“Bal Masque” Cocktail Dress Ca. 1958 Via The Victoria & Albert Museum

Oh yeah, I’ve seen those takes too, and I’ve also never really got where there coming from either? Like you said, Dick’s experience would be different from Jason’s absolutely, but the idea that the Grayson’s would’ve had or would’ve left Dick a ton of money is so weird to me? Like, even in modern times (which Dick’s backstory is not originating from - comic books are weird) most performers are not paid amazingly well. Like, being a well known trapeze act is not the same as being a famous singer, those are in completely different stratospheres, which I feel like sometimes gets missed in the whole “the Graysons were the best at what they did” thing? Like they can be that and also poor because literally no one makes money in circus except for like, John Ringling, 100 years ago. 

[full disclaimer: I do/did (hopefully will again, although I’m in the US so probably not anytime soon 😓) perform/teach flying trapeze/silks/lyra, but I’ve never been part of a traveling show so my knowledge about those comes second-hand from family friends/people I’ve worked with] 

Definitely agree with you about Dick being a polyglot, which is actually canon (pre-New52/Rebirth at least - I don’t really read the post-flashpoint stuff). Dick brings up in one of the Nightwing comics that he spoke other languages (French, I think) before Bruce took him in. 

With the homeschooling, this might be one of the more modern updates, but I know a lot of travelling circuses now have schoolteachers who travel with them (at least, I know a couple of the major American ones did - your profile said Dutch so I’m assuming you’re experience is with European circuses, though I could be wrong).

That’s another nuance that I feel like gets missed, is the difference between European circus culture and American circus culture? Which obviously have similarities and crossover and exchanges, but are still kinda distinct things? And like, not even (or not just) in the fan stuff, but in the comics themselves. Like sometimes they’re on point and sometimes they are just soooo far off it’s laughable, and then fans pick up on that and perpetuate it.

Like one of the things I was thinking about recently because it crossed my dash was Devin Grayson claiming she “researched circus” and that was how she decided to make Dick Romani. And like, I’m not Romani, so I’m not going to weigh in on if people think that’s bad or good representation, since people who are Romani have done that on both sides, and they have more right to have a say in it than I ever will, but.

I don’t for one second believe she did any research. I don’t know enough to say about the presence of Romani people in European circus, or in American circus for that matter, but if I was a writer and I wanted to take a character with Dick Grayson’s back story and make them an ethnicity that was not white, I don’t see how with even 5 minutes of research you would miss the incredibly obvious answer of Mexican. There are so many famous flying trapeze families in North America that are Mexican, including Miguel Vasquez and the Vasquez family, aka the first person to throw a quad somersault (that trick Dick was famous for) in real life. And like, I would hesitate to do it now with Dick because I feel like that would play into the idea that representation is interchangeable, which it is definitely not, but if I was going to create a character with Dick’s backstory it feels like, given the prominence of Mexican and Mexican-American trapeze artists in defining and developing trapeze in the US, that would be the natural choice. (And, to be extra super clear about this, I’m not in any way suggesting Dick can’t be Romani. This is solely a comment on Devin Grayson’s terrible research and stereotypes when she decided to add that in. And also I’m annoyed that the Nightwing comic decided to reference the Gaonas but have Alex Gaona (or the madeup character who shares that name) be blond? Like, why?)

Anyway, your original post was super interesting, sorry for rambling on forever. I was just excited to talk circus and comics and circus in comics, and it’s way more fun talking to people than shouting into the void. I’ll stop now. 

People in this fandom have no fucking clue about circus life and the culture surrounding it. And it shows

you know what i don’t see enough of? circus kid dick grayson critiquing the joker because he’s a bad clown. not like, bad, and also a clown. but bad at being a clown. i want to see dick grayson taking the existence of this horrible clown very personally as a matter of professional pride. he has known clowns, and you, sir, are no clown. the joker is an insult to the legacy of emmett kelly and this shall not stand.

Wearing hanfu. The half-shouldered style resembles what would've been worn for ease of archery and the like during the Tang Dynasty

The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s King by placing it under threat of capture which cannot be avoided.

Elsa Schiaparelli sundress ca. 1948-1949 via The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

So it’s known that I am crazy about mythology, and I couldn’t find a graphic challenge of any sort, so I decided to come up with one instead. So yeah, here it goes:

1 Mythology (greek, norse, roman, etc) 2 Mythological Objects 3 Locations 4 Titans 5 OTPs (Hades/Persephone, Thetis/Peleus, Loki/Sigyn, etc) 6 Muses and/or Nymphs 7 Norse Gods/Goddesses 8 Lengendary creatures 9 Greek Gods/Goddesses 10 Movies/Books based on mythology

If you do it, make sure to tag it as mythology meme (or link me to it, cause I’d love to see it)!

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.

So I was inspired by @kiragecko to create a floor plan of Wayne Manor. I started out trying to be accurate to the comics, but eventually gave up because it changed so many times that was impossible. This is more like the manor shown in recent comics, specifically from when Dick and Damian were Batman and Robin, but I also pulled references from a bunch of different comics and from different timelines and the Gotham tv show. At this point this is the floor plan for the mashed up canon that exists in my head. Aside from @kiragecko’s own floor plan, other references included Biltmore, Filoli, Casa Loma, The Breakers, Rosecliff, Marble House, and Darlington/Crocker Mansion. I tried to make it mostly to scale, although I hand drew this and then cleaned it up digitally, so it’s probably a little off in some places. Blue text is what the current Wayne/Batfamily use the rooms for, green is what the historical use was, and black is what they’d likely be listed as on a real estate listing. Green doors are hidden or jib doors, basically doors that aren’t obvious but don’t require a pass code to get through or lead to the Batcave. Purple “doors” are the secret passages like the one hidden behind the grandfather clock that even an observant bystander shouldn’t be able to find and involve much more security. More explanations under the cut. 

So the comics are unclear on how the Waynes got Wayne Manor. They say that Nathan van Derm designed it for Darius Wayne, but then also that Darius’s grandsons, Solomon and Joshua, purchased it after Jerome van Derm died. At some point after Joshua died (in 1860), the manor was abandoned and Solomon’s son Alan (Bruce’s great-great-grandfather) rebuilt it. 

In my head, the east and west wings of the W would have been later editions. The first version of the manor, up to at least when Alan Wayne rebuilt it, would have probably just been the central portion, out to the 2 towers. Original kitchen would have been in the basement, as well as additional servants quarters. It’s not shown on the plans, but in this version the basement has been renovated to include a gym, movie room, and game area (leaving aside the much cooler basement underneath.) Also not pictured is the third floor/attic, which includes servants quarters and a third floor sitting room above Thomas Wayne’s den that looks out over the front lawn. 

With the east and west wings, you can see the very clear divisions in purpose. The west wing was a guest wing, probably added when serious entertaining became a thing, with a dedicated ballroom and guest bedrooms. The east wing downstairs was the servants’ wing - kitchen, staff dining room, butler’s pantry, bedrooms for upper household staff. East wing upstairs was the children’s/nursery wing. 

In the center of the house you can see a male/female divide that went with the historical idea of some rooms (billiard room/smoking room/study/library) being “men’s spaces” and some (drawing room/morning room) being “women’s spaces. The bedrooms for the permanent residents of the manor in the 1860s (Solomon and his wife, Joshua, Celestine) follow this divide as well, though unlike other “great houses” Wayne manor didn’t go so far as to have a separate bachelor’s wing. 

Regarding the jib doors vs secret passageways - secret passageways are basically entrances to the batcave, although they would’ve also been used by Solomon and Joshua as part of the underground railroad. Off the servery you can see the entrance to the wine cellar where Joshua’s body was eventually found. The jib doors (in green) would have been used by servants or family members to pass between rooms without going into the main hallways. Great for sneaking up on people!

Ok, going into some more specifics - headcanon time! Basically everything beyond this is just in my head, and the Batfam stuff is set at some point in the future. (It’s a really shame they stopped writing Batman Comics right after Bruce came back from they dead. Ric? Ric who? don’t know what you’re talking about). 

First, Celestine Wayne. Celestine Wayne is not a comic character. She was loosely inspired by the history of the Waynes from Gotham the tv show, and by loosely I mean her name and the fact that she lived during the Civil War era. There is a C.L. Wayne from that time period who founded the Gotham Botanical Garden in the comics, and in my head they are definitely the same person. In the Wayne family tree in my head her father was Caleb Wayne, and she was Solomon and Joshua’s cousin who became their ward for.......reasons undecided yet. Her father was leading wagon trains and so never home. Something else happened. You pick! She never married (imagine whatever reason you want here, I tend to stay away from the tv show explanation and go with she just wasn’t interested, but any reason works) and so when she became an adult and was still living at the manor but not the “lady of the house” the floor plan was slightly modified to give her her own suite of rooms. Joshua Wayne has something similar in the sense of having his own private study next to his room, although his were only connected by secret passage. Sometime between Dick moving out and Tim moving in permanently, Dick moved from his childhood room into these rooms (leaving Tim free to move into his old bedroom, a thing that actually happened in the comics). Maybe this happened when he was adopted? Maybe when he and Bruce kinda reconciled after Bruce got his back broken? Who knows! There was definitely a period where to Dick the Manor was Not His Home Anymore, and so in his mind he probably didn’t have a permanent room there (and tried to avoid staying there). Think of the moving to the “grown up full suite” as a really old fashioned way of Bruce or Alfred or both saying “I recognize you’re an adult with your own life and autonomy and I cannot treat you like a child, but also this is your home and you will always have a permanent place here.”

Other rooms of note - most mansions I referenced did not have a dedicated armoury, but it’s Batman! Of course there’s an armoury. For historical artifacts, a lot of these weapons sure seem functional......

The tea room was not originally a tea room but somewhere along the way at least one of the Wayne matriarchs was very fond of afternoon tea. With Alfred in the manor it is definitely a Space for Afternoon Tea, although it also gets used for other meals occasionally and Alfred will do a lot of his meal planning/any other paperwork there, even though he technically has an office. 

When Thomas and Martha were alive, there were actually full time staff living at the manor beyond Alfred and the staff quarters got used, and the “servant’s hall” actually got used as a staff dining room, but now this is where the family members tend to gather if there’s too many of them to just eat in the kitchen. (In my head, Wayne Manor during Thomas and Martha’s life is basically the Wayne Manor described by @unpretty who has written some of my favorite Batman fics ever.)

When Bruce was growing up, Thomas Wayne’s den was the “casual family living room” that every other sitting room in the manor was not, and after he died Bruce couldn’t bear to touch anything in it and avoided it unless he was doing some hardcore brooding. When he moved back/took in Dick, he converted one of the bedrooms to a tv room because he wanted a space that was casual and none of the other spaces felt like a tv belonged in them, but he still couldn’t go in his father’s den. As things have gotten better, and also as Tim and Damian’s relationship improved and Tim started coming around more, Bruce was finally ready to let this go and this became basically Tim’s workspace for whenever he’s at the manor. Bruce will work on stuff in there if Tim is in there, but he still doesn’t spend a lot of time in there on his own. (Ok, this was a little bit inspired by a Rebirth comic, don’t know which one, not gonna find it, I’m sure the rest of it was silly). Bruce tends to use the study downstairs if he’s working on W.E. work or other stuff like that. Jason and Dick’s go to places for any type of homework (when they were living at the manor) or any other work they might have to sit down and do are one of the libraries or wherever Bruce or Alfred are, depending on their mood and what they’re working on, and how long they’ve been living at the manor. 

I’m pretty sure Martha Wayne painting/drawing is canon, but I don’t remember the comic it was referenced in. Anyway, she turned what was being used as a sunroom into her art studio because it had the best light. With Damian in the manor it’s slowly being reclaimed by art supplies.

There are definitely rolling mirrors and freestanding barres in the ballroom that Cass uses for dance practice.

Not pictured: the massive garage, stables, tennis courts, basketball courts, gardens, pond, and basically everything on the grounds. 

If anyone is curious about what comic panels I referenced (or ignored), or what real world rooms/houses inspired specific parts, shoot me a message! Also, feel free to use this in art/fics/whatever if you want a reference!

I’m kinda curious what this is referring to, because I haven’t seen any Really Bad Circus Takes recently (which obviously doesn’t mean they don’t exist, just that I haven’t seen them on my dashboard) and I’m just super nosy. 

(totally understand if you don’t want to reblog the specific post or anything though. like i said, just curious!) 

People in this fandom have no fucking clue about circus life and the culture surrounding it. And it shows

Coat

1930-1932

The FIDM Museum