#Batman fanclub

[batsies-little-monster]

Bat Fans Discord Server Is Up!!!

Join us for Monthly Movie Nights, Batman Trivia Night, fanfic & fan art Sharing, gaming in the (SFW) Iceberg Lounge, NSFW bat-chats, and anything else your little bat-heart may desire!!

[plutoslvr]

"tim looks up to bruce" "tim looks up to jason" TIM LOOKS UP TO TONY HAWK

[lost-in-sokovia]

this man ate my child is the father of my child

[btasfan]

obsessed with the sheer number of cameras in this room

[dctrlover1969]

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

You know the funny thing about the Batfamily fandom is that we love every Robin. No think about it every Robin has its own little like group of supporters.

Yah sometimes we all hate on certain ones or we have a favorite but every single one has a fanclub.

Which isn't what was supposed to happen Robin was supposed to draw in younger readers yes but he was never meant to become this big thing.

Batman was supposed to be the main guy yet for many of us we picture Nightwing or even Red Robin before we think of Bruce.

I was wearing a shirt the other day with Jason's Red Bat and someone walked up and said how much they loved him and Red Hood has always been there favorite. I had a ten minute discussion about how they shouldn't have killed him.

This stupid character that was never meant to be more than an add on, is so important.

We took that and ran with it and I know everyone is always arguing and hating on each other.

But isn't that kinda beautiful DC sucks but we added, built on to the point where people don't even have to read the comics to understand the characters or how we added so much that people assume things happen that didn't.

Dick calls everyone a nickname or he hugs all of them. Which might annoy some people but we made that yah not everyone agrees but those characters are ours.

DC wrote them but we made them into people so the next time everyone hating on others for who they like or oh that didn't happen.

Just remember all of us made that, wrote stories, drew fanart poured blood sweat and tears into what we love.

Fandom might be annoying or bullshit but it matters don't be an asshole.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

So, do the toys have a favorite movie or a favorite movie genre? I would love to know their taste in films, like angel showing them superhero films, like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, Batman the Dark Knight, Superman the movie, etc, or animations, like WALL•E, Shrek, The Lion King , Aladdin, etc, or original films such as Aceventura, Jurassic park, Star Wars, etc.

OH THIS ASK GOT ME THINKINGGGG! I like to think all toys just love animated media in general, but they have their own favorites:

Poppy loves regency-period dramas. Pride and Prejudice is her favorite movie of all time! Although I think she also loves sci-fi. I don't know why, I just think it fits her.

Kissy, Bobby, Picky and Mommy Long legs all love romcoms. They can't get enough of them, and probably have their own little romcom club where they discuss their favorites!

Mommy Long Legs also loves action movies, but has a preference when they are a bit more emotional.

Crafty will always be a fan of animated movies, and when she gets into anime her love for the media increases. I think she loves Fantasia (2000) and Kiki's Delivery Service! Catnap accidentally gets her into horror, though. Speaking of which...

Catnap. LOVES. Horror. Esp religious and haunted house-esque type of horror, and the more symbolism the better.

No one expects Dogday to join Catnap in the horror club, and much less for Dogday to LOVE fantasy movies in general. He gets so invested in the lore and character relationships, he could gush about them for hours!

Kickin and Hoppy are the presidents of the superhero movie fanclub, PERIOD, but they LOVE action movies as well.

Bubba and Miss Delight are a part of the sci-fi club with Poppy. They gush over Star Wars at least three times a day. Bubba also has STRONG opinions on book adaptations and loves comparing books to movies as a way of loving the story. He and Delight also get super invested in documentaries in general.

Huggy, Bunzo and Boxy Boo all love Disney movies. Huggy's favorite is Tarzan, Bunzo is Hercules, and Boxy is Cinderella.

Prototype is a Charles Chaplin fan. Angel also likes black and white movies, but has no actor preference.

[austinmaris18]

Personal Thoughts on Yona (No Bashing)

I'm gonna be honest, I hate shipping discourse because at the end of the day, characters aren't real and muting tags, posts, accounts are a thing. I also don't want to clog the Sidlink tag with discourse bc it's bad enough on twitter. However, if there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that when something's bothering me, I need to talk about it, if only to process it. So, apologies but here I go. I will say that I feel like this is a nuanced take, so I guess if you're interested in that feel free to read. Disclaimer before I go in: there will be absolutely no Yona bashing. This post isn't to bash or attack Yona, anyone who enjoys Yona individually or paired with Sidon. I don't necessarily dislike her as a character, I'm more annoyed at the writing surrounding her introduction.

I've been thinking a lot, and I think the reason that Yona's introduction bothers me so much is because it mirrors (more than likely unintentionally) a pretty annoying heteronormative trope. In Jeffrey Brown's book Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes (an amazing analytical book in general, would highly recommend) they note that following the publication of Seduction of the Innocent in 1954 - which claimed amongst other things that Batman and Robin were a couple - there was a sort of moral panic about comic books. This was also during the era of McCarthyism, and so to avoid Senate action, the comic industry created the Comics Code Authority, which partly ensured that "illicit relationships" weren't hinted at, and in 1956 Kate Kane as Batwoman was introduced to be a love interest for Batman to reinforce his heterosexuality.

Now, am I comparing Sidlink to the supposed queer subtext of Batman and Robin in 40s and 50s comics? No. Am I saying that Nintendo purposefully introduced Yona for the same purpose as DC did Batwoman? Not necessarily. I just think it's almost comical how similar the situation feels, and the writing doesn't help either. Now, Yona is apparently Sidon's "dear childhood friend" and is also from a different kingdom. That in and of itself feels so awkward because again, we've had Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity AND their respective DLCs, and not once have gotten mention of Yona or her kingdom. Not in a throwaway line from an NPC, not in the murals of Zora's Domain, not in Mipha's diary. (Also, I know that technically, Age of Calamity isn't canon. But it still had input from the Zelda team, and it provides a supposedly canon view of the settlements in Hyrule before the Calamity.) Especially considering the fact that we get confirmation from Sidon's mural and King Dorephan's dialogue that the engagement to Yona is political/arranged, this engagement was not really foreshadowed in any meaningful way other than this sort of heteronormative notion of "He's a prince so he'll have to get married at some point." Like, Sidon had a whole fanclub in BotW, and not one of them knew?? Did the engagement happen in the six/seven years between BotW and ToTK? Again, for a race of long lived beings like the Zora, that feels a bit hard to believe.

This in particular is what makes her introduction so jarring. We've seen all the countless Twitch and YouTube streamers reacting, the TikToks, the tweets and Tumblr posts of people shocked and disappointed. Here's where I point back to the fact that Aonuma and Fujibayashi even addressed the fact that Sidon was so popular during the BotW DLC Dev Talk. That's not to say they were aware of the ship or even cared enough to have taken the action of mitigating any potential queer readings. Other than reactions to the gameplay and the overall story, I don't think Nintendo particularly cares what we do, think, or ship. But they did know that Sidon in particular was a standout popular character, and so it seems so strange to not pair him off in a more well written way.

That's before even mentioning the whole Zora mural where Sidon parallels his relationship with Yona to that of Mipha, literally calling her a sister. There's also no getting around the fact that he uses that phrasing as in Spanish, French, and the original Japanese (those are the languages I read, so that's what I'm referencing) so it's not an English localization quirk. And I know there's the line about his feelings become more "difficult to quantify" but again, why? Why not just say he admired her instead of comparing her to Mipha in that way if they want to show us there was something there even in their childhood? I know it's meant to be sweet and to depict a sort of growth of feelings between them, but it reads strangely.

So we have these aspects and then we compare this to Sidon's interactions with Link this game. (Also before that, I want to acknowledge something: the vast majority of us who ship Sidlink or just enjoyed Sidon's character were never under the illusion that Nintendo would go towards any canonical romance between Sidon and Link.) We arrive to Zora's Domain to find a statue of us riding Sidon from the Vah Ruta battle. There is a whole Hylian bedroom constructed near the area where Sidon and Link fought Vah Ruta (more built out than the bed area Mipha used). The whole "Link Shrine" Sidon has singing his praises. Sidon literally getting down on one knee, taking OUR HAND in both his hands before presenting us the ring (I know that the other champions say the same oath and give us rings, it's the imagery of a proposal that I'm referring to). Link standing equally distant to Sidon as Yona during Sidon's crowning. Yona telling us that when Sidon speaks it's more than likely to talk about Link. Already Yona's introduction so funnily parallels heteronormative tropes, but to actually have so much imagery and subtext for Sidon and Link makes it feel even more crazy? I think this is where people get so hung up on the idea that "Yona was just introduced to get in the way of Sidlink." Honestly, I think the interactions with Link are more probably concessions for fans (not necessarily shippers) because again, the devs know how popular Sidon is. But it compounds with the manner in which Yona is written into the game.

All that being said, I don't necessarily have a neat conclusion to draw from these thoughts, but going back to the Batwoman parallels, I do think it's a shame Yona won't have to chance to canonically develop further the way Batwoman did. After all, despite her original introduction, most people nowadays think Batwoman and think of Kate Kane, the redhead badass lesbian superhero. But that happened over the course of decades in a medium that iterates narratively on the same characters over and over. Even if we get a story DLC for ToTK that has more Yona content, I don't know that it would be enough to smooth over how awkward her introduction was, and it's hard to believe Nintendo would make another direct sequel or carry over Sidon and Yona to the next version of Zelda. But we can already see Yona's iterative growth through fandom!

Now listen. I know myself, and the truth is I'm never going to actively ship Sidon and Yona. But I'm sure there are amazing artists and writers out there who will flesh Yona and her relationship and history with Sidon out (whether that includes Link in a polycule or not). I'm glad that the game has made the interpretation of a lavender marriage between Sidon and Yona who have their respective paramours possible (with the politically arranged aspect of the marriage, Sidon's boisterous actions concerning Link, Yona's acknowledgement of Link's importance to Sidon). I'm looking forward to fics, standalone art and comics that take that route. I'm sure that there will continue to be art and fanfiction that don't acknowledge ToTK or Yona, and I will surely be consuming those as well. I really hope the homophobia and general discourse towards Sidlink subsides, because it's been surprisingly overwhelming on Twitter. I also hope that there aren't people actively attacking posts about Yona. After all, muting and blocking words, tags, and accounts are options across all social media platforms.

This post will definitely be a one off for me, and I don't ever see myself making another post like this again. I honestly might also delete this post in the future now that I've properly written out my thoughts. Anyways, time to get back to drawing practice and working on my fics.

[formidophobia]

Hey! Batman Rogues Fans! Discord Server alert!!

Back when I went by CraneIsntHere on the internet, I opened up a discord server called the Unofficial Jonathan Crane Fanclub. It was extremely fun, but I abandoned it a while back due to some things that happened in there and in my life.

But this fandom means a lot to me, a whole lot, and I've met a lot of lovely people through it. So I've revived my server and revamped it, into

Dr. Crane's Lab, a Discord server for fans of Batman's Rogues Gallery!

You can find the invite link below

https://discord.gg/eKMpTQAdbB

Open to anyone 13+ who is a fan of the rogues or DC comics, but centered around Jonathan Crane.

Feel free to rb to get the word out.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Edward Nygma in most media: Yeah, Batman, I'm bissexual. I never hided it. I actually get a lot of gay jokes, some are funny, some are just offensive, but that's expected in a wolrd full of idiots. *rolls his eyes* *dramatically signs* I'm just not pinning over you in a despareted manner like a dog in heat as Joker does and you are very dense. Also when would that even come up? Hey, stop cheating on my games and beating the hell out of me so I can come out?

Edward Nygma in Batman Forever: Yeah, I like guys *kisses Two-Face* how did you figure that out? *is genuinally surprised, even though he is in Two-Face's lap using a T-shirt for the Bruce Wayne Wifes fanclube*

Edward Nygma in Gotham: What. Are. You. Saying? Me?? One of those *homophobic slur*? ABSOLUTLY NOT. Are you absolutly insane, Batman? *five minutes latter* NO, YOU ARE GAY!!! *three minutes later* I mean, yes I can recognize the attractivines of a man, Oswald, for instance, is very pretty and I did think about kissing him and holding hands with him and having wild sex with him but that is a very normal straight thing to do. *two minutes later* I'M NOT INTO MEN. I'M NOT GAY OR BISSEXUAL OR WHATEVER NEW NAME THIS STUPID KIDS CAME UP WITH. *four minutes later* The only mob I'm a part of is Oswald's. I'm not in the alphabet mafia. *15 seconds later* Yes I live with Oswald and we raised a kid together and a dog and I never felt happier than when I'm with him and I feel bad when his attention is somewhere else and we sleep in the same room and sometimes have sex but that is normal friends behavior. *45 seconds later* I CHOOSE not to be gay. Homossexuality is unatural and I refuse to love another men. Except platonically, I do love my almost son and Foxy and Oswald... as my best friend of course, I love Oswald as a best friend. *30 seconds later* I know Oswald is gay. But that is just Oswald being Oswald he doesn't do things the right way. I do. I'm preen and proper Ed and preen and proper Ed isn't gay. *two minutes later* How dare you have even asked?

Batman: NYGMA, SHUT UP, JUST PLEASE SHUT UP.

Riddler: Me liking men. What is your next wild suggestion, Bat, that Killer Croc is a vegan? Hmphf

Robin: Holy hate speech! You need to talk with a psychiatrist about your internalized homophobia.

Riddler: I'm not homophobic. I just don't agree with them.

Robin: On what?

Riddler: On everything.

Batman: You just disagress with LGBTQ+ people on everything?

Riddler: YES! 😤

Batman: So if I queer person says the Earth isn't flat you disagree with them on that?

Riddler: ...

Riddler: That's not fair!!! 😡

Batman: Just talk to your therapist.

[plutoslvr]

"tim doesn't see dick as his brother-" [GUNSHOT]. you CLEARLY don't get them like I do

[lost-in-sokovia]

OMG I would both kill and die for August!!!! Could you maybe do a fic of Batman and Gordon finding out that not only does the riddler have a girlfriend but also a son? Thank you and I adore your work <3

so just for a little context i think this takes place right before for gotham, for august and this kinda would fit in the movie right before bruce goes to see eddie in arkham when everyone is in eddie’s apartment

let them be

tw: mentions of rape and kidnapping

bruce stalked around the cluttered and dimly-lit apartment quietly, ignoring pushback from officer martinez. investigators, police officers, and other workers in the forensics unit were flashing cameras, taking dna samples, and collecting any evidence possible as they carefully ransacked the riddler’s apartment.

it was a pigsty. a dark, dirty, creepy pigsty that somewhere could contain the clues bruce and gordon were looking for. moments before they had finally caught the riddler, sure, but their work was nowhere near finished. who knew what this sick man still had planned? who was he? what was his real identity? who was involved with his work? too many unanswered questions to be solved before the case could close.

bruce’s eyes scanned slowly over a stack of magazines, and he cocked his head to the side ever so slightly. “renewal” was scribbled out on the spine of one of the magazines. renewal. something all the previous politicians in gotham had promised, what newly-elected bella real vowed to truly bring.

gordon busied himself with little diaries that eddie had. an officer explained that they had found thousands of these ledgers inscribed with ciphers and codes that made no sense to anybody. eddie had random rambles in there as well, his words meaning nothing to anybody else. it wasn’t the first time edward had used ciphers, this wasn’t anything new to gordon. as gordon and the officer stood there, a woman walked up and announced they had gathered information from one of edward’s ids that he carried. bruce turned around to hear.

“edward nashton,” the woman read off quickly. “works at KTMJ, he’s a forensic accountant.”

“accountant?” gordon asked, eyes narrowing in confusion.

“hey lieutenant!” a different officer called. “are you really okay with this? what about the chain of evidence?” the officer asked, gesturing to bruce carefully paging through one of the magazines he had previously been eyeing. bruce looked up slowly to meet gordon’s gaze.

“you should see this,” bruce said lowly. just as gordon stepped forward, the woman called for him to pause.

“that’s not all, there’s more,” she said slowly. “looking into any birth records with the last name ‘nashton’ in gotham, turns out edward has a son. his name is august edward nashton, he just turned five in october,” the woman read out. bruce blinked and an eyebrow raised beneath his mask as gordon shook his head and opened in mouth in awe.

“god almighty,” gordon breathed. “this sick man has a son?” he glanced to bruce who looked at him with the same stoic expression. “do we have any information on the mother?”

the woman was able to read out a few basics from your information; your name, place of birth, et-cetera. gordon sighed and bruce breathed slowly, thinking for a moment.

“she’s not from here originally. i think she lives here with him, though. or at least in this same complex,” the woman continued. “i found a few things in the apartment that were probably hers, as well as a few children’s clothes and some stuffed animals as well.”

everyone in the small circle stood silently as more cameras flashed around the room. nobody knew what to say to this. how could a man so vile and evil be capable to love someone and have a child with them? how could anyone love him back?

“we can talk to the landlord, he’ll know about this woman,” bruce stated in his gravelly voice. the woman nodded attentively. inside, bruce was wondering if you had any motives or even knew about what edward was carrying out. how could you not? then again, what if you were just some hostage that he had treated terribly and got you pregnant through rape? though, he probably wouldn’t have taken you to a hospital if he didn’t care, so you had to be in a relationship with him, then.

bruce gave gordon a look, to which gordon asked if everyone could leave them for a moment. the group dispersed to investigate other elements as the two men huddled together.

“a girlfriend and a son,” gordon scoffed bitterly. “my god, who could’ve thought…”

bruce stood quietly, still mulling things over in his head. gordon looked up and glanced at bruce, studying his face.

“what do we do about this?” gordon asked slowly. bruce shook his head subtly.

“nothing. who says they’re aiding him or involved?” bruce asked. august made him think of selina. august didn’t ask to be edward’s son, those were just the cards he was dealt in life. gordon’s expression hardened and he looked to bruce as if he was an idiot.

“‘nothing?’ they are the family of a murderer!” he reasoned, his voice only raising slightly.

“but that doesn’t mean they have done anything. if he really loved his kid, he wouldn’t tell him anything to prevent him from being a target. as far as the woman goes, most likely the same thing. plus, if she was helping him in any way with these killings, she’d probably want credit as well as him,” bruce explained. gordon contemplated that and lowered his head. bruce hesitated for a moment. “nobody’s saying if you find her you can’t interrogate her, but i don’t think she should be arrested.”

gordon opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by someone calling for him.

“lieutenant, we found these in a locked drawer,” an officer explained as he dropped images onto the table in front of bruce and gordon. gordon dismissed the officer before the two men scanned the images, carefully spreading them out to look at more than one. some of the images were better than others, some being images that were intently printed out and others being images like those of annika’s, slightly blurry and taken by someone else or from cameras around the city.

there were pictures of you and a slightly younger eddie smiling. there was one or two copies of what seemed to be ultrasounds, bruce understanding that they were august’s. there were pictures of you smiling as your hair blew in the wind. there were baby pictures of august, his big green doe eyes staring directly at the camera. there were pictures of you, edward, and baby august all snuggled together tiredly.

as far as the other images, there was a more recent one of you carrying august through gotham as he leaned his head on your shoulder. there was even an image of eddie holding august’s hand as they walked into a grocery store.

bruce did not want to be run off track just because of this new discovery. he didn’t deem it worthy of the gcpd’s time, seeing as though it was unlikely you were aiding edward’s crimes.

“cute kid,” gordon admitted, his voice snapping bruce back to reality. “definitely looks like the guy, there’s no denying that.”

without waiting another second bruce piled up all the images once more, beckoning over the officer who had delivered them.

“put these back where you found them,” bruce instructed. the officer nodded without hesitation and was quickly off to follow orders. when bruce turned back around gordon’s jaw was dropped.

“just like that? you’re going to put those images back where they were?” he asked slightly bitterly.

“if the riddler wanted us to see them, he would’ve laid it out more obviously for us, or somehow hinted they needed to be seen. he’s been laying out everything for us,” bruce argued back flatly. he pointed to where the officer was walking. “those images were in a locked drawer. they weren’t meant to be seen, nor did they need to be. until there’s some sort of evidence to suggest this woman is contributing to his crimes, i don’t think it’s necessary we pursue this path.”

gordon bit the inside of his lip, staring at the officer placing the images back in the wooden drawer. bruce could tell he wanted to argue but didn’t have a better reason that bruce’s.

“you can find out about this woman for yourself and that’s it. we can’t take her away, this boy needs a mother since his father is locked away in arkham.”

bruce thought of the orphanage. he thought of the riddler growing up in the orphanage. this child needed to be part of the renewal that gotham needed, and bruce was not about to put august on the same path as his father.

bruce reached a hand up and firmly grasped gordon’s shoulder.

“leave them be,” he whispered threateningly.

bruce wayne has a heart bruce wayne has a heart bruce wayne-

[skxtchyghost]

I heard you were friends with TheManliestMan aka BATMAN HIMSELF. So hello, I would like to say that your art is absolutely scrumptious and that we have a Fanclub of you 🫡

a fuckin fanclub i'm crying man you're the sweetest-

[dairy-farmer]

People think batman or superman is the most popular hero. Hell, maybe even wonder woman. They do a poll and... red robin is the most popular hero? But... but how?!?!? (He's always doing hero work, likes to comfort victims, relatable, fun, funny etc)

there's this fic that i almost constantly reread by dexdefyingstunts called 'fandom's favorite twink'!!!!! and the concept is that tim is almost universally used as the twink!! the default bottom in the capes community because they're all just so...hunky and muscley.

so maybe there's also a mix of that intertwined and the superheroes who were at first grumbling at the poll (because they were all expecting superman or wonderwoman to win but turns out its not even a JL member who won) all fall silent when they look back on footage and photos of them interacting with red robin and realizing how many of them just...pick him up and move him how they want to. and they hadn't realized just how....compact red robin was.

red robin is also very androgynous with frequent arguments in online chatrooms occurring about whether he's a boy or a girl because they're so well built but their hips are just a little too wide for a boy and they either have nice pecs for a boy or small tits for a girl.

red robin is one of the few heroes who opted out of having the distribution companies owned by wayne and queen industries design and make merch. merchandising like tshirts, backpacks, shoes, jackets, and jewlery is one of the ways to fund heroes, pay for their equipment, keep bases up and running, provide funds for relief efforts and repair damages done to cities. for other heroes it's also a way to make sure they have a steady income because the hero business leads to a lot of injuries and time off which means many aren't able to hold a steady job.

the assumption that superman, wonderwoman, or even batman and flash would win the title of favorite hero was because the number of sales on their merchandise reflected them as the top selling hero and well....you wouldn't buy a shirt of someone you hate would you?

red robin doesn't have merchandise but with a little digging into the accounting department, they're able to find small online sellers like artists, printers, and craftspeople who all handmake hero merchandise of smaller, local, and unknown heroes. red robin is the top seller across all the boards.

more than that there are an overflowing amount of fanclubs, social media, websites, and chatrooms dedicated to red robin. they're able to find out pretty quickly why.

red robin is one of the few heroes the public is sure is human. just a normal average human. and that means something to people. because superman and wonderwoman are borderline gods who are at levels no normal person could ever hope to achieve. same with all meta heroes. they're human sure, but they're all still at an...unreachable level for most people.

but even among human heroes, red robin stands out. batman is long suspected to be a meta but even if he wasn't he's just too...offputting, too creepy. a lot of people have made the assumption that he's mean in real life and sure bruce set out to be scary but he never intended to project...cruelty. red hood has the same problem. the lethality puts off as much people as it gets people who support him. nightwing hangs around more aliens and metas than actual humans which gives him a certain kind of...framing. it makes it seem like his feet don't even touch the ground. the new robin isn't as gentle and reassuring as the others. black bat has the same problem as batman. batgirl is more interested in getting into fights and solving cases than helping out the victims or people who are still shaking after a near mugging.

all the human heroes fall short.

they're not as good at their job as red robin.

they're not as nice or kind.

they're not as funny.

they're not...people. people in the sense that when they put on a mask, they don't rise to another level above everyone else. red robin stays at the exact same level. he talks like a person, walks like one, interacts with them like one.

everything about red robin highlights how he's as average and normal as everyone else. only that when he saw something wrong in the world- he went out to try and fix it. and even after all the years as a cape, all the hardships and pain he endured and went through, he still never lost his gentle touch or kindness.

he still thought people were worth saving and fighting for. even though his days must be filled with fighting against the worst humanity had to offer.

red robin looked at gotham, it's people, and the world and said that they were worth the pain and struggle of protecting.

no augmentations, no magical powers, no alien birth rights, no space ring- just human.

red robin wasn't popular because he had the flashiest costume, coolest powers, or longest time on the roster.

he was the favorite by a landslide because people looked at him and saw the personification of perseverance and the human spirit.

the other heroes see this and know they don't stand a chance against him. not even a little

[zorilleerrant]

Tim would do anything for Bernard, he really would, which is why he's stalking around the docks in the middle of the night, when he would usually be on patrol - when he said he'd be on patrol - not even wearing his Robin gear, which makes him feel, if not naked, then at least like this is a bad idea. He's armed, because he's not quite that willing to go along with everything Bern has planned, but a pocketful of knockoff batarangs, a taser, and an extendable baton is still a lot less than he keeps in his utility belt. And he's not armored at all.

He's pretty sure Bern is armed, although clearly not armored, it's just that he didn't want to ask, because there's no way his boyfriend is going to be dissuaded by any kind of logic or emotional appeal, and while sex works some of the time, having him scramble out of bed in the middle of it because he just realized somewhere new to look for clues is... well, look, Tim's out at the docks in the middle of the night trying to avoid that happening again, isn't he. Tim doesn't want to worry more than he has to, therefore Bernard's most likely armed.

Oracle isn't in his ear, and things have been fairly quiet on the city-threatening and world-ending fronts, but it's still something he's going to catch disappointed looks for, because he did promise he'd do something. And this is something, but Tim can tell himself all he wants that maybe he'll stumble across a vital piece of evidence wandering around the city like this, he's still going to know how much more efficient it would be patrolling on his own, like he should be. And less nerve-wracking, too, not just because he's worried for Bernard's safety.

But Bernard doesn't want to look for missing homeless kids - that might not actually be true, Tim didn't ask - he wants to look for Batman's secret Robin training facility, which he has a 'solid lead' on, and he may not have a solid lead, but he has puppy eyes with the best of them, and he smiles like a madman whenever Tim grabs a coat and follows him out the door. Tim doesn't know why that's his favorite of Bern's smiles when there's the soft one he gets at a cheesy compliment, and the pleased one he gets when one of his pastries turns out just right, and the just shy of laughing one he gets when a song hits a mondegreen but he's in the middle of humming it. But Tim says yes, and then has to spend all night watching the shadows for things trying to get them both.

What Tim knows is this: there's been a rash of missing kids. Nothing reported, nothing the news would know to pick up on, and the few reporters who keep an eye on this kind of thing don't sound totally credible at the moment. But there are places people hang out - and places Jason always snaps aren't really best described by hanging out - and they aren't there, even at the times of day where they're most often there. Homeless kids, some, and other vulnerable kids, kids with less than stellar families, kids with risk factors, kids with problems they have trouble getting out of. No reports, sure, but rumors fly, and people ask Batman directly, it's gotten that out of hand. No bodies yet. No word, either.

What Bernard knows is this: someone saw a bunch of Robins where Robins don't usually deign to be, at hours they aren't usually there, training together in unison, uniforms all pristine like they just came off the assembly line. Tim doesn't have the heart to say it's probably just leftover meetups of We Are Robin, or even a fanclub that's not quite official enough not to worry about giving the wrong impression. There's no way to explain to Bern that there aren't really that many Robins, and anyway none of their uniforms look the same. By the time they're out in the field, they're already responsible for making their own. Even Dick did, back in the day.

Tim doesn't actually think this new group of vigilantes (or established group that Bernard just doesn't know about, maybe) is gathering to solve the pressing mystery of where everyone's friends went. That's too big of a coincidence even for Gotham. And he doesn't think it's probably them kidnapping kids and selling their organs or whatever, because the whole city knows how fast you get shut down wearing the Bats' symbols while doing anything they don't like. People who aren't so close to the fire might think Red Hood has some kind of leverage (and they aren't wrong), but they also know how tight a hold he keeps on his goons, and they know he doesn't fuck with people who break his rules. Jason's been losing his mind over this, anyway, and so it doesn't even matter whether they know how protective he is of the kids, they're going to know if they so much as try it.

So Tim can be sure anyone wearing his colors is at worst a mild nuisance, possibly a mild help. Bernard can't, though. He's too optimistic at what might not even be a real sighting - there are people there who lie for clout - and too paranoid to believe anything the news has to say about it, which is probably the only outlook he has right in the whole pipeline. (Tim also, possibly, knows that, possibly, there are some people who go on those sites and lie on purpose, not for clout, but to cloud the issue. Possibly.) He's just, and, okay, obviously this is a problem, so cute doing it that Tim finds himself accidentally believing it could be true. And for all he knows it could be Damian doing something stupid again, so doesn't he have a responsibility to follow Bern down the docks, hand in hand, warm callouses against his own?

Tim does still have his phone, and can tap out codes to the rest of the family when he sees what he inevitably sees down by the docks, and keep his phone on mute so that they can't lecture him about anything until later. So he doesn't even feel that guilty letting himself be led along and not worrying about everything else, none of which looks like any kind of human trafficking, or anything that could be corpses, either. (Well, one obvious mob thing, but it's a mob thing, and that's the harbor's problem now.) He's stopped telling himself he'll stumble across the answer, but he hasn't started telling himself he'll stumble across a bigger problem, so it works out.

Bernard turns around with a proud grin, the same proud grin he gets when a souffle turns out, prouder maybe, and Tim's stomach falls. That means he's been here before. That means he started investigating without Tim, and he found something, found enough to want to do a big reveal, putting his finger dramatically to his lips and helping Tim up the stack of crates. Tim's too numb to do anything but let himself be lifted, either, peeking his head in the window as Bern gives him a look that says, see?

See? Batman really does have a Robin factory.

The window is grimy, but not so grimy Tim can't see through it. And he does see what Bernard means. He can tell - but from experience, not from the details which are all that Bern can see from here - the armor isn't as uniform as all that, mismatched from make do parts, but as careful as it can be. And it's clear to him in a way it might not be to someone without Batman's training that they aren't moving quite in sync the way the purported clone army would, the way Tim and the rest of the family do when they take the time to train together for just such an event. But it's also clear it is Batman's training.

Bruce is at home right now, resting a broken leg. As much as they can get him to, but it was two days ago, and he's still high as a kite, and Alfred probably just told him he already patrolled. It's not Bruce. But someone is in there, with the cape, with the stance, with the way he walks up and down the lines inspecting everyone's form. Someone with the right proportions - the right height, the right build, the right chin jutting out from undeniably the right cowl. It's not just someone playing dressup. Or if it is, they're good.

Tim doesn't know whether this is a timeline thing or a universe one, shapeshifter, robot, clone, hallucination, military experiment gone wrong, wronged dark double of one stripe or another. But Bernard knows, or thinks he knows, that this is where Batman trains his Robins, grows them in industrial vats until they're roughly ten and then pipes them out and starts training them. And Tim doesn't know how to correct any of that, with all these kids, who now maybe are the missing teens, looking so similar in shape, so generic of feature under their bright costumes they might as well be the same.

Bernard kisses him triumphantly, and Tim can feel that gleeful smile pressed against his frown, but there's still Bern heavy in his arms, an anchoring weight against what's turned a problem not quite worse, but something he can't call off patrol in the face of, anymore. He needs surveillance in here, now. He needs to send Bernard home. And to do it, he needs to catch that disappointed look for not being proud of this horrible, horrible find.

[hollowsart]

I finally got around to watching TSSM because of you, so I thank you for that!

I think I might be becoming a Doc Oc fan because of the show, I like his voice...

Aw, that's wonderful! You're welcome!!

If you like his voice, well, I got some good news: The VA voices Kirk Langstrom/Manbat from The Batman (2004), so if you're interested in that, there's some more for ya!

it's essentially the same voice just a little more.. distressed and deranged? than TSSM's Doc Ock.

but yee, I love TSSM Doc Ock. he's just a little guy! (he's threatened to kill people and caused numerous accounts of damage and trauma to civilians without a second thought)

welcome to the TSSM Doc Ock fanclub, friend!