hashtag friendship

ahahahah

god I love them

they're both freaks <3

meanwhile:

bruce: /goth sneak

leslie: stop that

oh god I love Leslie.

she was so good in azrael's book (how did making tumblr christmas graphics lead me here??? idk. it's been hours)

IDK man the internet's like that and I"m kinda jealous all I went down a rabbit hole on today was throwing crap away. batman and graphics are more fun

bruce is about to tell him that he knows he's innocent

bruce i stg

...wow dude lmao

if most characters were pulling this i'd call it false tension

file under 'people playing him totally straight confuse me' I guess

but no. no this is ic

and then

there was more of it.

there's MORE

oh my god

IT TAKES HIM A WHOLE ASS PAGE

well

I'm

playing him correctly against Z I guess

the ashole part anyway

so much

jesus christ man

and then he follows it up with, "what do you want to do? it's not gotham so none if this needs me involved. but i've got an obligation to YOU so you have my help if you want it"

...

Yeah

that is the whole range of bruce in miniature right there

all the way through

i really wish dennis o'neil was our main bat-writer through the late nineties/early thousands instead of dixon

who tended to just go full bastard with bruce even in flashbacks like come on man

yeah

that's... not edgy it's toxic masculinity expressed in bad writing

leslie basically adopts jean-paul and they're both batman so i'm 100% calling this brother behaviour

and YEP

Oh my heart

cleric leslie

YEP. Floating around out there somewhere thinking Bruce is dead

g o d that leslie in particular has been THROUGH it

(and her goddess hasn't even died yet)

She REALLY fucking has. Brb putting that on our to do list

YES GOOD

i mean at least he's self-aware

...why do

I find that so hot?

what is my brain

does it help or hurt that z also finds it attractive

I DON"T KNOW HE FINDS ASMODEUS ATTRACTIVE

...as does steve though so

ok

when o'neil set like, literally the baseline for How To Bruce Wayne for the last 50 years yeah he would've been best equipped to shepherd uhhh

bruce's 15 year torment about ditf

imagine the coherent and evolving characterisation we could have had

society if, truly

(also we'd have had more cass)

WE WOULDVE HAD SO MUCH CASS

o'neil would've been all-in

more scenes with cass and leslie

2004 richard dragon would've been actually good

more scenes with cass and babs outside batgirl

cass getting to see the sides of babs she tries to keep from her

chuck dixon's 2004 richard dragon and rick veitch's weird 2005 reboot of the question honestly always felt like someone trying to undenny some extremely denny characters

you know, i think i read all of 2004 richard dragon but i don't remember a single thing about it beyond a general feeling of "ugh"

ahahah

sometimes i remember that this man created steph and connor and look at the screen like i'm on the office

also i forgot babs had a specific nickname for jean-paul and i'm not okay about it

(he's alive again now, and theoretically they remember this, but idk if either of them have addressed it) (or cass, either)

.... WunderkindKing I KNOW YOU'RE ALREADY HERE BUT

Jesus

your ability to know EXACTLY what will get to me and summon my chars man

i didn't even fall into this rabbit hole for bruce!!

ahahah

i'm just making a christmas graphic!!!

well thank you for sharing so I got the good bruce bits

(there's this bit in NML where babs gives cass and jean-paul their first ever christmas gifts and it's real cute)

(i'm just looking for the best panels to illustrate jean-paul's wild-ass childhood because i already know where cass's are)

knowing that jean-paul is gonna die in 20 issues

ouch

but also <3

they never found a body, what are the odds babs never took his name off

i brought up 2004 richard dragon in one of lillith's plurks a few days ago because she was reading the 1975 series, and you could basically paraphrase what i said there as "i don't remember a single thing about it beyond a general feeling of 'ugh'"

i didn't even fully remember why until i looked up the creative team

anyway i don't think i've read any azrael beyond the nml tie-ins, so i definitely remember that christmas issue

i read all the issues babs turned up in, because of course i did, but i ended up with a LOT MORE feelings for grimdark nineties temp batman than i ever thought i would have

(then he turned back up in tynion's tec run and had UST with luke fox)

I love these

they did do something with cass and jean-paul in the last stretch of gotham nocturne not that long ago

nothing in-depth on their relationship in NML but it's the kind of thing where it's clearly what ram v had in mind

there's a really good backup story focused on him, cass and dick in 1087

watters script, francavilla art

just posting the joke instead of any character bits

jDKLASD