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feefivefoe · 11 months ago

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Something I think about when it comes to the batfam is what if they remember reader after a long long time? I’m talking 10+ years after leaving the family. Like what would that be like? Reader wouldn’t be a young adult but someone who’s established themselves in a career and most likely moved out of Gotham, got themselves a somewhat better apartment or maybe a small house, maybe gone through therapy and has decided that they are indifferent about the families existence, to the point that reader forgets about them sometimes. Except Jason reader would probably light a candle every birthday and holiday for him

I feel like the angst potential would be like an aged wine. Bruce Wayne forgot about his first born child their entire life, plus 10 years. Maybe the only reason they remember is a Gotham exclusive on the family, a “where are they now?” type story and half the family (Steph, Cas, Damian, Duke) discover reader existed and the other half is reminded of the forgot part of their family. Oh the angst for Jason! His favorite sibling, his friend from before his death, how could he forget them?? How could Bruce forget them??? And oh god it’s been such a long time where are they?? The story said that they couldn’t find a record in Gotham anymore, are they dead? He let them be forgotten, something he couldn’t stand happening to him, and now here he is, perpetuating it. The fight this would cause!! I feel like the fam would turn on Bruce demanding answers that he doesn’t have. Jason goes to readers room and finds nothing. Maybe reader wanted to cover their tracks? Maybe they didn’t want any trace of them in a manor that never cared for them in the first place? Who knows, all the fam knows is that this building feels so much colder now with this revelation.

Meanwhile reader is getting dinner with friends and work colleagues, having a good and fulfilling life, one outside Gotham, outside of the depressing influence of the Wayne’s, rogues, and owls of Gotham (sorry for making this so long!! Hope you’re having a great day!! Love your work!)

No bc how dare you come into my askbox and drop the most beautiful ask I've seen while I'm sick and brain fogged /affectionate

No hate to anybody else who has sent asks, ily all, but this one HIT MY BRAIN SPASMS AKDMELAK-

BECAUSE YOU'RE SO RIGHT???

The longer it goes on, the worse the inevitable realization is for EVERYONE. Including reader. Because while there's no record of them legally, that's just because they're doing too poorly to have records.

Once you leave Gotham and start settling, you have legal documentation that you just need, you know, for life. Your ssn, birth certificate, etc. Documents that Bruce thought he had somewhere, only to find out you had requested them from Alfred when you left home.

Alfred, being the enabler he is and always hoping you'd reconnect with them one day, just gave you legal copies. Or illegal copies that are good enough to pass, idk how that stuff works.

Point is, they can find you.

BUT.

That's after they get past the emotional turmoil that the discovery puts them through. Imagine if one of them is watching the special for laughs, members of the family snickering at how fake and put together they all are on camera, elbowing each other at how prim and proper some of them are.

Then, near the ending, it cuts to a city far away from theirs. Not Bludhaven, which confuses them. The rest of them stayed, at least relatively close. So where-?

"Y/N L/N, formerly known as Y/N Wayne, has not been seen in the public eye for over a decade. While our reporters were unable to make contact, some still can't help but wonder on where this mysterious member of the beloved family-"

*Snap*

That's Jason, snapping the remote in half while staring at the screen.

Where...when...?

Half of them are confused. Three of them are starting to get a dawning realization.

Jason is having probably the biggest traumatic breakdown he's had since coming to terms with his death and resurrection.

Which town was that? Was that their actual home? Is that just stock footage? Did the reporter lie, did they find you? No, they would have shown that. Fucking vultures wouldn't keep the drama to themselves if they had the chance.

Those are thoughts that don't hit until later, honestly. He's too fucking furious to think coherently for a while.

He wants to scream at Bruce, and hit him, and Dick, and Tim, and fuck it, Alfred too a little. (Unfortunately, they probably have lost Alfred by now. The man was already old.)

He wants to both trash and treasure what's left of your room, small enough to make him feel cramped. It's the size of his old apartment bedroom! Fucking moneybags couldn't give his second ever child a better room than this???

There's no diary left behind, or anything that would bring any sense of closure. Actually, the only thing of note is a scattering of ancient newspaper articles badly taped up on the wall, mostly peeling or on the floor by now.

"BATMAN BESTS POLICE ONCE MORE- RIDDLER IN CUSTODY"

"WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE BOY WONDER"

"NO MORE JOKES - CLOWN IN CUSTODY"

"BATMAN'S NEWEST SIDEKICK? ROBIN REPLACED!"

"A NEW HERO? NIGHTWING DEBUTS!"

Them. It's articles about all of them. Their hero exploits, at least. None of them past his...expiration date. It looks like his death is what made you stop idolizing your family so much. Honestly, the paper is old enough to make it hard to read anything but the headlines.

There are a few sticky notes amidst the papers. Clumsy, childlike handwriting.

03/16/XXXX

Richard and Mister Wayne saved people from a bank! Bad guys almost blew em up. That's why they had to miss the concert!

07/30/XXXX

Jason couldn't have dinner because the Joker broke out, and they had to stop him again. Stay in jail! My brother is hungry!!!! >:(

XX/XX/XXXX

I hoped Richard was in town because of my birthday...I guess it was superhero stuff. But Jay remembers! Next year?

XX/XX/XXXX

Not next year :( I made a cake with Alfred instead. Gave some to Jay after he patrolled. Not as good as Alfred's yet, but he still ate it!

Notes you wrote to yourself. To hang up, to show you that even if they aren't there for you, your 'family' is full of good people. That they're doing important stuff, and that's why they can't be there for you.

As a child, you hung up a wall to show yourself why you weren't important. Why you didn't matter.

And Jason breaks.

#bat tag #bat asks #neglected batfam

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ghost-bxrd · 2 years ago

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okay so this is an idea I’ve seen brought up maybe once before, but maybe Jason (before the Bats find out who he is) accidentally lets something slip that makes them realize that he’s literally, like, a child (seventeen, sixteen, I’m not sure how old he is at that point exactly, but either works)

and Bruce “adoption addiction” Wayne promptly looks at this obviously traumatized teenager and decides that he should adopt Red Hood.

I just think Jason would be so confused (maybe a little pissed too)

I’ve touched on that a little bit in What you’re longing for (you claim to abhor)!

I think this trope is wayyy underrated. Like, Jason is still so, so young. Basically a child. Even if he died at sixteen and then spent two years with the league (even if we’re counting the time he spent dead as aging). He’s barely even legal when he returns to Gotham. Or if we’re being generous let’s say he’s nineteen.

Doesn’t matter, he’s barely out of his teens (maybe he’s still IN his teens if you bend the timeline of your fic a little) and he’s experienced horrors that would have most people become utterly unable to function. But Jason? That boy takes his trauma and channels it into anger. Which, not exactly healthy, but well.

Anyway, getting off topic:

YES. Jason is still basically a kid when he debuts as the Red Hood, and you know what else he is? A good boy who’s not gonna touch any alcohol until he’s officially 21.

“But why would he do that? He grew up in Crime Alley! Ain’t nobody got time for age limitations!”

Hear me out! Let’s assume he grew up in a household where his father, Willis Todd, drank quite a lot on the regular in addition to his mom’s addiction. Jason experienced the aftermath of this (perhaps domestic violence?) every time his dad returned from a job/jail and he grew to loathe any and all substances, including alcohol. Knowing Jason and his convictions it wouldn’t be too far fetched to assume he’d never touch a single drop of alcohol at all.

So that’s one way he could slip up while taking to his goons (and having the bats overhear) or even straight up talking to one of them where maybe Dick banters a bit and goes “Hey, perhaps you should chill out a bit. Have a drink maybe” and Jason just instinctively goes “Fuck you Dickwing, I’m seventeen/eighteen/nineteen! I’m not allowed to drink!”

And Dick just— bluescreens. And immediately goes to tell Bruce, obviously.

The Bats assume Jason is this old guy (Bruce’s or Drathstroke’s age maybe) and consequently they keep alluding to things that happened way before Jason was ever even born and at first he’s so? Confused??? But eventually it just gets really annoying and eventually he just— snaps.

“How the fuck would I know which Nokia gen hit the market that year? I was born in fuckin’ XXXX, I’m an iPhone kid!”

“Stop referencing the Cold War dipshit, I’m fucking seventeen! I’m glad I remember my own damn birthday!”

“I don’t know, I was like— two back then.”

Bruce, obviously, would take .1 seconds to realize:

“Omg. That’s- that’s a whole child. That’s a whole damn TRAUMATIZED child, killing people and sawing off heads. Omg someone must have hurt him so bad. Don’t worry tho, son, Batman’s got you. You won’t have to hurt anybody ever again. We’re here for you. Would you like the room next to Tim’s or Dick’s?”

Meanwhile Jason: “what the fuck”

#ghost talks #lmao Jason would be so done at this point #like pls spare him all the horrible references he doesn’t understand #he’s gen z #and everyone is suddenly using boomer memes #and he’s so lost #dick isn’t helping #jason todd #batfamily #batfam #bruce wayne #dick grayson #robin #tim drake #red hood #fic #batdad #good dad bruce wayne #brainstorming

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doperthanabitch · 5 months ago

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lovely~ chapter 1.

[jason todd x reader]

series masterlist

───୨ৎ──── ────୨ৎ──── ──୨ৎ────

⋆˙⟡ summary: After waking from a coma caused by a severe head injury, you struggle to piece together the fragments of your lost memories—all while being thrust into the role of CEO of your late father’s multi-billion dollar empire. As you fight to regain control of your life, the powerful owner of a closely tied company—and his family—begin to weave themselves into your world, blurring the lines between business and something far more personal. Meanwhile, Gotham’s streets whisper of a new vigilante, one whose relentless gaze seems fixed on you. But are they a protector, a threat, or a link to the past you can’t remember?

⋆˙⟡warnings/tropes: childhood friends to strangers to lovers, angst, death, smut (maybe), slow burn, miscommunication, mentions of torture, mental health, abuse, trauma, amnesia

wc: 1.3k

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 3:20 lovely-billie eilish (ft. khalid)

⸻

You wake up to the sound of rain against glass.

Soft at first—a distant tapping that builds, growing louder as the city beyond the windows comes into focus. Gotham, sprawling and endless, glows beneath the storm, its skyline distorted by the water streaking down the glass.

Your head aches—a deep, pulsing throb at the base of your skull—but it’s nothing compared to the hollow, gnawing emptiness in your mind.

Something is wrong.

The sheets beneath you are soft, expensive. The scent of lavender clings to the air, subtle yet unnatural. You shift, and even that small movement sends a dull ache rolling through your limbs, stiff and unfamiliar. The weight of the blanket is heavy against you, and the room—large, modern, yet cold—feels both too empty and too curated, like a museum exhibit you don’t belong in.

You don’t recognize this place.

You don’t recognize yourself.

A presence.

You feel it before you see it. Something shifting at the edge of your vision, a flicker of movement. Your body tenses before you fully process why, muscles coiling like instinct is overriding thought.

A woman sits in the chair near the window, legs crossed, watching you. Late forties, maybe early fifties. Dark hair pulled into a sleek bun, a simple black dress beneath a crisp apron. A maid uniform.

She doesn’t look startled that you’re awake. If anything, there’s patience in the way she regards you, like she’s been waiting.

Her voice, when she speaks, is smooth, thick with a Russian accent. “You’re finally up.”

Your throat is dry when you respond, voice rough. “Where am I?”

Her expression doesn’t shift, but something in her gaze softens, just a little. “Home, my darling.”

The word catches in your mind. Home.

It doesn’t feel like home.

You force yourself upright, wincing as pain spikes through your skull. The movement leaves you dizzy, vision swimming, and for a moment, you have to steady yourself with a sharp inhale.

Katya—because suddenly, you know her name, though you don’t remember how—watches you carefully, but she doesn’t move to help. She lets you find your bearings first, lets you sit in the discomfort of your own body.

“You were in a coma,” she tells you after a beat. “There was an accident. You suffered a traumatic brain injury, significant memory loss.” A pause. “Do you remember anything?”

Your pulse quickens.

Do you?

There are fragments. The warmth of someone’s hand against yours. A woman’s voice humming softly. The scent of perfume, floral and familiar, though you can’t name it. Then—hospitals, machines, darkness.

But the time between? The context?

Nothing.

The realization leaves a strange hollowness in your chest, an absence where something vital should be.

“No,” you admit. Your voice is barely more than a breath.

Katya sighs, as if she expected that answer but still hoped for something else. She reaches for a folder on the table beside her and places it in your lap.

“I am sorry to bring this to you so soon, but you must know… your father is dead.”

The words are blunt, without ceremony.

You stare at her.

Dead.

The word feels foreign in your mind, like something in another language, something you should understand but don’t.

“He passed while you were unconscious,” she continues. “The funeral was last month.”

Something tightens in your chest. Not grief. Not really. It’s more like… an absence. A feeling that you should be mourning, but there’s nothing there. No memories to mourn.

Had you spoken to him before the accident? Had he cared?

The answer comes to you instinctively, without memory, without proof—but you know.

Probably not.

Katya’s voice doesn’t waver. “His company is now yours. You are expected to return to work soon. There has been… pressure from the board. And from certain outside parties.”

You flip open the folder.

Documents. Company records. Financial statements. Your name, printed beneath the title CEO.

It doesn’t feel real.

“I don’t even remember how to run a company,” you say, barely above a whisper.

“You will learn.” Katya says it simply, like it’s inevitable. Like it doesn’t matter whether you want to or not.

The rain beats steady against the glass, the only sound filling the empty space between you.

“There is… another matter,” she says carefully.

You lift a brow. “What now?”

“The Waynes.”

Something flickers at the edge of your mind. Recognition, but without clarity. A word without meaning.

“You will start seeing more involvement from them,” she explains. “I don’t know the extent of it, but—” she gestures to the folder. “One of your father’s advisors is coming by today to collect some documents. They will explain more.”

You glance back down at the papers. And that’s when you see it—scrawled across meeting notes, flagged in legal documents. Wayne Enterprises.

Your pulse stutters.

Their name is everywhere.

Transactions. Partnerships. Business dealings that don’t make sense. Money being funneled through different subsidiaries, obscured behind layers of shell corporations. It’s too much to process, too tangled, but even in your haze, one thing is clear.

This isn’t clean.

Your father’s empire wasn’t built on legitimate deals and corporate power plays. There was something else. Something darker.

A chill crawls up your spine.

Katya’s voice pulls you back. “Would you like something to eat? Or tea?”

You almost refuse, but then your stomach twists painfully, and you realize you can’t remember the last time you ate.

“Tea,” you say, your voice rough. “And something light.”

She nods. “I will have something brought up.”

You barely notice her leave. The moment the door clicks shut behind her, the weight of everything settles over you again, suffocating and heavy.

Your fingers tighten around the folder.

Wayne.

Why are they so deeply entangled in your father’s company? What exactly were they involved in?

You push the documents aside and stare out at the rain-streaked glass. The city sprawls beneath you, drenched in stormlight.

And then, for the second time since waking up, you feel it.

A presence.

Your eyes snap toward the window, a cold weight sinking in your gut. But there’s nothing there. Just Gotham stretching into the distance, blurred by the storm.

Still, the feeling lingers.

Someone was watching.

And for the first time since waking up, you realize—

You’re not just trying to remember your past.

You’re trying to survive it.

⸻

a/n: hi everyone, really hope you enjoyed the first chapter! this is my first time writing a fanfic i’m willing to post so bear with me :). If you have any suggestions or ideas my inbox is always open, and please feel free to give me constructive criticism so i can improve the fic for you guys💕

#jason todd x y/n #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #jason todd fanfiction #batfam angst #dick grayson #slow burn #jason todd needs a hug #amnesia #angst #batman #jason todd is red hood #tim drake #damian wayne #smut #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd

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phantomchick · 3 months ago

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Just a few more Jason Todd-centric fic recs for the road...

Asymmetrical Warfare by orangesky37

An ~UtRH AU that follows the events of A Death in the Family and diverges from canon at some point during Lost Days (pre that scene, which is most definitely not a part of this AU). Survival Instincts starts out after Jason has been in Gotham for several months. His plans to establish himself in the Gotham underworld have run into some snags and his motivations are in flux. Works are ordered chronologically. If you are new to the series, I'd recommend reading all previously published parts in chronological order and then new parts/chapters in the order they are posted.

A League of Their Own by GoAwayOlivia

He doesn’t know why she’s here, why she chose to come to Gotham, to kill the Joker, or pull him out of the rubble, but she did. She stepped forward and crushed Jason’s most horrifying nightmare under her foot like it was nothing. The Joker is gone. Dead and gone forever. And now Jason will follow Talia to the ends of the earth. “Okay,” he tells her. ***** In the wake of the fallout of his final confrontation with Batman and the Joker, Jason Todd tries to move forward. After careful consideration, Talia decides to help him, and maybe herself while she's at it. Canon divergence post Under the Red Hood.

Celestial Recalibration by HappyWiggleTime

After having a talk with Talia, Jason recalibrates his plans. Kill the Joker? Yes, obviously. Fix Gotham's wealth disparity? What the hell, why not? This new goal combined with his nosy siblings leads him back to the family sooner than he would’ve liked.

The Penny Drops, The Penny Dreads by Batbirdies

Jason’s background as a victim of abuse and childhood homelessness means it’s hard for him to trust, and to ask for things. After only a couple months in the manor, he still isn’t sure about Bruce Wayne. ___ When you come from nothing, it’s hard to adjust to having everything.

the living sea of waking dreams by r_astra

The telepath flips through Jason’s memories like cards in a Rolodex, rooting around for every terrible thing that’s ever happened to him. Jason tries fighting it, tries bolstering his will into mental walls like Bruce taught him. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t do anything. The second that hands press against Jason’s face, he’s gone. He’s wherever he wants him, whether that’s kneeling beside his mom’s cooling corpse or shivering through a cold winter night on the street or cringing away from the jingle of a belt being unbuckled. It’s not like remembering. It’s not like a nightmare. It’s like he’s there. It’s like he’s living it all over again, all the pain and fear and grief just as strong as the day it happened.

The Hellblazer's Apprentice by Blue_lotus

If there are two things Jason knew for a fact that Batman hated, it's magic and John Constantine. Both were unpredictable and often dredged up chaos whenever they were present. So when Jason runs into Constantine while on his murder training world tour, he realized he could kill two birds with one stone. Piss off Batman and learn magic to use against him? He'd be an idiot not to take that opportunity.

When Grownups Fail to Adult by NerdyLibrarian

What happens when Jason's brothers want to know why he's upset with the JLA? Jason's explanation of his side of the story, along with ways the hero community as a whole could make simple changes to protect their kids, might just change everything.

Echoes of Future Past by orangesky37

Jason is fifteen and dying, choking on smoke in a warehouse. Jason is sixteen and buried, clawing his way desperately to freedom. Jason is seventeen and drowning, waking up to green fire. Jason is nineteen and dying for the second time, bleeding out to the sound of laughter in an abandoned apartment building. Jason is sixteen and six feet beneath the earth again. But this time, when he wakes up he’s in a hospital bed, and he’s not alone. Jim Gordon, meanwhile, would really like to know what the hell is going on in his city this time.

#jason todd #jason todd fanfics #jason todd fic recs #fic rec list #red hood #robin 2 #robin 2 who fell to fire #utrh #batman #batman utrh #batfamily #fic recs

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random-movie-ideas · 2 years ago

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Nightwing: Under the Red Hood (Movie Outline)

Here is the third movie for Nightwing set in the same cinematic universe all the rest I've written so far came from. This, like Batman & Batgirl: Arkham Assault, would come after the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, with the two coming out around the same time, as their events happen parallel to one another. This one features the resurrection of Jason Todd, with Black Mask and Firefly acting as major villains as well.

The movie begins with Nightwing, Robin, and Spoiler all landing outside of a warehouse. Inside, the disgraced makeup mogul Roman Sionis has become a drug kingpin in the time since his company went under, wearing a black mask to cover up the damage done when he was attacked by Poison Ivy. At his side is his personal hired bodyguard, Garfield Lynns. Our three vigilantes interrupt the drug deal, and Lynns activates the special suit he’d been given, allowing him to fly while using a flamethrower to attack. At one point, Tim and Steph make a joke about him being a literal firefly. In the end, Black Mask and Firefly make a getaway.

The next day, during daylight hours, Dick, Tim, and Steph visit the grave of Dick’s deceased brother Jason, which had recently been dug up, the body missing. Dick is visibly distraught about this, Tim and Steph trying to console him to no avail. He decides he’s going to investigate this and assigns them to keep their tabs on Sionis.

Later that night, Nightwing follows the trail as much as he can, calling up Barbara for aid, discovering that only Alfred is around, while Bruce and Barbara are both busy with a situation of their own. As they talk, he and Alfred talk about Jason, remembering some story of their time together that will serve as a callback later in the story.

Meanwhile, Tim and Steph trail Roman and Lynns to another meetup, attempting to meet his buyer once again after the previous mission was botched. They watch on as they meet the mysterious buyer, a man wearing a red mask who seems to be staying to the shadows. They jump into action when the man ends up drawing a gun and shooting Roman right in the chest. A fight breaks out between the three parties, Firefly protecting Roman and helping him get away, while the man in the red mask seems to be going after Roman’s head. Tim and Steph intervene, and the man seems taken aback by Tim’s costume. After a brief battle, the man gets away.

Tim and Steph report to Dick and tell him about the strange man. Steph jokingly calls him Red Hood after Black Mask. Despite Dick still wanting to search for his brother’s body, he decides to help them against this person. Meanwhile, Roman and Lynns return to Roman’s penthouse where he is treated by doctors. Roman instructs Lynns that he wants that man’s head on a platter.

We get a montage of the heroes trying to track the Red Hood down. Dick reaches out to an underworld contact who tells him about the rumors of a new player in drug-running circles, a man who’s been killing off drug kingpins and crime lords. Dick asks why he hasn’t heard about any of this and the contact says the gangs have been trying to keep it hush-hush. The contact doesn’t know anything else, but he knows Roland Daggett is supposed to be getting a shipment that night.

Dick tails Daggett, telling Tim and Steph to hang back as backup. The meeting takes place, and once again, the Red Hood shows up, gunning Daggett and his men down. Dick steps in and the two fight. After a brief scuffle, the man’s mask is knocked off, and Dick sees his dead brother underneath, very much alive, with a shock of white hair and scars across his face. In Dick’s surprise, Jason gets away. Meanwhile, Lynns watches from afar.

The next day, Dick tells Tim and Steph about what happened. He tries to contact Bruce, Barbara, or Alfred, but no one answers at the mansion. He leaves to figure out things, and orders Tim and Steph to stay home. He revisits Jason’s grave, and follows the trail he followed before, coming up with nothing. He then revisits the scene of Jason’s death, the burned-down warehouse, and searches for answers there. Just as he’s about to leave, he hears “Figured you’d show up.”

Dick turns to see Jason in the flesh. He asks how this could possibly be happening, because he watched him die and held his lifeless body. Jason confirms that he did die. As for how, Jason’s not certain. A short time back (around the time of the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in this universe), he’d felt himself suddenly awaken inside of his casket. He’d clawed his way out and found himself picked up by a strange group that called themselves the League of Assassins, and how their leader had bathed him in a pit full of chemicals that restored his body and made him stronger than ever.

Dick is confused but moves to welcome him back when Jason rebuffs him. Jason says he’s not here for him, or for Bruce. He’s here to do what they could never do. When Dick asks what he means, Jason asks why Roman Sionis is still alive. Why people like the Joker and Batman’s other rogues are still alive. No matter how much they are beaten, they always come back, and innocent people always pay the price. He is now a member of the league, and he has come to finish people like Roman once and for all.

We get a brief debate between them about the ethics of killing, but that debate is cut short by Firefly, who’d gotten a look at Jason’s face the night before and had been tailing him ever since. The two brothers work together to fight the Firefly, having an intense battle, but eventually they beat him down and destroy his flamethrower. Jason makes to kill him, while Dick tries to stop him. Jason asks what happens when an innocent kid like the one he was ends up as Firefly’s next victim because of Dick’s weakness. When Dick can’t answer, Jason brutally murders Firefly and walks away.

Tim and Steph find Dick sitting on a roof nearby, having trailed him there. They comfort him, and Dick has a scene talking about all his regrets surrounding Jason, and Bruce, and everything they’ve ever done in their lives as vigilantes. We also get scenes intercut of Jason revisiting things of his childhood, calling back to the earlier memory. Tim and Steph are at a loss for anything to say, and simply stay with him.

We cut back to Roman in his base, recognizing that Firefly has stopped calling in. He looks at the picture Firefly had left him, showing the Red Hood’s identity. A short time later, the Red Hood shows up in his office to finish him off, only for Roman to spring his trap, his men taking Jason down and unmasking him. Making an educated guess, he reasons out that Nightwing’s identity is most likely his estranged brother Dick. A note is left at the apartment for him to come alone.

Dick arrives at the old burned-out warehouse, with Roman and his men holding Jason hostage. Roman boasts at Dick, saying this is probably a familiar sight to him. He threatens Jason with a crowbar, but Jason retorts that he’s not that kid anymore, breaking his bonds that he’d been cutting and attacking Roman. We get a fight scene of Dick and Jason working together against them again, with Tim and Steph showing up after finding a note from Dick.

The four make quick work of them all, but Roman makes a getaway. Our heroes pursue him, Tim reaching him first, only for Roman to take him by surprise and knock him unconscious with his crowbar. Dick and Steph manage to catch up, but Roman holds Tim at gunpoint to keep them back, boasting that that’ll be another Robin on the list. Before he can pull the trigger, Jason appears behind him and shoots him in the head. Dick is only relieved that Tim is alright, letting Jason go.

A few days later, Dick, Tim, and Steph are having breakfast together, with Dick getting a subtle prank message left by Jason somewhere to mess with him, also calling back to the memory. Dick tries to call Bruce or Barbara again, as he hasn’t heard from them in a while. Barbara actually picks up this time, saying she’s in the hospital, while Tim and Steph both notice a news story about a fire at Arkham.

What do you think? Would you watch a movie like this? From here, I'll do the animated movie starring the Golden Age heroes.

#nightwing #dick grayson #robin #tim drake #spoiler #stephanie brown #jason todd #red hood #black mask #firefly #batman movie

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super-hero-confessions · 2 years ago

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Hades from Totally Spies, Mandy from Hercules, and Darkseid from DC are my favorite bad guys. The Lord of the Dead is a hilarious yet threatening snarker with an excellent performer, the Asian mean girl has the best comebacks and her two-dimensionality makes her ripe for “Fanfic Fuel” (no not “Fetish Fuel” you pervs), and Apokolips’ ruler is all the more terrifying when you consider what he represents and how it has resurfaced in our current society. Sure Hades does not represent the original myths at all*, Mandy’s voice might be a little weird, and Darkseid has definitely been overexposed but at least those villains haven't been retconned to death (Xehanort), shoehorned when they didn’t need to be there (Adam Taurus), written as “crazy” to justify lazy writing (DCEU Lex Luthor, Joker), suddenly written as “crazy” out of nowhere (Azula), pathetic (that one guy from LOK who i can’t remember the name), barely show up or are involved with the main story at all (MCU Thanos, and from what was seen so far, MCU Kang), not given enough chance to shine due to being a twist villain (most Disney antagonists nowadays), a tired evil Superman cliche, outright contradict the culture of the work (The “Devil” character in LOK even though it’s supposed to be a Asian world, NOT based on Christianity), unintentionally more sympathetic than the “heroes” (Magneto), incredibly inconsistent due to writers unable to make their minds up on how to write the character (Freddy Krueger and Mystique*). etc. And it doesn’t matter that LOK had good villains, that show was still ******* awful. * Then again, “staying true to the myths” is how we got that horrible version of Wonder Woman’s Amazon family in the New 52, so is that really a good idea now? *No seriously Marvel, WTF is with Mystique in the comics? Is she really good deep within? Is she the most evil mutant ever? In her solo series, she’s in tears about having to sacrifice a child (though someone beats her to it), when one comic said she couldn’t give two shits about throwing Nightcrawler down a cliff and if memory serves the panel even showed her flashing an evil grin (at least the 90s animated series made it clear Mystique felt guilty over it). And apparently a new story revealed that she instead tied him to a log and sensed him down a stream, so oh wait she didn’t really throw Nightcrawler down a cliff? Or something like that. Also in that solo series she seems to really care about mutants whereas other writers say she’s only in it for herself. In fact, Mystique in her solo title seemed to be a very chill anti-hero overall, never doing anything truly twisted. Even when she’s doing bad **** the writers can’t make up their mind on her personality. Her trying to assassinate Senator Kelly and sacrifice a newborn was bad but at least she still was trying to save her dying daughter and wasn’t actively “malicious”; and Senator Kelly was an bigoted ******* so, meanwhile she’s written in other books as a utterly sadistic assshat who killed Carol Danver’s lover while impersonating her for some reason and in Bendis’ run she’s an unapologetic asshole who put Dazzler in a coma and framed to X-men for a crime spree she pulled with Sabretooth and that other villain. And what the duck is with everything she pulled in Jason Aaron’s run? Her relationship with her kids is also all kinds of “do whatever”. Again does she truly love Nightcrawler and Rogue and would give her life for them (as the 90s animated version did one time) or does she see them as tools to be used and is not afraid to maim or kill them? Claremont’s run probably wrote her as a loving mom yet in a later X-Men comic she freakin stabbed Rogue! Even the sympathetic solo series points this out! For gods sake Marvel, I don’t care if she’s good or evil JUST PICK ONE SINGLE VISION FOR THE CHARACTER AND BE DONE WITH IT. Mystique has like 5 or more different characters just crammed in there and it’s such an exhausting mess. Kind of like Xehanort really.

#confession #villains

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hipstersfoundmyrobot · 6 months ago

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Over the past ten years, Danny Fenton’s life has been a whirlwind, and that’s an understatement. Nonetheless, despite being the Ghost King and a consultant for the JLD as Phantom, Danny’s life is ordinary. Or as ordinary as a halfa king could manage.

Danny remembers being 17 and feeling so helpless and overwhelmed, especially when Jazz moved away for college. He didn’t expect that to be the end of his struggles. His sister coming back for Christmas break with the Justice League in tow was not on his bingo card, nor were his parents and Vlad being tried for supervillainy or the Anti-Ecto Acts and the GIW being a hoax. However, according to Tucker, the most surprising part of their senior year was their trio graduating with near-perfect attendance and good grades.

Nowadays, life is good for Danny. While his responsibilities as the High King of the Infinite Realms and his attachment to his haunt keep him from leaving Amity Park, he has found balance. After his identity as Phantom was revealed to the town, the community rallied in support of the half-dead teenager who saw his parents go to jail. Following Jazz’s insistence, he has enrolled in an online Astronomy and Engineering degree, which he finds much easier than high school. He doesn’t even have to worry about money, being the new owner of FentonWorks and DalvCo.

All in all, life is, finally, cutting the halfa some slack, which is why he now has more free time to fill, ergo his current situation. Sam, Tucker and Jazz are debating on his computer screen about what hobby he should try.

“Danny, dude, I’m telling you, you should take programming classes. We could make our own video game and-“Tucker’s excited rant cuts off as Jazz mutes the both of them.

“After the ecto-contamination of everyone in Amity, you’ll probably find a lot of people willing to join an environmentalist group. You know my activism rubbed off on you.” Sam’s voice is almost covered by the deep sigh that escapes Tucker and Danny can’t help but smile at his best friends’ antics.

“You guys, we’re trying to figure out something Danny would like. Baby brother, what is something you’d like to do ?” Danny can’t help but miss his sister when he sees her exasperated smile at his friends’ insistence that he tries something they like.

Leaning against his desk, his face in his hand, he shrugs, a bit embarrassed. “Actually, I did have an idea but I’m not sure.” On his screen, his sister’s face is open and supportive, meanwhile, Sam and Tucker don’t seem to have noticed they were inaudible. “I, maybe, wanted to try streaming ? You guys obviously don’t have as much time to play video games with me and it’s really not the same on my own… I like the idea of finding a community of people who enjoy listening to my weird space and ghost rants without having to leave Amity. Not that the Parkers aren’t my friends but—” He pushes his hair out of his face with a sigh, looking up at the ceiling. “I guess I want to meet new people ? But I don’t actually want to meet them.”

“That sounds great, Danny.” Jazz, supportive as always, finally unmutes the two.

“Yeah dude, I’m down to help you set it all up. You’re gonna need equipment-“

“And you’re gonna need to ectoproof it too. Are you going to hide your identity ? Acting like ghosts and your powers are the norm would be so funny.”

“Right, you could ask a ghost artist to make your channel art. You clearly already have a niche thing going, you know ?” His Fraid’s excitement makes Danny feel more confident in his idea.

“What do you guys think of the name CosmicSpecter ?”

Jason has been back in Gotham for about two years. His relationship with his family is still strained but it is improving. He has a good thing going with Red Hood and his gang. However, he is still plagued by the Pit Madness, despite his best efforts he still doesn’t feel like himself. Meanwhile, everyone around him has accepted, however reluctantly, that this is who he is now, but Jason refuses to. He knows this isn’t him, but he is resigned that the foreign rage trying to control him will torment him until his (next) dying breath.

Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s boredom, maybe it’s the scary TubeYou algorithm that has him clicking on the livestream thumbnail while tittering close to the Pit Rage. The guy has 463 subscribers and 6 current viewers and he’s halfway through a burrito when Jason joins. The light is dim, and his eyes seem to be reflecting the light. A meta, maybe ?

“Hiya ‘botched-resurrection’, nice to see a fellow undead here.” He takes a swig of a too green liquid from a soda bottle and flashes the camera with a wide smile. “We’ll go back to playing once I’m done eating. This new joint opened a few years ago, since our town isn’t under a fake government lockdown anymore, and honestly, I’m pleasantly surprised. My sister is probably relieved I’m eating something other than a burger.” The guy’s eyes widen slightly when a $20 donation comes through from one ‘jazz_hands’. “Really Jazz ? ‘Twenty whole American dollars in hopes you’ll eat healthier food one day’. There are real vegetables in here you know ? You’re being too harsh. Also stop sending me money as an excuse to embarrass me on stream.”

This is the start of the prologue I'm posting on ao3 tomorrow probably, I'll link once it's up

Streamer Danny AU, but he’s a really minor streamer. Like, he does it mainly just for his own fun and only has a few intermittent viewers.

But somehow Jason finds his channel anyway, and something about his voice is captivating. The pit rage quiets down in his presence. So he starts tuning in to basically every stream, or just putting on the VODs in the background to fall asleep to.

And on the other side, Danny takes note of this new subscriber who’s quite possibly his first truly dedicated viewer. So he starts interacting with him on stream sometimes - greeting him when he shows up in the chat, specifically asking/answering questions, etc

Needless to say, this did not help Jason’s growing semi-parasocial crush in the slightest…

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #dcxdp #danny phantom x dc #danny phantom x dc crossover #dead on main ship #dead on main #streamer danny fenton

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bluerosefox · 3 years ago

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Across My Memories

......

.....

-hums Once Upon a December-

Ghost Prince!Jason.

..... ghost prince!Jason where when Jason died instead of waking up in his own door room (headcanon doors are private rooms all ghosts gain once dead, its their safe spot, rooms can expand into lairs if the ghost gets strong enough) he wakes up in the Ghost King gardens.

He's found and taken to (older) King Danny who takes one look at the newborn baby ghost, (verbally) rips into his guards for manhandling a baby, and offers Jason a place to stay while they try to locate his room so he can recover and stable his core. (That's why ghosts stay in their rooms upon being made until they're strong enough to leave and venture out, Jason is advised not to run off since they have no idea where his room is and Danny being King of the Realm can basically substitute the ectoplasm needed to stable him just by being around Jason)

Over time and Jason slowly learning to trust Danny, Danny starts treating Jason unknowingly like a son and Jason slowly sees Danny as another dad (only less emotionally constipated (Bruce) or abusive (Willis))

Everyone in the Kingdom knows it too, but since Danny hasn't made it official they don't call Jason 'Prince' or 'Young Master' instead they call him 'Favored Star' and 'Starlight' since Danny adores space and stars and the Ghosts honor Jason with those title's.

They realize that they've been treating each other as family when Jazz comes to visit and points it out. Danny freaks out for a moment before going to talk to Jason, whose been hoarding himself in the royal library. They talk, Jason freaks a bit (maybe runs off trying to figure out his own emotions over it. Doesn't want to get hurt again by a 'father figure' again, maybe gets in trouble? Or runs into Jazz and talks about it to her)

Eventually Danny decides to make it official and Jason becomes Prince Jason of the Infinite Realms. Everyone is excited, and a huge ball is thrown in Jason’s honor. Its a night Jason keeps close to his core because once the ball is over, Danny and Jason go sneaking into the kitchens to get some hot coco and goes into Danny’s study where Jason reads his favorite book out loud next to the fireplace while Danny works on some paperwork but is listening to the story.

Anyways since time in the Realms is weird that despite being dead for a small few years in the living Realm, Jason feels like many more years have passed in the Infinite Realm and because he’s been around Danny (and is Prince of the Realms) he has grown older (its why when he’s brought back he looked like the way he did when he died but was comatose, his ghost/soul didn’t match the body anymore and it isn’t until he’s tossed in the Pits that it corrects his body to match who he was now, its also why the Pit Madness stays with him for so long) Jason has grown into his role as a Prince and he’s happy with his (after)life (and has come to terms with many things in his life, thanks Auntie Jazz)

So when one day the Prince goes completely missing, to the point he can no longer be felt in its Realms, the Infinite Realm ‘awakens’ to the rage and worry of their King.

Meanwhile, Jason awakens underground in his coffin, dazed, confused, scared and crawls out of the ground, his soul/ghost despite being in its body isn’t attached correctly and thus his mind is blank, he’s alive but not really there. It isn’t until later when he’s tossed in the Pits and rage overtakes him that his soul/ghost is connected again, wrongly put together but connected at least. It isn’t until later when his core slowly tries fixing the rage/Pit Madness when he starts getting fuzzy and hazy memories of someplace he can no longer remember but wants to go back to, wants to find.

A sky of shifting shades of green, a castle with knights, a ball and dancing figures, the sound of a fireplace crackling and a pen scrawling across paper as the taste of hot coco phantoms its way in his memories.

#Danny Phantom #ghost king danny #danny fenton #Jason Todd #Ghost!Jason #Ghost Prince Jason #Danny adopts Jason #Jason became Prince of the Infinite Realms #Batman #dp x dc #vaguely inspired by Once Upon a December #blue rambles #writing ideas #Jason white piece of hair comes from his ghost side #.the Pit madness stayed longer in him cause he's deeply connected to the Infinite Realm #due to being its Prince #Maybe Jason is slowly becoming a Halfa now since he was brought back to life #but his ghost side is busy trying to filter out the corrupted ectoplasm but the Pits he isn't one #yet #EVERYTHING gets crazy when a cult summons a ghost and the bats are there to stop them #the ghost takes one look at Jason and freaks out cause 'THE STARLIGHT PRINCE!'#Jason doesn't get to ask anything cause one of the other bats mess up the summoning circle and they get sent back to the Realms #A rumor in the Infinite Realms is born that day #and maybe the King will pay a royal sum for the return of the Prince #See what I did there #CUE Ghosts trying to figure a way into the Mortal Realms #Danny doesn't hear the rumor until like way later #He was busy and away from the Kingdom for a bit when the rumors started #He's excited and hopeful when he finds out #Only to groan in annoyance and dread when he finds out some ghosts have been trying to KIDNAP Jason a few times to get him home

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havendance · 2 years ago

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Okay, I'm finally returning to the AU where Jason and Barbara are swapped so that she dies in a Killing Joker and Jason is paralyzed in A death in the family.

The simplest way to set up this AU (and why over-complicate things yet?) is to have it so that when Barbara Gordon opens the door, the Joker shoots to kill. However long later, when Jason is beaten half to death by the Joker, he survives the bomb, but he’s left paralyzed from the waist down. The Doctors say he’ll never walk again.

For now, Barbara Gordon is dead and we shall leave her there. She doesn’t haunt the narrative in the same way that Jason did. She was an adult when she died, removed from her former mantle. She wasn’t Bruce’s daughter. Her death weighs on Gordon, but then Sarah Essen returns to his life and his dead daughter fades into the background. Bruce, Dick, and Jason remember her, but there is no Batgirl memorial in the cave. She is just another symbol of the dangers they face. She comes up in vague aborted references and heavy silences.

(Now that I think about it, in a world where Barbara Gordon’s dead, I bet Helena ends up as Dick’s second primary love interest…)

Meanwhile, with Jason, we have a fairly standard Jason Lives!AU with the slight caveat that he’s in a wheelchair and can never become Robin again.

We’re not going to spend long on that because it could go any number of ways and I don’t want to be here all day, but to his some major points:

A Lonely Place of Dying doesn’t get triggered. Batman without Robin when Jason is paralyzed is worse, but not bad enough for Tim to feel the need to interfere. His parents probably still die in Rites of Passage because Batman is highly unlikely to leave Gotham to chase after some random kidnapping for ransom when he’s being overprotective of his recently paralyzed son. Or just have the Drakes die in a plane crash and skip the racism.

Jason as Robin is a character who doesn’t have many ties outside of Batman. Stuck in a wheelchair, he struggles even more with dilation. Barbara’s dead. Dick’s around more, but he still spends most of his time with the titans. He can’t be Robin and that means that he feels like he can’t be part of that community, losing the few connections he had there. On the civilian front, his injuries lead him to being held back a year. He doesn’t know any of his classmates, and stuck in the hormonal battleground of high school, he acutely feels the way that being stuck in a wheelchair makes him different.

I still need to read Oracle: Year One, but Jason is initially attracted to computers because of the anonymity the internet offers. On it, he can pretend to be normal; people don’t see the chair before they see him. From there, it expands into a way he can still help Bruce and be involved in the mission. Bruce says he doesn’t need to do anything, but with so much of their relationship tied up in being Batman and Robin, Jason wants to.

There is another Robin eventually. Dealer’s choice as to who. You can make an argument for Tim (the classic option), Steph (Girl power + Steph & Jason friendship) or, I don’t know, Lonnie ( I know he has fans, though, in full disclosure, I am ambivalent towards him). Whoever the choice, it’s alternatively important that they have the approval of both Dick, who originated the mantle, and Jason, who left it vacant.

But that’s enough about Jason. You want to know who I really want to talk about in this AU? You guessed it! Helena Bertinelli and Cassandra Cain.

It’s time for No Man’s Land baby~ (absolutely no one is surprised.)

Bruce leaves on an international guilt trip and brings his son with him, much to Jason’s annoyance. It’s over three months before he’s able to convince Bruce to return, and even then it’s only on the condition that Jason enrolls in a boarding school where it’s safe. (Jason is so looking forward to turning 18 when he can finally prove to Bruce that he can take care of himself.)

Meanwhile, Huntress is the sole vigilante presence in No Man's Land. It isn’t long before she recognizes the limits of her own mantle and takes on the mantle of the Bat. In this universe, she is called Batwoman.

It is as Batwoman that she runs into Cassandra, who has been living on the streets of Gotham.

No wait, better idea. Headcanon time: In between acting as two separate vigilantes, Helena also somehow finds the time to run a makeshift classroom for some of the kids stranded in No Man's Land. She recruits them to do odd jobs and in exchange,, she shares some of the food she has stashed wavy and tries to make sure they have at least some education.

Cassandra is curious and comes first for the food and then for the stories and the reading/writing lessons she doesn’t understand. When she sees Batwoman for the first time and makes the connection, she becomes even more intrigued.

When Batman enters and starts working with Helena, Cassandra saves them both in a handmade costume and ends up as the new Batgirl.

Helena remains as Batwoman after the end of No Man’s Land in this AU. She misses being the Huntress, at the end, but she has Cass to look after now. They grew close in the chaos of No Man’s Land and now the girl’s moved in with her. Helena needs to be better for Cass. She can’t go back to killing because, on one level, Cass wouldn’t let her. On another, she doesn’t want to betray her trust. So she holds the line. She stops her more self-destructive tendencies and tries to do the best for Cass despite the fact that she doesn’t understand her on a fundamental level.

This all leads to her being a more integrated part of the batfam. She's featured in more Bat comics and plays a major supporting role in Batgirl.

Post-No Man’s Land, Jason turns 18, moves off to college, and starts his own Birds of Prey type team. Bruce stalks him, Jason yells at him for it, etc etc.

And now, we’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Red Hood!Barbara Gordon!

Barbara Gordon’s Under the Red Hood arc is a narrative commentary on fridging and is ideally written by a female author. In this universe, Barbara Gordon was a character who was killed off and vanishes from the narrative. She was a thing pre-crisis but never really a presence post. She is a tombstone next to Sarah Essen. A name mentioned when arguing about the Joker, quickly forgotten to focus on his paralyzing of Jason.

She comes back loud and angry, insisting on being remembered. Look at me, she shouts. Look at my pain. My story should be about me. She sets up a series of circumstances and clues all point to her. To the terrible things that happened to her. Bruce and Gordon have made her death about them, she’s taking it back. Reclaiming it for herself.

She also torments and antagonizes Helena and Cass. They replaced her, they took her place. They don't even know what they've done. They are the first to see her face and they don’t even recognize her. They don’t know the legacy they have claimed. Barbara Gordon rages.

And then, of course, future writers ruin that shining star of an arc by making her ~evil~ and ~crazy~. It’s probably all because coming back from the dead made her infertile and she can’t ever be a mother. Women, am I right? (eyeroll)

Anyway, I want a Red Hood!Barbara Gordon arc now.

#jason todd #barbara gordon #helena bertinelli #cassandra cain #joker fate swap au #my au ideas #carthago delenda est #dc #bats + birds + affiliated

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captainkirkk · 3 years ago

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✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes.

BNHA

bloody, but unbowed by redrobin1989

“I’m sure you all have a cause that means something to you, something you want to help change." Aizawa said, addressing the class. "For the next few days, I want you to think about what it is you believe in and do a short presentation for the class on Friday."

It's Advocacy Week for Yuuei's hero students and it gives Midoriya Izuku a lot to think about about what kind of hero he wants Deku to be.

DC (Batfamily)

The Fishbowl by LordLuxury

Dick’s goal for Thanksgiving (code named Operation F.I.S.H.): A family outing to the aquarium.

It feels achievable - everyone has been getting along better lately, Jason is spiraling closer, Cass is coming home. But there is a lot of unspoken hurt in every direction, and Dick’s own position in the family is shakier than ever since Bruce returned.

If Dick wants to realize his dream of family bonding, there will have to be many painful conversations between all parties. Dick’s own secrets will need to surface, the ones he has long kept submerged, the ones he will fight to sink forever.

(Or: Where Bruce is just a bit darker, even less emotionally available, and treats everyone a little worse, and how they all fix their family anyway.)

family helps family by RedHoodie19

Tim never learned how to swim.

Being slung over Red Hood’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes as the crime lord walked toward the Gotham docks seemed like a good time to learn, though.

Whumptober 2021 prompt #11 - drowning.

Stranger Things

The One in Which a Time Loop is Fucking Exhausting. by badpancake

It’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t know what comes next. He’s dove into the water hundreds of times. Screamed as his flesh was torn apart, heard Master of Puppets in the distance and held back tears. Felt Max’s cold, small hand in his as she laid in the hospital bed. There are things that always happen, no matter how hard he tries: El doesn’t arrive in time. Eddie dies. Max is put in a coma.

Steve fails. They lose.

“Steve, how many loops have you been through?”

His head is nodding, and his eyes are watery, and Eddie has approached him like a spooked animal.

“I lost count.”

AKA: The one where Steve Harrington is stuck in a time loop, and Eddie Munson is really fucking hard to save, or: fuck Volume 2, these bitches are in love.

it's his party (and i'll fall if i want to) by formosus_iniquis

“Who invited us to this party anyway?”

"Well I invited you," the ‘you should know this already dingus’ hangs in the air, not needing to even be said, "and Steve invited me."

"Steve?" She nods, but even death couldn't stop him now,

"Harrington? Steve Harrington? King Steve? Steve "the Hair" Harrington? Steve "Big House, No Parents" Harrington? Steve "Sex God" Harrington?"

"I am certain you made at least those last two up. Yes, Steve "Lady Killer" Harrington invited me to his party."

"Are we about to be Carrie'd?"

hometown blues by pukner

The quarantine over a Post-Vecna Hawkins has been provisionally lifted, allowing family to come home and visit those who didn't leave even after the world got cracked open.

Which is how Gareth Emerson keeps running into Steve Fucking Harrington and hearing a dead man on the radio. Dorothea Harrington comes home only to find her house filled with strangers and aforementioned dead man. And Vickie Summers is getting swept off her feet by Robin Buckley.

Meanwhile, Steve and Eddie continue to be the Most Insufferable Couple In Hawkins.

the secret i have learned by Crykea

It takes some new additions to the party for the gang to realize that something has been off with Steve for quite a while now. They help him together and, in doing so, strengthen themselves as a family. Steve lets himself be cared for, remembers important people from his past, and finally allows himself to move on in some of the ways he never thought he could.

#happy saturday everyone #weekly fic round up #my posts #fic recs #stranger things #dc recs #bnha recs

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inamindfarfaraway · 3 years ago

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Dark Oracle AU

Okay, I need to expand on this concept. I present my personal idea of a timeline from the canon state of affairs (or, well, my interpretation of them because comics are so inconsistent and full of crap, basically pre-New 52 with Duke) to Big Sister dictatorship!

The Batfamily is battling a really serious threat, like Ra’s al Ghul or the Court of Owls or a supervillain alliance or something. It’s a big deal. Very high stakes. The only reason they’re even attempting a mission this risky is because, thanks in large part to their resident information-finding specialist Barbara, they have a great deal of knowledge in advance and are sure they’ve planned for every possible outcome, as Bats tend to do. Except the villain has a secret advantage, another trick up their sleeve. There’s no way Babs could have found out about this, but of course she doesn’t believe that and blames herself, as Bats tend to do. The heroes aren’t prepared and in the chaos none of the contingency plans they’re able to execute work. By the time they defeat the threat… Black Bat and Batgirl are dead. Steph is killed first, heroically sacrificing herself, and Cass, the nearest to her, is caught off-guard in her shock.

I’m sorry! I am! But I truly think that Babs could not properly turn evil if she had Team Batgirl to remind her of her definition of heroism, of her own lingering inner Batgirl. She needs to just be Oracle. Cass is buried in the Wayne Manor cemetery; Steph in a public one the closest to the same distance from the Manor and Crystal’s house. They both get memorials in the Batcave.

Babs shuts down in depressed and self-hatred. She watched her daughter figures, her protégés, her Batgirls die because of (in her mind) her inadequacy. She feels like she’ll similarly fail at anything she tries to do now. She quits being Oracle and withdraws from the Batfam and her father. Remember, she has an eidetic memory, and watched and heard Steph and Cass’s deaths via the family’s mask cameras. They’re all she can see when she closes her eyes. Those screams are always ringing in her ears.

Meanwhile, Bruce takes this about as well as he took losing a child/young vigilante he inspired and mentored the last two times, but doubled. Although he and Alfred have enough experience that he doesn’t get quite as bad as fast as when Jason died, he’s still significantly more antisocial, aggressive, reckless and self-destructive and isolates himself more over the first months afterward. Jim notices the disappearance of Black Bat and Batgirl and the sadly familiar changes in Batman’s behaviour and puts the pieces together. He offers Batman what comfort he can, but is simultaneously worrying about Babs on top of his job. Crime rates go up whenever the Batfam’s numbers decrease.

The remaining Batkids are distraught. Other than Jason, they grow closer in their shared grief. Jason is off on his own turning his pain into violence even more savagely than normal. He recognizes that he’s falling back on his terrible coping mechanisms and doesn’t want to hurt his family this time, so he just doesn’t interact with them. Tim is hit especially hard due to being the closest to Cass and Steph - not to mention that he in particular so fucking sick and tired of his loved ones dying across his teenage years. He’s very unstable. Steph was one of the key people who taught Damian how to have fun and be a kid, and how important it was, so without her he’s more liable to forget that and backslide into acting cold, aloof, violently temperamental, etc.. Duke is made acutely aware of how short life is and that anyone he cares about could die at any time, so he actually strengthens his friendships with the We Are Robin kids. They can break down and be vulnerable with each other in private, but mostly push themselves harder because they each feel that it’s their duty to both keep Gotham safe and prevent Bruce and their siblings going off the rails. Dick is probably the least emotionally vulnerable because he has the most practice bottling up intense grief effectively and, with Bruce’s psychological decline and constant busyness, steps up more as the Responsible Adult alongside Alfred.

Bruce forbids Tim, Duke and Damian to go into the field and Dick agrees, because can they stop losing family for five minutes? A number of restrictions are implemented to uphold this. It’s Tim, Duke and Damian, though, of course they get out anyway. Helping people directly is one of the only sources of serotonin they have.

This is when things really start to go to hell: Bruce is killed. Because of his recklessness and accelerated by his poor health due to neglecting self-care. Because he charged into a dangerous fight alone, Alfred in the chair occupied with the Batkids. Because, Babs can’t convince herself otherwise, he didn’t have Oracle watching his back. The Batkids really could not stop losing family for five minutes. He’s buried right next to his daughter, the death dates just three months apart. Memorial in the cave, natch. But they don’t pretend he isn’t dead this time, so the whole city must mourn its Dark Knight. There are huge memorial services, statues made of him. Jim cries a lot. He already lost Harvey, now Bats?

Oh yeah, and - released a little later to throw people off and let them form a convincing cover story - Bruce Wayne is dead too. A massive blow to Gotham’s morale and even greater surges in crime follow. Their inspirational ray of sunshine and hope and belief in humanity is suddenly gone forever, and so soon after their original and most accomplished superhero. Who are they going to believe in now? Well… at least they still have the rest of the vigilantes.

Babs returns to work. Throws herself into it the way other people throw themselves off bridges. She stays on more formal terms with the Batfam at first, but does reconnect with them over time. She moves Cass and Steph’s memorials to the Clocktower “for motivation”, and this is evidently effective, seeing how she goes into overdrive and is soon leading and coordinating everyone alongside Dick. Gotham is floundering without Bruce and Batman and she refuses to let it fall into anarchy. She’ll be its Oracle, guiding it to a brighter future. She’ll never not know or foresee something ever again. She can’t. Jim is getting extremely worried.

If she’s doing badly, Bruce’s own children’s mental states can be summarised as deep shit. Everyone embraces the family’s classic coping mechanisms, workaholism and emotional repression, harder to try to cope with the chaos. Tim takes over more Wayne Enterprises responsibilities. You know, ‘cause he doesn’t have enough on his plate. Unlike last time, Bruce is definitely permanently dead and he doesn’t take that well. Alfred… is going through it. Sorry, Alfred. A small comfort is that Jason is inspired to treasure his remaining family and he and his siblings and grandad work on repairing their relationships.

Things don’t go Gotham meets Oceania overnight. Babs eroding her code of ethics to the point of evil dictatorship is a slow process, the kind you may not even register until it’s happened. One year after Bruce’s death she’s composed enough to run for mayor, still cripplingly afraid and resentful of Oracle’s limitations. She needs political control over Gotham to make it a better place in the long run. Who are the people going to believe in now? Barbara Gordon! Her loved ones are proud and supportive of her, having been reconnecting with her lately, if concerned that she isn’t processing her grief that much even compared to the rest of them. Her policies are focused on security and reforms to the police force and legal system that aim to reduce crime and corruption, which in the context of the soaring crime rates and spiralling despair of the Gotham public all seem wonderful to many. Surely, things at least can’t possibly get worse than they have been. She wins in a landslide.

The mayor’s power plus Oracle’s power soon goes to Babs’s head. Over the next year she slips from hero to antihero to a darker shade of grey. Her level of surveillance gradually moves out of the reasonable zone. Her patience for disagreement wears thin. When the Batfam or law enforcement take down a crime organization, she will siphon off their assets and information to consolidate her power rather than redistribute all of it to the people. For the greater good, obviously!

This culminates two years after Bruce’s death when Oracle defeats the Court of Owls with a cunning scheme (if they’re the ones who killed the Batgirls, this part hits extra hard): she fakes an alliance with them to set up a double cross, her ‘downpayment’ of information to gain their trust being false and luring their high command into a massive vigilante and police ambush. But Babs doesn’t dismantle the Court like the Bats expect her to. She takes control of it and integrates its vast, rich archives and information network into her own, now essentially omniscient regarding Gotham’s criminal underworld. She also uses the Court’s under-the-table connections to manipulate political and legal proceedings. It’s great for eliminating all corruption besides her own.

This move triggers the ideological conflict that’s been brewing amongst the Batfam to spill over into a devastating fight. Babs and Dick are at the forefront. Babs is accused of tyranny and selfish ambition, Dick and his allies of holding onto a naive, obsolete ideal of protection, both sides feeling betrayed and that the other is “becoming what they fought against”. It’s very emotionally charged. Very painful and bitter for everyone involved.

In the end Alfred, Dick, Jason, Duke and Damian leave in regret and disgust. To explain why them: Alfred is never turning evil. We all know that. The fabric of the universe would unravel if he did. Dick is likewise functionally incorruptible because he’s Dick Grayson, he’s the light of the DC universe. He is utterly heartbroken though. Him and Babs being enemies is the maximum angst option, I couldn’t not take it. Jason has already been through a ‘using villainous methods to protect Gotham how Batman won’t because a) I genuinely believe the ends justify the means and b) my mental health is a train wreck’ phase and basically come out the other side. He isn’t gonna do that again, but as a subordinate. Him and Duke’s backstories make them both more down-to-earth and grounded in the reality of the average and lower-class Gotham citizens’ everyday lives than anyone else in the Batfam, so they can see most clearly how Babs’s actions are harming their people. And Damian is closer to Dick and Duke than Babs, but also similarly to Jason did the edgy ‘morals hold you back, absolute punishment and terror will fight crime more efficiently’ thing and outgrew it. He learned to value human life and rights and swore his loyalty to the mentors who taught him this and their code. He learned how to reject the toxic bullshit the League of Assassins had been feeding him his entire life; it would insult his character growth in my opinion to have him accept Barbara’s toxic bullshit.

That leaves Tim to be Babs’s primary enforcer. Sorry, Tim. Someone had to do it. Between his severe psychological vulnerability and lack of his brothers’ personal experiences with immorality and insights into the average Gothamite’s life, I think it should be him. He’s also the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and involved in the Wayne Foundation and that pairs nicely with Babs’s data collection. Any Wayne Technologies device can covertly monitor people. To sever himself from the bat and bird motifs of the lost and unenlightened and show his allegiance to Oracle, he creates a new vigilante identity called Python. This is a reference to the Greek myth of a giant serpent called Python (from the original name of Delphi, Pytho, and the namesake of the snake classification) who resided in and guarded the site of Delphi, before Apollo killed it and installed his own prophetess Pythia in his place. He’s got a green scaly jumpsuit with armour plating. Two curved swords imitating fangs. Scale throwing blades. A penchant for nonlethal gas and aerosol tools like knockout gas, tear gas and smokescreens, in allusion to the natural hallucinogenic fumes at Delphi that led to its holy reputation. It’s cool. Sinister, but cool. Snakes don’t have eyelids, matching the relentless surveillance theme. Fun fact: pythons eat bats and small birds.

Shock of the century, Babara “Heaps of Recent, Untreated PTSD From Losing Loved Ones and Compulsive Need to Always be Aware and On Top of Everything” Gordon doesn’t take being ditched by all but one of her found family in stride. She has a total breakdown, blames herself for not being able to make them see things her way and lashes out by cracking down even harder on the populace. She’s accordingly immensely grateful for Tim staying and very protective of him. Were he to leave her too, it could be enough to shatter her.

The five rebels join the Birds of Prey, who leave Barbara after hearing how she turned on them, the Gotham City Sirens, Holly Robinson, Slam Bradley, Duke’s We Are Robin friends and a number of other malcontents, including Crystal Brown, to form a resistance. This alliance is called the Shadow Guard - ‘shadow’ because they literally are largely nocturnal, but furthermore it’s a contrast and opposition to Oracle’s prying and shining a light onto things; a declaration both that they are her blind spot and that privacy, the unseen, the ability to keep people ‘in the dark’ deserves to be protected. They’re guardians in the real shadows and of the figurative ones. There’s the angle that they’re only shadows of the Batfamily at its peak and the people they were then too. The rebellion uses pre-internet technology to be safe, with the occasional exception of scavenged tech cut off from Babs’s network.

Mayor Gordon declares Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin and the Signal to be dangerous, untrustworthy public enemies, even suggesting that they’re responsible for the mysterious disappearances of Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas. This forces Jim, who’s been putting off realizing that his beloved daughter and the only family he has left is having a moral degradation arc in favour of softer appeals to her compassion, to confront that Babs is now pretty damn totalitarian and he cannot stand by any longer. He joins the Shadow Guard as a spy, and supplies resources, equipment and other employees with consciences to their ranks. His hope is that once her power is removed, Babs will have to face the consequences of her actions and come to her senses. The three year mark is when her directing of the police cycles around to be so militarized and oppressive that her initial real ethical reforms are trampled, vindicating Jim’s decision.

Why don’t external superheroes and the government officials intervene? Because Babs is still their information broker. She provides them with vital intel and has truckloads of dirt on all of them. She isn’t above passive-aggressively reminding people of her ability to ruin them to get them off her back, even demonstrating it by leaking sensitive information, causing a scandal, giving an advantage to a rival, etc. every now and then. The rest of the US is watching the events in Gotham thinking, as people so often do, “Someone should do something! …But it’s not gonna be me!” (For the sake of the plot just quietly ignore the Superfam and Wonderfam and Flashfam and so on, okay?). Besides, Gotham’s crime rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. Oracle is untouchable and none of the illicit activity can be traced back to Babs, or even proven at all most of the time.

Keep in mind, Babs still doesn’t technically directly kill anyone. Tim doesn’t either. He just arrests criminals and disturbers of the peace and hands them over to the justice system. Business as usual. When they and all records of them disappear overnight, and when nobody ever gets out of Blackgate or Arkham… well, questioning that isn’t in his job description, and Babs and his job are all he has left. He’s come too far to give them up.

Four years into Babs’s mayorship, Gotham’s settled into its continually worsening dystopian status quo under a utopian facade. The roll down the slope accelerates when Jim’s spying is discovered. Babs is horrified, furious and deeply hurt. She almost, almost backs down, but falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy and desperately reaffirms her self-righteousness. He has frustratingly durable moral integrity, so she orders him arrested to get him out of sight and out of mind because again, she cannot handle another loss. The rebel Batboys break him out, they fight Python and the police, it’s sad and dramatic. The rebels get away by the skin of their teeth, but they’re followed. A raid on their base deals harsh blows and gets a sizeable proportion of them arrested, killed or traumatized into submission. They regroup and try to find a way to take Oracle by surprise. Jim is now the Shadow Guard’s co-leader with Dick.

Gotham is peaceful. It’s orderly. Supervillains are a thing of the past. Barbara is like the oracles of legend: whatever she says will be, will be. Needless to say, she won’t have much competition in the upcoming mayoral election. From there, she plans to expand beyond Gotham. The only problem that remains is how to stop her treacherous family and lay the past to rest once and for all…

That’s the catch with oracle stories, isn’t it? In the end, you find you’ve become exactly what you most strived to avoid being. Think of King Oedipus, the archetypal Greek tragedy and ironic prophecy story: a just, wise and noble leader stubbornly seeking knowledge to protect their people from ruin in a time of great suffering, only for they themselves to be the criminal they were looking for and the cause of their city’s corruption.

I’m ending it here with a five year time difference and pretty much in the heroes’ darkest hour, because this is where I would have (my) canon Babs, Steph and Cass transported to this world to help bring dark Oracle down.

#babs: i’ve made a gotham where none of the entire batfamily’s tragic pasts could ever happen #dick: what about the kids whose parents don’t agree with everything you say?#babs:#dark oracle has the anime menacing reflective glasses effect a lot because a) scary and b) she is just emotional repression central #i just want to see black bat and batgirl fight and ethically debate a dictator version of their mentor #in the process deactivating and cracking the wall of giant surveillance screens in the clocktower #so that barbara is forced to finally confront her reflection fractured in darkness #is that too much to ask?#dark oracle au #barbara gordon #babs gordon #oracle #batfamily #batfam #stephanie brown #batgirl #cassandra cain #black bat #team batgirl #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #duke thomas #the signal #alfred pennyworth

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pocketramblr · 4 years ago

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You know what I like in X2 (and all of the original Xmen trilogy actually)? I like how they kept Magneto somewhat sympathetic and complex, but never let you forget that this guy is ultimately a villain who wants mutant supremacy, and is willing to murder all humans to do it. He was a sympathetic villain, but always a villain. I like that.

You've unlocked a ramble!

Ok so the thing about watching X2 and then XMA back to back is that both movies have "Capture Charles in order to use him to destroy humanity and leave only mutants" as a plot point, and both are handled soooo differently and really show the difference between Classic Magneto and Post MCU Magneto.

So in X2, Magneto has Mystique manipulate another mutant (Jason Stryker) who is already very much a victim of a father who had him lobotomized to use him as a weapon after he lashed out at his abusive parents and killed his mother. Mystique has Jason use his power to force Charles to target all humans on the planet with a mental blast that will kill them.

XMA, Apocolypse is the mastermind who kidnaps Charles and forces him to launch all nukes into the sky, disarming every country on earth before Apocolypse takes his body and plans to destroy the rest after. Magneto is one of his horsemen.

So, already, X2 Magneto is "worse" because he's actually doing this, not just working for someone who is. He's the one who didn't warn Charles right away that Stryker was going to kidnap him, and he's the one who didn't free Charles and Jason when he had the chance. Except... Literally five minutes before that, Stryker had used Jason and Charles to target every mutant on earth. They were very much seconds away from a total mutant genocide. Millions and millions dead, like that. The second time that Magneto, as the only one with a helmet to protect him from the psychic blast, would survive a genocide of his people. But this time, he'd be the only one left on the planet. In an attack that came from one person without government authorization. The only way Magneto can be absolutely sure that this never happens again is if he makes sure there aren't any humans left to do it.

Is if he kills billions.

And he does it, or tries to, but before he does he puts his hand on Charles and it's so obvious without him even speaking that he feels bad for doing this to his old friend. He doesn't want Charles to hurt! But his goals are a higher priority than Charles' mental well-being, and he knows he won't have any right to apologize once he's done because he won't regret the action, just the side effects. So he puts his hand on him, silently displaying so much emotion, and then says goodbye and leaves.

Contrast X2 Magneto taking responsibility for what he did and committing to it while still being so very human to XMA Magneto. XMA Magneto isn't even the leader here, he's a sidekick Apocolypse recruited- after his coworkers reported on him for using his power to save one of their lives, getting his wife (yeah he... Has one now) and daughter (no not Anya, Wanda or Lorna, a new one) killed. And here, like in X2, this is obviously him reliving something that has happened before and wasn't supposed to happen again. But he doesn't get to kill the coworkers who betrayed him and his family. Apocolypse shows up and does that himself, after Magento's one request was to not stop him from killing them himself. Magneto does not get to do that action. He does not get the responsibility of those deaths. He does not have the responsibility of actively using Charles, that was Apocolypse. He still shouldn't have done it, of course, it was still wrong- but it's very different than the intention Original Magneto had. And while this Magneto is somewhat sympathetic, the dead family and all... He's not someone who was just facing eminent genocide. There have been ten years of peace, allegedly. Mystique mentions that it's not really peace and still needs improvement and she's right, but as a whole... There's very obviously no need for Mutants to do genocide in order to preserve themselves. Apocolypse is very obviously just doing what he wants for his own personal power. Magneto just ends up looking half like John Wick and half like a huge sucker for doing all of this.

Let's compare two other little thing in both movies- so in X2, there's this moment where Mystique and Magneto are snarking to each other about Rogue's hair and "loving what she did with it." What did she do with it? Nothing, she has a white streak because Magneto tried to use her in the last movie for his "greater good of mutants" and almost killed her.

Meanwhile, XMA Magneto almost killed Mystique last movie for his greater good plan, and in this movie he just... Eventually gets convinced that she's fighting for what she has left and maybe some of humanity is worth saving too. I don't think there's even any mention of what he did in the last film, or of there was it was so little I didn't realize and remember it.

X2 Magneto takes Pyro's lighter to coax him out, then assures him that his power isn't lame, that he's "a God among insects."

Because in the original trilogy, Magneto is the one who manipulates! He's the bastard! He's the bitter old man who has been hurt so bad and is so desperate to keep it from happening again that he'll bark and bite and do worse to stop it.

Meanwhile, Apocolypse gets to be the one to call mutants gods and goddesses in the new version, and Magneto is just an accessory. Still culpable, but not The Bastard, not the one allowed full responsibility, or full sympathy.

Anyway that's why the old Magneto is "worse" as far as being a villain goes, but is way more sympathetic and interesting than the new "softer" one.

#Ian McKellen please come back....#i wrote this while at church and it was way longer but it's shorter and more coherent now i hope #Original Magneto was sympathetic because of the character he had and the actions he made #while New Magneto is sympathetic in that i pity him for how little agency he seems to have in the plot now dhfhgg #anon #pocket talks to people #meta

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