Dick Grayson And Trapeze
Dick Grayson and Trapeze
Okay, so I’ve been getting into DC for the past year or so after growing up entirely on Marvel and even more now that I can’t do anything else, and I love Dick Grayson! Because he is awesome, and also a circus person, and I am also a circus person. I’ve done circus for years, I worked at a circus school, it is a huge part of my life, circus is great! But oh my god almost all of the details are inaccurate and it’s finally gotten to me enough that I had to find and dust off my tumblr so I could post a rant about it. Will anyone care? Who knows! But I feel better now.
1. flying trapeze is not a solo act. Flying trapeze is not even a two-person act. Flying trapeze is at minimum a three-person act. You need a catcher, a flyer, and someone on board. Most historical flying trapeze family acts were four people (often siblings, or siblings and spouses) although of course that number varied I’ve included a picture of a rig below that I labeled so you can see what i’m referring to when I say flyer, board, catcher.
-this is why I am all for the young justice canon where it was dick’s father and uncle and their wives, and then once they grew up dick and his cousin. Siblings and spouses is an absolutely classic makeup of a trapeze family. Alternatively, you could imagine that john and mary worked with other trapeze artists they weren’t related to.
-dick is not old enough to be the third person here. He’s old enough to fly – my school had a minimum age of six for people taking classes, but staff children were exempt from that. Part of the reason for the age was the kids needed to listen, and part was they needed to not freak out. Obviously this doesn’t apply to Dick. But one of the other things is height. With smaller kids (on our rig, anyone under 4’6 I’d say, although you can adjust rigs to the height of flyers to a certain extent) you could not hold onto the bar and keep your feet on the platform. It was too far away. Small kids would grab the bar and their feet would dangle in the air and I’d hold them back by their safety belt. There are a couple of ways around this, including rises, but point being, could dick fly and throw tricks? Sure. Could he work board or drop a return bar? No way.
-there is a type of trapeze called swinging trapeze that is a solo act and uses a similar rig setup to flying trapeze, but you don’t leave the trapeze
-there is also a flying trapeze style called bar-to-bar, which is when instead of flying to a catcher you would catch the bar yourself, and is actually what jules leotard did when he first invented trapeze, but it is very rare (like, the only time I’ve ever seen this is catchers returning to the board) and you’d still need someone to drop the second bar for you. Here is a video of a catcher returning to the board. If you’re doing bar-to-bar instead of having a catcher, then you’d have a different rig set up than with a catcher, with a platform on either end of the net. If you want to compare them, here’s a really cool company that uses a cross setup which has both a bar-to-bar rig and a bar-to-catcher rig incorporated. In Nightwing: Year One, the Flying Graysons are shown using the more traditional bar-to-catcher set up, but Deadman (and presumably Dick when he joins the act) seems to be doing bar-to-bar.
2. you cannot “work your way up” to flying trapeze. There is no mini trapeze, there’s no slow version, there’s no flying trapeze but low to the ground (there are different types of rigs and cross training and if anyone wants me to go into detail I will, but still). “Working your way up to it” in flying trapeze means starting in safety lines and then taking a trick out of safety lines (step three, for the graysons, would be doing it without a net). Even in lines, you have to jump off the platform 20 feet in the air. That is step one, and you just have to dive right in. Feel free to come yell at me about how this influenced Dick as he grew up because I can’t put it into words right now but there’s something in there about Dick’s ratio of planning-to-look before leaping.
3. One of the most common mistakes new flyers make is trying to grab the catcher. This is a no-no. Flyer’s job is to fly, catchers job is to catch. As a flyer, your job is to be there, arms out, hands flat, and easy to grab. The catcher is responsible for grabbing you. If you make grabby hands or try to grab onto them in return before they’ve caught you, you will miss. It’s a disconcerting feeling if you’re starting out – when you’re following through the air, you want to grab at the person reaching for you. You cannot. You have to trust them to grab you.
-think of this, Dick, who has been raised with this mindset, watching his parents fall. Thing of this, Dick, who has decided it’s his job to catch everyone. Think of this, Dick, falling and hoping someone catches him. Think of the angst. Think of the fluff! The possibilities are endless! (please someone right this and also feel free to ask me questions about this I have feelings)
4. Look, all flying trapeze is built on timing and trust okay!! I remember my hair getting loose and in my eyes halfway through a trick and it’s weird because you’re flying through the air and you can’t see anything and you really would like to be able to see things but it doesn’t actually matter. It didn’t change what I had to do, which was listen to my catcher and let go when they said. I didn’t need to see them, I just needed to trust them and listen. It was a perfectly fine catch! Just, ugh, it’s all about trust!!!!!!
5. While wearing a leotard with bare legs is definitely ridiculous if you’re planning on running around fighting crime, it makes total sense if you’re a flyer and you’re doing any sort of legs catch. (Not if you’re a catcher. Wearing a leotard with no pants is just asking for pain if you’re a catcher. Lots of catchers wear two pairs of leggings so they have extra padding.) Look, one of my friends tried to do a legs catch in full lengths leggings and even though she could connect she slipped out of the catcher’s hands every single time. Every single god damn time. Her form could be absolutely perfect but as long as she was wearing those pants that catch was not going to happen. Bare legs all the way for legs catches. (If you’re not doing leg catches, go nuts. If you’re a beginner, you definitely want the back of your knees covered because you’ll have your knees on the bar a lot. I’ve definitely flown in shorts before, but I also spend a disproportionate amount of time in knee hangs. If you’re not used to doing if, hanging from your knees when it’s just bare skin *hurts*, and having them covered helps). The Flying Graysons poster at the top shows Dick doing what is actually probably a double angel return, not a legs catch, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the Graysons had that trick in their show. (I realize that the video I linked shows a legs catch with long pants, so this is obviously a flexible rule, and depends on the material as well. Basically, whatever you want the costume to be, go nuts!)
If anyone has questions or thoughts, feel free to shoot me an ask. Also, if you’re curious about flying trapeze, circus is more accessible than most people think. Lots of places have circus schools where you can go and take a class, no experience required! (not now, obviously, because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, but in the future). I’m happy to answer questions about that as well.
More Posts from Brightening-glance and Others
Dick Grayson Comics Timeline
Alright upon request (and after much compiling) I’m finally done with this pre New 52, fully referenced, Dick Grayson timeline @chestnutcats. It’s super long, so a short version here:
Parents die; becomes Bruce’s ward & Robin. Age: somewhere from 8-13, but usually on the younger end of that scale
Forms Teen Titans. Age: …teen?
(Barbara becomes Batgirl. Could be swapped with the above.)
Teen Titans split up. Age: <=18
Goes to college. Drops out of college. Age: college.
New Teen Titans form in NYC. Age: 19ish
Fired as Robin. No longer taking to Bruce. Fully living in NYC with the Titans, if he wasn’t already. Becomes Nightwing. (Jason becomes Robin.) Age: 19; Jason is 12
(Barbara shot. Jason killed. Tim becomes Robin. Talking to Bruce again. Age: 19 + however long Jason was Robin, so maybe 22. Tim is 13. Does Tim’s backstory make sense if he’s 9 years younger than Dick? Probably not, but writers don’t do math!)
New Teen Titans split up. Age: early 20s
Chillin’ as Nightwing, location unknown
Briefly Batman, with Robin Tim. Age: 20s, and age no longer matters. Tim is 14 or maybe 15, and the only hope we have of keeping the years straight.
Chillin’ as Nightwing, pt 2
Moves to Bludhaven. Helps out when things ultra-suck in Gotham.
Titans re-form.
(Gotham ultra-sucks for a while because Earthquakes and Government. Cass becomes Batgirl.)
Officially adopted by Bruce.
Titans split up. Reluctantly joins the Outsiders.
Everything Is Very Bad. Age: Tim is 16 by now, but comic book math is whatever you want it to be, and you needn’t be beholden to things like “numbers.” Dick is in his 20s, as he will be forever.
(Tim has to quit Robin; Steph becomes Robin; Steph fired; Tim Robin again; Steph “dies”.)
Jason returns, and then vanishes again.
The universe kind of explodes and then un-explodes. Bludhaven explodes and remains exploded. (Age: Tim is still 16, but eons have passed.)
Bruce & Dick & Tim go travelling for a year because fuck it.
Moves to NYC again. (Tim adopted. Damian first introduced. Age: Tim logically must be 17, and Dick is logically in his mid 20s, but logic never helped anyone.)
Leaves Outsiders.
Titans re-re-form.
(Steph returns, revealed to be not dead. Cass adopted.)
Leaves Titans.
Universe explodes again. Bruce (apparently) dies.
nananananana BATMAN (ft Damian as Robin). Tim off as Red Robin. Jason causing mayhem. Age: just about the same age Bruce was when he met Dick, and ain’t that a trip
Bruce returns.
The long version is under the cut, and by long version, I mean like 20 pages which is…possibly more than you wanted and surely more than you expected, but here we are.
This is half timeline, half reading list. The comics referenced here have occasional notes based on quality, but they’re mostly chosen based on giving you the major points and the best understanding of continuity. This is all firmly pre-flashpoint, because I Do Not Know the new52 or anything beyond, and also comes with the disclaimer that my chronological read-through has only reached 2009 and so the last section of this is suddenly a lot less thorough than the rest.
If anyone reading this wants more detail on any bit of it (whether specific comics and issues, timelines, character relationships, or what have you), or more info on a different character, I am happy to answer questions!!
If read mores don’t work for you, a person seeing this post…I am so sorry and just start scrolling.
Keep reading
Dress
Christian Dior, 1955
The Indianapolis Museum of Art
Indigo means serenity.
Central Florida Emergency Trans Care Fund
Equality Florida
ACLU Florida
Tampa Bay Abortion Fund
So I’ve been reading the Nightwing One Year Later comics, starting with Nightwing: Brothers in Blood, which was weird but not as bad as I was expecting from what I’d seen of people talking about it. I really liked Roy showing up in the last issue to basically bail Dick out and then the two of them proceeding to banter for the rest of the issue, which was just a lot of fun. I also really liked Dick and Cheyenne’s relationship -- or, not liked the relationship, but liked the writing of it, in the sense of “these people are not going to work out due to circumstance and personality and just not meshing but at least one of them wants to keep trying but it’s also still casual” complicated messiness of it. it was a nice change of pace to read a relationship where this was not “the one” and the people in the relationship knew that - i mean, three comics later when dick thinks back on his past relationships, cheyenne isn’t even included.
i also thought dick and jason’s relationship was really interesting. and, related, loved seeing clancy again. the comics never really expanded on dick and jason’s relationship after their first meeting but before jason died, although there are hints of it. but jason seemed really invested in being brothers with dick, and even if dick seems callous at times (which arguably, fair - all jason’s done since he’s been back is try to kill him and his family) he’s still absolutely determined to rescue jason when he gets captured. also interesting that jason calls dick “dickebird” and “dickie” - i think the only other people i’ve seen call him that are john and mary grayson, and i feel like that parallel would make an interesting/emotional story
I mean...apparently the Gaonas exist in the DCU, so you wouldn’t be the first person to reference real life people in relation to dick grayson’s circus background
I have so many stupidly niche headcanons that I usually don’t even notice myself having.
Like, okay, so Flash villain The Trickster and Dick Grayson both come from aerialist families, right? And it’s a pretty small community. (I think Trickster might have gotten a different background in the last reboot but I super don’t care.)
Anyway I headcanon they both know Nik Wallenda due to circus community ties and turn up sometimes when he does stunts like crossing Niagara Falls on the high wire, to show moral support.
If Dick notices James he pretends not to. They’re not on the super-clock.
Evening Dress
Elsa Schiaparelli, 1931-1932
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Favourite Designs: Poem Bangkok ‘The Return of Persephone’ Resort 2022 Collection
Let us be very clear: Hamas breached international law on the 7th of October. Hamas targeted innocent civilians in the most callous and inhumane manner, and their actions have been rightly condemned by right thinking people across the world.
But we should also be very clear, Israel has breached international law, not just every day since October the 7th, but virtually every single day for decades.
Israel occupies Palestinian land, against international law.
Israel blockades Palestinian territory, against international law.
Israel builds and expands illegal settlements, against international law.
Israel enforces an apartheid system that restricts the movements of Palestinians and denies their fundamental rights, against international law.
And Israel regularly and systematically attacks and kills Palestinian civilians, against international law.
So the question that must be answered by all of us in political life is this: How does the world respond to flagrant abuses of international law when it comes to the horrendous war crimes of Hamas? The response was very clear and very consistent. World leaders queued up to say Israel has the right to defend itself. One after another repeated their words the great and the good, including our government.
“Israel has the right to defend itself.”
Repeated in statement after statement, tweet after tweet, despite the full knowledge that those words have become contaminated. The words, “Israel has the right to defend itself” means in practice that Israel takes that right as license to bombard civilians, to bomb schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. And it has now been taken as license to enforce the displacement of 1 million people from one end of an open air prison to another. To deny food, energy, medical supplies to a besieged civilian population, to actually deny them water, to ensure that children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly will literally die of thirst.
“Israel has the right to defend itself” has now become cover for, “Israel has the right to commit genocide.”
Right in front of our eyes. How come we never hear the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself”?
Not when a humanitarian flotilla bringing essential supplies to Gaza is met with a military assault and the murder by Israel of nine unarmed activists.
Not when Palestinians march in peaceful protests against illegal blockade and are met again with a military assault and the murder of 300 of them.
Not after the countless bombings of Gaza by Israeli forces.
Not even when Israel targeted and murdered four little Palestinian boys playing football on a beach.
And not when Palestinians were dragged from their homes and forced to watch as those homes were destroyed to allow for new illegal Israeli settlements on lands that are clearly defined in international law as part of Palestine.
And not after the countless offensive attacks by Israel against the people of Gaza or the West Bank, have we or any heard anybody in this house or any Western leader uttered the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself.”
And why not?
And by the way, I'm not asking you to say those words. And in fact, it's just as well you don't. Because we all know that the people of Palestine can't defend themselves, not against one of the most powerful military forces in the world that is backed up by even more powerful military forces.
The truth is that the people of Palestine, just like the innocent people of Israel, don't need the international community to tell them that their leaders have the right to inflict more bombings, more pain, more suffering. They need the international community to say, “Stop.” To release the hostages, to say stop the bombings, the siege, the slaughter. They need the international community to tell Israel to stop the blockade, stop the apartheid, stop the annexations, to stop the genocide.
And they need countries tarnished to lead the way. And Ireland should be one of those countries that leads the way.
We know colonialism.
We know oppression.
We know conflict.
But we also know conflict resolution.
We know peace building.
We know nation building.
And because of what we know, what our history has taught us, our call tonight must be clear, immediate, full and unequivocal ceasefire fires and a decisive international intervention that leads to negotiations and to a lasting and just peace settlement and to, at long last, to a free, sovereign and independent Palestine.🇵🇸
Rose went away
So the Doctor was blue.
Ask Donna, “Where’s the Doctor?”
She’ll reply, “Doctor Who?”
Sarah Jane, and Martha,
And now both the Ponds
Had their fun with the Doctor
And now they’ve all gone.
So ask me again
Why the TARDIS is blue:
There’s a sad man inside
With both hearts torn in two.
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