#Bruce is horrified he has not just one other child but three

[breesperez139]

Dc x Dp Prompt #2

Danny loved his life. After his reveal to Jack and Maddie as a half ghost went right, everything started falling into place.

Vlad stopped his insane schemes once his parents were set loose on him. Sure he’s still mayor but he funds the town, keeps them protected from unwanted visitors, and is no longer trying to kidnap/adopt/clone Danny anymore.

Speaking of clones, Ellie was officially adopted into the family. She didn’t live with them full time with her obsession being freedom, but at least she has a home to return to now.

Dan was also adopted into the family. He is still on probation but turns out having their adopted family again (and as many ghost fruits as he wants) helped ease the rage. That’s not to mention Dan’s and Skulker’s bi-weekly figh- errr meetups.

Well at least there’s been no property destruction since he’s been crowned. After he and his rogues began scheduling their own meetups, his grades started going up again. So while he may never become an astronaut like he always dreamed of, he could still go up to space and see the stars whenever he wanted to.

Sure, being king wasn’t exactly what he wanted in life (or death) but he could protect his ghosts and liminals better this way. And considering his entire town is either ghost or liminal, it was just easier to protect them from the GIW and the government in general with a crown on his head.

Besides being king isn’t all bad either. He’s rich now meaning they won’t be racked up in college debt, he has cool artifacts that were gifted to the ghost king over the millennia that were left untouched but he’s not about to return them (they were gifts to the ghost king, practically funeral gifts like flowers but more rare and expensive), and he has crazy powerful Ancients as friends/family/mentors/protectors. He’s still a baby in ghost years and a minor in human years so he’s not expected to do much either way.

Life was going great, especially after Amity Park adopted ghost etiquette and ecto-infused food and beverages.

So why the Ancients are the Justice League of all people standing outside his front door with the Batman looking thoroughly freaked out the moment he opened the door? He hasn’t said anything yet either!! Stupid fucking government heroes.

[haveihitanerve]

The batkids taking shit from each other- the intimacy of knowing where the other persons weapons/gadgets/things are

The most commonly “pickpocketed” person is bruce, and he gets so used to it/they get so good at it that sometimes he forgets to take it back or replace it. 

Batman and Red Hood are staking out a new villains headquarters and jason is bored so he reaches over to bruces side and pulls out three lollipops, working through them one at a time. Bruce doesn't even flinch, even as jason's hand digs deep into his side to reach the last one. Then later he has to calm down this little girl, reaches for the pocket, and finds he has no more lollipops to comfort this child with. So he reaches over to Nightwing, who is currently in deep discussion with a police officer, and tugs some sweets out from his shoulder pocket and hands it to the kid. Accidentally, he also takes a replacement grappling hook wire with it, since dick is a mess and has all sorts of shut crammed in every pocket thats not supposed to be there, but he just shrugs and tucks it into his own replacement wire pocket. Then dicks line breaks a few days later and he reaches for his pocket- and its empty. So he does a double backflip off the building, lands on top of a swinging red robin, snatches some replacement wire from his boot pocket, recharges his gun and is gone within a few seconds. Tim continues on like nothing has happened. When he lands on the next roof, Spoiler is waiting for him, and he gives her a quick kiss, reaching to the back of her waist band to grab a small knife and throw it at the goon coming up the stairs. A few days later steph is hanging upside down with cass and reaches for her knife, only to come up empty handed, so she just grabs the one cass has strapped to her thigh and peels her orange with that instead. Cass shrugs, drops from the ceiling on bruces shoulders, pecks his cheek and takes one of his daggers from his chest pocket. Three days later damian yeets his katana at Riddler(it misses but the villain is traumatized) but now the young robin is out of a weapon, so he ducks under cass’s legs and takes the dagger, sending it flying into a nearby goons gut. Bruce is both horrified and proud of his children and instates a weekly meeting to double check that every has all of their things. A very startling amount of gadgets and knicknacks are passed from hand to hand at these meetings, returned to their rightful owner. Bruce, naturally, has the largest pile that he has to put away. The kids all snicker into their hands as he glowers, shoving the weapons and pepper spray and gum pieces(“why did you take them if you weren't even going to chew them!!!”) back into his suit as they all finish up an hour before him and just watch. 

[salmonight]

Ra's vs. The Evil Overlord List

or AKA Ra's finding the Evil Overlord List and making use of it to become a better and more devious overlord

So in my random rant my mind came up with idea and latched onto it's absolute high comedy potential so lemme just stash out all the wonderful wonderful scenarios my mind managed to come up with for Ra's to drive the bats mad

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation. : The bats break into Ra 's throne room ready for a full fight, weapons ready, stances turned so they’re blocking each other's blind spots only... for Ra's to seem disgruntled instead of smug or outraged. They are only made aware of another presence when Ra's turns to the...playpen!?? next to his throne to address the toddler happily playing there by themselves "Tell me little one, were my plans and codes this terrible?" and they watch on with horrified fascination as the toddler goes on and points out the most ridiculous and childish points to be faulted with his plans that the bats made good use of to get here and to their stunned surprise Ra's doesn't go into a rage because his plans got ridiculed by a literal toddler but has a disgruntled but all the same pleased look on his face as if stunned his idea actually worked and addresses the child once again "Well done my little advisor, this great work calls for a reward of ice cream after dinner" as the toddler cheers joyfully swinging the toy held in their hands happily in the air, all the bats simultaneously check themselves for drugs finding no such a luck

142. If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches  into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil  Overlords and it's important to spend quality time with the grandkids: Bruce in his full Batman regalia breaks down Ra's bedroom door only to find him holding... a toddler once again. Only this time the toddler seems to resemble both of them a bit too much for it to be a coincidence. Bruce is even more stunned when Ra's looks at him, face not giving anything away all the while his eyes gleam mischievously. Before Bruce could prepare himself for anything Ra's would throw his way Ra's opens his mouth "Well not like it is an unpleasant turn of events but what do I owe the pleasure of the great detective coming to visit me in person?" Bruce manages to snap back into the situation and growls out with a low threatening voice "Don't play coy with me Ra's. You know well enough what you did. Now you can come with me peacefully or we can do this the hard way" he says while preparing for the imminent showdown not expecting the following words coming out of his opponent’s mouth "Well great detective while don't you explain to my darling grandson why you would want to hurt his poor poor fragile grandfather" the shock of the words make his eyes snap to the small child held loosely in the immortal's arms looking at him with their big green eyes. Body locked, mind frozen he tries to bluster up an answer for the tiny innocent child's sake only for them to pull a string Bruce never paid mind to. The floor opens under them, and they fall, not having time to jump out of the way, only barely stopping themselves from landing in the water full of...crocodiles!? with a batarang stabbed into the stone walls. And still in the room little Damian let out an utterly happy and mildly feral but all the while blinding smile seeing his scheme work. He bounced in Ra's lap happily while he looked down indulgently. After all, this was his grandson's first successful scheme against his father. This is in order of a celebration. Maybe he could get his grandson some more crocodiles; he seemed to adore them immensely with their deadly beauty and fierce disposition, Ra’s mused as he walked off with his grandson buzzing in excitement held in his arms not sparing a thought for the man stuck in the hole, in the middle of his room, with a bunch of hungry predators.

158. I will exchange the labels on my folder of top-secret plans and my folder of family recipes. Imagine the hero's surprise when he decodes the stolen plans and finds instructions for Grandma's Potato Salad: Tim steals a file labeled as one of Ra’s super-bad-if-it-actually-goes-trough plans only.. For it to be a copy of a hand written recipe of kabsa instead of the supposed plans of action. It’s a copy of Ra’s grandma’s  great recipe book. He watches in great enjoyment through the cameras as the realization sets in, saving the glorious moment with a well timed screenshot of the feed to be safely tucked away into his folder of epic bat fails.

[nari-writes]

Tim Drake has Problems and Issues, and Batman is a capital-B-bad word. (ft. Jason Peter Todd, The Second Robin and Incorrigible Creature of Sass and Child Protection). aka. Blogging (and other dangerous activities likely to get you adopted by the Batman) chapter 2 (HECK). Part one | Ao3 Link

Tim finds out the next morning that the hecking Batman stole his camera’s memory card. He hadn’t even seen Bruce take it! Granted, part of his distraction had been the dark and the late hour and the suddenly-woken-from-sleep by what could probably be constituted as someone’s sleep paralysis demon, but wow. The slight of hand required, when Tim’s attention had been worriedly and entirely focused on his camera? He’d been paranoid that Bruce would take the camera as punishment for his photos - but he hadn’t even noticed Batman stealing his SD card. 

He’s prepared to write it off as the price of his identity being discovered - because he’s got two others and can fetch a third next weekend for backup - when he has the sudden, horrified realisation that he hadn’t finished formatting the card last night. It had been cold and he’d wanted to make Jason smooshing into a snowbank into a gif for his blog, and by the time he’d finished that and posted it, his eyelids were basically shut and he’d still needed to pull the other photos off the card. He thought he’d have time to format it this morning because his dad had a golf thing early, and Tim and his mum were only going later for the brunch and the mingling after everyone had finished playing, but-  

But he doesn’t have time. Because Batman had stolen the card. The card he hadn’t finished formatting, and last night he’d been playing around with slow exposure shots and taking pictures of Wayne Manor. He'd been playing around with the long lens he doesn't get to use often because it was too bulky and he'd been taking pictures of Wayne Manor. 

Oh he’s so doomed. He’s got to get the card back before Bruce has time to look at it, if he hasn’t already. The photos are definitely going to be called creepy at best and at worst they’ll highlight Tim is well aware of his neighbour’s nighttime activities. Thankfully, the lack of alien mind-probing and Bruce Wayne at his doorstep at least indicate Bruce hasn’t had time to go through the photos. Yet. 

Probably.

Freaking heck, he's so screwed.

Plan one is to just...break into Wayne Manor. It's a stupid idea, so he doesn't even put it on a back burner to muse over and discard later because there are way too many problems with it. How is he going to break into a) the home of a billionaire and b) the home of the literal dang Batman, most paranoid and prepared person on planet Earth? It's not happening. It would be nice if it was that straight forward, but it's not happening.

Plan two is his parents. They are technically home this week, and he's pretty sure he can get them to invite themselves into Bruce Wayne's house if he pretends Bruce wants to talk business. He knows how to get into his dad's emails, and if he acts fast enough he can get them to organise some sort of business meeting before his parents jet off again at the end of mid-semester break. It's still dependent on his parents staying till the end of the mid-semester break, though, and also on Bruce not being suspicious that Tim Drake, guy he just stole a camera from and also threatened, is coming to his house. It’s a pretty bad plan.

Plan three makes him feel kind of slimy, but it's the one that's most likely to work if he can't get around his parents. 

Jason's self-defence classes, the ones Bruce totes as an ‘anti-kidnapping measure’, are run by the same person who teaches Tim’s classes on the other side of the city. He’s built up enough goodwill with her that he’s pretty sure if he looks dejected about his parents not being able to come to his Tuesday class to see his progress, she’ll let him join Jason’s Thursday class as a temporary measure, even though that class got booked out a day after Bruce’s kidnapping commentary.  

From there it’s just a matter of prior parkour practice making him a fun match for Jason and Jason’s Robin training, and then Jason enjoying his company enough to chat to him after class so they’re still together when Alfred or Dick comes to pick Jason up, and Tim then letting on that he lives next door and oh no, looks like his parents aren’t picking him up, would it be at all possible to be dropped off? Then pretending to forget his key and his parents not being home to let him in - which, at least, is the part of the plan most likely to succeed, and it makes him a bit miffed that there are so many other points of failure - and getting himself invited to stay at Wayne Manor until his parents are free to pick him up. 

On Thursday he’s pretty sure they have a dinner date with the Khadirs, and they actually like each other. It means his parents won’t be home till eleven at the earliest, which will give Tim plenty of time to search the manor. 

Unless, of course, Bruce didn’t take the memory card into the manor and has instead stored it in the Batcave, which Tim knows exists but has never been able to access, or he’s given it to Dick or Oracle to look into, or even just Tim not being enough to keep Jason's attention-

God, he’s going to have to figure out how to make plan one work, isn’t he. 

There just isn't time for plan three, because Bruce will totally have free time between now and Thursday and so much of it hinges on Jason wanting to talk to him when Tim's three years younger and five feet shorter, and it runs the risk of Jason recognising him from jaunts in Gotham. Plan two is better, but not by much, and he's concerned that Batman's legendary paranoia is going to have negative effects on Tim's success rate.

Plan one…maybe he can pretend to be selling cookies for the girl scouts? He's young enough to get away with it - but there's no way Mr. Pennyworth will let him inside, unless maybe it's raining. That'd be a weird situation to get into though - to walk between their properties when there's a better road, and to lug behind whatever eclectic collection of cookies he can find, and then invite himself into their house to get out of the rain. It'd look totally suspicious. And what respectable girl scout would sell things without the rest of their troupe? Or supervision. Or checking the weather. What respectable Gothamite would go out without checking the weather?

He would need it to be raining - which, to be fair, happens often enough in Gotham - but not have the day be dreary, so he has an excuse to have forgotten his umbrella. And, as everyone knows, when it rains on a day that's not dreary, it's normally acidic, and Tim's not keen on dealing with the raindrops burning scars into his scalp.

Scratch that, no girl scout impersonation is in his future. He could try and just break in and pretend a friend had dared him? But that wouldn't give him a lot of time to investigate, and no access to the Batcave.

Although. Why does he have to break into Wayne Manor? 

Tim's eyes narrow in the mirror, lips twitching upward. Why not use Batman's paranoia against him? If there's the risk his memory card will be in the Batcave, why not start in the Batcave? He'll have two perfect excuses either way - there's likely no way to tell the Batcave is under Wayne Manor, so he won't be risking his knowledge of their identities - and Batman stole his memory card, so why wouldn't he track down Batman to get it back? Plus if he needs to go upstairs to find the card, he can always claim pre-teen prankster status, or even just leave and get back into Wayne Manor some other way. His parents will kill him if he gets caught in Bruce Wayne's house, but he'd rather be 'grounded' for the rest of the break then let Batman realise Tim's a stalker. 

…Okay he probably already thinks that, but still. Tim’s not letting the Batman know about his collection of Wayne family photos. He'll never be able to walk around Gotham again. 

He’ll never want to walk around Gotham again, on account of the fact that he’ll be dead from embarrassment. 

So…now he just needs to break into the Batmobile and get himself driven into the Batcave. He's totally got this.

—-

Several hours later he’s still sure he’s got it, even if it’s not at the same level of total assurance it was that morning. He’s followed Batman and Robin around all night and neither of them have caught even a glimpse of him, and he knows they were keeping an eye out because they swung past his usual haunts twice. As if he’d be dumb enough to use the same spot after it’d been blown. He’s young, not dumb. 

He’s also not dumb enough to beeline straight for the Batmobile the first time they leave it unattended, either. A few carefully thrown rocks from the fire escape reveal no perimeter alarms summoning Batman and Robin back if someone gets near the car, and even the ones he lets very carefully - he didn’t throw them hard at all, and made sure to stand closer he could aim better! - hit the tires and the door didn't set off an alarm. 

It’s kinda stupid, actually. When Tim gets his SD card back he’s gonna send Commissioner Gordan a message about it so the Commissioner can use the information to make fun of Batman. That’ll be a good revenge for taking Tim’s stuff. 

The lock’s harder than testing the perimeter alarms, though. His palms are so sweaty he has to keep wiping them on his hoodie to stop himself from leaving marks, and every noise makes him scamper back to hide behind a group of stacked cardboard boxes, just in case it’s Batman or Robin. It takes forever before he can get the trunk unlocked, but when he does he sighs in relief and quickly scampers inside. 

There is…very little space. It makes sense, all things considered - what's the best use for a car, bar travelling storage space? - but Tim's thankful he's small and flexible enough to fit around all the junk. His mother’s yoga obsession is serving him well right now, because he's got one foot pressed against a spare tire and the other wedged by his ear, and if he were any less dedicated to Dick Grayson’s gymnastics routines he'd have already started to cramp.

He really hopes they have a short patrol tonight. It is a Monday, so chances are good that Jason at least will be sent home, and Bruce at least visits the Manor to (presumably?) put Jason to bed and (probably?) drop off evidence, but that still means at least two hours of this squished discomfort.

Except also it’s winter break, so Jason doesn’t technically have to be back at the manor for school the next morning. Tim scowls at the realisation that he’s probably gonna be here for ages. He breathes deep, trying to relax so he doesn't cramp up, and then pauses.

How does the trunk of Batman's car smell better than his dumb gloves? 

There's a faint motor oil smell, but mostly it's just clean carpet and mint and a vague smoke, like the remnants of a campfire. It's nice, way nicer than the other times Tim has been shoved in a car boot (though at least he normally had more wiggle room when being kidnapped, even though handcuffs had made it impossible to utilise) and Tim's got plenty of time…his blink feels a little too long, but he doesn't bother to fight back a yawn. At least if he can get some sleep it'll make the time go faster and he can finally get to looking for his memory card.

His neck spasms, and Tim hisses between his teeth, awkwardly shifting his arm to try and ease the cramp. Sleep hovers out of his reach, but thankfully the pain eases and he slips into a drifting lull, the muted noise of late-night traffic enough to mimic the trees that normally rustle outside his bedroom window. 

By the time the engine rumbles under his cheek, Tim's stumbled through half-dreams of Robin and long exposure shots and his knee is stiff enough that he knows getting out of the car is going to be difficult. Still, he's been lucky enough so far that Batman hasn't found him, and he's not about to trade a sore leg for a frogmarch back to his parents. 

The pull of acceleration makes a tire press against his ribs, but bar the squish of things moving around, the actual drive is surprisingly smooth. He can't hear anything from the front seats, but it's still making his heart rabbit in excitement; he's so close to Batman and Robin, and they have no idea. 

…No wonder Rouges pull plots all the time, if this is the amount of giddy adrenaline that hits you when you get away with something under Batman's nose. Tim feels like he's going to jitter out of his skin, and it's only the lack of space in the car that's stopped some excited hand flapping and gleeful wiggles. He can’t help it. It’s just so exciting to know he’s so close to Batman and Robin, the shadowy vigilante heroes of Gotham. He’ll never be able to talk about it, but it’s exhilarating to know his classmates will never experience anything like this.

The car rumbles through Gotham, her engine a purr of power, and Tim feels every corner and twist, even if he can’t figure out the road they take back. It doesn’t matter, though: he still knows where he’s going, and he knows his plan for when they arrive. 

He needs to be careful. He has to wait. Tim tilts the edge of his watch towards his face and manages to wiggle it into the light coming through the brake light. It's just after 2am - but that doesn't mean Bruce has finished up his work as Batman. He'd made himself promise he wouldn't leave the car until 10am, which is when he normally sees Mr. Pennyworth drive Bruce into the city, presumably for work. 

Theoretically he could get out earlier, but he knows 10am is the only verifiable time, and points of failure decree that he should limit them with available evidence whenever possible. That's rule number one in making sure your plans work with minimal adjustment - and he's already gonna have to do major adjusting when he gets out of the car. Like, for example, do they have cameras? How will he access them to hide his presence? What if Jason or Dick is in the Batcave instead of the Manor? Tim will probably hear them, but things are pretty muffled in the car. 

Then the SD card itself - would Bruce put it somewhere logical, like near the computer? Should Tim check the computer to make sure no files have been copied across? Is what Tim considers logical going to be what Bruce considers logical?

And finally, getting out. Sure, they'll be way easier ways of getting from Batcave to Manor than vice versa, but what if someone sees him? Or what if there are extra cameras upstairs on a different security system? 

He hates not having every point of information available for easy access, but there's nothing he can do here but his best.

Which. Disgusting. He hates that he just said that to himself but it's all he has to combat his nerves right now so unfortunately his best will have to do. After all, it's not within his power to get a blueprint of the Batcave, or he'd have just hacked the batcomputer and deleted his photos manually.

He sighs to himself longingly at the thought and hears the tires change from pavement to stone, and then an echoing reverb of machinery. The Batcave; it must be. He’s in the freaking Batcave. His heart pounds in his chest and he grins to himself, a tiny noise of excitement squeaking out of his throat. This past day-and-change has sucked in terms of his stress levels, but holy heck the fact that he’s currently in the literal Batcave has almost made everything worth it. How could it not, when Tim is in a sanctum so very few get to see? He’ll never be able to tell anyone, but that’s just par the course at this point - and he likes getting to keep his secrets. 

Who cares if his parents never ask about what he’s been up to, when Tim can hold in his heart the knowledge that he is one of the privileged few that knows the Batman’s identity?

Sure, Bruce didn't tell him, but isn't it even cooler that Tim figured it out by himself? He'd only ever admit the daydreams on threat of telepath, but sometimes he's thought about Bruce finding out Tim knows and being impressed with him. Bruce would compliment him on his discovery, on the deductive reasoning and the evidence he collected to prove it; what else would impress the greatest detective in the world but someone of similar calibre? 

It'd be amazing to have Batman invite him into more secrets, impressed by his faithfulness, but...

Tim's not stupid. Kids are a seen-and-not-heard subsection of the human species, especially kids like him, and Batman would likely only be pissed at Tim for being an uncontrollable liability. Better to make sure that, like everything else Tim thought important, it was kept his own personal secret. No need for Batman to get involved with Tim Drake if Tim Drake is a normal kid, and no need for his parents to drop him off at another boarding school for bringing trouble to their door in Gotham. 

There's a sudden click, and Tim startles, head twisting as the trunk lifts. It gets him into the perfect position to be blinded as the trunk opens, and then-

“Ah,” he says, staring up at the cowl and cape, before swallowing thickly. “Hello.”

“This is breaking and entering,” says Batman, and Tim can't stop his scowl. 

“That's super hypocritical. You literally broke into my house yesterday.”

“Your window was unlocked.”

“That's not an invitation!”

Batman makes a noise in his throat, and Tim tries to wiggle out from around the spare gear and the tire he'd wedged himself around. His attempt ends when Batman takes him by both biceps and physically pulls him from the vehicle, sitting him against the ledge of the trunk when he's free. 

“I think breaking and entering requires you to not have driven him here,” says Jason, his voice a drawl of sarcastic displeasure, and Tim flushes and looks down at his shoes. Batman had known the whole time? He'd just…let Tim stay in the boot for the whole drive, and not done anything to stop him? How humiliating, to find out his oh-so-clever plan hadn't even survived first contact.

Batman's looking at him. Tim can feel eyes resting heavy on the back of his neck before Bruce says, “The Batmobile is well-outfitted with sensors and cameras to prevent theft or tampering. Prior experience assisted in advising me of the…issues with my security system.”

Jason's weight shifts, like he knows he's the ‘experience’ that highlighted the Batmobile’s weak spots, but Tim's stomach just feels wobbly. 

“Do you enjoy lying?” Batman asks, and Tim's head snaps up.

“What?”

His stomach no longer feels wobbly. Now it just feels…gone. Like it dropped into his feet and took his guts with it. Is his face pale? It certainly seems like it should be, with how his fingers have begun to tingle, the too-hard pulse of his heart depriving him of oxygen. 

“I distinctly remember you saying that I wouldn't see you out again at night-”

“You weren’t going to,” Tim says, feeling light-headed, the sentence cut off by his own recognition of a pitiful defence. Bruce’s mouth is a hard, flat line. 

“Did you or did you not understand the intent behind the instructions I provided, Tim Drake?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, shoulders hunching. Because yeah, he had, but Batman hadn’t caught him in three years and he’d figured that his lucky streak would continue. Especially if he didn’t post anything on the blog, and Batman had no further proof of his existence and/or his defiance of Batman’s rule. 

“Then, with that in mind, do you understand that your behaviour directly violates the rules we discussed, and additionally endangers your safety?”

He’s been scolded before. It still hadn’t felt like this, with humiliation making heat prick at his eyes. Batman's impassive, but you never look at Batman to know how he feels: you look at Robin. Tim chances a glance and sees Robin’s shifted on his heels, looking awkward and unhappy. 

Bruce must be so mad. 

“We didn’t discuss anything,” Tim says softly, his throat tight and his hands shaking as he tries to keep his emotions under control. “I’m careful. You just - you just ordered me around, but you don’t know me.”

“Kid,” Jason says, and Tim’s nails bite into his palm. “It’s our job to protect the people of Gotham-”

“You stole my stuff! You stole my stuff and deleted my archive and do you know how many people were upset? Twitter blew up about it. They like you! They like seeing you. It was important to them! It was important to me.”

…But why should Batman care? Tim’s long since learnt that things that are important to him don’t get to be in plain sight - his dad has broken his stuff before, and Tim’s not let that happen to anything he actually cares about for so long that he’s forgotten what it feels like. The feeling that he’s stupid for letting it get to him, when it doesn’t even really matter, the helpless, melancholic kick of being unable to change anyone’s mind-

“Aw, kid, hey,” Robin’s kneeling in front of him now, hands on Tim’s shoulders, and Tim’s mortified to realise he’s been sniffling. Can this day get any worse? Bad enough that his clever checks and foolproof plan were literally ignored by Batman so that Tim would stay out of the way tonight, now he’s crying? Like a child too emotional to be up past his bedtime? “Come on now, squirt, B-man’s an overbearing prick but the translation here is he’s terrified for you. It was dangerous for the site to stay up. Your photos were amazing - but you were so close to us. ”

“I wasn’t,” Tim says, wiping his runny nose across his sleeve, and then suddenly a black handkerchief drops into his eyeline. He pauses, tracing it up to Batman’s hand, and then pettily says, “...if this smells as bad as your gloves I don’t wanna use it.” Jason snorts and mumbles something that may have been a proud, I told you so.

(He still takes it. He’s not petty enough to refuse having a handkerchief from the Batman. This night has been a nightmare - at least he can still have the world’s most pity-present souvenir.)

“Distance,” Batman says softly, “was not the problem.”

“Okay,” Robin says, when Tim’s expression takes on a mutinous edge, “think of it this way for me, yeah? There’s a blog that’s gotten crazy popular because it’s started semi-regularly posting really good photos of us. Batman and Robin. And you, you’re Penguin or Riddler or Marone, whatever, you wanna know how the blog gets good pictures of us. Wondering how the photographer knows where we are. You start thinking maybe Batman’s trying to drum up good PR and then suddenly you’re thinking: hey, maybe this blogger knows the Bats.”

“I don’t!” Tim says quickly, and Jason looks over his shoulder at Bruce. Tim, desperate, follows his gaze, and-

Batman’s holding his SD card. 

“Don’t you?”

[bruciemilf]

Darling, I just had an idea, but my brain doesn't know how to process it yet. And I want your opinion on it.

So, we know Thomas was a doctor, all right. Bruce ended up dropping out of medical school and all that. To put on the suit and be a mogul/justice fighter.

And well, that thanks to all that he was reunited with his kids and blah-blah-blah--

But I feel like he gave up the career for more than one reason.

It was relatively comforting and nostalgic for him to study medicine… I mean, it was his father's profession and I refuse to believe anything other than Bruce using his father's anatomy books to study or going through old medical cases to see his father's take on them.

And I doubt Alfred didn't chide him every now and then that Bruce would have been a wonderful doctor. And that, although he doesn't complain about what he's achieved, he would have liked to have seen his boy be a doctor.

But, I'm just saying, can you imagine what would have happened if Alfred had convinced Bruce to just take a year off and then go back to medical school?

How would things have been? How would he have met his kids?

I feel like Bruce would have been a pediatrician. Because I have a feeling he would have been a wonderful one. A strapping, sweet, tender, dedicated paediatrician.

I feel that, when the circus people noticed that Dick wasn't eating or drinking anything at all after his parents died, they made a triple effort between them to get him to a paediatrician. And Bruce, or God, just to see poor Dick completely depressed and traumatized…. It was like looking at himself at that age.

I feel like he didn't want to charge the Crico people anything, he covered the cost of Dick's recovery himself. And when he found out that Social Services wanted to take him away from the circus, he didn't think twice about it.

And before he knew it, he was in the legal department of the hospital, signing the legal guardianship papers. Alfred almost threw away his dinner when he saw him arrive at the mansion, after three straight guards, with a little Dick curled up in his exhausted arms.

I feel that Jason, out of some Samaritan soul's desire, inadvertently runs him over as he flees with the tyres of a stolen car. The person in question, noticing what he had done, takes Jason to the emergency room… and that's how Bruce meets his other child. Obviously the unknown pays for everything.

A little Jason, completely frightened and disoriented in a huge hospital bed, who does not know how he got there. A little Jason, who from one moment to the next has to answer the silly questions of a rather rude policeman who makes him want to burst into tears. A little Jason who, amazed, watches in wonder as Dr. Wayne takes the ugly policeman out and helps him eat and tucks him into bed, gives him extra jellies on the sly and always reads him a story until he falls asleep.

The kindly Dr. Wayne, who cries when he learns that the boy's parents won't pick him up and have basically abandoned him at the hospital…. So now he's in a huge room, inside a huge house, with a rather boisterous older brother… but now Doctor Wayne is his dad, he always has warm food and is tucked in every night; and then sneaks into his new dad's bed.

What do you think?

(Just a visual reference of Bruce, holding a baby in NCIU)

Hey bestie thanks for considering me!!! Honestly, looking through the peep-hole, the medical field seems like the most desirable career for Bruce (calculated, energy taxing, honestly kind of horrifying but also moving in a constant speeding wheel of innovation)

It's more so the branch of medicine where it gets fickle. Thomas was a surgeon if I'm not mistaken (okay, talk your trash Dr. Strange) and I feel like Bruce would feel a constant pressure of living up to him if that were the case, which is why he dropped out in the first place besides batman (for me)

There's also the detail of Bruce's hands barely hanging on for dear life after so many fractures and Injuries. I don't think he'd like to take the risk djsjs

Peditrican seems like the best option, former to nurse! I love the backstories for the kids as well :>

[str8sub4domdudez]

Superboys Part One Excerpt -

Jason Todd explains Santa Claus :

"Hello everybody!" says Bruce, "Sorry we're late! How's the food?"

"The appetizers are great," says Jason, "I ordered you the salmon."

"No complaints here," says Bruce. "Hello, James, how are you this evening?"

"I'm doing okay. I don't quite understand all this but I had fun at the dunking booth. I put Santa in the water three times."

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. But what about this do you not understand?"

"I guess just holidays in general. I know the common holidays, but some of this stuff is just very far-fetched. Even Superman can't visit every child in the world delivering gifts in one night. And what's with the flying reindeer? Is that a metaphor or a metadeer?"

"I could too!" huffs Clark.

"I know Santa isn't real, but Lex has been trying to rationalize it," says Hemlock. "Are all holidays about deceiving people? I know Thanksgiving is a load of horseshit. The actual history is a lot more violent and bloody than different peoples coming together for a feast. Europeans in colonial outposts were starving for three years, dying off and killing all the indigenous peoples around them so they could take their food. I think there was even cannibalism involved at some point."

"Lex," Bruce says with disappointment dripping from the name. "What did his programming include?"

"High school level American History, although I wouldn't be surprised if he learned some of that on his own. He does like to read. However the reality and non-reality of Santa was never touched on in his programming. That is entirely his conclusion."

"What makes you think Santa's not real?" Jay asks gently.

"It's just a story based on commercialized folklore. There's a big debate over whether Saint Nicholas was even a real person, but even if he was, he wasn't a 'jolly old elf'. Elves aren't real."

"Most people think Greek Gods aren't real, but I happen to know a daughter of Zeus," says Clark, "and Adonis here is a grandson of Apollo. Maybe some stories are fantastical but still based in truth."

"I still don't believe Santa's real," says Hemlock.

"You're right," says Jason, "He's not real. But the idea of him is. The concept that being good will reward you in the long run? That's real. The idea that working hard all year to bring happiness to others is worthwhile? That's real. While the person of Santa may not be factual, the idea of Santa is. That's why we have stories about him. To communicate the universal concepts of kindness and charity."

"What about Krampus?" says Hemlock, "What reality does he communicate?"

"He represents the idea that evil-doers will suffer for their crimes. Entire laws are made with that philosophy and so are some vigilantes."

"So Krampus punishing bad kids communicates realities like Red Hood punishing bad adults?"

Bruce looks horrified, but Jason and Jay laugh. "Yeah, Kiddo," says Jay. "Just like that. Batman too. He used to scare the adults more than anybody until your pops came along."

"Leave Batman out of this," says Bruce. "I'm sure he wouldn't like to be compared to a demon that flays the skin off children."

"Bad children," says Hemlock. "There's a big difference."

"Yes, one is a subcategory," says Lex. "Even 'bad' children deserve their day in court before judgement is determined. Isn't that right, Clark?"

"I'm uncomfortable with this conversation," says Clark.

-

[distort-opia]

The deleted scene has given me many Thoughts, and I can’t help but wonder. Is Joker’s name and origin already known in Reeves’ universe?

Joker’s past being a mystery is a staple of the character. In the comics, it does makes some sense that Joker's identity remains unknown for decades; if his DNA was ever on record, the acid bath he took damaged it anyway (a fact mentioned in The Joker #9, last I can remember) so Bruce wouldn’t be able to trace it. And because he was just a regular person before, it's tough to pin down who he was exactly on any of the missing people from the time he emerged. If The Killing Joke origin is to even be vaguely believed, Joker’s family and anyone who cared about him was gone by the time he fell into the vat. No one would even report him missing. (And I’m not taking into account The Three Jokers, okay. Bruce knowing about Joker’s identity and doing absolutely nothing with it contradicts his character severely, not to mention the other issues with the comic.)

But in these movies, if Joker had a physical deformity from birth... he's very easily recognizable, isn’t he? How would he, realistically, have an untraceable past, especially in the digital world we live in? In this essay I will--

In the deleted scene, Joker’s ‘first anniversary is paper’ comment can be taken in two ways: 1) that Bruce and Joker first met around a year ago, or 2) they knew each other from even earlier on, and something significant that Joker would consider wedding-like happened around a year ago.

1) Bruce and Joker first met around a year ago

...and Bruce has investigated him, and uncovered his identity via medical records or photos or people remembering Joker due to his appearance. He’s Jack Napier or Jack White or Joe Kerr or whatever name they might pull out of their hat (or from the comics). This would be the more realistic scenario due to Joker’s face, though they’d have to justify Joker (or rather, Joker’s parents) never having tried for treatment, or cosmetic surgery at all. Being too poor to pay for it might be a reason, though this whole scenario is so anti-Joker and boring. One of the most interesting things about his character is the anonymity, the erasure of his past.

But, if Joker’s identity wasn’t discovered in the context of this first possibility, that could point to two scenarios: a) Joker having erased all records of himself somehow, or b) Joker having been hidden away for most of his life.

a) Somehow, Joker managed to destroy all evidence of his existence, including his own fingerprints and so on. Though... even if Joker erased all the records, again, he might be remembered due to his appearance -- especially if he lived in Gotham. Maybe he wore a mask as a teen or as an adult, but there would have to be traces of him as a child. If he lived somewhere else and moved to Gotham later, it’d be more believable, but it’d suck because he wouldn’t have been born in Gotham anymore.

I do kind of like the idea of Joker actively erasing his past, though. Wiping the records, and maybe the Year 1 encounter is Bruce investigating the bodies Joker is leaving behind -- because he’s killing people who might identify him or know him. That’d be a cool avenue to explore.

b) The only realistic backstory that would make sense for this is a Phantom of the Opera type of origin (Reeves did mention POTO as an inspiration, after all), where Joker’s family was so horrified when he was born that they kept his entire existence a secret. Perhaps they were too poor to afford cosmetic surgery or treatment, so Joker’s birth was never recorded and he was kept in a basement somewhere by his parents for most of his life, or formative years. Potentially he was even abused, if Reeves’ comments on how Joker’s physical deformity plays a role into him becoming a villain are taken into account. This is the only way that would ensure he isn’t on record at all -- even though, by the way Joker spoke in the deleted scene, he clearly wasn’t socially impaired (which you would be if you lived in a confined space from birth and barely had human interaction). Both times we’ve seen Keoghan’s Joker, he was charming and manipulative, well-versed in interaction. That doesn’t happen easily if you’ve been trapped somewhere for all your life and escaped only over a year ago to kill people and then got sent to Arkham. But, well... not like movies always care about realism.

Perhaps Joker escaped by killing his family and then began to kill others too, as a form of revenge. This would be a nice inverted parallel to Batman having his parents killed in front of him, and I have to admit I am most partial to this scenario. If they went Zero Year and Joker assumed the mask and identity of Red Hood while doing it, that’d be cool. Keoghan’s Joker seems more fit for the personality of Red Hood One, anyway, and I can entirely see a greenhorn Bruce trying to infiltrate the gang in disguise. It would also allow for the development of a relationship between them, that would then explain the familiarity in the deleted scene.

2) Bruce and Joker knew each other even prior to their Year 1 encounter

This might be supported by Reeves’ own words: “...they have a relationship that begins very, very early, and... they’re sort of intertwined with each other in a very specific way.” Very curious what that very specific way is. All of that could suggest that Joker killing people and Bruce putting him in Arkham wasn’t the first time they met, which would imply that Joker hasn’t been hidden for most of his life (because he met and interacted with Bruce somehow), and that Bruce knows his identity. Not only that, but this is where the potential implication from the deleted scene that Joker knows who Batman is under the mask might come in, too. How exactly did they first meet, then? And what is Joker’s background?

...My greatest fear is that they’ll make them brothers estranged at birth, though I’m really hoping that they’ll stay away from this, just because Joker (2019) already played around in this particular sandbox. Multiple comics have suggested Bruce has an older brother, with one wacky comic actually making Joker his sibling (Batman/Lobo). Plus, if in Reeves’ movie Martha Wayne has been confirmed to be mentally ill and sporadically confined to sanatoriums, they could theoretically go with Joker having been born and her abandoning him or getting rid of him somehow without even Thomas himself knowing. But please God no. I hate it.

So that leaves them having interacted as children somehow. In the comic Batman: Streets of Gotham, Martha Wayne is seen taking care of an orphan who ended up in Leslie Thompson’s clinic after his foster home burned down -- a child that is shown to have become Joker, later. Conceivably, Bruce as a child could’ve met a disfigured older boy that his parents tried to take care of. Though even outside of a comic-inspired meeting of this sort, them having met as children/teens makes it unlikely for Joker’s identity to be unknown.

I guess it all depends on how much importance Matt Reeves will place on Joker’s past, and identity. Joker as a character is very much defined by the way he chose to deal with that, so I certainly hope he’ll... give it the proper thought.

[megamindsupremacy]

Three months after Duke and Damian pick up Dick, they’re called back to Gotham because of dimensional problems :3

Canon Batfam (CBF) (minus Bruce) has been blooped to Reverse Batfam (RBF) (Bruce is in space)

Ten minutes after they just Appear in the Batcave, (and five minutes after they get everyone to put down weapons) Canon Jason asks where Reverse Dick is, because if all the ages are switched then shouldn’t RDickk be the youngest?

RBF is like shouldn’t who what be youngest

Duke and Damain are acting a little sus

RSteph calls them out on it (CBF is SUPER wigged out by her. Same for RBF about CJason)

RD+D start denying they did anything like their life depends on it

RTim’s expression says it does

RDamian gets kicked out to go get RDick while RDuke is left behind to explain

CJason is like. Who is this child and why is everyone saying he’s the nicest of everyone here. RJason is like who is this ASSHOLE and can i fight him.

Someone asks why CCass and RCass are so close in age if everyone else’s is switched. Someone else makes a joke about how Cass is timeless. Everyone accepts this. The author breaks the fourth wall to say that she changed Cass’s age three times and still messed it up

RSteph is absolutely fascinated by CSteph. CSteph is freaked out by her. RTim is trying to run interference between RSteph and everyone else. He’s too busy doing that to really interact with CBF, to everyone’s disappointment.

RDamian gets back to the Batcave with RDick like heyyyyy i got another one. RBF is like HEY YOU GOT ANOTHER ONE (appreciative) (horrified) (derogatory)

CBF is in awe of this tiny, furious RDick. CDick is like oh wow i forgot i used to be so mean. RDick is Not Happy he has to meet the rest of his kinda family. He is even more unhappy that the older version of him let other people use the name Robin. RDamian gets bitten. He looks resigned. CDick has flashbacks to the same thing happening to him with CDamian.

CDamian is very impressed with RDamian. RDamian is unimpressed with CDamian.

CBF gets back via their panicked Bruce enlisting the JL to portal them back.

masterpost

[blackroserelina]

The Lost One

Marinette is Bruce's bio child that was kidnap when she was three.

Her mom died in childbirth.

Batman was able to find her kidnapper but he was died and Mari was no where to be found. Half way across the world Mari is found by a baker couple while she was wondering around Pairs looking for daddy.

The Parisienne police force were not able to find out who her parents were caz she didn't know her dad's name and they never thought of looking at the missing person reports outside of France and Bruce lost all trace of her after she was took out of the state, but he never stopped looking hoping someday he would find her again.

The only thing Mari has form her farther is a one of a kind locket that has "My most beloved daughter M.W. daddy loves you always." carved inside of it.

The rest of the bats never knew much about her caz Bruce would never talk about her or use her name and she was took before he took anyone in. they only knew what Alfred would tell them about her and he would only refer to her as “the young Miss” and they never saw a pic of her. The only pic of her that Bruce hasn’t hidden away is the one he cares on his person.

So the rest of family end up meeting her before Bruce and they all adopt her as their sister before they even find out that she is their lost sister.

They end up meeting her when she is on a class trip to Gotham with her class. She meets Tim first at a coffee shop after she finds out the hotels coffee pot is broken and her class left her behind at the hotel and they end up ordering the exact same coffee.

They end up talking while waiting on there coffee and Tim finds out how her class has left her behind and how she in a hurry to get to them put she really need a cup of coffee so stopped here since it is on the was to were she is going. When he finds out she is from the class that he and Dick is suppose to be giving a tour of Wayne Enterprise he offers to escort his knew coffee sibling there

The next the batboys she meets is Dick who is worried caz this teacher left a student her in Gotham and is not even worried about her. Not only that he can also hear everything her class is calling her and the teacher is doing nothing to stop the obvious bullying that is happening to this student even if said student is not here. So he decides to call Tim and hope he is still in the area of their hotel and can swing by to hopefully see if she is still there. When Tim picks up and Dick tells him what going on he ends up telling him he already found her and how he found her and tells him that they’re on their way and they be there soon before hanging up. Dick was relived that the girl was alright and on her way with his brother.

When Dick first saw her when she walked in to the room the first think he noticed was how here smile lit up the whole room, but as soon as she saw her class her smile was gone as she shrunk into her try to make herself smaller as she shuffled slightly behind Tim like she was trying to hide. The two brother exchanged glances at that and they both agreed something was wrong with this class and they were going to find out what and if they just happen to adopt Mari as their new sister by the end of the tour no one need to know.

The next she meets is Jason as Red Hood after her class left her behind again but this time at the restaurant they went to for dinner. It was already getting dark and she was lost caz her phone die during dinner and end up cornered in an allay by two men and after she took them down she felt someone touch her shoulder and out of instinct she graded the offending hand and flipped the person over her shoulder. Once she realized who it was she was horrified with what she did and keep apologizing for what she did. Hood literally had to cover her mouth just so he could get a word in to tell her its fine and to find out why she was out so late. An when he found out what happen he was not happy and takes her to her hotel if he just happen to adopt her to after he told the family what happen and then heard Dick’s and Tim’s account of what happen with the class earlier that day no one needed to know. And if Bruce’s heart shatter when he heard that name again no one need to know caz he knew it couldn’t be her and if he told Damian watch out for the girl the next day when the class is visiting his school without saying her name and left without letting anyone say anything else no one need to know why.

The next she meet is Damian when the class is visiting Gotham Academy to see how American schools are like and each of the French students end up paired with a student of the Academy to fallow around for the day and if Marinette just so happens to end up paired with Damian no one needs to know why. Thought out the day she somehow is able to slide into his cold heart and becomes someone he believes is acceptable person he is willing to let in and protect no one needs to know.

During the second half of the Wayne Enterprise tour after the class has visited Gotham Academy, Dick and Tim leads the class into a room caz Bruce was wanting to talk to them about the dangers of Gotham and how no one should be left on their and about the other stuff he has heard about the class. But someone trips Marinette on her way in the room and she ends up falling on the floor but during her fall her necklaces falls off and ends up bouncing up to Bruce's feet and opening up. Bruce seeing this but was not able to see who tripped her or get a get a good look at the girl who was tripped before she fell goes to pick up the necklaces but when he gets a good look at it he freezes because there is only one necklaces like this in the world and he could only hope that she was who he hoped beyond hope she was. So with an almost unnoticed trembling hands he picked up the necklaces and walkover to the girl who was now sitting on the floor while her face was still facing away form him. When he final reached her he can tell she is starting to panic when she realizes that her necklaces around her neck anymore. So he deices to call out a soft miss to her and when she turned around and he finally got a good look at her face it took every bit of self-control he had not to break down right there. Because he new that face even if it was older and he hasn't seen it in person in many years he would never forget it. There right in front of him was his little girl.

When she first hears his voice she could help but think she knows that voice but she doesn't quite remember where she has heard it from. So she turns around with an confused expression and sees a pair of black slacks that she follows up to a suit jacket and then when she finally reached he man's face the first thing she noticed was his eyes; she knew those eyes. They're the same eyes she sees every morning in the mirror staring back at her. Those eyes still haunt her dreams. Those are the eyes she only remember seeing in one other person and she never thought to see again. Those are the eyes of her farther and that meant that this was her dad. The man that she remembered was always their for her and always tried to show he loved her even though he didn't show it like most people did. She could feel tiers start to form in her eyes as she looked at him as she whispered an all most inaudible “daddy.” But she could tell he hear her when she saw his mask cracked and eyes started to over joy and gain a slight shin to them.

Bruce barley caught what she said but when he registered what she called him he could not stop the absolute ecstasy that over came him. She remembered him she was so young when she was took but she still remembered him. but when he saw tires starting to form in her eye he could not and would not hold back damn the people around them this is his little girl and she needed him. So he got down on one knee and put her into his firm embraced while still keeping a firm hold on the necklaces in his hand and let her cry in his arms for the first time in what felt like forever while he tried to keep himself from breaking down. He could tell that his sons Dick and Tim were confused as they tried to clearing everyone out the room they were in, but he didn't pay them any mind his whole focused was on his little girl in his arms as he tried reassure himself this is not a dream and she is real.

[apenitentialprayer]

I hit the breaking point as a parent a few years ago. It was the week of my extended family’s annual gathering in August, and we were struggling with assorted crises. My parents were aging; my wife and I were straining under the chaos of young children; my sister was bracing to prepare her preteens for bullying, sex and cyberstalking. Sure enough, one night all the tensions boiled over. At dinner, I noticed my nephew texting under the table. I knew I shouldn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help myself and asked him to stop. Ka-boom! My sister snapped at me to not discipline her child. My dad pointed out that my girls were the ones balancing spoons on their noses. My mom said none of the grandchildren had manners. Within minutes, everyone had fled to separate corners. Later, my dad called me to his bedside. There was a palpable sense of fear I couldn’t remember hearing before. “Our family’s falling apart,” he said. “No it’s not,” I said instinctively. “It’s stronger than ever.” But lying in bed afterward, I began to wonder: Was he right? What is the secret sauce that holds a family together? What are the ingredients that make some families effective, resilient, happy? It turns out to be an astonishingly good time to ask that question. The last few years have seen stunning breakthroughs in knowledge about how to make families, along with other groups, work more effectively. Myth-shattering research has reshaped our understanding of dinnertime, discipline and difficult conversations. Trendsetting programs from Silicon Valley and the military have introduced techniques for making teams function better. The only problem: most of that knowledge remains ghettoized in these subcultures, hidden from the parents who need it most. I spent the last few years trying to uncover that information, meeting families, scholars and experts ranging from peace negotiators to online game designers to Warren Buffett’s bankers. After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative. I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful psychologist at Emory University. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Duke was asked to help explore myth and ritual in American families.“There was a lot of research at the time into the dissipation of the family,” he told me at his home in suburban Atlanta. “But we were more interested in what families could do to counteract those forces.” Around that time, Dr. Duke’s wife, Sara, a psychologist who works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something about her students.“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said. Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions. Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth? Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness. “We were blown away,” Dr. Duke said. And then something unexpected happened. Two months later was Sept. 11. As citizens, Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush were horrified like everyone else, but as psychologists, they knew they had been given a rare opportunity: though the families they studied had not been directly affected by the events, all the children had experienced the same national trauma at the same time. The researchers went back and reassessed the children.“Once again,” Dr. Duke said, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.” Why does knowing where your grandmother went to school help a child overcome something as minor as a skinned knee or as major as a terrorist attack? “The answers have to do with a child’s sense of being part of a larger family,” Dr. Duke said. Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three shapes. First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you. ...” Second is the descending narrative: “Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.” “The most healthful narrative,” Dr. Duke continued, “is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’ ” Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he and Dr. Fivush call a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves. Leaders in other fields have found similar results. Many groups use what sociologists call sense-making, the building of a narrative that explains what the group is about. Jim Collins, a management expert and author of “Good to Great,” told me that successful human enterprises of any kind, from companies to countries, go out of their way to capture their core identity. In Mr. Collins’s terms, they “preserve core, while stimulating progress.” The same applies to families, he said. Mr. Collins recommended that families create a mission statement similar to the ones companies and other organizations use to identify their core values. The military has also found that teaching recruits about the history of their service increases their camaraderie and ability to bond more closely with their unit.Cmdr. David G. Smith is the chairman of the department of leadership, ethics and law at the Naval Academy and an expert in unit cohesion, the Pentagon’s term for group morale. Until recently, the military taught unit cohesion by “dehumanizing” individuals, Commander Smith said. Think of the bullying drill sergeants in “Full Metal Jacket” or “An Officer and a Gentleman.” But these days the military spends more time building up identity through communal activities. At the Naval Academy, Commander Smith advises graduating seniors to take incoming freshmen (or plebes) on history-building exercises, like going to the cemetery to pay tribute to the first naval aviator or visiting the original B-1 aircraft on display on campus. Dr. Duke recommended that parents pursue similar activities with their children. Any number of occasions work to convey this sense of history: holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a ride to the mall. The hokier the family’s tradition, he said, the more likely it is to be passed down. He mentioned his family’s custom of hiding frozen turkeys and canned pumpkin in the bushes during Thanksgiving so grandchildren would have to “hunt for their supper,” like the Pilgrims. “These traditions become part of your family,” Dr. Duke said. Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence. The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

- Bruce Feiler. Emphases added.

[chocolate1721]

Hello chocolatiers here is a new idea, and this is one of my altime favorites so far.

Ok so, Marinette and Jason are siblings who got separated. Jason is adopted by Bruce and Marinette is adopted by Tom and Sabine. Jason becomes Robin and dies. Marinette is informed of his death but isn’t able/allowed to attend the funeral. She never meets Bruce. Marinette is bullied by Chloe and then Lila and the class. She becomes ladybug and chat is useless.

Even though things in class are tough. Marinette makes a fabulous class trip. She has them set to go to New York (with tours of Stark Industries, and New York Times along with Broadway production tickets), then they are to go to Starling City (where they get to tour Queen industry, and their parks), next they go to Central City (they have some basic tours of some museums and stuff), finally they will end in Gotham (tour Wayne Enterprise and the gardens).

Marinette had a good time in New York, Lila lies all day every day, but she ignored it. They had a fligh to Starling City and Marinette had to use the restroom or something before they left, but when she got back to the gate the plane was gone, and so was her class. She had no clothes (those were on the plane) and she didn’t have a lot of money. She was having a hard time breathing when all of a sudden Tony f*cking Stark struts his way over to her and helps her breath again (couldn’t decide if she has a panic or anxiety attack).

Tony and Peter were coming back from Wakanda. Peter knoticed Marinette and points her out to Tony, making some joke of if she is a lost Stark or something. Tony looks at Marinette and immediately knows she is having an attack, he knows how that feels, so he immediately goes over to her and helps her through it. He finds out that Marinette got left behind by her class and this pisses Tony off. He then tells her he can/will help her out. All three of them then head to the Avenger’s Tower.

[[More]]

She meets the Avengers, and she is totally normal. No stuttering, spasming, tripping, or anything but treating them like they are normal. This intrigues the Avengers. They invite her to watch some of them train while Tony looks into getting her back to her class. While she watches them train she ends up handing Steve his shield (like it was a piece of paper), and Thor his hammer (like it was nothing), this shocks everyone.

Steve: Hey Thor, does this mean this kid is now the new ruler of Asgard?

Thor: . . . . . I must introduce her to the Allfather. Come child of earth.

Tony: *runs into the room, body slamming the door on his way in* DONT GO WITH HIM!!!!!!! IM ADOPTING HER!

Pepper: *appears from nowhere* no you’re not

Peter and Marinette become close friends. The hulk also meets Marinette. The team is worried, but Hulk just kinda picks her up and says “Baby” and tries to burp her. . . . . . . . Tony gets plenty of pictures of this. Marinette is a grumpy sunshine child, and she threatens Tony and Peter if they post any of those pictures.

Tony tells Marinette that he has a friend in town that lives in Starling City and he has agreed to take her with him when he returns home. Marinette will be getting picked up in a few hours, so Tony, Peter, Steve, Thor, and Pepper take Marinette out to get some clothes. This ends in chaos, mayhem, emotional trauma, and the Avengers learn how truly terrifying teenager girls are. Pepper is now wanting to adopt Marinette.

Later that evening Oliver Queen and Roy Harper show up at Avenger tower to pick Marinette up. Roy thinks she will be like all the other girls he knows, shallow and a gold digger or a super hero. He isn’t prepared for the absolute angel that is Marinette. He is love struck, and he becomes the gentleman that Oliver has tried to teach him to be. The only thing Oliver is thinking is “did Bruce get another one?”

Marinette and Roy hit it off very well (roynette is endgame people) they talk for hours. They exchange numbers. Oliver finds out that no, she isn’t adopted by Bruce <not yet anyway>. But she was born in Gotham, she had an older brother who died when she was younger. Oliver found out she is MDC and immediately wanted to commission a suit. She agreed and they were talking suit styles and colors until they arrived in front of her hotel in Starling City. They told her not to hesitate if she needed anything.

Her class didn’t even knotice she was missing. She got her room key and went to sleep. The next morning she was the first one up and downstairs. The breakfast pasteries were gross so she went to the kitchen and taught the staff how to make a good crossaint. She was putting a fresh batch out in the buffet area when her classmates arrived. Lila pauses when she saw her. How had Marinette gotten here? She made sure to destroy her plane ticket. Anyway Lila lies the entire trip as well. She convinces Max to hack into Marinette’s phone and change her alarms. On the day they head to Central City, Marinette’s alarm goes off 30 minutes after the bus leaves.

Marinette sighs and calls Roy. Roy is pissed that her teacher left her behind AGAIN. So he calls up Barry Alan (I watch the Flash tv show so those are the characters I will be using). Roy tells him about how the teacher is incompetent and left a student behind. Roy arrives to pick Marinette up, only to see two guys hitting on her. Roy stops that sh*t real quick. Then they head to Central City. They swing by Star Labs and Marinette meets Barry and his friends. They fall in love with Marinette. She is sweet and kind and adorable. Barry sees her as an innocent sister who must be protected. They take her to her class. He convinced the chief to let the class come visit the precinct. Lila is taking credit for everything, while Marinette gives out pasteries that she made at Star Labs. The officers love Marinette, especially Joe. He sees his daughter in Marinette. Some of the officers offered to teach the class some self defense, in case they were in trouble, and they refused to say how scared they were when Marinette took them down. It was way too easy for her to take them down. The tall kid with frosted tips didn’t do half as well as she did. Roy and Barry only seen that level of skill on hero’s or black belts. Lila started gushing about how she trained with some famous martial artist but had to stop due to her arthritis. The class got held hostage by Captain Cold. Marinette distracts him long enough for the hostages to escape, and the police and hero’s to arrive. She talked about everything from how he could make more money by hiring himself out as a ice machine to people in third world countries to his lack of fashion. By the time the hero’s arrived she was redesigning his entire wardrobe. He was just confused. The officers that arrived on the scene recognized Marinette and were horrified that her class left her in the hands of a criminal. Marinette just brushed it off as no big deal, she was used to it. This had them in near tears. The Flash helped her get back to the hotel. Barry was freaking pissed, so he took a couple pictures with Marinette, took her to get ice cream, and then took her back to her hotel; all before the class arrived.

When the class did arrive at the hotel they started accusing Marinette of working with Cold, but then they saw the Flash. Alya immediately started interviewing him. Only for him to snatch her phone out of her hand and delete the video. She wasnt happy about that, but Barry didn’t care. He stalked over to Bustier and started tearing her apart for abandoning a student. He then went to the police chief and let him know what happened.

Joe finds out what happened and knows that the class’s next stop is Gotham. He calls an old friend, Gordon, and tells him what’s going on and to keep an eye out for Marinette. Gordon agreed but doesn’t think that any teacher can be that stupid.

.

.

.

He is proven wrong when he goes to greet the class only to find that Bustier left Marinette behind. Gordon is dumbfounded, then furious when she said that Marinette can handle herself. Gordon then calls for a manhunt for this child. 15 minutes later he gets a call from Bruce that he has Marinette in his custody. He has permission from her parents to take care of her while she is in Gotham. Gordon starts compiling evidence of criminal neglect to send to the French Board of Education.

Roy was woken up to a call from Marinette. She got left behind again. He calls his friend Jason and tells him about what’s going on and if it’s ok if he stays with him until Marinette goes back to France. Jason,doesn’t know this is his sister, says yes. Roy and Marinette become an official couple on the way to Gotham. Bruce is trying to get everything ready for a non hero to come to their house, even if only for a few hours.

What no one expected was, when Alfred led them into the house. For Marinette and Jason to lock eyes, and for Mari to body check Jason. They also didn’t expect for Marinette and Jason to start crying, or for them to be siblings. Marinette slapped Jason a few times for making her think he died.

Roy pales when he realizes that Jason is her brother. Jason is furious at Roy for dating his sister. Marinette tried to keep her brother from killing her boyfriend, which is a struggle. She tells Bruce what happened with her class and he excused himself to go call her parents and inform them of what has happened. They give him permission to take care of their daughter while she is in Gotham. He also sets up future visits for Marinette to come to Gotham.

While Bruce is away, Damian arrives, sees a new dark haired minor, and immediately concludes his father has adopted another. He then proceeds to attack her, but Marinette takes a sword from a nearby knight and parries him. She barley keeps him at bay, when he realizes that she has some very basic knowledge of swordsmanship. He stops attacking her and starts teaching her. Thus an impenetrable sibling bond has formed. She cookes with Alfred. Dick teaches her how to trapieze. She gives Tim her illegal coffee recipe. Her and Jason talk for hours.

She also finds the Batcave. Only because she went to the library and tried getting a book, that happened to be the hidden enterance. She chews Bruce out for not dealing with the Joker in time to save her brother. She was just letting out her frustrations and everyone knew it. She met Louis and Clark, who she pulled to the side and told him to find a better disguise because it is obvious he is superman. She pats his shoulder and walks away. Louis slips Bruce $10.

Bruce invites the class to the Wayne Gala and provides clothes for them to wear. Marinette refuses the offer and makes her own dress. She also makes gifts for the Batfam.

Marinette is finally able to see Lila’s lies fall apart, at the Gala, and she refuses to forgive the class. What they did is not something that she can get over that easily. All of the abuse, the lack of loyalty, the manipulation, and demand for her time, energy, and supplies to give them what they want. She. Is. Done. She burned those bridges.

When the class is heading back to Paris their notifications go off. They are getting tagged in pictures of Marinette with the Avengers, Oliver Queen and Roy Harper, of the Central City Police force, with the Flash, with the Wayne’s, and Louis and Clark. They were shocked. How could Marinette get the opportunity to meet all of these people when she was with them the entire time. That’s when they realized, she wasn’t with them. The only time they remember seeing her is when they were on tours or she suddenly appeared in the places they were heading to. She was never with them when they left.

[daddysfangirls-marvel]

Material: Series

Series:

* Smut / Smutish

Polyamorous series: ( ongoing) Three people fall in love with each other in a time when loving more than one person was looked down upon. But even in a time when it’s not allowed they still share love and memories. Here are their polyamorous memories

First Kiss |  *First Touch | *Moving in  | *The day they left for war | Found you | *The day Howard Stark Found out  | *Big Change | The train | The plane | Alone | Unfortunate Sequences of events | I know her  | The restaurant  pt1 | The restaurant pt 2 | *It’s me | You can keep her | He’s okay with that | Mama loves me | Kissing Captain | Kissing Winter | Healing | *Hurt | *We’ll wait | Memories | Prude | *Whore |  Put in her place  |  The day Stark Jr. Found out |  Now You Know  |  Nursing  |  *Like a virgin  |  *Morning After  |  The Catacombs | Off with Her head |  Grieving the insane |  Let me make it up to you* |  Punishment*  | Spiderling pt1  |  Spiderling pt2  |  Twentieth-century love  |  The new we can imagine  |  Connection |  Please, Marry me  |  Walk me  |  Stand with me  |  Final touches  |  I do |  HoneyMoon  |  A moment in paradise |  Pictures from Paradise  | The Fever  | The Bad days | Let’s talk about it | *Practice makes perfect pt1 | *Practice makes perfect pt2 | Seed | Unknown Stolen | unfulfilled duties | Talking Emotions | Next Step | Holy shit!! | First steps to hope | She’s awake | Nicknames | The Mother and The father | The Boy | The Name Game | Talking | Not Ready | No Boys 

*Bonus*

Peggy Carter

*Let’s play a game

Howard Stark’s Video - ongoing

The Rain

Bucky finds a child in the rain. After noticing a few weird things about her he decides it’s best if she stays with him. Now they’re on the run. [complete]

Part 1  | Part 2  | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |  Part 6  | Part 7   | Part 8   | Part 9  | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

The Snow

Sequel to ‘The Rain’. The reader meets Thor, Bruce, and Loki. She accidentally tags along in their adventures. Along the way, she helps Loki. [ Loki x child! fem! reader] ( Complete)

Part 1 | Part 6 | Part 11 | Part 16 | Part 21

Part 2 | Part 7 | Part 12 | Part 17 | Part 22

Part 3 | Part 8 | Part 13 | Part 18

Part 4 | Part 9 | Part 14 | part 19

Part 5 | Part 10 | Part 15 | Part 20

The Storm series: Trilogy/ third to The Snow. “All life has water,” Someone said that to her once she didn’t understand how significant those words were until have the universe was threatened. The reader has been known to help everyone but this time she can’t help anyone. (Complete)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

The Eye

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | (Hiatus)

Summary: After the Snap (Y/n) spends the next five years trying to put herself back together again along with everyone else. Just as she’s on the edge of finding or giving up hope for this world of the leftovers Scott Langs shows up with a plan to bring back what was once lost.

Lost Love: [ on Going]Okay what if some write about the Winter Soldier instead of Bucky. Maybe read is forced to work hydra and she gets him to trust her and he protects her and she’s the only one who can calm him down and then he goes back to Bucky and doesn’t remember her and like has to fall in love with her all over again. ( Bucky Barnes/ Winter Soldier x fem! reader)

1 |  2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7  | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |18 | 19 | 20 | 21| 22 | 23| 24 | 25 | 26| 27 | 28 |Ongoing

Black White & Gray:( Loki x reader )reader  is a prisoner in a high-security prison in the Stark Tower, and she is incredibly dangerous, and Loki is being brought in by the Avengers and he wonders why she is in there, they escape together and travel the Galaxy and then just stop on a planet and like start a new life but then Thor finds them and calls them to help on Earth and everyone sees how good they are afterward and just lets them start a secret family Europe or something

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 - Complete

70 years: Bucky Barnes x reader, Steve Rodgers x (sister) reader. After Bucky and Steve fail to come home after ww2 y/n is driven crazy from the hatred she feels from being abandoned by her brother and left alone in the world she becomes an Assassin to kill those who ruined her life. 70 years later the avengers are sent to find an Assassin that has been killing for the last several decades only for Steve and Bucky to be horrified by who it is. (Codename reaper) Complete

Grief | Pain | Alone | Happiness| A thousand years of Happiness

Goth Boss: Tony stark x daughter goth reader. The avengers find out that Tony has a secret teenage daughter and make tony ask her to visit. But when they meet her the avengers find out why she was kept secret. (tony has a strained relationship with y/n as she grew up without him and he kept her secret) - Ongoing

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

[gothamcityangst]

Bruce reacting to Tim being tortured and turned into joker jr in a world where Jason is dead and Barbra is paralyzed.

(Slight variation of events that happened in the Batman Beyond movie. I go a bit off topic with this one so I do apologise.)

Tw: Violence, suicide mention, death

Tim may have shot Joker but it's Bruce who killed him.

Joker had been shot by Tim, non fatally in the shoulder. Bruce stood over the clown prince of crime. That laughter echoed throughout the room. He laughed when he shattered Barbara's spine, he laughed when he beat Jason into a bloody pulp and now he laughed at Tim. A child who'd been electrocuted, drugged and twisted into a sickening version of himself.

Barbara broke him, Jason destroyed him but Tim... Tim was only a damn child.

Bruce pins the Joker down there and then. His hands wrap callously around his neck. Pressing and squeezing until the laughter stops. Even after the blood in joker's veins have turned to ice he still presses down. The only reason he stops is when he hears a horrified squeak coming from Harley.

Harley tries to run away. Bruce shatters both of her ankles before breaking her neck by slamming her neck onto the edge of a crate of wood several times. By the time he arrives back to Tim the police are already there. They know Batman killed Joker and Harley but no one dares say a single word. Batman walks out of there with his ward in his arms.

The aftermath is the most interesting part.

Jim, still filled with venom for the Joker after paralysing his daughter, states for the record that both Harley and Joker died in freak accidents and that it's a major victory for the city. Meaning Batman got away with killing his two worst enemies scot free.

He realises that all this time keeping them alive and getting them help wasn't the answer. Killing them was. He finally gives in and accepts the truth. Arkham is just a revolving door for criminals. They'll never change. Never get better. So what's the point in keeping them alive?

All three events took place within the span of 2 years. Bruce doesn't have time to properly process his grief and emotions and is in a generally worse mental state. His support network has dissolved.

Tim is severely messed up from the experience. He has PTSD, Anxiety and suicidal thoughts. He tries to deal with his trauma and granted Bruce does try and help but overall he begins to associate the experience of being Robin to his torture so therefore he can't take up the mantle again. It gets to a point where he moves in with the Clark family as it's a less stressful environment. This leaves Bruce alone once again.

Barbara is focusing solely on physical therapy so she isn't there to be Oracle. Jason is revived but seeing that Batman has started killing the criminals, Jason doesn't see the need to become Red Hood. He also fears if he reveals himself to Bruce then he might stop his vigilante justice so he watches from the shadows, giving him a helping hand wherever he can.

Alfred actually makes it worse. So far he's been respecting Bruce's no kill code because he supports Bruce unconditionally. However much like Bruce the grief became too much and he couldn't stand to see the super criminals alive. When Bruce talks about potentially killing other criminals he doesn't dissuade this line of thinking.

Bruce knows he's gone too far but he doesn't care. He knows this won't un-torture Tim or un-paralyse Barbara but it'll make him feel a hell of a lot better.

[365days365movies]

May 1, 2021: The Prestige (2006) (Recap: Part One)

What’s that old Arthur C. Clarke quote again?

Not that one, although that’s...that’s fantastic, and I need to know more context to that conversation. But no, no, not that. The other one.

Not that one, although that’s...horrifying. Let me explain something first, then. Clarke was the author of the classic science-fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which definitely didn’t go on to become one of the most widely regarded films of all time. Anyway, he was a big-shot in science fiction, and was even knighted for his prominence in pop culture in the UK and across the world.

Fellow famous sci-fi author Isaac Asimov is well known for three rules of robotics, but Clarke has three rules of his own. A futurist, his laws describe conjecture about scientific development in the future of out societies. Those laws are:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Magic, huh?

God, I love Weird Al. Anyway, as a child of the ‘90s, I am well-acquainted with the boom of stage magicians that appeared during that time, and during the early 2000s. David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, David Blaine coughed up a live frog, Criss Angel freaked minds; lot of stuff back then.

And yet, despite other recent magicians like Penn and Teller or Dynamo, the greatest age of stage magic isn’t even CLOSE to the 90′s. No, no, to really see magic in its heyday, we need to go back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, to the days of the stage illusionist. 

Obviously, the first person that comes to mind is Harry Houdini, a man whose feats have lasted the test of time, and may have led to his death. Not only did he get buried alive, not only did he escape from a straitjacket in chains underwater, NOT ONLY did he hold his breath inside a water-filled milk can inside of a wooden chest repeatedly for FOUR YEARS, but he was also the greatest enemy of spiritualists and mediums everywhere!

Yeah, despite being a stage magician, Houdini was OBSESSED with exposing those who claimed to be actually supernatural. After all, as a showman, he was interesting in exposing tricks that were meant to defraud the innocent public. Dude was awesome, is what I’m saying. He died from a burst appendix, which miiiiight have been caused by a student who punched him in the stomach after asking if he was actually resistant to abdominal damage. Yeah, not a great death. And he wasn’t the only illusionist to die of tragic circumstances, but that’s a discussion for another day. Because of this is sci-fi month...why am I talking about magic? Well...imagine a lighter.

Now image that you went back 5,000 years, to any civilization, and showed them a lighter. The ability to create fire with seemingly nothing but your bare hands? You’re basically a wizard! Fire from no visible fuel? TEACH ME YOUR WAYS, O SORCERER OF THE FLAME!!! And that’s just a goddamn lighter. 

What about a light bulb? Light from energy you’ve harnessed from metals and from the air itself? Jujube! A camera? With the ability to capture a moment in time in the form of a tangible image? WITCHCRAFT!!! A smartphone? A FUCKING SMARTPHONE???

And so, in celebration of the blurring of magic and science...why not start this month with an unconventional form of science fiction, huh? Something that blurs magic and science in a way that’s indistinguishable. And so, I can FINALLY watch a movie that I’ve wanted to watch for YEARS!

I am so excited, and this is a hell of a way to kick off the month! Why this? Well, I’ll explain that later. But for now...LET’S DO THIS.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Recap (1/2)

There are three acts of magic.

First is “the pledge”, where the magician shows something normal. Then, there’s “the turn”, which is when the ordinary becomes extraordinary. And finally, there’s the act of bringing the show full-circle; bringing back a disappeared object, in a new way and with a new technique. That final act, the showmanship, the establishment of the mystery, is called “the prestige”.

So is told to us by John Cutter (Michael Caine), keeper of canaries and stage engineer to magicians, via narration abut magic. Intercut with that narration, and with a disappearing canary trick, is the presentation of an act being performed by Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman). In it, he turns on a machine using electricity, with lightning bolts flying freely. He steps inside of it, and disappears.

Meanwhile, coming from the audience, a man pretends to be part of the act, and goes backstage and underneath the machine. There, he witnesses Angier fall through a trap door into a water tank, unable to get out, panicking and drowning. Which is just super fun to watch, lemme tell you! And that is where the story starts.

The man from the audience was Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), who is quickly put on trial for the murder of Angier. A rival of his during the 1890s and early 1900s, Borden is sent to jail, and sent to death by hanging. This is as his young daughter watches on. In court, Alfred testifies against Bruce Wayne on how he murdered Wolverine, because this is all I could think of the entire time. Anyway, the court asks for more details on the trick that killed Angier, called “the Transported Man”. He refuses to divulge it publicly, but agrees to tell it to one of the judges in secret.

In prison, Borden’s visited by a representative of a wealthy collector of items, Lord Caldlow. He asks if he will sell him his most prominent trick, the “Transported Man”. But Borden also refuses, as it’s HIS trick. Still, in response, the man gives Borden a journal of Angier’s’, and asks him to think about selling the secret. And from there: flashback!

Angier is on a train, heading to Colorado Springs, where he’s surprised to see that the whole town has electricity. His plan is to go up the mountain, which is closed for scientific experimentation. Which isn’t ominous at all! That completely banal revelation is followed by a walk up the mountain in the fog, past a fence that says no trespassing and LITERAL WARNING SIGNS.

There, he’s greeted by Alley (Andy Serkis), the assistant of the estate’s owner. Apparently, said owner made a machine for Borden, and Angier wants to learn the secrets. Another flashback, and we learn that Borden and Angier, rival magicians now, met a long time ago at the show of another magician, both volunteering to tie up the female assistant, Julia (Piper Perabo). Which would be creepy out of context, and then is creepy IN context when Angier kisses her thigh. Ew.

Anyway, they drop her into a tank, with a pretty stereotypical trick. After the show, we also learn that these two men are actually working for the magician, Milton (Ricky Jay), which makes that thigh kiss less creepy. Talking to Cutter and Julia, Borden mocks Milton’s trick, noting that the old magician won’t even try something like a bullet catch. Cutter mocks this idea, and asks if Borden has any better ideas. It’s around this time that Cutter suggests seeing Chung Ling Soo. Huh. I won’t say anything about that until later.

Or right now! And, uh...oh shit, this is extraordinarily awkward. Here’s the thing: this is NOT Chung Ling Soo. I know this for two reasons. One, Soo didn’t really pretend to be crippled, as Borden and Angier suggest. Wasn’t really his bag. But something that IS interesting about the guy is how he died! BULLET CATCH TRICK!! Yup! He tried the bullet catch trick, and he died when the bullet actually fired at him! Yeah, awkward.

And you know what else is awkward, and really different from this story? Chung Ling Soo was...not Chinese. Even a little bit. His real name was William Ellsworth Robinson, he married his assistant, cheated on her with another assistant, never divorced and still married his new assistant illegally, etc. He was an interesting guy. Ignoring, y’know, the whole disgustingly shitty yellow-face thing. Different times, unfortunately.

Borden’s frustration with an act he considers boring and obsolete erupts during one of Milton’s shows, where we see him KILL A BIRD, FUCK ME MAN. Yeah, I get it, Borden, this is terrible! This coincides with meeting a young woman and her nephew, who is also upset to see a bird die in front of him. The woman is Sarah (Rebecca Hall), and the two start a romance. Meanwhile, the romance between Angier and Julia is a straight-up marriage, making that thigh kiss fare more understandable. And, the two are about to have a baby, to both of their delight! Nothing bad will happen now!

We flash forward to the future, where Cutter is showing the judge what’s what with the device. He claims that a wizard built it, and that the machine can actually do what magicians have only pretended to do for years. They also look at a tank, and Cutter reveals that the tank has a terrible history, especially for the two magicians.

Flashback again, to a night of yet another show. That night, Milton and the group go through with their trick, as per usual. However, Borden decides to make it a little tougher and more exciting by tying a different knot this time. And unfortunately...Julia can’t untie it. They try to get her out in time, but alas...it’s too late.

Julia dies, and Angier blames Borden, who isn’t even entirely sure if he tied the knot that killed Julia...allegedly. Not a big fan of Borden right now. The act is over, and Borden decides to split off and do his own act, calling himself “the Professor”. Now having a child of his own with Sarah, he decides to do a bullet trick, with the help of new stage engineer, Fallon. But this is a tricky trick to perform. And the understandable mental breakdown of Angier causes its own problems.

See, during one of Borden’s shows (which is going TERRIBLY), a disguised Angiers shows up and loads a REAL bullet into the gun for the trick, and BLOWS OFF TWO OF HIS FINGERS FUCK ME!!! Borden’s not exactly happy about this, but he recovers quickly. Shortly after, Cutter finds Angier at a bar, and offers him the opportunity to make a new show of his own. Reluctantly, he accepts, and takes up the moniker “the Great Danton”, a name that his late wife suggested.

With a new bird/cage trick, one that lets the bird LIVE (THANK YOU), they’re almost set. But they also add a new assistant, in the form of...Black Widow. I mean, sorry, Olivia Wenscombe (Scarlett Johansson). Yeah, um...Wolver, Alfred Pennyworth, and Black Widow are working together in competition against Batman. Also, Gollum is in the movie, too. God, what’s next, David Bowie?

Anyway, the show is on once again, and Angier asks for some volunteers in the audience. But, uh oh! One of them is Borden in disguise, and he sabotages the trick in front of EVERYBODY, breaking an audience member’s fingers, and killing the bird, completely fucking up Angier’s career, in revenge for his fingers. Oh, also, MOTHERFUCKER YOU KILLED HIS WIFE (maybe)!!! Doesn’t justify Angier shooting off your fingers, but you could’ve just let bygones be! No wonder you’re rivals in the future! Batman’s a dick (which, given Christian Bale, isn’t that surprising).

Well, since his trick, Angier’s fucked. They’re kicked out of the theater, and in need of a new act. Cutter suggests that Angier goes to the upcoming science exposition for ideas. And yes...that’s where the science fiction angle starts in. See, like Clarke said, any science that’s sophisticated enough LOOKS like magic to audiences who don’t understand it. And Borden has the same idea, as he also heads to the expo. 

It’s there that a presentation of a massive electrical generator is being held, with the machine having been invented by...Nicola Tesla! YO!

I don’t think I need to tell anybody about Tesla at this point, but he was a brilliant physicist and inventor from the early 1900s. His legendary Current War with Thomas Alva Edison for the current to be used by the United States (Tesla’s DC vs. Edison’s AC) is the stuff of science legend...and is a conflict that the far less charismatic Tesla lost. Still, his mastery of electricity (such as the above Tesla coil) is remembered today. If you want to go sightseeing, check out New York! In Niagara Falls, he’s got a massive statue overlooking the falls; and in Bryant Park in NYC, you can sit on the bench where he fed his beloved pigeons. Yeah, he loved pigeons, which I respect.

Anyway, the expo’s shut down due to presumed danger of the exhibit, possibly spurred on by Thomas Edison and his PR team. Which is pretty accurate, not gonna lie. Still, the experiment interests both Angier and Borden. Still, Angier doesn’t do much with this information. Right now, anyway.

Flash forward to Angier in Colorado Springs, and a group of men from Edison’s employ are there for some reason. But undeterred, Angier heads back to Tesla’s lab, where Alley shows him a gorgeous sight: lightbulbs dotting a field, making a gorgeous grid of light. He reveals that the source of the electricity is 15 miles away, as a testament to Tesla’s scientific genius. Stellar.

A great place to pause. See you in Part Two of this Recap!

[chloe-bourgeois-is-big-gay]

//Day 28//

//Childhood Friends//

Every summer since she could remember, Marinette would go to Gotham with her mother, father and uncle Jagged.

When she was in the city, her uncle would take her to visit his friend Bruce. He had kids as well and when the adults would talk, Marinette would play Acrobats with Dick and later she would play Detectives with Tim. This was years before she met Damian or Jason.

The summer before Marinette turned ten, she met Damian. She entered the Wayne's home with her uncle, when she noticed a boy around her age glaring at her from behind a door. When she blinked he was gone.

Not thinking much of it, Marinette proceeded to find Tim. Despite the boy being 17 now, Tim was happy to play Detectives with Marinette.

In the middle of their game, Marinette spotted the boy peeking around the corner and staring at the two. She smiled back at him, only to be given a confused look.

Marinette was not one to exclude someone from a game so she got up and approached the boy, "Hi, I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng. What's your name?"

The boy was quiet for a second, before he said in a slightly haughty voice, "I'm Damian. What are you doing?"

Marinette smiled, "We're playing Detectives, do you -"

Damian cut her off, "What are you doing here, I meant. Who is that man with you?"

She stopped, feeling slightly hurt. Tim, upon noticing the girls expression, butt in, "Marinette has been coming to the Manor every summer since she was a baby, her uncle is a family friend. Don't be rude, Damian, for once in your life."

Tim turned to Marinette, "Sorry about him, he's… Paranoid, to say the least."

Marinette brightened up, "It's alright, if I saw a random girl come into my house, I'd be suspicious, too."

…..

Later that day, Damian approached Marinette, "I'm sorry for how I acted, Miss Dupain-Cheng. It was wrong of me to assume the worst."

She smiled back at him, "It's alright. Maybe, we can be friends?"

And Damian agreed.

For the rest of the summer, the two were attached to the hip, causing mischief all around the Manor. Not that Bruce minded, at least Damian could act like a child.

When Marinette left for Paris at the end of the break, Damian was back to his gloomy self and Bruce decided the friendship between the two was good.

And that was the start of the Wayne's going to Paris for winter break.

…..

When Marinette was thirteen, she met Jon. Damian's new best friend.

While she wasn't jealous, Marinette did wish she only lived a city away from Gotham so she could see her friends more often.

But as soon as she and Jon talked to each other (and decided that they could all be best friends together (despite Damian insisting they are just friendly acquaintances of his)) the three of them got on like a house on fire. Damian was acting even more like a kid, which made Bruce ecstatic.

When Marinette left for home and Jon left for Metropolis for the school year, Damian went back to his broody self.

'Next time we go to Paris,' Bruce thought, 'Let's bring the Kents along with us.'

…..

Every winter break Damian and Marinette would go ice skating, bringing Jon along just made it more fun.

They talked about everything, even the new girl in Marinette's class who lied about everything. At that point Lila was still 'in Achu' so Marinette want too bothered about her.

…..

When Marinette was 18, she went to Gotham for the first time during the school year. As class president, she was in charge of organising school trips, so with the permission from her teacher and the principal she was able to get the class a trip to Gotham.

She tried to keep it on the downlow, knowing how if he heard about the trip, Bruce would tell the school how they won a competition or something for the trip of a lifetime, just so he could keep Marinette and her friends in luxury.

And somehow, Bruce did hear about the trip and did exactly that.

He upgraded the group to first class on the plane, booked nice hotel rooms, got the class very exclusive tours around the city and gave them tickets to the upcoming Wayne Gala (all of which Lila took credit for). He even offered to give Marinette's whole class spending money, to which she shut down immediately, "You're already giving us too much, Uncle Bruce."

What Marinette didn't know was that Bruce knew exactly what the situation was like in Marinette's class and he planned to deal with it his way.

…..

When everyone heard about the Gala, immediately Marinette was bombarded with requests for clothes, she repeated what she had said hundreds of times before, "I'm sorry but it's far too short notice."

Throughout the week in Gotham, Marinette had seen several members of the Wayne family operating tours for her group. She was suspicious, but once she noticed how they were silently making lasting impressions on her classmates and poking small holes in Lila's lies, Marinette realised what their plan was, or at least what part of their plan was. Subtly reveal themselves to be Wayne's at the Gala after Lila had been telling lies about them during tours they had operated themselves.

In fact, Marinette thought it was brilliant, but she didn't even realise the last part.

……

On the night of the Gala, the class was waiting in the lobby for Marinette. Mlle. Bustier wouldn't let them forget her a third time so they were all waiting for her.

Each of them were wearing old clothes that were designed by Marinette but were not suitable for a Gala.

The boys wore wrinkled suits in brown and grey colours, despite the dress code being black tie.

The girls wore old dresses of Marinette's although they were much too casual for the event.

Lila and Alya however, were both wearing old dresses of Alya's designed by Marinette, too, but they had been drastically altered.

Alya's dress used to be a simple sunset orange swing dress with the special signature on the hem. However, now, it had been cut to be above the knee with a badly sewn hem making it lose its graceful shape. Someone had gotten hold of a bedazzler and added rhinestones to the bodice.

Lila's dress used to be a maxi green dress with lace sleeves and a jewel neckline. Now, the sleeves were cut off, the skirt had a large cut down the side and the neckline was cut so awkwardly it seems like the dress was unfinished.

Both girls seemed to think their dresses were the best of the class and they didn't let their faces hide their smug pride.

When the elevator door opened they're smug faces dropped.

Out came Marinette wearing a beautiful midnight blue evening gown with a tulle bottom and a detailed featherlike bodice.

Her hair was in a low bun with feather shaped silver hair clips decorating it.

Her shoes were simple midnight blue high heels.

Lila started laughing at Marinette, despite her jealousy, "Overdressed much, Marinette?"

With her the class started laughing.

Marinette just smiled and said nothing.

…..

The ride up to Wayne Manor was not at all pleasant, despite the over the top limo Bruce had sent. Every single conversation was how poor Lila wouldn't be able to see her Damiboo because he was gone to Achu for the month.

That was a lie if Marinette ever heard one.

When they arrived, Lila and Alya were the first out of the limo, followed by the rest of the class. When they saw what the other guests were wearing the class felt bad about laughing at Marinette's outfit. Each outfit was trying to one up the others in obscurity or beauty. They passed a woman with a taxidermied peacock on her shoulder, several men in tuxedos and a woman in a dress that matched her lipstick perfectly.

However, when they reached the door of the Manor, where the Wayne's were greeting guests, they saw all the tour guides they had for the week and were bad mouthing. Each and every one of them was a Wayne.

But the person who was most horrified was Lila, she had been lying about being friends with the Wayne's all week to their own faces.

Just as they were about to enter the Manor, the biggest man, Jason, stopped them, "Oh you must be the class from Paris. I'm afraid I can't let you in until Marinette comes to vouch for you all."

An annoyed Alya rolled her eyes, "Why would we need Marinette? Lila here has been friends with you guys for years, she's even dating Damian Wayne."

The whole family's eyes landed on a boy with tanned skin around their age, he shook his head, "I've never known a Lila in my life."

A shock passed through the class, why did Lila tell them she knew the Wayne's then?

Soon an elegant figure graced the steps up to the Manor. Marinette.

Bruce smiled, "Ah, Marinette, I haven't seen you since Christmas, your uncle is inside."

She smiled at him, "Thank you for all the hospitality while we were in the city."

He grinned and Marinette frowned, she knew that smile and she did not like that he was about to use it in front of her classmates, "Anything for my honorary niece."

The class was shocked, again. Why did Marinette know the Wayne's and not say anything?

"I won't keep you, go inside and have some fun," Bruce smiled.

As she passed, Damian gave her a wink.

Once they entered the foyer the class exploded.

"Why didn't you tell us you knew the Wayne's?"

"How do you know them?"

Marinette shook them off, "I don't have to tell you anything. Now I'm off to find my uncle with Adrien."

She strode off with Adrien in tow.

He smiled at her, "Imagine how they'll react when they find out about Damian."

Marinette rolled her eyes and gave him a gentle push, "Oh, shush. You're just happy to see Tim, again."

He frowned, "Hey, the man's pretty."

"And 7 years older than you and spoken for." She said with her eyebrows raised.

Just then a tall man with blue eyes and black hair walked passed and Adrien sighed dreamily, "What about Jon? I know you guys were friends since you were like 13."

Marinette smiled, "Well, technically he's like 3 or 4 years older than us now and yes, he's single."

Adrien fist bumped Marinette and fixed his hair, "Send this cat luck, milady." He said before following the taller man.

…..

Marinette found her Uncle Jagged just before he was about to perform.

He smiled widely at her and gave her a huge hug, "Marinette, I'm so glad you could come. The outfits you made for me are rockin'."

Before she could even thank her uncle, Jagged got called onto the stage, "See ya later, Nette."

…..

Throughout the night Marinette danced and talked with old friends, despite having to shoo her classmates away at time.

At the end of the night Bruce had said a speech, "I wanted to thank you all for coming and donating. It's for the wonderful cause of helping homeless children around the city," the audience clapped, "I wanted to thank my friend Jagged Stone for playing tonight," everyone cheered, "And I wanted to thank Jagged's niece MDC for making my family's clothes for tonight."

Soon however, a slightly tipsy Dick grabbed the microphone and said, "She's also Damian's girlfriend."

The crowd laughed at the acrobats antics and soon everyone good back to dancing and chatting.

Marinette had danced with Cass, Tim, Jason and Dick but she hadn't gotten a chance to dance with Damian yet and the night was ending.

She looked everywhere and was about to give up when another voice spoke from the stage, it was Damian, "I wanted to say something before you all left for the night," people stopped shuffling so they could hear better, "As you heard earlier, my girlfriend is MDC and I just wanted to say a few things, M would you come up to the stage, please."

Marinette smiled and walked up the steps, a shocked cacophony of gasps filled the room, especially from her classmates.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I have known you for 8 years, since we were ten, and we've been dating for 3 of those wonderful years. And I love you very much, more than I have ever loved anything."

Marinette's eyes started to tear up along with most of the crowds. One pair of eyes though was dry and glaring.

"I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I'm so glad we made up, because I don't know where I'd be without you today."

He got down on one knee and pulled out a ring, "Will you marry me?"

The crowd sucked in a breath and Marinette with her eyes puffy from tears, nodded, "Yes. Yes I will marry you."

He stood up and kissed her and the whole audience aww'd. Well the whole audience apart from Lila, who's angry yells were drowned out by the rest of the guests.

The newly engaged couple walked off the stage and into a quiet hallway to think, only to find both their best friends together and kissing.

Marinette put her fingers to her lips and snuck up on the two, "Are we to expect a double wedding?"

The two jumped apart blushing. Before Adrien noticed her wording.

"Wait. Wedding?! You better not hurt her Wayne or I'll hurt you."

Marinette playfully shoved her partner, "Don't be a silly kitty, I'd hurt him first."

Damian smiled lovingly at his fiancée, "I wouldn't be it any other way, Angel."

…..

@daminette-december2019

This was the dress I imagined for Marinette if you were wondering

[gothamincarnate]

META: While Joker actually did kill Jason, it wouldn’t have happened without Sheila Heywood. Therefore, erasing her from the later versions of the comics makes Jason responsible for his own death, when this wasn’t present in the original version.

This is gonna have bits of headcanon but all headcanon supported by the text.

I know others have talked about the victim blaming in the later (90s, 52, new 52 etc) comics but I’m posting my own because a lot of my followers don’t actually know a ton about A Death in the Family. There were a lot of factors/backstory in play that led up to Jason’s death.

Let’s start at the middle, when the main story kicks into gear. Jason Todd has traveled cross the globe looking for different possible mothers. He ends up meeting a doctor in Ethiopia named Sheila Heywood.

He’s so grateful that she’s alive and it’s the softest scene in the whole arc tbh:

Then Jason finds out Sheila has been “taken hostage” by Joker. Which, she is and she isn’t. We know that it’s because she’s being blackmailed by Joker, but all Jason knows is that she’s in there with him.

Jason has just been told to stay away from Joker. He, as a Robin, ignores this. Here we get Exhibit A of Jason being a calculated sort of reckless: He doesn’t barge in. He meets her outside.

Is Jason reckless? I’d say he’s got a temper more than he’s reckless. He’s shown in earlier comics like Batman: The Cult that he thinks things through. Jason is smart, Jason knows how to plan and weight risks. He just-- assumes he can handle more than he can sometimes.

On with the show:

During the short conversation, he makes no moves to go inside.

(My own headcanon is that he was going to lead her away and wait for Batman. He knows Joker’s dangerous and he isn’t going to go in fighting now that the civilian/victim is safe.)

In fact, when she goes in, he tells her to wait.

Sheila lies to him and lures him into a trap.

Then Sheila pulls a gun on him. He’s got two guns, two/three bodyguards and large boxes caging him in on both sides.

Of course he’s gonna fight his way out. But, he doesn’t at first. Well, okay, he’s too under attack to fight back at first, his mom’s got a gun on him and is taunting him, he’s dealing with a lot.

Joker’s the one to throw the first punch. It’s not until it’s clear he can’t get out of it that he starts fighting.

Sheila is, of course, horrified at just how brutal Joker’s being, but she makes no move to stop it really. Partly because she can’t, but like, she delivered Robin to Joker, she grew up in Gotham so he knows what Joker’s capable of. She had to know a little of what she was getting herself into.

Also I love that blank faced stare while she just watches the first few blows. It’s eerie. Like, she was fine with a child being beaten until it got too bloody or something.

to be fair, she does try to kind save him at the end, for reasons I haven’t figured out. I guess she figured Joker had gone too far so she wanted to help.

Here’s her deathbed confession. She says Jason is a good kid, she now realizes that he’s “much better than I deserve”

Jason died saving the woman that led him into a trap and got him killed. The woman that mocked him at gunpoint for daring to trust that he had (in his eyes) at least one good parent.

But Bruce doesn’t get the full truth. So he buries them next to each other, and no mention of Sheila is made again.

Bruce is given a half truth, and this sets the tone for his memory of Jason. He doesn’t know that Sheila set it up, that Robin didn’t want her to go inside-- warned her against going inside.

For all he knows, Jason went straight inside and beat up Joker just like he had earlier in the arc. It’s understandable that Bruce thinks this and tells Tim and Dick about it in this context.

But it doesn’t make it any less infurating when Bruce is constantly “Tim don’t be as reckless as Jason or you’ll end up dead”

The reason Jason died is because his mother led him into a trap, a lamb to slaughter.