Sorena/Alex

Batman #11

Damian finds his father easily, but dislikes his values, morals, and what he stands for, so he resides in a long abandoned, random apartment complex while he plans for where to go next and how.

While waiting, he notices an attack planned and executed by Poison Ivy. After this he studies older files on her and stalks her, deeming her “worthy” for being a sort-of mentor figure/caretaker after noticing that, like him and the rest of the Al Ghul’s, she is also an eco-terrorist.

While Poison Ivy is put off by his initial behavior and his tendency to stalk her and multiple others, she quickly grows fond of him and agrees to take him in as long as he isn’t “too childish”.

What? Hold on, pause for a second. What?

In fact, when stating “Thalia took Bruce’s DNA”, I even referenced another popular character who is a mix of DNA: Kon. Kon is a popular “test tube baby”, as he is a mix of DNA between Superman and Lex Luthor, which helped inspire this AU I thought of.

Talia taking Bruce's DNA is a retcon introduced by Grant Morrison who took Talia, and destroyed all of her decades of character development to turn her into a stereotypical racist caricature of herself. Talia & Bruce originally had a very loving relationship, and Bruce was ecstatic when Talia found out she was pregnant. But then Plot happened and she decided to lie about miscarrying the child, and secretly have him up to an orphanage so he could have a normal life.

Talia was a loving, kind woman who didn't want her child to grow up in the world of Ras or Bruce, and went to great lengths to make sure that didn't happen + she was kind towards children.

However, after 9/11, Grant Morrison rewrote her. He retconned their relationship and made Talia an uncharacteristically cruel character who violated Bruce. And yes, comics as a medium are like that, but I promise you that this would not have happened if Talia was white, but because she's not, then Bruce and his white family can save his son from his evil brown family. This may sound disingenuous but that is very much one of the two ways Damian is portrayed in modern DC, the other is that he's an evil ticking time bomb who is destined to be evil, and you can often tell which way the story will swing by looking at what colour his skin is. If he's white, then it's the former, if he's brown, it's the latter.

Also, the line "as long as he isn't too childish" is dismissing the fact that he is a child, he meets Bruce on his tenth birthday. Ten year olds ARE childish, and they should be allowed to be so. Damian is also a traumatized ten year old child, expecting him to be perfectly mature is unfair, especially because children of color are treated differently to their white counterparts, they're expected to be more mature and seen as less innocent.

In fact I actually think Damian is a better friend to Jon than the other way around. Jon fucked off to be with his evil grandfather in space, came back several years older, then left again to be in the future with the Legion and when he learned that Damian would turn evil he at first did nothing, went to talk to him once only after Damian had a complete meltdown and then gave up on helping Damian return to the path of a hero after reading one note by Damian.

And yeah, people on other sites have voiced confusion what Verity could possibly have said that got Damian out of all people to laugh out loud like that because it just doesn't feel like Damian at all.

The only other characters who ever seem to have butlers are meant to be dark reflections of Bruce and the way he grew up, they aren't heroes.

The hallucination thing is just annoying at this point. Alfred has been dead for several runs now and Bruce didn't constantly hallucinate him in those, so why now? It feels like Fraction really wants Alfred to be in this, but DC said no to reviving him, so now we have hallucination Alfred talking as if he's more than just a figment of Bruce's imagination and I guess Verity exists to take over the physical tasks even Fraction has to admit hallucination Alfred can't do.

Also apparently Fraction claimed he's using hallucination Alfred to not write the "usual" inner monologue, but after several runs of Bruce getting broken down mentally or having some malevolent entity messing with his brain (and Williamson refusing to give us narration boxes/inner monologue in his Robin and his B&R run for Damian) I'm honestly craving normal inner monologues. Tell me what the character is thinking and feeling inside damn it, stop being vague about everything by shutting us out of their mind or making them some type of shizophrenic.

The thing with Damian is that not only is he usually not that trusting, given his trauma I think if written well him mistrusting Verity could have made him look sympathetic (and not like a brat). He was close to Alfred, he was the only one who watched Alfred die and some part of him will always feel guilty about it even though it wasn't his fault. Him disliking the concept of someone taking over Alfred's position would have been understandable. But I guess he instantly likes her....for whatever reason.

*sigh*

Now if I had some control over it

I always imagined Damian would repurpose it as an island for criminals to turn over a new leaf if they wish to do so, with his story following major themes of redemption, give those criminals a place where they can redeem themselves and be viewed as normal people.

He even helped break her out of mind control once when she was blinded into fear toxin induced rage

When he was still calling people insults he managed to actually get her name right. Mind u he didn't do that for STEPHANIE!!!! WHOM HE PRACTICALLY LIVED WITH!!!!

They were also 2 members of a team tested out early post n52

(Full scrapped team here. Miss Martian, blue beetle, supergirl, robin, static, batgirl and Irey west, currently thunderheart but was intended to be the kid flash of n52)

Queer themes - a character's queerness (often not canonical) is reflected somehow through the themes and interactions tied to the character in the piece of media they belong to. Think Merlin in Merlin (a character with something innate about himself that is hated in the society that he resides in). In this, queer themes are (often unintentionally) invoked, though actual queer identities are never assigned, but these narratives often give queer audience members the most to grab on to, because they relate to and can analyze the wider queer meanings in the narrative, even in the absence of canonical queer identity.

Queer identity - in my opinion, queer identity without wider queer themes is why a lot of modern queer characters feel quite empty, especially in comparison to their queer coded predecessors (think those memes that are like Queerbait media: There is no me without you, just as there is no darkness without light. Queer media: Uhhhh... I like girls. Romantically). Often queer audiences might relate to the identity of a character, but the experience and narrative of the character feels entirely disconnected from their lived experiences, because they are literally a queer character but they are not thematically a queer character. THIS IS NOT ME SAYING THAT THIS IS ALWAYS A BAD THING. I think this type of narrative is crucial for the normalization of queer identities to wider audiences, HOWEVER it will never be able to satisfy actual queer audiences, as they are still not being fully represented.

Both - I have seen an active trend towards this becoming more common, which makes me happy :). The best example of this I can think of is still Stede from Our Flag Means Death (a canonically queer character existing in a story thematically about being an outsider from society, either from being queer or from being a pirate, but often both) or really any of the queer characters in Our Flag (bonus shoutout to Jim). This results in stories that both have literal representation in the labels and relationships AND the thematic queer coding that makes queer audience members actually feel seen, as well as to have something to analyze.

I think it's REALLY funny that DC looked at Kon (a clone that has two dads, initially rejected by the embodiment of "truth, justice, and the American way" for a piece of his identity that he had no control over [clone/related to Lex Luthor], who also put a spiked jacket around the symbol for hope on his suit and built most of his relationships through a found family dynamic with the Young Justice team) and Jon (a biological child of a nuclear [other than the alien thing] family, loved and cherished from birth as the desired, planned child) and went. hmmm. yes. Jon will be the canonically queer one.

Crown of candy OC commission: Sela of the Sugarjaw clan

Metro Man was not loved growing up in a way that mattered. His adopted father was clearly very absent, and while we don't know much about his family, their relationship seems superficial. Because of this, his sense of duty to the world is also superficial, hence his boredom.

Hal wasn't raised with power. He gained it and was shown how to use it by a 'space dad' who only taught him power and not love. Hence, he sees it only as a grasping means to an end.

For a small fee

(a pea for me)

I’ll be the best

that I can be!

I dont think its

hyperbole

a pea for me’s