(Art Is By The Amazing @dahtwitchi. This Is A Freeform Collab With No Real Goal)

Comic book history is so much fun and such a fascinating way to measure the changes in society. In fact, it can be super interesting to measure any society by what censorship laws are in place at any point in time!

I'm not sure about OG Joker being gay, but I do know that sexual deviancy was not allowed to be shown, and since we queers are deviant by default, we weren't exactly in the spotlight.

If you're up for a good read, cbldf.org has a great article from 2012 by Joe Sergio. "Tales from the Code: How Much Did Things Change After the Enactment of the Comics Code of 1954?"

And Academia.edu is a fantastic resource for even more reading!

Me, skimming pages of Batman year one and two, with Jaybin: . . . The f#&% you mean Batman has killed before in self defense? •-•

WHAT!!!??? BATMAN HAS KILLED PEOPLE!?!?!? ._.

This... This messed with my character analysis so much.

WHAT. DO. YOU. MEAN?!

"I'm glad they're dead!" Careful, Jason, the writers took that singular comment and haven't let it go since.

Also, just shout out to Jaybin for being all cute and >:/ and :D

If you have written a Batman story that you think is actually legit, go ahead and submit that to DC. They are in the business of selling stories and they've made plenty of crazy little one-shots.

Look at Batman: Reign of Terror, where it's set in 18th century France. Robin is Bruce's little sister, Rochelle (the true title-holder of Most Ignored Robin by the Fandom). They're fighting Herve Deinte.

If that isn't the result of two special interests colliding with someone taking a chance to put it in production, then I didn't know what is.

I believe so many of you are capable of turning your fanfic dreams into legit comics. (Maybe not as blatant in certain cases, but there could be hints and casual asides, a post-it in the background, etc.)

Temporal distortion? Have you checked the date?

Why are my setting telling me that I'm thirteen years old last I check I am not??????¿??????

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.

(Art is by the amazing @dahtwitchi. This is a freeform collab with no real goal)

Cool water is pressed to his lips and the youngest Tobi shivers as he docilely sips it directly from the older man's hand. He feels overheated, his throat aches, there is an uncomfortable wetness in his fundoshi, and his mind is more clear than it has ever felt before. He presses himself against the man in before him, holding onto him while he waits for his legs to regain their strength. Someone crouches next to him and begins patting his head comfortingly, "So good, you did so well, that was beautiful..."

SugarMadara smiles softly and a little bit ruefully. Between those two, this younger version of his lover will be more than fine as he rides out his first high. He wishes he had been able to do that for his own lover, but that regret is an old friend by now.

"My attitude got me my Tobi; yours would have surely frightened him off..." Or not. He is well aware of how fragile his Tobirama had been when they had begun dating. It is uncomfortably possible that this other Madara could have pushed him enough to pull an emotional attachment out of the broken man. Whether this version could have kept up with the myriad of issues that accompanied Tobirama outside the bedroom is what would make the difference.

His younger self glances at him, possibly noticing the change in his elder's mood.

He is very quiet as he responds to the eldest's likely rhetorical question. No need for the Tobis to hear this, even if he is certain his own already knows.

"I have worked very hard to keep my lover happy because I am so very bad at letting go. Once I truly began to think of him as mine..." Madara grimaces, but if anyone could understand, it would be other versions of him.

"I will not give him a reason to leave me, because he will never be allowed to leave me. As long as I keep him happy and safe, as long as he loves me, I won't need to make him stay at my side."

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.)

Hello, yes, I'd like to slam the entire 22 Redwall novels by Brian Jacques down onto the counter and then add several picture books, recipe books, and supplemental mini-series.

I would like to look the Internet at large in the eye when I say the following.

These books are an excellent way to see cruel people from their own points of view just as you can see the kind and heroic people's perspectives. It might royally piss you off, even, to realize that you have motivations in common with a scoundrel. That you will have sympathy for the power-hungry murderer. That you might mourn for a monster even as you're so glad the monster is dead.

And you're going to love these characters. You're going to love the camaraderie and the jokes and the squabbling. The coming-of-age stories and the parents seeking to protect their children. You're going to cry so fucking hard at some point, guaranteed, and it's going to feel so cleansing.

Also! Brian Jacques wrote these books with massive feasts and was particularly descriptive about taste. This is because he often volunteered to read to blind kids and became frustrated with how so many books relied on visual descriptions, so he made it a point to focus on a different sense.

I think every single book worm had that series that got them through shitty teenage years. For me that series was Tigers Curse by Colleen Houck. The series quite literly was my source of hope and joy during my early teen years. Was my lifeline. It's definitely YA and a little cringe to read as an adult but it's like a found friend that holds nothing but fond memories💙🖤.

What was your hard time book series?

With all my Batman et al. posts, I'd like to make a statement about real life vigilante justice.

Gonna cut it for heavy topics. I'm rambling again, but this is something I still have trouble finding the right words to explain.

I greatly admire Batman's no-killing rule because it speaks to what he knows about himself and also that he recognizes the power of a symbol.

If Batman can non-lethally take down criminals, even a corrupt police force will be expected to follow suit.

Vigilante justice inspires copycats. We're seeing it live now, with that guy who shot a Walgreens employee to "protest big pharmacy".

And that's the shit Batman's trying to prevent. The impotent copycats who want the attention without putting in tactical effort. The people who will take and twist a rule until it lets them do what they want to do.

Red Hood has rules. Red Hood kills pedophiles and people who hurt children. I can guarantee that someone in his territory is going to take that rule and use it as an excuse to shoot up a gay club. I can see his words being quoted by the person who murders an abortionist.

One man's idea of a child groomer is another man's trans child.

"We're protecting our women!" Is why Emmett Till was murdered so horrifically. The Antilynching Act that was named for him was only signed into law in 2022.

So. No killing. Because Batman knows he's not a mentally healthy person. He's come face-to-face with evil versions of himself who killed. He is allowed to safeword out of killing people. He's an intelligent person who can see what history has already taught us.

And because he doesn't kill, people are safer with him. If your loved one is having a mental health crisis, you want Batman to show up, not the cops. If you're a person of color doing pretty much anything, you would probably prefer pointy ears over "protect and serve".

Real life vigilante justice? It most often targets people who are already some sort of vulnerable minority. I just. I think it's important to acknowledge this.

Two things I think are important to acknowledge about children and young teen lit

1) What they do well in the sense of literature/craft (usually it’s pacing, hooks, interesting characters)

2) What areas are sacrificed to make them different from adult literature and consumable by children (usually it’s elaborate prose and certain complex topics or character traits)

Truly, this is the DC artists giving us a cheeky wink and a nod that not only do Tim and Bernard do freaky rooftop sex, they do freaky sideways building sex.

Every time a Gothamite tweets about seeing Batman and Catwoman getting frisky on a roof, Tim and Bernard one-up them. Pretty soon Gotham is like "BatCat, who? Red Robin and Tuxedo Maskless over there are doing things that defy both physics and public decency laws"

DC needs to give Tim Drake either an age-up + a new suit, or, give him the most badass, diabolical villain arc known to man.