Thinking About Calling Jason Todd ‘angel’. He Loves A Good Pet Name, Uses All Kinds Of Variations

Janet Dark is neglectful and Jack Drake is abusive if out.

My proposition is that the Drake family is now the DC's version of the Addams family. Jack is the physical manifestation of an ancient curse on an antique silver vase Janet (an obsessed historian) bought off Etsy (from John Constantine). Tim is a small Victorian boy who accidentally got sent to Hell and when returned to Earth a couple of centuries later (he charmed the satanic staff), got his papers mixed up and ended up in Gotham Bristol instead of the English one and got promptly adopted by the newly-wed Drakes.

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

Wait kryptonian fangies…. Does that mean Clark also has fangies? And follow up because if so I feel he’d be more shy about them most of the time, does he do a kinda half smile to not flash them around to everyone?

Clark definitely has fangies. He's been very insecure about them for a long time so, yes, he tends to half smile to hide them. But with time, especially around the Justice League, he began to feel more confident and the other heroes can definitely see his kryptonian fangs when he laughs now.

Bruce definitely wishes he could have fangs too. Who can blame him? It fits his aesthetic.

i personally have very complicated feelings on the Gotham Knights video game and the routes it takes with characterization. i think it has a charm to it and it goes in an interesting direction with everyone (especially within the confides of the plot of the game) but it does have certain moments that veer painfully fanon for me. (such as: the dialogue where Tim drinks too much coffee) it's an interesting story for what it is but i don't view it comics-based for characterization and therefore don't care to interact with it much for like. fanfic purposes.

that *said* though. i do have to give the game some kind of credit for giving one of the top five JayTim moments that lives rent free in my mind. every since i played the game, the cutscene lives in my mind daily. it's the specific cutscene where Jason and Tim are arguing about whether or not Jason's non-lethal bullets are too dangerous for the field, and the argument leads to TIm *standing in front of the target* Jason is shooting and telling Jason to shoot him. it lives rent free for me. i never stop thinking about this.

the absolute certainty Tim has that he is in no danger standing in front of Jason, who has a loaded gun pointed at his face. the way Jason *hesitates* for just a moment before lowering the gun. he thinks about it for just a second. Gotham Knights JayTim seem to get along very well and can rely on each other, but Jason still clearly holds a bitterness about his death and Tim that flickers through in some lines of dialogue under the guise of jokes. especially since this game deals *heavily* with concepts of Pit Madness causing an altered state of consciousness, i think it's believable that occasionally, Jason fights the urge to fight and hurt Tim for the feeling of being replaced.

i like their tension so much in this canon. they get along but you can *tell* Tim is afraid of addressing Jason's trauma or even addressing Jason head-on, and Jason leans into spooking Tim about it. which isn't very comics feeling in their dynamic, but it is an interesting way to place their dynamic if you're playing with a more timid Tim who's newer to the role of Robin. (which he seems to be in-game) he really doesn't want to offend Jason, or worse, piss him off. but he'll still face Jason head on for things like this, while completely aware of what Jason could be capable of.

and Jason seems very protective of Tim and respecting Tim as a Robin in typical Jason fashion. if Tim pushes, Jason *will* relent. he knows this is a kid who's proved himself and should be treated with equal respect, sometimes even more than Dick and Babs do in-game.

so for all that to culminate in Tim stepping in front of Jason's loaded gun that he *knows* is on the edge of being too dangerous, just to force Jason to listen? it's the most unhinged way Tim could've gotten his point across in this scene. he was literally daring Jason to hurt him and playing with a very dangerous fire. but he did it anyway bc he believed he could make Jason heel just at the thought of hurting Tim. and he was *right*. they're gay and i'm feral ty.

Got an interesting take on eldritch horror for all you writers out there. It's a bit of a roundabout schlep to reach the actual idea, but writers tend to be readers so I hold you'll stick with me til we get there.

So, consider a 2D creature. Little flat dude, living on the ground. No concept of "up" or "down." He's 2D, he just doesn't parse the concepts and can't perceive them anyways.

He sees you. What he actually sees is just the 2D cross section of you where you intersect with his 2D world, which is probably your footprints. So, as far as he can tell, you are a pair of footprints that are.... apparently one being? He doesn't get how it works exactly, but it's not too far out there, so he just kind of accepts that, yes, humans are The Two That Are One. Spooky. They always seem to use the singular to refer to the pair of themselves, and only differentiate between themselves as Left or Right. But other paired instances of The Two That Are One are, in fact, separate entities. So they're only in sets of two, unless accompanied by a companion called "Cane," which they are sometimes, or even a pair of companions called "Crutches." When Crutches are present, sometimes one of The Two That Are One will be missing entirely. It's a little confusing.

But wait, what now? They disappear and reappear in sequence, teleporting in turns. He never sees them just move like a 2D being, always the stop-start teleporting. Apparently this strange power is called "walking," and its accomplished by The Two That Are One moving through an unseen dimension called "Up," through a process called "lifting" themselves and re-entering the real world farther away in the direction they wanted to go. He can accept the idea of unseen dimensions, and he vaguely gets the idea that one of The Two That Are One must remain anchored in the real world to prevent something called "falling," which is some kind of uncontrolled movement through the unperceivable dimension of "Down." Which is the same dimension as "Up," but...... backwards? Reversed? He's not really clear, but "Falling Down" is presumably bad, so The Two That Are One keep one of themselves here in the real world to prevent it.

Except if they do something called "jumping." Which consists of gathering up their power to hurl themselves through the Up dimension together to reappear together somewhere else in the real world. He isn't sure why they Walk instead of Jump, since it seems better to take both of The Two That Are One together at the same time, but okay.

Okay, what the hell, they can Walk through impenetrable barriers like the great wall of Sidewalk Chalk? How do they go through that? What? They went "Over?" The hell is "Over?" Like 'around' but through the unseen dimension of Up? But they couldn't Walk through the barrier of Wall. Why could they go "Over" Sidewalk Chalk but not Wall?

And they can't go between the four small obstacles of Refrigerator Feet. The area between them is safe from The Two That Are One, for the four Refrigerator Feet are connected to each other in the strange and eldritch dimension of Up. The barriers are too powerful to be moved by The Two That Are One, and it (they?) cannot enter the real world where it is blocked by such powerful forces.

Got all that?

Okay, now consider a 4 dimensional elder god and how we 3D entities would perceive them.

Tim's Ao3 AU

just got the image of tim writing red hood x oc fanfic but the oc is basically tim/red robin and each time the A/N is like

"sorry no beta im mid-shoot out with some gang leaders atm"

and the content ranges from super fluffy to the most degenerative porn wanting to lick his skull and the authors notes are like

"heey sorry for the slow update i got shot again and im forced on bed rest but now i have an excuse to work on the next chapters!!"

now i want a fic where its like

it gets more and more outrageous, and the comments are just people debating whether its real or not and then there's 1 comment.

that comment is like.

"Pick Up Your Phone, Now. -D"

and tims like

"::) im in trouble::)"

theres one person dissing out the red hood and how he's so terrible and will never actually deserve someone loving him and tim replies with

"Loompa Roompa might malfunction for a while"

and the person is like *how the fuck do you know the name of my roombah what the hell is this why it's been turning on and off at night what the fuck*"

tims username is pretty bird or somth bcs thats what jason called him at least once before and hes like yes i can be pretty and a bird i can be whatever you want me to be

(totes not because thats what jason always calls tim in my head no no)

dick just really, really wants answers but also is deeply, deeply concerned

"tim you had a 20k fic of red hood lovingly taking care of you and hugging you like you'd never been hugged before. are you like, okay?"

"you.. you read all of that?"

"that's besides the point. now answer the question"

"i dont know how to feel about this"

"how do you think i feel? i didnt need to know about any of it"

"and yet you do. curiosity killed the cat, dick."

"alright i wont bother you if you promise to talk with dinah or some jl approved therapist about... the hugging touch starved things. if you dont tho ill just send jason your ao3 account babs said he has one so he can see all your shit'

"i think i would feel better if you just stabbed me"

dick makes a lemon bitten face.

"..."

"..."

"you saw that too, huh."

"yep."

"i dont have a kink for being stabbed. i have a jason fetish. just him and whatever he decides to do to me so dont worry i wont be out getting stabbed by randos"

"I'm glad but also i wanna circle back to the jason fetish part i feel like thats something i should worry about"

20k fanfic where tim just rants about jasons soft hoodie

jason, meanwhile, he sees someone w the username idk PrettyBirdRedHoos in his comments and hes concerned someone figured out he was robin but goes to look and this persons bookmarks are all just fics written by a 'PrettyBird" user and all of them are red hood/oc, and some of them is like; piercing kink, some of them are 20k fics where the oc falls asleep wearing their hoodie, one of them is a very specific scenario where the red hood 'playfully attacks' the OC on top of a tall building and they fuck nasty and jay is like

this. is too detailed. to be a coincidence innit.

and the comments are just people debating how real these scenarios are and every single person that disses RH has something hacked or exposed and jays like 'ah. well, timmy certainly has a hobby."

he could tell him that he knows.

he could also choose to be an absolute tease. forget a hoodie there, wear some bootyshorts here, not wear a binder while wearing a tank-top here, spit out a specific phrase tims used in a fic before just to keep him on his toes. it's fun watching him squirm.

Bruce Wayne: any religion you want, really

So for Reasons, I had to figure out Bruce Wayne’s religious affiliations or lack thereof. The resulting tangle was impressive, and mostly left me going, “Comics authors sure fail to think through the implications of their backstory decisions a lot!” I meant to do a full fancy post with a dozen citations. I have misplaced all of those citations and the hour has come, so I’m going to wing it and tell you what I’ve got with no evidence whatsoever. Anyone who wants to throw them on in replies (either “here’s the issue where” or “here’s a good clearinghouse article”) is obviously welcome.

1) The Waynes (historically) are definitely Episcopalian, both by the general religious affiliations of their location/race/class and the crosses in most depictions of his parents’ graves.

2) Frank Miller made him Catholic. But Frank Miller makes a lot of people Catholic. Most people who make him Catholic do so via his mother, and let Thomas Wayne stay Episcopalian.

3) Kate Kane is Jewish. Kate Kane, his cousin via his mother’s brother, is practicing Jewish with Jewish parents and had a Bat Mitzvah and everything. Kate Kane is almost definitely Jewish via a family tree that makes Bruce Wayne matrilineally Jewish, and the nature of that inheritance is he doesn’t have to claim it if he doesn’t want to, but yeah, he is as Jewish as he says he is. Even if he wakes up tomorrow feeling Jewish and has never said it before in his life.

4) Bruce Wayne claimed in a 2018 comic to have ditched faith when his parents died, so he can also be as atheist as you want him to be.

5) Bruce Wayne did the whole world-tour weeks-of-silent-meditation thing, so if you want him to have latched onto Zen philosophy, it’s entirely defensible; it doesn’t require belief in any new gods and the principle of Right Action is very large in his life whether or not he formally subscribes to it.

—

None of these things have to conflict except possibly “which one he subscribes to at this exact moment,” and even then several of them can stack. The stickiest possible point is his mother’s faith, and this is the very easy path that makes all of these things true, courtesy of my nerdy Canadian first reader, Maribou:

In Montreal in particular, and many other cities in general, there are both large Catholic and large Jewish populations, which were crammed close together by societal prejudice for a long time and which had multiple wealthy and powerful families of their own even under that stress, such as the Bronfmans. There were a lot of intermarriages, and a common result was children being encouraged to choose a religious path after a thorough education in their parents’ options. (Basically, “It’s time to schedule either your Confirmation or your Bat Mitzvah, which venue should we book?”)

So a Bronfman woman and a Kane man could easily have married and had a bunch of kids including Martha Kane and Jacob Kane. Martha may (or may not!) have picked a Confirmation. Jacob definitely picked a Bar Mitzvah. All of these things can be true.

When I was discussing this with a Jewish person, she said she knew of a relative of exactly Martha Wayne’s (original) generation who was practicing Jewish until her marriage to a Protestant and then just… never talked about it again. If she practiced, she practiced privately. It disappeared utterly from her public life. That was a not-uncommon occurrence in that era.

The odds are that Bruce was raised moderately-disinterested Episcopalian, by the matching crosses. But he is arguably an Episcopally baptized, matrilineally Jewish atheist who subscribes to Zen and has inherited a bone-deep taste for Catholic passion plays. All of these things can be true without even cancelling each other out.

In the words of Frank Miller (who I agree with for once), “He’s kind of like a diamond. You can throw him against the wall and you can pound him with a hammer, but you can’t break him. Every interpretation seems to work. […] You can do it badly, but you can’t really do it wrong.”

You Are Made of Stardust

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars.

The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

The first generation of stars formed from this material. There’s so much heat and pressure in a star’s core that they can fuse atoms together, forming new elements. Our DNA is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. All those elements (except hydrogen, which has existed since shortly after the big bang) are made by stars and released into the cosmos when the stars die.

Each star comes with a limited fuel supply. When a medium-mass star runs out of fuel, it will swell up and shrug off its outer layers. Only a small, hot core called a white dwarf is left behind. The star’s cast-off debris includes elements like carbon and nitrogen. It expands out into the cosmos, possibly destined to be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. New life may be born from the ashes of stars.

Massive stars are doomed to a more violent fate. For most of their lives, stars are balanced between the outward pressure created by nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. When a massive star runs out of fuel and its nuclear processes die down, it completely throws the star out of balance. The result? An explosion!

Supernova explosions create such intense conditions that even more elements can form. The oxygen we breathe and essential minerals like magnesium and potassium are flung into space by these supernovas.

Supernovas can also occur another way in binary, or double-star, systems. When a white dwarf steals material from its companion, it can throw everything off balance too and lead to another kind of cataclysmic supernova. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study these stellar explosions to figure out what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion. 

This kind of explosion creates calcium – the mineral we need most in our bodies – and trace minerals that we only need a little of, like zinc and manganese. It also produces iron, which is found in our blood and also makes up the bulk of our planet’s mass!

A supernova will either leave behind a black hole or a neutron star – the superdense core of an exploded star. When two neutron stars collide, it showers the cosmos in elements like silver, gold, iodine, uranium, and plutonium.

Some elements only come from stars indirectly. Cosmic rays are nuclei (the central parts of atoms) that have been boosted to high speed by the most energetic events in the universe. When they collide with atoms, the impact can break them apart, forming simpler elements. That’s how we get boron and beryllium – from breaking star-made atoms into smaller ones.

Half a dozen other elements are created by radioactive decay. Some elements are radioactive, which means their nuclei are unstable. They naturally break down to form simpler elements by emitting radiation and particles. That’s how we get elements like radium. The rest are made by humans in labs by slamming atoms of lighter elements together at super high speeds to form heavier ones. We can fuse together elements made by stars to create exotic, short-lived elements like seaborgium and einsteinium.

From some of the most cataclysmic events in the cosmos comes all of the beauty we see here on Earth. Life, and even our planet, wouldn’t have formed without them! But we still have lots of questions about these stellar factories. 

In 2006, our Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth containing tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away – the first star dust to ever be collected from space and returned for study. You can help us identify and study the composition of these tiny, elusive particles through our Stardust@Home Citizen Science project.

Our upcoming Roman Space Telescope will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies, all while exploring many other cosmic questions. Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

I think we're all ready for Tim Drake to move on from the Robin codename and costume and take on a new identity just like he had right before New 52. However, while I liked the costume... the name? Red Robin? It wasn't the best. Certainly better than other names that have been suggested for him (looking at you... Drake) but it still didn't give him his own identity, you know? Red is Jason's color, and he's still clutching tight to the Robin mantle. Hell, even the costume he wore was originally worn by Jason during the Countdown series before Final Crisis.

I want him to have his own name. His own costume. His own color.

And then I saw Juni Ba's interpretation of the Red Robin suit and... it hit me -

Condor.

The wings, the curved shape of the helmet looking like a beak... it would be so easy to translate this design into a new costume for Tim. Especially since it looks like a condor more than a Robin. Especially since the symbol he wore while Red Robin never 'looked' like a Robin.

And yes there are questions -

Isn't there already a hero named Condor? Yes. Two heroes and a villain. However we haven't heard much about them in recent comics. Black Condor, to my knowledge, currently only exists on Earth X as there's yet to be a Freedom Fighters team on the main DC Earth even after Heavy Metal. The other Condor was last seen during the New 52 run of Birds of Prey. And the villain Condor exists as a Hawk parallel who, let's be honest, we will most likely never see again.

Why Condor? Aren't there other names, similar names, you could use? Yes, these similar names exist, but it wouldn't sound right or be feasible in the current comics universe. Hawk? Already exists, Hank Hall. Vulture? Villain name. Raptor? Already taken by a Nightwing Rogue. Falcon? Hero for Marvel.

The only name I could also see other than Condor is Eagle, which would also be a great nod to Alfred Pennyworth, but the symbolism of Eagle is also too wrapped up with the government that it would muddle the messaging and vigilante brand.

Condor, however, makes perfect sense.

And you wouldn't have to tweak the costume much! My only thing would be to change the color from red... to green.

Green is currently an unclaimed color amongst the Bat Family and I think Tim would rock it. We've seen him leaning on the color green more and more as Robin, ironic as his most famous costume is when he ditched green all together after Superboy's death. Him choosing green, reclaiming green, would show him fully stepping out from the shadows to be his own hero.

Tl; dr Tim Drake should take on a new codename, Condor, wear a suit similar to Juni Ba's design, but green.