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unadulteratedsoulsweets · 1 year

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A DC X DP IDEA #13 Mirror

Imagine dis…

It is always Danny being sent to the DC dimension to be loved or it is because "Everything's the way it's supposed to be." As Clockwork quoted. But what if we reverse the roles

The Batfam was transported to the Phantom Universe.

…

It was a normal nightly patrol for the Bats namely Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin. Until it wasn’t, the very reason why Batman hated unknown meta in his territory things could go off the rail just by a wild factor.

They were rounding up the goons when they encountered from the body language, a new goon he was shaking and was very afraid at the fact that the entire Bat clan had just surrounded him just because he was the last person who had been hiding behind a dumpster.

Maybe it was because of fear when he suddenly threw his hand in their direction and then suddenly a bright light blinded momentarily the entire Bat Clan.

…

They didn’t expect to wake up in a middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere. They tried contacting Oracle but they could not even receive a signal which should have been a telling sign seeing that signals on their devices should have reached them in any part of the world to outer space.

Nor they didn’t expect a can rolling towards them and quickly releasing some green smoke, they could not even react quickly enough as they inhaled some of the smoke and immediately passed out with only the color ginger and black as the last things they saw before passing out.

…

Waking up disorientated as well as remembering the last thing that had just happened immediately sprung Batman awake, looking around he concluded that he is in some sort of a laboratory if any of those weird gadgets mounted on the wall mean anything. He felt that his cowl is still in place as well as his son’s sons in Jason’s case his helmet seeing that their identities were still not compromised.

Trying to move as well as futile, seeing that he has his hands, feet, legs, chest, and torso bound tightly in some metal. Looking sideways he could also see his other children tied alongside him, he also noticed a table has all of their weapons ranging from Jason’s guns, Nightwing’s batons, Red Robin’s bo staff as well Damian’s katana. Alongside his utility belt as well as countless amount of battarangs and other gadgets leaving them pretty defenses.

Slowly each of Batman’s sons woke up either groaning awake, each trying to remove the bindings that surround their entire body aside from their face. Suddenly they heard the door in front of them open up, the stranger looked at them with a hint of surprise that quickly disappeared seeing that they were awake, as he walked in, they are quite surprised at the large stature of the stranger. Wearing a black t-shirt as well black pants, black hair that is tied in a low ponytail with a goatee, blue eyes that is accompanied by light-dark eyebags below as well a light goatee.

Smirking at them as if he had them where he had wanted them while carrying a double-bladed beam sword that glows eerily Lazarus green.

…

Danny Fenton is living his life, his parents had accepted him as Phantom, and Dan is deemed behaved enough to join them in the living, Dani stayed with them as a part of the family seeing that his parents produced adoption papers seemingly out of nowhere the moment Danny explained Dani’s existence to them. Vlad turned into a new leaf now trying to spoil each child including Jasmine despite herself in college, forging documents for both Dan and Dani so that they have proper identity and identification in the living world. His former rouge gallery as well as the people of Amity has now a treaty as his rogues can now come and go through neither portal to the living world to fulfill their obsessions as long, they don’t commit collateral damage as well hypnotizing and harming the living. Driving the GIW agents out of their town as well as removing the stupid law about the ghosts after seeing that Phantom had saved Earth from a giant meteor that according to scientists could wipe out the entire human civilization.

Becoming King of the Infinite Realms was something he didn’t plan, his parents marched towards the chambers of the Observants to tell them off and that they have to wait till Danny finishes his human life before starting to be a ghost, King.

Now Danny sports a pair of heavy eyebags under his eyes seeing that he is slowly fixing the Realms due to the damage as well the negligence of the Pariah Dark. He feels that every time he completes a stack of paperwork ten more appeared in the never-ending stack of paperwork.

Moving to Vlad’s mansion to accommodate the large family as well to provide accompany to Vlad seeing that he needed some sort of human interaction as his cat doesn’t count enough interaction to be considered healthy, despite the Fenton couple's eccentric behavior but for a moment Danny saw the college versions of Maddie, Jack and Vlad where times were simple and they were happy and content.

It has been a few months since they moved in with Vlad their family dynamic is best describe as chaotic.

Dan teases Danny that he is a replacement because he replaced his old, original, and entire timeline to replace Danny’s which Danny just flipped him off. Dani being the gremlin child she is, sees that she had traveled the entire world as well as learned different fighting styles to either a. help Danny or b. put her entire family on edge seeing that sometimes she would throw a dagger towards one of them when she got annoyed. Jazz the ever-peaceful one tries to defuse and fight between the three but the moment she joins in the three immediately quiet down and stop her from committing a felony or two. Danny who became an insomniac just to keep up with the demand of paperwork, refuses to let the pile grow and greet him the moment he steps into his afterlife. Vlad became the targeted uncle and despite him turning into a new leaf he still has that fixation and obsession with Danny to turn him into his heir.

…

A few hours before the Bat-family appears in the Phantom verse

It was yet another daily day of fighting while the supposed adults are watching the three children fighting and wrestling on the ground with a bucket of popcorn at hand while the eldest daughter looks like she is done with whatever craziness her siblings put her in. The matriarch of the Fenton family put her foot down and dragged each of them for a short family trip, since the surrounding environment is just a lush’s grove of trees a quick walk around the forest could clear each other’s minds.

As they were walking at the trail that only the locals of Amity Park can decipher, Jazz kept looking at her brother’s hand, a large cup of pure black coffee that contains a past the legal amount of espresso shots that was mixed with red bull cannot be healthy whether it is human biology or ghost biology.

As Dan was about to tease Dani about her shortness when they suddenly saw a bright light in the direction of the deeper part of the forest. Quickly and quietly the two eldest hides amongst the foliage while the adults stayed back to protect the younger ones, much to the protests of the said kids.

Using Dan’s ability to stay intangible as well as his invisibility both saw the supposed source of the bright light or cause are unconscious, a man dressed in a bat fur suit, not that they were judging. Four more were dressed in some sort of spandex or costume seeing each of them have something different on.

As they slowly woke up Dan has already told Jazz that there was something weird and unnatural about the people in front of them. Jazz asked if his ghost sense is telling him something, Dan agreed that his sense is telling him something but the fact it wasn’t about ghosts made him on the edge, especially to the man who wore a bright red helmet.

Both of them are willing to ignore and even help the strangers but the moment they set off Dan’s senses, now they can’t let them go. Throwing a can packed with sleeping gas can knock both humans and ghosts effectively. After releasing the said gas both Jazz and Dan slowly crept up to make sure that their unexpected guests are fully unconscious before telling the rest of them what they have just discovered.

Stripping down their weapons as well as locking them up using the metal that is powered by ectoplasm making it hard for both humans and ghosts alike to escape.

Danny began researching the guests they have while the rest tried to watch over them as the Fenton couple as well Vlad arm themselves including the house in case they would try to escape as well to harm them.

…

Dan came through the doors when he saw the furry brigade now wide awake, now it is quite surprising seeing that they were supposed to be knocked out by a few more hours but shrugging off seeing that people tend to have immunity to certain drugs if administered frequently.

As Dan is sitting in a corner watching the chattering between their prisoners, he can’t help but notice a faint feeling of recognition in each of them. Especially on the man who wore a leather jacket as well the big red helmet.

Dani suddenly entered the premise making Dan release a high eyebrow at her as of telling Dani why on earth she was there. Dani didn’t acknowledge Dan’s invisible question and began skipping to the bound guests and began threatening the largest one (Batman) that if he ever dares to move with the intent to harm, she will not hesitate to swing the Fenton creep stick at him. Of course, that set off a reaction from the youngest one (Damian) which resulted in Maddie sticking her head in and beginning to bite back a threat on Do not talk to my daughter that way, the dominos effect as each member from both sides butted in to defend and verbally fight whoever threatened their loved one. Now each Fenton member has a Bat clan member that they were focused on as they try to outwit the other.

Danny enters the scene with a fresh new cup of coffee in his hand watching the scene with an amused huff and letting out one of the Fenton alarms that created the loudest and most annoying sound there is. Now each individual quieted down and looked at Danny questioningly, Danny mentioned that he wasn’t paid enough to meditate a verbal match between the two and told Dan that he can release them and turned his head to the bounded Bats and told them to cooperate.

Red Hood didn’t like the new guy's attitude and barked out why they would need to cooperate with the people that held them.

Danny blinked slowly and as it, he just come to a realization and told them what he just found out to his audience.

The bound Bats came to their dimension that contains a far different version of their alternatives selves. Danny is willing to get a DNA test between the two sides but he is pretty sure that the one who wore the red cowl on his head between Red Hood and Robin is his alternative self. He also said that each should take a closer look at each other to find which self is their alternative self.

Batman looked intently at Jack and saw that Jack may be broader than him but didn’t deter the fact that he looked almost like him without his cowl. Nightwing asked why on earth his alternate self is a woman which Jazz took offense and Red Hood snarked that maybe it is the world’s way to play his karma seeing that Dick kept dating redheads. Red Robin looked longingly at the coffee at his alternate’s other self and nodded at his lifestyle of having coffee as the only thing that makes him live. Damian is still skeptical at the supposed newcomer’s answer but one look at his supposed other self is sufficient enough to be his alternate self.

As they were releasing the Bats Vlad came through the door and asked Dan if he wanted some lemon juice while he guards.

Now take note they are still wary of their supposed alternate selves but when they saw Ra, they think a version of him, wearing a pink apron that says “Hey BOO” that has a mini-ghosts designs all over the apron. Never in their entire life they will see Ra wear something so mundane and act warm and homey to their alternate selves.

….

Now it seems each Fenton forgot to tell them the reason why they not only have mountains of weapons in arms but also the fact that they have an abundance of ectoplasm that resembles Lazarus' water.

Cue Misunderstandings and Shenanigans

…

PS: If someone out there wanted to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so don’t forget to tag me though.

#dc #dc x dp prompt #dc x dp #dp #danny fenton #Danny Phantom #dan phantom #batfam

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empressgeekt · 8 months

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batfam meets the justice league fic idea, where Nightwing convinces the JL that the batfam is the last of the race Gotham bat demons...

made on moble so sorry in advance.

Okay so it starts with Batwoman and Nightwing hanging around the watchtower. Eventually someone (most likely either hal or barry) asks how they are related to batman. Batwoman claims to be his sister, and Nightwing obviously says he's his son. When the question of who Nightwing's mom comes up (along with some of the league thinking that Nightwing was an accident, cause they can't see bats settling down), Batwoman simply says, "he doesn't have one."

The convo sudden shifts to the topic of the 'history' and 'biology' of the bat demon race. How they were nearly eradicated by a war with the Amazon's, and Atlantis, only a few really surviving and finding refuge in the caves below Gotham. Hwo they used ancient forgotten magic to remove all memories of this 'war' to keep themselves save. And finally how they reproduce asexually, by reviving the souls of children who were wrongfully killed. Taking the weak dead spirit and carrying them in their own soul until it could put itself back together.

When asked if this was how Nightwing was born, they confirm it.

BW: oh yeah. Actually 'wing was kind of a surprise you could say.

Hal: surprise?

N: YEP! You see I was kinda of dad's first so he really didn't know what he was doing...

BW: and it ended with bossy big brother screaming his head off in an emergence of a batling that he didn't know he was carrying.

Barry: screaming his head off?

N: oh...well the process of soul splitting, emergence, rebirth, whatever you want to call it, includes the host's soul breaking down enough to allow the younger newly revived soul to detach. It's very painful, So I've heard.

BW; so you've heard? Kid please I know you've heard your father when it came to your siblings rebirth.

Needless to say everyone (especially hal and barry), look at Batman the same way for the next few days.

when Bruce confronts his son and cousin, he honestly can't say he hates the idea. UT would throw off any suspicions sound hus true identity. Not mention give him a new way to mess with hal.

The rest of the batfam (let's say standard webcomic cast, with Terry and Matty McGinnis [time traveled/dimensionhopped], along with flashpoint!batman, because they deserve to be in the safe place rhay is the batfam too, for funies), also find this cover story hilarious, and spend all of dinner adding to the bat-demon mythos.

Thomas would've been the last surviving member of the demon army, who retreated and sought refuge in Gotham, along with his human turned immortal companion of Alfred. Bruce, Kate, and Luke (batwing) would his 'children'.

The normal children would all still be Bruce's. Inculding spoiler, as why she claims she isn't Bruce's daughter, she isn't passing up the chance to mess with the JL.

Eventually the idea gets suggested that they should trick the JL into believing that Batman is pregnant with a new batling. The prank idea slowly snowballs from there and Bruce is unable to stop it. So he agrees to join in, ans rhe prank planninf begins. Matty immediately volunteers to be the new batling, because he technically the youngest and doesn't have a vigilante alter ego yet.

The prank starts out slow. Batwoman and Nightwing increase their visits to the watchtower? Specially when batman is there and they are usually in the same room as him.

Bruce pretends to be more tired often, even pretending to take a nap, where the JL can find him. He also fakes head aches.

Eventually Clark asks him if he's alright. And Nightwing responds with

N: of course he's not. He's working too hard.

B: Nightwing...

N: there's a reason me and aunt BW following you, and it's so you don't over do it!

B: nightwing...

N: even grandfather is worried.

B: Nightwing. I have been through this 8 times already. I think I know my limits. Besides your grandfather has always been worried over the thought of a new spawn in the house.

Clark: !!!!

Once more things around batman grow awkward for the next few weeks.

The end of the fic would be the JL visiting the "bat domain" to meet Matty dressed up in a mask and brightly colored suit. And finding out about the literal small army that batman's been building. Not to mention cameo of Thomas in his bat suit scaring the living crap out if the justice league, and having the time of his life.

Edit: Alright its official, this is going to be my holiday special for this year. So, around Christmas time I'll post a link so yall can read this.

Edit 2: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51963331/chapters/131402920

Happy holidays! hears and early present!

#justice league #batfamily #humor #crack fic #Justice league meets batfamily #batfam #batdad #batkids #I don't know why my brain came up with this #thomas wayne #terry mcginnis #matt mcginnis #flashpoint batman #Let these guys be a happy family that enjoys screwing with their dads coworkers

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mysterycitrus · 6 months

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i’m curious what your favorite non comic depiction of dick is (television, film, animation, video games etc) and what you’d want to (whether too) see in if he does make it back to the big screen in the pattinson batman sequel

i want dick grayson to be in the battinson sequel SO bad. there was a compilation I saw of tweets talking about how those acrobats need to fall so we can get brucie to speedrun parenting and like…. yeah. the batman was camp, robin being there will make it campier. it’d be so good. bruce would be so afraid this child will skewer himself on all the sharp architecture in his gothic emo mansion by doing too many kick flips. i want robert pattinson to hang out with a ten year old — they’d be about the same kind of weird

wrt other depictions probably the dick grayson we get in teen titans 2003 and young justice are like… the closest to comic canon depictions. tt03 is relatively true to his ntt characterisation, and young justice can have a good balance of humour and ruthlessness.

i don’t love them tho because the titans (specifically donna and roy) are either absent or written by someone suffering from an undetected carbon monoxide leak. like….. they’re such an important part of dick grayson’s character. the live action titans was ok just because donna was there and i loved anna diop as kory. honestly i think we’ll only get actually good portrayals of his character (especially as nightwing) if the titans are included in some capacity.

ofc the actual correct answer is robin in the lego batman movie

#dick grayson #dc comics #nightwing #teen titans #the ask and the answer

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pricetagofficial · 2 months

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How Far We Fall -D.G.

Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of death, child loss, therapy, trauma, attempted murder, poor Tim is caught in the middle of this

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Reader

Masterlist

Word Count: 1.6K

A/N: You guys voted for the angst, well you got the angst. I don't actually remember how I came up with this. All I remember is that I wanted to write pain, and well here I am!

I am not sorry, you guys wanted this.

Dick couldn’t believe what he was looking at, here you were in front of him with a dagger to his younger brother’s throat, Tim’s throat, and a murderous look in your eyes.

He watched as Robin squirmed in your hold, desperate to get away but one wrong move and his throat would be slit and there would be no going back.

Batman tensed beside him, ready for a fight to save his youngest. Somehow, you had gotten past their security and wormed your way into their lives. Somehow, you fit in so well they didn’t even think twice before accepting you.

That was their mistake.

“Y/N–” Dick held a hand out, the glove of his suit palm up as if he was trying to convince you to come back to him. “Let him go, and we can talk about this.”

“Talk? You want to talk?” you scoffed. “Fine then. Why don’t we talk about the reason why we’re here.”

After years of planning, this was your moment to get back at the Batman. Back at him for everything you’ve lost because of him and his senseless no-killing rule. If he didn’t have that rule, you wouldn’t be holding his youngest at knifepoint threatening to take his son from him, like he took your daughter.

How could he have been so blind? So smitten with you, the idea of who you were, Dick gave you everything including his secret identity without so much as batting an eye.

“Y/N, please–” he pleaded, trying to keep his voice from breaking, “He’s just a kid–”

“So was my daughter!” you screamed, voice echoing off the walls around you. “She was barely a year old and it’s your fucking fault!”

Dick stopped in his tracks at your words, what were you talking about? After living with you for the last six months, he would have noticed if you had a kid.

“What are you talking about?” Dick asked, his eyes not leaving you or Tim.

Your jaw tensed as your eyes flitted past Dick and stared at the man responsible. “Two years ago, October 31st.”

Halloween, two years ago? Dick looked behind him towards Bruce; he was in Bludhaven at the time, but he heard how bad it was. The Joker and Mad Hatter decided that blowing up a city block or two and dosing them with gas was a good trick-or-treat gift. Bruce struggled hard and kept Robin inside that night. He was about to open his mouth when Bruce spoke up.

“You were there,” his voice rumbled through the air making your nerves stand on end.

“Of course I was there.” you hissed. “I was trapped in the rubble for 4 hours, another 3 before they found her.”

Dick didn’t miss the way your voice wavered, nor the way your grip loosened on the knife. Tim didn’t seem to either, before steadying himself on his feet.

“I lost the most important person in my life because you can’t keep your fucking city in check.” Your grip on Tim’s cape tightened, pulling him back into you. “And now I’ll take someone important to you.”

Batman let out an audible growl before Dick jumped between him and yourself.

“Y/N stop! Think this through!”

“I have thought it through,” you spoke, voice unnaturally calm despite the circumstances. “You were my original target, Dick.”

Dick’s blood ran cold at your words, you were planning to kill him?

You laughed. “But somehow you wriggled your way into my heart and I couldn’t kill you, so I had to improvise.”

“So you kidnap a child to prove a point?”

“I’m fourteen,”

“Not now, Tim.”

You hardened your gaze, “There’s no going back for me, Dick. This is where it ends.”

Daring to take a step towards you, Dick pulled the mask off his eyes.

“Nightwing–”

“Bruce now is not the time.” Turning his attention back on you, Dick kept a calm look on his face despite the terror coursing through him. He failed one brother, he couldn’t fail another.

“Come back with me. Let Tim go and we can go home and forget this ever happened.”

You scoffed. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know how this works. The second I let the kid go, he’s going to go running to you while Batman leaves me a bloody pulp for the police to find.”

Dick sighed, dropping his head before he looked at you once more. “You’re right, we can’t just forget this. But we can get you help, get you to the right people.”

Pressing the knife to Tim’s throat, you felt him tense under your hold. “I’m not going to that hellhole you call Arkham.”

Taking another step, Dick shook his head. “No, not Arkham. But the second you hurt Tim, I can’t stop them from sending you there.”

Swallowing hard, you took a look around. What were you doing? Dick had a point, Tim was a child no matter how many times he pointed out to you how old he was. Were you really going to kill him because Batman was responsible for the death of your baby?

Meeting Dick’s eyes again, you could see why he removed the mask. It was so you could see the expression in them, the longing, the hope that you would let his brother go and take his hand.

The blue in his eyes stood out in the darkness around you, almost matching the blue of his suit. After all this, did he really think the two of you could go back to what you were before? He really trusted you enough not to try something like this again?

“Trust me, Y/N. Please?”

Hearing those words, you dropped the knife.

Immediately, Tim darted forward past Dick to Bruce. Dick was on his knees, catching you as your weight gave in and you collapsed into his arms.

Unable to stop the tears, you cried into Dick’s chest. “It’s not fair!”

Running a hand through your hair, Dick held you as you cried. Placing a kiss on the crown of your head, he closed his eyes.

“I know baby, I know it’s not.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Months passed and true to his word, Dick got you the help you needed without going to Arkham. Your relationship was strained but on the mend. No matter how much he promised it would all be okay, you knew they wouldn’t forget let alone forgive the fact that you tried to kill Tim out of revenge.

You lost count of how many times you apologized to him and Bruce, knowing it wouldn’t change a thing. Not for a while at least.

Keeping your part of the promise, you sought help professionally at least once a week. Your session that afternoon wasn’t bad, but it was exhausting. Recounting the events of that Halloween to someone again drained all the energy you had left within you.

You were currently standing on the balcony of your apartment when you heard a soft thud behind you. Hearing the sound of light footsteps behind you, you felt a pair of hands rest on your shoulders.

“Hey, what are you doing up this late?”

Dick’s voice was tired but laced with worry, worry for you and your sleeping habits. He must have just finished his patrol for the night.

Placing a hand on his, you smiled softly. It meant a lot that Dick stuck around when anyone else would have left you by this point. You felt a pair of lips brush your cheek before you were pulled back into his hold, warm and safe.

“I’m okay, Dickie.” you hummed. “Just thinking I guess,”

You didn’t have to see the look on Dick’s face to know that he was frowning.

“You should be asleep,” he started.

“I tried,”

Dick sighed and rested his head on your shoulder. “I know it’s hard when I’m not there, but you have to try.”

“Dick please, don’t start this tonight,” you begged, turning to bury your face in his chest. “I don’t have the energy for it.”

Wrapping his arms around you fully, Dick held you close. The nightmares must have been bad this time if you were refusing to try again without him near you. Placing a kiss on the top of your head, Dick led you inside.

“Alright, let me just get changed and we can catch some z’s together okay?”

Nodding slowly, you let go of him but kept a grip on his fingers. The only time you let go of his hand was when he had to pull off his suit. Once he had sweats on, Dick pulled you along to the couch and rested you on top of his chest.

Slowly you melted into his warmth as he turned on the T.V. letting the old reruns play as you listened to the sound of his heartbeat.

Now that Dick knew the full story, he could see all the symptoms and signs you gave him from the very beginning. It was surprising how he missed them in the first place, with the way you left things around the place it was almost as if you wanted to be caught before it was too late.

After a while, he heard the soft sounds of your breath against his bare chest and smiled softly. This was the only way you could sleep, with him next to you. Dick promised he was going to help you, and help is what you were going to get.

Of course, Dick got the biggest lecture from Bruce, for the millionth time about why we don’t flaunt secret identities around. But Dick knew he could trust you. What he wanted to know was if you could trust him.

Dick knew that death and loss made people do crazy things, he had been down that path before when his parents died, and again when Jason died. It was a hard one to come back from, but Dick planned on being there for you every step of the way, for as long as you would let him.

@bluejay-the-geek @niggxrette @offendedfishnoises @restwellsoon @littleredwing89

#costly affairs #dick grayson #nightwing #dick grayson x reader #nightwing x reader #dick grayson x you #nightwing x you #dick grayson x y/n #nightwing x y/n #dick grayson reader insert #nightwing reader insert #dick grayson angst #nightwing angst #tim drake #batman #dc comics

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zahri-melitor · 10 months

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Playing with the Dick-Jason-Tim age timeline again because playing with “can I fit Dick being 8 at the circus and Tim also being there” is enrichment for my brain.

Using Batman: Year 3 and A Lonely Place of Dying as the starting point this time, being that they are the ORIGIN of the timeline dilemma that nobody can quite square, and I have a solution to offer for the timeline up to LPoD (highly dependent on ‘if the pre-Crisis fact doesn’t fit, that’s because it’s pre-Crisis’ and ignoring future retcons. I’m building this from the original scaffold)

Dick is 8 at the circus. Tim is 3. We will establish this via Year 3 (“almost 10 years” since the Graysons died/the orphanage) and Tim’s canonical age in LPoD (13).

Given the fuzziness over when Tim actually turned 14, we’re going to run with Dick being close to his birthday when LPoD occurs. Using the 20 March birthday for Dick and the 19 July birthday for Tim, this gives us a 5 year, 4 month age gap and makes Tim about 3 ½ at the circus, which is a little older than I like him to be (I have so much more flexibility with dates if I can claim he’s 2, damn you Year 3 for using ‘almost’ rather than ‘approximately’), but we’ll live with it because I really need Dick to be almost 19 on the day Tim appears simply to try and cram as much pre-Crisis late-Robin and Nightwing history in as possible. This contradicts Dick being 20 prior to Jason’s death, but Dick can’t both be 20, have the circus 10 years ago, and be 8 years old for his parents’ death. However, squaring this with Janet Drake’s burial date of Christmas Eve is difficult, because Tim still being 13 at her funeral becomes impossible. Alternatively, if we use the 24 October birthday for Dick and still place Haly’s Circus and LPoD in the period before Dick’s birthday (maybe some time in September/October), we can come out of this with “about to turn 19” Dick and “13 and a bit” Tim, with a 5 year, 9 months gap between them, plus giving Tim a 3 month training period before he debuts as Robin on 24 December. In either case, choose whether Dick being born on the first of Northern Hemisphere Spring or Janet Drake being buried on Actual Christmas Eve is the more important fact in your heart to determine which option you use here.

Timeline markers:

Dick therefore does not debut as Robin until he is 9. He was Robin from 1940 to 1984, a period of 8, almost 9 years using ye olde 5 real years to 1 comics year rule. This actually matches fairly well with the date I want to give as when Dick stops being Robin – at some point when he’s 17. Yes, I have to give up the semester at Hudson University still happening while Dick is Robin not Nightwing, but that’s pre-Crisis. The Bruce and Dick fight where Bruce benches Dick, Dick storms out, and heads off to New York to be his own man (and changes his name to Nightwing) all happens at some point when Dick is ~17. Dick’s schooling is a bit of a black hole given his childhood and the contradictory birthdays (and the fact I’m not great on northern hemisphere school year dates and start dates). I THINK the October birthday is better for this in that we just have to pretend he was the youngest in the class, and can say Dick finished school still 17 and before he becomes Nightwing. March birthday I think if the fight happened while Dick was still 17 and at school, our lad was commuting from New York to school for the final few months (good thing his best friends include a speedster and a flyer, I guess). Or it happened when Dick was 18 and 3 months on approximately the exact day after Dick finished school, and the timeline suddenly gets VERY tight.

I like Dick being 17 when he becomes Nightwing if we can wrangle it for the simple fact that it gives a nice parallel for when Tim is 17 (and also loses the Robin title). Dick having gone through his big growing up moment before he entered legal adulthood makes the way the same mistake echoes down over the years more poignant (everyone has to grow up too young). I also would really like Dick to have finished his high school education before he becomes Nightwing simply because it makes a more coherent growing up narrative (and figuring out how Dick finished his education if he was living in New York is a headache we can then avoid).

In any case. Dick’s had his fight with Bruce. Call it June-July. Bruce, feeling lonely, decides the next sad teenager he meets who is trying to steal his tires is a great prospect to be the next Robin (son). Hello Jason. Jason is also 13. He is about to turn 14 the first moment possible. His birthday is apparently 16 August, which works really well for the fight going down right after Dick finishes school. Bruce makes Jason Robin. We are now on a hurried countdown. Jason turns 14. He was Robin from 1983-1988, which is right on 5 years, so approximately 1 comic year. Jason canonically dies on 27 April according to one picture of his tombstone. This would make him 14-nearly-15. This works great for October Birthday Dick and terrible for March Birthday Dick. If we have October Birthday Dick, Jason was around for ~10 months before he dies in April. If we have March Birthday Dick, Jason was around for anywhere between 7 months (Dick fired at 18 in June, Jason dies around January the next year) and a year (Dick fired before March still 17, Jason appears immediately after, and again dies around January/February the next year) while we ignore that April death date.

This works well on a meta level. One, there’s simply not that many Jason-as-Robin stories. Every time people stretch his period from Batmobile-tyres-to-death out beyond 20 months or so, you start hitting the point where you have more timeline than story to fill it, a problem seen practically nowhere else in comics. Jason has been cited as having 6 months of training before he went out on the streets. You can keep all of this if you want a very short period with Jason in the costume, you can call this comics time and shorten it if you’d prefer Jason to have longer in the costume. But Jason-as-Robin only lasting under a year lines up with everything about how we approximate the passage of time in comics. Secondly, Jason being Robin for only a short period matches the fact that he has very few interactions with Dick and the wider hero community. He has, what, ONE team up with the Titans? The one ski trip with Dick? Checking the Events timeline he had COIE (which he doesn’t remember), plus Legends and Millennium, for 3 Events during his tenure. He appears on page for all of these, but not in a manner where he’s interacting with heroes outside Gotham in any way he’d remember. He’s pretty isolated, but also there really isn’t any TIME to give him wider connections.

Also during this period, the majority of the NTT stuff prior to LPoD occurs, and Dick hypothetically does his single semester at university before dropping out (probably due to the amount of stuff going on in his life making studying hard). He may even have dropped out of university DUE to the drama surrounding all of this depending on which birthday timeline you run with. Tim is a lil bean at boarding school.

In any case, Jason Todd died. He wasn’t even 15 yet. It’s very tragic. Bruce immediately starts going off the rails with grief. October Birthday Dick (seriously, this just suits the timeframe here so much better) then gives us anywhere between 3-6 months of Bruce grieving and getting steadily more unstable before 13 year old Tim Drake decides Something Must Be Done, We Need A Robin. He then heads off to find Dick Grayson at any point between July and October, make this gap however long-short you want. March Birthday Dick we probably cram death-until-realisation into under 2 months, but we’re working with even more of a sliding scale given it’s just harder to anchor known stuff in this timeline.

Ta da!

Conclusions:

if I want this to work I am gonna run with the 24 October birthday for Dick, just because it makes pinning dates down easier. Sorry, 20 March birthday fans.

Ages: Tim is either 5 years, 4 months or 5 years, 8 months younger than Dick. Tim is 23 months younger than Jason. Jason is either 3 years, 3 months or 3 years, 7 months younger than Dick.

Cass is 2 years, 6 months older than Tim. She is 5 months older than Jason. She is either 2 years, 10 months or 3 years, 2 months younger than Dick.

Steph is about a year older than Tim and about a year younger than Cass.

Damian, who is extremely indirectly affected by anything in this timeline, is 6-7 years younger than Tim and 12 years younger than Dick. He was definitely conceived while Dick was Robin.

Incidentally: Tim figuring out Dick is Robin happens when he is 9. With this timeline, Dick was 14-15 when Tim worked that out. Tim therefore spent at LEAST two years fanboying Dick!Robin, and then saw Jason!Robin for at most a year, realistically closer to 6 months. “Jason was my Robin” doesn’t exist

(Also tragically for me, The ‘Tim is 3’ reading of the circus means that Tim was definitely born prior to Bruce’s return to Gotham. There’s this lovely little wrinkle that if you use a timeline where he’s 2 at the circus, he was probably born right around when Bruce debuted at Batman, which is just a sweet little note for a character so tied to other people’s origin stories)

(Seriously though if you allow Dick be 10 when he is orphaned, it lets him be Robin until 18-19, he can turn 20 before Jason’s death, frees up so much timeline kludging around the Jason period, even if it does create a bigger age gap between Dick and Tim)

#dc #playing with timelines #dc meta #post-crisis is pretty consistent in age progression #but 8 year old Dick Grayson actually sacrifices JASON’S timeline more than Tim’s #timeline shenanigans

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thevoidstaredback · 15 days

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Hear me out for a second

Superhero teams playing hide and seek. Specifically, the JL playing in Gotham and the Avengers playing in New York.

The core members of the JL (because I don't like working with huge casts, despite my ability to do so) are tasked with hunting down the BatFam within Gotham City.

Oracle is watching from the clocktower, she may not help anyone, though she can give hints to both teams.

Crime Alley is off limits. The Bat Cave is off limits. The Nest is off limits. The hiders may only hide aboveground, not inside any buildings. They may not leave Gotham City limits.

None of the participants may be seen by civilians while in costume. (Aside from Signal during his patrol)

The hiders have to go about their normal days while the seekers hunt them down. If they're caught at any point, they're sent to the clocktower to watch with Oracle. The seekers cannot be eliminated.

The time limit is 24 hours beginning at 00:00.

If the JL wins by tagging all of the BatFam within the time limit, then they get a week vacation paid for by Batman. If the BatFam (any or all) manage to allude the JL and avoid getting tagged, then the JL has to go through Bat Training™.

Hiders: Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Spoiler, Black Bat, Robin, Signal

Seekers: Wonder Woman, Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern (any or all), Green Arrow, Flash, Martian Manhunter

Neutral Parties: Oracle (in the clocktower), Agent A (in Wayne Manor/Bat Cave), Cyborg (in Watchtower), Captain Marvel/Shazam (as a civilian buffer)

Works pre or post ID Reveal, but I think it's the funniest as the ID Reveal. Dealer's Choice on all extra details, including the rewards and punishments

Marvel

The founding Avengers are playing against the other teams they meet up with in Civil War (with one added extra for comedy). Whoever is seeking and hiding is Dealer's Choice because either way works.

Hulk is watching from Avenger's Tower with Happy. Dr. Strange is watching from the Sanctum Sanctorum. DD Is watching from Hell's Kitchen. None of them may interfere, though they can give hints to either team.

Hell's Kitchen is off limits. The Bronks is off limits. Queens is off limits. Brooklyn is off limits. The hiders may only hide aboveground, not inside any buildings. They may not leave New York City limits.

Hiders: Iron Man, War Machine, Black Widow, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Vision, Deadpool

None of the participants may be seen by civilians while in costume. (Aside from Deadpool. I will not explain why)

The hiders have to go about their normal days while the seekers hunt them down. If they're caught at any point, they're sent to Avenger's Tower to watch with Hulk and Happy. The seekers cannot be eliminated.

The time limit is 24 hours beginning at 00:00.

If the seekers win by tagging all of the hiders within the time limit, then they get a week vacation paid for by the hiders. If the hiders (any or all) manage to allude the seekers and avoid getting tagged, then the hiders get a week vacation paid for by the seekers.

Seekers: Captain America, Ant-Man, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Agent 13

Neutral Parties: Hulk (in Avenger's Tower), Doctor Strange (as civilian buffer), Dare Devil (as government buffer), Happy (as damage control)

Works best post Civil War, pre Infinity War. Dealer's Choice on all extra details, including the rewards and punishments

#i wanna see where people take either of these teams #marvel #mcu #marvel comics #marvel cinematic universe #dc #dcu #dc comics #detective comics #the avangers #the justice league #batfam #team red #gotham city #new york city #hide and seek #but played by superheroes and hero adjacents #this as the potential to be hilarious #writing prompt

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im-totally-not-an-alien-2 · 2 years

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Ok, so @xmarksthespotonthemilkyway made ficlets and they gave me so many ideas and I'm about to make that everyone else's problem.

1. Braindead soulmate au where they're separated by dimensions and Danny is searching through the Infinite Realms looking for the man who's name is on his body.

Danny pops out of this weird pool of ectoplasm, scaring the daylights out of some ninja guards who send one away to notify some "demon" of his appearance. Danny tries to talk to them but has to beat them up. When Ras appeared Danny commented that he needed to teach his guys some manners.

Ras asks who he is and how he got here.

Danny sasses him and tells him he's Phantom and he came from the pool.

Ras is interested until Danny casually asks Ras if he knows a "Timothy Drake" when asked why Danny casually mentions Tim's name is on his back (meaning they're soulmates) Ras is super invested at this point.

It goes as well as you'd expect.

2. Tim musing about his soulmate by @xmarksthespotonthemilkyway :

"What could he be, with them? What could they be, with him?

Unstoppable, he always like to believe"

Hnnn makes me think of an au where Tim and a op Danny are from separate dimensions and the Observants and other Powers That Be are doing everything they can to make sure these two never meet.

They fail. Cue the Observants screaming in terror and curling up in balls to cry about how doomed they are all while Tim and Danny are being cute and blushy with eachother in the little crystal ball they were using to spy on them.

Let's be honest. If either of them became evil everyone would be screwed. If both became evil....you better practice bowing down I guess.

3. Tim never understood why he could never find his soulmate. His full name was written in small slightly messy handwriting on his left shoulder blade for all to see (including him if he had a mirror or two) so why didn't his name exist in any database?

Tim never would have thought it was because his soulmate was from another dimension. Or that he was going by his adopted name, Daniel James Fenton.

No one knows Dannys real name given to him at birth. No one but him, his birth mom and Jazz, who helped him burn the documents his parents have never more than glanced at before adopting him.

4. Au of the au where Danny is the lovechild of BatCat and when he learns the (civilian) identities of his parents he contacts Selena to get to know her and they meet up literally anywhere except Gotham to avoid being discovered by Batman or Bruce Wayne.

Selena tells him about her being Catwoman but not anyone else's identities. They weren't her secrets to share after all. Word gets out that she's "taken an apprentice" and the bats and birds try to befriend him whenever they can. Danny has taken to stopping in Bloodhaven every chance he gets to chat with Nightwing and Co.

Danny gets wounded and his soulmark (Tim's full name) gets revealed and the bat has a "oh snap!" moment. Its even better if its Tim himself who's there as Red Robin for the drama.

#fanfiction prompts #prompts #dp x dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #catwoman #selena kyle #batman #red robin #tim drake #braindead #tim drake x danny fenton

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omegaversebookshelf · 8 months

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BatFamily: Omegaverse Edition

I have been recently re-hit by my enduring, overwhelming love for these anxious, extremely competent, disaster humans. So I'm making this post to cope with the Feelings.

This is just going to be a breakdown of the gender designations I usually give each member of the family, and why, the short version, because there's a lot of them. (Does include some more peripheral members, the only requirement to be included here is to be part of the core cast really)

I might do more in-depth posts for them on an individual basis at some point in the future.

Also this post is p much ship-neutral, with some acknowledgements of canonical relationships.

In age order...

Talia: (Becuase she is actually the oldest rip) Talia is an omega. Her relationship with Ra's in the comics is in a large part defined by his despair that she would be the perfect heir "were she not a woman" (pause for eyeroll) (Ra's is an alpha, of course. He doesn't get a full section because fuck him) This is just that scaled up. She also took control of multiple criminal organizations partly by weaponizing her femininity (but mostly by killing people and we love that for her). This also adds some layers of complication to her relationship with Damian. And also the rest of the Bats and Birds but Damian is the one she cares about.

(Also like, on a more serious note, the absolute character assassination she has undergone during her run time is horrific in a way that is very much centered around her identity as a woman, and specifically a woman of color, and I cannot in good conscience ignore that. Fuck Grant Morrison. All my homies hate Grant Morrison)

Alfred: Alfred is an alpha. Yes, I know most fics have him as a beta but I firmly believe alpha fits more with both his backstory (military and theater) and character (very protective and willing to get lethal with it.) He's a very low-key alpha, who, as the Wayne family butler, most people assume to be a beta, but his is very much an alpha.

Bruce: I write Bruce as a beta. Brucie Wayne is the epitome of non-threatening himbo and being a neutral beta helps with being not taken seriously as a danger. It also adds a wider layer of disguise for Batman, since the general consensus is that Batman has to be an alpha. (Also lets me have the trinity be "one each"* and that makes me happy. They’ll get their own post together soon)

Beta Bruce also means he gets to be consistently flummoxed by his children’s situations. He is more comfortable with alpha things, since both Alfred and his parents are/were alphas so they’re more familiar to him.

Selina: An omega. (As you can tell, Bruce may or may not have a bit of a weakness for omega women who don't take anybody's shit XD) Selina is an archetypal femme fatal (though also so much more) couldn't have her be anything else. This also adds to her reputation in Crime Alley, both in the sense of building herself into a serious faction and in her reputation as a safe space for strays.

Barbara: An alpha. More independent than the rest of her generation, only a Bat on her own terms and has never worked for Batman, only with him. As Oracle, who most people never meet in person, she is fairly genderless, though very much fem-presenting, but that counts a bit less in an omegaverse context.

Dick: Dick Grayson is an omega, the tendency towards being flattened into "sexy golden retriever and support of the family" and ignoring of the very real complexity in his character and storylines? he couldn't be anything else. (No, I'm not salty, don't @ me) Robin is genderless/gender neutral, Nightwing is an omega. (Titans era Dick Grayson did not give a flying fuck, as appropriate for a run about teenagers figuring out who they are in the world.)

Cass: I usually write Cass as either a beta or an omega. Part of her character is how she is deceptively non-threatening at first glance while being able to absolutely wipe the floor with the majority of her opponents. I usually lean beta for her, because I think it adds to her bond with Bruce. She has very firm connections with Babs, because of her support and care, so giving her that kind of mirror to Bruce helps balance out that relationship. It also allows for the continuation of Beta Batman in the Future. (Because Cass absolutely should be the next Batman I have been saying this for a decade and I stand by it)

Jason: Jason is an alpha. There is just something about the particular flavor of non-toxic masculinity that comes with Jason’s character that I think lends itself to this very well. Also something something expectations of violence and choices.

Stephanie: Steph is an omega. When I was first figuring these out (back in like, 2016-ish) I went back and forth between beta and omega for her before ultimately coming down in favor of omega. On the shallow side, it allows for the three main batgirls to hit each gender option. On the character history side I think it fits her teen pregnancy storyline she had. And it just fits her particular story imo. She fought literally everyone to be a vigilante. Everyone in her life has told her no at some point.

Tim: Works well with any gender, I usually opt for beta!Tim just because I think it lends itself well to his general perception as Bruce’s mini-me (despite how far from the truth that is in some significant ways). Usually if I’m not writing him beta I’m writing him alpha.

Duke: Duke I lean towards alpha both because it helps balance the family out (the perils of being the newcomer) and also I have a fondness for “chill but also absolutely unhinged” characters as alphas. Also, in a similar way to Jason, his gender means people tend to assume/underestimate how much his intelligence is involved in what he does (intersectionality also hits hard here let’s be real). I just really like the idea of Jason and Duke sending like, crossword puzzles back and forth to each other as a weird form of bonding okay.

Damian: Imma be honest Damian is who I go back and forth on the most. Any option gives a good story for his character, they’re just all different ones. Baby Damian would consider being an omega something to be ashamed of, being an alpha proof of his superiority, and being a beta merely acceptable (and maybe a way to relate to his father). As he grows into the person he is now, it would be either accepting his own worth, or accepting the worth of others, and figuring out how his gender identity and the social roles that come with it play into who he is as a hero and as a person.

I adore Damian so much. When I first was getting into comics he and Dick were just wrapping up their stint as Batman and Robin and they hold a special place in my heart.

Genetically, all three options are possible for him, his mother is an omega, his father a beta, and at least three out of four grandparents are alphas.

#omegaverse #dc comics #Batfamily #Bruce Wayne #talia al ghul #selina kyle #dick grayson #barbara gordon #cassandra cain #jason todd #stephanie brown #tim drake #duke thomas #damian wayne #rain rambles

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arabriddler · 6 months

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hi! I saw you mention lore about the robins and i wondered if you had anything to say about them yet? two of the robins are my most favorite characters in the whole world so i'd love to hear your takes on them. no big deal at all if you don't want to have a lovely day/night/whatever either way I love your art and stuff bye :)

Sure! I’m still working on it but was inspired by @froot-batty to figure out how to include the Batfam without making Bruce actively use his kids as sidekicks you know? Thought that’s very neat.

anyways. I’m still working on the rest ( I only have rough ideas about them for the moment ), but when it comes to Babs and Dick I have their concepts down. first though, what kind of dad is Bruce. Well, he tried his hand at parenting by adopting Dick. Especially since he felt guilty that he was around when Dick’s parents passed away and he couldn’t save them, but he’s very obsessed with being Batman and all his work as Bruce Wayne that they rarely interact. The house is big and Dick is mostly left alone. He really likes Batman though so he started sneaking out to help Batman. He doesn’t know that Batman is Bruce Wayne nor does Bruce know Dick is Nightwing, and is struggling to stop this guy from following him around but ends up sort of adopting him and feeling responsible about him while he’s Batman ( more details here ). One day Bruce tries to spend time with Dick without being Batman he promises the whole day and this ends up with Dick finding excuses so he could sneak out and be Nightwing and Bruce gets out at the same time to be Batman.

For Barbra. She’s considered a child prodigy and a whizz with tech. She skipped classes and was often inspired by her dad to pursue justice. She hacked into the GCPD to help but ended up discovering how rotten the system is. Instead, she chose to help Batman the same way her dad does. By hacking into the bat computer as Oracle and giving Batman tips and advice and all. When she gets a little older, she starts her own detective agency but a horrible accident causes her a spinal injury and be bound to a wheelchair.

#Nightwing #dick grayson #barbara Gordon #oracle #ask #anon #bee's art #nahlaverse

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zenosanalytic · 6 months

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So I was reading Karen from HR(go read it!) by Unpretty(go follow her!!) last night and I think it crystalized for me part of why I LOVE her characterization of Bruce Wayne so much(I mean: just basically that she treats ALL the characters as WHOLE PEOPLE rather than split-personalities ala the wornout Kill Bill analysis of Superman[which you weren't SUPPOSED to agree with! Bill's the VILLAIN GUYS!! But that's a different essay u_u] is Enough but she does so much more...), namely:

"Batman" isn't a way Bruce deals with his trauma, it's a way he AVOIDS dealing with his trauma.

Yes this is an analysis post about a fanfic |:| Obvsl, ***Spoilers*** |:| |:|

Ok so here we go: This is Bruce reacting to the grief of Corinne's co-workers at her death

He wanted to put distance between them. It wasn't fair to any of them to be irritated. It wasn't their fault. Nails on a chalkboard, their noisy grief repulsive. The self-centered way the living mourned their memory of the dead. Accepted death as a force of nature, an act of god. No fury in them, no action. No problems to be fixed. A hole in their lives to fill with tears until they couldn't feel the emptiness anymore.

Don't worry, he knows how fucked up it is to think this way and there are lines immediately following which show that(he is so well characterized in this and all related works PLEASE Trust me, Dear Readers) but I want to focus on THIS and what it says about how BRUCE relates to grief and mourning.

He thinks mourning is a way to put death behind you; a way to center your OWN feelings of grief and loss in the midst of something terrible which has happened to SOMEONE ELSE. Right off the bat(heh) this is telling us he has NEVER let himself mourn for his parents because he's talking about it in 3rd Person; as something separate from himself(and please don't sleep on how he also talks about The Living in the same way, implicitly classifying himself outside that category as well) Bruce is a Raw-Fucking-Nerve 24/7, and has been since his parents' were killed right in front of him, and refuses to heal or even face his emotions about that event because doing either might mean moving on and he thinks that would be selfish.

Actually, let's look at another line from before this which I think clarifies his emotional reality wonderfully:

He looked out at all the employees, all huddled together in different groups, whispering and checking their phones and waiting for the police to tell them they could leave. Some of them crying. Everyone giving him a wide berth. There was blood on his shirt. Bruce Wayne didn't have any reason to be handling this well. Shouldn't have been handling this well. Safer for the sake of secrets not to handle it well. With that decided, he found the nearest trash can and started heaving into it. Better. He hadn't done that in years. He grabbed a flute of champagne from the abandoned buffet table and downed it like a shot, then another. It helped get the taste of acid off his tongue. He let his hands shake. It felt like a normal thing to happen, his hands shaking.

Allowing himself the physical expressions of grief and trauma soothes him; feels normal. Because it's not something he's let himself do in years(probably lying to himself here; probably since the murders). He can only psychologically allow himself to physically grieve as an act to keep up appearances; he can only grieve by disassociating. Which of course also means he's never PRIVATELY allowed himself this grief. Jesus-Fuck

Let's jump forward, to an exchange with Dick Grayson(first robin/nightwing), to drive this point home. It's a longer dialogue I don't want to include all of so the context: Corinne died before earlier in the week and Nightwing found her, but she revived and left the scene before he returned from catching the culprit, and Dick just told this to Bruce:

"You could have talked to me about it," Bruce added, looking at the ballroom and not at him. "When that happened. How you were. Feeling." Nightwing huffed a sound that wasn't a laugh. "Right," he said. "Sure." Bruce grit his teeth. Nightwing clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's do that," he said. "You can come over later, tell me how you're feeling about all this." Bruce said nothing. "Yeah," Nightwing said, patting his shoulder as he disengaged and stepped away. "That's what I figured."

There is so much here, and it all hurts so good. 1)Bruce is thinking of himself as Bruce; again Unpretty treats the "secret-identity" superheroes as what they are, facades; Bruce does not think of himself as Batman, Batman is a persona-tool(one might say a worksona :3) Bruce uses 2) but Dick isn't Dick even when he's in his civvies he's Nightwing, because Bruce needs to distance and disassociate himself from the emotions he won't let himself process and that's what he uses the personas to do 3)this is made explicit by both his passive refusal of Dick's sympathy and offer of comfort, and the bitter sarcasm of Dick's offer of it, which communicates this is an offer that has always been there, and always been denied. Dick cares for Bruce and wants to help him heal but knows Bruce won't let him care for him and won't heal, and this refusal has visibly damaged their relationship.

Oh and 4) "You could have talked to me about it": Bruce's desire to help others is tied directly to his refusal to let others help him, and his refusal to mourn his parents/let himself grieve/heal. Because his desire to help IS a trauma-response, because you Can't Actually Just Suppress This Shit Away. This situation is So Fucked Up for Dick: Dick wants to be comforted by Bruce as much as he wants to comfort him, but he knows letting Bruce comfort him would Only Reinforce His Pain; Would Only PUSH HIM FURTHER AWAY. Again I say to you: Jesus-Fuck.

Ok so: this next bit isn't directly related to this, it's more of like a second-order thing, but a few chapters later Bruce is helping Corinne make empanadas and he talks about his dad and I think this is also Quite Revealing:

..."My father liked to cook," Bruce said eventually as he peeled paper away from garlic to pull away cloves. "He was very passionate about food. About joy."...

I'm going to skip around a bit here cuz it's in the context of a much longer/larger scene

..."We had a chef, but he liked to make meals himself when he could. Food as a symbol, food as a way to love himself, to love life. Finding joy in the work it takes for even a fleeting moment of happiness, gone in the time it takes to clear a plate."... .... "I don't have that," Bruce said. "His sense of taste. I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything as much as he enjoyed good soup."

BRUUUUUUUUCE!!!! No wonder everyone wants to fuck this man. We can fix him, guys; WE CAN FIX HIM NO SHUTUP EVERYBODY BEFORE WERE ALL DOING IT WRONG BUT WE GET IT WE CA- ok I'll stop now.

First I want to be mean for a little bit and call bullshit here cuz unpretty's Bruce is One of the most Eloquent Motherfuckers Around. Fuck You You don't enjoy things "Food as a symbol, food as a way to love himself, to love life" Goddaminit just admit you love your dad you son of a bitch!!! And while you're at it, admit you like to talk so that words sound good leaving noisehole!!! Admit that you love Competence; Admit it!! ADMIT IT!!!(*entirely metaphorically shaking this take of Bruce Wayne by his lapels tho not really cuz he's conservatively the size of a hardwood armoire*)

But seriously: I again point you at disassociation. Batman seems like a really active response to grief, and the way unpretty writes it it physically IS... in the same way that a person who responds to grief by turning to alcohol or sex or thrill-seeking instead of going to the funeral is very actively partaking in those activities. Psychologically though it's actually a passive, avoidant response; a refusal to feel, to face, to deal with that pain. It's not Bruce's fault that he doesn't realize that he enjoys being poetic and eloquent or that he enjoys being GOOD at things(or that he enjoys LOOKING good and FEELING LIKE HE LOOKS GOOD and BEING ADMIRED FOR HIS BEAUTY, for that matter, or that helping someone cook connects him with his Dad) because BRUCE DOES NOT LET HIMSELF EXPERIENCE HIS EMOTIONS DIRECTLY. All of his emotions are exactly like that Horror and Trauma and Grief at the top right after Corinne had been shot: Moderated through performance as a 3rd Person experience of himself. He has no idea what he's feeling, and he hasn't had any idea what he's feeling since the night his parents were killed and he won't LET himself have any idea what he's feeling because to do so would be to MOVE ON and (he thinks)FORGET and ACCEPT THAT THEY REALLY ARE DEAD and he thinks that would be SELFISH!! BRUUUCE! BRUUUUUUCE!!!

UUUGH! Ok, that was actually a tangent and not what I ACTUALLY wanted to talk about here(tho also: EXACTLY what I wanted to talk about here):

"I don't have that," Bruce said. "His sense of taste. I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything as much as he enjoyed good soup."

This sentence is so huge, but you really need a bit more context to understand why. One: even aside from his trauma Bruce has a very detached and clinical way of thinking

The knife moved quickly and looked much fancier than when she did it. "You're really good at that," she said. "You should get your knives sharpened," he said. "Yeah," she agreed, pouring eggy water into her bowl to mix with a spoon. "Do you cook a lot?" "No." There was silence before he clarified. "I dislike the inefficiency." "Oh." "It's necessary to function," he said. "I prefer to spend my time on other things." ... "It isn't a matter of health or moral fortitude," he said carefully. "No more than you not drinking coffee. It isn't particularly admirable to not do things you don't enjoy. I don't enjoy food as much as other people do. That's all."

Two: Karen from HR is part of a wider body of work called Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts(Read It!!!), and in it there is a fic about Bruce's parents, set when Bruce is a child, called Wayne Manor(You know the drill u_u), and in Wayne Manor it's very clear that Bruce is autistic, which the above way of thinking about things is an expression of. His parents are wonderful about this, and there's allot of evidence that Bruce's mother is also autistic and makes such a point about being wonderful about it due to her own abuse for being autistic as a child, and as a child Bruce seems to feel nothing but confidence and happiness in his autistic qualities. But the trauma of the death of his parents has somehow changed that.

I would argue that Bruce ties these autistic qualities, which he associates with his parents because they affirmed and celebrated and shared them, with the way he has responded to their murders, with Batman, which he is deeply conflicted about; something he consciously deems a MORE ethical, active, and "problem-solving" approach to death than mourning, while subconsciously recognizing is deeply fucked up and unhealthy for him and everyone in his life. He's come to attach his clinicality, his "dislike [for] inefficiency", to Batman, and thus as something which sets apart and isolates him; something "lacking" in himself which denies him the joy his father was able to feel. Again: obvsl that's bullshit for the reasons I listed above --his interest in doing things well is THE SAME THING his father felt, is something which his own decision to bring up his father shows connects him to his father IN THAT VERY SCENE and it is his disassociation from his trauma which prevents him from acknowledging and experiencing the joy he finds in doing things well-- but thoughts don't have to be rational for us to believe and hurt ourselves with them. Humans are irrational; human psychology is irrational.

Unpretty understands this so fucking well. She writes Bruce Wayne(and all these characters really) so fucking well. Unpretty's Bruce Wayne is a Deeply Irrational, Hyperrational, Hypercompetent Man. She has turned the power-fantasy of multiple generations of USian men into the Saddest and Wettest of Meow-Meows. This stuff is So Tasty numnumnum I eats it up I EATS IT!! Bruce is such a fucked up dude; his loves and self hatred all wound up and tied together and hiding themselves from him within a trauma Too Huge for him to ever face; "making himself useful" and "solving problems" to everyone and everywhere as an act of ultimate self-annihilation; Heroism as Self Healing as Self Destruction; The Noblest and most Beautiful of Lies; Delicious this Gourmet Fucking Meal she is serving us.

I don't read the comics and I can't call myself a huge fan of the movies, but I SO wish I could see a theatrical take on this character that understood as well as Unpretty does that Batman is a story Bruce Wayne tells himself and that it Isn't Fucking Helping.

#unpretty #Karen from HR #Fanfic #Long Posts #Bruce Wayne #Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts #Wayne Manor #Batman Fanfic #DC #Batman #Writing #Characterization #Character Studies #zA Analysis #The Critical Stance #Gr8 Art #appreciative reblogs

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teleportationmagic · 8 months

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How many Robins are there, exactly?

An in-universe counting

1 - Unified Robin theory. There was the original Robin, and they kept being the original Robin because Robin doesn't age/deages. The blonde one either doesn't count, or was a disguise of some sort, and the current one just has a tan/exists in a universe where Damian is lighter. Generally unaccepted even by people who care about this sort of thing. Many people in this camp have been unified Robin believers since they were very young and just. never let up.

(Not to be confused with the offshoot of people who believe that Robin is some kind of spirit, and that each Robin is a manifestation of some part of Gotham's id.

Or those who believe that there was only One True Rightful Robin.

Or those who believe that, really, Robin is just whoever is wearing it guys.)

2 - There was the original Robin, and then there was the new Robin or it was interrupted by the girl Robin. There is much much infighting between these two groups despite the fact that they are not actually all that popular. And also fighting with group 3.

3 - Either they count the new Robin and the girl Robin separately, or the girl Robin is discounted, and a second Robin is added after Nightwing came around. The second group generally has the belief that Nightwing is Robin, and are mostly people who were Titans fans back in the day. Generally seen as the commonly accepted floor in Robin-counting, and is somewhat common In The Community

4 - Generally counts the first Robin, a Robin after Nightwing (though the division might be placed someplace else, such as after Batman's three month alone-run, after girl Robin, or declaring the older current Robin to be distinct from Red Robin), the girl Robin and the new Robin. Alternate counts place two divisions and nix blonde Robin. Fairly widely held view, especially amongst people who don't actually care. Especially for people outside of Gotham

5 - Similar to the above, in terms of original robin/current robin/two divisions and girlrob or three divisions. Also a generally accepted view of most Gothamites who's involvement with robin begins and ends with seeing them on the news.

6 - Counts all the above division plus girlrob, though at this point there are some more esoteric divisions as well - some people claim that no man's land indicated a new robin, for instance. Not an uncommon opionon for people who aren't actively thinking about this. Also generally seen as a normie take.

7-20 - even more esoteric divisions. Common additional beliefs include a separate Robin for the TT/YJ, a division in the first five-six years as Robin when the kid was suddenly three inches taller, or any of the times when the current robin disappeared for a few months. Also includes the people who fell sideways through a reboot and remember a redheaded robin? This is where people start calling you a conspiracy theorist

60-80ish - "are we just forgetting about all the We Are Robin kids?" <- proceeds large pontificating on what is robin, really? Held by a decently large crowd

6-10ish - "well, Batgirl is basically a Robin, right? Like she's a sidekick for Batman, and that's essentially what Robin is" <- held ironically about seventy percent of the time

14-19ishhhh - "if you're counting Batgirl you also have to count all the other sidekicks Batman has had, like Bluebird or Signal or Nightwing" <- held about ninety percent ironcally, except for that last name, which is used to start a fight

80+ - "Batman has a silo full of dead children and I am going to find it" <- generally not taken seriously, despite being so. people in the 7-20 bracket will call you a conspiracy theorist.

#dc #Robin #dick grayson #jason todd #damian wayne #tim drake #stephanie brown #I feel like I ought to tag bernard but he's not actually in this. so #if you ask anyone inside the vigilante community the answer is generally 3/4 #ask the Batfamily specifically and they will fuck with you #they don't give straight answers to that question #telespeak #batfamily #batfam

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paladin-of-nerd-fandom65 · 1 month

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Dope answers buddy :)

1: Would Chris/Thara plus Jake/ Meredith get their own house or move into the Kent farm & Grayson place?

2: How much does Meredith know; does she only know about Jake or everything about the bat family? (Other heroes too)

3: How did Jake & maybe mar'i, first meet the super-twins?

4: What story would you write for the Grayson-Anders family?

5: What story would you write for the Super-Family?

Thanks man here’s some more @pin-crusher2000 ;-)

1) Chris/Thara: they would in a beachside home on the coast in the state Metropolis is within. Thara really appreciates the sunrise of the coast line while in turn Chris really likes how the moon looks at night when it reflects in the ocean water.

Jake/Meredith: Also Their own home; semi canonically at the very end of New Order, Jake and his family were living some suburbs of either Gotham or Bludhaven so it’s not hard to believe that Jake and Meredith might do the same in this timeline

2) Upon learning Jake is Skybird, she very quickly and correctly deduces that his family are Starfire, Nightwing and Nightstar respectively while his Uncle Tim is Robin but for the first two years, that’s where he knowledge would stop, until she builds enough trust and good word of mouth from Jake to the others to start learning over time. For instance it was until she was 13 she finally learned that his adoptive Grandpa Bruce was indeed the Batman and not that Bruce Wayne was living in Batman’s attic.

3) Chris introduced the Twins to both Mar’i and Jake almost about two weeks after Mon El and then arrived back on Earth after that big huge battles at Warworld. Almost immediately they actually all got along with the Twins especially so curious and full of questions about the Graysons and their Tamaranean heritage and customs.

4) Hmm….

For the whole family, I envision a long (about in the real world a half a year to one year long, biweekly scheduling in place) story arc having them travel throughout the stars putting on a space based circus tour, a sort of new intergalactic branch of Haly’s, running into many new friends and foes with the backdrop of sharing both Earthen and Tamaranean culture. Along the way, the family can have many encounters with not just the standard Blackfire and Wildfire but also maybe other space bound characters and teams in the DCU including but not limited to Adam Strange, Lobo, L.E.G.I.O.N, Planet Thanagar aka the planet Hawkman’s Nth Metal originated from, and maybe even a resident Green Lantern or two that pass by them (Ideally, Jessica Cruz and/or Tai Pham). The arc culiminates with The Graysons and their allies banding together and fending off a grand scale attack on Planet Tamaran itself and once successful, the epilogue sees that branch of the Circus give one last Grand Performance for the tour with the Flying Graysons as the headline act.

5) One day, Clark’s powers are starting to go haywire and out of control. The solar energy in his systems are overloading and threatening to cause him to explode. What’s worse though is that this explosion would be equivalent to a supernova which in way, through no fault of his own, Clark has the entire solar system and even the galaxy held hostage. Meanwhile, the anti alien Blue Earth Movement has gained unfortunate legitimacy with its representative being elected as President with vows to supposedly protect the Human race from any alien threat and place them as the superior species, no doubt having an ally in Lex Luthor. It’s a matter of the family trying to find ways to prevent Clark’s impending demise and save their world from not just that supernova but from in a way itself, especially as Blue Earth aligned super villains and even alien cosmic threats converge on our heroes, making their tasking all the harder. It’ll put their bonds and connections with each other to the test, not necessarily on how well they get along though that can certainly be all over but moreso on if it’ll be enough to overpower these great threats in their horizon. Minor Spoilers, Clark indeed survives his power overload and the Earth is safe there though the consequences would still linger afterwards

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random-movie-ideas · 6 months

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Batman & Batgirl (Movie Concept)

Having finished all of my concepts for a Superman series, let's begin with my first idea for a Batman series set within the same Cinematic Universe. This movie would likewise follow a Phase One without a Batman movie, with Bruce Wayne cropping up as the "Nick Fury" character, only donning the suit after being convinced to by Superman during the Justice League movie at the end of the phase. This movie picks up shortly after, and details why Bruce had laid down the cowl, fast-tracking a lot of the basic Batman stories we've already seen before.

The movie starts on Barbara Gordon sitting on a train as it heads into Gotham, returning home after two years of being at college. She is tapping on her computer, finishing up a thesis on a book she’d been reading. The train stops once and a middle-aged man sits down across from her. He notes the book she’s been reading, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, saying it’s his favorite book in the world. Barbara smiles at him awkwardly, telling him she wrote her final project on it for her English Lit class. He introduces himself as Jervis, and they exchange pleasantries.

Barbara gets off the train and is met by her father at the station, they drive home, both a little anxious. They try to talk, but haven’t talked in a long time, and so it is awkward between them. Babs sees a news report saying that Batman hadn’t been seen in a few months, only cropping up during the Kryptonian invasion earlier that year, and hardly at all since. Another vigilante, calling himself Nightwing, had started operating out in Bludhaven in that time, but there was no sign of Batman otherwise. Barbara tries to ask her dad about it, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about that either.

After Barbara and her dad get home, she greets her mom and brother, and they have a nice family dinner. While she goes to bed, another woman across town named Alice seems to be running for her life, a strange hat on her head, while images keep popping up around her, making her scream in terror.

The next day, Barbara goes with her dad to the police station where he is the commissioner. She greets a lot of the people he works with, most she’s known since childhood, including Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya. While she’s there, she hears about a couple of people going missing around the city, her dad giving out orders for officers to go check on it. The billionaire Bruce Wayne stops in, Barbara recognizing him and the two catching up a bit. She says she heard about Jason, and asks how he and Dick are dealing with it. Bruce says that Dick doesn’t live with him anymore. He moved out shortly after . . .

Barb’s father cuts in to relieve the tension. He greets Bruce, pointedly mentioning that there have been some mysterious disappearances lately and that it would be nice if they could find the person behind it. Bruce looks awkward, and wishes them their best in finding the culprit. Also during this scene, Barbara catches that the DA is a name she doesn’t recognize, and asks about Harvey Dent. Gordon seems to avoid that topic as well.

Later on, Barbara is at the library, returning a book when she bumps into her old boyfriend Dick Grayson. The two reconnect, with Barbara mentioning that Bruce said he didn’t live at the mansion anymore. Dick says that he and Bruce had a falling out after his younger brother died, and he moved out not long after. Dick changes the subject, mentioning that there’s a carnival in town, and that they should go to it together. Barbara accepts the offer and they part semi-flirtatiously/semi-awkwardly.

That night, a banker walking home seems likewise terrified, with a strange hat on his head and visions appearing around him. The next day, Barbara arrives at the fair early, looking around. She notices an “Alice in Wonderland”-themed section and checks it out for a moment. Jervis from the train pops out unexpectedly, greeting her and asking if she remembers him. She is surprised that he works here, and he awkwardly mentions that he used to work for Wayne Industries before getting fired. He picked up a job at the carnival for the season. He tells her to enjoy the fair and offers her a hat.

The moment Barbara puts on the hat, she feels strange and everything goes dark. She wakes up to find herself back in her house. She gets up to call her mom or dad and discovers that she’s back to being ten-years-old again. Her mom comes in and presents her Halloween costume, based on the masked vigilante she had idolized so much back then. She sees herself put it on and proclaim herself “Batgirl!” She goes out with her dad to the precinct, where Harvey Bullock shows disgust at Gordon letting her wear that, but Gordon says there’s no harm in it. Then, just as Barbara’s about to run around the office and get treats from all the officers, a call comes through. Barbara hears something about the Joker, and the adult her remembers what night this was.

We cut to Commissioner Gordon getting a call from Dick Grayson, saying that Barbara never showed up for their date. Gordon isn’t so concerned at first, but the more time goes by, and the finding of Babs’s handbag near the carnival, makes him start to feel concerned, especially when he notices that most of the recent disappearances have been around that location. He and Dick and the other officers search, but none come up with anything.

Back with Barbara, we see her running, trying to avoid these memories, but they keep following her. She remembers her mom getting a call later that night, after Barbara had taken off her costume. She remembered her father in the hospital in critical condition, having taken three bullets from the Joker himself. She remembers Bullock grumbling something to Montoya about Batman not bothering to show up until after he’d already been shot. She remembered crying at her father’s bedside over the months it took him to recover.

She remembered growing up, watching her father struggle with lingering effects of the bullet wounds years later, yet still throwing himself in the line of duty, time after time, always helping Batman in any way he could. She remembered being sixteen, arguing with her father not to go, to let someone else handle it, but her father going anyway. She remembered getting another call, her father in the hospital once again, her refusal to forgive him after that.

We cut back to Gordon, still getting nothing from his officers, hearing reports of Nightwing popping up in the area instead of Bludhaven, coupled with calls from Dick acting like he’s at home waiting for news. Gordon stares at his phone for a minute, then calls Wayne Manor. Alfred picks up the phone, saying that Master Bruce is unavailable right now. Gordon asks if his daughter had been up there recently, mentioning that she’s gone missing. He offhandedly mentions that he wishes there were someone he knew who could find her, but he hasn’t seen Batman in months, and the hero won’t even answer his beacon anymore. He wistfully says that he wishes there were someone he knew who could get in contact with Batman and get him on the case, if even for old times’ sake.

As Barbara flees from her bad memories, including a falling out with Dick just before she left for college, when she had cursed Batman in a moment of anger, she stumbles across a group of other people, including Alice and the banker, all likewise scared and trying to hide. She also catches strange flashes of a young boy hiding away from the world, curling up with an old copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Before she can figure out what’s going on, she is suddenly ripped back to reality as a hat is pulled off her head and she finds Batman standing over her.

Batman tells her she’s safe now, and she finds herself seated at a table set for tea with all of the other victims she had seen in there, except for the small boy. Barbara spots a figure in a top hat lurking in the rafters and points him out. Batman tells her and the others to get out while he chases after them. The victims all run from the room, Barbara stumbling and noticing one of the hats on the floor, strange tech inside of it. On a hunch, she grabs it and hurries out with it.

She finds her father there and hugs him tightly, apologizing for the things she’d said years before. Gordon is surprised, but hugs her back. She’s loaded into a police car and taken back home. Meanwhile, Batman goes after the figure in the hat, chases him around a corner, and bumps into the hulking Killer Croc wearing a top hat, who forces him down just long enough for another figure to slip a hat onto his head.

At home, Barbara is comforted by her mother while Renee Montoya waits with them. A short time later, her father gets home, looking anxious, but that turns to relief as soon as he hugs Barbara again. Behind him, Barbara hears Bullock whisper to Montoya that they couldn’t find any trace of the perpetrator or Batman. A little while later, Dick shows up and hugs Barbara too. The pair talk alone, and Barbara says she’s glad he’s still around and they share a momentary kiss. After Barbara goes to bed, she hears her father and a voice that sounds like Dick’s talking outside. She peeks out and sees Nightwing discussing with her father that he found traces of rough skin similar to Killer Croc’s at the scene, as well as Batman’s torn cowl.

The next day, Barbara starts to notice more hints that Batman has gone missing through whispers between her father and other officers. She finds herself getting interviewed and visited by several people, and learns that they’ve narrowed the suspects down to a man named Jervis Tetch, thanks to the tea sets and other possessions found around the scene. Barbara positively identifies him as a man she had spoken to just before being taken.

After finally getting some time alone, she’s allowed to go and rest in her room. She opens her bag and finds the hat she had grabbed in the heat of the moment, realizing she’d forgotten about it in all the chaos. She makes to take it to her father, then stops. If Batman had been captured, he would be trapped in that nightmare world too. But if they were connected, seeing as she’d interacted with the other victims in there, maybe she could enter it too and find him. She considered that, surely, the precinct had already collected the other hats for evidence, and that she’d do more good by going in to help find Batman. She takes the chance, locks her bedroom door, and slips the hat on her head.

She immediately finds herself accosted by images of the Joker laughing, lightning flashing over a face half-scarred, a mugger firing a gun, a woman in a cat costume, and a boy in a Robin costume beaten to death. The onslaught of horrifying images becomes too much for her and she gets swallowed up for a moment. She reminds herself that they’re not real and powers through it, suddenly finding herself in an ornate bathroom, staring at a shattered mirror.

Standing beside her is a young fifteen-year-old boy breathing heavy as his fist bleeds from the glass sticking into it. For just a moment, flashes show the mugger with the gun again, followed by a little boy crouching on the ground between two bodies. Barbara turns and recognizes a young Alfred, the butler of Bruce Wayne, stepping into the room, seeing the broken mirror, and simply looking sad. He steps up to “Master Bruce” and comforts him for a moment before having him come out to the kitchen so he can patch him up. Barbara watches him go, realizing it’s Bruce Wayne.

The scene changes and Barbara finds herself on top of a chilly mountain, a young Bruce Wayne, only a few years older, being trained by an old man with a goatee, while a young girl watches from the sidelines. Barbara sees snippets of Bruce learning to fight and getting really good at it, learning to be stealthy, to move around without been seen or heard at all. She sees him train with tools and weapons, she sees him become a master of all of it, honing every single skill he possibly could.

Then she sees him in Gotham, starting out by running around in a black burglar mask and beating up thugs in the street, until slowly but surely, he invents a persona. She sees the look of terror on the criminal’s faces the first time they see the figure of the Bat descending upon them. He takes out multiple major crime bosses, such as Carmine Falcone and Rupert Thorne, forming an alliance with her father and DA Harvey Dent to take them all down.

In between all of these, we see snippets of Gordon and Nightwing investigating Batman’s disappearance. We also see the hatted figure in a hideout, Killer Croc looming behind him, Batman before him, realizing that someone else is using one of his hats. He orders the Croc to find the person.

Barbara keeps looking for Bruce. Every once in a while, she stumbles across a memory that doesn’t seem to be Bruce’s, like one of a socially awkward boy with buck teeth being bullied until he cries, the boy’s parents being likewise abusive to him. Returning to Bruce’s memories, she watches as Batman, Gordon, and Dent’s actions lead to the rise of a new criminal power in Gotham that unites the remnants of the dismantled gangs under one banner, a figure that had haunted Gotham for years: The Joker.

Barbara watches the triumvirate struggle against the Joker’s scheming. She sees from the other end, the night her father got called away on Halloween night, and witnesses him getting shot multiple times by the Joker’s goons. Harvey Dent tried to pull him out, but the Joker surprised him and burned half his face with acid. Batman arrived to pull them both out, but the damage was done. Barbara was then bombarded by scenes of her father in the hospital for months, and Batman talking to a psychiatrist, intercut with scenes of Harvey confiding in Billionaire Bruce about his struggles with DID, how he had a dangerously violent alt that he was constantly struggling to suppress. The psychiatrist tells Batman that the pain and irreparable damage done to Harvey’s face in the attack had been just the tipping point the alter needed to wrest control from Harvey.

Barbara watches as Batman goes on a rampage to avenge his friends, finally beating the Joker’s games and nearly beating him to a pulp before holding himself back. The Joker is arrested, but transferred to the Arkham Mental Health Institute after being diagnosed as insane. Batman forms a new alliance with Dr. Crane, the head psychiatrist there, as well as Joker’s personally assigned therapist Harleen Quinzel, entrusting them with his care and to keep him under control. He also entrusts them with Harvey, hoping they will be able to help him.

It's around this point when Barbara finds herself attacked in the mind palace by the Killer Croc, much bigger and more like an actual crocodile in this world. Meanwhile, in the real world, Dick picks up the Croc’s trail and finds him heading for the Gordon home. He and Gordon work together to fight him, while Barbara does her best to fend off the Croc, an extended action scene going on in both worlds. Barbara is about to find herself eaten when Batman intervenes, knocking out the Croc at the same moment Gordon and Dick manage to remove his control device and arrest him. Barbara calls out to Bruce, but he tells her to get out of here before fleeing. Barbara refuses and follows him.

Barbara follows Bruce into a happier set of memories, where he had been keeping himself to try to avoid the worse memories. After the Joker’s arrest and Gordon’s eventual recovery, things started to prosper more in Gotham. New enemies arose to try to control the underworld, faces like the Penguin and the Riddler, but they were easier to deal with than the Joker. Barbara witnesses Bruce visiting the circus one day and recognizes a young Dick in an acrobat’s costume, performing with his family. She witnesses an attack by a gangster that Bruce ultimately apprehends but which results in the deaths of Dick’s family. She sees Bruce watching the boy, another flash showing the young Bruce over his own parents, then a cut to Bruce filling out adoption papers and taking the boy in. She then watches Dick figure out Bruce’s secret identity and persistently force his way into Batman’s missions until Bruce has no choice but to train him.

The memories then cut to a few years later, when Bruce and Dick catch a young orphan stealing the tires off the Batmobile. They end up letting the kid off the hook, and he starts helping them out on their missions here and there, until eventually, Barbara sees another set of adoption papers filled out, and Jason is welcomed to their family as well. Outside of running missions, Barbara sees Bruce become genuinely happy, forming a real family and father-son dynamic with his two boys. She even sees him start to form a genuine romance with a cat burglar he trades blows with on occasions, some of her heists starting to seem less about the targeted object in question and more about drawing him out for the night.

Back in the real world, Dick and Gordon catch on that someone else is using one of the Mad Hatter’s hats and trace it back to Barbara’s bedroom, realizing that she had been the Killer Croc’s target. They go to her room and find the door and windows locked. At the same time, the Hatter figures out that the Croc has failed, and decides to send Batman himself to kill the intruder.

Barbara catches up to Bruce, thinking he should be calm as he’s in his happiest memories, but Bruce seems horrified, as if knowing the worst memories are about to arrive. It starts one day, with Gordon being led into a trap and being shot again. This then cuts to Bruce overhearing the fight between Dick and Barbara that had led to their breakup, him hearing Barbara’s angry words, blaming Batman for her father’s condition. This leads to more and more fights between Dick and Bruce, over his relationship with Selina, his tough training of the boys, and a million other little things boiling over the years. Jason tries to keep the peace between them, but their relationship soon becomes fractured.

Then comes the worst memory of all. It starts with a mass breakout from Arkham, the Joker escaping with the help of Harleen, whose infatuation with the Joker Bruce had noticed but hadn’t thought enough to be concerned about, never noticing the subtle hold the Joker had been weaving over her over the years. In the chaos, Harvey, now going by Two-Face, had escaped as well. Going off a tip from Catwoman, the three split up, Batman going after Joker and sending Dick after Two-Face and Jason after Harley. Batman finds that the tip had been faulty, arriving too late to discover that the Joker and Harley had been waiting for Jason, and that the Joker had proceeded to beat Jason to death with a crowbar.

Barbara finds Batman in the middle of the swirl of memories, all of it centering on that burning warehouse, with Bruce holding Jason’s broken body. The subsequent events flash around him, including the final fight between Bruce and Dick, shattering their relationship forever as Dick leaves and moves to Bludhaven, becoming Nightwing, followed by Bruce confronting Selina, Selina confessing that she’d been paid off to give him wrong information, her not thinking it would have ended up the way it did. With Jason dead, Dick gone, and Selina a betrayer, Bruce is broken once again, and he casts away the cloak, working behind the scenes to put together the Justice League against the Kryptonians but not taking up the mantle again. All of these scenes play out as Bruce holds Jason’s body and the Joker’s laugh echoes over all of it. The scene flashes back to young Bruce over his parents’ bodies one more time, and Barbara puts it all together.

Barbara sits down before Bruce, seeing him for the first time as the broken person that he is, not the hero she had once worshipped or the vigilante she had briefly despised for getting her father nearly killed. Bruce tells her that he didn’t want anyone to see all this, and she shrugs, saying that even the strongest need help too, which is why she’d been so frustrated by her father for all these years, because he’d kept taking it all on himself as well. She apologizes for the words he’d overheard that day with Dick, and that she hadn’t really meant any of it. She’d just had a bad moment.

Bruce talks to her about how it had just started as a quest for revenge for his parents’ murder, and how it had shifted and changed to doing genuine good in the city, but even then it couldn’t last, and he got people hurt. Gordon, Harvey, Dick, Jason, even Harley might not have turned to evil if he hadn’t put the Joker in her care. He had been responsible for all of it. Barbara reminds him of the people he had saved from this place. They might still be enslaved if it weren’t for him. She also remembers a time, years ago, the reason she had idolized him in the first place, when he had stopped a kidnapping and saved a bunch of kids, most of whom had been her classmates growing up. Her memories of those kids swirl around them, and she shows him what happened to those kids and how they’ve all grown up to live long and happy lives thanks to him.

Barbara’s words break through to Bruce, and his pain and heartache seem to ease. He looks down at Jason one more time, hugs him tightly, then lets him go as his body disappears. Bruce says that they need to figure out how to get out of here. Barbara tries to tell him who she thinks it is, but Bruce already figured out that it’s Jervis Tetch, a former tech developer who’d been let go from Wayne Enterprises after designing a device that would place another person under mind control, which the company’s CEO Lucius had found distinctly unethical. Batman had looked into files on him and found that he’d been in and out of Arkham most of his life, and he suspects being fired had been a breaking point for him. Barbara shares with Bruce the memories she’d seen of Tetch’s, some of which Bruce had seen as well. They figure he’s someone who needs help more than he needs to be beaten up when they finally get out of there.

A looming figure looking like the Mad Hatter from the Alice in Wonderland story appears before them, except with Jervis’s face. He says he sees that they figured it out, but now they won’t escape, as he summons mental images of the various Wonderland characters to attack them. Meanwhile, Dick and Gordon are trying to wake Barbara up when suddenly the lights go out. Batman’s body attacks, forcing Dick to defend against his old mentor while Gordon protects his daughter. Inside the mind palace, Bruce and Barbara fight back, Barbara figuring out how to create dream projections too, giving herself an adult version of her old Batgirl costume. She and Batman work together, take out the projections, and take down the mental version of Jervis. The moment he shatters, they both wake up.

Barbara finds herself in her bedroom, with her dad protecting her, and Dick about to be killed by Batman. Batman gets off his former protegee, removing his own device and covering his face. He gives Gordon details of the Mad Hatter’s location. Officers rush to the scene, find him still in the mind palace, free him, and arrest him, Batman making sure he gets turned over to Dr. Crane’s care. Barbara has a long talk with her father, the two reconciling and hugging each other, though Gordon does tell her off for going back in there. Afterwards, Dick checks in on Barbara, and she gives him a kiss and calls him Nightwing.

A short time later, Bruce and Alfred are inside the Batcave again, dusting off everything that hasn’t been touched in months. Alfred fixes up the suit and asks if this means he’s taking up the cowl again. Barbara enters and says if he is, she’d like to join him. Bruce is confused at first, but she reminds him that she saw the entrance to the cave in his mind palace multiple times. She presents him a resume, including her forensics degree she’d been working on and her gymnastics training from her childhood, and asks if he’d be willing to take on a new partner.

In a post-credits scene, Dr. Crane assigns a specialist to work with Tetch, giving him the mind control device Tetch had been using. The man enters Tetch’s room, and says “So, they say you know Batman’s secret identity.” A brief shot of his nametag lists him as Dr. Hugo Strange.

A notable thing I like most about this concept is that it sets us up a world where a majority of the standard rogues gallery already exists, allowing us to tell more interconnected stories without having to limit our series to three-five villains total, especially with a squad like this. We also have the groundwork laid now for Dick, Barbara, and Jason, meaning we can now introduce some of the later players like Tim, Damian, Stephanie, and Cass who have historically had to sit out a lot of these.

Anyway, what do you think? Would you watch a movie like this?

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zorilleerrant · 10 months

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It's not the first time they've been hit with truth serum, not by a long shot. Not the first time Nightwing's had to watch his brother struggle with it, not the first time he's had to worry. Not that there's much to worry about; they've been trained for this sort of contingency since well before it became that commonplace to think about. Nightwing's been hit with the kind of magical whammy they couldn't fight against, and this is nothing like any of those times. Something in it compels its victims not to lie, yeah, but there's nothing guiding what they talk about. Normal tactics. Just ramble.

Except Red Robin seems exceptionally anxious this time, eyes darting to Nightwing over and over again, lips clamped tight shut so he doesn't say the slightest incriminating thing. Nightwing knows it's not their identities; it's hard to slip up when they've trained themselves not even to think it with the uniforms on. If something slips out, they might call each other Robin. Red Robin might call him Batman, Nightwing might call Red Robin Drake, which would be embarassing for both of them. Not enough to be this nervous about.

The villain of the week is monologuing at them, but Nightwing is ignoring him, staring at his brother trying to figure out what's wrong. Is there something Nightwing missed, a civilian nearby Red Robin's trying not to give away the location of? Some dangerous agent or weapon lying around? What did he see that Nightwing didn't, what does he know that he needs not to give up? (For a moment, Nightwing worries Batman put Red Robin up to something, that this whole interrogation is a test. Those don't make Red Robin nervous, though, not in this same way.)

The villain, bored, is twisting at Red Robin's fingers, and tears are leaking from his eyes the way they don't usually, not for such a minimal torture as this. "No, no, no," he says, when he finally speaks, too harsh a plea for the amount of pain he's in, "don't do it." He's repeating it, but he's repeating it to himself, not the villain, not even to Nightwing, who isn't even tempted to speak himself.

He does, though. Red Robin needs him to. "It's okay, baby bird," he soothes, because his fingers are working against the knots around his wrists, so the serum lets him say it, "you say whatever you need to say. I won't judge you for it." And then he slips his thumb through a slightly painful loop, but everything loosens after that, including Red Robin's tongue.

He speaks in a monotone, and Nightwing's voice wasn't dulled, so it makes Nightwing clench his teeth. Which is helpful in schooling his expression when what comes out of Red Robin's mouth is, "I didn't want to tell you like this. I'm gay." And then eyes closed against what Nightwing can tell is another rush of tears, but only from knowing his brother so well.

It's fine, he wants to say, or I support you or oh kiddo I'd never love you any less, but the serum brings out the words that float to the surface of the mind, so Nightwing has no choice but to say, "you are?" like he's astonished at something he shouldn't be. The other words will come later, he thinks, when his mind lets him stop being so surprised over something he probably should've seen coming.

"Yes. Maybe. I'm not sure," Red Robin admits, bitterly, the kind of deliberation he obviously wanted to do in the privacy of his own mind, and not in front of his brother. "I told Batman already. I used bisexual when I told him. I don't know what I am. I don't want to care." And then he growls, and Nightwing isn't sure whether it's at the villain or himself - the villain, for his part, is standing off to the side now, a little stunned - and none of the right words are dancing their way through either of their filters.

"Is that why you broke up with Spoiler?" Nightwing says, and wants to kick himself. Which he can do, in a minute, now that he's freed his hands, and all he has to do is wait for the villain to get distracted enough to reach down and pick at the knot, which Red Robin seems to understand, letting the serum drag emotions into the open.

"It's not about her! We were high school sweethearts, it was never going to be more than it was," he says, which Nightwing has never heard before, but it must be true, or at least he must believe it in the moment. "I love him! I loved him the moment I set eyes on him, maybe, that's the way it's supposed to work, right? I knew something, I knew something then, and I ignored it, because I'm a homophobe or something!" and he's really ramping up. Nightwing is worried, because there has to be a fair amount of truth behind that statement, but the villain looks shellshocked, and he looks shellshocked in Red Robin's direction.

"I must have hated myself to never let it be a question when I knew I had questions, and does that make me a bad person? If I don't tell everyone, I'm hurting other people, right? And so how can I enjoy what we have?" Red Robin is crying in earnest now, and while Nightwing knows a lot of those are leftover tears from fighting the dose, he can see when the fake tears start to spill, too. He's acting broken over it, but Nightwing knows a vent when he sees one. "And I do enjoy it! I like it so much more with him than Spoiler, it almost feels like she was a fling at this point. And I can never tell her that! So how can I tell her about him at all? But if I don't tell her, it's back to being a fucking homophobe again! Like I'm ashamed of him. What am I supposed to do?"

That last is plaintive and he looks the villain in the eye when he says it, but the truth of it is aimed at Nightwing, who motions for him to keep talking. That way Nightwing can sneak around and tie the man with his own ropes, hopefully avoiding a fight altogether. The villain goes down with a minimum of fuss, and Red Robin is halfway through untying himself, but he's already stopped meeting Nightwing's eyes again. It's easier, this time, to say what he actually means. "It doesn't bother me one way or another, you know."

"I wish I knew, though," Red Robin says, rifling through the villain's things to find their equipment and set everything back to rights. "It's wrong, right? For me to care, I mean. Because he might be the best thing that ever happened to me, and it's not like I want to leave him, so I shouldn't care. Because I know I like him, and I want him, and it shouldn't bother me whether I want anyone else."

"I think it might be unhealthy to care whether or not you care this much," Nightwing says, before he can think better of it, and then swears about it, because not reacting is more than the serum can bear, too. "I think you might want to talk to Leslie. She'd know better than I would. I've only fucked like three men and I try not to think about it too much."

"You what?" Red Robin says, giving him an incredulous look, and then claps a hand over his mouth, shaking his head for a moment. "Sorry, I shouldn't be asking while we're, uhhh, indisposed. I know I care too much. Or I care about caring too much. Or whatever. It's just. You haven't seen the way he looks at me, you know. Or the way I look at him. I haven't seen the way I look at him, either, obviously. But you know what I mean. You do know what I mean, don't you?"

"I know what you mean," Nightwing agrees, making noises of distress over their damaged beyond repair grapple guns, and debates waiting the serum out before they call for a ride. "I'm sure you make an adorable couple. Not that that should be the driving factor, Leslie says, because you're not supposed to be playing for a camera."

"Nightwing, I really think you should maybe wait to tell me about all your problems until you can decide what to tell me," Red Robin says, which is sound advice, if it were possible for Nightwing to take it right now. But this truth serum, like all good truth serums, makes everyone want to talk in the first place. But his brother can tell he's about to start talking again and interrupts with, "did you know you can make whatever you want into a pie? Instead of strawberry-rhubarb he made peach-rhubarb. It was amazing. He's amazing. I want you to meet him but I'm worried you'll hate him and then you'll hate me. Shit, I wasn't supposed to say that last part."

"Baby bird, even if I hate him, I'll still love you," Nightwing says, wrapping his little brother in a hug. "I've hated so many of your friends! Wow, this fucking truth serum, huh? So is it serious between you guys, or what?"

"I don't even know if we're technically boyfriends yet," Red Robin says, wistfully, but he relaxes into the hug, and lets Nightwing squeeze him a little more than strictly necessary. But he's happy Red Robin isn't crying anymore, and he wants to make sure he knows that, without accidentally saying more horrible things about who he chooses to keep in his life. "We haven't put labels on it. Or I haven't. He has, maybe. Hell, I can't even put labels on myself. But I hope we're boyfriends. We've been on a few dates, and they were great? And he says he wants to go on more. Also I sucked his -"

Nightwing covers Red Robin's mouth and looks around for the antidote, which is nowhere readily apparent. "Good for you, Rob, always an important skill to practice without, you know, telling me," he mutters. But, yeah, they definitely need a ride before either of them gets a chance to talk again.

#look i said something #my writing #batman #fanfic #timber week 2023

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