(En)trope-y

Like a situation where collectively, everyone is SO sick of, say, a politician. And not just any standard Gotham politician, no no, it’s too easy for one of Penguin’s men to pop the mayor, that’s not the problem here. The problem is this hypothetical politician, whose actions are affecting New Jersey, and therefore Gotham, is not only extremely insufferable and making the already shit quality of life of Gotham worse, but are also, painfully, NOT in New Jersey. Like there’s no easy access like there is with the mayor! The gall!

So what’s a girl (a crowd of Gothamites) to do when she’s frustrated by a situation like this?

Start a go fund me labeled “Help Us Reach Our Goal of Hiring Deathstroke To Do An Assassination For Us Because For Fucks Sake Gas And Groceries Are Already Damn Fuck Expensive We Don’t Need More of This Shit”

Like I know Arcane has this fantastic ability of making magical steampunk engineering looking so fun and easy (and boy, aren’t I extremely jealous lol), but there’s gotta be some drama on the engineering committees.

Like you’re telling me that there weren’t any other Piltover scientists who felt jilted that their projects weren’t getting funding from the council? Preventing saltwater erosion on merchant ships is very impactful on trade routes to Piltover, please, some money would help the grants go so far! But no, instead, the entire council turns on its heel to praise Jayce Talis and Viktor the Zaunite, who haven’t completed any of the proper procedures at all! They had no papers submitted or peer reviewed, no research to fall back on. AND they only worked with each other and (probably) refused to take on any other grad students or mentors other than Heimerdinger!!! What the absolute fuck.

Like it gets even funnier when you look at it??? Viktor was the motherfucking Dean’s ASSISTANT, from ZAUN (prejudice abound) and Jayce was what, an undergrad student??? (Was he even a grad student???) And these motherfuckers not only DIDN’T get thrown in jail after BREAKING INTO the deans office after ILLEGALLY harboring a science experiment that BLEW UP the UPPER HALF of a BUILDING, IN THE RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT, (WHICH WAS BEING ACTIVELY ROBBED AT THE INCEPTION OF THE EXPLOSION), to then ILLEGALLY AND IRRESPONSIBLY start up their experiment AGAIN (but in a GOVERNMENT BUILDING THIS TIME), but they ALSO, GOT FUCKING FUNDING FOR IT. AND A DIRECT PATRONAGE RELATIONSHIP FROM ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL (and hottest) MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. WHAT THE FUCK.

ONE OF THEM HASNT EVEN BEEN FORMALLY TRAINED IN ENGINEERING AND DOESNT UNDERSTAND WHY HE NEEDS TO SIGN HIS NAME AND DATE EVERY PAGE OF RESEARCH. ARE YOU FUCKING-

Frankly, I’d quit on the spot and move to Demacia. Alcoholism statistics in the city probably rose by 75% once Hextech started getting funded because every time any sort of funding gala or conference began in Piltover it would all be like

At a conference: yeah Talis and Viktor’s hextech-

Everyone from the academy:

How they never really shared a moment on screen together, but they must have met at least once. How could she not have, since her mother and her family were some of Hextech’s initial supporters, since Jayce was her best friend and near brother, in everything apart from blood? How could she not have met Viktor, her brother’s best friend, lab partner, and other half? She must have. Caitlyn had to have met Viktor at some point. And by proxy, her mother Cassandra.

I think, knowing how sharp Cassandra must have been in order to be on the council, in order to create/oversee the ventilation system built in the Undercity, that she must have deduced what illness was plaguing Viktor. Even if Viktor never spoke about his childhood in Zaun, she must have put the pieces together, that with his age and the Gray being eradicated from the Undercity in the present, he must have been a child when the infrastructure was completed, and it was too late for him to have had a childhood of completely clean air.

I don’t think it would have been obvious to Caitlyn, or even maybe Jayce, though, how Viktor would always feel the Gray rattling around in his lungs, weaving its way through his veins and blood, always haunting him. Slowly sapping his strength away from him as he and Jayce made leaps and bounds in their research, in their project that was going to change the world for the better.

Jayce had seen him slowly transition from his cane to his crutch over the years, no longer able to support his weaker leg as easily as he had when they first met, on that incredible night of daring innovation. Jayce was there as Viktor’s body slowly gave into the Gray and his illness caught up with him, pushing him to desperate means to save himself and their dream.

But Caitlyn wasn’t there, when Viktor collapsed and Jayce rushed to his side, as the two of them came to the grieving understanding and sudden shock of what little time the two of them had left together. She was in the undercity, with Vi, who had never had that Gray sickness, laying eyes on the community recovered from the poisonous Gray and caught in the claws of Shimmer instead.

Maybe Jayce did realize, towards the end of season 1, that the Gray was what had plagued Viktor and stolen his life and energy from him. Maybe he didn’t get the chance to figure that out.

The way that no plan in the city is secret, that the Bat will have heard about it the second the barest whisper leaves someone’s lips? How he can just look at you and instantly know every part of your past, despite having never run into him before?

I’m picturing this to the fullest crack effect; A (not good) parent in Gotham insisting to their hesitant, shy kid, that if they don’t toughen up at school and stop acting like a sissy, or worse, the Bat will know. The Batman always knows, and he’s strong and violent and hates kids like them, kids who are sensitive and quiet, and maybe look at the same gender for just a little bit too long.

In short: some homophobic parent starts using Batman as a boogeyman, a way to threaten and intimidate their queer kid, causing the kid to live in extra fear of the Bat, jumping at more than the usual shadows.

Now, because this is, of course, Gotham, and Batman does know just about everything going on, he does eventually hear about this. Bruce, being a clearly out bisexual man, seethes at the idea of people taking his image of justice and protection and turning it into shame and misogyny/homophobia/etc.

“Alfred, is it too much to add a bi-flag to the underside of my cape.”

“….sir-“

“You’re right, it needs to go on the outside, the inside is too subtle.”

Bruce, of course, is quietly devastated at the reminder that his son is growing up (he nearly started crying when Dick outgrew his booster seat in the Batmobile, they still have a little spot for it in the Batcave), but agrees that Robin has a point. This is how Robin gets his first motorcycle, under the agreement that he will be extremely careful and always wear the appropriate helmet while riding.

Of course the first thing Robin does is turn around and teach himself how to do the Akira slide on his bike.

And of course Nightwing makes sure this is one of first things he teaches Robin when he and Jason are bonding for the first time. It’s one of their best memories, messing around on an empty lot, burning tires and picking up scrapes. Dick has never seen Jason grin so widely before.

But then Jason dies. And suddenly the little silly things like bike tricks don’t feel like enough anymore. Not when one of the only other people who would have understood that reference is so devastated by his failures that he’s putting people in urgent care every night and close to ending up there himself.

So when Tim comes around, stubbornly shoving his way under Batman’s cape, for his own damn good, Dick hesitates to teach him the little things that he taught Jason. But he gives in anyways, because Robin needs to feel supported and cared about, and in a silly way, that’s what the Akira slide is about. That was why Bruce gave Dick his first motorcycle in the first place.

A few years pass, a new few players join the scene. A new crime lord starts rising through the ranks, he also whips through the streets on a motorcycle (honestly, there’s no other way to blow through the static Gotham traffic).

And then, the Red Hood does it. Right in front of Nightwing, on a midnight chase through the city. The mother-fucking Akira slide.

Like look at his dad. They are absolutely not the same build type, Dick’s gonna put the suit on and be crying cause the upper part of the suit was stretched out by Bruce’s barrel of a chest and canon sized arms lmfao.

Do you think he launches himself at Dick with reckless abandon, all knobbly elbows and wiry frame, babbling and crying, calling for his dad in his native language that has been slipping away from him more and more with every passing day?

Do you think Dick Grayson, twenty-three years old and looking more and more like the wispy memory of his lost parents, with his father’s rough grin and easy kindness, with his mother’s eyes and curls of hair, feels his heart freeze in his chest as this child cries in a tongue he suddenly realizes he doesn’t remember anymore, as he’s lost both his family’s faces and language to time?

It takes Dick a moment to unfreeze and look down at his younger self, who he instinctively hugged close to him the moment he heard the word “Dat”, and realize that he’s looking at a literal younger version of himself.

It takes Dick pulling away from his friends that day, reassuring the other young heroes that he’ll catch up later - although they’re not so young, anymore, not with how they’re close to their mentors’ age when they started the Justice League, not when young looks like the boy in his arms, the boy he was all those startling years ago - for this younger Dick Grayson to look up through eyes blurred with tears and finally realize that this man who looks so much like his father has his mother’s eyes and hair, has his father’s easy grin that doesn’t sit on the same face as his father’s.

In this foreign and yet familiar stranger, two Dick Graysons, separated by time and space but brought close by the same beginnings and souls, find a little bit of peace in each other. And when the older Dick Grayson (“Call me Richard, for now. My littlest brother already does,”) drives the two of them back to the manor, back to their home, Dick sees his quiet-loud fears of no family, of being left behind by Bruce and Alfred, of never having another shoulder to truly lean on or have leaned on, wiped away at the sight of so many siblings, of so many members of a family he never allowed himself to dream of.

Do you think some part of the universe sighed in quiet relief and pure joy when these two birds, the Robins that brought the morning light of heroics onto the world and had a hand in ensuring the guidance of the next generations of heroes to come, in all of the chaos of lovingly worried alternate universe check ups, younger-older siblings dropping by to ruffle hair, give bone-breaking hugs, kisses on foreheads and cheeks, took a moment to gaze upon the trapeze set up in the Batcave?

It only takes a moment and a glance between them before they’re off, a dance through the air, smooth flips and trusting catches as easy as breathing and as natural as the wind buffeting a robin’s feathers.

(Me: oh I’m gonna look up some bird symbolism cause I think’d be interesting to learn more about them

Me, approximately 30 minutes later, unsurprisingly have tied it back to the current blorbos: okay so-)

I’ve seen a lot of different pitches for AUs where Jason was never tragically murdered and became a vigilante like Nightwing using the name Flamebird like from Krypton mythology BUT please allow me to toss my hat in the ring

Assuming everyone continues using the bird theme outright (or for Wingfic purposes), my pitch is for Jason to use the name: Starling

Starlings are these medium sized passerines that are known for being pretty and singing. They can change the colors of their feathers from a pretty dark gradient with white spots to brown feathers with white spots without shedding any feathers. (Like how Jason came back with the white streak after he died!)

They’re very good at aerial acrobatics and are also known for aggressive flight patterns, called murmurations (which look SUPER cool btw)

They have a lot of symbolism for friendship and connections, especially in the sense of embracing social status but knowing when to change old patterns for the better and listening to your instincts. (I don’t know much about Jason’s Robin connecting with the Titans or Justice League or Young Justice but 👀👀👀)

Starlings imbue the significance of family and community and of learning how to co-exist with the people around us without creating any sort of tension. They are also quite aggressive, and can symbolize that breaking away from family, especially toxic or hurtful ones, is not at all bad. They are meant to symbolize prioritizing family without forgetting yourself. (Is this literally not all of canon Jason’s relationship with his family COME ON)

And if all of that hasn’t convinced you:

Like during a lockdown someone starts jokingly making thirst edits of the local vigilantes running around on the roofs and IMMEDIATELY there’s like a hundred shitty iPhone quality thirst edits circulating social media.

Someone strings together a bunch of clips of Nightwing screaming in frustration, Red Robin face down on the roof of a residential building, and Red Hood slipping on something in an alleyway and eating shit and puts a cover of a really peppy kpop song over it and it goes viral in an hour.

Eddie: oh my god…he’s so pathetic and mysterious….

All of Hellfire: ?? He has a black eye because he lost a fight with high school weakling Jonathan Byers? What the hell are you talking about?

*Steve, trying to get lunch and instead tripping and eating IMMENSE shit when the lights flicker. Food is everywhere, he has noodles in his hair. Everyone is snickering and staring as he stares haunted up at the ceiling*

Steve: Eddie….I’ve been fighting demons

Eddie, who has been fully aware of how many boys Steve has been secretly kissing lately (and internally furious that he hasn’t been kissed yet): oh, is that what we’re calling bisexuality these days?

But may I raise you: in the sense of canon divergence, say that Eddie doesn’t die, that Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Dustin carry him out of the Upside Down and run him to the nearest hospital. He survives, he’s treated for his wounds and infection, and it’s okay, he’s alive and healthy!

You know who hasn’t been treated for his wounds and probably won’t be? Steve.