Imagine The “Robin Meets The JL While Batman Is Away” Trope But It’s Inverted. Instead Of Being

ooops forgot his sash

YALL i’m fixated on rottmnt i wanted to draw them and accidentally yassifed them

Leo’s my favorite i’m prolly gonna redo Donnie and Ralph lol

I dunno why i decided yellow the unifying color lol

AND I FIRGOT APRIL

One of my all-time favorite antagonist organizations in the entirety of DC is the Court of Owls, and it's a guarantee that I'll eat up anything that features them. But my favorite thing in regards to them is the fact that Dick Grayson could've very easily been a Talon.

Case and point!

I dislike the New 52 era of DC for a number of reasons, but one thing I do think they got right was specifically how they handled the Court of Owls in regards to both Bruce and Dick, and the dialogue in this sequence here is some of the best in my opinion purely because of the reveal of what could've been had Bruce been just a little later to bringing Dick into his home.

If you look at Nightwing and consider just how powerful he is on his own as an unaltered human, and if you look at the Talons and how viciously deadly they were against the various members of Batman's family, and then you combine them?

Obviously, taking into account the different way Dick would've been raised means assuming he would lose some of his leadership and detective capabilities because— considering that Talons are all essentially mindless assassins that have to be told what to do and when to do it at every moment— he never would've had the opportunity to be an individual, or to be a leader, or to have thoughts for himself that would allow him to problem solve.

But if we're looking at lethality specifically, substituting those features for the electrum injections that would give him superhuman healing and senses, and the training that would teach him to disregard pain and emotions would remove the human limitations that he would be otherwise restricted by.

Combined with Dick's acrobatic flexibility (assuming the Court would allow him to continue maintaining it, with its many uses and advantages), the Court's training to withstand a multitude of different circumstances in battle would turn him into one of the most useful weapons in their arsenal.

The imagery of the Talons, as seen above, is also incredibly fitting to the themes of Dick throughout the years. The most glaring and obvious of which is the bird symbolism, which I'll refrain from going into detail about because of how obvious it is.

But there is definitely a fairytale-esque quality to them with the nursery rhyme that, in my opinion, fits very well with Dick's upbringing in a circus.

Circuses are often all about maintaining a certain level of illusion, painting a picture to portray a story about each act that is, usually, exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. Similarly, the Court utilizes the belief that they're nothing more than a wives' tale to allow them to continue operating from the shadows. At the same time, the rhyme itself paints them as this otherworldly, all-knowing, all-powerful entity and dissuades any thoughts of acting against them on the off chance that someone does believe they really exist. It's whimsy, in the same way that a circus is, because they're using a story and attempting to make the most of how people receive said story.

The story parallels to Dick becoming a Talon instead of Robin also scratches a very particular itch in my brain. There are two paths, but both of them are intrinsically interwoven with Gotham and Batman.

Dick becoming Robin means him joining Batman on the side of protecting Gotham and her denizens from harm and injustice. He doesn't kill because Batman and Robin aren't the judge, the jury, and the executioner. He maintains his humanity despite the literal physical limitations of a human body and the mental and emotional burdens that come with having free thought, morals, and ethics to take into account.

But Dick becoming Talon means joining Cobb and the Court also on the side of Gotham, but from a different perspective. The Court is made up of Gotham's elite— the rich, famous, and powerful who all want control but don't want the target on their back from being publicly in control. He'd be maintaining the skewed perception of what is just and unjust that the Court instills within him. In turn, this would mean fighting against Batman, who undeniably goes against the wishes of the Court's members who profit and benefit from the corruption of Gotham.

There is a sense of devotion that makes them different sides of the same coin, however. The Talons are tortured and brainwashed into submission, forced to ask "how high" when told to jump. Dick throughout his various comic appearances, has shown his intense loyalty to Bruce— a loyalty that rivals that same devotion of the Talons to the Court, especially in his younger years as Robin.

In conclusion to this tangent, Dick Grayson becoming a Talon was meant to happen, that is undeniable, but Bruce Wayne stepping in and stopping that (albeit unknowingly) is the only reason the Court doesn't have a near undefeatable weapon to use as they see fit.

Which just makes me wonder what other disastrous outcomes were avoided by Bruce taking in the other children.

I HAVE FINISHED :D

yeah their all red eared sliders, I got inspired by @draconicdeityarts

Autistic Saiki headcanon from an autistic

Although it’s not really a headcanon because it does happen in canon

Saikis telepathy is a form of AAC

AAC is augmentative and alternative communication which is communication other than talking

This can include communication cards, devices like tablets with text to speech programs, or body language and gestures

And, if you ask me, telepathically beaming your thoughts directly into others heads fits under that category

We also see him use other forms of AAC in the show, mainly gesturing or facial expressions, instead of talking. It can be seemingly simple things, like when he points at a menu item rather than asking for it aloud

I think it would be cool to see him use other forms of AAC especially in times when he is unable to use his telepathy

Like imagine Kusuke doing his whole big reveal of the device he made that makes him immune to Kusuo’s telepathy and has his whole what are you going to do now attitude

And Kusuo just holds up a hand in the gesture of “one moment please” before going into his pocket or bag and pulling out a small tablet

Kusuke having to stand there semi awkwardly as he waits for Kusuo to get it turned on, opens the program, and types in his message

Then looks directly as Kusuke as he hits the enter button and the text to speech feature reads out: Bitch

And then sibling bickering continues as usual

Here me out Hal

Platonically or romantically, either way.

Yet another JL learns about Batfam post

Featuring: everybody loves Nightwing

So, Nightwing isn’t technically a member of the JL, but everyone knows him and adores him. Even Batman seems to tolerate him fine.

They’re on a mission. Let’s say alien invasion. Or killer robots. Something large scale and dramatic.

Everyone’s fighting in the same general vicinity. Nightwing and Batman just happen (read: either very carefully planned, unconscious habit, or a combination of the two) to be fairly close together.

Suddenly, an explosion happens. Everyone is knocked down. Including the aliens/robots. Conveniently, they stop being an issue now, so we can focus on The Reveal.

Anyway, everyone knocked down. They start to get up and look around, checking to see that everyone is fine. And it looks like everyone is well and accounted for, except…

Nightwing!

Where’s Nightwing? They all start to panic (except Batman). Is Nightwing okay? Where did he go? Is he hurt?

And then Nightwing ducks out from under Batman’s cape, with a grin on his face, sunny and cheerful as ever.

“Well it looks like that instinct is fully intact. Explosion? Duck under the cape.”

He laughs at himself and Batman’s face twitches in what his family would read as a smile and most of the JL thinks they’re hallucinating.

“Do you two know each other?” They want to ask. And it’s been long enough that it would probably be awkward to ask. But they’re confused/curious enough that they might ask anyway.

Bruce: *waking up in a hospital that he drove himself to after having a heart attack and telling absolutely nobody* hey…

The entirety of the batclan looking over him with Dick in the centre, an absolute terrifying grin on his face:

Dick: hello Bruce, nice evening isn’t it? Got something to share with us?

You know what’s interesting?

Dick didn’t set out to murder Zucco with the intent of being a killer. He viewed it as an unfortunate byproduct of his actions.

His real goal was to “purge the world of criminals” because “darkness needs light.”

Do you realize how unhinged that sounds? It means Robin wasn’t created from anger. It was created from the messed up psyche of a child who realized at 8 years old that the entire world needs something better than what it was given and so he went out and became it.

I cant properly explain how insane that is. It’s like putting the logic of the Joker inside the mind of child but turning it for good. Everything is falling into place now. That is why the Joker hates Dick-he is the one Robin the man couldn’t break. Literally COULDN’T because when he’s facing Dick, he’s facing the version of himself that would have existed if he had put himself to good. That was would break HIM.

Imagine spending the better part of your life doing your utmost worst to show Batman that people and the system are inherently evil only to have him fall head over cowl for a version of yourself to completely invalidate your reason for existing. How psychotic would you turn when you realize you have nothing to prove?

This also explains why Dick is so well adjusted and sociable in a way that Bruce and the others aren’t.

Bruce loses it when he loses his children, he thinks it’s a failure of his abilities and doubts his life’s work.

Jason loses it when he thinks he’s been replaced because his reason for being is having someone care for him.

Tim loses it when he comes to a dead-end. He feels helpless and lost when he doesn’t know the next move because his reason for being is being able to solve what’s wrong.

Damian loses it when he feels abandoned. He feels hurt and broken because he’s a child who wants to be loved.

The reason Dick was the perfect choice for Dark Crisis and to become the dawn of DCU is because his sole reason for being is to be the light.

That is why Bruce refused to destroy a planet when Superman asked him too. That is why Dick was the only person in the universe who could control the Darkness infecting him when even Deathstroke lost his mind to it. That is why the evil Justice League chose Dick of every one to kill-to make a point.

This is why he’s looked up to by major heroes such as Superman, Wonderwoman, the Titans, the children, the villains, and the civilians.

This is why Harvey Dent called Robin Dick “Batman’s secret weapon.”

Although anger was the baseline emotion, Dick doesn’t have anger issues because:

Robin wasn’t created for revenge. It was created with the intention of building a world so unrealistically good, that the level of the vision Richard Grayson was aiming for and set the standards for- is so terrifyingly inconceivable.

And that-is why he is a happy, feral, monster.

I miss them, my kids