is the moment. We saw Steph first question how she could give up her baby on this roof, and now, as her baby plummets into an identical scene, right before Stephanie wakes up, we're getting our answer.
But this isn't the only time we see this setting during Stephs pregnancy.
Secret Origins 80 Page Special
The second scene with this framing is a flashback, to a young Steph, sitting on the roof of her house alone, looking at the moon. The attached dialogue is Steph’s narration explaining how she used to dream that she’d see Batman some day. This is a scene about faith and hope. About dreams, about wanting to get saved.
So why do we see the same roof and sky again, for the third and final time during Steph’s pregnancy arc while her baby falls?
Stephanie’s dream sequence is a checklist of reasoning for why she can’t keep her baby. She is reflecting her own childhood onto the baby and she is concluding not enough has changed, she is suspecting her baby could very well be subject to the same circumstances.
And it culminates in this final moment. Crystal, while more present than ever is still not fully reliable in Steph's mind. Arthur is on the loose and as sadistic as ever. The heroes can show up, but they can’t save her baby, just like Batman couldn’t save Steph on that rooftop years and years ago. Just like then, it’s down to Steph on her own. Thats why when she lunges out for her baby, the baby is falling onto that rooftop. It’s both a reminder of the question Steph is stuck considering and an explanation for how she reaches her answer.
Because she can’t rely on anyone else, because she has to leap out, reach out, save her baby, and ultimately that look of horror as the baby falls isn’t a look of anticipation, it’s a look of utter and horrific acceptance. I don’t think Steph believes she reached her baby in time. I think Steph doesn’t think she can save her baby at all.
Steph is a very proactive character. It's strange to see her hesitate towards action, and extremely strange to see that when that action is saving someone from danger. But she's indecisive throughout her pregnancy, and she's helpless throughout her dream sequence until the very last second. Even donning the Spoiler costume doesn't help. She's helpless in this dream.
So, checklist gone through, conclusions drawn, Steph wakes up and makes the only decision she can, the decision which goes against her very nature: Stephanie lets go.
Hey, shout-out to Marvel who made their (at the time) front runner, most popular and profitable hero into a domestic abuser by accident. And I don't mean "accident" as in a writer made a bad character decision that was signed off on, I mean "accident" as in there was a literal miscommunication between the writer and the artist.
Can you imagine suddenly becoming a wife-beater because two of your gods missed a memo? Wild.
BUT! Instead of retconning this, the team leaned into it, made it lore that Ant-Man's tech was giving him mental problems and emotional instability. He faced consequences and had to struggle with himself as a hero and as a person. It's a fucking great plotline, it's a fantastic story hook!
It's depth and recognition of brain disorders and loving someone and divorcing them anyway because you have to put on your own oxygen mask first. It's realizing that your long-term plans are crashing down around you because of a physical injury no one can fix. It's an identity crisis. It's losing friends because being a caretaker is hard.
It's retiring a character for legit in-world reasons and allowing someone else to take up a symbol. It's about creating a legacy.
Marvel lost a major money-maker during this time, but holy shit did they get to tell a story.
This is the stuff I think about when I get frustrated with DC's restarts and quick retcons; what kind of intense, personal storylines could we have seen play out if they just allowed their characters to make those mistakes? Take those terrible actions?
I don't want to see something awful handwaved into "it didn't actually happen", I want to peel open a character's mindset and motives and understand why it did. Give me the introspection. Give me the reasons. Give me them acknowledging mistakes.
Okay, hear me out. I know it's not canon that Jason drugged the other Titans during the Titans Tower Incident; he electrocuted two of them and then drugged the third.
But we're playing in the au's like bitch whatever, DC retcons and rewrites at the slightest provocation and we are here for stories, right?
And a lot of Titan's Tower au's have Red Hood drugging more people than in canon. And every time it happens there's an absolutely terrible little voice in the back of my head going, "Jason is so lucky that no one he drugged was hiding a substance abuse issue like Roy did. Jason is so lucky that none of these teenagers-to-young-adults who are incredibly physically active and who have so many traumas took some physician-prescribed, completely legal pain medications or anxiety pills or muscle relaxants. He is so lucky that any daily upkeep medication didn't cause a catastrophic drug interaction with the unknown. Heck, Jason is so lucky that whatever drugs he used were perfectly tailored to each individual's body mass and species."
I'm not saying I want a fic where Jason accidentally makes a young hero OD, but I think it would be interesting and darkly funny if Tim made him think he might have.
"You drugged everyone? Wait, even (X)?! What did you use, did you check to see if they took their benzos before you drugged them? (Y) Is allergic to propofol, was that part of the stuff you used?"
"Look, you can have the fight you want, just let me make you none of my friends are choking on their own vomit first."
Hey, friendo! ( ꈍᴗꈍ) April 27th is coming up! (✿^‿^)
Doesn't that make you want to
Celebrate? (✷‿✷)
But no fr, there probably going to be a ton of angst fics dumped into the world all at once soon, maybe you've got a more fun prompt somewhere to offset the coming storm of grief?
Someone bully me into writing
Red Hood has 100% heard Tim and Bernard being freaky and broken into their place thinking that an assault was in progress.
Shots were definitely fired.
Hello, yes, can I get uhhhh an Outsiders-View fic of the general Crime Alley population slowly gaining respect for the weird yellow-haired kid who's apparently banging Red Robin into a new state of existence?
No one knows exactly who he is, but whenever they see him around they spread the word to stay away from dark alleys. There are some sights goons just don't want to risk seeing; Red Hood might take your eyes for it or something.
More freaky timbern?
Sigh... Do your parents not feed you? Guess I'll have to U_U
SEXUAL CONTENT AHEAD!!!
Bernard and Tim, making out in the corner of a sofa:
Dick, walking in: Hey T... REALLY!? IN THE FAMILY SITTING ROOM!?
Tim, panting as they break for air: Sorry, uno got intense.
Dick: This happened because of an uno game?
Bernard: We'll use any excuse, really.
—
Tim, slipping inside quietly:
Bernard, flicking on the lights: Are you injured?
Tim: No—
Bernard, instantly tackling him to the nearest flat surface to kiss him:
Tim: ?! Woah! Woah, you good? Are you okay?
Bernard: Yeah just really horny, your a#& looks great by the way.
Tim: Oh, okay—
Bernard: Sex?
Tim: Sex. Yeah. Continue.
—
Tam: You never looked at me like that when we dated.
Tim: You walked in on Bernard and I having sex in my office?
Tam: My point stands.
—
Tim, post getting his back blown out: . . . Is it psychological torture to eat a fish in front of a fish?
Bernard, just got done cleaning up: Fish are dumb.
—
Tim, cursing in French mid sex:
Bernard: Oh, that's hot.
—
Jason: Why are you in Crime Alley talkin' to the workin' ladies??
Bernard: I like to ask for tips.
Jason: . . . What?
Bernard: We exchange them, actually.
Jason: . . . YOU ASK THEM HOW TO PLEASURE MY LITTLE BROTHER!?
Bernard: They don't go around telling anyone. We talk politics, too, sometimes.
Jason: You're a weird little man.
Bernard: This little man f-#%$s your little brother!
Jason: i. . . y'know what? I'm with Dick now, STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER, FREAK!
Bernard: MAKE ME!
Jason, pulling out a gun:
Bernard, already running: Poor choice of words!
—
Bernard, sending a photo to the Young Justice group chat of him next to an unconscious, shirtless Tim with the caption "Guess what we just did!":
Kon, immediately replying: Twister.
Bart: Baking.
Cassie: Sex.
Bernard: Actually he got stabbed in the abdomen, he taught me how to do stitches! #CoupleGoals
—
Tim: Ugh, I think I have internal bruising...
Jason: Pfft, get your a#& kicked?
Tim: No, pounded.
Jason:
Tim:
Jason:
Tim:
Jason:
Tim: Karma for what happened at Titans Tower.
Jason:
—
Cass: I fear pregnancy, the loss of autonomy, control of my life? It scares me, the thought...
Tim: Damn, after Bern and I have unsafe sex I usually just pray to Cassie's aunts and uncles and list off the reasons I'd be a terrible parent.
—
Tim: We can either have sex or play Minecraft.
Bernard: . . . This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make.
Tim:
—
Tim, in his Red Robin uniform, straddling Bernard's lap and making out with him in an alleyway:
Bernard, pulling his hair:
Tim: Ugh... We should really stop.
Bernard: Mm, why, love dove? Don't need to if you feel good...
Tim: If we get caught Batman might actually kill you...
Bernard: I'd die a happy man~~
Barbara: Red Robin, you never turned your comm off.
Tim:
Barbara: I turned it off for you when Bernard started talking dirty to you, but you've traumatized Robin, and Batman is on his way.
Bernard: . . Tim?
Tim: F&#$!
—
Bro, lovingly, there was a whole comic series about how Joker manipulated Jason's entire life and rebirth including Catherine's drug habit and him discovering Sheila and just, all of it.
It ended with some heavy implication that fans didn't like much.
It was top-tier Shakespearean-level drama and angst, it just also left Jason fans rabid with upset. There's also been a marked disinterest in stories that imply predetermination lately, in either "good" or "bad" sense, so it left even more people feeling sour.
. . . The Joker is the reason that Jason became Robin. This ain't a theory or anything, this is pure Batman 80's canon, my guys.
So, Joker shoots Dick, boom, no more Robin or whatever, but besides for that—
The museum heist that Ma Gunn was doing, the one that Jason dropped in on and Batman was there for blah blah blah I'm gonna assume you know what I'm talking about.
ANYWAYS That was a job Ma Gunn was hired to do by Joker's goons.
Joker is the reason that Jason became Robin.
. . . Anyways I figured this out while flipping through this thick ahh paperback I got of various Batman comics, and realized "Oh, damn, I got the comics where Bruce meets Jason!"
Score.
(Yes I buy things impulsively, sue me. Please don't, actually, I'm flat broke from buying Batman stuff...)