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I’ve been seeing a lot of comments of “I was going to buy Li’l Gotham, but now I don’t know if I want to” floating around since it was confirmed that the Batgirl in Li’l Gotham was recolored, and I kind of want to weigh in on that. I would still HIGHLY suggest buying this. Let’s be real—-though it’s in a chibi style and has a cutesy feel, this comic was closer to the DCU I love than anything that has come out in the last year. Li’l Gotham is NOT SET IN THE DCNU. That’s kind of a big deal! It took Dustin Nguyen almost five years to get this idea approved, and damn it, I don’t want to see it suffer from editorial ridiculousness.

This is how I look at it. Yesterday morning, I bought the equivalent of a cupcake made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles. It was the best cupcake ever, and I couldn’t wait to get through my work day and go home and blog all about it (because blogging is What I Do, and this cupcake made me believe in dreams again). But between the time that I bought the cupcake and when I got home, DC snuck into my bag and gave me a different one. I settled into my desk with a cup of tea and decided to savor that cupcake again.

But the eggplant sprinkles in my rainbow had been noticeably replaced with a big scab. I did not remember that scab being there. I was confused, because I know I wouldn’t have been the happiest of clams all day if I hadn’t been positive that I’d had an eggplant sprinkle there before. I thought that I was getting paranoid and delusional! But then I took a closer look, and I noticed the shards of broken dreams and little jpeg artifacts of sunshine in there. It HAD been an eggplant sprinkle just a couple hours before.

So you can imagine that this was a massive disappointment. I know that current studies claim that eggplant sprinkles are toxic, but they sure as hell haven’t made me sick. And it’s not that the scab was end-of-the-world terrible, but that it’d originally been something I loved and enjoyed with wild abandon. Why would someone do that? Was it so necessary that I not have that one sprinkle? Why is it that one person can decide that nobody gets to have eggplant sprinkles anymore, just because they themselves don’t like eggplant? I’ll still buy this flavor of cupcake again—-because it was WONDERFUL—-but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m annoyed, insulted, and baffled by the thought process behind the decision. In no way do I fault the bakers—-they WANTED to give me the perfect cupcake, but someone spoiled the batch after the cupcake was out of their hands. I want to keep supporting them, because I know that they will get to cook up batches of Red Velvet Oraclecakes, and Mocha Helenacakes, and Angelfood Casscakes, and Buttercream Timcakes.

(Technically, they’re still making Timcakes, but they’ve started using an artificial sweetener that will probably end up claiming lives. It’s definitely not the same Tim we bought 183 batches of. Similarly, the Red Velvet Oraclecakes have been replaced with Babsgirl Carrot Cake, and I really want to like it, but I can’t get over the drastic change in texture and flavor.)

Yeah, I know—-the cupcake thing has gone on for way too long, but I fell asleep before I could eat dinner, and I really want a cupcake right now. Anyway. What I’m trying to say is that I love Steph, but there’s too much in Li’l Gotham that is too good NOT to support. The art is incredible, the stories are fun, and it speaks to a Gotham that I actually recognize. I haven’t bought a DCnU floppy since Steph was replaced with Babs in Smallville, and I don’t intend to. Despite loving several of the new books, I can’t support the way DC has treated its fans and its talent in the past year. But I’m going to keep buying Li’l Gotham, and I really, really hope that you do, too.

Anonymous asked: What do you think of this Batgirl #6 mess?

Ahaha, I’d wondered if anyone would ask me to weigh in on this one. I was going to avoid saying anything, since I feel like I’m way too biased to look at this one rationally, but the more I think about it the more I feel like my bias matters.

SPOILERS FOR BATGIRL #6 FROM THIS POINT ON.

I feel like this is a detrimental move, even if it was accidental. I strongly believe that Gail Simone did not intend for it to be read as such, but paired with the realities of female representation in the New 52’s Bat titles, it’s caused a bit of a riot. With Steph’s Robin days axed due to pesky ovaries, the representation of teenage female heroes in Gotham was lowered. The panel’s invalidation of the importance of Batgirl being a legacy title has diminished that representation even more. Yes, Babs was the first Batgirl, and yes, she was iconic, but the Batgirls who have come after her shouldn’t be swept under the rug.

This matters. This is important. It may be written off as a throwaway line in a comic book, but it’s a lot more than that.

Let’s unpack the implications built into Bruce’s statement. The quote is, “You were always meant to be Batgirl, Barbara.” I feel like I can see where Gail Simone was coming from with this—-she meant that Barbara’s determination and inability to let injustice slide would have brought her into a role like Batgirl. Contextually, it works. Kind of a muddy way of expressing that, but hey: it’s Bruce, and platitudes (no matter how awkwardly sincere) make him break out in hives. But for much of the readership, that isn’t what came through.

The implication is that Batgirl was the end goal for Babs, and that Bruce had given this his blessing—-and holy cats, is that loaded with problems and I’m getting flustered just trying to grapple with it. Time for a list.

1. This means that Batgirl, in Bruce’s eyes, is a superior title than Oracle. It reduces her achievements into a transitory state that isn’t worth acknowledging. The ableism in that is unreal. I won’t get into the debate of whether or not that implied statement is true (it’s not; debate over), but it devalues Oracle’s worth.
1.5. PS, I don’t love that Batgirl is who she is meant to be. She’s in her twenties. Calling her a girl is demeaning, but understandable from an editorial point of view. Kate’s already got the Batwoman title, and goodness knows that nobody wants to fight her for it. I know, I know; reading too far into that one, but it irks me, so I felt like mentioning it.

2. There’s this weird overtone that Bruce has always meant for her to have the mantle, and that she should be happy to have his approval now. Frankly? Fuck that. She never needed his approval, and did the right thing in spite of the disapproval of the overbearing male authority figure. The best thing about the Batgirl legacy is that it IS removed from the other Bats and Robins. The sexism in the Batfamily (and if you try to tell me there is no sexism in the Batfam, I will promptly laugh myself sick) has been a wall that the Batgirls have had to scale. I’ve always felt that this is realistic, and that it says something great about the women who wear the Bat on their chest: everyone is telling them to sit down, and they’re choosing to fight. That endurance and dedication and passion for what’s right is beautiful. The Batgirl mantle has never been Bruce’s to give. There’s this wonderful matriarchal aspect to it that is, unfortunately, gone.

3. Because all of the Batgirls are gone. Even if the Bat editors have created a loophole for them, that loophole is only big enough for Cass—-and even that is debatable. On top of that, the uniquely female relationships built into the Batgirl legacy have been distorted: Cass is the same age as Jason, which means there’s only a couple of years between Babs and Cass. The mentor/student mother/daughter relationship just won’t read the same way. And since Steph’s entire history has been wiped (something that I discussed already at length), the events that brought her to Batgirl have disappeared. Even though Bruce asked her to do it, Cass gave Steph the cowl as a sister and a friend who saw that she needed it. That’s a beautiful legacy. That’s an important legacy, because it’s emphasizing the relationships between women. BQM addressed this in one panel in the last issue of his Batgirl run by showing us a future where Nell, an African American girl, became the next Batgirl—-with Steph’s support and blessing.

4. Even if they do exist, they don’t matter. They were keeping the cowl warm for Babs, apparently. Their fights and victories and failures have instantly been invalidated, because Batgirl is all about Babs. We can have FOUR Robins who LOOK THE SAME, but we can’t have more than one Batgirl—-though they are radically different from one another. Because that’s just plumb confusing! If you’re not an upper middle class white girl, good luck finding representation in the streets of Gotham.

Ugh. I’m sorry. I’m getting bitter, and I shouldn’t let myself do that. But seriously, this is a big deal. How many teenage girl heroes are in Gotham—-especially ones with the autonomy that both Cass and Steph had, pre-reboot? What about the disabled readers, the POCs, and the abuse survivors who are looking for their heroes? I’d like to know, because I’m one of them.

God, I hope they have something planned for the girls that makes this hurt less. I want to believe that they’re going to give us something that will make me go geeze, I feel terrible about being so critical! I WANT to eat my words, DC. I WANT this to be something that the writers address, and not a continual “they’ll play a part eventually”.

stormwind13 asked:
Ok, this was bugging me. In Batman Beyond, Ra’s takes over Talia’s body. Does he do the same in either the good or bad end of NDND, given that his two prefered “hosts”, for lack of a better word, have made themselves unavailable? And if yes, how would the batfamily react to the news?

eilatanposting asked:
How and why did Jason Todd pass on the “Red Hood” mantle to Gideon?

slothchild asked:
So, I was wondering about Gideon. He’d probably have ALL OF THE FEELINGS about being Damian’s clone, despite everyone’s claims of him being an official brother instead. Cue me asking if he takes after his Papa Jay and dyes his hair to be even a smidge different from Big Bro Damian. He wouldn’t go to an extreme color or anything. He might want a lighter brown like his mother or a red like his…uh…blood. And also, how’re the other brothers relationships with the little guy?

Okay, so I didn’t think that I was going to answer this, but I’ve gotten several questions along the same lines—-and I’m not sure if I’ll ever write the full fic version of this (though I really, really want to)—-so I’m going to answer this one in full.

And oh gosh, this got LONG. Follow me under the cut for all my al Ghul feels.

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Anonymous asked: Oh, and Miss Kitty, I was reading your posts and you sometimes seem a bit scared to write certain characters like you're not good enough. You write characters I feel ambivalent about better than professional authors so you should have more faith in yourself. Maybe ask for requests involving characters like that then fill out the one that gives you the best ideas maybe? I think Steph who has been portrayed in different ways would be harder to write than Kate, who has been very consistent.

I do get antsy about writing certain characters, but mostly because I haven’t read enough canon to feel like I have a hold on their voice. For me, writing a character means knowing what has been done with them before, identifying their speech patterns and idiosyncrasies, and isolating the elements that make them recognizable and compelling. Comic characters can be challenging to write, because many of them have publication histories that span decades—-and they’ve passed through many hands and many pens during that time.

Not every writer who has written a character has done a good job of it. Furthermore, not every writer who has done a poor job of handling a character lacked interesting points. Before I feel comfortable with writing MY take, I have to be able to decide for myself what is and isn’t crucial to their characterization. I try to read as much as I can, and I try to pick out the strengths and weaknesses between different iterations. I can’t ignore canon, but I can interpret the weak points so that they inform the strong ones. I always worry that if I have too limited a view of a character’s canon, I’ll be essentially writing a copy of one facet of them, not creating my own take of them.

So I guess that’s just a tl;dr way of saying that I like to sit down and get to know characters a little before I play with them. If I don’t have a clear voice in my head, there’s no way I’m going to have a clear voice on paper. It’s silly, and it’s a lot of work for FANFICTION, of ALL THINGS, but feeling like I can write a version of any given character that speaks to canon—-but is still definitely me-flavored—-is what satisfies me as a writer.

Another thing to remember is that I’ve only been reading DC comics for six months. Before I got to Jason’s appearance in NDND, all I really knew about Jason Todd was that he was a Robin trying to be Dean Winchester or something. I also had a vague notion that he might be a zombie.

You know that picture that’s been floating around for a while, with the “Pokémon names according to my Dad”? I’m like that, except with the DCU. I only have cursory knowledge of most of the universe, and my assumptions usually end up being very, very far off the mark. I was insanely disappointed when I realized that the Green Lantern comics weren’t Space Cops: SVU.

damnsmartblueboxes asked: I really want to get into Marvel but... the libraries seem to only stock the 'ultimates' titles and that throws me off a bit so If you could please tell me what to look out for? [/besides the Six issues of White Tiger co-written by Tamora Pierce and her husband that I can't seem to find in my local shop.]

These two posts should be a good starting place for you! The thing about Ultimates is that it is a “new” universe, so there isn’t a lot of required back-reading involved in jumping in. Theoretically, that makes it a better starting point for new readers, since you don’t have seventy years of continuity to wrestle with. HOWEVER, there is a lot about Ultimates that could easily put off readers, since it’s very…Mark Millar. Honestly, I don’t know how else to even say it. It can get tacky, over the top, and bullhorn-y regarding his views on American patriotism and stance as a world power. It boils down to HEY DO YOU KNOW WHO SUCKS AND IS STUPID AND A BIG BULLY FULL OF RACISM AND INBREEDING? AMURRICA. And I’m kind of a silly optimist, and I have feelings about my country despite her faults, so I don’t really appreciate when it is a prevailing theme and plot point.

The aim of the Ultimates line is to create a universe where things are more “realistic”, where creators can do dicey storylines that they wouldn’t be able to pull off in the 616!continuity. It’s interesting stuff, and I’ll admit that I DO enjoy the first two volumes of Ultimates—-but kind of the way someone might enjoy reality tv. It’s terrible, and it makes you feel bad about humanity, but sometimes you just can’t look away. I want to scoop up Ult!Clint, Ult!Bruce, and Ult!Jan and take them to a different universe. They’re too precious for that one.

Anywho. There are plenty of titles to choose from in those posts that I linked. I tried to include different age groups and team formations, so there should be something that’ll tickle your fancy—-whether you like possibly-queer leading ladies on tragically canceled solo titles, teen teams, adult teams, kung-fu, espionage, or dead sidekicks.

My strongest rec would be Captain America and Bucky. It’s only had like four or five issues so far, and it’s been A M A Z I N G. It’s p. much just Bucky’s origin, but it’s given a full couple of issues instead of a two-page spread. Chris Samnee is one of my very favorite artists (HE’S JUST SO NICE, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND), so his art + my favorite character + my favorite person to write said favorite character = my favorite thing. Just look at these precious faces!

captainbasils-deactivated201305 asked: If you were a comic-book writer, what would you like to work on first? Discounting the industry's current state and realism, what are your dream stories to do with both canon and your own original characters/universes? Aaaand, regardless of story, are there any lasting impressions you want to leave on readers?

I would write any characters that I was allowed to work with. Period, end stop. If one of the big two gave me a shot, I do NOT care what it is that they’d want me to work on. I feel like there are potential stories that I could tell with any character, so I’m not choosy. If I were allowed to choose, I would write a story about Tom Raymond. Avert your judging eyes, but one of my kind-of-serious life goals is to write a story where something GOOD happens to my firebug. As some of you are already aware, I have more feelings about Tom (and also Bucky) than any other character in comics. His life has been absolute shit, but he has the personality and optimism of a golden retriever. He is the ONE team member of the Invaders who nobody remembers/cares about, even though he is ALIVE in current continuity. The original Human Torch’s sidekick, one of the FIRST recorded mutants, every bit as popular as Bucky in his day, and NOBODY knows about him—-inside the universe as well as outside of it. They brought him back from the dead in 2008 and have done jackshit with him ever since. He has this POTENTIAL to bridge so many people in the MU, but he’s forgotten or omitted. I don’t know if this is a rights issue with Alex Ross, but they’re acknowledging that Jim is alive and back in 616 continuity, so why not Tom?

okay. I’m leaving that rant there. My official answer to “what would I like to work on” is “everything, but especially Tom Raymond, the Invaders, Stephanie Brown, Rikki Barnes, Anya Corazon, and All the Magic People in Marvel That Aren’t White Boys”.

And as far as what I want to write goes…I want to write about love. And before anyone goes there, no: I don’t want to write romancel novels, nor do I necessarily want to write about standard love stories. I touched on this briefly in one of my posts earlier today, but love is an amazing driving force. I’ve been churning over the issue of sex and love in comics since way before the DCnU started launching, but the alarming trends have given words to my feelings.

I’m fascinated by people, and the emotions that connect them. You can see that in my fics, I think, because it’s a theme that I keep going back to. I want to write about love between a woman and a man, between two women, between two men, between a group of people, between genderfluid characters, and characters of different races and sexual orientations, and I want to treat them all with the same level of validity and respect. I want to write these without making them plot points, and without forcing them to fit into the whitewashed formula of the standard middle-class white heterosexual monogamous relationship. I want relationships of equal partners and non-traditional gender roles. I want parents and children (single mothers, single fathers, gay parents, straight parents, good parents, bad parents, parents as more than a method of adding “character-building” trauma), siblings (who are related and aren’t), and teams who become families and friends (and not just a face to fit a quota on a team title). I want characters who fight like hell for reasons other than grimdark and past trauma.

Because I don’t see as much love in comics right now. What I see is sex, and not the kind of sex that means anything at all. It has all the genuineness and profundity of a porno. It’s not about the characters or the story, because it has this non-diegetic pushing against the fourth wall, where the artist and writer are asking does this turn you on? It makes as much sense to have Catwoman and her Marvelous Bra of Many Colors as it does to have the sorority girls jump the pizza delivery guy for his pie with extra sausage. It pulls from the story because it doesn’t add to it.

As you may have noticed, most of my long stories contain sexual material. I feel that inclusion of sex is important in any novel that wants to seriously discuss a sexual-romantic relationship. I include that material because it says something important about the characters, how they relate to each other, and their overall story.

So yes, we do have sexually aggressive and liberated ladies lauded in the DCnU, but that isn’t what I want—-not in the form we’re getting it. Just judging by the specific outcries I’ve been hearing again and again, I feel like there is an audience for the stories that I want to write. We want our Scott and Bardas, our Ma and Pa Kents, our happy marriages (hi, Clark and Lois and Wally and Linda), our Roy and Lian Harpers, our Gold and Blue bromances, and our Original Titans, who moved onto solo careers, but always knew that their teammates would be their family.

We love the concept of finding acceptance and connections when we feel profoundly alone. Those are the stories that I want to write, because they can exist in any genre. I just want to tell good, strong stories.

Anonymous asked: We know how Terry meets one Batman and the progression from there, but how did his earlier interactions with Damian go for the Bad!End? You are honestly one of the BEST fanfiction writers I have ever had the pleasure of reading, but how Terry fits into the Bad!/End, doesn't add up to me. Damian is incapable of dying in the Bad!End, and its almost implied that he uses the Lazarus Pit to make himself younger, so why would he need or want to take in Terry? How did this come about? Thank you!

When Damian implies that he is going to use the Pit to keep young and fight-ready in the last chapter of NDND, it’s because he’s still a man with drive and hope. I think that a lot of the time, we forget that superhero stories are about love, in at least a small capacity. Most of the decisions that we make are influenced by what we love, be it a person or a place of even an idea. Conflict arises when the things we love are in jeopardy, which is why the damsel in distress is such a prevalent trope in fiction. Love—-love lost, love gained, love cherished, love denied, love perverted—-is a huge motivator. Bruce’s initial motivation for being Batman was the loss of his parents’ love, and the love he had for the ideal of what life could be without crime.

Damian was motivated and controlled by love. He kept himself in line because he recognized that love between people does have conditions, no matter what anyone else might say. If he killed, he would lose the love of the ghosts he tried to please, and the woman he desperately wanted to love him would be disgusted with what he “really” was. It was a conscious effort at first—-he’d gone to a dark inner place after Dick disappeared, because Dick had been one of the few people who Damian fought for, and not against—-but over time, it became easier. The city felt more like his, and the sacrifices he made felt worth it.

But his deal—-made in a moment of duress, before Steph had really become a fixture in his life—-was his secret. He knew that she wouldn’t agree with what he had done, so he had to act like he gave a shit about himself so that she wouldn’t see that he couldn’t die. Once he reverted to a sickeningly masochistic mode, Steph freaked out and left. This increased his self-hate and the conviction that he was inherently flawed, not lessened it. Stephanie’s death was the literal nail in the coffin for him. He stopped caring. He continued being Batman because no one else was worthy of it, and he was the closest possible.

His relationship with Terry plays out similarly to Batman 700. He saved him as an infant, and the personal importance of the case burns it into his memory. Terry kept popping up in his life, and when he was sixteen he helped him save several hostages. He put his own life at risk, called Damian on his suicidal crap, and actually talked TO him like he WAS SOMEONE. Nobody had fought with him in years. Not in the I’m-only-yelling-because-I-care-about-you way. Terry was injured, and he needed emergency care.

So Damian took him back to the cave and patched him up himself. He let him come to there, and talked with him when he woke back up. In the bad!end, Damian’s presence—-and the mounting, grisly crime in Gotham—-has more or less chased all of the other vigilantes away. Damian asks Terry why he threw himself into the fight, since he knew that he’d heal eventually, and Terry says that he wasn’t the type to just let crap like that happen or look away.

So Damian offers to train him. He offers not because he’s gotten older—-still at his prime, really—-but because if he prepares someone to become Batman in his stead, he won’t have to be the Batman forever. Terry reminds him of Dick, and he knows that Bruce would have approved of him.

He trains Terry so that he can finally give up and be done. When he finally dies, Terry has turned Batman back into a symbol of justice for the people, and Max is his Oracle. He knows that they are better than what he became, and he has no fear of death. Damian knows what’s waiting for him, and he knows that it isn’t Stephanie, but he would rather face that than live eternally with the memory of everyone he failed. At the end, he doesn’t want anything more than a release.

Anonymous asked: I wanna know all about Cadoc! Is he a test tube baby? Another hibernating spaceship baby from Krypton? Adopted orphan? What does that name mean? Most importantly: how is he like with Laila and all his other family members? (tl;dr, anon loves ALL the babyfic, ALL of it)

Caddoc Jackson Drake-Wayne-Kent (or Caddy, because jesus christ Tim why did you give this child so many names HE DOESN’T NEED THAT MANY NAMES) is a test-tube baby. He’s mostly human—-a combo of Tim and Kon, with an egg donated by the only perky blond woman Tim would ever feel comfortable asking (that has already had healthy children and doesn’t have possible god weirdness that might interfere with Tim’s mad science)—-but still has flight and fight capabilities. His name is Welsh, meaning “battle-sharp”, but it was chosen mostly because Conner wanted to keep the tradition of the hard “c” sound (Clark, Conner, Caddoc). He takes more after Kon than Tim, a big goofball that just adores his cousins. He’s between Laila and the twins age-wise, which means that he is one of Laila’s Minions. The adults always wonder if it’s a good idea to let the four of them loose into the wild, but they haven’t caused any major international accidents yet.

(The first time Laila asked Terry if he wanted to hang out with her brothers and cousin, he didn’t realize that meant going on a space adventure with Nightwing, Superboy, and the Robins. He thought she meant that they were going bowling or something.)

justcallmesammy asked: Hi there! This is kind of a big deal for me to, y'know, actually send this to you, but I think you're a beyond amazing writer. In fact, I would really like to sit here and just compliment the crap out of you, but uh, well I was actually wondering if you have a sort of go-to process for planning out what you're going to write? Or any tips for how one might, hypothetically get started?

Thank you! My process is a mess of notecards, pointless research, impromptu dance parties, and snack foods. I use the Pomodoro Technique to keep myself on track when I’m working, but a lot of my effectiveness and output is due to structuring and planning beforehand. I never start a fic if I don’t know how it’s going to end, but I leave myself wiggle-room for happy accidents and random ideas. I write by hand, on my Blackberry phone, and on my computer, and compile all three sources of work at the end of each day. I never really…stop writing anymore. I’ve answered similar questions in the past, so have some relevant links!

• How to Improve Your Written Dialogue
• How to Jumpstart Your Creativity
• Some Helpful Resources for Writers
• A Look Into the Mess That Is My Process

 

Has Gideon been introduced yet? I think I missed it!

Gideon was introduced in the second part of Vows. Gideon first meets Damian at his wedding, and sees firsthand what options exist out of their mother’s grasp. Talia did not want to have Gideon after Damian abandoned her, but Ra’s demanded upon a replacement body if things went south. The choice that she gave Damian was really an elaborate ploy to get him to leave and not return—-an attempt to give him a better life by making herself a villain in his eyes. It was the least that she could do for her firstborn son.

Ra’s did not give Talia a choice in the matter, so Gideon grew up knowing that he was nothing but a meatsuit in his grandfathers’ eyes (oftentimes referred to as an “it”), and that his mother didn’t love him as much as she loved the son who’d run away. He resented Damian deeply until he saw him with his wife and family, and realized that it could be a possible future for him, too. When he was around twenty, Ra’s wanted an upgrade, and Gideon ran to Damian for sanctuary. He’d been a half-hearted villain up until that point, so he had to kidnap Laila to ensure that big brother would listen to him. Since Gideon is Damian’s clone, Laila saw her father in him, and didn’t want him to be hurt. Damian gave him a chance, and shuttled him off to Jason to watch over. Jason ends up a silver goddamn fox, of course, and never actually retires, but he eventually passes the Red Hood mantle on to Gideon.

In the bad!end, Gideon never saw what his life could be. He met Damian at age twenty, as adversary alone, and fought him a few times. He realized that there is one day a year where Damian hangs up the cape and does not patrol under any circumstances, so he thought that he’d take advantage of that.

That day is the anniversary of Steph’s death, so it was the wrong day to pick a fight with Damian. Damian kills Gideon in the bad!end, justifying that he is a clone—-and therefore a lesser being. The sick part is, he enjoys doing it, too. It’s cathartic, because HE can’t die, so it felt horrendously good to watch a man with his face bleed out in front of him. Bad!end Damian does not give a single fuck, especially about himself.

Anonymous asked: If you were given a job at Marvel or DC to write any currently used or unused characters whop would you pick? You are allowed to raise the dead... except for Uncle Ben.

This is a tough question! I would probably want to either do something with Tom Raymond—-because I am the only one who loves him, and he has had nothing but terrible things happen in his life—-or try my hand at the Runaways. I love those kids so much, but they exhausted their premise long before their series was cancelled. The challenge with them is that they are teenagers who’ve been on the run since their inception, but they can’t remain teenagers or keep running forever. Marvel has held off on using them for years, since they haven’t had anywhere to go with them—-despite the Runners having a strong fanbase.

So, I would like to give the Runners some roots. The West Coast is my home, so I’ve always had a special fondness for them—-almost every Marvel team is bunched up in New York, so to have the focus be on a bunch of SoCal teens made my heart happy.

I would like to bring back Gert, but not in the fairly nauseating way that vol. 3’s cliffhanger set up. I’d bring in a Gert from another universe—-one where the Runaways had never run away, since they’d never caught their parents sacrificing hookers in the basement. That Gert had found out about the Pride on her own, because Nico’s constant clashing with her parents ended up in her “accidental” death. As soon as she turned eighteen, Gert systematically began taking out the Pride, but she did it by being a scarily savvy businesswoman. She stranded her parents in time without any way of getting back, took over their company, and slowly built up an opposition to the other Pride members. She became Karolina’s agent, getting her into big name movies and rolling in the dough, and became The Man to fight The Man and dissolve the Pride’s hold on L.A.

So, this Gert would help the 616!Runaways stop running, and start doing something good with themselves. They would become a superhero team that absolutely would not call themselves a superhero team, one part street-level heroes and one part the seeds of what could become the next batch of Avengers West Coast. I already have a pitch for this, okay. I’ve thought about this a lot, and have things planned that would move the Runners away from being “stock teenagers” and more into young adults that are round and identifiable. Nico would get to address her Grimshape, Chase would keep his crippling injuries from the accident, Victor would get to wrestle with what feelings are his vs. what he was programmed with (and the whole Scarlet Witch and Vision vs. Sister Grimm and Victorious parallel would be explored), Molly would get to be Not Ten Forever, Karolina would get more depth than just her sexuality, Klara would go hang out with the X-Men, and you’d better believe that Xavin would come back.

But I doubt that I’d ever get to pitch this, and many of Marvel’s teen books in the past two years have been cancelled after six issues. So. This is my pipe dream, I guess. I hope that the direction set by their appearance in Daken in November is good.

Anonymous asked: Why the specific love for Ultimate Hawkeye? I'm only familiar with the main version (well, mainly the cartoon version, really- do you watch the Avengers cartoon? You should it's amazing). What's the big difference, besides no mask?

Why do I love Ultimate Hawkeye? Oh, anon, please allow me to count the ways.

Even when they put him in terrible costumes, he manages to STILL look good. I mean, really—-he even made an armored codpiece work. Do you see this man? Please, look again.

You know what happens when you call his wife fat? this is what happens. If you don’t listen to him, he will give you so much shit. He doesn’t care who you are. He will shoot you, and he will enjoy it.

Now that my compulsory image spam is through, let me answer this a little more seriously. I love Ultimate!Clint Barton. Clint is, in a word, intense. He is not a man to be fucked with, and he takes great pains to let you know exactly that. He has been a part of a black ops team that might as well not exist to the rest of the world for the past ten years. Kosovo? Afghanistan? The fall of the Berlin Wall? Clint was there for all of that, arrows docked. Before Nick Fury found him, Clint was on death row for murder. Instead of getting a lethal injection or the hottest seat in the house, he got a leather jumpsuit and a license to kill. Either he got to die, or he got to kill. Those were his options.

Physically, he is different from 616!Clint Barton. Pre-Vol. 3, he had brown eyes—-and glasses! He’s far-sighted, and only sees in high contrast black and white. He never misses a target, and isn’t restricted to just using a bow and arrows—-he uses guns, arrows, buttons, pens, paper clips, finger nails, and literally anything else on hand. I’d liken his abilities to Bullseye more than 616!Hawkeye, actually. This bad boy was an Olympian, but not because he’d trained for years. No, not Ult!Clint. He showed up at a qualifying match, borrowed someone else’s bow, and struck an impossible bullseye at over 100 yards.

Clint Barton is a professional. He is efficient, clean, practical, and…a family man. During his ten-year stint as the man who co-founded SHIELD, he managed to juggle a longtime girlfriend and three children.

As a professional hitman, he doesn’t understand the lure of being a superhero. Fighting for the greater good, he understands. But he would rather not get accolades or pats on the back for what he does—-not when he still firmly believes in acceptable losses and the raw, animal satisfaction of fulfilling a vendetta. He got into killing for his country because it was his only option; he got into being a superhero because he looked at his children one day and decided that he wanted to be there for them. He wanted to be able to wake up in the morning and eat cheerios and watch cartoons with them. He wanted to have a clean record, so that he could make his girlfriend his wife. He isn’t a good man, but he wanted to pretend that he could be one.

His longtime partner murdered his wife and children in front of him. He spent three days under torture and sodium thiopental, then broke his way out of lockdown by ripping out his own fingernails and using them as projectiles to kill ten men. Then, he suited up and helped stop WWIII, and Ragnarok.

And he did it without his glasses on. What a man.

(PS, I have seen Avengers: EMH, and love it with a burning passion. I do like 616!Clint, but I find 1610!Clint more compelling.)

Anonymous asked: Hi, I was wondering if you'd be willing to do a bit/example/tutorial on how to write good dialogue? I feel like when I write it, it doesn't have enough substanance, or a good flow between the group/pair of people talking. I've read all your stories and you seem to really, REALLY have it down pat, and I'd like to ask you to share a bit of your knowledge. We swear we'll use it well and only bring it out on special occasions. :) Thanks, from a reader who loves your stories like I love chocolate.

Dialogue is a tricky thing, I agree. What we think sounds like a reasonable conversation in print is rarely something that would happen in real life. Much of what goes on in a conversation is nonverbal, but obviously not much of that can carry over into prose.

That being said, here are some things to try.

1. Record a conversation. If you can, set your phone or whatever to record when you’re talking to a friend—-and then forget about it, because if you focus on what you’re saying, you’ll miss the point of the exercise. Listen to the recorded conversation on your own, and write down what was actually said. You’ll be surprised by how many sentences are left unfinished, implied, or just plain dangling. Everyday conversation is messy, but knowing what natural dialogue looks and sounds like will sharpen your ears a bit.

2. Be more aware of word choice. Everyone has certain words, idioms, and sayings that they go to, and while people from similar backgrounds often have some of the same choices, each voice that you write should be unique. This takes practice, and a pretty strong idea of your character’s grasp on language. Try to stop and ask yourself is this really something they would say? For example, the way I write Steph and Jason is fairly similar: both of them are quick on their feet, mouthy, and have a propensity for puns. But Jason has a fouler mouth, and uses language as a distraction—-to purposefully instigate—-while Steph uses it more defensively, to cover up what she’s feeling. When someone is putting up a front or lying, they’re usually wordier. Things that are difficult for a character to say are oftentimes delivered in simple terms. Complex emotions, tender issues, and secrets translate to some of the briefest, simplest dialogue around. Lies are stories, and stories get embellished.

3. Don’t stuff your dialogue. In real life, conversations can meander for hours before getting to their point, but in fiction that is just not acceptable. You’ll bore your audience to tears. Every conversation should have a purpose. What is being said should serve to further plot, pace, or characterization, and if it doesn’t, cut it. You can’t have any scene or interaction exist “just because”. If it’s not pulling its weight, it shouldn’t be there.

4. Make sure your dialogue flows before you take the time and energy to toss in your descriptions and flesh it all out. Most of the time, I write my dialogue first, then add in all the he saids she saids and pretty flowery shit.

5. Read it aloud. Reading dialogue silently will not give you the same results as actually saying the words. Things that look okay on paper sound stilted and ridiculous when you hear it said aloud.

6. Dialogue doesn’t end with what’s between the quotations. Every scene you write should be from the limited POV of one of the characters involved. The word choice rule carries over here, too: scenes from Damian’s POV have longer and more complex sentence structures, while ones from Jason’s POV have swear words in the body of the text itself. Don’t flip from one person to another in a scene. If I’m writing Steph’s POV, she knows what she is feeling and seeing and can describe it, but what is going on with everyone else is up to her assumptions.

7. Listen, practice, and rock on.

Anonymous asked you:
2011-09-10 14:51
So in the bad!end how did Zasaz get to Steph exactly? I never understood that. Maybe I’m just dumb though. What did she do instead of calling Tim?

In the bad!end, Steph’s stubbornness kept her from making that call. ugh what really happened is all kinds of awful, which is why I’m answering it this way. I wanted to be able to put it under the cut—-both for potential spoilers on the last part of the good!end, and for some very unpalatable descriptions.

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‘No executive should be this aggressive when asked a fairly simple question.’

Why exactly should Dan answer a question which is silly from fans such as how many women DC need to hire for their books?

(This is a question that I received through email, but one that I’m going to answer here, as well.)

Your question’s abruptness startled me, so I googled your email address out of curiosity. You have a history of harassing people whose opinions differ from yours, so if this an attempt to bait me with no intention of listening to my point of view, I won’t be answering any further questions. What is said in my blog is purely my own thoughts, and while I have no problem with honest and intelligent discussion, it’s a waste of time for us both if you won’t give credence to any opinion differing from your own.

To me, you answered your own question, at least in part. I’m not sure if you were implying that it was silly that Mr. DiDio should have to answer questions posed by fans, or if the question itself was silly, but either way, it’s not. This question was posed at a Q&A panel at a convention, where fans—-aka the people who buy the books and support the creators and the editorial staff—-were given the opportunity to air their doubts about the recently-announced reboot. The fact that DC’s small margin of female writers and pencilers on ongoing titles had dropped from four percent in May of 2011 to less than two percent post-reboot. Furthermore, the solicits showed a six to one ratio of male lead solo titles to female ones (twenty-three to five). So, not only had the female creators been cut in half, but female characters themselves seemed to be disappearing.

To have this be the precedent at the dawn of a new DC era worried fans of both sexes, and was a punch in the throat to hopeful female creators. When Mr. DiDio dodged the question, it didn’t look good. It worried people even more, because it felt like it had been a conscious decision. It was a valid question, and I stand by my statement that no executive should be that aggressive when asked a question—-especially one that was already hot and controversial.

Female fans constantly have to battle the gender stereotypes associated with liking comic books. Despite the rising number of women reading and making superhero comics, the mentality that girls by and large only want “female friendly” comics is still in play. I went to my first large con this year, and was frustrated that not once, not twice, but three times by three different vendors, I was asked if I wanted recommendations for shojo manga and/or Runaways. Two of these times, I was pawing through silver age Invaders for specific issues, so it should have been clear that no, I was not a new reader who had been roped into coming by her boyfriend and was treating the whole experience with ambivalence. I was there because I am a comic fan, and my gender shouldn’t dictate what I read—-or if I read comics at all. The decisions made immediately after the reboot announcement read to many like a going back to the old ways, particularly where female fans were concerned.

This growing part of the market should be addressed, not marginalized—-especially going into a risky venture like a full universe reboot.