#dc a world without grown-ups

[orphic-gaze]

mushroom bart isn't real, mushroom bart can't hurt you... mushroom bart:

[zams-oasis]

Ok, so what age is Billy Batson in World Without Grown-Ups? (1998)

I'm trying to figure out what the age difference would be between him and Tim Drake, and therefore the age difference between THAT Billy and Damian & Jon. And also where Billy & Stargirl dating would land on this kind of timeline.

(I don't know why I like giving myself migraines trying to figure out the age differences between comic book kids, but here I am once again.)

[onlylonelylatino]

Plastic Man and the Justice League by Mike McKone

[rosemaryentombed]

evil gays spotted

[gob-lob]

Does anyone have any advice/starter recs for comics? Specifically TMNT and Spider-Man :] but tbh any character you're interested in

[supermenz]

one

summary: One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do; two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one. Or: you're two years old when you lose your parents. Your brother, a kid himself, is unable to give you the love you deserve, and you end up at twenty being as burn out as only a Gotham University student can be. So, what do you do? Change scenery, of course.

pairing(s): clark kent x wayne!reader, bruce wayne x sister!reader, eventual platonic batfam x reader (no use of y/n)

warnings: genius kid trope, kinda doomed siblings, language, there are reference to what happens in "the batman" but there will be a merge of both comics and films, written with david!superman in mind cuz he's my pookie 😞, bruce is so pathetic i love him sm

word count: 2.2k

author's note: my first ever fanfic for the dc universe!! constructive criticism is welcomed as english is not my first language,

next | series masterlist

Gotham has left you feeling more claustrophobic in the last few months than it did all your life. 

Maybe it’s because you’re seeing your brother slip into his work — aka beating criminals in the night as a hobby — more and more, or maybe it’s just your brain playing tricks on you. It’s probably the latter. 

You’ve never been good with emotions — it comes with being a Wayne, and surely, having your parents die before you were three didn’t help your situation. Bruce spending most of your childhood abroad with barely any contact with you also probably didn’t help either. 

“But I’m here now,” he had said once, “Am I not?”

He is, but even if you love him with all your heart, sometimes you think that you’re more like colleagues rather than siblings. Your bond is strained, with him being so closed-off and spending most of his free time cosplaying as a bat, and you having just entered your twenties, trying to get your second degree in biology after an early graduation and an even earlier PhD in engineering. And since his first big case four years ago, neither of you has been the same. 

Your relationship has never been easy. The flood and the Riddler’s case basically forced you to trauma bond over what you both had experienced, as surely no therapist would’ve wanted to hear about all the horrors that you two experienced, even for all the money in the world. Besides, it’s not like Bruce could just enter a therapist’s office and tell them that he’s the fucking Batman. 

As of now, you tend to have your… ups and downs. Both prefer to just hide behind paperwork, projects, cases or research rather than just talk some things out. Because yes, Bruce’s your brother, but that doesn’t mean he’s easy to love. There are some days where he seems to be barely able to talk to you, others where you know he just wants to scream at you for whatever reason, others where… others where you think he might just crumble at your feet and start crying. 

You don’t have a lot in common. Maybe that’s why he manages to stay in Gotham even after all that’s happened — combined with the fact that he’s spent ten years or so abroad. Maybe you need that, too. 

“I’m thinking of moving out,” you tell him during one of your rare dinners together. You have already talked about your plan to Alfred, who has shown his support towards the idea and urged you to get out of Gotham as soon as you could, but you also wanted to tell Bruce — just to be honest with him. 

Yes, he left you to study abroad all those years ago without any kind of goodbye or anything, but you have no intention of leaving him behind like he did to you — you may be grown adults now, but that doesn’t mean that being left behind doesn’t exist anymore. You doubt Bruce would ever feel left behind by you, of all people, but still. “Found a faculty in Metropolis that will be able to transfer all my credits and studies and a nice flat downtown near the Wayne Enterprises’ site there. I think I need a breath of fresh air– I need to go somewhere where the sun actually shines and not everyone has hidden agendas.”

You’ve heard good things about Metropolis, and you think that the Martha Wayne Foundation could be expanded a bit more — somewhere far from Gotham, where surely there are other orphanages, other people in need that could use some help. “I could handle Wayne Enterprise’s gestion and settle our matters there while continuing my studies in a more… calm environment.” calm is a big word for a metropolitan city as big and populated as Metropolis, but every city is calm in contrast to Gotham.  

Your brother doesn’t say anything. He just stares at you, wide-eyed, fork still raised to eat the potatoes Alfred cooked, his face blank. Is he having a heart attack? You didn’t think that you moving out would’ve been such horrendous news for him. Yes, even if you are not that close he’s still very protective, but he went to live abroad at ten. You’re twenty and you’re just… moving to Delaware. It’s not like you’re going to the fucking Himalaya mountains as he did. 

(Meanwhile, Bruce is spiraling. He wonders when the hell did his little sister grow up, how it can be that she isn’t the little girl he used to sway around anymore, and why would she ever want to move out. Is it because of him? Did something happen? 

Isn’t Metropolis in another state? Is he so tremendous that you have to move states in hopes to forget about him? Is he too overbearing? He thought he had always given you enough space to do your own thing–)

Instead of saying all of the things he’s thinking, he tries to muster up a smile, even if it comes out as a grimace. “Alright.” 

He nearly jumps out of his seat when you beam at him — is he really that obnoxious that you can’t wait to move out and have him out of your life? “Oh, I’m happy that you’re taking it well! I was afraid you’d freak out.” you get up from your seat and move over to hug him, and he chuckles nervously. “Why would I? You’re an adult, you can do what you want.” 

(What do you mean?!, his conscience screams in his head, She isn’t even twelve! Just yesterday she was talking about going to the homecoming dance with her friends–

But time has passed, and even if Bruce feels that it was particularly hard on him, he didn’t think it’d affect you too, somehow. It’s weird acknowledging something’s — someone’s — changes in the years in… so little. He had gotten so used to you being his little sister that he didn’t even think about you becoming a full on woman. He still remembers the pink bundle of blankets your parents had given him that day at the hospital, telling him to be careful with her, she’s your little sister.

When have you grown this much? Where did the time go? He swears it was just yesterday when you were admitted to Gotham University.) 

“But… a flat? Are you sure you’ll be comfortable there? It’s not exactly as big as a manor.” 

You avoid his gaze, scratching the back of your head. “Yeah, about that…”

He raises an eyebrow, “Let me guess, you bought the whole building?” 

You snap your fingers, “They don’t call you the greatest detective for nothing!” you sit back down, cutting the meat on your plate, “I plan on making the floors I won’t live in into a laboratory of sort– almost like the Batcave, y’know, so I can continue working on the models I designed undisturbed.”

When Bruce had started his crusade as Batman, you had just gotten your bachelor’s degree in engineering, and were working on your master’s degree. You had basically given him the head-start, creating the software of the Batcomputer (or of the computer, as he calls it), designed and adapted a sport’s car to the Batmobile (just call it the car, Bruce always insists) and basically modified and created every single one of the gadgets and systems he uses. 

You just hope he won’t let the Batcomputer get hacked as soon as you land in Metropolis — you spent weeks programming her and years perfecting her system. You spent so much time on her, she might as well be your firstborn by now. 

“I’ll always be a call away,” you murmur when your brother’s eyes get a little dazy, unfocused– like he’s in another world, always thinking about the worst that could happen. “You know that, right?”

Bruce blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, I– I know that.” 

(He isn't sure about that.) 

You pat his hand, mustering a smile. "Maybe you should take a break, too. Why don't you book a vacation in, let's say... the Bahamas? Just to get a bit tanned and remember what the sun actually looks like."

He shakes his head. "Can't. Batman doesn't go on vacation."

You raise an eyebrow, sighing in defeat. "Well, I'm sure the GCPD could handle Gotham for a few days, but do as you like."

Your arrival in Metropolis is, of course, followed by an unhinged swarm of journalists and press that surround you as soon as you land.

You can already see the headlines — THE PRINCESS OF GOTHAM NOW IN METROPOLIS or some other corny predictable shit like that — as they shove their cameras in your face, screaming and trying to grab you, as your bodyguards try to contain them. You're much calmer than they are, having already endured years and years of invasive journalists.

“Miss Wayne, would you care to tell us the reason for this abrupt change in scenery?”

“Has your move got anything to do with your relationship with your brother?”

“Miss Wayne, look here! A smile for the front page–”

“Miss Wayne, why Metropolis, of all places?”

“Miss Wayne, a word for the Daily Planet?”

The guy for the Daily Planet catches your attention– he seems far too nice and isn’t elbowing anyone; he must be either new at the job or is too nice for it. He’s got a mop of curly, black hair atop his head, thick glasses perched on his nose, baby blue eyes behind them. His posture is a little crooked — he’s getting squeezed by reporters on both of his sides — but, even as disheveled as he is, you notice a thing. 

Ohh, he’s pretty. Like, jaw-dropping pretty, the kind of pretty that makes you want to bite his cheek and never let go for the rest of your life. 

You stop in your tracks, lifting your sunglasses to your head, bodyguards panicking at the swarm of journalists that suddenly all point to one direction; you reach for the pocket of your jeans and take out a business card that you pat on the pretty reporter’s chest. “Another time, pretty boy,” you promise as he takes the card, his fingers brushing yours, the other journalists speechless around you. “I’m kinda busy right now.” 

You don’t stay long enough to see him blush and hold the business card tight in his palm so that the other reporters don’t snatch it out of his grip — the bodyguards urge you forward, towards the SUV with obscured windows that is waiting for you right in front of the arrivals’ exit of the airport. One of them opens the door for you, and you don’t hesitate to get inside, the car speeding off as soon as everyone’s inside. 

“Never seen anything like this,” one of the men mutters.

You shrug, “I’ve had worse.” 

The ride to your building is short, mostly because it’s late in the evening and there aren’t many people still around. You leave a generous tip to both the bodyguards and the driver, thanking them but assuring them that you can walk alone the thirty steps that separate you from the entrance to what’ll be your home for the foreseeable future. They help you take out your trolley and duffle bag, which you swing over your shoulder right after taking the keys of the building out. 

You open the front door, carefully closing it behind you, taking the elevator right in front of it. You press the number thirty out of thirty-four, which turns green with a ding, and wait for the doors to open back up. And once they do, you’re not disappointed. 

The loft is arranged just like how you asked the movers to — it would’ve been hard not to, as you sent them the 3D interior design plan you had made, but still. You’ve been raised with the idea that if you want something done well, you have to do it yourself, so you’re pretty happy about how it turned out. 

Still, something’s missing. 

You check around the loft for any pieces of missing furniture or something like that, not finding anything. You even go back to the 3D model to make sure that everything got here safe and sound, only to find that yes, everything is in the colour you ordered and exactly in the place you asked for it to be. 

You sit on the U-shaped couch that sits right in front of the giant windows that let on the skyline of Metropolis, eyebrows knit in deep thought. The house is nice — for fuck’s sake, you bought a whole building just for you and your projects — but it’s weird not having anyone else around. There’s no Alfred to welcome you, no half-asleep Bruce roaming without an idea of where he is, no squeaking and creaking of the floor when you walk. 

You sigh. “Maybe I should get a cat.” 

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCXDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 5)

—

Tw: torture scene (GiW agent receiving), general angst, canon-typical violence (DC), nobody is having a good time

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It was pretty easy for Danny to forget that Dr. Crane was a rogue at times.

Most of the time he wasn’t comically evil, like what he’d expect of a Gotham rogue. He was helping Danny, even if only because he didn’t want to be taken in by the GiW as well. He was even downright nice most of the time, or at least neutral.

Sure, he had a strange obsession with fear and psychology, but that wasn’t really out of the ordinary for Danny. It didn’t feel like living with a rogue, just like…staying with a distant relative, or something.

He seemed like just an ordinary person.

Today, though, Danny was brought back to reality.

The GiW agent they’d tracked down together writhed on the ground, screaming in pain and terror. Scarecrow was sat a few feet away, setting up a syringe of the antidote he’d made.

After a few more moments, he injected the man with the antidote, watching him like a hawk the entire time.

Suddenly, the man surged forward, lunging at Scarecrow with a feral scream.

Unluckily for him, though, he was still weak from the fear toxin in his system, and from the beatings he’d received prior. Scarecrow easily wrestled him to the ground, settling himself on the broad part of the agent’s back with a vice grip on one of his arms.

“Let’s try again,” he said sharply, all of the warmth Danny had grown used to gone from his voice. “Where is the GiW base of operations?”

The agent took several shuddering breaths before spitting at Scarecrow, defiance and hatred written all over his face.

For just a moment, the room was utterly silent.

“Fine, have it your way.”

Scarecrow began to twist the man’s arm further. It wasn’t long before the agent began to squirm, then writhe, beneath him. Danny’s stomach churned.

“You know,” Scarecrow began, almost conversationally, “there are plenty of jobs that one can get without the use of their legs, especially with the level of education you have. Anything that doesn’t involve hard labor, really.”

The man’s face was beginning to turn red in his struggle not to scream. He took in gasping breaths, the way that his mouth moved almost reminding Danny of a goldfish.

(He felt awful for the comparison, but it was true.)

“However,” Scarecrow continued, “I find you’d be rather hard-pressed to find a job without the use of your arms. Especially in a place like Gotham, where you can always be replaced by someone eager to do your job for even less money. Of course, you could most likely coast off of savings and severance pay for a while, but…”

He leaned closer to the man’s head, his voice lowering.

“Would you be able to live like that? To live with yourself, if you no longer have a purpose?”

He allowed the agent a few seconds of rest before increasing the pressure on his arm. The agent gasped, letting out a strangled hiss. His arm bones were making fascinating noises in response to the strain. Danny felt sick.

“You seem like a rather driven young man. I’m sure your family would hate to see you unmotivated, directionless. Would they resent you, do you think?”

“Fuck you, you—”

The man was cut off by his own scream as Scarecrow finally allowed his arm to break, audibly splintering into thousands of useless shards of bone.

He had the exact pressure memorized. Clearly, he had done this before.

This was wrong. This was wrong.

Shouldn’t Danny step in, do something?

“That won’t heal cleanly. Even with the best medical care in the world, you’ll end up with permanent damage.”

The man below him wheezed and sobbed, choking on air as Scarecrow let go of his arm carelessly, letting it flop back onto the ground.

“Just the sort of thing something like you deserves,” Scarecrow hissed, his voice cold.

“You tortured a child, and you enjoyed it. You laughed with your friends about it. In your notes, one of your friends complained about the screaming,” Scarecrow brought his leg around, grinding his boot into the man’s broken arm. He howled in agony, writhing uncontrollably.

“Was it inconvenient to him, do you think? Too loud? If you were joking about it, clearly you thought so, too. I could fix that as well.”

He drew out another needle, this one once again filled with fear toxin.

“Scarecrow, wait,” Danny choked out.

Scarecrow turned to look at him.

Even his posture was different than usual. He looked… stiff, more like an animal than a man. When he tilted his head at Danny in a silent question, it looked like something in his neck had snapped, his head lolling to the side.

Danny wondered if he was consciously moving like that, or if it was habit at this point.

“You—we don’t have to do this. We can get information some other way, right? You don’t have to…”

Danny looked down at the GiW agent below Scarecrow. He didn’t even have it in him to glare up at Danny like he had before. Instead he laid limply on the ground, tremors rolling through his body uncontrollably.

“We’ve exhausted every other option and you know it,” Scarecrow said, his voice low, “this is the only way we can move forward.”

“Still, I—I don’t,” Danny swallowed, his throat tight, “this isn’t—this isn’t right. Isn’t there some other way to do this? Like—a truth serum, or something?”

“Truth serums are notoriously unreliable. They’re almost as bad as lie detectors. We’re much more likely to get a reliable result from this.”

Danny just stared at the GiW agent and his splintered, ruined arm. He began to weakly wriggle in Scarecrow’s grasp, which was graciously ignored.

He vaguely remembered himself doing the same thing when he was on the operating table; even if he knew there was no chance of escape, he still thrashed and screamed, desperate to get away. The jagged I-shaped incision on his torso felt uncomfortably warm.

What was there left to say?

“The Bat does the same thing at times, you know,” Scarecrow said, “him and the rest of his brood. By using my toxin, I’m actually lessening the amount of permanent damage that I’m doing. Physically.”

“Still, that doesn’t make it right,” Danny said desperately. “Even if—even if everyone in the world did this, it wouldn’t make it right.”

Scarecrow hummed.

They were both silent for a moment.

His next words were gentle, absurdly so when compared to the scene in front of him.

“I would love an alternative. But…”

He shrugged, hand coming to rest on the break in the GiW agent’s arm. Even without applying any pressure, the man stopped squirming immediately.

“There aren’t any other options,” Danny repeated, his voice flat and his body numb.

“Yes,” Scarecrow said. “I’m sorry.”

There was a pause. No one moved a muscle. Eventually Scarecrow spoke again, his voice strangely empty.

“You can stand outside and keep watch, if you’d like. At such a short distance their radars won’t pick us up.”

Danny said nothing, leaving the room silently.

He sat outside for quite a while.

He was grateful that Scarecrow had, with his help, dragged the agent to one of his previous hideouts. It was soundproofed, after all.

He was glad that he didn’t have to hear the rest of what Scarecrow did to the man.

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Crane left the building, joining him outside. He guided Danny back to his beat up old truck and they drove home in silence.

“Did you at least…do you know where they are, now?” Danny asked as they entered the apartment, his voice small.

“They didn’t share the details of all of their locations with any one person. I know where one of their locations are, but not their main base of operations.”

Danny felt disgusted. With himself, with Dr. Crane, with the GiW.

He was disgusted by the agent, too. Did he just hate the restless dead so much that he would prefer to be tortured than to give them the upper hand? Did he really think he was in the right?

Was there a chance that he was?

Danny felt very, very small, and very stupid. Stupid and weak and cowardly.

“Danny,” Dr. Crane spoke, his voice soft.

“I’m truly sorry that this is happening to you. I really, truly wish that you didn’t have to endure my company. I…”

He fell quiet. Danny wondered if he was just saying this to pacify him, or if he truly meant it. He wondered if it really mattered in the end.

After a few moments of silence, Dr. Crane sighed, looking truly pained.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Danny was quiet.

“I’m going to bed early,” he finally said, turning away and leaving without a second glance.

—

[mysterycitrus]

Clearly you’ve got a lot of opinions abt the characterisations of the batfam in fandom /pos

Can you elaborate on your interpretation for all of them? /gen

it’s called caring too much — and it’s incurable! wrt my personal interpretation, that's a long and complicated answer, so ill just focus on the internal character of the waynes (specifically bruce and his five canonical kids).

bruce wayne is a control freak, we know this. his parents were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he has literally never ever been able to truly process it. the degree to which he is controlling - firing robins, survelling his allies without their consent, compiling personal information from others, disregarding others feelings in favour of his own - is all about trying to achieve the best possible outcome. everything he does is justified, because if he's in control then he can stop bad things from happening. it is all in favour of the greater good. it's the logic of an eight year old who's just lost everything and hasn't grown up.

if bruce's trauma manifests control then dick's manifests personal perfectionism. he holds himself to such an absurd standard because he's a flier - when you're catching someone on the trapeze you quite literally have to be there, always, ready to take their hand. if you don't, they fall. if there's no net, if dick isn't the net, then they die. he’s always swinging back out and in again, waiting for the next person to slip through his fingers. he does not fear falling, only what will happen when he hits the ground. he’s a born performer made to be an atlas, carrying an unbearable weight that anchors him to the earth.

jason after death is a tragedy of his own creation, and dc's worst crime is trying to justify the terrible decisions he makes. jason isn’t right, because what he wants is not about protecting other kids from his fate or being a better batman. he wants to be personally vindicated, even though he knows it's impossible. jason rejected himself, bruce, everything, in order to transform into a weapon to enact violence. deep down he's so angry, so hurt, that he'll go after other children - tim, damian, mia - and still decry bruce in the same breath. killing the joker, killing bruce, killing dick, killing every robin before or since won't take him back to who he was before. you cannot go back. you can never go back.

cass sees everything. she can't unsee it, she can't ignore it, nothing in the body can be truly hidden from her, but like bruce that doesn't mean she's always right. she killed a man and witnessed his death, and thus will never take another life. she is all knowing, but she was not born knowing herself. she's jason in reverse — she turns from steel to flesh and bone. she will do whatever it takes to be good. she has made herself real.

tim chose this life in the most literal sense of the word, and then kept choosing it. it’s his duty, it’s his honour, it has hollowed him out and left nothing behind. his tethers to the world snap one by one — janet and jack and darla and dana and steph and kon — and suddenly it’s much harder to extricate himself from the black. robin, dick grayson, is his guiding north star, but his north star is only human. he knows he is capable, he knows this is his choice, and he knows he has long since lost the chance to unchoose.

damian is raised in the shadow of the bat. he is born of blood. he knew death before he knew his father. he is a child. he is ancient. he is a killer. he only wants to do good. he loves his mother. his father is gone before he learns to love damian. damian loves someone else who wears the bat but does not carry wayne name. everything he knows about himself is questioned — robin is given to him, and suddenly he can decide his own fate, make his own family. he wants to be the best, but he doesn’t know what he wants that to mean anymore. he wants the chance to find out.

[anna-no-emma]

You know those Son of Batman, Batman vs, Robin animated movies? Like the ones that introduced Damian to the DC animated movies ecosystem?

Well, they really bothered me when they came out. It felt like everyone was being unfair towards Damian, borderline cruel. And I do understand these are extraordinary circumstances. Literal lives hang in the balance because your dealing with an 11 year old ninja-assassin. But let me lay out what got to me.

Firstly, I hated the way he was trapped in a house by people he did not trust. It's not the same as being grounded. With grounding, normally, the groundee understands the perimeters of the grounding. They know they are in no real danger, they know the grounding will end, and they are allowed to go to school and/or go out with a parent if it's weekend/holiday.

This is not the case for Damian. All he knows is he is not allowed to leave a house that belongs to a semi-stranger. He does not know when it will end, not really. And while he probably doesn't feel threatened by the bats, due to believing he is more dangerous than them, he is surrounded by grown-ups he doesn't really trust. Any person is going to feel uneasy under these circumstances.

And, this is my second point, the grown-ups aren't really explaining anything to him. They are laying the vague parameters of what they want out. But no-one is like checking in with his take on it all or his feelings.

They're also doing the equivalent of when someone tells you to get ready or you will be in trouble, but you don't know if that means showering, or just dressing, and what venue you should be dressing for. And they take you asking them as 'giving them attitude' because of course you know what they mean, it's so obvious, so they get cross instead of breaking the task down for you. Very long, very autistic-specific example but you get what I mean. You can't do something you don't know how to do.

And Damian is difficult and dangerous, don't get me wrong. And you need experience really talking to 'difficult' children who don't like explaining their feelings/thoughts to have any idea how to approach this.

And, yeah, the odds of Damian taking any of it on board are basically non-existent. But it's just unfair to dish out punishments without setting up clear guidelines, that you make sure the child understands, you know? And to assume certain things are obvious.

I guess I'm also looking at it from a culture shock perspective (obviously ninja-assassin mountain land doesn't really fit into the diaspora cannon but stay with me). Like when you come to a new country, you don't know what the norms are. You either learn through humiliation or through someone kind showing you.

And nobody bothered to show Damian. They just said some vague things to him that didn't even slightly fit into his framework of how the world works and then beat him up a whole lot and then just expected him to trust that they were right about everything.

They gave him no grace, not the way they would have given an immigrant or a tourist or a hot, red-headed alien that learns languages through sucking tongue (btw, said alien was defs murdering when she rocked up in the movies. It just wasn't people that she was killing so it was, apparently, all good).

And, yes, again this is a stabby-murder kid so the stakes are different. But for the love of god, explain things to him, properly, before you beat him up.

And Damian doesn't comes from a talking-about-your-feelings-and-tell-your-dad-your-feelng-rejected place. He also comes from a hurt-or-be-hurt place. And a place where criminals do get killed. That is due process. He doesn't necessarily have an understanding of why democratic due process is like that because he literally grew up under a dictator, you know?

And again, I'm not saying that he would have taken any of these things on board even if they had explained it. I'm just saying that they could have communicated better and laid out parameters better. And, yeah, if they had it wouldn't have been such a dramatic movie.

But I just don't like this idea that only Damian is to blame for this situation. Damian is just a kid having a somewhat valid, albeit deadly, crash-out given the circumstances.

[kiyans-corner]

"the lazarus pit caused his bullshit" "no he was just a completely unhinged psychopath" guys.

GUYS.

every single one of you is ignoring the part where he was kept in a literal cult for anywhere from what, one to three-ish years? do you know how cults work. do you know how they slowly, carefully change your thought patterns to suck you in, even when you know good and damned well it's a cult? do you know what kind of targets they select, the kind of people they prey on? (hint! isolated teens are pretty common prey! especially if they're injured, salty af at the world, and feel like they owe the cult member/s something. like their mind back after being cared for while in that condition, for example)

do you know how much they MINDFUCK YOU ON PURPOSE. hard enough to make dozens to hundreds of people commit mass suicide. hard enough to get VOLUNTARY sex slaves and trafficking victims. hard enough to completely normalize prepubescent kids being married to grown ass adults 30 and up. hard enough that intentionally recruited cult members will recruit people without even realizing that's what's happening. literally after a while all the leader/s have to do is ProfitTM

the league has normalized everything from carefully calculated murder to literal child assassins (to the degree of CASS ffs) to worldwide political meddling (mostly via murder!) to everyone just. being completely chill about this old-ass immortal fuck having/keeping a whole ass grandson for the SOLE PURPOSE of bodyjacking him and then having consistent beef with a literal teenager

do... do any of you know how cult deprogramming works. do you know how long it takes WITH extensive help and support, even with the least fucked up ones that just give you a new spin on a religion and lifestyle so the leader/s can jack your money.

are we really just going to keep ignoring all of this instead of utilizing the more reasonable reasoning (applies with or without long-term pit effects!) to it's full potential

I know they'll never touch it in canon bc DC is lame about actually addressing any sort of interesting new applications of anything for a lot of the more jacked up shit that would provide fun story lines and actual resolution in favor of just never mentioning it again upon pain of death, but not ever having seen this take even once in a discussion or fic makes me sad :(

[orphic-gaze]

the way ppl talk about bart like he's not a person but an event that happens is so funny to me

wally why r u wrought with PTSD over ur 15 yr old cousin . there is a larger crisis going on my guy

wally when bart exists anywhere in any dimension ever during the 90's:

[dcdreamblog]

What Are Some fiction Books About super-Heroes You Think Are Good or ``deep´´? and Whats One That You Thinks is a Pice Of Shit?

I've already done a post about what books I think are most important in my profession. And opening it up to just what superhero related books I think are "good" would just be me sharing my opinions about actual comic books for a while and I don't think that's worthwhile for anyone to listen to, I'm a hopped up historian not Linkara. That being said, I will indeed watch a bad comic burn if it is in the interest of my profession and there is one that a lot of people like that I am always waiting for a chance to pull apart with my teeth.

(The most recent anniversary release of Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns")

This book BLOWS and no I don't care how important it was when it came out or how it "legitimized" the comic book medium, or how much of a golden wunderkind Frank Miller evidently used to be before we all spotted the red flags flying 15 stories high in the wind. It's an insulting piece of work and the fact that DC keeps trying to capture the magic of it when that magic wasn't worth a damn to begin with drives me up a wall.

So before we talk about its bizarre and insulting pseudo-history let's talk about its politics.

This book, originally a work of speculative fiction but now a work of alt history due to the march of time has only grown more rancid with age. In the not too distant future, Gotham has become a ransacked hellhole at the hands of an out of control youth culture, permissive liberal tenderheartedness AND a thinly veiled pastiche of the late Reagan administration (how those three things collectively form a worldview I will never know)

This book hates young people and social empathy so bad I can taste it. The only good person under the age of 50 in this book is a teenage girl who specifically rejects any ideals of progression or kindness in favor of throwing herself at the feet of a violent, hateful old man and admitting he was right all along. The idea of rehabilitating criminals, of giving criminals even an ounce of warmth or human kindness is treated as at BEST a blind naivete and at worst a knowing coddling of "evil" a classifiable social object that some people simply are.

To get into this book's HISTORY, it is one of the core manifestos of the "Batman is Bruce Wayne" crowd with its portrayal of Batman and Bruce Wayne that is insulting to both men on a DEEPLY personal level. Released shortly before the tragic death of Wayne's second adopted son Jason Todd, this book posits the widely discredited theory that Todd was the second Robin and creates a future in which Todd's death sent Bruce/Batman into a hopeless seclusion as Gotham rots around him.

What. A. Load. Todd's death is a tragedy that still haunts the Wayne family to this day (and no, not because it was some dark cursed reflection of the loss of Wayne's parents. Stop that) and while this disappearance of the 2nd Robin is mysterious no evidence has ever been shown linking the two men together.

It's portrayal of Batman and the heroes around him is the most damning possible though. Showing Batman as a grizzled and violent old fascist who can only "set the world right" by proving to the entire world why he was right all along. Superman's optimism and hope for the human condition has been twisted into a sycophantic attachment to the status quo via the government and Green Arrow is shown as a failed liberal who comes around to the conservative point of view after the loss of his arm, taking pointed jabs at one of the most socially conscious superheroes in the public eye.

This book is G-R-O-S-S. It's every supposition is a conspiracy theory, its every conclusion a veiled, pseudo-fascist screed coming from a writer who would reveal himself as an open bigot the second his untouchable status gave him the opening the go off on minorities without being called on it and the fact that Bruce Wayne has not sued this book, its author, and DC comics out of existence is an act of supreme patience and mercy that grants Wayne my deepest respect.

[spacedace]

Here be the first little bit of the new DP x DC AU I warned about earlier where Tim, due to his constant repeated attempts at cloning Bart & Kon, accidentally summons slightly eldritch Elle who is very interested in what he’s up to.

As always feel free to run with this as a prompt if yall find anything here interesting :D

*

Tim didn’t mean to summon her.

He’d been in the lab, staring at the data on the latest failed attempts at cloning Kon and Bart and feeling like he was cracking in two. Eyes burning, chest tight, world spinning out into shifting impossible shadows around him as his mind and body struggled to push him forward into another day without sleep. The hush of water in the tanks, his unsteady steps on the cement floor, the chill seeping into his bones.

He stumbled and swayed through the maze of the lab, numbers dripping like blood down the screen as he tried to stare at the figures. He needed to try again, needed to bring them back, in whatever capacity he could. This time would work. This time he’d get it right.

When he saw her, feet clumsy as he rounded a corner, he thought she was just another hallucination.

How could she be anything else?

Skin like a polished mirror, hair like the white-hot flash of lightning, eyes as green as the depths of the Lazarus Pits. She floated before a tank, spectral and strange with a long wisping tail that drifted off into nothingness in place of legs, body shifting and changing before his eyes in ways that bodies should not be able to. Outside of the eyes the face was…not there. An impression of the shapes that you’d expect to see in a human face, like the Question’s. Sometimes though the features defined, sharpened. Mirror bright skin crackling as faces took shape in the glass.

In the low light of the lab, he almost imaged one of those faces was Kon’s. Dimples and freckles and high cheek bones and the slant of a silhouette that haunted Tim’s dreams at night. A flicker of her lightining hair and it was gone. Smoothed back into soft blankness once more.

He watched from the of the aisle as she lifted too-long mirror shard fingers and rest them gently on the glass as she seemed to peer in at the lifeless body inside.

Attempt 76.

One of his tries with Bart. The organs hadn’t grown right during the age-up process. Tim had cried for that one as he had for all the others. As he had for Bart and Kon when they had died. As he still did as the fact that it was more maddened grief than hope that kept him pushing forward anyway.

He closed his eyes to the hallucination at the end of the aisle. Breathed deep and steady. It might be gone when he opened his eyes again. It might not be. It might be something - someone - else when he dares look next. He’d been through this time and time again over the days and weeks he’d been throwing himself at this agonizing wall. The only difference this time was the intricate strangeness, the total lack of recognition he had for the figure, baring the moment he almost saw Kon in its face.

Coffee. Maybe some harder stimulants, if he had any left. New data to review, new attempts to be made. He didn’t have time for the effects of sleep deprivation.

Tim opened his eyes.

He jerked back as he came face to face with himself, warped and strange and green in the reflective face of the being where it now hovered so close that if it breathed he would feel it upon his face.

She tilted her head at him, curious. Hands rose to cup his face, rest on his shoulders, wrap around his arms, cradle his hands. More hands than he’d seen before. More hands than he was able to truly comprehend, stomach souring as his eyes stung and strained in the attempt to look at the impossible warping of her body. Despite the glint of shattered glass that made up her fractured palms and splintered silver fingers, her hands were soft and warm where they curled around him. Almost human in the way they held him in place, the hold pleasantly firm.

He’d never had a doting elder aunt to pinch his cheeks and demand to get a look at him, but he imagined this might be what that felt like. The way the being shifted her head from side to side, his reflection warping in the curved reflection of the planes of her featureless face, added to the strange idea. His hallucinations didn’t normally touch him, though. And never so…kindly.

Tim felt his blood go cold as he realized it might not be a figment of his fracturing mind floating before him.

Swallowing nervously, he tried to shift backwards, to slip out of the many grasping hands before the softness turned sharp and began to cut into him. He felt something cool against the back of his legs, hair standing on end as static electricity built up on his skin where he brushed the trailing tail he hadn’t noticed her curl around him. The entity leaned in close, the depthless green of her glowing eyes consuming Tim’s entire field of vision, and he was flooded by the sudden, horrible awareness of being Known.

The world fell away from him, his stomach lurching with the sick-sweet feel of free fall that used to exhilarate him when he’d first become Robin and had flown from rooftops dangling by his grapple and his belief in the magic being Robin instilled in him. The lab, the equipment, the piles of data and desperate scribbles, the failed clones, Tim himself. All swept away in the flood of green and the roar of lightning and the cool press of glass.

He came to would could have been minutes or centuries later. Gasping and sick on the cold cement floor, shivering as he dry heaved. His mouth full of salt and copper and the burning crackle of ozone at the back of his throat.

For a moment, disoriented and dizzy, he thought it had all been a hallucination after all. Or some fractious dream visited upon him by his torn and tattered mind after he’d finally collapsed from exhaustion on the lab floor. That the entity truly had been just in his mind, a consequence of his refusal to rest until his work was done.

Then he felt the glass-cool fingers running through his hair, the warm hand rubbing at his back, heard the low murmurs of reassurance in a voice that was almost, almost human.

He spasmed as he tried to jerk away, hissing with the sharp sting of pins and needles dancing over every nerve. His limbs were heavy and clumsy, and he was crashing back to the cold floor under his own weight before he could even try and drag himself away. His breathing came in short, aching gasps as he tried to twist away, only managing to roll to his back to see the entity where it sat calmly looking down at him.

She had a face now. A solid, steady one that fit her in a way that made him think it must be her real one, though what that meant exactly he didn’t know. The glowing eyes had dimmed and shifted, more human looking with black pupils and white sclera. Button nose marked with silver-tarnish freckles that spread over her cheeks too. A mouth, with lips curled into an apologetic smile. Her hair, still shifting as if caught in a wind that wasn’t there, was still the bright white it’d been before, but the lighting of the locks had settled into faint crackles between the curls. Whatever she was, whatever she’d done to him, he could look at her without feeling like his mind might just crack in two.

“Wha-“ His voice cracked, painful and hoarse like he’d been screaming. Maybe he had been. Swallowing around the burn in his throat, he choked out a hissed, “What are you?”

Her head tilted in that curious slant again, more human features giving her a bright, youthful look as she peered down at him questioningly. “You summoned me, Little Gaffer, shouldn’t you know?”

*

Gaffer is a term used for a glass crafter, as well as light technicians for stage/movie productions. I’m using it as the term for the person who creates a Clone, with the clone themselves being a Mirrorborn, and the person they are cloned from being called the clone’s Reflected. Gaffer is probably a bit of a stretch for this, technically I think someone who makes mirrors would be called a Glazier (Glaziers are glassmakers) but I wasn’t vibing that as much. Besides I like the vibe of glass + light = mirror in a way.

Anyway, opening volley of a new AU where Tim ends up becoming like a warlock to Elle to get his loved ones back, while Elle is just having the time of her sorta eldritch little life watching this absolute mess of a human wreck shit and cause so much chaos even without the powers she starts giving him.

(Elle in this is both the God Queen of Clones/Mirrorborn as well as the Ancient of the Speedforce (which I’ve decided is called the Ever Onward in the Infinite Realms, because I literally can’t be stopped from trying to make normal DC things sound mystical because spooky Infinite Realms aesthetics haha)

Have a tiny bit more written for this, but don’t know how much I’ll end up writing for it with all the other projects I have currently lol, so if anyone is interested feel free to run with it as you so desire haha

[rosemaryentombed]

favorite part here is that BOTH don and barry's ghosts were maybe -2.5 seconds from appearing and beating wally's ass for losing their baby..... whiteboy wallace, when i GET YOU

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Okay but now I feel compelled to wonder, in that fun AU of CC and Marilyn being Captain and Mary Marvel, what their lives as heroes would be like

Like, villains are the same for the most part with probable lack of antagonism with Sivana, he’s the dude who hired them for the dog in the first place with the public intent of a historical attraction at a park and on the side of the bus he’s campaigning for mayor. Other than that, villains seem to be the same from the brief moments we see.

They stay out of the limelight, they prioritize keeping their identities hidden for the sake of Billy and Mary’s saftey and childhoods, and they take their duties seriously.

But what’s tingling at the brain right now is how they’d interact with the rest of the world of DC, heroes and teams and whatnot, outside of Fawcett and the menagerie of characters there. We know CC accidentally stumbled onto some daring scene with Spy Smasher and the bunch (no joke, time was funky in Fawcett and CC was alive at that time) but I’d love to see him with other heroes

Like, say he fills the normal roles in comics Billy would’ve, joins JLI and, like his son, tries calling the other heroes out for acting like bigger juveniles than his actual kids and ditches bc apparently the people who save the world on the regular cant not try and fist fight the other every few hours. He’s on and off some team, focusing on his city and his family more and more, pops in for bigger fights when they occur but is mostly hometown based and handles his own issues.

Of newer stuff, I turn to YJ’s tv show for another idea. Aka, CC also being a chaperone for the Team at the same time Billy comes in but with a twist, turns out his kids have a percolation for magic and have been getting the hang of some spells so they’re joining the Team too while CC is on chaperone duty. So leads Billy and Mary’s attempt at a slow entrance into heroism that immediately backfires when they get captured, cue heartwarming scene of dad hugging his kids after a dangerous situation that follows him tearing the base apart looking for them. True dad fashion and all that. What becomes complicated is the World Without Grown Ups plot, in which I say have Billy and his had pre-the plot agree that Billy can have Shazam powers for super big emergencies and Billy definitely counts all adults disappearing as an emergency. Cue once more the fun father son bonding of Billy looking just like his old man with Shazam powers.

Onto Marilyn, who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have more beyond “clever” and “good mom” from comics, but she’s got her hutzpah and would probably be as active a hero as CC while still prioritizing her life and family over heroism. The whole Shazam thing is definitely more a job than it is what kind of person she is, she’s an archeologist and likes that profession more than she likes worrying about everyone else. She’s definitely more no nonsense and, if there’s a difference, she’d probably prefer the more grounded crime fighting than the mystical shenanigans CC would do in her stead. Billy and Mary end up closer to her in quality time since that focus of crime fighting keeps her grounded.

Also, the general vibes of the Captain Marvel tropes. Such as the identity shenanigans.

It is a fun thing of fanfic that, since his civilian identity is very vulnerable and people like their identity plots, Billy has his questioned or revealed a lot. Add in CC as Marvel instead and it flips a bit to be a man who is well known in his home city whose entire family, non-powered children included, could easily become targets if anyone knew who he was. And he’s deliberately secretive about it for that purpose, he’s protecting his children with his wife. So, perspective, there’s a new hero who comes in with a hero partner who is also their life partner. They have the power of actual gods and titans, they don’t explain anything past some nebulous Wizard they can’t name as to how they got their powers, they are very hush-hush on their normal lives but everyone knows they have to have one. It’s hard to contact them, you don’t know they’re working or traveling or with their kids because you don’t know they do work or that they have kids, so you worry what they’re up to for what seems to be every hour they aren’t begrudgingly saving the world with the rest of the heroes. You catch them talking to the other but the minute they hear you they clam up and change everything about how they were just a second ago, you could swear they were talking about digs or gods or bringing someone home but you don’t know anything because you don’t know them.

Cue the mistrust, the reveals, how it all goes wrong and someone gets hurt, be it the other when they don’t have their powers or their kids and suddenly you’ve pissed off the man who loves his family so much he was tearing the multiverse open to try and keep the timeline going where they were all alive and happy together and the woman who loves those kids just as much. Or, say that reveal had villains get both of the Batsons, and now those heroes have to look those orphans in the eye and beg forgiveness, and when fate still demands its heroes out comes two new ones that make it seem like the whole Batson sham was fake and no way Marilyn and CC were the Marvels, the marvels are still flying around after they’ve gone and gotten dead and buried. Cue those heroes looking at the new Captain and Mary Marvel, knowing it’s the kids they accidentally made orphans wearing the faces of the friends they betrayed.

[luminyra]

After seeing some recent Marvel movies my Tiktok fyp has been filled with a lot of content, but the one that makes me the nost nostalgic is people giving their views TO THIS DAY about Civil War

It was my first MCU movie that made me get into Marvel (and DC to that extent) as well as the first one i saw in cinemas, and i remember since i wasn't a grown up, for kids at that time the topic was about who has the most powers, and watching videos comparing the teams based on strength and whatnot, and even then with that whimsical mindset, i remember that still, the thought of "Avengers control by government is nono" came to me, even if i didn't truly interiorized it given that i just saw superheroes for what they were and i was just too hyped for Black Panther to come out, but as a now grown up, i still stand with Team Cap.

When i watched the movie back as a now grown up with a sense of what the world was, i was so thankful that i had always stood for Steve's side: i always thought that the treatment that they gave Wanda after Lagos was so dehumanizing despite that she was affected like a HUMAN would (like fym "they don't grant visas to weapon of mass destruction"?? and thankfulky you have Steve with "she's a kid!"), how Steve saw through what signing off their right to choose could mean given the goverments of the time, and that Tony to me felt that he signed just because he felt bad but not fully realizing what he signed up for.

One interesting thing i find that not many people talk about is how Rhodey and Sam see the accords, both having a background in the military: while Rhodey trust goverments fully without even thinking of what power they are putting in their hands, Sam is so reluctant because of what he's lived first hand, im not Sam as a character expert but i think just the fact that he used to help war veterans, where most of them probably lost their comrades to stupid goverment orders as well as fighting wars that were unnecessary, and given that him and Steve come fresh out of the events of Winter Soldier, bro KNOWS no goverment can be fully trusted with that amount of power.

When the whole Bucky thing happens Steve is the first to be adamant to hear out Bucky, yes mostly as his old best friend but also knowing that he wouldn't act out like that, especially when Buck tells him about the other supersoldiers.

I felt sm satisfaction when Tony saw what the Accords ACTUALLY were gonna do to heroes when he visited the Raft, i saw someone point out how if you read what the Accords actually said about treatment to enhanced people, it shows that for people like Steve, Wanda, etc would have a much harder time while Tony with being IronMan he would be left almost untouched in terms of control in a way.

Now the final fight with Tony seeing red because of the reveal, is a reasonable crashout but i really don't know how Steve could've brought that out before all of this without Tony getting as impulsive as he got in the moment, i think Steve knew too little about what Bucky was put through to even think about breaking it down for Tony to understand, so ultimately its a point where i understand Tony but also think that Buck was brainwashed so bro did say he remembers all of them but not even saying it in a way that is of pride, simply knowing that he did all of it with no control over himself.

Overall i love to see other people's perspective of the themes of the movie but in my personal opinion, Team Cap was right but i can see a few points of Team Tony🫡