“You’re Gonna Do It, Aren’t You?” The Joker Says, Quiet. When Bruce Doesn’t Answer He Starts

Blue Beetle | Gabriel Picolo

Wirt and Greg learn magic: 1

~

After speaking the words of his first spell, Greg decides that he doesn’t like magic.

It’s a hard decision for him to make, because magic makes Wirt happier than almost anything else and Greg’s fairly sure that all the things that make his brother happy are good, but Greg doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. When he says the same words that he’s heard Wirt mumbling under his breath for the past few months something in his gut stirs with a feeling of wrong which makes his brain go fuzzy and scared until there are tears in the corners of his eyes.

Wirt doesn’t talk to him about magic after that. It makes Greg a little sad, because he worries that he’s ruined one of the only things that Wirt’s enjoyed since getting home, but he’s also very relieved. As long as Wirt keeps all of his magic away from him then maybe Greg won’t ever have to feel that awful feeling of wrong again and everything can go back to normal.

~

Things change a month or so later when Wirt asks him to read a spell.

“It’s different from the last one.” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand he probably doesn’t realise still has sigils smudged across it, “I found it when I was looking into Auntie Whispers, not Adelaide, and when I read it I felt-” He shudders.

“Did it feel wrong? In your tummy?” asks Greg, so his brother doesn’t have to say it.

Wirt nods. He still looks worried even though he really shouldn’t and Greg takes the paper.

“You don’t have to!” says Wirt, panicked, “this was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have shown you this, I don’t want anything to-”

Greg starts to read.

He reads and instead of feeling something in him turn foul like he’d half expected, he feels… good.

As he speaks something that had been shaken out of place when he read that first spell slots back into place, something he didn’t even realise he’d been missing. He speaks the words and he likes the way they taste in his mouth and the way that as he says them he feels braver. He finishes reading and looks up at Wirt who’s smiling broader than Greg thinks he might have ever seen before.

“I’ve decided that I like magic.” Greg says with finality and it make Wirt smile even wider.

Stiles Stilinski is just like Lydia in all the wrong ways.

His thoughts move as fast as hers, sometimes faster, and it’s the first time someone else’s brain has measured up to hers. It makes her hate him. It makes her despise him. His existence upsets Lydia’s painstakingly constructed social hierarchy where she’s always meant to be the smartest person in the room.

She is the smartest person in the room. Most of the time. There are just rare occasions, few and far between, where Stiles will do better on a test than her. Or he’ll give a presentation and clearly understand the material better than she does, even if he does do a shit job at presenting it.

Sometimes she’ll look around the room and wonder how everyone can be so stupid. How she can be surrounded by people who think so slowly that they’re actually having trouble comprehending things that are so obvious.

Whenever she does that she always finds Stiles looking straight at her, like he’s thinking the exact same thing.

It only makes her hate him more.

~

Jackson Whittemore is just like Lydia in all the right ways.

He wants to be better than everyone. He wants it like it’s everything. Like to be lesser is death. Like to be lesser is hell.

Lydia has always felt the exact same way.

It’s refreshing, at first. For someone to ache for power like she does. The fact that the two of them are the only people who need control like they need air is probably the reason they actually achieve it in the first place.

She supposes that the fact they’re both beautiful and smart and mean doesn’t hurt.

It takes a long time for Lydia to love Jackson. It’s something that happens in an instant. Even when they started dating it was more an arrangement of mutual convenience, something they did because they both wanted to be the best and becoming a team was simply the next step in achieving that. But after they’ve been dating for a while Jackson looks at Lydia and she feels utterly understood in a way she had always thought might be impossible from the perspective of a mind that doesn’t move as fast as hers.

It puts fire in her bones and Lydia decides that she never wants to stop burning.

~

Far later, Lydia supposes that it isn’t so surprising that she ends up having loved them both.

She always has adored her reflection.

Amity joins the Emperor’s Coven

Amity Blight is perfect.

She has perfect grades and a perfect family and is exactly the kind of person that’s going to grow up and fit in perfectly at the Emperor’s Coven. When Lilith isn’t busy being proud of her she can’t help but feel a little jealous of the child for never having to be second best to anyone.

That’s all until the human arrives.

Before Lilith can even begin to process the situation Amity is deviating from the careful path of perfection Lilith has so painstakingly laid out for her. She still has perfect grades and she’s still the youngest daughter of the Blight family, all that prestige and none of it tying her down, but suddenly her allegiances are questionable.

She’s spending too much time with the human. Too much time with Eda. Too much time with people who could steer her away from the path she must take.

So before things can go too awfully, before Eda can ruin this perfect little girl like she ruins everything else, Lilith makes a proposal.

“How would you like to become the youngest member of the Emperor’s Coven?” She says, all warmth and approval in the way she knows the girl’s parents never are.

Amity’s face lights up and Lilith tries not to think too much about how the guilt churning in her stomach makes her feel a little like when she cursed her sister.

cass doodle for fun

“Sometimes I think Batman is the only thing I made right.” Bruce says to no one in particular. The words cause Alfred to freeze for a moment before going back to work. “You disagree?” Bruce asks, not wanting to leave secrets between them.

Alfred looks up at him. “I have always thought of Batman as your worst creation, Sir.”

His tone is serious but Bruce can’t help but laugh. “I made the Red Hood, I made the Joker Alfred. You really think Batman is worse than them?”

“Yes I do, Master Bruce.” Alfred says, refusing to look at him.

The exchange is disjointed enough that Bruce stops laughing immediately. A tense silence is left hanging in the air.

Neither of them say anything else for the rest of the night.

I got batgirls #1 and the art is BEAUTIFUL

also not to derail anything but when i saw the cover and the fact that the other guy has pink hair i got reminded of the pink kryptonite that made superman gay and i can't stop thinking about it

Hi there! If you feel up to it, would you be willing to expand a bit more on the idea of white creators creating poc characters who are ‘internally white’, especially in a post-racialized or racism-free setting & how to avoid it? It’s something I’m very concerned about but I haven’t encountered a lot of info about it outside of stories set in real world settings. Thanks & have a good day!

Hey, thanks for asking, anon!  It’s a pretty nuanced topic, and different people will have different takes on it.  I’ll share my thoughts on it, but do keep in mind that other people of colour may have different thoughts on the matter, and this is by no means definitive!  These are things I’ve observed through research, trial and error, my own experiences, or just learning from other writers.

The first thing I guess I want to clarify is that I personally am not opposed to a society without racism in fiction.  It’s exhausting and frankly boring when the only stories that characters of colour get are about racism!  So it’s a relief sometimes to just get to see characters of colour exist in a story without dealing with racism.  That being said, I feel like a lot of the time when creators establish their settings as “post-racial,” they avoid racism but they also avoid race altogether.  Not aesthetically -they may have a few or even many characters with dark skin- but the way the characters act and talk and relate to the world are “race-less” (which tends to end up as default white American/British or whatever place the creator comes from).  Which I have complicated thoughts on, but the most obvious thing that springs to mind is how such an approach implies (deliberately or not) that racism is all there is to the way POC navigate the world.  It’s definitely a significant factor, particularly for POC in Western countries, but it’s not the only thing!  There’s so much more to our experiences than just racial discrimination, and it’s a shame that a lot of “post-racial” or “racism-free” settings seem to overlook that in their eagerness to not have racism (or race) in their stories.

A quick go-to question I ask when I look at characters of colour written/played by white creators is: if this was a story or transcript I was reading, with no art or actors or what have you, would I be able to tell that this character is a character of colour?  How does the creator signal to the audience that this is a character of colour?  A lot of the time, this signal stops after the physical description - “X has dark skin” and then that’s all!  (We will not discuss the issue of racial stereotypes in depth, but it should be clear that those are absolutely the wrong way to indicate a character of colour).

This expands to a wider issue of using dark skin as a be-all-end-all indication of diversity, which is what I mean by “aesthetic” characters of colour (I used the term “internally white” originally but upon further reflection, it has some very loaded implications, many of which I’m personally familiar with, so I apologize for the usage).  Yes, the character may not “look” white, but how do they interact with the world?  Where do they come from?  What is their background, their family?  A note: this can be challenging with diaspora stories in the real world and people being disconnected (forcibly or otherwise) from their heritage (in which case, those are definitely stories that outsiders should not tell).  So let’s look at fantasy.  Even the most original writer in the world bases their world building off existing things in the real world.  So what cultures are you basing your races off of?  If you have a dark skinned character in your fantasy story, what are the real world inspirations and equivalents that you drew from, and how do you acknowledge that in a respectful, non-stereotyped way?

(Gonna quickly digress here and say that there are already so many stories about characters of colour disconnected from their heritage because ‘They didn’t grow up around other people from that culture’ or ‘They moved somewhere else and grew up in that dominant culture’ or ‘It just wasn’t important to them growing up’ and so on.  These are valid stories, and important to many people!  But when told by (usually) white creators, they’re also used, intentionally or not, as a sort of cop-out to avoid having to research or think about the character’s ethnicity and how that influences who they are.  So another point of advice: avoid always situating characters outside of their heritage.  Once or twice explored with enough nuance and it can be an interesting narrative, all the time and it starts being a problem)

Another thing I want to clarify at this point is that it’s a contentious issue about whether creators should tell stories that aren’t theirs, and different people will have different opinions.  For me personally, I definitely don’t think it’s inherently bad for creators to have diverse characters in their work, and no creator can live every experience there is.  That being said, there are caveats for how such characters are handled.  For me personally, I follow a few rules of thumb which are:

Is this story one that is appropriate for this creator to tell?  Some experiences are unique and lived with a meaningful or complex history and context behind them and the people to whom those experiences belong do not want outsiders to tell those stories.

To what extent is the creator telling this story?  Is it something mentioned as part of the narrative but not significantly explored or developed upon?  Does it form a core part of the story or character?  There are some stories that translate across cultures and it’s (tentatively) ok to explore more in depth, like immigration or intergenerational differences.  There are some stories that don’t, and shouldn’t be explored in detail (or even at all) by people outside those cultures.

How is the creator approaching this story and the people who live it?  To what extent have they done their research?  What discussions have they had with sensitivity consultants/readers?  What kind of respect are they bringing to their work?  Do they default to stereotypes and folk knowledge when they reach the limits of their research?  How do they respond to feedback or criticism when audiences point things that they will inevitably get wrong?

Going back to the “race-less” point, I think that creators need to be careful that they’re (respectfully) portraying characters of colour as obvious persons of colour.  With a very definite ‘no’ on stereotyping, of course, so that’s where the research comes in (which should comprise of more than a ten minute Google search).  If your setting is in the real world, what is the background your character comes from and how might that influence the way they act or talk or see the world?  If your setting is in a fantasy world, same question!  Obviously, avoid depicting things which are closed/exclusive to that culture (such as religious beliefs, practices, etc) and again, avoid stereotyping (which I cannot stress enough), but think about how characters might live their lives and experience the world differently based on the culture or the background they come from.

As an example of a POC character written/played well by a white person, I personally like Jackson Wei and Cindy Wong from Dimension 20’s The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy D&D campaign.  Jackson and Cindy are NPCs played by the DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who did a good job acknowledging their ethnicity without resorting to stereotypes and while giving them their own unique characters and personalities.  The first time he acted as Cindy, I leapt up from my chair because she was exactly like so many old Chinese aunties and grandmothers I’ve met.  The way Jackson and Cindy speak and act and think is very Chinese (without being stereotyped), but at the same time, there’s more to their characters than being Chinese, they have unique and important roles in the story that have nothing to do with their ethnicity.  So it’s obvious that they’re people of colour, that they’re Chinese, but at the same time, the DM isn’t overstepping and trying to tell stories that aren’t his to tell.  All while not having the characters face any racism, as so many “post-racialized” settings aim for, because there are quite enough stories about that!

There a couple factors that contribute to the positive example I gave above.  The DM is particularly conscientious about representation and doing his research (not to say that he never messes up, but he puts in a lot more effort than the average creator), and the show also works with a lot of sensitivity consultants.  Which takes me to the next point - the best way to portray characters of colour in your story is to interact with people from that community.  Make some new friends, reach out to people!  Consume media by creators of colour!  In my experience so far, the most authentic Chinese characters have almost universally been created/written/played by Chinese creators.  Read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows created by people of colour.  Apart from supporting marginalized creators, you also start to pick up how people from that culture or heritage see themselves and the world, what kind of stories they have to tell, and just as importantly, what kind of stories they want being told or shared.  In other words, the best way to portray an authentic character of colour that is more than just the colour of their skin is to learn from actual people of colour (without, of course, treating them just as a resource and, of course, with proper credit and acknowledgement).

Most importantly, this isn’t easy, and you will absolutely make mistakes.  I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you will mess up.  No matter how well researched you are, how much respect you have for other cultures, how earnestly you want to do this right, you will at some point do something that makes your POC audience uncomfortable or even offends them.  Then, your responsibility comes with your response.  Yes, you’ve done something wrong.  How do you respond to the people who are hurt or disappointed?  Do you ignore them, or double down on your words, or try to defend yourself?  Just as importantly, what are you planning to do about it in the future?  If you have a second chance, what are you going to do differently?  You will make mistakes at some point.  So what are you going to do about them?  That, I think, is an even more important question than “How can I do this right?”  You may or may not portray something accurately, but when you get something wrong, how are you going to respond?

Essentially, it all comes down to your responsibility as a creator.  As a creator, you have a responsibility to do your due diligence in research, to remain respectful to your work and to your audience, and to be careful and conscientious about how you choose to create things.  It’s not about getting things absolutely perfect or being the most socially conscious creator out there, it’s about recognizing your responsibilities as a creator with a platform, no matter how big or small, and taking responsibility for your work. 

In summary:

Research, research, research

Avoid the obvious no-no’s (stereotypes, tokenization, fetishization, straight up stealing from other cultures, etc) and think critically about what creative choices you’re making and why

Do what you’re doing now, and reach out to people (who have put themselves out there as a resource).  There are tons of resources out there by people of colour, reach out when you’re not sure about something or would like some advice!

Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

Thank you for reaching out!  Good luck with your work!