#no. no. leaving means tim is struggling. it always has.

[acid-ixx]

I hope you don’t mind but I need to ramble this to someone, neglected Wayne reader right? The fam would forget to bring them to social events and whatnot right? So there would be very few pictures, articles and interviews or even facts about them, meaning that reader Wayne is a rarity. Still following me? Reader Wayne with a small but devout fanbase.

I’m talking they are trading the latest pictures and sharing links to the rare interview with reader in it, following any social media they have that isn’t private, they are just fascinated by this micro celebrity that seems to always be forgotten. Okay but also imagine one of the heroes developing a para-social attachment to reader. My money is on Conner Kent, mainly bc he can project his own issues with his dads onto reader and he can Dolores ~Encanto~ reader with his super hearing and develop a even bigger parasocial obsession with them

I hope you enjoyed this ramble, I will leave you be now, see ya later alligator! 🐊

omg another one of my asks that actually predicted a major plot point... this ask ties well with the last part written here. i'm thinking about having the reader get a love interest/s but i have already written an outline but one thing is for sure—

you have more than just your family interested in taking you.

major spoilers below the cut. — an excerpt from chapter xx

(name) wayne may have been a name forcefully deleted off of the face of the internet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its conspiracies of its own. nobody knows who you are beyond the blurry, unsolicited pictures of you. it may have been a photograph of your back, or articles published in unknown websites and buried at the far end about a kid entering through the fancy gates of the wayne manor.

you are a product of a one-night-stand.

but they don't know who the mother is, don't know your age, or where you come from, and what business bruce has with the woman to guarantee your adoption at the instance she had disappeared without warning.

your existence was a mystery most would like to solve. after all, it was your picture that was plastered all over the newspapers and articles, it was your name that journalists whisper and it was a silhouette of your face that the underground knows by heart. every known information about you was shared discretely yet efficiently like some sort of virus.

you were a target for interest, a large sum of money if they will. and alfred had taken it in his hands to make sure there would never be a repeat of what had happened before.

it was a clumsy mistake, one that cost you your memories, and one he swears on his life he'll never make again.

the first course of action he needs to arrange, which may seem difficult for most; he needs to confront bruce.

after all, your freedom is your doom.

maybe this is out of the picture, but id' like to imagine you and connor having a therapy session where one comes out absolutely obsessed with the other, and it's not you.

connor's character for me is so, so good for an angst potential. it's like his personal struggles is a way for him to show you how absolutely you two are meant to be. and he may have met you through bumping into you (false) or maybe... he has seen you stalking through the shadows back when he visits the manor. using his superhearing, he can hear your voice from the kitchen begging alfred to relay a message to bruce, sounding so absolutely desperate. it's the way you tell alfred how you wished your father actually spends time with you, or how nobody seems to notice you— that he kind of just makes a silent promise that he will talk to you soon, he needs to know why this family seems so keen on ignoring and how hypocritical tim is for literally doing the same thing to you when he's aware of kon's past.

if he (or anyone else) should be a love interest (though he is a minor character in the series unless you guys want him to be a major one), i can already imagine the absolute hell you have to suffer not only from your family but from your own lover. just imagine the stockholm syndrome or the delusions you convince yourself with because you're finally loved by someone but that love restricts you from the very freedom you tried to build.

the batfamily would be so conflicted because why are you choosing some stranger over them...? then you slap them in the face with, "well, this "stranger" wants to kidnap me and lock me up, sure! but at least they actually looked at me for more than five seconds!" and you can watch how the color drains off their face, their conflict giving you the perfect opportunity to run away from both your ex-family and your soon-to-be-kidnapper-lover who thinks your comeback is a funny way for you to propose.

[luludeluluramblings]

Smalltown! Neglected! Meta! Reader x Yandere! Batfam

Part One

Part Two ☁️ Part Three ☁️ Part Four ☁️ Part Five ☁️ Part Six ☁️ Part Seven

A/N: I’ve been hyper fixated on Batfam and DC in general for the past two months, and this is what my brain has been cooking. This is based on an fem!OC I made, but I converted it to GN!Reader. Or attempted to. Might write an official one with the oc. I don’t know. I’m new at this stuff and doing this on mobile to boot.

Warning(s): Yandere themes, Obsessive behavior

Reader grows up happy, healthy, a safe away from Gotham

Momma and Daddy (step-father) adore their darling reader

Daddy is kind and understanding; gives good advice, encourages reader, comforts reader after nasty break ups

Momma is sassy and a bit possessive of her baby reader

Momma never tells reader anything about their biological father (He was a big city playboy that missed the court date for custody is all she said)

Reader has a much younger half-brother from Momma and Daddy, who reader also adores

Little Brother’s are annoying, but you have so many interest in common

Suddenly Momma and Daddy are dead; (tragic accident or murdered)

Reader’s Bio Father, Bruce Wayne is called and flies into town via Private Jet and whisk you off to Gotham

Bruce can’t get custody over half-brother due to Reader’s step-grandparents fighting him.

(They tried to keep Reader too, but blood is thicker than water in the eyes of the court. And, Bruce has enough money to make that water run dry)

Bruce isn’t exactly like Momma described, he’s distant and a bit cold with reader. (Like he doesn’t know what to do.)

Bruce gets upset when Reader talks about missing Momma and Daddy, especially when Reader talks about Daddy.

Bruce doesn’t introduce Reader to the family right away.

Reader doesn’t see anyone, but Bruce and Alfred for the first week at the manor.

Bruce avoids reader, but gets upset when Reader ignores him

Reader starts researching their new family. Everything they can find in the media, even the company.

(Family Buisness funds the Justice League? Gotham gains a new Vigilante almost every time Bruce gains a new kid? Jason Todd’s death and reappearance. Suspicious…)

Reader finally meets the others.

First up Cassandra.

Quite, but watches reader like she knows all of reader’s secrets. (That’s terrifying.)

Reader’s instincts scream that she’s dangerous (Reader trusts those instincts.)

Reader is still nice, they get along. Cass rather be alone, but it’s cool. They’re cool.

Second up is Duke.

Duke is great. Official bro. Passes all the vibe checks. (Most normal one in this house.)

Reader’s meta abilities go haywire around him, so Reader needs to be careful. (Reader’s not sharing that secret yet. Not till they share what Reader suspects is their secret)

Third, Dick and Barbara.

Dick is a whirlwind, coddling and pitying, treating reader like a sweet helpless child then leaving. (He’s a busy popular man)

Barbara is polite, but a stranger.

Reader tries to be friendly, but can’t get past the stranger stage.

Fourth Stephanie.

Stephanie politely ignores reader, but reader genuinely wants to hang out. (Similar interest, close in age. Please, can we be friends? ……….)

Reader says they’ll keep trying (It happens… eventually….)

Fifth, Tim.

Tim just brushes Reader off with a blank look and disappears.

Reader can never find Tim. (Always in the cave, at work, on patrol. He’s a busy busy busy sleepy man that avoids even the mention of Reader)

(Stephanie hangs out with Tim though, but they still ignore reader. It’s fine. Reader is fine. It doesn’t hurt.)

Sixth is Jason.

Jason is mean.

Calls reader spoiled, says reader a an ignorant privileged princess, Daddy’s pet, a brat, etc.

But, then leaves when reader starts to snap back.

(He looks like he’s struggling not to strangle reader almost every time reader sees him.)

Seventh is the youngest and reader’s half brother.

Reader is excited to meet him, reader already has a younger half-brother. Having two sounds even better!

Damian is cruel

It breaks reader’s heart.

Damian either ignores reader, or mocks reader viscously. He’ll push and shove and throw things at reader. (Won’t draw a weaponed though, he’s past that.)

He brushes off all of Reader’s attempts at sibling bonding.

All this goes on for a few months.

Reader tries so hard to get close to everyone, but they’re either avoid her, ignore her, are cruel, or they just don’t have the time.

Reader’s life in Gotham is… different.

Reader’s a commodity, and, surprisingly enough, most people like Reader

School Friendships form, which reader worries are because they’re a Wayne child

(Which is true, but not in the way Reader thinks; hint: it involves other types of night avians)

Teacher’s appreciate a humble Wayne (Damian goes to the same school, Reader is a relief to teach)

Reader is quite talented, not a prodigy, not extraordinary. Just extremely approachable.

But, like all good things there is a downside.

Reader wants to spend time with their new friends.

They’re invited to Galas, lunches, brunches, vacations, shopping, etc.

And Reader WANTS to go

But, Bruce won’t let them

It’s not safe

(Which Reader understands, that’s why they never really explore Gotham, but still brunch couldn’t hurt, right?)

So Reader has no one to lean on or connect with. It’s isolating.

Instead Reader spends hours talking on the phone to their old friends and family back in their small town.

There’s a silver lining though: Things are going to get better before they get worse

So much worse

[deadsetobsessions]

Cassandra Cain wandered. It has always been so, it will always be so. The moment she clutched the bloody remains of her own freedom in her hands, Cassandra flew and flitted between the cracks of the places she finds.

The only thing that ever made her stay was her dad and their family. The only place she ever settled in for more than a scant number of months was Gotham.

But they’re in a place- a universe- Cassandra could never return to, could not follow, because they had forbidden her to do so. Tim’s grip on her arm, two textures of bloodied skin and torn gloves, told her everything he wanted to say. Her little brother all but shoved her through the crack between planes and universes, and begged her to live with fearful eyes and the grim set of his shoulders.

She has never been good at denying Tim.

The first few weeks were… difficult. She ran- liberated a boat, from men with sabres and cruel hands- and learned to feel the desperate pull of freedom on her hands amongst the waves. She was lost, adrift, silent in her grief. She could be free. She has never been freer. But Cass had never wanted to be free from those she claimed as her own.

Cassandra was built and trained to survive. To walk into a fight and come out the victor, no matter the cost. So she adapts and overcomes and tries not to wallow in her grief.

This new world was different. Brighter, in many ways, than her home dimension. Not that it was hard, considering her home was a wasteland by now, with the moving corpses of what once was her family. The former vigilante knew better than to take it at face value. The brightest places tend to have the darkest shadows. And so, she travels, looking for a purpose. Looking for Hong Kong, because she’s well aware she’ll never find a Gotham again. She braves the sea, travels in between groups of pirates and struggles to understand the slips of sounds that did not make sense to her. It was like before Bruce found her all over again and Cassandra tried a little to learn like how he would have wanted her to. But it is hard, and spoken language was never important to her, never necessary. It was relevant only because her loved ones deemed it important.

Then, she finds a boy on an island, whose words were simple and who was always warm-welcoming-happy-free.

Predictably, Cassandra learns the word “meat” right after learning his name. He was like… the sun. Bright, bold, and unfettered in his will. More stubborn than her brothers and sisters, a feat Cass had not thought possible outside of Gotham, and more than Bruce, only because he could not be swayed by logic. He was Monkey D. Luffy and he wanted to be freer than anyone else.

“Join my crew!”

Cass could not kill. She could not be a pirate.

“Shishishi!” He throws his head back when he laughs, and Cass can tell that he means it. That he thinks her silly for-

“Then my first mate won’t need to kill! We’ll be strong enough to leave people alive! That’s your dream, right?”

Cassandra is breathless. She is still. And- maybe Luffy doesn’t have the training she does, but he understood. She could read it in the lines of his shoulders, the way his rubber limbs don’t snap. She couldn’t believe that she would find anyone that would understand her will to never kill, not after dad, who had wrapped her in shadows that whispered safety and understanding-

“You wanna be free and you want to help without killing! I’m gonna be the Pirate King, and the Pirate King’s crew’s gotta be the free-est! And we can help people if they pay us in meat!”

- but Luffy was a supernova and Cassandra believes.

“Okay.”

“YES!” Luffy roars with happiness, grin wide as the glow in her heart. “I GOT A FIRST MATE!”

——

Cass contorts herself into the barrel- not a difficult feat, since she was already small to begin with- and sighs. She pokes Luffy’s forehead before lightly tugging on his cheek, stretching the skin a bit, in a small scolding.

“Awe, nap time!”

Cass sighs, too familiar with the antics of a chaotic younger brother.

[the-s1lly-corner]

What its like kissing the creepypasta characters

excluding the characters that im not comfy writing romantic for, for obvious reasons similar to the hugging post this is more so a rating thing instead of actual scenarios! honestly in love with these kinds of posts so im formally asking you guys to give me ideas in this vein because i love making hcs in this format/for general stuff eheheheh

SLENDERMAN:

if youve been on this blog for a while, you would know that i love when characters who dont have mouths/have nontraditional mouths nuzzle and press their face into yours. and i still love the idea, especially with slenderman ! the first time he 'kisses' you its probably the first time hes kissed ANYONE so the movement itself is probably a little... clunky... doesnt press too hard, actually i think he would struggle with the opposite. theyre gentle and fleeting, almost as if his inhuman strength and size would crush you if he let himself truly lean into it. i mean think about it, he hardly ever interacts with humans and when he does its for 'food', he has always only seen them as vulnerable and fragile. and whether malicious or not, he treats you as if youre made of glass. likes kissing the back of your hands too. 7/10, he gets bonus points since hes my fav + its the thought that counts

SPLENDORMAN:

very eager about showing you any level of affection, probably early in the relationship that he gets bold enough to kiss you. first kiss is probably more of a "in the moment" thing than "i planned this out and im going to ask" thing if that makes sense... similar to slenderman in regards that he presses his mouth to you, as i personally headcannon that his smile isnt exactly.. a real mouth, more so a false one. think like a layer of 'skin' covering his real one that he can rip out at any moment (same case for slenderman btw. same also apply to splendors eyes, more so markings than actual eyes). going back to his energy, hes very eager about it, might even lightly push you back with how much hes putting into it; he doesnt mean to, hes just so excited! likes cheek kisses and nuzzling your noses together 8/10

EYELESS JACK:

very wary about kissing you outside of those little pecks, for multiple factors. for one, his teeth. sharp teeth, he can accidentally cut you. other reason thats much darker, given that admin personally hcs that he goes into "frenzies" when hes hungry and reacts to blood like the sharks in finding nemo, if he accidentally cuts you when hes not.. well fed.. for lack of a better term... theres a risk there. REFUSES to kiss when he needs to go 'hunt' soon, not because he doesnt want you or your affection, but he doesnt want to take any risks. outside of that, he doesnt often seek out affection, so youre probably going to have to initiate it, unless hes feeling particularly clingy that day or jealous... hes very cold, please cup your hands on his face and warm him up. likes kissing your lips 6/10

LAUGHING JACK:

has to lean in at an angle in order to not poke you with his nose. has probably accidentally lightly scratched you with it when he got too excited. likes giving you forehead kisses for this reason because you can just angle your head down and he can go to town like that... sometimes leave lipstick marks on you.. if you personally hc that he can take off his makeup then please offer to fix it! hes going to be absolutely over the moon! likes wrapping his arms around you when he kisses you. does lots of kisses in quick succession rather than singular longer ones. probably wakes you up with kisses and greets you with kisses when you come home 8/10 i love him

MASKY/TIM:

nope, sorry. for masky hes not going to be taking off the mask around you at all. so if you want a kiss youre going to have to kiss the mask. though on rare occasions when youre alseep/half awake he will lift up his mask just enough to reveal his mouth and give you a kiss on your face. no particular place that he prefers to kiss you. though as said, its rare when he does this. in fact its not common for masky to seek out affection unless he feels more possessive of you than usual, be it because hes jealous or you are stress or you were just in a dangerous situation. 5/10, not much action but there is still care behind it

now as for tim... i think he would be more willing to give you kisses. probably gives you a quick one before you leave for work or something else, and greets you with one when you return home. thats a sweet thought, i think. more likely to give kisses during cuddle session, tends to kiss your cheek and neck (non sexually) while hes holding you to his chest. ponders. will give you a look if you mess with his sideburns and start giggling 6.5/10 love this man

HOODIE/BRIAN:

hoodie is a little more willing to lift up his mask around you, but only really up to the bottom of his nose. also has no preferred place to kiss you, but he seems to kiss your lips more than the other parts of you. sometimes his facial hair scratches against your skin and tickles. between him and brian i think hoodie is a little more blunt and serious about kissing. not to say hes not a little playful, love me some vaguely playful s/o hoodie hcs. probably picks you up off the ground too to 'trap' you, especially if youre fairly shorter than him (personally hc brian/hoodie is 6'') 7/10 love him

very similar to hoodie but i think he would be even more playful when it comes to you. leans into it when his facial hair starts tickling you, in fact i think it would devolve into him just tickling your sides. funny man. put him in the corner/j. like lj, he likes wrapping his arms around you when kissing you, this man is very into physical touch. will touch you any chance he gets; hand holding, cuddling, hugs, ect ect ect... sometimes starts smiling when you guys kiss so you have to give him a minute because he just has this huge grin on his face 8/10

PUPPETEER:

so you know how i said in the hugging post hes kind of a little shit? you know, literally basking in the fact that youre giving your time and self to him? i think that still applies here, maybe even more so since this is explicitly romantic. likes teasing you if you get flustered during your make out sessions, sometimes bombards you with kisses just to see your face redden... has probably leaned down and tapped his cheek as a silent yet teasing gesture, as if taunting you, letting you be the one to kiss him this once. also very cold, like physically. what being a spirit does to a mf. VERY tall, can easily evade any retaliation you throw his way (ie returning the favor of bombarding him with kisses), though im not sure how long he'd be able to resist.. 6/10

[i-yap]

Fights btw tim and y/n

warning- a little yandere

bro is the perfect teenage love type of boyfriend but ofc we all have our issues.

he is a stalker, like full blown cameras, drones , stalking your socials and prolly even has your browser history. he tends to get obsessive and struggles to understand boundaries. he means well but if you rlly love your privacy you may need to give him a strict talking to. but this does mean he gets you the perfect gifts( ur entire shopping cart)

he overanalyzes a lot. that + the fact he doesn't sleep+ lives on caffeine and aderaline+ mommy daddy issues+ you being the best thing that ever happened to him...yea he overthinks everything. " why did she leave my hand, wait is it sweaty? her brow also twitched, she is texting someone one, is it a he? the corners of lips turned up at a degree of 10 degrees..SHE LIKES SOME OTHER GUY" yes he his detective skills sort of fail in this case.

he has a bit of tunnel vision, so he sometimes misses the big picture. he is also a little impulsive . while this isn't always a problem , he does end u insulting your friends without first hearing the whole story, or take some action without considering all factors. you always have to calm you hyper asf bf and tell him to take a second to breathe before jumping right into action.

he worries about u a lot, if you have a bad habit he is trying every trick in the book to get you to leave it and may become helicopter parent like even if u don't wanna leave that habit. this prolyl did cause a major fight at some point

he struggles to give you the time you deserve( same a dick and bruce tbf) and he puts so much pressure on himself ( as a robin and as ur bf) that he just cracks really often . and u have to remind him that its okay if he isn't perfect, he is yours and you wont change that for the world

[veaspo]

How about Toby, EJ and Masky finding out their SO has demon horns they usually hide with like a hat or space bun hair style 🙏

Loving your stuff BTW 💕

YEAH

CREEPYPASTAS X S/O WITH DEVIL HORNS

TOBY ROGERS // TICCI TOBY

-> he knew you liked hates but he didnt really know why

-> he seen a hat that reminded him of you so he stole it

-> toby surprised you with it, you were very greatfull because you were meaning to get one

-> you took off the hat in front of him for the very first time and he was in such shock

JACK NYRAS // EYELESS JACK

-> you had your hair in space buns

-> jack noticed that one was slipping down but he wanted to see why you always had space buns or a hat

-> you were COMPLETELY oblivious though

-> when it finally slipped you were scared that he would leave you

-> he digged it though, do NOT cover em infront of him again😾

TIM WRIGHT // MASKY

-> you thought it was weird to sleep in a hat so you slept in space buns

-> tim didnt really question it

-> but he had a nightmare one night and woke up in the middle of the night

-> your buns had slipped down in your sleep and tim seen

-> he asked you about it in the morning

----------

i was struggling chat

[eldritch-nightmare]

Hi hi !! 🎀 anon here! May I get some HCs of Laughing Jack, Tim Wright/Masky and Jeff the Killer with an affectionate clingy s/o please and thank you! 🥹👉👈

(An unrelated note regarding last time: My job and boss is actually super cool and they said I can dye my hair!! I’m so stoked eek! <3 magenta highlights, once again, after so many years, here I come! They have been missed…)

a/n: omg yay!! happy you get to dye your hair!! <3

with an affectionate and clingy gn!s/o.

includes: laughing jack, jeff the killer, and tim wright.

warnings: uh... none... i don't think.

LAUGHING JACK.

Out of all three, Laughing Jack is definitely the most stoked about having an affectionate and clingy significant other.

My guy has terrible abandonment issues, and he can be a bit clingy himself if the mood calls for it, so to have someone who doesn't want to leave his side? Might as well return him to heaven or something, because nothing will ever get better than that.

He is equally as affectionate if we're being honest.

Yeah, he's a big scary evil clown and all that terrorizes children but he knows how to be nice to the people he likes.

Knowing that you cling to him the way you do, it helps reassure him that you don't intend on leaving anytime soon. I mean, if you wanted to leave him, then you wouldn't be clinging to him like you always seem to do, right?

And so long as you keep clinging to him like you do, then his abandonment issues will rarely ever show up and everything will be all good and a-okay.

JEFF THE KILLER.

Hm... he can't decide if he likes you being clingy or if it annoys him. He won't lie, he loves the attention and it feeds his ego whenever you praise him or call him beautiful. You being affectionate is something he knows he likes. But he's not sure if he's fond of the clingy part or not.

When he first met Nina, she was pretty damn clingy as well, and that made him grow to hate her. To be fair, he didn't harbor any feelings for her. He does harbor feelings for you, however, and it feels different when you cling to him.

There are days when he can't stand you clinging to him, and he'll make it known in a rather rude way, to be honest. But there are also days when he wants you to cling to him because sometimes, your clinging to him feels a lot more genuine than your affectionate words.

He's very 50/50 on it, and it can change by the hour, to be honest. But he's fine with it more often than he's not. Only because he likes you.

But will he ever actually tell you that he likes it? Probably not.

It'll be fairly obvious though. Jeff may be rude, but he's not exactly the best at hiding his emotions around people he feel comfortable with.

TIM WRIGHT.

Please give him time to adjust because holy shit there's no way he'll be immediately comfortable with you clinging to him. He can barely take a compliment without feeling uncomfortable, so there's no way he'll be fine with physical affection right off the bat.

He'll tense up whenever you throw your arms around him, and it'll be very awkward because he's not entirely sure what he's supposed to do. Does he hug you back or does he just stand there? He's never been super close to people like this before, so it's all still very new to him.

If he becomes too uncomfortable, he'll let you know and will definitely put some distance between the two of you until he no longer feels that way.

He doesn't feel suffocated by your affection and clingy behavior, it's just something he's struggling to get used to because, I mean, Tim does have the mindset of 'I don't deserve this type of love' so it's very hard for him to accept it.

He'll definitely distance himself from you entirely during the events of Marble Hornets because there's no way he wants you getting involved, and he already blames himself for everything that's happening. He doesn't want anything to happen to you.

And if you're still around after the events of Marble Hornets, then honestly he would need your clinginess to ground him.

[confused-wanderer]

The batsiblings have their own code version of “Do you want to talk or find a solution”

or when the bat siblings have to force one another to talk about their feelings, vent out what they’ve been keeping inside or basically trying to help another one out, they always say “Penny for your thoughts?”

Which doesn’t mean the saying. It’s a reference to Alfred Pennyworth, the OG able to make everyone quiver before him with a single judgemental eyebrow raise. He’s the one who always sees through their bullshit, calls them out on their behaviour, serves as a comforting presence to simply blurt out everything on your mind that’s been bothering you.

It means they’ll listen, nobody can make them leave even if they tried and they’re not gonna relent until they get what they want. It’s an opportunity to get the other person to open up and share their own thoughts while also giving the other space and comfort.

Steph started it by asking Batman of all people when the man was brooding the whole day over an attempted kidnapping of Jason and Dick when the two were out. Thankfully, their Wayne persona had not forgotten their childhoods as Dick as a gymnast and Jason as a street-kid, so the two were able to escape without much concern brought to how two rich kids took down a gang of people whom the nurses were struggling to decide if they should put in hospice.

Bruce, the worrying father he always was had an annoying habit of being a recluse even more than he already was when he was really stressed. So Stephanie one day just sauntered over into the batcave, bypassed all the emergency codes, sat down wolfing down her breakfast while forcing Bruce to look at her by eating in the most atrocious way possible to keep his attention - a task not too difficult because the man ate cheeseburgers by using a knife and fork, was a raised by a butler and Steph was.. well Steph.

And once she has his attention and horror, she raises an eyebrow and asks

“Penny for your thoughts?”

It works, somehow and when it’s only when Steph and Bruce are having a heart to heart that several shadows currently in the vents vanish, and along the lines it becomes a part of their vocabulary too. First time Steph hears Jason say it, she accuses him of stealing her patent, to which Jason shrugs and says he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Dick uses it too and always glances at Steph with a smile when he says it. Tim uses it in cases where he’s too tired to simply point out the flaws of his siblings selflessness or gameplans because he knows all of them are too stubborn to face it point-blank and this way ensured they actually took what he said into account, which meant he didn’t have to stalk them afterwards and hide in the shadows until the plan was completed successfully with minor (Tim’s definition of minor is no organ out of body) injuries. Damian simply chides her for not putting a patent on it.

So while Steph is happy that everyone’s actually using it to help one another, she is getting increasingly ready for justice when they keep gaslighting her and claiming they came up with it all by themselves.

[ambi-kiko]

here are some tma food hcs bc AAAA

i think that jon gets hungry for real food, too. but its more of a deep hunger? he actually needs food less and less and eventually just doesn't need to eat, but he still can and he still gets hungry, when he lets himself be relaxed enough to realize what his body needs

hes a great cook and at the safe house, cooks amazing meals and bakes warm loafs and all of martins favorite meals

jon sometimes gets hungry and doesnt let himself eat bc he doesnt feel human enough and feels like he doesnt deserve it

martin notices that last one and tries his best to make something jon likes

i think that martin is the best at making tea, really excellent at making classic chocolate chip cookies, and just awful at anything else in the kitchen. he still tries his best, and jon eats everything he makes

lonely!martin loses a lot of weight bc he leaves the office less and less and doesnt care for himself as much

jon is the only one who notices this and starts putting out a little tray of homemade biscuits near the tea in hopes that martin grabs some

when theyre in the safe house, jons #1 priority is to figure out martins favorite meals as subtly as he can to get martin to stop starving himself accidentally out of habit (he actually wasnt subtle at all, but martin found it endearing so he played along)

Melanie wanted to be a baker when she was younger and got really good at making treats. Her first youtube channel was for baking

Georgie cooks and Melanie bakes and they always call eachother the better chef

georgie is pretty good at cooking but she isnt exceptional by any means. melanie is excellent at baking, but she considers it pretty useless because "you cant live off fancy cakes and meringues"

daisy says that she knows how to cook and for a pretty long time basira believes her bc you cant be that buff if you dont eat

one night she comes over and finds that all that daisy has been eating is frozen meals

basira is fine at cooking (enough to live off of), but she cooked the best meal she could in hopes to inpress daisy

daisy had so little actual ingredients that basira rly struggled but it was amazing. daisy didnt notice bc she was too tired. she crashed on the couch and basira left after tucking her in. daisy was pissed at herself for not appreciating basira

after that, she stops eating frozen meals and tries learning to cook. shes really bad at it at first and almost gives up multiple times, but wants to be able to cook for herself (its really for basira but she wont admit it)

tim is the cook and sasha cleans up after

he feels bad making her clean but she insists bc "cooking is so much more useful and time consuming" and that he should "let her be useful"

tim always helps out in the end and they often end up dancing together in the kitchen

tim gets this weird feeling of loneliness when certain songs come up when hes cleaning the kitchen alone after not!sasha

peter leaves homecooked meals at elias' desk when he has his back turned (he starts with warm foods, but realized that they always turn cold and that isnt very pleasent, so he starts bringing salads and poke bowls)

if i missed anyone, lmk! i could continue w these for a while but im blanking on other characters and i dont want to go on too long in 1 post so see ya later!

[kens-ramblings]

i’m back on my singer tim drake au bs(sue me he’s my current fixation and im always obsessed with music so take it or leave it).

okay so after the bruce quest he decides he can’t do the vigilante bs anymore, and bruce will be back so WE can be ran remotely until he’s got it again. he leaves gotham not long after the ra’s thing. he picks a new alias and decides he will finally use the vocal lessons his parents made him take when he was younger. and he starts a band, some how cassie, bart, and kon(since they are also back from the dead and cult shit now and if that’s not the timeline,,, it is now) find him while he is in the beginning stages and they are like fuck it let’s be a band. they blow up and fast, bc plot  convenience. so it’s only like a year after bruce quest, bruce has taken WE back and the batfam has just been busy. they are vigilantes shit never stops for them; they just got their dad back into fully working order, they are still acclimating dami, there is some shifting of suits and responsibilities happening. all this meaning the fact that tim never came back just,,,, got lost in the shuffle. so now that everything is slowing down they are like,,, wtf,, where is tim? they spend a while searching for him but the trail goes cold bc aliases and tim is damn good at hiding when he wants to. they eventually have to put it on the back burner. but then one day, maybe now it’s been about another year since they started looking for him, and dukes favorite band is coming to town. the wayne’s all decide to go, even jason is gonna go under the guise as a body guard for the fam. and color them shocked when they see kon settle behind a drum set, bart come bouncing on stage with a guitar and cassie grinning with a bass. they’ve all been missing for just a couple months less than tim. and then their breath is stolen as they see him. it’s fucking tim,,, walking right on stage as if he hasn’t been the center of a bat hunt for the past YEAR, smiling with a microphone in hand and asking the crowd if they are ready to get going. even more shocked with the first notes of a song starts playing and he makes direct eye contact with each and every one of them and calmly says, “this songs for you, you know who the hell you are.” and starts singing. I like to think the song is “love from the other side” by fall out boy. there are just so many parallels to parts of tim’s story(the fannon ver. anyways, im still working on the comics) and lines in the song(i’ll expand in the comments this is already long as hell)

and they are taken aback, why the hell is he so angry. and then dick specifically is reminded of how he treated tim right before he left. how at the time he thought tim was going to fine, and dami just needed him more. so tim just fell to the wayside. a running theme recently. and from the few times they had to deal with ra’s while looking for tim, it sounds like he went through some shit, and then he left. and they are at a loss. struggling with wrapping their heads around it all. and then the concert is over, and they are left scrambling, hoping to talk to tim before he’s gone in the wind again.

[skullcfusher]

When u tlked about the toby n kate HCs u gave us Kate angst HCs do u have any toby angst HCS I'm obsessed w sibling relationship kate toby its the best 100 percent

Ok I tried typing out a huge thing but it's not letting me post that SOOO you're getting the short version, if anyone is interested in a long version dm me or smth idk BUT here they are

Toby struggles like crazy with masculinity, vulnerability and authority figures, between his father smacking him around and verbally abusing him, the bullies not only at school when he was there but actually trailing to his neighborhood and any time they could find him and all of the neighbors and older folk who saw what was happening but stayed silent, he felt crazy weak, especially when most of the things Frank said to him were always related to him not being man enough in some way, and it didn't help that Toby was a scrawny boy because food was hard to come by, it's not like he was starving by any means but they were kinda just getting by. This follows into his proxy life, always having to be stronger than everyone else in the room, killing people in horrific ways to show his strength and pushing himself to an extent to show that no one should fuck with him. Toby was born into a dog eat dog world but now the point he's at, all of the other dogs aren't hungry but he's still eating even if he's full. No one is trying to hurt him, don't get me wrong not a whole lot of creeps like him all that much but no one is looking to hurt him, but he can't fathom that. He has to fight, no matter how tired he is of fighting, he just doesn't recognize a world outside of that and it scares him. The only being he can't fight is slender, he's horrified of slender because slender has the capability to make that boy feel pain, not in the sense he can just flip the switch and he feels everything now but he can give Toby the most earth shattering, mouth frothing, skin peeling headaches. It's not just some small shit, Toby's feeling throat curdling pain for the first time, if feels like he's burying his own axe into his head. Punishment is bad for all proxies, but this shit is really new to Toby, Tim and Brian usually have to leave when Toby goes under cause they can't stand to hear him when he screams and thrashes he doesn't just fall to the ground and scream either he bites and rips his skin off and throws shit and gets fuckin crazy, Kate tries to stay and comfort but Toby pushes her away, he can't let her take care of him like that he's supposed to be able to handle it how can he not be able to handle something the rest can

Ok that's all for now I think, just cause I'm trying to make it short but if u want more or have any questions or even requests for other creeps I'm SOOOO OPEN I love answering shit

[lover-of-mine]

Top 5 most hilarious, ridiculous BT theories? 😂

I'm gonna give you my favorites in no particular order.

Ryliver is sleeping together. Why did this make the list? Well, 3 weeks ago I had people in my inbox telling me that Oliver and Lou are in love and Oliver is only going along to protect him from the buddie crazies, and that's why they're hiding Lou. Now Oliver is sleeping with Ryan and they are forcing the network to do what they want and conspiring to get Lou out. So like, which one is it? Is he with Ryan or Lou? Is he protecting him or trying to force him out? Can they pick a struggle? Probably not.

The what if episode without Eddie that's just buddie highlights with Eddie removed. The way they think that putting Buck in the same situations he's been with Eddie with an explicit love interest and having Buck have the same reaction helps them is hysterical. That would literally just further the idea that Buck is in love with Eddie, because if he has these reactions with someone he's romantically involved, then he has romantic feelings for Eddie. It's a very simple parallel they don't seem to understand. They also seemed to have forgotten that Tommy left the 118 before Buck joined so even without Eddie, it would not lead to bt. Also got me thinking "so you agree that buddie is romantic?" I would laugh if Tommy got shot tho, but don't you dare break the sanctity of the shooting.

That leads us to the "Tim only wrote Eddie so that he could bring Tommy in during season 7 and have him replace him." Somehow they think that they would write Eddie in to give his personality to some random character 6 seasons later because somehow, Tommy has been in the show longer in their heads, even though Hen Begins is 9 episodes after Eddie was introduced (I think they think that the begins episodes being earlier in the timeline means something it does not), so the spot was always meant to be Tommy's, Eddie was just a placeholder for Buck to kinda fall for but then choose Tommy so they then they could remove Eddie seamlessly. Doesn't make sense at all. I like that they admit that Buck is "kinda" in love with Eddie. Just a reminder that Ryan didn't audition, was brought in as a lead, and Eddie was written for him.

The Tommy is getting a spinoff week was also fun. I was legit rolling around on the floor with how much I was laughing. They had potential names. Plots. Buck was going to leave the 118. They were sending posters to Tim. They had the whole thing locked and loaded. And they kept talking about it like it was a sure thing for whatever reason. Highly entertaining. Was convinced they were rage baiting me until the spies confirmed they were in fact talking about a spinoff as if it was a done deal.

And boring but the invisible string thing. They somehow missed the way that Eddie was the one who restarted Buck's heart. That and the way that multiple people are on record saying that Lou was a last minute decision. And that he was brought in for Eddie. But sure, they absolutely took the time to pretend the relationship has been planned since season 2 when they changed it from Eddie to Buck mid filming the cruise. Totally happened.

Honorable mentions: the Chris has 3 dads and Tommy is somehow the better parent and the only one who can connect with him, and the Tommy is going to admit he was interested in Eddie, Eddie is going to admit he is interested in Tommy, Buck because he just loves them both so much is just going to accept being 50th choice.

[calltocupid]

some of my tim laughlin headcanons

he is incredibly good at art. (i know this is touched on in the book, but let me be.) he has cheap little journals that he can afford filled with various sketches of hawk. the tips of his ears and his cheeks always turn a dark crimson color when hawk catches him.

after meeting hawk, he has difficulty sleeping alone. he has to be at the brink of exhaustion in order for him to fall asleep without hawk curled around him.

he’s been wearing glasses since he was 6 years old. at first, he was embarrassed about it, especially with how mean kids can be. sometimes he still gets self-conscious about it, even in his older years.

he’s a morning person!! he wakes up every morning and either goes on runs or walks, especially in the summer time. he’s also a bit of an earth worm granola boy. in the nicer weather, he’s always finding little places to explore: hiking/biking trails, new parts of d.c./san fran that he hasn’t seen yet, etc,.

adhd tim!! it’s something he’s struggled with all of his life.

he loves to collect things. trinkets, pins, magnets, mugs. whatever it may be, he tends to keep it, as he’s hard time letting go of things that perhaps have a story to them.

he keeps every single card and letter he’s ever received from loved ones. it gets increasingly worse as he meets hawk, though. he holds onto everything hawk has given him.

all of the scrapbooks he has of his family are ones he’s made himself. one afternoon at fordham, he got really overwhelmed with studying, so he took a break to make some out of the pictures he’d kept in a box in his closet.

he was incredibly shy all throughout college. it was easy for him to make friends, but he was typically the one who had to be approached, otherwise he’d tend to keep to himself.

he loves the fall time. growing up in new york, him and his family would always do an immense amount of activities together as soon as september rolled around and the leaves changed. apple picking, hayrides, trips to salem, visits to the pumpkin patch where he’d always pick the most neglected pumpkin because he felt bad for it.

he’s been sensitive his entire life. he’s very in tune with other peoples emotions too, and he can very easily pick up on shifts in people’s behavior/moods.

he’d always tried to play sports growing up—baseball, soccer, even swimming—but he’s always been more creative than athletic. once his parents quit hounding him about it, most of his time was consumed with writing, reading, and art of various kinds.

he began to grow fascinated with history and government work when he was in 7th grade. he’d spend afternoons after classes in the town library reading anything and everything he could get his hands on if it was about those subjects.

the cross necklace he wears was a birthday gift when he turned 16. it holds immense sentimental value.

his first crush on a boy was when he was in kindergarten, back before anyone really realizes it’s a crush. but the one he really remembers was high school. it was a boy on the football team, about a year older than him, and tim can remember growing distracted in class from doodling him in the margins of his notes.

okay. i have so many more, but i don’t want this to be ridiculous. let me know if i should share more.

[fenricken]

You Keep Slipping From My Grasp 4/7

AO3

Ship: Spirit Halloween

first

prev

The rain fell heavily, washing the blood on the ground away as he stepped toward the woman. She was hunched over, sobbing, clutching her dead son to her chest. She glanced up at him as he approached, mouthing silent prayers.

“What happened here?” he asked, carefully ignoring the dead bodies around.

“They came… for a box my family has guarded for a long time. They killed my husband and my son, and they’ve taken my Catherine… They’ll torture her to make her speak its secrets. Please! Please, help her!”

She reached out a hand to him, imploringly. He crouched down to take it.

“I will.”

————

Danny stood before Clockwork, adjusting his new cowboy hat. Maddie and Jack stood behind Clockwork tinkering on the Fenton Omega Siphoner, and arguing over the aesthetics of the machine.

“I have already sent Dani out to help the Justice League locate Batman’s cape. Hopefully we should receive word on her success soon.” Clockwork began, “In the meantime, we do still need someone to make sure Batman doesn’t rush forward too quickly, lest he build up too much energy before we can stop him. Are you ready?”

“Always ready for bat-sitting duty. I’d hope he’s doing something  a bit calmer this time, but I suppose there’s no chance of that happening.” Danny responded, pointing to his hat.

Clockwork just gave his usual cryptic smile before opening a portal for Danny to step through.

————

“Roooooobin. Rooooooooobin.”

Tim whirled around, searching for the source of the noise.

“Oooh, new fit?” Poltergeist asked, stepping out of the shadows. “Ugly cowl, but I like the rest of it.”

Tim lowered his bo staff at her, readying himself for whatever chaotic ‘game’ she tried to rope him into this time.

“Your city’s on fire. You bats trying out some new defense mechanism or something? Like, you think no rogue would want to take over Gotham if it’s a pile of rubble and ash?” She turned in a circle, surveying the chaos Gotham was under.

“What do you want, Poltergeist?”

“Well, so like, Batman’s stuck in time, right? And-”

“How do you know that?!” Red Robin cut in. He had been struggling to convince everyone that Batman was still alive ever since he found those paintings on the walls of the Batcave. Suddenly, here was Poltergeist who seemed to know something about it, but he couldn’t trust her. She was unpredictable, and running into her could mean leaving with anything as benign yet uncomfortable as soaked socks or as irritating and hindering as being cursed to only speak dead languages for the next 3 days.

And things only got worse if she was tagging along with Klarion. Fortunately, he wasn’t in sight, so it's unlikely he was here with her.

“What do you want?”

She smiled slightly at him. “Oh! I want to get Batman back where he belongs before he dies or explodes everything.”

Explodes everything?

“I mean, Gotham’s got a grumpy quota and since you’re his mini-me I figured you’d start trying to take it on and that’d be so boring.” She raised her pointer fingers to the side of her head, imitating Batman’s cowl and adopted a nasally voice. “I don’t have time to play, Poltergeist. Gotham needs me. I have to go stalk Penguin, and then I need to go brood on my favorite gargoyle.”

“So you want to help me find Batman so that I will… be able to play with you?”

“Well, that, but also if he makes his way to the present day on his own, he’ll have built up enough of something called Omega Energy to make all of reality go ka-blooey, and I actually really like this universe. Top 10, easily.”

Tim held up his hand to stop the oncoming ramble while he compartmentalized.

First, Poltergeist knew Bruce was lost in the time stream and seemed to want to help.

Second, Bruce was making his way back to the present, and by doing so was becoming a living bomb

Third, Poltergeist is a multiversal being???

That last one can probably be ignored for now.

“If I were to let you help me find Batman, where do you suggest we start? I’ve been tracking down artifacts I think he’s left behind  to try and convince the Justice League to help us-”

“Psh. Justice League Shmustice League. My dad and my Nana and Pops are already working on it. We just need to find the cape he was sent back in time with for them. Besides, I can probably convince Wonder Woman to help us get the Justice Dorks to help out once we get the cape if we really need to.”

What.

“What?”

“My grandparents are building a thingy-thing to suck all the Omega Energy out of Batman so he’s not a bomb. My dad’s hanging out with him to keep him from dying or something, and we’re supposed to find his cape so we can safely yoink him out of the time stream.”

“I didn’t know you had parents??? What do they do while you’re here breaking things???”

Poltergeist shrugged “King things I guess. And I only have a dad.”

“King things???”

She rolled her eyes, “Anyway, Dad said he last saw Batman’s cape in the Batcave.”

“You didn’t answer my question, and I’m not taking you to the Batcave.”

Poltergeist landed on her feet, and stared at him with wide eyes. He stared back, caught in her gaze for what felt like an eternity, as he felt invisible fingers trickle up his spine. Whispers started low in his ears, building to a crescendo. It was getting too much to bear, until he broke eye contact and looked away. All of a sudden, it stopped. Tim heaved a big sigh.

“I’m… kinda fighting with the current Batman, so we’ll have to sneak in.”

She punched both arms into the air, “YES!”

Tim turned, flicking his cape and walking off, not waiting to see if she’d follow.

“Poltergeist, when this is over you are going to be answering my questions.”

He heard her blow a raspberry at his back, but kept walking.

————

He followed their trail easily enough, the rain trailing after him. As he reached his destination, men came out to fight him, readying pistols, but he made short work of them easily enough.

With his memory having returned in bits and pieces, it had been easy to fashion metal into bat shapes aerodynamic enough to hit true when thrown, and it was these he’d used to disarm the men.

These memories were useful. The ones of children with blurry faces less so, haunting him as they stayed just out of his complete grasp. A constant reminder of how lost and alone he was.

He steadily made his way to the headquarters, where he figured they were keeping Catherine. He whirled around, sensing someone approaching from behind. It was the man with white hair, again.

“Seems you’ve got this well enough in hand, but I hope you don’t mind if I’d tag along all the same.”

“Why?”

The white haired man smiled slightly. “Will you not believe that I just want to help you?”

He stared, unblinking and quiet. Memories from before had proven this a good method to get more information.

His target stared back, also quiet and unblinking. It wasn’t long before he started shifting, and not much longer before he finally spoke again. Under his breath, almost too quiet to hear, he muttered “Just like Dani, I swear…”

Louder, the man said, “I’ve not known you to be the kind of man to ever be on the wrong side of a cause. Whatever you’re up to, I just want to help.”

He squinted at the man, trying to find any evidence of a lie, but the man just appeared open and honest.

“No guns,” he says, before turning back around and leading the white haired man on towards the headquarters.

As they got closer, they noticed two men standing guard. He deployed smoke bombs to cover their approach, sneaking closer with his companion close behind. They were spotted, but the smoke did its work, scaring the two guards and allowing him and his companion to disappear from view again.

“How you gonna tell me there’s no such things as ghosts now???” One of them whimpered, apparently to his white-haired friend’s delight, as he broke out in giggles.

As the smoke continued to grow, he and his friend snuck around the two, tricking them into fighting each other.

He broke through into the offices in the back. They were unfortunately empty.

“Already gone!” He said, slamming a hand on the desk. His companion stood at the window.

“Not long though, look!”

When he spotted their carriage speeding away through the window, he knew he had to act quickly. He launched himself out of the window, and onto the tarp covering the wagon.

An explosion sounded behind him, but he focused on the task ahead of him. His friend always seemed to find his way back, so he’d have to trust he’d do it again.

The ensuing fight was nothing pretty, little more than mad scrambling as he fought to hold his balance, dodge bullets, and wrestle the men actually in the cart so he could get away with the Catherine and her family’s box.

Looking ahead, he saw they were quickly approaching the dock, and a man who was walking down it. Thinking quickly, he swung his body-weight around, tipping the wagon over and sending everyone sprawling. 

The man who had been at the dock had acted quickly, grabbing the young woman and holding her protectively behind him. He stood up, adding to the obstacles that stood protecting Catherine from her kidnappers. Only 3 men remained. From the snippets he heard as two of them fought, he figures the two fighting must’ve been the masterminds behind the plot and the third still in the distance was a gun-for-hire. Taking out his weapons of choice, he quickly dispatched the two men.

Catherine tugged on his cloak. He turned to face her, seeing that she had opened up the box, and was showing him what was inside.

It was Jack Valor’s journal.

He wanted to reach out–to see what Jack had added since they parted, but the gun-for-hire had caught up to them by then.

“My employers may have been dealt with, but I still have a reputation to uphold. Draw.”

He stood up straight, reaching for more of his weapon of choice. Over the shoulder of the gun-for-hire, he saw another man approaching quickly, white-haired. His friend.

A loud bang echoed, and he felt pain in his side. He stumbled, too close to the edge of the dock, and as he fell over he heard one last cry of ‘BAT–’.

And everything went dark.

————

Shit.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

As if Batman stumbling towards the present through who-knows-when wasn’t bad enough, now he’s SHOT???

Danny quickly ripped a portal back to Clockwork’s lair.

“Please tell me you’ve almost got the machine ready.” Danny said after confirming his parents were in the room.

“Almost! Just one problem, sweetie…” His mom said, looking over at her husband so he’d finish.

“Batman needs to die. Or at least be very close to death!” Jack said, ending with a laugh.

“Basically, we can get this machine to suck out the Omega Energy, but it’s tightly bonded with Batman’s life energy, so it’s extremely risky unless we can find a way to diminish his life energy.”

Danny groaned, putting his face in his hands. “It’s just one thing after another! He’s just been shot. Would that bring him close enough?”

His dad tilted his head back and forth, considering. “Likely not, unless he was in a pretty bad way. In any case, we asked Sam and Tucker to take a look into it!”

“We’ve already found something, actually.” Sam said, having entered the room. Tucker followed behind her.

“There’s an herb that I was able to locate, which should slow his heart down to extreme levels, to the point his heartbeat would be pretty undetectable. Only problem is that his heart would have to be jump-started afterward by a great shock.”

“Clockwork let me take a closer look at his monitors into Batman’s original time and place, and I was able to determine that they have defibrillator technology that can administer an electrical shock needed to get his heart pumping again, as well as adrenaline injections in case we’d need the extra boost.” Tucker continued.

Maddie clapped her hands together. “Excellent! If we can get the Justice League to set up the anchor point on the Watchtower, we can pull Batman to that point and perform everything there! It’d probably work best to do it in his original time as well, to avoid any potential effects that could crop up from being in the wrong time when we remove the Omega Energy and try to stabilize his system.”

“Great, some good news.” Danny said, tension leaving his body. He turned to Clockwork, who had been quiet thus far. “How’s Dani’s work coming along? Will we be ready to proceed soon?”

“Dani and Red Robin have recovered Batman’s cape, and have moved it to the Watchtower. I believe Dani was able to recruit Wonder Woman’s help into getting the rest of the Justice League in line to receive Batman.”

 ————

“Red Robin! Did you seriously bring Poltergeist into the cave??? What were you thinking?”

Before Tim could reply, Poltergeist raised a hand to point at Dick-as-Batman.

“AAH! It’s the cops! Run!”

Poltergeist placed her hand on Tim’s shoulder, pulling him and the cape through the ceiling of the batcave and up in the open air of Gotham. As Tim caught sight of Wayne Manor his head whipped towards Poltergeist, hoping she wouldn’t make any connections.

She was staring at him, lips pressed together, looking a bit like a frog.

He was quiet, waiting for her to say something.

She blew a breath of air out, letting her lips buzz.

“Listen, you keep my secret, and I won’t tell anyone Batman’s secret id is some rich fruitloop.”

“...What secret?”

She pivoted them somewhere Southeast.

“That sometimes I can be responsible. Let’s go see Wonder Woman.”

AN:

It's definitely been longer than I had planned since the last update, rip.

Not going to lie, this is like my second ever fic and I definitely thought it'd be a bit easier to get back into the habit of writing. Thought I was making it easier on my self by strongly sticking to the plot of an existing story, but I think that's been an obstacle in and of itself.

Always a little worried that the language is a bit stuffy or things aren't being clear.

[gffa]

One thing I did like about the ending of Gotham War is that I feel like there's some potentially interesting analysis of Bruce's character to be had here, because I find this whole thing 1000% more interesting viewed through the lens of Bruce backsliding on his core classic issue: He's terrified out of his mind at how much he loves these people around him and he struggles with having relationships with people who have fundamental differences to him. I keep thinking of that Tini Howard quote about this arc and about how it's not about whether or not Bruce and Selina can get together, but that he doesn't really know how to agree to disagree with someone he loves when it comes to something deeply foundational to him. And I think that's the entire point of including everything with Jason--that it's Bruce at a low point, after too much stress coming too quickly, too many major psychological pummelings over the last several arcs, and hitting a point where he can't deal with shoving aside his fundamental disagreements with Jason anymore. But he can't just write Jason off either, because Jason is his son, so his ten simultaneous mental breakdowns all get together and decide that the only option he can live with, is to try to force Jason out of this life. That's why he tries to talk himself into forcing Dick and Tim and Damian to be caught by the police, so they'd be forced out of this life. That's why he crumbles in an alley and tries to talk himself out of loving these people. Because he doesn't know how to agree to disagree with them and still keep loving them, keep having a relationship with them.

Because everything that happened with Selina, that he really let himself believe that he could be with her, marry her, and still be Batman, that really fucked him up and I think Gotham War is more of the aftermath of that. That's how I'm (admittedly doggedly) interpreting the bit about Selina and him being the "parents" of this group, despite that Selina was never in that role--I think Bruce wanted them to be the "parents" of the group and let himself believe in it and, when it went pear-shaped, something in him backslid terribly and now we're all here. "I'm okay with me not having happiness." is a direct call-back to Bruce in the car with Alfred on the way to the wedding, asking with surprising vulnerability, "Am I allowed to be happy?" He opened his heart and got hurt again and it's been stewing for awhile and so much has happened since then--Zur-En-Arrh, Tim getting his throat cut, Dick coming to cheer him up after Selina and getting shot in the head and Bruce almost losing him, Failsafe, Insomnia, everything that's going on over in Gotham Nocturne, etc.--that it fractured something in him and the cracks have finally grown deep enough that it fell apart in this story. So now all of this is just mounting tragedies to him. Which means he can't stay connected to it because he's too afraid of losing them and he's unwilling to try after what his fracturing led him to do. He can't stop them from living this life, despite everything he tried. He can't stop loving them, despite how hard he tried. So, all he can do is walk away before he gets hurt again, trying to leave everything in Dick's hands. Dick who is "better than Batman", who is better than Bruce. That he wants Dick and Barbara to be the "parents", because that's what he was trying to be and felt he failed at it, like to me this ending isn't really resolution, this is a low point for Bruce as a character in his bigger arc, because I think Batman's character arc always has to come back to his trauma of losing his family when he was young, working to let a new family in, coming to love them, and struggling against how much it terrifies him that he might lose them, too, because he doesn't think he can survive that kind of pain again. He'll still be in Damian's life, still be Batman and Robin there, but I think he's making an exception there because so much of it comes back to being able to live with fundamentally disagreeing with someone--Dick and Jason and Tim are adults, he can't tell them what to do anymore. Damian is young enough that, even if they clash, he's still directly in charge of raising him.

Zur-En-Arrh does hang over this entire storyline, he's part of what's taking up too much space to allow Bruce any mental breathing room, but fundamentally I see this storyline as part of Bruce's issues: That he's terrified of losing those he loves, but he can't control them, he desperately tries to and it doesn't work, and he can't live with them taking different paths from his ideals, so he walks away, rather than get hurt further. Bruce is probably going to dig himself further down into this hole and he's being incredibly dumb about it, but I can see how this fits all things that he has always struggled with--and sometimes he loses that fight against himself. This event wasn't really about fighting with Selina or Vandal Savage or even his kids--this was Bruce's love versus his fears, and today his fears won.

[glassdecanters]

humanising the batfam with problems a lot of people struggle with

because they are just normal people at the end of the day. tw for mention of disordered eating.

jason todd has frequent ptsd flashbacks in which he can only calm down with music. headphones, all the time, somewhere on him, that boy.

tim stims a lot. some of them are a little violent towards himself, it's something he does and struggles with but it happens. he hits himself, aggressively taps his chest and holds his breath.

jason tops up the white dye in his hair because in his eyes, it's an "irregular amount" of his hair is white

dick and tim both struggle with their body image, and subsequently their eating issues. tim, partially, is because he just straight up forgets to eat, and it becomes this cycle and habit.

cass gets immensely frustrated when she cannot communicate her ideas because she cannot verbalise them. often, she'll just walk off when no one is fully understanding her because he gets so agitated.

dick has messy handwriting. in the time he did spend in school, teachers were always on his case about it. it's almost illegible.

damian gets extremely overwhelmed in social situations; especially galas. he ends up leaving (jason tells people 'yeah it's his bedtime') and going to sit with titus, or another one of his animals in his room to calm down. he usually calms down by reading, or watching the sky.

barbara straight up just can't go some places. being in a wheelchair means anywhere that doesn't have good enough accessibility? she can't get in. she misses out on so much because there isn't a ramp, or elevator access, or even just fucking lowered door handles. and it pisses her off. obviously.

they're just people. people with a lot going on in their lives but they're still just people. always just people.