21 years old; Irish; Autistic; They/she; Mainly write longfic with heavy usage of OCs, obscure lore, and neglected canon characters I believe deserved better. My software of choice is Scrivener and Dropbox.
Mainly write about which of my current special interests I'm hyperfixating on, so my workflow isn't as consistent as other writers. I write when my brain allows, and sometimes that means 5 updates a month, and sometimes it means 1 update a year. The trade-off is that by doing it this way, each update has actual effort/quality as opposed to forcing myself to adhere to a schedule to the story's deficit.
My main special interests I cycle through are Twisted Wonderland, FFXIV, Elden Ring, and of course DC Comics (particularly Captain Marvel/Shazam!). The majority of these fandoms are extremely lore dense, which is reflected in my style of writing, which favours longfics, so expect my work to be wordy.
My fics tend to be on the more canon-compliant side, I like to write what I wished to see in the original, for example. For now, my work is plot heavy, with most relationships being platonic in nature. However, I may explore romance in the future.
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Jason and Dick talking about habits they had as kids and Dick brings up âyou used to really like stealing our clothes, but you donât really do it anymore.â and Jasonâs like âwell yeah i liked borrowing clothes from family members that were bigger than me because it made me feel safe. now if i take your shirts iâll stretch them out.â and Dick gets really depressed for a few minutes until Jason shrugs and goes âitâs ok though, i still have some options. this cardigan is Raâs and heâs really mad i brought it to Gotham with me.â and suddenly Dick is less sad than he is indignantly enraged because what the fuck do you mean youâre wearing Raâs Al Ghulâs cardigans to fucking feel safe-
i just like to think about how every now and then Jason will drop tiny reminders that he was fully adopted into the Al Ghul family and views them as such and it will never fail to piss off the #1 Al Ghul hater Dick Grayson to no end.
In the comics, Tim Drake's moral code is an enigma to me, particularly his stance on the Batclan's no-kill rule. For all the fans who say he's always one step away from full blown villainy, there are even more saying he's a strict goody two-shoes who could never stoop that low.
Then there's the different takes on where Tim draws the line between these two extremes. Personally, I find that line hard to pinpoint. Digging for canon demonstrations of his morals has lead me to more questions than answers. My biggest question right now is:
What counts as breaking the no-kill rule in Tim's eyes?
Luckily, the Robins 2021 comics shed some light on this. In issue #3, "Tim", or rather an imposter of him, said that choosing not to save someone isn't the same as killing them, and that letting a villain die can be a way to get justice. Normally, this point would be moot since it's not Tim himself who said it. However, at the end of issue #6, the real Tim clarified that what the imposter said WAS his real opinion on the matter.
Not only that, but Tim has shown this belief through his thoughts and actions before. Twice.
The first time goes all the way back to Robin 1991 #5. During the fight against King Snake, Tim kicked him through a nearby window, fifty stories above the ground. As King Snake's life hung in the balance, Shiva appeared and commanded Tim to kill him.
Tim refused. He walked away, leaving King Snake entirely at Shiva's mercy.
What gets me is that Tim made no move to save King Snake from falling. And he made no effort to stop Shiva from committing the murder, either. His only thought as he heard the man's scream was "Fifty stories is a long way to fall."
The second time was in Red Robin 2009 #26. Tim orchestrated a whole plan to manipulate Captain Boomerang into getting killed by Mr. Freeze. The whole time, Tim blamed Captain Boomerang for making all those bad choices, despite Tim being the one raising the chances of them being made. Tim believed he was innocent because he wasn't directly participating.
Tim then stopped that plan, but not for any noble reason. He decided that he couldn't let anyone else kill Captain Boomerang but himself.
Tim couldn't bring himself to do that, either. So he had to spare his father's killer in the end.
This seems pretty cut and dry so far, right? Tim believing that letting villains die is alright as long he doesn't do the deed himself? I'd think so too, if there weren't other moments contradicting this.
In Robin #35, Steph insisted on leaving an enemy who got buried under the snow to die. Tim chastised her for it.
Neither of them were responsible for the snow, or for the enemy getting trapped in it. Plus, that guy tried to kill them with a chainsaw moments prior, so he's not exactly an innocent damsel in distress.
Maybe it was because this enemy wasn't a big enough fish to fry. We didn't really get confirmation that this guy has actually killed before, and he's around goon status at best.
But then in Robin #46, Tim chose to save another enemy who got himself into a deadly situation. That enemy was a murderer known as Young El. This time, Tim wasn't telling anyone else why they should save a murderer's life out loud. These were his private thoughts.
Notice how Tim's inner monologue sounded kind of on-the-fence. He contemplated justice finally catching up with Young El as the floorboards gave way, bringing a support beam down on him in the process.
However, Tim immediately switched gears to rescue Young El from under that beam before the water rose too high.
But Tim, as he told Young El the reasons he's saving him, asked himself "Do I even believe what I'm saying?" He could be asking this about two different things he said here. A) "Maybe it's not too late for you to learn something, Young El.", or B) "Death's easier for you when it's the other guy. Death's never been easy for me."
For Tim to doubt his belief in either of these statements is very interesting. He could be questioning if Young El is already too far gone for redemption, or he could be questioning if seeing someone die has never been easy for himself. For all we know, it could be both.
Unfortunately, Tim never got to see if his choice to save him would pay off. Tim wasn't strong enough to lift that beam, and Young El drowned.
There's a question on my mind as I read these pages. What makes this murderer's death different from when Tim let King Snake fall to his "death"? Sure, King Snake didn't actually die, but Tim didn't know that until later when the man came looking for revenge in Gotham.
Tim was once able to simply walk away from what he was certain would be a killer's demise. But then he's consumed by guilt over not being able to prevent a different killer's death down the line, to the point of hallucinating.
On top of that, what changed Tim's mind later? Red Robin #26 and Robins 2021 #3-6 still happened in the future. The only significant difference I can tell is that these two comics involved the killer's of Tim's parents, making it personal. But if the Imposter from Robins 2021 got his beliefs from his profile before his mother's killer got involved, then does that still hold up?
Maybe we should put a pin on it for now. There are other things Tim's done that brings the details of his no-kill rule into question.
Such as that one time Tim actually killed someone with his bare hands.
In Robin issues #51-52, Tim accidentally killed Lady Shiva while drugged on amarilla, a plant that enhances the user's speed beyond human limitations.
It may be argued if the amarilla altered Tim's mind enough to excuse him of fault or not. However, I want to focus on what happened after Shiva was revived. Here's another question to go with the first one:
Does Tim believe the kill still counts if the victim was revived afterwards?
From what I've gathered, yes and no. It's kind of complicated.
After Tim killed Shiva, he was understandably distressed about it, about how he can never take it back.
But after Shiva came back to life? Nothing. He didn't dwell on the fact he broke the vow to never kill. For something that devastating to happen in his life, it's odd that Tim didn't bring it up ever again, privately or otherwise. Especially considering what happened later in Robin #123, when Tim thought he killed Johnny Warlock.
Tim was utterly inconsolable. He lost all faith in his abilities as Robin, and in himself as a whole. It also contributed to his decision to quit being Robin after his dad found out. In general, he seriously dwelled on that "kill" for a much longer time than he had after killing Shiva. The difference being that he knew Shiva was resuscitated immediately afterwards, while Tim didn't know Johnny survived until issue #141.
But there's the fact that Shiva really did die. Her heart and breathing both stopped. So are we to believe Tim moved on from that so easily because she's alive now? What happened to never getting that back?
Come to think of it, not long after Tim killed and revived Shiva, there was someone else who landed in that same boat. Dick.
In Joker: The Last Laugh #6, Dick brutally attacked the Joker after believing he killed Tim. Dick ended up accidentally killing Joker instead, before the clown was resuscitated.
Here's the thing. While Tim was trying to comfort Dick, saying that it's ok because Joker's alive now, Dick didn't believe so. He was still distraught that he killed someone. The fact Joker came back to life afterwards didn't matter to him. To Dick, it still counted. So what does that say about Tim?
Before we move on, there's another person Tim knows who also died and came back from the grave. Jason.
Tim openly acknowledged Jason was killed before coming back, too. Multiple times. For example, when they met up in Red Hood and the Outlaws 2011 #8.
Tim hadn't shown any signs that he thinks Jason's murder doesn't count anywhere, except for maybe once.
In Knight Terrors: Robin #2, Tim and Jason had a heart-to-heart, and Tim said something strange.
"You survived."
Except Jason didn't survive. He died. To say Jason survived that night would've meant he never died to begin with. Him being alive now doesn't change that. Was this Tim telling a white lie to make Jason feel better? Or does Tim see being revived after death as "surviving"?
Ok, now we can move onto the next question. Or rather, bear with me as we go back to the first question. It's a broad topic with plenty more to talk about.
What does Tim count as breaking the no-kill rule?
We already asked how Tim feels about bringing villains back from the dead after killing them. And we asked how Tim feels about leaving a villain to die without getting directly involved. However, we still don't know how much involvement Tim needs to have in an enemy's death before he'll take responsibility for it.
We can confirm he won't mercy kill in Red Robin #21, even if it means giving someone a fate worse than death. No exceptions.
Tim also doesn't allow anyone he's actively teaming up with to kill, especially if he's the one in command. He's been amicable with known killers before (Huntress and Pru, for example), but only when they remain non-lethal while working alongside him.
Apart from that, though, it becomes less clear. However, I think this is a good place to expand on when Tim blew up a lot of League of Assassins bases in Red Robin #8.
I'm not going into whether or not those explosions actually killed anyone. I've seen evidence supporting both sides of this debate, so I'm just going to say it's up to interpretation. What I AM talking about is whether or not Tim would've felt responsible if they had killed someone.
Before overloading every generator in the LOA database, Tim gave a warning to the Wanderer. He told her that he couldn't be held responsible for what would happen to her if she didn't leave.
After initiating the explosions, Tim warned the White Ghost that they had fifteen seconds to leave before it was too late.
Fifteen seconds. That explanation on the mistake of letting him in might've taken roughly another fifteen to twenty seconds. Did the other bases even get a full minute head start? The way some of the people were already running away could imply they at least got a warning, but it's possible they might not have.
Even if everyone in every base received a warning, would that be enough for Tim to avoid holding himself accountable if they didn't make it out in time? Tim's the one who rigged the bases to explode, but I guess giving someone a warning means it's now their fault for not heeding it?
We can't be sure he even considered the possibility of those explosions killing anyone. Tim knew they were dangerous enough to bring the whole Cradle down, and the other ones we saw looked pretty powerful (except the ones in Ra's hideout). But Tim also called Ra's a murderer right after that happened, which would've been very hypocritical if Tim himself thought he committed murder.
So, my guess is either A) Tim relied on sheer luck for those explosions not causing any casualties and chose to believe they hadn't, or B) Tim didn't believe the deaths of anyone caught in them would be his fault.
Again, this isn't about whether or not blowing up the LOA bases killed anyone. It's about how willing Tim was to take that risk, and if he would've blamed himself for anyone getting killed from it.
Either way, it's canon that Tim had no guilt for the explosions he caused, or for anything he did before Red Robin #22. Just ask the Sword of Sin.
This is an exerpt I got from the Fandom DC Database on the Sword of Sin:
"The Sword of Sin can be ignited with the mind of the wielder, if the person is powerful enough. The sword has the ability to conjure in the mind its victims all of the sins for which they are guilty or have not atoned for."
When Tim was stabbed with this sword, he was immune. The Sword of Sin decided he was innocent. Although, I have to ask how reliable this sword was in making that judgement. If the sword is judging others based on its own set principles, then something's not right here.
The Sword of Sin was also used on Dick, and he wasn't immune. It dug into Dicks subconscious and unearthed memories he'd long since repressed. Memories of himself watching a boy get beaten to near death, and then doing nothing. He just walked away.
Now, tell me why the sword brought this to light, but not the time Tim left King Snake to die!
It wasn't an accident. Tim deliberately chose to leave instead of trying to save this man from the murderous Lady Shiva. Sure, Tim was no match for Shiva and he might've not been able to stop her, but the same could be said for an eight year old Dick not stopping a group of much older kids. Neither of them tried to stop the attackers.
Tim didn't atone for it, either. When King Snake returned in Batman #469, Bruce told King Snake that it wasn't Tim who left him to die. We know that's a lie, but Tim never corrected this. He let Shiva take all the blame.
We have two instances of a boy choosing not to prevent someone from having a near death experience. One guilty, and one innocent.
Did the Sword of Sin think Tim was justified because King Snake was corrupt? That doesn't sound holy to me.
Was it because Tim didn't feel any guilt over it, while Dick did? Can the sword's judgement be thrown off by the victim not feeling any shred of guilt over their actions, even subconsciously?
That could make sense given what we know Tim did in the past: King Snake falling, the vandalism (explosions), and ALL the lying over the years (Tim reviving Shiva might count as atonement, so I'm not including that). If the sword based its judgement on God's will alone, then odds are high it would've picked up on one of these.
Even so, I'm not going to sit here and say this is definitely the case. I'm not familiar enough with how the sword effects other characters to make that call.
If this is indeed false, then did the DC universe's version of God decide to pardon Tim of his sins when he prayed earlier that same issue, despite him not believing he had any? I mean, who knows, right?
You can probably see why there's more questions than answers. The point is Tim didn't have any guilt for the things he did before Red Robin #22. Tim was canonically convinced he had nothing to atone for.
So then why did he say the opposite later in Knight Terrors: Robin #2?!
In the heart-to-heart between Tim and Jason, Tim tells him this:
"You have a lot to atone for...We all do..."
Tim knows that the words "we all" include him, right? By saying this, Tim admitted to also having things he needs to atone for, right?
Is this another white lie to make Jason feel better? Is it one of those slight changes the New 52 made to the canon? If not, then why did he change his mind? Did his no-kill rule change and make him feel guilty for some past actions? Is it not the no-kill rule, but something else?
What changed?!
Where does Tim draw the line?
I don't know. We've narrowed it down to a general area, but it's kinda hard to see a line when it's so blurred it could be a gradient.
Tim baffles me. He acts as a steady moral compass for others when he can't even seem to stay consistent with his own. You're free to call it poor writing (and honestly, fair), but I find his hypocrisy fascinating.
That's what it is, isn't it? Tim's a hypocrite who's completely oblivious to being one. And it's not like this was never mentioned in the comics before. Damian called him out on it!
In Batman & Robin 2011 #10, Damian confronted Tim about his near-murderous reaction when Fist Point killed Artemis (Teen Titans Vol 4 annual #1). Damian then accused Tim of constantly rejecting him because they have more in common than Tim's willing to admit.
It's debatable how accurate that accusation was, but Tim had a pretty volatile reaction to it.
"I believe in every choice I make!"
Does he? I don't think someone who's so sure of what he believes in would contradict himself to this extent. Especially if he wasn't doing it on purpose.
He wouldn't vehemently push Bruce's no-kill rule onto others and berate them for bending that rule, only to go and bend that same rule himself when the Batclan isn't around. He also wouldn't exploit what he thinks are loopholes, decide later that those loopholes broke the no-kill rule, and then earnestly claim he never broke it.
Why is he like this?! He's had arguably the most normal childhood out of the whole Batclan before becoming Robin! What could've made him so fickle about this?!
Where does he draw the line? And how will he know when he's crossed it?
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I love Captain Marvel (Fawcett Comics) because that small child with the powers of Greek Dudes and the one Jewish Guy is partially responsible for things like most of my childhood media (Ben 10, He-Man, She-Ra, magical girl shows as a genre), Marvel Comics version of Thor, and Elvis
Also, kudos to Billy Batson for popularizing "Holy Moley!" We love you small child
there's a quote from mass effect i think perfextly resonates with how jason feels compared to bruce.
"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer."
because that's his point, isn't it? a moral code and an honor code are virtually the same thing for bruce. Breaking HIS personal moral code makes you a bad person i.e dishonorable, and jason, who is ONE of those ghosts, who happened to come back and have a voice (a voice bruce almost took away from him) says your morals do not compare to OUR suffering.
this quote always meant that there comes a time when upholding a personal honor code is the most selfish thing you could do.
I've been wanting to make this post for a while, but it's been hard to find the time to do it.
Every so often I will see one of two takes go around. The first is that Batman is, at his core, a spoiled and unaccountable rich man who goes out onto the streets to violently assault the poor and mentally ill. This camp says that Batman is basically a cop in all the worst ways, a man living out a juvenile fantasy of heroism while doing nothing to address the root causes of crime.
The other take says, no, that's ridiculous. Batman is consistently shown as caring about people's lives, protecting those that the law doesn't, and opposing corrupt police. They will bring up all the times that Bruce Wayne has invested in Gotham's population, provided charity, and otherwise done real work to address systemic problems. And of course, the violence Batman uses is necessary! How many times would the Joker have killed millions without him beating some guys up? According to this camp, Batman is a force for good who actively helps save lives and acts as an ideal that the real ultra-wealthy fail to live up to.
But the thing is, I don't think either side is wrong here. There's a reason why the former group tends to be in the realm of general pop culture commentators while the latter are usually devoted fans of the Batman comics. While the "Batman beats up poor people" crowd sometimes phrase their criticism as if it is Bruce himself doing bad things, the actual criticism in that is clearly "this would be a bad thing to do in real society." Their opposition says "no, Batman isn't a bad person because of this issue and this bit of dialogue" which somewhat misses the point, in part because I think the critics themselves aren't entire conscious that their criticism is from a Doylist, rather than Watsonian, perspective.
Here's the thing: The Joker isn't real, and except for some terminally online weirdos, no one thinks he's real. But what about these guys?
Or this guy?
Batman's stories rest upon the premise that, between all the colorful supervillains and mad scientists, the city of Gotham (as a stand in for the cities of the United States) is full of violent gangsters, thugs, robbers, and killers, all of whom are just waiting for an opportunity to jump out and attack some respectable citizen. They're not really people, they're largely nameless and without stories of their own, there for Batman to beat the crap out of to show how cool he is and how bad things are in Gotham.
At the end of the day, Batman's stated goal isn't to take down the Joker or Ra's al Ghul. He has declared a one-man (and many-teenager) war on Crime. That's not crime, the nebulous concept of laws being broken, but Crime as it exists in the American zeitgeist as a horde of dangerous strangers who are roving the night to shoot you (the assumed default respectable white male), kidnap your kids, assault your wife, and steal your belongings. Batman's stories pose the rhetorical question: "Wouldn't it be nice if someone with the bravery and intelligence, unbound by red tape, could come along and stop those guys with the power of incredible violence?" While this is somewhat true of the superhero genre as a whole, Batman interfaces with it on a more fundamental level because it is his primary character motivation.
Of course, real crime is far more complicated than there being a dedicated class of violent criminals. Most violent crime is committed by someone well acquainted with the victim, and violent retribution tends to harm innocents far more than it discourages perpetrators. This is a kind of rhetoric that reinforces the mainstream American belief that the solution to crime is always more police with shinier toys and bigger guns, taking off the kid gloves to be "tough on crime". Action for action's sake, not sitting around thinking about solutions!
It's telling that in Batman comics, a "bad cop" is one who under-reacts, rather than one who overreacts. Characters like Arnold Flass and Gillian Loeb are bad guys because they're secretly aligned WITH the evil criminals, not because they're violating rights or enforcing property with disproportionate violence.
All this is, as I hope people understand, the seed of authoritarianism. I love Batman as a character, I love his supporting cast and many of the stories that have been told in Gotham City. But you need to be critical of art that you love, and Batman's stories fundamentally accept a reactionary worldview by their very premise, even when writers try to write more progressive stories. Even if Batman says all the right things, the only thing that will work in the end is punching the bad guys because that's what the readers are here for. Anything else will, at best, make things better in Gotham only until the next writer comes along.
I combined some aspects of Kaikea's (the woman portrayed as "delusional" for believing herself to be Nanaue's mom in Superboy '94) design with a pre-colonial look for Kalei's design. Kaikea eventually feeds her arm to Nanaue in the comics, so she's an amputee.
In my au, Kalei is a queer kapa-maker who falls in love with KÄmohoaliĘťi the Shark God. This takes place long before Hawai'i was colonized. No, Kalei did not feed her arm to a shark. And no, KÄmohoaliĘťi did not bite it off in a misplaced habit from shark-mating. Kalei is just born limb different this time! To KÄmohoaliĘťi, there's nothing incomplete about her.
I'm trying out adding some ray-vibes to KÄmohoaliĘťi. As a nod to how sharks and rays share similar biology. His merman form needed something a little extra for his head shape, so ray wings it is I guess! Yes, it's Prince Sidon and Shape of Water inspired. For baby Nanaue, I'm trying to not echo Jeff the Land Shark too much.
As much as I love the different concepts for what Absolute Captain Marvel would be like, the idea that Darkseid leaves Billy âfought Darkseidâs dad with his bare mortal hands and wonâ Batson alone because heâs not messing with all that is equally as entertaining
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Billy rarely lies about his civilian identity. I mean, he wouldnât really need to, considering no one would think a child was the hero known as Captain Marvel.
A good example of this was when the Green Lanterns invited him to go bowling with them.
John Stewart: âYouâre late, man.â
Marvel: âSorry, guys, I just got evicted from my apartment.â
Hal Jordan: *gasps* âReal.â
Kyle Rayner: âWhy?? What happened?â
Hal: âWere you off-world or something? That happened to me a couple times before I just decided to put all my stuff in the watchtower.â
Marvel: âNo, I just couldnât afford it.â
*silence*
Hal: âRealllllll.â
John Stewart: âHal, shut up.â
Then there was when Billy got his job as a radio show host.
Marvel: *cooking like five hundred million things just cause*
Flash: âHey, man.â *looks at the food* âWhatâs all this for?â
Marvel: âI got a job!â
Flash: âOh, cool ma-â
Marvel: âA real job!â
Flash: âWell, thatâs awesome. That doesnât explain what all this is for though.â
Marvel: âI know, right! I get 50 cents an hour! And itâs for anyone really. Iâm just happy-cooking. Itâs the opposite of stress baking.â
Flash: *trying to sneak some food, pauses cause he just registered the first sentence* âWhat.â
Batman: âMay I go with you to your workplace? Out of costume.â
Marvel: âUh⌠I donât know about that. Why?â
Batman: âBecause last I checked, the states have a minimum wage of under 50 cents.â
Marvel: âWhat do you mean? Itâs good money?â
*silence*
Flash: *already loading up a plate of food for himself* âCap, can I have some of this?â
Marvel: âSure! Have as much as youâd like!â
Or when Billy graduatedâ
Flash: âWhatâs got you in a happier mood than normal?â
Marvel: âI just graduated!â
Flash: âGraduatedâŚ? What do you mean, you graduated? You look older than me??â
âGraduated eighth grade.
Or when Batman eventually found out about the eviction from eavesdropping. He approached Marvel while the man was in one of the rec rooms coloring.
Batman: âCaptain, I would like to discuss something distressing I heard from the Green Lanterns. I overheard them saying you were evicted from your apartment?â
Marvel: âHuh? Oh, yeah. Back out on the streets.â
Batman suspecting that Captain Marvel is a kid so he starts dropping modern slang to prove his suspicions except Billy's chronically offline so their conversations go like this:
Batman: The reports conclude that about six or seven magical artifacts were stolen.
Billy, who has an apartment, a job, pays taxes, and goes on social media at max half an hour a day to update things for Whiz Radio: Golly, Mr. Batman sir this sounds serious, maybe we should get more people on the case!
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