"I... don't mind the company."
Friday, 27 December 2013 23:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
Back to the December posting meme! silly_cleo said "talk about your Batfamily feelings and headcanons". The cut tags below are because, predictably, I have a lot of feelings about the Batfamily. A veritable CLOUD of feelings, you might say, if like me you had recently seen Frozen (which was excellent).
I think the Batfamily are probably the part of comics that I'm most interested in, fannishly speaking, because with things like BoP and Wonder Woman canon actually gives me quite a lot of what I'm looking for already (though more is always good), whereas a lot of the good Batfamily stuff is really distributed, or it's not quite what I want, or there's someone missing (Cass, Steph, Damian...).
Before I go on, definitions: when I say Batfamily I mostly mean Bruce, Alfred and all the Batgirls and Robins. Extended Batfamily is... basically anyone else you want to include who is vaguely connected with the other Batpeople. Which could be more or less anyone in the DCU, thinking about it. (Hey, the 2002 Batman Family miniseries gave Dinah Lance an issue of her own, there's precedent.) This is one of the reasons why I love the Batfamily. :D But mainly it's because as you know, Bob, I really enjoy found families and lovely teams in fiction, and the Batfamily is one of those ones where it's both, and this just makes me ridiculously happy. ♥ There's so many potentially fascinating relationships within the Batfamily, and between them and other DCU people, ranging from ones with a fair amount of canon behind them (the Batgirls, Steph and Damian, Dick and Tim), and those with no or very little canon (Dick and Steph, Jason and both Steph and Cass, plus I really want to see how Babs and Damian would interact), including some that have had just enough canon to make me want MORE (here I mostly mean Dick and Cass, because the few tiny things I've seen of them together were so lovely). And they're all really different: I feel like whatever your favourite relationship type is, there may well be an example in the Batfamily. (Case in point: Dick/Jason is my favourite boyslash Batfamily ship, because I really like pairings where Outsiders Just Can't Understand Their Love, but I don't really like enemy ships, so I am happy when I get the former but not the latter. Plus, lots of potential for tasty melodrama, hurrah!)
And then there's the fact that I love the people in the Batfamily a great deal. As previously mentioned, Steph, Cass and Oracle are my three favourite characters in comics. Dick and Damian are two of my top three male characters in comics, Dick for his kindness and love of puns, and for the fact that his superpower is basically making friends with people, and Damian for his hilarious ferocious grumpiness and his terribleness at feelings. I'm also really fond of Jason (and think he's potentially really interesting). Tim I haven't really connected with fannishly yet, but he does tend to be as adorable as fandom at large tells me he is, hurrah. Alfred is smashing, of course. Also Bruce exists. ...No, that's not fair. I do actually quite like Bruce, it's just that the Bruce that I like is generally not the one who actually appears in comics. I like the Bruce who may be terrible at feelings but does genuinely care about his friends and relations. (The subject line of this post? Bruce to Steph, after she apologies for talking his ear off all night.) Who fights crime not just because vengeancejusticeiamthenight but because he truly believes he can make a difference, and because he doesn't want anyone to have to suffer the way he did when his parents were murdered. Who tries to use his power and privilege as Bruce Wayne to help people, too, through the ubiquitous charity galas, and also through ethical employment practices and Wayne Enterprises work programmes. And who punched Guy Gardner in the face that time. *happysigh*
And the extended Batfamily is full of awesome too: Renee Montoya, Kate Kane, Helena B, David Zavimbe, Bilal Asselah, Onyx... I JUST LOVE ALL THEIR FACES SO MUCH.
OK. HEADCANONS TIME. Obviously, this won't be ALL the headcanons, because there is only so much space in the "post" box. My favourite era for the Batfamily is just pre-reboot, but there are still some things I'd fix about it, so most of these headcanons are focused on that. I kind of dislike a lot of Jason's characterisation around then (not least because it's so boring), so I just pretend that he eventually became reconciled to the rest of the Batfamily and it was really awesomely written and involved Dick/Jason becoming canon and it made me very happy. Yes.
But the biggest thing that needs changing, obvs, is Cass's storyline. Or lack of storyline, more to the point. I just ditch all the "Cass goes evil for no readily apparent reason" thing, because it's stupid (except for Bruce adopting her, that can stay). Instead, this is how it goes: after her Batgirl series ends, she stays as Batgirl, but is growing increasingly dissatisfied with it, and with the fact that she's not really progressing as a detective as much as she'd like. And then Steph comes back, and they fall back into Batgirl and Spoiler without really talking about it, and that's better, but Cass knows it's still not right, and she can tell that Steph is drifting a little to. And then Brucedies goes off on his time travel tour of exciting macho stereotypes, and Cass and Dick have a discussion about which of them will become Batman (BECAUSE THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED ARGH), and Cass realises that although it's what she wants, she's not ready yet, and she needs a change. So she gives Batgirl to Steph and leaves Gotham to try and hone her skills by testing herself in an unfamiliar environment. But she doesn't actually tell Steph what she's up to, so Steph is confused and worried ("she gave me Batgirl! But then she left! Does she not want to fight crime with me any more? D:"). But eventually they sort it out and become BATGIRLFRIENDS (I ship them so much ♥ ♥ ♥) and resolve to always tell each other about their feelings from now on. ♥
I also like to think that Dick apologised to Steph about the whole "you can't be Batgirl" thing, because that was most definitely not his finest hour, and they realised they had a lot in common, and forged a beautiful friendship based mostly on puns and teasing Tim and Damian.(At some point Dick casually mentions that he got fired from being Robin too and Steph is all "THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT TO KNOW LIKE TWO YEARS AGO".) Also I ship them. Not in an "epic romance for the ages way", but definitely in a "they'd have fun together" way. Though to be honest, "additionally I ship it" is a sentence I could quite often append to my opinions on how two characters would get on. :D
Speaking of shipping, since this is a universe where Damian gets to grow up, a few years down the line he and Colin are awkward teenage boyfriends, and Steph and Dick almost expire from the effort of not telling Damian how adorable they find it.
ALSO BATGIRL INCORPORATED IS A THING. It starts as kind of a joke between Steph, Cass and Babs, but the more they think about making it real, the better an idea it sounds. Those three are the core members, with Flamebird and Misfit on the team whenever they're needed, and Squire as their UK branch. Am I forgetting someone? I feel like I'm forgetting someone. (Someone in the comments to one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymercury_10's posts suggested that Tam Fox would be their public liaison, and I LOVE that, so let's include that too.) Every now and then they nab one of the boy Robins to be their token boy. Dick is thrilled by this, whilst Damian is very cross, and both reactions make me very happy. Nell eventually works her way up to becoming the cadet branch, of course - I feel like Steph would eventually settle in as a mentor to younger wannabe heroes, helping train those who have potential and directing those who don't to better ways they can help. She has so much experience of being in that position herself and being treated terribly, that she'd probably want to help, and she'd have the background to be able to do that and be taken seriously.
...this is possibly more thansilly_cleo probably wanted to know, but she should know by now that asking me an open-ended question about the Batfamily is a dangerous thing to do. ;)
silly_cleo said "talk about your Batfamily feelings and headcanons". The cut tags below are because, predictably, I have a lot of feelings about the Batfamily. A veritable CLOUD of feelings, you might say, if like me you had recently seen Frozen (which was excellent).I think the Batfamily are probably the part of comics that I'm most interested in, fannishly speaking, because with things like BoP and Wonder Woman canon actually gives me quite a lot of what I'm looking for already (though more is always good), whereas a lot of the good Batfamily stuff is really distributed, or it's not quite what I want, or there's someone missing (Cass, Steph, Damian...).
Before I go on, definitions: when I say Batfamily I mostly mean Bruce, Alfred and all the Batgirls and Robins. Extended Batfamily is... basically anyone else you want to include who is vaguely connected with the other Batpeople. Which could be more or less anyone in the DCU, thinking about it. (Hey, the 2002 Batman Family miniseries gave Dinah Lance an issue of her own, there's precedent.) This is one of the reasons why I love the Batfamily. :D But mainly it's because as you know, Bob, I really enjoy found families and lovely teams in fiction, and the Batfamily is one of those ones where it's both, and this just makes me ridiculously happy. ♥ There's so many potentially fascinating relationships within the Batfamily, and between them and other DCU people, ranging from ones with a fair amount of canon behind them (the Batgirls, Steph and Damian, Dick and Tim), and those with no or very little canon (Dick and Steph, Jason and both Steph and Cass, plus I really want to see how Babs and Damian would interact), including some that have had just enough canon to make me want MORE (here I mostly mean Dick and Cass, because the few tiny things I've seen of them together were so lovely). And they're all really different: I feel like whatever your favourite relationship type is, there may well be an example in the Batfamily. (Case in point: Dick/Jason is my favourite boyslash Batfamily ship, because I really like pairings where Outsiders Just Can't Understand Their Love, but I don't really like enemy ships, so I am happy when I get the former but not the latter. Plus, lots of potential for tasty melodrama, hurrah!)
And then there's the fact that I love the people in the Batfamily a great deal. As previously mentioned, Steph, Cass and Oracle are my three favourite characters in comics. Dick and Damian are two of my top three male characters in comics, Dick for his kindness and love of puns, and for the fact that his superpower is basically making friends with people, and Damian for his hilarious ferocious grumpiness and his terribleness at feelings. I'm also really fond of Jason (and think he's potentially really interesting). Tim I haven't really connected with fannishly yet, but he does tend to be as adorable as fandom at large tells me he is, hurrah. Alfred is smashing, of course. Also Bruce exists. ...No, that's not fair. I do actually quite like Bruce, it's just that the Bruce that I like is generally not the one who actually appears in comics. I like the Bruce who may be terrible at feelings but does genuinely care about his friends and relations. (The subject line of this post? Bruce to Steph, after she apologies for talking his ear off all night.) Who fights crime not just because vengeancejusticeiamthenight but because he truly believes he can make a difference, and because he doesn't want anyone to have to suffer the way he did when his parents were murdered. Who tries to use his power and privilege as Bruce Wayne to help people, too, through the ubiquitous charity galas, and also through ethical employment practices and Wayne Enterprises work programmes. And who punched Guy Gardner in the face that time. *happysigh*
And the extended Batfamily is full of awesome too: Renee Montoya, Kate Kane, Helena B, David Zavimbe, Bilal Asselah, Onyx... I JUST LOVE ALL THEIR FACES SO MUCH.
OK. HEADCANONS TIME. Obviously, this won't be ALL the headcanons, because there is only so much space in the "post" box. My favourite era for the Batfamily is just pre-reboot, but there are still some things I'd fix about it, so most of these headcanons are focused on that. I kind of dislike a lot of Jason's characterisation around then (not least because it's so boring), so I just pretend that he eventually became reconciled to the rest of the Batfamily and it was really awesomely written and involved Dick/Jason becoming canon and it made me very happy. Yes.
But the biggest thing that needs changing, obvs, is Cass's storyline. Or lack of storyline, more to the point. I just ditch all the "Cass goes evil for no readily apparent reason" thing, because it's stupid (except for Bruce adopting her, that can stay). Instead, this is how it goes: after her Batgirl series ends, she stays as Batgirl, but is growing increasingly dissatisfied with it, and with the fact that she's not really progressing as a detective as much as she'd like. And then Steph comes back, and they fall back into Batgirl and Spoiler without really talking about it, and that's better, but Cass knows it's still not right, and she can tell that Steph is drifting a little to. And then Bruce
I also like to think that Dick apologised to Steph about the whole "you can't be Batgirl" thing, because that was most definitely not his finest hour, and they realised they had a lot in common, and forged a beautiful friendship based mostly on puns and teasing Tim and Damian.(At some point Dick casually mentions that he got fired from being Robin too and Steph is all "THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT TO KNOW LIKE TWO YEARS AGO".) Also I ship them. Not in an "epic romance for the ages way", but definitely in a "they'd have fun together" way. Though to be honest, "additionally I ship it" is a sentence I could quite often append to my opinions on how two characters would get on. :D
Speaking of shipping, since this is a universe where Damian gets to grow up, a few years down the line he and Colin are awkward teenage boyfriends, and Steph and Dick almost expire from the effort of not telling Damian how adorable they find it.
ALSO BATGIRL INCORPORATED IS A THING. It starts as kind of a joke between Steph, Cass and Babs, but the more they think about making it real, the better an idea it sounds. Those three are the core members, with Flamebird and Misfit on the team whenever they're needed, and Squire as their UK branch. Am I forgetting someone? I feel like I'm forgetting someone. (Someone in the comments to one of
ladymercury_10's posts suggested that Tam Fox would be their public liaison, and I LOVE that, so let's include that too.) Every now and then they nab one of the boy Robins to be their token boy. Dick is thrilled by this, whilst Damian is very cross, and both reactions make me very happy. Nell eventually works her way up to becoming the cadet branch, of course - I feel like Steph would eventually settle in as a mentor to younger wannabe heroes, helping train those who have potential and directing those who don't to better ways they can help. She has so much experience of being in that position herself and being treated terribly, that she'd probably want to help, and she'd have the background to be able to do that and be taken seriously....this is possibly more than
silly_cleo probably wanted to know, but she should know by now that asking me an open-ended question about the Batfamily is a dangerous thing to do. ;)