#bruce and tim are the most variable here

[breadandblankets]

thinking about different ways you can be nocturnal in relation to bats ya know, like you could go to sleep at dawn and wake up mid afternoon or go to be during the afternoon and wake up at dusk etc etc

so ive started classifying bats into morning bats or afternoon bats lmao:

Morning: Alfred, Jason, Steph (school), Cass, Bruce, Damian, Kate

Afternoon: Tim, Dick, Steph (during breaks), Babs, Harper

[bluemoonbun]

Reader is implied to like feminine things, though gender identity is kept ambiguous.

Damian was a good brother. That’s what he always told himself. He was a good brother, a good son. He was cold, rude, and erudite, but he was able and willing to help anyone who needed it.

When he arrived at Wayne manor, Bruce told him the general run down of why you were to be avoided when it came to anything vigilante related. You were still pure, a year younger than Damian but without any of the pain. The only one in the Wayne manor that could have a shot at becoming a normal person. Damian envied that, but kept it to himself. His anger often boiled to the top, drops of green venom dripping from his mouth when you tried to annoy him into spending time with you.

Your complaints of him ignoring you was scalding water on his already raw nerves. Why would you complain about not being the center of attention for five damn seconds? He would trade anything for the life you had. A life where you could lay around after school and never worry about a rogue bullet lodging itself in your arm, or a poisonous plant releasing psychedelic spores into an open wound.

You could and would never join the Robins. You were weak; it was in your blood. Always sickly, always the pacifist. You wouldn't survive a day in his life. And you weren't living his life; you were living his dream.

But apparently the effort the family was putting in wasn’t enough.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed that the manor felt… off about two weeks before the fight with Joker. He couldn’t trace it for the life of him at first. When he realized by the second week that he hadn’t spoken to you in days, or really seen you around the manor at all, he wrote off the worms writhing in his stomach. You must’ve been busy with a class assignment and had little time to annoy him with your demands of time together.

After the fight, however, he was a war of a thousand emotions. How dare you leave them? Why would you turn away an easy life fat on nepotism for a group of murderers, con men, the dredges of Gotham’s society?

Were you truly that desperate to be acknowledged that you’d turn your back on the family who did everything for you? He hopes you’re happy there, since you were clearly so upset at not being given attention.

Over time, however, things start to change. A few days after Jason made a full recovery, Damian looked at one of the drones Tim managed to get a chunk of code from. It took a lot of trial and error, and the development of an entirely new program to grab some of the code before it bricked itself, and enough all nighters and energy drinks that any doctor would faint, but it was managed. The code was dense, optimized to work with the least bloat possible, well tagged variables, and even a handful of comments in the code.

//Buy Bane those Boston Donuts from the donut shop on 5th //Why does this code need to be here so it doesn’t auto brick itself. What is in the code protecting it from the wrath of God //Louie likes Texas barbecue ribs. Possible treat? //DO NOT FEED THEM WHOLE RIBS. COOKED BONES BAD. //SINCE WHEN WAS THIS VARIABLE A STRING??? IT WAS AN INT 5 LINES AGO //Help the hopeless lesbians get together. //Would Harley and Ivy dating make Harley my mom or Ivy my big sister? Both???

His eyes skimmed the retrieved comments, laughing at a few. It seems that Bane, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn were the most common subjects of the notes, though a few mentioning the Iceberg lounge asking what non-alchoholic drink you’d like added, or Riddler offering you another puzzle to keep your mind active. Even Joker was mentioned, though it seemed mostly transactional.

It was strange seeing you in this light. You seemed to have a lot of spice in you, but a heart made of gold. You were definitely surprised whenever one othe villains offered to take you on some trip to amusement parks, regular parks, even just willingly watching anime with you. It was odd to see. Surely someone at the house did those things with you? He didn’t but he was extremely busy with school and vigilantism. Jason was legally dead, so surely he had all the time in the world.

“How was I supposed to relate to them? They’re what, 12 and into shit like that one with the cat looking dog thing and the robot girl. I have shit to do. Y’know, managing Crime Alley?”

Well, Dick had come over to hang out plenty of times. Surely he’d spent at least a few hours with you every now and then? “I have an entire team and criminals to manage of in another city, Damian. I don’t have as much time as you think to do whatever it was with them they’d wanted to do”

Maybe Tim? “I have college and stuff, Damian. And I don’t have the energy to put into hanging around them. I’d probably just be sleeping most of the time.

Bruce? “I have to manage you, Gotham, and the Justice League, Damian. I barely have time for myself.”

… Alfred? “I tried, Master Damian. However I’m constantly pulled thin between so many tasks. Besides, all you have is school most days, and you’ve had summer vacations and weekends. Shouldn’t you’ve had plenty of time to spend with your younger sibling?”

… He did have the most time outside of vigilantism. And it took him a week to realize you were missing.

You had to realize that they were under extreme stress though, right?He couldn’t spend all his free time with you. He had his own friends to hang out with. How were you two even supposed to relate?

One day at dinner, the thoughts were thrashing in his head, slamming against soft tissue and tearing through brain matter. He aimlessly poked at the food on his plate.

“You alright, replacement?” Jason asked, pausing in his extremely rare dinners with everyone else. Alfred had promised him a tray of fudge to take home this time around, and nobody made fudge quite as good as he did.

“… They were gone for two weeks.”

Everyone stopped eating as he continued.

“Two weeks. Two full weeks before they showed up at that fight. Did anyone here even know? I only noticed after a week and assumed they were just holed up in their room with a class assignment or something.” He was rambling. Everyone was quiet and looking at each other. How did it manage to slip past everyone? They were detectives, for Christ’s sake.

They were your family.

—

Dinner ended with guilt wrapping around their throats and pulling.

Eventually, all of them found themselves in your room. It had been emptied, but showed no signs of struggle. All the small items, the comforter, and your clothes were gone. But what was taken left something behind. Copies of photos of you winning state level competitions, letters requesting your attendance at seminars, photos of gold medals and blue ribbons spread across the floor. Most damning of all was the most recent photo. A certificate by some big time tech company being handed to you. Edward Nashton stood behind you, a firm, reassuring hand on your shoulder.

When had this happened? They never remembered hearing of something like this. A news clipping on the back told them it was maybe a week before you left.

“The Wayne prodigy stated that their family had more important things to see to than such an occasion. I can’t imagine something more important that either of my kids being recognized by a multi-million dollar tech company! I remember postponing an anniversary with my husband to celebrate our child placing second in the science fair. But I guess that’s just the Waynes for you!”

That’s just the Waynes to you.

But it’s ok. He can make it better. He can be a good big brother. He can spend time watching anime with you and decorating your room with lace and fairy lights and go makeup shopping with you. You just need to come home. Now.

---------------- Taglist! Ask to be added! Edit: It is now closed!

@jjsmeowthie , @jsprien213 , @ladyrosemone

[rottingghosty]

The Realms PR | DC X DP Part 2

this isn’t as good in my thoughts because writing as bruce??? really hard. how am i supposed to write a paranoid man if i am the most chillest person i can be… anyway heres your part 2 food of this au, not sure if i’ll continue writing more parts? depends on how i feel.

errors are made and sorry the the lackluster performance this might be

if you want to use my prompt please give me credits thank you

☁️☁️☁️☁️

Danny very much prefers to have nobody intervene on his business as the vigilante of Amity Park. He’s essentially called dibs on it if you consider the fact that the entire town is basically his metaphorical grave since it’s his haunt and he did die to make the portal to the Ghost Zone open. He very much ignores that specific can of worms because that’s a heavy topic that he won’t ever talk about because Spectra really ruined his own outlook on professionals. Jazz will most likely want to open that can but that’s for future Danny.

Where was he? Oh yeah.

Danny very much likes being a solo hero with his friends and sister aiding when they can. He very much dislikes the fact that people have been trying to enter his haunt without permission. Does he know why people who tried to pass through Amity Park suddenly find themselves back at where the welcome sign is? No. Is he going to ask? Also no because it allows the residents and himself privacy even when he’s got the GIW on his tail or even his own parents.

He’s not going to rebuke this gift especially with his influx of fame. Which reminds Danny that he needs to post a new tweet, maybe a video of Cujo playing with the kids in the park from a few days ago? He figures people would be more interested if they knew a ghost dog existed. Maybe he can include one of Ember’s concerts or something.

Man he has so many videos to post and such little time to do so, but he thinks Sam and Tucker are having fun being his PR team with the way Sam had a manic gleam in her eyes when Lois Lane and Clark Kent sent her a message of twitter asking for an interview. All while Tucker basically going giddy at Red Robin and Oracle trying to get through the firewall that’s blocking Amity Park from eyes being too close for all their comforts.

Bruce Wayne stared intently at the video before him, it was only thirty seconds but it was thirty seconds enough to cause him to tighten his grip on the arm rests of his chair in the Batcave. His blue eyes staring down at the figure in the video as it replayed on loop. His shoulders tense and bunched up as he inhaled sharply at the frame that happened ten seconds in.

Because right there, staring up at the camera looked too much like Jason. It looked too much like his boy, his son that he had lost when Jason was only fifteen. Normally he would’ve brushed it off but it was the way that it then shifted into Dick, Steph, Tim and then Damian—

Ancient of Hope is what Phantom had called them, the embodiment of hope and how its form switched to what people believed in. Apparently it looked so much like the Robins of Gotham because Gotham was— is the biggest source of hope there is. Yet, this was an unknown.

Bruce couldn’t trust a word that Phantom said, ghosts are an unknown. Trying to get Constantine to talk about it was a struggle itself, the equivalent of trying to pull teeth out because the man was equally as stubborn as Bruce and it was even worse when the man had cursed up a storm when they had a meeting about Phantom’s first videos.

Ghosts are a variable in an equation that Bruce is trying to solve but he simply can’t force his way into solving it, not when this whole thing has turned into a diplomatic nightmare with the fact that Oa has started pressuring the US government about the mistreatment of the Infinite Realms beings.

The Justice League Dark even adding in the pressure— Deadman being one of the more outspoken members as he explained as much as he knew about the Infinite Realms despite not quite qualifying as one of their residents but still considered as one in an odd way. Constantine grumbling about as he came and went, saying how the Ghost Investigation Ward could’ve started a war or destroyed everyone.

Clark and Lane were writing up articles, having conversations with the PR Team of Phantom— two teenagers who were involved heavily and considered ambassadors to the Realms because of their connection to Phantom.

Phantom who is the High King. Phantom who doesn’t want his subjects hunted anymore and took a peaceful route instead of simply declaring war.

Bruce takes a heavier breath, jaw clenched as he watched the video loop one more time before the closed the tab to look more into the GIW and their backers, eyes narrowing in two names.

Vladimir Masters and Lex Luthor.

[haveihitanerve]

Okay, oka, ok- real talk here: if all other variables were equal, Dick would beat every other robin at hand to hand combat- no question. My reasoning? Dick was the first. And he was so eager to be Robin, so pushy, so small, that Bruce taught him everything. He dregged up the bottom of the barrel of his mind to teach this little boy four separate styles of kung foo and jujitzu, he did not rest- any time not spent dedicated to their Secret Identity personas they were on the mat, working 16 out of 24 hours, learning everything everything everything. 

When Jason rolled around, after ten years of Dick, Bruce was a little calmer. He taught Jason the things Dick used the most, the things he needed to know, but didn't teach him everything. There wasn’t really any need, now that he was a little more experienced with kids. 

And then Tim came, and Bruce worked him hard. Harder than even Dick, because Jason hadn't worked as hard as dick and he had died. But he still doesn't teach him everything because well, Bruce still cant really�� bring himself to care and accept Tim. Not yet. And it works out, anyway. 

Then Steph arrives and shes stubborn enough as it is and Bruce is jaded enough as it is and he teaches her, albeit begrudgingly and he fine tunes her own techniques… and its okay. 

ANd Damian? Well Damian just has to unlearn the final step of all of his skills, and thats enough hassle and skill as it is. 

So yeah, thats my reasoning for why Dick would beat every other Robin. Maybe even Batkid, save cass because even Bruce loses to Cass. :)

[takemetomyfragiledreams]

For the WIP game curious about #3 - from a gilded cage; I release your chains

It's such an intriguing title! Would a snippet or summary be okay? Or, inspiration behind the name?

Of course!! That's a fic revolving around Tim, who went through the Joker Junior situation as a child and who isn't quite as better as Bruce thinks and Dick, who has been newly recovered and talonified. It's all about healing and finding a place for the new person you are instead of pretending to be the person you used to be (as is becoming my MO)

In the end, the picture is rather simple. He is meant to mean something to these people, as this 'Dick Grayson.' He has friends and family and a whole other life he pieces together like a puzzle. He still doesn't know what this identity is for or who he has to kill. No one tells him and he doesn't ask. He knows better.

Instead, he waits. He watches. Until one day he hears raised voices; one from Bruce and another from someone foreign.

"You kept this from me on purpose," the stranger accuses.

"I didn't want to distract you from your mission—"

"You didn't want me here, you mean! If anyone knows anything about what this is like, it's me, you should have brought me in!"

"Tim—"

"Forget it, Bruce." There are soft footsteps and then a body comes into sight. It's a small boy in a loose sweatshirt and shorts. He's pale, with dark circles under his eyes and more scars visible than all the rest of them. The most startling of them all are the twin slashes cut into his cheeks.

"Hi, Dick," Tim says, when he's stopped a few inches from the glass. Bruce hovers several feet behind, looking as if he wants to interrupt. "Long time no see. How are you liking your new room?"

Talon's head tilts to the side. He doesn't know if he's meant to answer that.

"Right." Tim's smile is more of a grimace as he rocks back on his heels. "I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier. Someone didn't call me."

Bruce lets out a low 'hn' and leaves.

Tim leans closer to the glass and holds Talon's gaze. "I'll visit later," he promises, as he lifts a hand to push his hair back from his face. He's blocking the camera, Talon realizes. Keeping it from reading his lips. "Too many people watching."

What a strange new variable, Talon muses, once he's alone once more. Why did it feel like Tim was undercover too?

[boonandbash]

Tim Drake x Spidersona OC

His name is Carter and he is a very visible mutant! His face is one of a wolf spider and he lives in a mutant protection home for adolescents in LA.

This Fic takes place as if Carter was transported cross dimensions where everything is fiction (like our world) if this gets popular I’ll make a little comic for Tim and Carter

TAGS : Tim Drake X Canon, Bad puns, bad quips, I write this in the bath when I’m half asleep. Idk when I’ll update but I have a story plan (sneak peak)

Pt. 1

Tim is entirely sure something is wrong. The constant speculation of something unfamiliar and unexpected happening is rising, no matter what happens ’new’ is always awful for Drake. Steph went over horoscopes the last time he hung out with her and Cass for a ‘girls’ night’, his had been nothing but ‘new things are coming’ and the new training regimen Bruce had for him was focused entirely on ‘expecting the unexpected’, not to mention the seemingly new and confusing student body at school. Now these things could be a coincidence but Tim Drake was too scared, far too familiar with the unexpected to mark it up as a ‘coincidence’.

He’d been working himself into the ground because of it.

Constantly asking the others if they needed his skills or taking up patrols like a madman to get time away from himself. This sort of thing started to take its toll about two weeks in but with the constant panicking and new regimen. Tim was beginning to feel like being sent to a mental hospital and being forced into a straight jacket might be a healthier alternative to whatever the fuck he was doing now.

It was infuriating to say the very least.

Tim rubbed at his eyes, the sleep deprivation reaching its peak. Apart from the soulmate drama he’d also been working on getting through to the League of Shadows. Cass had recently come to him with a favor (which was a rarity at all) that he look into any new sightings of assassins or operatives in the area. Any he had found were just sightings and were already sent over to Cass and Bruce for looking into.

The stray thought of closing his laptop and going to sleep at��� 3:04 AM. Seemed to be recurring but once he got started on a little project he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

Hours upon hours of going through security footage and leftover League of Shadows filings that they had from months ago couldn’t have been decent on the boy's brain power but even at such a late (early?) time of the night (day???) he was able to pull his eyes together long enough to see the slight shift in pixels of a figure swinging into an alleyway, fast enough to avoid a good shadow but not bright enough to make out directly. This ruled out two options; it wasn’t a vigilante he was familiar with and it most definitely wasn’t an up-and-coming villain. Just before Tim had blinked away his consciousness he sent the clip to Bruce for investigation, very likely that the older man was more awake than Tim and would very likely continue to be awake till sunrise.

-

Honestly, Tim is kind of unsure about what he should expect from himself or whether to go with the flow because he should have known that once an unknown variable was presented to him he wouldn’t go to sleep.

Now he was sitting out here on some dusty ass building and pulling at the spandex of his suit, making a mental note to get his suit upgraded because apparently, his body hit a growth spurt without him knowing and now made everything uncomfortable.

God, now he’s rethinking the stupid straight jacket thing again.

Tim refocuses back on what’s in front of him and takes the leap to another rooftop back to where the figure was spotted, watching for another chance at spotting the damned thing (you never know what it is, man-bat could be considered a thing!)

“Robin.” Bruce’s deep voice in his right ear comm sends a bolt right from the boy's feet up to his spine like an electrical shock.

“Loud and clear,” Tim responded once the aftershock of the jump scare didn’t affect the feeling in his legs.

Bruce’s sigh came through the comms much easier than a lot of people expect. “Why is your location out of the manor? I know you don’t have school tomorrow but that doesn’t mean you don’t have civilian responsibilities.” He scolded, Tim made a little mental note that he was Bruce right now and not ‘The Batman’ which is as big a difference as anything.

“I- I know B, I got the energy for the gala tomorrow. Promise.” Tim sighed as he kept his eyes focused on his surroundings.

“Not what I meant.” Bruce countered, waiting for a real response.

Tim glared in the general direction that Bruce usually stood in but sighed again. “Just closing up some loose ends, I sent you the clips for them.” He reasoned with a frown. “Do you look at the things I-“

Bruce answers before he can finish. “Yes, I see it but I have one of the others whose presence isn’t mandatory for the Wayne image on the mystery figure” he scolds much to Tim’s despair.

“I’ll be home in a second, B.” He sighed as he rubbed his eyes behind the familiar green domino mask. “I’ll get going now, Robin out.” Tim closed the comm before Bruce could react, god knows what he’d get when he gets home but that couldn’t even be the furthest thing from his mind right now

Especially when he finally saw what he was looking for.

That same shadowy figure swinging up and in feet first into an alleyway as soon as possible. Soon after there came a collective groaning of pain and a sticky string sound. Tim grimaced and soon made his way over to the high ground. Now when someone puts the words groan and sticky together in the same paragraph one would think this story is going to turn into something gross.

It’s not.

No, what was waiting for Tim on the other side of that alleyway is a guy just about his height knocking the absolute shit out of Joker goon. Tim, without much else in thought, very awkwardly held up his phone to take a video, this was a familiar situation now that he thought about it.

“Woah! Not a very warm welcome-!” The figure yelped as he jumped out of the way of the goon brandishing a baton around, just when Tim thought things couldn’t get weirder the figure jumped up onto the building wall and strung up the last of the goons. “Hellooo? Anybody know a fast pass to LA?.. maybe a bus ride..?” The figure called out as he peeked around.

Tim watched him carefully, keeping his steps light and his breathing even lighter.

“Maybe an uber..?” The voice muttered as the figure peeked around. “God.. not even a flasher..?” He murmured, walking out of the alleyway. “What kind of place is this..”

Tim reacted quickly, hand on his Bō staff. “Freeze! Hands where I can see them!” He shouted.

The figure immediately threw his hands up and spread his fingers, dropping his bag of… fruit. “I’m unarmed! My id is in my bag!” The figure shouted rather quickly.

Tim paused and looked at him before the bag, going back and forth. “Who are you?”

The boy, or at least he assumed so, the figure in front of him didn’t seem much older than he was. “Uh.. I don’t really give a name out.. defeats the whole purpose of a secret identity?” He muttered.

At this point Tim was a bit frustrated, mostly curious and confused, but frustrated nonetheless. “Are you.. a hero at the very least?

Again the figure hesitated. “I—.. I mean I think so? I did just stop those robber guys from taking the.. the whatcha-ma-call it’s from that old lady.” He muttered, the little usage of ‘whatcha-ma-call it’ made Tim crack the tiniest smile though he did his best to remain calm and stoic to better have control of the situation.

“You.. think?”

“Good and bad is sort of.. Morality left up to its own— Y’know what forget it.. I uh.. yeah I’m a hero..” the boy muttered before cutting himself off.

“Right.. well you can’t always rely on that, it is Gotham city.” Tim commented, lowering his Bō staff.

This made the figure pause before giving a snort. “Gotham city? Dude this is New York.” He hummed.

Tim, just as confused, gave a chuckle. “No.. this is Gotham City.” He stated, pointing towards a nearby newspaper box.

The figure walked over to it, frowning. Tim could see the person more clearly now.. well.. it didn’t really seem human.. more spider and hybrid if anything. Tim felt his stomach churn and hoped to god that he wouldn’t have to report that there was a meta in the city.

“No fucking way..” the figure whispered,

Tim frowned, getting a bit anxious. “Are you lost? Because I can help you get to where you need to go.”

The boy whipped his head around, now taking a better look at Tim and even giving an awkward grimace. “I feel like I was given a dose of LSD..”

Tim, ever the joyful, “dude you barely sound old enough for a drivers license.” He muttered

The boy seemed to take this extremely offensively and gasped. “That’s a lot coming from a guy with heightened shoes.”

This got Tim to pause or at least rework his mindset for a moment. “They aren’t heightened, it’s for grip.”

The boy laughed. “Yeah and I’m league baseball champ; Shohei Ohtani.” He spat sarcastically.

“Would you just-“ Tim cuts himself off. Deep breaths, all good things, all good things. “Do you have a name I can call you by?” He asked over all things.

The boy paused, staring at the newspaper for a moment. “Spider-man.” He answered.

Tim laughed. “Spiderman?”

“No, no. Spider-man.” He corrected

“That’s what I said.”

“The hyphen is important.”

Tim frowned, grumbling to himself.

“Spider-man then.”

[duskdog]

I adore TimSteph for what it was. They were young. It was messy. They weren't fully-formed as people yet and didn't know how to respond to each other or how to juggle their relationship with the incredibly busy and complex lives they were leading. But they truly and honestly did care about each other. Were they in love? I think both of them would say they were, and that matters. I love thinking about them making mixtapes for each other, and sending sappy emails. Talking on the phone for hours. Tim appearing at her window and the two of them climbing out onto the roof to talk and cuddle. Steph doodling "S & R" (and later "S & T") in a heart in her notebooks. Tim making an embarrassing mistake while taking down a mugger, and thinking to himself that Steph would be laughing at him, and the affection that fills him as he imagines that laughter making the embarrassment seem less somehow. I think of all that, and it almost hurts because of how sweet and pure it feels -- and I think both of them probably feel that way about it now, when they look back on it. But then there are all the ways they weren't good to each other. I do think that Steph, in particular, suffered the most because of this -- because for all her faults, she never cut Tim down or made him feel less, whereas a lot of Tim's failings did actively undermine and belittle Steph as a hero and as a person, and that absolutely had an effect on her long-term, even though we can't really fault a teenage boy for not realizing that at the time. In some ways, that makes it seem as if maybe it would have been better if they weren't together (but that's something that's hard to speculate on, because the truth is we just don't know how that would have affected them both).

When I try to imagine what their relationship would have been, if Steph hadn't died to completely derail it, I have to consider two different scenarios: If War Games happened as written, except Steph lived (like actually lived, not retcon death-faked), I don't think their relationship would have ever recovered. I'm not entirely sure that Steph herself would have recovered, still in Gotham with the full weight of what she had done on her... or at least not quickly or happily. I think her development would have changed drastically, and analyzing where she would have ended up as a person would take a whole new discussion. But regardless, I don't think their relationship would have continued much longer. If, instead, War Games had just never happened... maybe? Maybe there are just too many variables here. What would it have meant for their relationship for Steph to get fired and have to watch Tim retake the mantle? (I am going with the assumption that the firing would have happened no matter what, because Bruce.) Knowing how Tim reacts and behaves when it comes to Bruce and Steph, he certainly wouldn't have stood up for her in any way, and that would have just rubbed salt into the wound. And Tim may very well have had lingering resentment over Steph being Robin, anyway.

But if they could somehow get past that, and assuming everything else happened more-or-less as normal, would having Steph there when Jack Drake died have made a difference for Tim? When Kon died? Would Tim's development have changed at all? Would Steph never becoming Batgirl have changed her development (I'm sure it would)? Would any of this have helped them to grow into adults together, and grow in their relationship to make it something fully-formed, healthier, and as supportive of each other as I know they both would have ideally wanted to be? I don't think so. I think they were always destined to grow apart eventually, no matter the timeline.

But god, the time they had together was breathtaking and beautiful and broken and I don't think either of them would ever want to erase it. I think they both sometimes yearn for what was and what they wanted it to be, even while recognizing all the ways it went wrong. I think sometimes when they look at each other, they see the teenager they fell in love with, with all their youthful blemishes and imperfections, and then see the adult they've grown into, and it hurts so bad and so good because wow, look how much they've changed and how much they're still the same.

And they're both in love with somebody else now, but maybe, sometimes, Tim seeks out Steph on a rooftop, and they sit together and look at the stars.

can I ask why so many people ship timsteph? I get that it's an iconic relationship and that it meant a lot to both of them, but when they were dating, it mostly felt like Steph was waaay more into Tim than he was into her. i'm just wondering if I'm missing something.

Hi, thanks for the ask!! I’m not sure if I’m the right person to answer this question as my feelings on TimSteph can vary, but I’ll give it a go!

There are absolutely cases where Steph will express a lot of affection towards Tim that just is not seemingly equally reciprocated. I guess for me it’s kind of just a difference in how they express affection? For one, Tim’s not nearly as physically affectionate as she is, and Steph is such as lovebug it’s hard to match her constant litany of cute nicknames. Steph is a lot more forward - when she likes someone, it’s normally pretty obvious, just like when she doesn’t like someone. But Tim in contrast is generally much more reserved with his feelings, which might contribute to why their relationship might come off more one sided at times. But I think you can really see that Tim has his own way of showing he cares about Steph through his dedication to her, and his internal thoughts.

When I think of timsteph moments that made me like the relationship, Robin #111 comes to mind, and not just because it’s one of my fav steph issues ever. It’s just a sweet moment that showcases Tim’s willingness to listen to Steph and some depth to their relationship.

But it also showcases a lot of the flaws in their relationship. The issue ends with Steph bouncing an idea off Tim, getting shut down, and then lying to him about her plans to drop it and go home.

The relationship is admittedly messy - Steph is wildly insecure she will be cheated on and it bleeds through in little moments and big ones. She’s also closed off sometimes, and she lies to Tim on occasion. On the flip side, Tim frequently dismisses and underestimates Steph, condescended towards her and that’s not even touching the whole ‘I can’t tell my girlfriend my identity’ thing going on for half their relationship which adds fuel to the fire of a lot of Steph’s issues. But it’s that complexity and messiness that makes the relationship interesting to me, I guess! I don’t know if that’s what makes it a good relationship but the complexity and its importance to Steph’s character is what makes me interested in talking about it!

Hope this was a little helpful, and thanks for the ask! If anyone with timsteph thoughts wants to add on or elaborate or whatever, go for it!!

[incoherentbabblings]

Tell me more about how Batgirl and Red Robin are sister series?

Oh this is an ollllld idea which I peddle whenever I can from time to time.

They just mirror each other a lot. Either running in direct parallel or going in opposite directions. I have no clue if this was done intentionally. Miller and Yost seemed to speak to each other and read each other's runs, but I really don't know how much was done on purpose or if it's just happy coincidence that Tim and Steph seem to be doing similar or directly contrasting things at the same time.

So here we go: a somewhat condensed and oversimplified list of parallels and perpendicular... things that crop up in Red Robin and Batgirl:

Tim can no longer inhabit his usual title, so takes up one that used to belong to his brothers/mentor. Stephanie can no longer inhabit her usual title, so takes up one that used to belong to her best friend/future mentor.

Tim's initial arc is an externally motivated one - I'm going to prove Bruce is alive. Steph's is an internally motivated one - I'm going to prove I'm good enough to be a hero.

Both of these arcs smack against Dick and Damian but they are proved right in their convictions and a healthy relationship is restored/created.

Following on from this, they both follow Tim's figure out list that he writes up - they are trying to figure out who exactly they are, what they want to be, and how to do it.

During this journey, Tim deliberately isolates himself and rejects help. Stephanie has help thrust upon her and accepts aid. As time goes on, Tim opens himself back up to working alongside his family and team and friends, whilst Stephanie learns to be more self reliant and not need Oracle/Proxy's voice in her ear to do her job.

Their final arcs have them confront this journey, and picture exactly where they want/predict their vigilante life to proceed. Tim sees three options: Dead (self explanatory), Batman (something he is terrified of becoming), or isolated as a sort of Oracle figure (Tim as Robin existed to be in a team or partnership; he's not mean to be alone). Steph sees three things too: her graduating (her efforts to 'make something' of herself not in vain), her with a child in a nice home (she will be able to 'have it all'), and her as Nightwing with a sidekick (aka the most beloved and trusted of titles, hope practically personified, plus she is deemed capable and responsible enough to guide another).

There's a couple of plot points which are similar, like the [re]joining up with heroes from their generation but for the most part the arcs and plots of the two titles are totally different, but themes contrast or reflect off one another. Not issue to issue parallels necessarily, but as a whole, I do genuinely believe these similarities are there.

Going beyond just these titles, and I've mentioned these before but they also do the following things:

Both Tim and Steph as their first 'proper' mission - as Robin and Batgirl - fight Scarecrow. Steph begins her vigilante career trying to off her father. Tim ends his trying to off his father's murderer. Then there's the broader theme of Steph experiences trauma and rejection and becomes kinder and more hopeful, deliberately making herself more vulnerable; Tim experiences trauma and rejection and turns inwards, cutting out the hope in an effort to protect himself.

That is to say... Steph's Batgirl run says: "The only variable you can control is yourself." Tim's Red Robin run says: "At the end of the day, I have to accept that I can control everything… except the things I can’t control."

Like bruh. Steph turns her need for control and self determination inwards. Tim externalises it.

Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And that's why I think of Batgirl and Red Robin as sister series.

[fancyfade]

@redcarnati0n

Do you have any reading order suggestions for the Batfam? 

okay putting this in a post instead of a reply because long. also heads up: Except for Damian, all of these will be pre new52 because IMO most of the characters had their best stuff pre new 52. also disclaimer i’m sure I forgot so many things since I like a lot of comics, these are just what pop to mind at the moment

Dick Grayson:

I’m liking the Robin & Batman stuff that just came out, then I’d do Robin: Year One, which is one of the decent things Chuck Dixon wrote. After that TBH I didn’t read a ton of Robin dick until NTT (1980s) and you can keep reading that until the titans hunt plotline (starts at New Titans (1984-) #71

after that dick’s kind of in limbo. he has a miniseries in nightwing 1995 which is OK I guess? he expresses some resentment to bruce for how he was raised. then there’s his ongoing nightwing series nightwing 1996 but like... it’s variable in quality. he exhibits some traits under dixon he didn’t earlier like being totally down with just beating people for information which I think was due to trying to make him a mini-batman, but he’s smart enough he shouldn’t have to IMO. also portraying it as something that always works and is always mroally justified is extremely skeevy there’s also, if you read far enough, a really bad copaganda arc.

last time I read tomasi’s run on nightwing (starts at nightwing 140) I enjoyed it for the most part he seemed to be much more competent than the previous writers made him. but there were some bits i would definitely change.

then after that you could check out some of his dickbats era. streets of gotham was decent IMO but sadly i can’t remember many of the comic titles outside of B&R 2009 and streets of gotham. one i definitely remember enjoying was batman and robin (2009) starting at #20 “dark knight vs white knight”. He also is in his teaming-up-with damian mode here.

Barbara Gordon:

suicide squad (1987) 48, 49 include an arc with her I find interesting (linK) she shows up some earlier in the same comic (23, 24, 26, 32, 34, 38, and then again pretty consistently from 51 until the end). if you’re not a fan of the suicide squad genre I’d just recommend the 48 and 49 rather than trying to read all of the comics she shows up in.

Oracle: Year One (a storyline in batman chronicles #5)

after that I’d do some of the set-up for birds of prey stuff (black canary/oracle: birds of prey #1, there are some other comcis that are a lead up to that like birds of prey: manhunt and birds of prey: wolves and birds of prey: batgirl but manhunt was kind of sexist wolves and batgirl had some details I liked).

then it would be her birds of prey (1998) duo title with black canary. If you can’t stand chuck dixon’s writing the most important plotline is hunt for oracle (birds of prey 19, nightwing 45, birds of prey 20, nightwing 46, birds of prey 21).

She has some interesting bits in no man’s land, which I’m going to recommend anyway because it’s where Cass shows up.

after that she has some characterization i find interesting under gail simone’s run (starts at birds of prey #56).

She has some interesting parts in Batgirl (2000) as Cass’s mentor, but i DO think they simplify her down a bit to make her more of a contrast to bruce, which is a shame.

then there’s Oracle: The Cure, a 3 issue miniseries that has some nice bits if you can get past the dumb computer talk

sadly not much happens with her after stephanie brown’s batgirl run (which also had some mischaracterization IMO)

cassandra cain:

TBH read no man’s land and batgirl (2000). She got character-assassinated at the end of batgirl 2000 and then never regained her central place in the batfam after that sadly.

gates of gotham is decent for cass as well if you can get past the first 3 issues where tim is the only one allowed to have a brain-cell

damian wayne:

The writers are kind of inconsistent with his characterization until batman and robin 2009. they are really trying for a ‘spoiled child’ vibe in some comics. batman and robin 2009 you have to go in knowing that morrison is completely nuking all of talia’s prior characterization if you decide to read it, so don’t take that as how she actually should be. you can also just skip the first 15 issues written by morrison TBH. dark knight vs white knight I like for Damian as well as dick

batman and robin (2011) is good, and so is Robin: Son of batman. after robin son of batman there’s not a ton of good damian content.

bruce: Okay *I* found his pre-knightfall disaster stuff very relatable. but basically bruce is the “main character” in so many things you’re probably gonna come across him 400 times, so I don’t feel bad for not having any recommendations here. i also like when he interacts with talia but that may be for talia lol.

Tim drake:

I recently (ok likea  few months ago but whatever) started reading his character from the beginning to get a better characterizaiton of him

start with lonely place of dying ( Batman #440 New Titans #60 Batman #441 New Titans #61 Batman #442) or alternativfely read my detailed meta (link) if you want to know the fanboy-ish-ness of his origins) IIRC he has a plotline in detective comics from 618-621 about his parents, then some more character relevant stuff in batman 455-457. But really once you get past that if you are super interested in Tim you can just go through his many MANY solo titles.

Jason Todd

Jason Todd starts as robin in batman #408-416. sadly im not gonna try to give too many recs for jason because I don’t like the majority of his post res characterization, which I view as inconsistent. If you do decide to read red hood and the outlaws new 52 just keep in mind that you’re pretty much reading OCs who happen to be named “roy harper” and “koriandr”, they are nothing like the characters were before that series, and Jason is recharacterized as WAY nicer to tim than he was pre-the-reboot. he also is retroactively re-characterized as reckless in tim’s robin solos just for the heads up

duke thomas

initially i wasn’t gonna add any duke recs because i didn’t read a ton of him but that didn’t stop me from jason (wait nvm i SAW jason a ton I just didn’t like much of it) so anyway things i did like duke in that i read with him: We are Robin, Robin War, then his investigation mission when jim gordon (boo) was batman i liked but sadly i only remember the trade paperback for that cuz i checked it out of the library, but it was called bloom or something. either way in this case it’d be worth googling “duke thomas reading list” because i can’t help beyond those 3

[cleromancy]

i ran out of steam earlier but i do think the "why *now*" question is really significant. and part of the answer to that question has to be "because it was the last issue of red robin before the fjucking reboot" (and tim is unfortunately one of those characters that had been on an interesting trajectory that he will probably never get back on; without the conditions that lead him to that place over 7 irl years hes not gonna be the same guy), but i also think that tim deciding to kill a man under these circumstances (essentially, because he wanted to, because he thought he could stomach it, and because the timing was convenient), is different than if tim really thought it needed to be done, or if there is ever any element of urgency or something tim thinks this will prevent. those conditions were specifically explicitly not met.

i said in my original post that i think the endgame of the attempted murder was the confrontation with bruce, but it also ends with some somewhat incoherent narration from tim which. i mean, whether you want to interpret it as "fabnic is not really so good at the part of writing that involves stringing words together in order" or tims continuingly disorganized speech and thought patterns (<- which is also backed up by his occasional forays into grandeur, and he has one on this page, a baffling assertion that gotham is his city. Timothy where is tjis coming from).... where was i going with this.

tim: [almost murders a guy]

tim: [lies to his favorite person in the world about it]

tim: [gets yelled at by his mentor]

tim: i am doing so great the future is looking so great the city belongs to me maybe if i want the world is my oyster actually i can do anything everything's coming up red robin

like .... yeah baby. sure, okay.

what i was getting at here is that i do think in tims garbled half formed intentions lurking underneath his meticulously plotted *murder scheme* tim was thinking his endgame--which, again, he knew dick and bruce would find out about and he only ever intended to have enough plausible deniability to *justify*--he was probably trying to leave gotham, or rather get kicked out. what he lands at instead is this:

which is when bruce essentially gives tim the warning that hes on thin fucking ice and--to my reading--any casualties that *bruce* thinks he should have been able to prevent that he fails to prevent, bruce will hold him as personally responsible for as he would for *premeditated first degree murder* (or, at the very least, i believe thats what tim hears bruce saying). and then bruce leaves tim alone on that rooftop.

and i am 100% one of those people that believes there were casualties in his little exploding the league bases thing, or at least it was too strong of a possibility to completely discount. no matter how he tried to clear them out beforehand, there was no way to account for all the variables, which tim would know. in fact he knows it firsthand bc towards the end of robin theres an explosion tim couldve prevented but doesnt, that kills 2 children that were only there in the first place bc of tim. anyway this is conjecture more than analysis here, but i do think hes aware the casualties of the league scheme were a possibility, but isnt willing to look into it any deeper. plausible fucking deniability!

but he does know Bruce wouldn't accept "this was the only way out i could see except dying" as an excuse for potential casualties and most likely bruce is going to eventually find out. he is pretty much on borrowed time already, so why not just... like... stop waiting? and at least kill somebody on purpose this time that he at least also kind of wants to kill? force that confrontation now, burn that bridge now, and maybe at least get a consolation prize (murder) out of it? do it on his own terms? control it?

except he couldn't do it.

anyway im just going to drop this panel from robin 178, for no reason in particular

he is just doing. so great. hes doing so great

an underexplored aspect of red robin 26 (the one where he sets up a weeks-long rubes goldberg scheme to kill captain boomerang only to choke at the last minute) to me is the impact tim thought this would have on his place among the bats. like what he thought would happen *next.* because he absolutely did consider it and wasn't at all surprised by dick and bruce showing up afterwards to talk to him about the choices he made that day.

to start with. why now? there was no particular event that made him decide to do it. tim does say he heard harkness was trying to regain lost power, but in context its not reasoning behind his decision, it was an opportunity to kick his plan off.

and i think its fair to say tim was never gonna be able to go through with it. that was never gonna happen. but he *thought* he could, and he decided he was going to, despite repeatedly questioning what the hell he was doing. he explicitly makes the points that he thinks its wrong, he knows his dad wouldn't want him to, and he doesn't believe itll even be more emotionally satisfying than bringing harkness to justice. and yet thats still the plan! for weeks!

and he does set up an emotional failsafe for himself which he calls plausible deniability, where all he did was manipulate events so that he expects harkness to be killed by victor fries by the end of it.

except ofc when it comes down to it tim cant let fries kill a guy, which he takes to mean he wants to do it himself. any interesting moral questions here about who would potentially be at fault are very tidily sidestepped as irrelevant. bc i mean to tim they kind of are. his veneer of plausible deniability was always an excuse. the interesting thing here for the character is that this means he's willing to do away with that plausible deniability, and intends to follow through regardless. (i went back to delete some images bc i ran out, but he does explicitly say theres a change of plan and he's gonna kill harkness himself.)

this is the point he dispatches dr fries, which he calls in to 911, and follows harkness. bla bla confrontation bla, and harkness fuckin trips off the edge of the roof.

the implication here to me, with the way tims flashback is framed as an interruption and the way harkness goes from saying he has no idea who the hell tim is to saying tim doesn't have the stones, is that harkness was babbling this whole time, and that's just what actually makes it through to tims ears. and i also think the implication here is tim being like ".......heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point." hes like shit! hes fucking right! i *dont* have the stones to do this!

anyway. the next page we have dickie and damian show up. hi boys!!

so to recap. tim decided he was going to murder harkness himself rather than using a proxy, *called 911 knowing the other bats would hear it,* and went off to do the deed.

i have a lot of thoughts about whats going through dicks and tims heads here lol. but i want to get back to the point. this is the segue into the reveal that bruce was also there the whole time, he knows what tim had been planning to do, and now hes yelling at him for thinking about killing harkness at all.

(side note its always dickie loving hours in this house and. you just know dicks thinking of blockbuster here. oughe.) .....i also get the impression that dicks "timmy down the questionable-choices-well" senses were tingling somehow from the 911 call (which, i cannot stress this enough, only even mentioned fries), and i think him and damian most likely fucking hauled ass to get there, which is also fun to think about hehe

AND THE COWL COMES OFF WHEEEEEEE :elmofire:

(ok actually i am going to derail here for a minute i gotta spell it out. tim kept it on when he was talking to dick bc he was lying to dick by omission. he wanted dick to think well of him, and he doesn't believe he earned the praise--most likely thinks dick would think less of him if he knew the extent to which tim had planned the whole thing. the end result--not killing harkness--does not, in tims mind, count. what dick was saying was "I understand how hard it was to not let him die, and i love you," and what tim heard was "i know you were always going to make the right choice, because you care about doing the right thing." and when you interpret it the way i do--that the deciding factor for tim was actually that he *couldn't* do it, not because he changed his mind? yeah, tims not gonna be looking dick in the eye anytime soon.)

but anyway. buce:

and the thing is that if you don't look at it from the *batshit* bruce-and-tim-mutual-god-complex perspective... tims actual non-thoughtcrime actions began and ended with a series of misdemeanors, no matter how successfully he arbitrated the end results. again any actual moral questions around hand crafting a bespoke scenario tailored to end in a mans murder by inciting another to kill him are completely sidestepped, bc to both tim and bruce its cut and dry; its just murder using another person as the weapon. tim never once actually believed the plausible deniability thing and there was no tangible difference to him btwn manipulating an intermediary, doing it himself, or even *just letting harkness go splat.* it was all fucking talking points for the sake of argument, he was preparing to play devils advocate against bruce to defend his own choice bc. this was always the endgame.

and

which like. i cant help but think of batman 424 bc, well, im the jason todd think-abouter:

and im officially out of images for this post but what happens next for tim is bruce flying away vs in jasons he tells bruce "i guess i spooked him. he slipped." and flies off in the back of a big silent panel of Angst Buce. i love how completely fucking opposite these scenarios were for the both of them but ykw actually thats its own fucking post.

all this just to say tim planned to murder a man in cold blood *fully knowing* dick and bruce would find out. tim can't even face dick when dick tells him he did good, and the confrontation with bruce feels almost like tim did the whole damn thing just to prove a point to bruce which is. hilarious bc it WORKED to that end even though tim did not actually kill anybody at all. like that was a pretty significant thing that happened. tim very much did not kill digger harkness.

(i also think its significant that this issue is like immediately after tim tries to give cass her batgirl outfit back and shes like "...No." and hes like "please i miss you so much 😭 just come back to gothammmm i dont care what name you go by you could even be black robin if you want that would be fun right cass we could be red robin and black robin together? no? what if we put your name first? ....no? .....okay just promise youll think about it... bye............" [paraphrased])

anyway. *holds tim drake up under the arms like simba* Perceive him

[kimberly-spirits13]

Right Hand Man (Loyal to the End) Pt. 5

Pairing: Damian Wayne x reader

Synopsis: You were like Talia’s daughter. The only thing was that you weren’t and instead, you had grown up in the foster care system and at a young age were taken by and personally trained by Talia. Along the way, you meet Damian and the two of you start to work side by side and eventually, after some time become closer and closer. However, when disaster in the league strikes, you face balancing an old, forgotten life as a normal child and the burden of right hand to the demon heir.

Note: I know that this is long and that there are a good number of time skips, but I didn’t want to make this into a series and just wanted it as a long fic because .... well because I can lol

Also, I didn’t want to have Damian so young in this so just go with it. I’m thinking maybe early 15 or almost 16 at the most. Idk I just don’t like writing for young Dami.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 4812

Masterlist for Series

      You woke without an alarm with the 4am birds. It was a sound that you weren’t used to. Typically, you’d head down to one of the indoor training rooms and join Damian. It wasn’t unusual for one of you to be a few moments late but after that you’d get breakfast. This time though, you didn’t want to see Damian. You went instead out to the gardens. Instead of really working out or training, you decided that the best thing to do was just sit and meditate.

        Walking down the hallway some the opposite way of where you were going, you saw that Damian’s door was open. Wanting, to avoid him, you went out one of the side doors. He would be in the cave training for the most of what you could tell. You walked outside greeted by the morning air. It was cool outside and the birds had stopped chirping for the most part. You walked towards the sounds of the fountains along the cobblestone path. The trees and shrubs were cut perfectly in different shapes and animals in some areas. You smiled walking through it all, the moon being the only light.

        Once at the fountain, you sat down. There wasn’t really anything you were focusing on. Everything just swirled around in your mind. With no indication or signs on what was going to happen, the only thing you felt like you could do was keep on the tightrope that you had been thrown onto. The start of it all was a blurry and foggy mess. The end however, was even worse. You had no idea where this new life was going to take you or Damian. It was easier when you had an idea. That didn’t make it better.

        You were consumed in your thoughts for the longest time before getting up and walking around more. This was the longest you’d been alone to wander freely like this since God knows when. It was nice but was eventually interrupted. You turned upon sensing that someone was there. Carefully, you reached for your dagger but didn’t pull it out yet.

        “Miss Y/N, breakfast has been prepared. Miss. Gordon will be here soon to take you to the shopping mall.” Alfred said, “I hope you are not about to pull a weapon on me. I will warn you, I don’t fancy being attacked.”

        “N-no. It’s just...” You slacked a bit.

        “Training. I understand.” Alfred gave you a reassuring look, “You seem to be adjusting better than Master Damian even on your first day here.”

        “That’s because I wasn’t born in the league. This is just like some distant home to me. I was in the foster care system until Talia got me.” “I also got to go on more missions outside of the compound.” You informed the older man.

        “I see.” He sighed, “Well, I hope that you will eventually find some sort of comfort here.”

        “Thank you.”

        It was strange hearing words of good wishes. Not that you hadn’t heard them before, it was just that it was rare and typically in a secret kind of code for lack of a better term. No one dared give well wishes directly, only in little ways. You and Damian did that the most out of anyone you’d ever met. It was just normal in that sense.

        The walk back inside was quiet. Alfred informed you of a few other details that you’d need during your stay. Most had to do with the boys. He said that they would be behaved but that they can get a bit... rowdy. It was just in their nature. You understood and told yourself to expect it. Walking inside you prepared for the worst. What you did get though was a very sleep deprived looking teenage boy, a tall man who was almost zombified, you knew that was Bruce, a very chirpy young adult male with bright blue eyes, and a tall red headed girl rolling her eyes at the younger man.

        “Master Dick, Master Tim, Miss. Gordon, this is Miss Y/N. She came with Damian last night and will be staying in the manor now.” Alfred said introducing you.

        Tim looked up, “Hi Y/N.” He then proceeded to down his cup of coffee.

        “Um, hello.” You replied. It was unusual to see someone like that but you also related to his actions deeply. You thought it was kind of funny anyways.

        “Hey, I’m Dick. So, did you get here last night?” He asked smiling and said the last part quietly, “You’ll have to excuse Timmy over there, he’s a bit tired from a case he’s working on. Just wait, he’ll eventually fall asleep somewhere for a day.”

        “Yes.” You shrugged, “And I understand where Drake is coming from.”

        That made Dick chuckle, “You seem to be less temperamental than Damian.”

        Barbra hit him with her elbow some, “Really Dick?” She looked at you, “Sorry about him, he gets excited about new people.”

        “I am only the temperamental type when I need to be. Other than that, I find it partially unwise to try and scare everyone with anger. Silence works just as well for me.” You sat down at the table with breakfast.

        The meal looked like something out of heaven. It smelled fresh and looked like whoever prepared it had been doing this for a while. You took the first bite, and after that you devoured the entire meal. You then remembered that Barbra was taking you shopping and started worrying about what was going to happen.

        “So, Y/N.” She said seeing you drift off into your own thoughts, “I was thinking that it might be best if we go to the smaller shopping center first. That way you might not feel so uncomfortable there. They’ve got some things I think you might like.”

        “That sounds suitable.” You answered, “Um, I have seen the more recent fashions from previous missions, however, I’m hoping that there are still stores that carry items of reasonable value instead of ... absurdly over the top garments.” “Avant-garde if you will.”

        “Oh yes, you’ll have plenty of options.” She laughed some at the concerned look on your face, “But I agree that some people do wear some very over the top things.”

        You nodded in an understanding way noting her tone. In these cases, she probably means that the clothes are normal and what you have seen is just avant-garde clothing worn by the rich to turn heads. While you had walked by the mall countless numbers of times on missions, and even inside, there was nothing that really caught your interest. Besides, missions were never for shopping you had the job of staying on task at all times.

        “Oh, and I invited Steph but she had previous arrangements so it will just be the two of us today.” Barbra said.

        “Very well.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        You and Barbra made your way inside of the mall. It was deemed best if she was the one to drive everywhere since Alfred and the limo would draw unwanted attention. Bruce did still have to figure out how he was going to break yours and Damian’s arrival to the press. He’d probably just pull another adoption stunt in your mind. It wasn’t rare and at this point, the media just accepted that he has an obsession with it.

        The two of you made it through the parking lot and into the building, you on high alert the entire time.         “You’re tense.” Barbra commented, “I can practically feel the tension coming off of you.”

        “Unfamiliar settings may lead to all too familiar circumstances and fallouts. I find it most wise to keep on guard in a place like this. It’s open to any assortments of attacks. With the right variables, a disaster could strike at any given moment.” You replied back looking around overwhelmed at the options of stores not noticing Barbra giving an understanding yet concerned look, “I uh- where do we start?”

        “I have some suggestions. Although, I think the first store that we should try is something with a bit of variety so that you might be able to find something that you like.” She said.

        “I think I might have something in mind. Maybe something a bit dark, classical, refined, but also something that might be able to be turned down to a more casual piece.” You listed some features you were interested in with an almost inquisitive look only to meet Barbra’s eyes which portrayed an almost warm and kind look.

        “I think I know just the place.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        You and Barbra walked around the shopping mall sipping on coffee from the Starbucks and eating some of the pastries.

        “These are not too bad.” You commented speaking about the treats, “I must admit, I have never had anything quite like this before.” “It tastes...”

        “Commercial?” Barbra asked laughing some making you shrug in agreement, “There are better places we might go some time. I just figured this would be suitable for the time being.”

        “Well the decision wasn’t ill placed.”

        “Oh, we should try this store up here. Steph and I are always finding some good items here.” She commented leading you into another store.

        At this point you had almost lost track of everywhere you’d been. It was like navigating a more organized jungle. This time however, the animals were people and there was no North Star nor moss to guide your way.

        “You were talking about more classic. This place has some clothes I think you might really like.”    

        Walking in, there were rows of all sorts of clothes including fitted and paper bag pants, pencil skirts, turtle necks in some places, tweed jackets, blazers, sweatshirts, hoodies, and almost anything you could have desired. You gawked at the sight and started wandering off on your own to explore the vast new area you had found. Slowly, you took what you thought looked best and gained an eventual plethora of clothing articles before heading off into the dressing room with Barbra in close pursuit.

        “What do you think about this?” You asked stepping out in an outfit you had put together from the clothes you’d picked.

        “I like it. I like it a lot. I do think though, that we might be able to add some jewelry to spice it up a bit.” She replied, “Change back and then we can go jewelry hunting.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        Once outside of the dressing room, you and Barbra checked out and went into the jewelry store that was down the hall and across the walk way on the second floor which you were already on. You headed inside and were immediately drawn to some plated jewelry. It was simple and elegant, just what you were looking for.

        “These look nice.” You gestured to some, your own ring on your finger flashing some in the light. It was an ever so slightly worn gold ring that you wore on your right ring finger. On it had intricate braided designs and a symbol that represented an eternal bond or promise.      

        “I didn’t notice you had a ring already, it’s very beautiful. You were allowed to keep it?” Barbra questioned pointing it out.

        “Thank you. But no, actually, I’ve had this ring, and smaller versions of this ring as I grew up. They were given to Damian and I when we were young. It is a symbol of promise. I’m his right hand, I go where he goes, and stay where he stays. Think of it as a contract of sorts, or maybe even a wedding ring. It’s just a daily reminder of my place.” You explained.

        “Interesting. Was there anything you did keep or was this is?” She asked.

        “I um.” You fiddled with something around your neck, “A necklace from my parents. It’s a moon and stars, the only thing I have from before the league really. The piece was the only thing I could keep.”

        She didn’t ask any more questions, instead opting for the task of browsing for jewelry. You picked out a few pieces, some with jewels and others just plated and empty. Barbra picked up a black watch to throw into the mix saying that it goes well with everything. You didn’t really doubt her. There was no reason to thus far. Once you left the store though, the two of you started to notice shopping’s effects and how the pastries and coffee had worn off.

        “I’d say we try the restaurant down the block. It’s got some really great options and I think you might really like the burgers there.”

        “It sounds like a decent plan.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        You and Barbra walked inside of the place. Inside there were booths and tables along with a bar and waiting area. It was the run of the mill nicer business which thankfully, quickly got you seated. With drinks and even food ordered, there was a silence. It was kind of uncomfortable and awkward, you weren’t the greatest with social skills and starting conversations with new people. Damian wasn’t either which made it so easy to be around him. Well, at least when you weren’t fighting. You sighed thinking about it.

        “You’ve got that look on your face.” Barbra noted making you snap out of your thoughts.

        “Look?”

        “I know that you have just arrived and have much on your mind, however, you have that “boy issue” look plastered all over your face.” “Did something happen between you and Damian?”

        You weighed your options. Typically, these things worked themselves out. Damian wouldn’t be able to be rid of you unless he killed you and that would breach one of the highest codes of honor in the league. Typically though, these arguments were stupid or at least simpler like too many missions or being hurt on the field. This time, his grandfather had died as a result.

        You huffed some and took a deep breath, “Damian and I were in an argument last night because of my mission. I have been assigned since day one a location and route that would take him to Gotham in case something like what did happen, happened. For years, I’ve trained for this like some prepare for Armageddon. However, Ra’s al Ghul died in the battle. He blames himself mostly but also claims I have some part in it. Although, I think he might have changed that outlook since the fight last night.”

        Barbra looked shocked at what you told her, “Ra’s al Ghul is dead?”

        “Correct.” You answered grimly, “Heavy arrow fire took him.” “And, you don’t have to give your condolences, I know of what has happened at his hands and how that is viewed.”

        She nodded, “So you and Damian have just been avoiding each other all morning hoping that this all blows over?”

        “Precisely.” You sighed, “I for one know that this might never be worked out if there isn’t a final confrontation on the matter at hand however, I’m not quite sure how to approach that.”

        “Well from what I’ve seen, it might be best to just be straight forward with him. Letting this drag on and on isn’t going to solve anything whatsoever.”

        “I would have to agree with you Gordon. You have my appreciation.”

        “It’s no problem.” She smiled some.

        “I do have one concern and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because I trust my instincts and they tell me you can be trusted.” You said.

        “That is?”

        “How, how are we supposed to adjust to a different culture, life, policies, and circumstances in a matter of a few weeks. I mean I assume that Bruce will introduce us to the public and then with the blink of an eye, we’ll be out in public being swarmed by the media. I worry about Damian’s more impulsive and temperamental behavior with the newer surroundings and how he will cope. I think it will be difficult for the both of us to start abiding to certain ... rules if you know what I mean.”

        Barbra didn’t comment for a few seconds and instead took what you were saying all in.

        “I cannot say that I understand your position. I can say though, that I think that you of all people are more than capable of doing this. From what I have seen, you know what is best for the two of you and will stick to those beliefs, you’ve got the mindset of a fighter and strategist. Whether it be training or even turning away from some of it, I think you will find a way to adjust. And I know that it’s hard to trust people at first. That part I understand, however if you need anything, Alfred and I are always there.” She explained carefully almost washing away all of your fears.

        “Thank you.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        You and Barbra were back at the manor now. Alfred had taken your new clothes for cleaning and you had your new room decorations and jewelry to put into place. You didn’t get many things seeing as the room already decently matched what you felt most comfortable with, however you were not going to protest against a few touches of your own.

        Once upstairs, you closed the door and got your new record player set up. Picking one that looked the most suitable and got to work making things as you pleased. You hadn’t noticed how much the time had passed before there was a knock at your door. You turned the music off and opened it to reveal Alfred with an assortment of clothes on hangers and another stack of freshly pressed and folded clothes.

        “I have your new garments ready to be put away.” He informed you.

        “Thank you, I can put them away myself.”

        “It is no problem Miss. L/N.” He handed you the clothes, “Dinner shall be ready at 6pm sharp.”

        “I understand.”

        Once he had left, you closed the door only and started putting items away only for another knock to interrupt you once more.

        “Yes?” You opened the door again, “Oh... hello demon.”

        “General- L/N, I wanted to talk to you about last night.” He said almost sheepishly.

        “Very well. You may enter.” You closed the door behind him, not wanting anyone else to hear the conversation.

        “I must apologize, my actions of last night were impulsive and guided by misjudgment from the events that have taken place prior to now.” Damian sat at your bed as you were still putting away clothes in the closet, “I stepped out of my place questioning your choices because I did not know under the circumstances they were made.” “You did nothing wrong.”

        “I accept your apology Damian.” You said making him almost sigh in relief, “I understand where the outburst came from.” “As cheesy as it might sound, I have thought over what happened last night.” You went and sat down at the end of the bed and looked him in the eyes, “The only thing we can really do now is stick together. We have no one else here that knows about where we came from and the worst choice we can make for ourselves in splitting apart. Especially over a recent quarrel or smaller dispute.”

        “I agree.”

        There was a small passing of silence, “Just promise me that you will try everything you can to make adjusting as easy as it can be on yourself. It will be a challenge, but you don’t have to do it alone. We’re both in the same boat on this one Damian.”

        “I promise, just as you have done so many other times before.”

        There was a small ringing from the phone you had gotten at the mall.

        “That means it is time for dinner.” You got up and turned off the alarm quickly before walking towards the door, “After supper I expect to see you for some sparring?”

        “I will be there.”

_______________________________________________________________________

        You and Damian were sitting next to each other at the dinner table. It was awkward and quite for some time, no one really wanting to bring any conversation up.

        “So how did you feel about Gotham Y/N?” Bruce asked you trying to start some sort of conversation.

        “It was fine.” You replied, “it’s comparable to a darker version of Chicago with a hint of New York.”         “When did you go to either one of those cities?” Dick asked inhaling his food.

        “I went to Chicago on a mission a year ago and New York three years ago.” You replied, “It was only for two nights at maximum.” “The people are strange though.”

        Your comment made everyone either smirk or chuckle which lightened the mood a bit. You could tell that Damian was uncomfortable in this newer situation however. He wasn’t one for talking to those if he wasn’t bragging about something. You never commented on it while he was doing it, only glaring some to get your message across to him. He’d typically get to a stopping place but on the rare occasions he wouldn’t, you’d actively end the conversation or bite your tongue to keep from saying anything regretful.

        “I took Y/N to that joint near the mall you told me to go to Bruce. It was good.” Barbra commented.

        “Agreed.” You responded, “We also picked up a great plethora of items from the shopping center. Thank you for letting me go. It is greatly appreciated.”

        “You are most welcome Y/N.” Bruce replied with a look of approval showing on his face, “And Damian, because you have opted not to go out with one of the boys, Alfred has had a selection of items delivered to the manor. They should have arrived already.”

        “Yes, they did father.” Damian said quickly, giving you a slight glance.

Damian’s POV:

        You seemed to be adjusting well. It was typical of you to take what you understood of your circumstances and adapt so quickly. You were just like that. He’d always admired it but right now, it was strange seeing you as the best adapted like you were. The strange distant feeling of seeing you not in armor or commanding a squad got to Damian. New surroundings like this were uncomfortable and unpredictable. He watched you fake your every move like it was nothing, the way that you carefully examined everything around you intrigued him. Then again, you were doing too well. He knew you were covering something. Old habits, old nightmares along as new ones, new yet familiar styles in the way you dressed, he saw your walls hold higher, most of the ones you “dropped” were mere props in the way you played. You’d always said life was a game or a gamble anyways, you just had to know how to play it.

        The conversations at the table were forced. At the Leauge, typically there were either no conversations, or they were over missions and training. Though, it’s not like he really enjoyed any of it to begin with. He reached over just enough so that no one would noticed and lightly tapped your leg.

        “most forced conversation I’ve had.” He tapped in a shorter way of speech than typical with Morse code.

        “same.” You answered back quickly, “wonder how long we’ll be here.”

        “hours.”

        “very funny demon.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Your POV:

        Damian was right, it did feel like hours. You didn’t really know when it was alright to leave, so you stayed until Bruce left. He was sitting at the head of the table, so he was in control of when you could leave. At least, that was how it was when you were raised in the foster care system. Damian left when you did and you both got suited up for sparring. You two met up outside of your own rooms when you were done, swords, daggers, and armor in all. If someone wasn’t familiar with the situation, they would have thought you were coming from a dress up party or cosplaying in some sense. That would have been insulting to you if you didn’t care about keeping your cover.

        “Woah there kiddoes, where are you two heading dressed like that?” Dick asked coming down the hallway.

        “Daily sparring.” You answered sharply.

        “With all of that?” Steph chose to comment as well.

        “Correct.” You continued, “They are merely swords and a few items of weaponry, nothing that should be too out of the ordinary seeing as you have the regular superhumans or even super heroes coming in and out regularly.”

        Dick nodded and let you two through after Steph got him to stop pestering you two with questions. You and Damian exchanged looks of distaste in regards to your interaction. Rolling your eyes, you continued, eventually making it to the cave. Once on the mat, you started training. There was no conversation at first. There didn’t need to be. You’d always thought that if there was no room for conversation, there was no need to squeeze it in. If conversation wanted to add more space, it would naturally.

        “So, how are you?” You asked, “Adjusting wise.”

        Damian looked around some before responding to make sure no one was there, “I am doing as well as I can be. I find that we are being underworked in responsibilities however. It’s boring here.” “You seem to be adjusting well.”

        “In standards of not beheading the shrubbery,” You smirked at the glare he gave you, “I’m... just testing the waters at this point.” “It feels strange not having a squad to command, I don’t like it that much but it is what it is.”

        You didn’t reveal everything or really anything close to the most. What you were supposed to do anyways? It’s not like you were going to reveal all of your struggles in one training session. You weren’t ready or willing to do that anytime soon. Deep down though, everything felt wrong. Not having your position anymore was just the surface of your issues. The constant urge to pull yourself back into your old habits was overwhelming. At a strange noise, you found yourself reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. When someone tried to talk to you, you immediately put even more walls up trying to figure out what they wanted to really know. You needed action and something to focus on besides keeping up some imagine like you always did. At night or in the moments you were alone, the constant shadow of your former self was there to greet you like a figment of your worst flashbacks. You knew exactly what was wrong, you just didn’t know how to express it because of the quantity in which your problems amounted in. So, for now, you’d keep it to yourself.

        “Understandable.” He said pinning you down to the mat.

        You went to flip him over and then stopped in mid motion where he didn’t hesitate to take you down before standing up.

        “That was far below your own expectations for yourself in combat Y/N.” He said offering a hand up.

        You felt your fight or flight mode kick in the moment everything happened thinking back to the arrows falling from the sky. Taking a deep breath, you reminded yourself of where you were. There were no arrows flying. No screaming from those around you. You looked around to reassure yourself before hearing someone come up silently from behind you.

        “Hey love birds.” Dick said loudly walking up behind you.

        You felt him go for a pat on the back. Clearly, he was just being stupid for the time being but you could control what you did. Taking the man by the wrist, you used all of your force and some of his own weight against him to slam him over you onto the mat. The rush of adrenaline faded when you saw who it was laying on the mat groaning in pain.

        “Holy shit.” He mumbled.

        Damian’s jaw dropped to the floor seeing you pull something like that. You snapped out of your temporary trance and immediately extended your hand to help him up.

        “M-my apologies. I mistook you for someo-“

        He stopped you, “No it’s fine. Should’ve known not to do anything too sudden like that.” Dick looked at you for a second, “You put up a fight Y/N. Although, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a high general.”

        You sighed some at the comment, “Thank you. I must be leaving now.”

        The two watched you swiftly head up the stairs. You made sure to travel through the manor as quietly and quickly as possible. The last thing you needed was for anyone to try to touch or talk to you. Once you made it to your bedroom, you immediately grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the shower. A hot shower was the only thing you thought would help. At least, that’s what you were hoping.

Tag List-

@idkmanicantenglish​ @queengeorgiaaa​ @lucy-roo​ @reclusive-chicken-nugget

[bigskydreaming]

IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody. 

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different? 

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years. 

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture. 

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

[popculturebuffet]

Paul Dini’s Jingle Belle: “Sanity Clauses” review or Santa’s Court Ordered Family Therapy Holiday Special

Merry Christmas everyone! I”m finally back on the reviewing reindeer after a week out with a cold, aside from the usual ducktales review, and it’s once again a comission from friend of the blog and the only guy who pays me for reviews weirdkev27. If you have your own holliday hyjinks you’d like me to review I do reviews of television and comics for 5 dollars an episode/issue, wtih variable prices for trades in comics case depending on length. Hit me up via my dm’s here on tumblr or send me an ask for my discord if you want to know more. WIth that plug out of the way away we go.  This one was a bit unusual... in that when Kev bought it up I assumed he was going to buy a few issues of Jingle Belle, Paul Dini’s creator owned character we’re talking about today, and just have me review those. What I didn’t realize is he was buying me the full package, a collection of pretty much every jingle belle tale, as well as the released after it “Handmade’s Tale”. one shot. So yeah, while I had’nt really thought of rules for this kind of thing before from now on your free to buy a work for me to review... just keep in mind i’ts both not required for me to review something, and will not wave the commission fee as I use those fees to pay bills, buy things I need like charger cables, and just generally keep my bank account afloat while I look for a day job. 

But... since I hadn’t firmly established any of this yet, and since Kev’s gift means a bunch more commissions from a guy who not only made sure I could afford Christmas, but who has provided me steady work while i’m out of work... this one’s on the house.  So with all the jargon settled, who is Jingle Belle? Jingle Belle is an indie comics character created and owned by Paul Dini in 1998. Paul Dini is an animation god, who thanks to this review I know more about his career than I did before and as much as I always should have. Dini got his start in the 80′s, writing for everything from He Man to Gary Coleman Adventures, before getting called up to the big leagues for Tiny Tune Adventures around the time of the animation renaissance. To my shock, as  I wasn’t aware he wrote for that fine program, he wrote 35 episodes including my personal favorite Prom-ise her Anything.  But while a talented comedy writer, his main talent would show when he moved on to Batman the Animated Series as a writer and story editor. He was one of the main creative forces along with Bruce Timm, with the two going on to make the DCAU, aka some of the best superhero shows ever made, after already making easily one of if not THE best with BTAS. And Timm’s influence showed, Co-Creating Harley Quinn with Timm, and writing the series best episode Heart of Ice, which reworked Mr Freeze from a hoaky silver age villian into the tragic and thoroughly sympathetic character he’s been since that episode. Seriously that’s another one to add to the review pile.. which is giant and sentient at this point. And seriously EVERY episode on his imdb page credits is an utter classic and one I remember fondly. The guy is one of the most talented and seemingly nicest guys in the business and both the world of batman and the world of animation owe him a LOT.  So to my surprise, I found out in the 2000′s he had a comic, Jingle Belle.. then for whatever reason just never dug into it till now. But now post digging Jingle Belle is Paul Dini’s long running series of one shots and series at various companies following the adventures of Santa’s rebellious teenage-ish daughter.. techincally she’s in the 200′s but still looks and acts like a teenager. The idea came about when he got a christmas card from Stephen Speilberg, and wondered how the kids of famous folks dealt with that and if they resented their famous fathers. And whose more famous than santa?. The series spins both out of that brilliant idea and out of Dini’s love for sunday comic strips, back when the panels were larger and creators were given more freedom to go nuts, though even today i’ve seen plenty of great stuff so it’s not all lost pauly.  So in that spirit rather than one long ongoing Jingle Belle is instead a series of one shots, stories in anthologies and what have you, one and done stories more focused on the comedy. The comic has bounced around from various publishers, starting as something pitched to Oni Press, home of Scott Pilgrim and not much else, and has bounced around various publishers since, most recently ending up at IDW, where the trade i’m reading from comes from. So how does a great concept from one of the world’s most creative minds shake out? Let’s unwrap this present and find out. 

We open with an appropriately christmasy rhymey opening as we get the story of Jingle Belle: She’s the daughter of santa claus and mrs. claus, in this case the Queen of the Elves. Which isn’t established until the next story but whatever. And as you’d expect she grew up a cheery, rosey little girl who loved helpiing dad in the workshop.. then everything changed when puberty attacked. 

As you can see Jingle is now your standard Bratty Teenage Daughter sterotype. At least in this story. See this initial story feels much like a pilot: It’s clear things aren’t ironed out 100% for the idea, and i’ts more a self contained way to get across the general idea, that being Santa has a rebellious teen daughter, via what comes off as an snl skit in comic book form. THat’s not an insult, it’s a GOOD snl skit, and I am genuinely surprised only one movie company’s attempted adapting this comic: the concept is great. I’m just letting you know what i’m working with is all. 

So naturally as a high concept comedy skit, Jing soon, after sharing some cigarettes with the local eskmo boys and accidently lighting her Reindeer’s butt on fire and wrecking her sleigh and some surrounding property, Santa is at his witt’s end and we end up in family therapy. And honestly.. Santa in a family therapists office is a great concept. IT’s why I compare it to a sketch: It’s just a simple one line proposal that’s really damn funny and really damn eye catching. It’s often REALLY hard to get a good santa parody going, so I admire how well he pulled it off here.  But what really centers it is Jing giving her side, making her a bit more than the mostly one dimensional bratty rebellious daughter she’s been pegged as. Oh sure tha’ts still mostly what she is here, I’ll leave it to later stories to flesh her out hopefully, but she gives vallid reasons WHY she acts out: She points out no one even knew Santa had a daughter, and she has no songs or specials or any of that about her. The most Santa can offer up is “Jingle Bells” because the boys say “jingle all the way”... which really, especially in 2020, just makes HIM come off worse for not only slut shaming his daughter, but that the best defense he can offer is “Well some local boys talk about how you boned them that counts right?”. 

That.. poorly aged joke aside Jingle brings up another good point on how sh’es on his shit list.. errr.. naughty list. Still a good gag. And yeah the therapist is understandably surprised Santa dosen’t give his own daughter presents, though his wife does give a valid counter to that: He has to hold a higher standard than anybody. 

And that’s why I’m really intrigued by this concept and want to read more: WE have plenty of stories about Santa’s kids, i’ll grant, from him adopting a kid like in elf, to him passing on the legacy with films like Arthur Christmas and Fred Claus, or even just films about his legacy, like the Santa Claus, aka that time Santa died and his clothes forced Tim Allen into a job he dosen’t want with weight and beard gain he didn’t ask for via yuletide mummy’s curse to become the new santa and nearly loose custody of his child. What i’m saying is the concept is inherently fascinating and The Santa Clause is deeply terrifying if you stop to think about it for two seconds.. as is the sequel what with it’s Nazi Robot Santa Claus Tim Allen. Yes really. 

But this one’s unique in that it’s not about the legacy. Oh sure Santa tries to get Jing interested, and his last attempte wound up with them having to take the bus, another great gag and i’m glossing over most because this is a very funny little comic, but the main focus is more on what kind of pressure that puts on a kid: wouldn’t you rebel too if your parents wanted you to be perfect and to follow in the family business of being basically a perfect human being? Jing herself sums it up perfectly towards the end of the story. 

Granted after a tearful hug, Jing internally says “that new snowboard is mine.. but i’ts hard not to feel that a godo chunk of this is genuine. Sure she’s playing her parents a bit but.. you’d crack too if your dad was freaking Santa. I’m really intrigued to see where this goes both comedically and character stuff wise. 

So we end on another christmasy narration bit as Belle plays good for a while, snapping only when it docent seem like she gets her snowboard. A comedy ending and an eh one. Not the best honeslty, I feel the comci would’ve been better ended just at the snowboard is mine bit, but i’ve seen worse. 

Final Thoughts: A really good story. WHile it’s rough around the edges, clearly Dini and others have buffed them out over two decades, and i’m really intrigued to see more of this this holiday season and others. Again some parts, mostly playing Jing being sexually liberated for “OH HAW HAW SHE’S A SLUT” laughs is cringe inducing, but most of the jokes have aged well and for a pilot it’s not bad. I really look forward to reading more of the character and diving into her this season and beyond. 

Until then be good to one another, have a happy holidays and always remember: There's  always another rainbow. 

[whatatime30]

3.4k Damian Wayne-Centric fic. If you like most of my works, you’ll like this one. The conceits are wild.

“Nice of you to visit.” Dick takes in the five o’ clock shadow and ghost in his living room.

Damian is a ghost, after all. The boy floats around, rarely speaking unless you spark his interest, haunting people he enjoys, whispering in the dark, forever broken, wholly untouchable, pale as snow.

He pulls the boy into a light hug as if any tighter would make Damian break. The boy is-- at least in Dick’s mind-- frail in a metaphorical sense that can’t be ignored. “Are you staying for dinner?” He knows Damian rarely eats, and when he does, it’s usually a soup of sorts he carries in a thermos.

A nod as arms snake around Dick’s waist. He eats for Dick if it’s dinner time, or if he’s particularly tired. It seems like such a day where both have graced them.

“What’re you hungry for?”

“I have soup,” Damian answers, voice muffled by Dick’s BPD issued windbreaker.

“What kind?”

“Chicken. Did you want any?”

“Nah. Think I’ll have something with a little more sustenance.”

“Cereal, I presume.”

“Yeah.” Dick releases the boy, brushing a kiss on his forehead as he does. “Tag along on patrol tonight?”

“I suppose.”

…

Tim loves Damian. The kid’s his best friend (and more), his brother (and more). One thing Damian isn’t, though, is calm.

He tricks people with the indifferently-lined mouth and half-lidded eyes, but Damian is anything but calm. He counts everything. He twitches and ticks according to patterns in a room. He holds a knife in his sleeve to throw at any given moment,

But he’s floaty. The boy floats like a ghost, pale and foreboding.

Tim think this is why everyone finds him calm and frail, even though the boy is anything but.

It worries him, too, how only Bruce and him can even tell there’s something off about Damian that can’t be fixed, ignored, or turned on.

Kid’s a psycho, and that’s Tim putting it nicely.

Of course, it’s not pertinent in most cases. In this one, though, it is.

“Wait,” Jason says evenly, inspecting the expanse of ashes that used to be a warehouse that kept roughly 500 men a night. “Where’s the…” He turns to Damian then Tim.

Damian’s right at Tim’s side, which he often does when Tim’s around, gently pulling at Tim’s sleeve.

“How’d you evacuate?”

He didn’t. Tim checks his gauntlet. 8:57pm. It’s early. He pulls a crisp twenty dollar bill from his belt, hands it to Damian. “Arcade’s still open,” he tells the boy gently. Because no matter how off Damian is, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t refuse learning it. The blocks just don’t stack.

The boy takes the bill. He squeezes Tim’s hand before leaving.

Jason’s still staring at the empty space in awe. “B’s gonna kill him.”

“Is he?” Tim asks, disinterested.

“Maybe he should go lie low with ‘Wing for a few days.”

“He stays.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

Scared he’s gonna beat Damian like he beat you? Tim wants to say it. Tim wants to say a lot of things.

…

Something’s wrong with Damian.

Bruce doesn’t know what, but the boy’s an unknown variable that his gut tells him to account for (the building the other night confirmed it).

So, he does such.

Tim usually leaves the boy to nap at the manor during patrol. Bruce has Cass cover his sector.

“Damian,” Bruce calls, knowing Damian never sleeps and will answer.

The boy comes out the darkness of the hallway and to Bruce’s side.

“Alfred’s made French Onion Soup. Would you like some?”

Bruce doesn’t know when Damian went off solids, but it will work to his advantage.

“Does it have cheese in it?” Damian queries, voice low.

“Do you want cheese in it?”

“No.”

Bruce slides his bowl to the center of the desk.

Damian hands Bruce his thermos after pouring out whatever it held before.

He pours half the soup into Damian’s thermos before handing it back.

The boy nods a thank you before beginning to sip the still steaming liquid. He pauses, smile creeping onto the face. “I can assure you I’m plenty sedated.” He takes another sip.

“I have some paperwork to finish up,” Bruce lies.

Damian nods, finishing the soup with a few gulps before retreating to the sofa, presumably to nap again.

An unknown variable.

…

Everything’s wrong with Damian, but Dick doesn’t mind.

He’s seen the kid jump into fights headfirst, get stabbed and not shed a tear.

Yet, when the boy burns his hand making soup, he hides in one of Dick’s empty cabinets until he’s fished out after patrol, a shuddery mess on the brink of tears.

Dick tells himself he doesn’t mind, reminding the rational part of his brain that Damian’s not rational and can’t be expected to be. He hugs the boy gently and wraps the injured hand, goes out and buys soup and sandwiches from the deli around the corner, bewilders at the incongruently sedate boy before him who flinched at an odd breath a mere hour ago.

Damian’s eyes lid. His head lolls and leans against Dick’s arm. His burnt hand lies limp while the other slowly twitches at every scene change in the movie playing on the TV. His chest moves up and down, smooth as an undulating wave.

“Want your sandwich?” Dick asks, holding it out to Damian.

The boy airly sighs, and his eyes fall closed.

“Later then,” he tells himself. “Later.”

…

They search for the ghost in the night.

He has to be there.

Who better to haunt the aftermath?

Bruce squints.

He doesn’t think Damian would go with Ra’s. Dick’s sure, as is Jason, but the longer they wait, the more he thinks Dick’s wrong.

Damian’s allegiances have never been clear. The boy’s impulsive, more so than even Jason in his Robin days, and Bruce doesn’t know how to assess it. He’s never asked Tim either, figuring Damian is always on the teen’s side no matter the situation.

They need the location now. Assassins are on their trail. Ra’s will have them all killed if they don’t find shelter quickly.

Damian knows this,

So where is he?

Bruce checks his clock. Twenty seconds and Damian’s late.

Fifteen seconds later, a plane flies overhead and a ladder falls from it.

…

Jason knew Damian would come. The boy is the undependable kind of dependable that both excites and terrifies him.

The boy hums as Dick runs a finger up and down his arm, eyes their usual dazed appearance.

“Damian,” Bruce calls roughly.

“Hm?” the boy answers.

“Where’s it taking us?”

“Location,” Damian mumbles, gaze focusing. “Like you… Secure location to regroup. You said-- Did you want to go somewhere else?” Damian half-rushes to the console.

“Where?” Bruce asks again.

Damian still looks confused. “I don’t--”

“Country, province, et cetera,” Bruce snaps, typing in his gauntlet.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t be secure otherwise.”

“Is it League owned?”

“No.”

Silence.

Damian rolls on the balls of his feet. Jason finds the boy is always unsettled by Bruce, bleeding the need for approval the man doesn’t give.

“Dami,” Dick calls. He waves the boy back.

Damian comes, sitting where he once was, though not as comfortable.

Bruce.

…

Bruce is debriefing. Bruce is boring.

Everyone knows this but Damian, who listens and nods along and answers every rhetorical question.

Dick wonders if he wants this. Does Damian want to be a hero? Does he want to ride the night clad with a Bat on his chest? Dick knows it was what he wanted at Damian’s age (before he knew better).

For Damian, vigilantism may be the right course. He’ll always be fighting. Better it be for the good guys, Dick figures.

He doesn’t think Bruce will ever give Damian the chance. Bruce uses Damian, and he will until he’s squeezed the last drop out, then he’ll drop him. Dick knows this. Maybe he should warn the boy.

…

Damian’s not a Bat. He’s always around the Bats, but he’s not one. He doesn’t wish he was a Bat either. There’re better things to be, an al Ghul one of them.

He thinks the Bats want him to be one, the majority of them anyway, but he knows it’s not his place. It can’t be one’s place, most importantly one who was dipped in death at birth.

He can’t be a Bat, not with voices ringing in his head and Ra’s-- for the first time in four months-- requesting his presence. He has to go.

“Damian?”

He stills behind the bed.

“Are you in here?” It’s Dick. Damian doesn’t mind Dick. He likes the young man as much as he’s allowed to like people (besides Tim). Blue eyes appear in the opening of the gap. He wonders for a moment if Dick plans on contorting himself to fit in the gap. Thankfully, he just smiles. “Hey.”

Damian never knows how to answer.

“Jay wants to know if there’s a Big Belly Burger around here.”

He can’t tell if Dick’s joking or not. There isn’t, but surely they know that. “The kitchen’s stocked,” he answers.

“Yeah. Alfred’s already making something. When’d he get here?”

“Tim secured his travel.”

“Where’s Tim?”

Off on business, of course, but Dick should know that as well.

“Mind keeping me company tonight?”

Damian’s fine on his own, but they always think he’ll break if he’s not with Tim, which hasn’t been the case since he was four. He enjoys Dick, though, and nods, accepting the offer.

Damian al Ghul’s not a Bat, but he doesn’t want to be one.

…

Abstract is all Damian paints. Everything is a line or a dot or a pattern. Nothing is of human form. Tim thinks Damian likes it better that way, but he’s no idea as to why. He sits by his artist with a plated sandwich cut in fours and potato chips, slips one of the latter in his mouth.

“Whatcha making?” he asks. Tim likes to have Damian talk. The boy doesn’t talk much, but he needs to because everyone should talk. Tim remembers the first year they met. Damian said a total of five words to him.

They’re close, but Damian doesn’t talk. If he talks to anyone, he talks to Tim (Dick if he’s in a talking mood). If he’s not in a talking mood, he talks to Tim if (and mostly only if) Tim bothers him enough (or he’s sad enough).

Damian’s sad today, but he’s almost always sad, and Tim never knows why. It’s his default. He wishes Damian would be happy. They’re still young, after all. Before meeting Damian, Tim always thought sad was for people like his parents, who were always grasping for something to make them not sad anymore, whether that be a charity ball or a bottle of whiskey.

“Hm?” Tim nudges him gently.

Damian’s brush freezes over the canvas.

“Did I mess you up?” Tim’s in Damian’s circle. He’d known he was entering the circle when he took a seat by Damian, but for some reason, it’d slipped his mind that Damian wasn’t always open to letting people (Tim) into his circle.

“No,” he whispers (it’s always a whisper, a rasp). He begins again.

“I have to go by the Cave tonight. Bruce wants to see me, sent me a cryptic text. Though I’m not sure whether it’s just his cryptic nature or something actually threatening, you know?” Tim eats another potato chip.

Damian nods.

“Want half my sandwich?”

Damian doesn’t answer as he paints a few last strokes. His paintbrush is set down. He takes one of the quarters.

“Let’s talk,” Tim says. He’s too forthright to say otherwise.

“About?” Damian asks.

“The painting.”

“No.”

“What I missed while I was gone.”

Damian takes another piece of the sandwich. He’s hungry (Tim takes note). “Nothing happened of paramount importance.”

“Tell me the insignificant details.”

Damian does. He recounts the past month in the passive aggressive monotone he always takes when Tim leaves him for a while and forgets to call. The sandwich and chips are gone by the time he’s done.

Tim wraps him in a hug. “And the painting?”

“It’s ugly, the Hunchback of Notre Dame personified. It’s twisted, maladjusted, sunken, disfigured, disillusioned.”

“And you love it?”

Damian grins sadly. “And I love it.”

…

Bruce wonders what Damian will grow up to be.

It’s hard to predict with the ghostly gray that is Damian. He’s the grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. He’s half something else. He spends the bulk of his evenings accompanying someone on patrol. He spends the other bulk blowing up buildings full of criminals. He paints. He kills. He has unleveraged resources. He has Tim.

Damian doesn’t seem to know either, but he doesn’t seem too worried either.

Tim says Damian will be an artist, but the dream is too puffy to be a pure reality.

There’s hope for him yet, though.

Bruce closes Damian’s file and turns his attention back to Clark’s presentation the new West Wing. You’d think signing the checks would be a ticket out of JLA board meetings. Every time, Bruce finds himself sorely mistaken.

The rest of the table claps as Clark finishes and takes a seat. “Anything else, anyone?”

Silence.

“Okay then. We reconvene a week from today.”

As Bruce gets up, taps his boots as he makes his way to his room. The hallways are dimly lit as the always are this time of night. He checks his gauntlet for the time. 11:45. It’s early. He can fit in a three hour patrol if he hurries.

Bruce enters his room to find an intruder.

The boy whose file he’d been studying the past hour sat curled up in the corner of the room.

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asks, because why would Damian come if everything was alright?

“Tim’s gone,” Damian says quietly.

Bruce kneels in front of him, waiting for Damian to continue.

“He won’t be back for at least a week.”

“What do you need, chum?”

Damian holds out an orange pill bottle. Five pills remain in it. “I only have enough for two more days.”

Bruce reads the label. Folate. He doesn’t ask why Damian hasn’t told them he’s anemic. He wonders if he ever would have found out had Tim not went out of town. He glances up to see Damian’s still looking at him. Does he think Bruce is going to say no? “We’ll go tomorrow,” he says.

Damian visibly relaxes, shoulders lowering. The boy looks lonely. Bruce isn’t sure how it’s possible, but he sees it in Damian. Maybe he’d keep Damian at the manor until Tim returned.

…

Tim watches his breath in the Winter air. Five more minutes, and he can go home. Of course, he’s been telling himself that for the past hour, but every time he gets close to five minutes, another matter is there for him to attend to.

He calls burglaries and violence in general matters. That’s all they are, after all. There’s no need to make a big deal out of everything. That’s what his mother used to always say, and Tim likes to live by the sayings of dead people, as their advice is most likely the most entertaining with maximum consequences, death being one of them.

So, he shivers and breathes and rubs the handwarmers Bruce got him in his gloves fingers. They’re top notch. He had Lucius make them especially for Tim. They’re not enough tonight, though..

“Dancing in the pale moonlight?” It seems Tim’s ghost has come to haunt him tonight.

He grins and turns, finding his ghost nowhere. “Come out.”

And the apparition is next to him.

“Where were you?” Tim asks.

Damian sighs, leaning into Tim’s side.

His added warmth is nice.

“I dunno,” he says quietly.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

…

Red. So pretty. Red.

Crimson. Cherry. Candy.

Rose. Ruby.

Red.

Red going up. Red going down.

Red tears. Red laughs. Red coughs. Red people.

Red. Everything’s red.

Red hand.

How did his hand get red?

Blood red.

Will it turn crimson if he asks for a cherry on top? That is the saying… Cherry on top. Tim taught him that.

Strawberry red spills from his hand, gushing like jam being squeezed through a bottle. His fingers open and close around the strawberry sauce. Will it taste nice if he licks it? Damian doesn’t much like strawberry sauce, so probably not.

A faint thump comes from behind him, a step that doesn’t want to be heard but has been.

The foot is too heavy to be Tim’s, but it’s too light to be Bruce’s. Dick would have talked by now, as would Jason. Damian finds it doubtful that Alfred Pennyworth would waste his time breathing the same air Damian does, but the scent of tomato soup that’s made its way to Damian’s nose says otherwise.

“If you’d point me to the dining area,” he says.

Damian closes the jam in his hand, points to the bar with his clean one. He must be looking for Tim, but surely he knows Tim’s not here yet. Tim doesn’t come back until after patrol, as early as midnight and as late as four in the morning.

He examines his painting once more. Small strokes. Big strokes. Old strokes. New strokes. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red dots--

Damian doesn’t like being touched. His jam-soaked hand is no one’s business but his own, and he’s not a child that needs shushing.

Alfred slowly wipes the jam off with a warm washcloth; he swabs the long cut in Damian’s hand; and he wraps the hand with gauze, so Damian can’t mess with it. “Come eat, my boy.” He takes  Damian’s uninjured hand and Damian to the bar and has the latter sit.

Damian stares down a steaming bowl of tomato soup, parmesan and basil sprinkled on top, a spoon and napkin in repose to his right. The red is so rich but the smell’s making him sick; he mostly eats canned soups since he can’t manage to cook without burning himself. He doesn’t say so, just eats half the soup and thanks Alfred and returns to his Red.

Red…

Red is many things. Red is happy. Red is sad. Red is a person inside out. Red is red.

Alfred takes a seat on the sofa behind him, sighing and muttering about the FA Cup.

Damian hands the him the not-red remote. When he goes back to his hand, he’s slightly sad it’s no longer red. He picks at the bandage as he examines the red some more.

…

The Ghost of Gotham haunts heroes and villains alike.

One person who has come to love the boy as much as he can love is the Joker.

He is homicidal. He likes guns. He loves red.

“JJ,” he sighs, visibly bored. He sits in his throne with nothing to do. He’s no plan to perform, no heinous crime to commit, no Bat to bother. “JJ, come come.”

He calls the ghost JJ because he believes the ghost will follow in his footsteps. The ghost knows that-- though he’s crazy-- he’s not near crazy enough to be the next Joker. That and the fact that he’s an al Ghul encourages him to remove himself from anything particularly funny or unsavory he’s invited to. Besides, what would the great Ra’s al Ghul think if he found out his only grandson doesn’t mind the company of a maniac?

“JJ! Come sit with me! I’m bored.”

Damian perches on the side of the throne and balances his sketchbook on his thigh.

“What’re you drawing?”

He shrugs. That’s the fun of abstract. He never has to answer that question.

“I’m bored!” the clown exclaims. “Can’t we go dancing or kill the Bat?”

He shakes his head. Dancing is boring, and the sky’s not red enough for a ballroom.

“I’m starving. How about a break to eat?”

“I have soup.”

“I want… a burger!”

Damian’s no idea why he’s been charmed by the clown, but his company is only beat by the Bat’s and Tim’s, and he can’t find the harm in blowing up buildings and slitting throats in the name of red and for the sake of art, of which there are no nobler causes.

…

How many people die alone? How many people die lonely? What’s the difference in the numbers? Is the tolerance nominal? Paltry?

None of it matters. Ghosts live on for eternity, haunting until they don’t want to. Then, they exit stage right and find a grave to rest in.

[seekingxanadu]

Damian in age reversal AUs being any kind of well-adjusted feels rather contrived. If Bruce as a nearly 50 year old, who has gone through 4 kids and a host of younger heroes before, couldn’t deal with a Damian; a late 20s Bruce would fail spectacularly. Plus, the clash of ideals and ways of life. Bruce has just walked away from the League of Assassins style of working and the reasons he walked out would be fresh in his mind, and then to be told he had a kid? Modern Bruce would react with extreme prejudice. Golden Age Bruce would put in an effort for sure. But the key variable here is Damian. Because Damian’s circumstances remain the same. Damian doesn’t deal well with being tolerated or being patronised. This time, there will be no Dick Grayson to cushion his experience with Bruce. 

I also don’t see a Damian who is without Dick’s influence being *any* kind of a hero that would inspire children to become heroes. Damian would most likely grow up to be very similar to the modern Batman. Bitter. Raging. Grieving. So Bruce takes in Cass - another kid raised as an assassin. Damian and Cass might relate to each other or clash horribly because their ideals are rather diametrically opposite. Add to it the minefield of Bruce adoring Cass openly and Cass following Bruce’s mission statement to the T - makes for a very volatile Damian. Gotta remember, Damian is raised on entitlement - on being the heir to the Demon’s Head AND Batman. There is NO iconic history of Robin and Nightwing here to buffer his self-entitlement. He is the pioneer. He gets to write his destiny.  

And Tim? The rich neighbour? LOL no - if a 10 year old Damian was trying to have a go at a 16 yr old Tim, imagine a 20 year old Damian trying to go at a 12 yr old Tim - even with Cass around, especially with Cass in the picture, there will be bloodshed.   

Keeping with the batkids reverse au, Damian's relationship with Bruce would be sooooo different. One, he's coming as The Only Kid™. There's no one to compete with. Two, Bruce is not as jaded and harsh. Sure, Bruce would hate how the league raised Damian, but I feel he'd be a bit more patient. I think they'd have a slightly better relationship. Then Bruce goes and adopts another kid and it all goes to hell lmao (I'm only kind of joking).

Truly. Bruce not being as weighed down by life and having waaay more time to spend with Damian could have set their relationship on a better path. On the other hand, I’m more likely to believe that Bruce and Damian’s relationship would have worsened because they would be like two dark figures with hostile tension between them due to repressed emotions. (This entirely depends on whether we’d have Golden Age Bruce or Modern Bruce.) And lol yeah I can’t see Damian accepting Tim into the family fold as graciously as Dick did with Jason. I think he’d be pretty opposed to it, actually. 

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Anonymous said: Hc- damians name for reverse ages would be Prodigal which still has those ~Graydon vibes

It took me entirely too long to realize that Graydon was just a typo and not an attempt at some ship name lmao. Prodigal is a name I can imagine Bruce saying over the comms (that’s how I judge whether a name is good or not lmao). It has a bit of a religious connotation to it though. 

I feel like I would just give him the name Skarmory (Skar for short) which, yes, is a Pokemon. But it sounds kinda cool, no? Asajda. Also, Skarmory is always hard as fuck to take down when I battle him in Pokemon Stadium 2. 

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Anonymous said: What i hate about Robin age-reversal fics is the way they make the whole fam seem well-adjusted and loving... you really think that, without dick there being the big bro, the batfam would have their shit together? lmaooo bro. they don’t even have it together now, despite dick’s efforts

LOL yeaaaah. See there are so many different family dynamic outcomes with the age reversal AU. I wouldn’t expect Damian to be as well adjusted as most people portray him as in those fics. But then I think about what his relationship with Cass and Jason would be like. And I wonder if that would impact him differently. Especially with Jason because Jason was a real sweet kid before he died. He could have softened Damian up in certain ways before Dick came along. 

[t-baba]

Microsoft's Chromium-based browser arrives

#423 — January 15, 2020

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

Microsoft's Chromium-Powered Browser Arrives — The new version of Microsoft Edge is now out of preview and available for download. Developer documentation for the updated browser can be found here. (So, what's the nickname for this one then? Edgium? Credge? 😅)

Kyle Pflug (Microsoft)

Google to Phase Out User-Agent Strings in Chrome — User agent strings have been a part of the Web since (almost) the very beginning, but there’s a growing movement to reduce their status. Chrome plans to shift to using Client Hints and Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla have shown interest in freezing or phasing out user agent strings too.

Catalin Cimpanu

On-Demand Webinar: How to Prepare Your Data Pipeline for Machine Learning and AI — Training-based session on transforming your data to power machine learning and AI projects. Use AWS Data Pipeline to automate data movement and transformation and explore software solutions in AWS Marketplace that make your data analytics-ready.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) sponsor

Chrome Experimenting with Web NFC Implementation — Web NFC aims to provide a way for sites to read and write to a nearby NFC tag. Google are currently experimenting with implementing the API with a view to shipping in Chrome 84. You can scrub up on the spec here, and try a Chrome-only demo (behind a flag) here.

François Beaufort

A Short History of Body Copy Sizes on the Web — An interesting look into how default text sizes have changed over the years, some thoughts as to why we’ve seemingly landed on 16px as the default, and what modern variable solutions are emerging.

Florens Verschelde

Get Started Building Extensions for The New Microsoft Edge — Now that it's here, you may want to look into developing an extension for Microsoft’s new version of Edge. The good news is that most existing extensions built for Chrome will work without any modifications.

Killian McCoy

Google Plans to Kill Off Third-Party Cookies in Chrome 'Within 2 Years' — The search giant is setting out a long grace period for its intended browser change and is asking the online advertising industry to help it build more privacy-focused alternatives to the cookie. Here's Google's blog post on it.

Digiday

💻 Jobs

Full-Stack or Front-End Engineer - Rails/React (Remote/NYC) — Got 2+ years of experience? Come help build the next iteration of our growing digital recovery platform centered on providing alcohol abuse treatment.

TEMPEST

Find a Job Through Vettery — Vettery is completely free for job seekers. Make a profile, name your salary, and connect with hiring managers from top employers.

Vettery

📙 Articles, Tutorials & Opinion

Why You Should Choose <article> over <section> — “Think of <article> not just as a newspaper article, or a blog post, but as an article of clothing — a discrete entity that can be reused in another context.” This has key implications for users using assistive technology like screen readers.

Bruce Lawson

CSS4 Is Here — Of course, it isn’t - but PPK argues that saying as much may be a good marketing move to entice the 'cult of new'.

Peter-Paul Koch

Text Links: Best Practices for Screen Readers — Compares screen reader behavior for aria-label and title attributes on text links. This sort of stuff is always worth scrubbing up on.

Sailesh Panchang

Make 2020 the Year to Master MongoDB. Try Studio 3T Today — Generate driver code for JavaScript, Python, Ruby and more? Build queries fast with our drag & drop editor? Of course.

Studio 3T sponsor

A Basic Example of the Web Share API — The Web Share API enables native sharing (via other apps/social networks) on pages.

Dillion Megida

The End of Indie Web Browsers: You Can (Not) Compete — Explores how DRM in browsers (in place to appease the Netflix’s and HBO’s of the world) has somewhat restricted independent browser development.

Samuel Maddock

Pixels Vs. Relative Units in CSS: Why It’s Still A Big Deal

Kathleen McMahon

Why Should You Use HSL Color Representation in CSS?

Mateusz Piguła

▶  Building Resilient Frontend Architecture

Monica Lent

CSS-Only Carousel — A look at just how far HTML and CSS will take you when building a carousel/slideshow.

Chris Coyier

Fixed Table Headers — Revisiting how to build a table with fixed headers using position: sticky.

Adrian Roselli

Seven CSS Properties You Had No Idea About — I wasn’t familiar with bleed, caret-color and the now deprecated azimuth properties.

Tomasz Łakomy

🔧 Code, Tools and Resources

Tailwind CSS Adds Grid Support — Note this is only the pre-release of version 1.2.0, but adds plenty, including CSS Transition, Transform & Grid support.

Tailwind CSS

Variable Fonts — This site isn’t new, but continues to be a handy resource for both finding and trying out a growing collection of variable fonts.

Nick Sherman

CFP for ForwardJS San Francisco and Ottawa Now OPEN

ForwardJS sponsor

Palettab — If you’re constantly on the source for color palette inspiration then this Chrome extension may be just the ticket. It shows a color swatch and font pairing on every new tab.

Tim Holman & Claudio Guglieri

Tiny Helpers — Some good stuff in this growing collection of single-purpose online tools for web devs.

Stefan Judis

Harp: A Static Web Server with Built-in Preprocessing

Chloi Inc.

   🗓 Upcoming Events

Flashback Conference, February 10-11 — Orlando, USA — Looks at cutting-edge web dev, browser APIs and tooling, but adds how they’ve evolved from the past to the web of today.

Frontend Developer Love, February 19-21 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — Three full days of talks from 35+ global JavaScript leaders from around the world.

ConveyUX, March 3-5 — Seattle, USA — This West Coast user experience conference features over 65 sessions across three days.

W3C Workshop on Web & Machine Learning, 24-25 March — Berlin, Germany — Hosted by Microsoft, this free event aims to “bring together providers of Machine Learning tools and frameworks with Web platform practitioners to enrich the Open Web Platform with better foundations for machine learning”.

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