Dc Universe - Blog Posts

You'd think after so many years of people inside and outside of the force trying to fix things, that the Gotham City PD would be a little less corrupt.

But no, the biggest domestic terrorist in town stays alive because he's also the whitest domestic terrorist in town.

Martha and Jon Kent are trans t4t and that's why they knew how to get new documentation for a space toddler.

So, it's been some time since I read that Justice League arc that has The Batman Who Laughs. Can anyone tell me how canon that dude's existence is nowadays? Because I'm pretty sure that due to time travel, he's the specific reason Superman stopped Batman from killing the Joker after Jason's death.

And did anyone remember what happened to the Rabid Robins? Was one of them confirmed to be an alternate Tim or was that fan speculation? Did they all die or get sent back to their shitty world without being helped or what? I know that his version of Damian got Joker Jr'ed, but I don't remember what happened to him, either.

And the big ask. Is Joker's living body still boobytrapped to release enough Joker Venom to Jokerize whoever is near him when he dies? Because I thought that that was why Batman revived Joker when Nightwing killed him - not just because the act would have wrecked Dick at that point in time but because otherwise Batman, Nightwing, and Robin all would have been in danger.

Like I said, it's been awhile since I read the comic, I might be misremembering things.

StephCass is canon the way the People have responded to official UNO rules

I love the StephCass ship, I just also want to give Cass more choices and chances to slut it up.

Cass's character is a wonderful mess of body autonomy issues, brainwashing, trauma, and stereotypes about disabilities. The fandom paints her as being a pure and innocent creature of mental fortitude and emotional perfection and that's fun to meme on, but in reality?

In reality, get her some hoes. Let her explore herself, let her date around, let her reclaim herself sexually, let her get really toxic with that one ex who shoots up a car when she dumps them.

Have you ever met someone who grew up in an extremely regimented household? You know the type, the ones where the parents need to know where kids are at all the time and who they're with and what they're doing? Home by 8 every evening, no cussing allowed, healthy snacks only, no controversial conversational topics allowed, no films or shows or books or music that hasn't been approved by the parents?

Remember what happens to those kids the moment they start living on their own?

Give Cass that crashout. Please. It makes sense for her character to go unhinged in her civilian life. And not in the comic book sense of Tim's bad year, but in a general "I had a one night stand and found out I also slept with both his sisters earlier this week" kind of disaster.

Do you think Bruce Wayne became written as a worse and worse parent because the idea of what makes a person "Heroic" has changed over the years?

(Cut for rambling)

At the start of Batman comics there was a very clear need for the audience to suspend their disbelief. The comic was very much a story, a reflection of the world where the reader was to be entertained with tales about a strange detective investigating the strange crimes of Gotham City.

Robin was Batman's partner, a new element to the story that appealed to a younger audience. They were a team that brought in a lot of capital. Authors would write heart-rending storylines and at the opposite page there would be a weird cheerful ad for Batman and Robin using fruit pies to stop crime.

Society evolves quickly and our media can struggle to keep up. The notion that children should be protected is a relatively recent one and it makes the inclusion of child heroes become... unpalatable to people. Modern values have changed and so too must the characters.

But applying current social values to the concept of child heroes would erase them.

Their whole existence is to be young and to fight the people who want to hurt them. To be young and be able to protect one's loved ones is a compelling story.

It's not just comic book heroes who fall under this paradox, either. Avatar: The Last Airbender is full of children learning how to fight and die for their world. Percy Jackson is another. Hell, one could even make a case for Warrior Cats. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were facing off with murderers just as often as any kid hero.

It's a common and loved story because we've all been children who have had to carve out a place for ourselves in the world.

So the existence of Robin, of child heroes in general, becomes an awkward duality. The character is too profitable to retire. Many people can still suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the story. Other people struggle to accept that a "hero", a "good Dad", could allow his children to fight at his side.

So authors are tasked again and again to try to explain Robin. To excuse the existence of a child hero in a day and age when most responsible adults would freak the fuck out at the idea of a kid going out at night to fight criminals.

And sometimes, more often than many of us would like, they come up with writing Bruce as a bad parent. A bad leader, even. It doesn't help that writers don't often get to have stories published that have significant influence on Batman as a character. He's purposely, perpetually trapped at one starting position for every new story.

Which is a valid take. In my opinion it's uninspired, but I understand the rationale behind it. They're working against a lot of baggage. There's nearly 90 years of culture shift to account for and hundreds of authors. Even the way comics are written now is very different from back then and that also messes with perceptions.

To me, Bruce is a deeply flawed man. He's been a shitty dad, yes, but not because Robin exists. He didn't have a choice with Robin - that was decided by forces beyond his control. I don't know how to judge canon Bruce Wayne; there are genuinely too many stories for me to feel like I have an accurate read on him.

I know that he tries very hard to do good. I know that he has the potential to make better choices and take kinder actions.

I'm not going to hold my breath, though. Even if we get a canon Batman run where he gets therapy and apologizes for his mistakes and past actions, where he has some real, meaningful dialogue with the people he loves... The next writer can ignore that for a more dramatic plot where he acts like a complete drip.

Pick your preferred version and warp canon to fit that guy - it's what DC does.

Thank the goddess for fanfiction.

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.

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.

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?"

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~

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.

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.

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&#$!

—

Just want to remind the world in general of This Shit lmao

I like to imagine Robane and Red Hood-dressed-as-Robin accidentally meeting each other, having an awkward elevator ride together or something, Spider-Man meme. I feel like Jason would immediately rethink his life choices. New perspective and all that.

Hey, you know what would be absolutely tragic? What if Jason were alive because of traditional ghost story reasons - he cannot rest until he is avenged?

If Jason kills the Joker, or if anyone kills the Joker in Jason's honor, then Jason has to rest in peace whether he wants to or not. That's how the stories go, don't they? The spirit can move on once their Unfinished Business is Finished.

Would it be quick? Would he collapse immediately, like a puppet with his strings cut? Would he feel his heart leap in one last beat of vicious satisfaction?

Or would he feel the gentle embrace creeping up on him slowly, the way his limbs grow stiff and cold. Would he have time to stumble to his family, his team, a friend, a sibling, a lover, and feel the burning heat of a living person hold him as he stutters out confused goodbyes?

It's been so long since his last stay in the coffin, he's rebuilt an entire life. And he's losing it again. Because of the same bastard man.

Just a thought (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

I don't remember whether canon revealed Tim's specific Hit List contingencies or not, I lost that comic book awhile ago.

So I'd like to make shit up and invite people to add to the list. I've said before that I like to imagine that Damian just found the Hit List file and saw himself and immediately went to Nightwing, and I think it'd be funny if the Hit List was actually either A) Tim's customized playlists for everyone or B) the stupidest plans that might work as a mockery of Batman's contingency list.

In this episode I want to focus on option B, what would be on the Stupid Plans List if someone goes evil.

Damian - erase his Cheese Viking saves. Tell him his sketches of Batman are technically furry art. Buy him Robux???

Dick - lead him to Gotham zoo, get him to the elephants. Strategically leave powdered sedatives on ground, hope he licks? Dress as Jaybin, talk him down as hallucination.

Jason - just cut my own throat this time fuck.

Bruce - call Clark. Call Diana.

Cass - aw shit here we go again

Steph - Join. As a treat.

Cassie, Kon, Bart - all else fails, Core Four Suicide Pact 👍

Ra's - tell him I'll be his heir if he wins an MMORPG of my choice. Maybe he'll forget to Lazarus bathe?

Man, sometimes I read a fic where their version of Superman is so flat he couldn't even cause a papercut and the favored characters are all "Superman is the type of person who always thinks he's doing the right thing" and "Superman doesn't accept criticism" and "Superman is a bumbling farm boy hick stupid head" and "the Justice League is a bunch of elitist hacks and their club is only to hype themselves up because narcissism".

And I gotta. Like. Okay? That's a take, I guess. That's an opinion. It always takes me out of the story though, because it's presented as a known fact of the world of the fic despite little to no indication of those truths being reflected in the rest of the fic. It's a weird whiplash and it always leaves me almost ravenously curious as to what influenced this perception.

Sometimes it's explained as an unreliable narrator, sometimes an author's note will shrug off responsibility with "someone has to be the asshole lol", and sometimes it seems to be really and truly genuine and that is fascinating to me. I want to know the why's. I want to take them for coffee and listen to their perspectives. I want to understand.

One of my favorite Batman and Superman team up comics has a pre-jl storyline where they don't trust each other just yet. And because they don't trust each other, they both leap to save the life of a criminal being thrown out a window - they can't be sure the other won't just let this awful person die "accidentally". And because they were both distracted by that, an innocent hostage ran into the street in a panic and was struck and killed by a truck.

It was such a needless death. It was so bullshit and pointless. Both Superman and Batman recognized the need for trust, the need to let themselves be known enough, vulnerable enough, to not have this happen again.

And can y'all imagine how both their stories might have changed if future writers, canon and fanfic alike, kept that character growth in mind?

This is extremely niche, but I love a fic that has social media aspects. (The Crime Alley Kid series, with the oc's addiction to Reddit comes to mind) I love the unique way that Twitter fics get to tell us a story in piecemeal stages, by conversation. I love the worlds where the Bats get to be tiktok cryptids, as a treat. I fucking adore when Jason comes back from the dead and updates his fanfics (raven_of_hydecastle has an amazing version of this).

It's a new form of storytelling and that's so rare. It's amazing and so cool and I love it.

Anyway, someone should consider writing one about Jason secretly writing OCxRed Hood mpreg fanfics and cheerfully getting into flame wars with people criticizing him for writing smut about real people.

Sure, it's weird. He doesn't care; he's got a kink and he's fulfilling it in a creative and healthy fashion. He might not even be embarrassed if anyone finds out. "You found my AO3 account, Oracle? And what were you doing at the Devil's Sacrament? So? What are you going to do about it? Tell anybody and the next story is going to be about you getting me pregnant; body hacking could be hot."

Jason is the most impregnate-able Bat because we all know by instinct that he'd rearrange his entire life to take care of his kid.

He's not just a Daddy, he's a Father. He would nurture the fuck outta that kid. He would read all the most accredited books, he'd be active on the parenting blogs, he'd be there at the PTA meetings.

Jason would be that special mix of terrified and excited to help this child grow up. He's the parent that a kid won't be too afraid to call when they've done something really stupid and they need help now. He's the parent who will work so hard during arguments to try to say the right thing.

We can all see Jason "Get Him Pregnant" Todd being such a loving dad at every milestone in his kid's life that we can't help but want to give him that kid.

(This message was sponsored by the supporters of @arandomao3user's campaign to get Jason Todd Pregnant.)