#the morals lecture

[pandora-books]

"There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable."

Mark Twain, "The Morals Lecture," 1895

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

hero/villain showdown but one of them has a spontaneous medical emergency and the battle gets put on hold while their archnemesis drives them to Urgent Care

[aingeal98]

Batfam members who have killed and don't regret it: Helena, Jason, Kate

Batfam members who have killed and it scarred their psyche horribly: Cass, Damian

Batfam members who thought they killed or temporarily killed someone and had a mental breakdown because of it: Dick, Tim

Batfam members who almost killed but pulled themselves back from the edge by choice: Babs, Steph

Batfam members who would have killed if someone hadn't physically stopped them: Bruce, JPV

Batfam members who never tried to kill someone: Duke

[marsafter-dark]

*sigh*

Inspired by a post by @batkidsaremadkids which I cannot locate for the life of me (not for lack of trying)

[hbatfam98]

I have a headcannon that Batman is The supportive father.

In the normal sense that he would support his kids in whatever path they choose (vigilante, doctor, anything that's not a straight up war criminal really), supports and funds all their hobbies and passions and after seeing how hesitant the first kid to come out to him was, had pride flags hanging in every corner of the batcave, made pride pins that were safe to wear with their vigilante uniforms and maybe even brings back rainbow batman for a day if any of his kids were having a really hard time.

But also, he absolutely refuses to critique/scold any of his kids in public/in front of others.

Dick skips school because a travelling circus is coming to Gotham and claims his absence is because of a family emergency? (He doesn't know how to explain to Bruce that yes it will hurt to see the performers but it would also feel like returning home. That even though he loves his life now he still missed being in the circus) When the school calls Bruce that night, Bruce lectures Dick on the importance of honesty and "next time just tell me you want to go to the circus chum, I'd have sorted it out. I hope u had fun kid and... if u want, only if u want, we could go to one together sometime? I heard there was a show in Bludhaven next week..." Then the next day Bruce drops Dick off at his class and walks into that school sobbing, blubbering about how his emotional support cat had died and it was a miracle Dick was able to return to school so soon.

Bruce gets called down to a fancy store because Jason, who was wearing his old clothes, got accused of shoplifting? Bruce is there in seconds lecturing the store owner about how disgusting it was to judge his son based on his clothes, until littleJay tugs on his shirt and whispers "I did it." After which he lectures the store owner for having the checkout at the wrong place in the store, that's why his precious boy got confused! (And in the meantime discreetly slips Jason a $200 bill) "Did you even ask my kid if he had the money or did u just assume huh? Oh you didn't ask? Well why don't you ask him now Mr.Prick?" and Jason gleefully shows him the bill. Then in the car ride back home Jason admits that he was trying to steal the pretty pen because he wanted to give Bruce a nice present for father's day but he didn't have enough saved up and Bruce lectures him on honesty, trust and "I don't need an expensive gift sweetheart. Having u with me, to celebrate father's day with and knowing that u wanted to do something nice for me is all I need. .. the second best gift would be if u would give me a private showing of ur big speech in your school play?" (And that's how the tradition of Jason performing some monologue from his current favourite play every father's day started)

And the lectures/scolding for his kids only happening in private carries over to their vigilante life too. Batman will point out any mistake made by JL, in front of the criminals they are currently in the process of apprehending. Reading any post mission report he wrote feels like being back at school and getting back an assignment covered in red ink.

Then the younger heroes start joining. Now, the batkids are trained well - they make fewer mistakes than most of the JL - but mistakes still happen.

Nightwing makes the wrong judgement call and one of the criminals almost gets away. The JL members hold their breath as Batman drags the criminal back, ready to step in if he's too harsh. "Sorry Bats, I thought it was the right call to make" Dick mutters disappointed with himself and all Batman says is "it happens." The next day Batman advices Nightwing on what to consider when making those decisions and how to train yourself to make them in the moment. The post mission report just reads "one criminal slipped away but was apprended moments later. More manpower would have been optimal for this mission"

In the middle of another mission the rushed voice of Oracle comes through the comms, "they've hacked our comms, I wasn't fast enough to stop them. I am turning comms off now so our communications aren't compromised." *Click* The JL have to rely on silent communication and guesswork to complete the rest of the mission. Once it's over, Batman pull out his cellphone, "Oracle, we have completed the mission. Everyone is safe. Do u need help regaining control of our comms?" When they make it back to the watchtower, Batman stays by Oracle's side and they figure out what the weak point was and how to keep it better protected. The post mission report just reads, "Comms was compromised. JL should train in silent communication to be better prepared for such circumstances."

Older JL members are so jeealouss. After these incidents, when he was lecturing one of the members post mission he hears some of them mutter about favouritism. But it wasn't exactly favouritism...

Which they realise when Kid Flash, sent to scout out a location beforehand misses a hidden latch. In the middle of the 'negotiation', goons spring out of the secret room and attack. Once they are all tied up, Batman stalks over to Kid Flash - whose adrenaline was coming down and it was dawning on him that this only happened because he missed something. "I'm so sorry Mr. Ba-" "Show me your arm kid" Batman says as he folds up Wally's arm so he can better examine where Wally had skinned his elbow when he fell during the fight - it wasn't even really bleeding. Still Batman is thorough in making sure it is properly disinfected and bandaged up and when Wally tries to apologise again during this he says, "It's a secret room kid, it was meant to be easy to miss." When they're back at the watchtower, Batman pulls Wally aside to lecture him about how it's better to slow down and take a few extra seconds when needed, and then hands him a file with all the tricks Batman had learnt to spot things that are not quite right more easily. The post mission report just reads, "was ambushed by 5 attackers, they were subdued in 8 minutes. JL should have more trainings in responding to ambushes."

(Edit: the Kid Flash one only happens if Flash is not with them in the mission cos Flash would have been by Wally's side in less than a sec taking care of him)

Batman never wanted children (not just his) to be so afraid of his reaction that they wouldn't come to him for help if they had made a mistake. Yes, they will have to suffer through lectures if they made a mistake that could have been easily avoided, but that will always only happen after everything gets sorted out and everyone is in a safe place again. Soon, much to the confusion and shock of older JL members, young heroes, though hesitantly, regularly go to Batman to ask for advice.

[shushmal]

Eddie: Hey, Steve... Steve: Mmm? Eddie, slightly buzzed: What... What are we? Steve, high out of his goddamn mind, eyes filling with tears: Dude... Dude, I don't know?? Eddie: Wha— Steve: Dustin says we're monkeys, Eddie!! MONKEYS! What does that even mean???

[tonydaddingham]

yeah no this is actually my favourite response so far

[chewy-jeeby2]

[sclki-op]

[kisses-in-the-void]

Like or reblog if you think Melkor is your little meow meow, you feel sorry for him, and you just want to give him a hug

[singingcicadas]

idw Ratchet is someone who follows orders and respects authority. He might follow his conscience in spur-of-the-moment decisions that allows him the leeway/initiative to act on his own (e.g. setting up clinic on Dead End, breaking cover to save Verity and Hunter, going to look for Drift, voting against Rodimus in mtmte) but he's never openly defied the orders of an acting leader. Regardless if he doesn't agree with said order and thinks it's stupid. Or wrong.

Even when Ratchet thinks Rodimus' treatment of Drift is unfair, he never speaks up against Rodimus during the actual issue of the exile verdict. He only offers Drift silent support by helping him up on the way out, because Rodimus is the captain and you don't argue with the captain. Yes he thinks Rodimus is a crap captain and acts condesending towards him all the time but when it comes to rank and orders there's no ambiguity.

Voting against Rodimus in the crisis act is a legitimate expression of disapproval, made anonymously in private. He doesn't care about Rodimus knowing his vote, but in public it stays anonymous. He does tell Rodimus off about what he did to Drift, but again, he makes sure it's a private one-on-one appointment. He also doesn't make Rodimus formally revoke Drift's exile or sanction his search, he resigns his position as CMO and quietly leaves to look for Drift himself as a personal commitment.

Common stereotype of what Ratchet is not:

Medic ethics and commitment to patients comes first, factions be damned. I don't care if he's a Decepticon, he's my patient.

No he's not actually like that? When Megatron's in custody he's all lets dissect him awwwww why can't we dissect him why does mass murderers still get rights that's so stupid can't I just torture him a little?

Like he spent the whole war patching up Decepticon-inflicted wounds and witnessing Decepticon-inflicted deaths. He's not a saint. He has as much good reason to hate Megatron and his faction as any other Autobot.

In fact he was pretty eager to ask Optimus about what he's going to decide as Megatron's punishment after he heard about Optimus frying Megatron on the voltage harness.

Optimus has his heart on clemency. Ratchet's the one hoping for execution or something equally nasty. Even though their opinions doesn't line up, Ratchet's still 100% supportive of Optimus' decision.

He repairs Megatron only because of Bumblebee's orders, and makes his unwillingness known.

Later in mtmte Ratchet does save Megatron's life of his own volition and repairs him again, but that's after he's lived with Megatron on the same ship for six months (again something that he considers to be a colossally bad idea but is forced to live with because of orders) and got to know him as a person. Not because of bleeding heart syndrome.

Also Ratchet's not just a grouch all the time. He can be blunt but also knows when to be respectful as appropriate to the occasion. He reprimands Wheeljack for being disrespectful to Bumblebee because leaders should be treated like leaders.

The guy's been CMO since Nominus Prime, essentially the highest-ranking of his profession on the planet; you can't get to that type of position and hold it through consecutive leaders for millions of years without considerable interpersonal skills and knowledge of social protocol.

Prowl does have Ratchet on his little blacklist but the stuff on there really just refers to Ratchet saving Verity and Hunter back in Infilitration. I read it as more of a testament to Prowl's pettiness than Ratchet actually being a problem.

[uliana-redfeather]

a drawing based on rada's headcanon about dominic's religious parents

i would like to add that it was his mother who was involved in his religious and spiritual education and was a fierce Jacoban. she was also a piano teacher, and it was her who taught him how to play it but often these lessons ended up with dominic crying, which he tried his best to hide dominic's parents were fixated on their son's education and learning new skills, sometimes dominic felt like he was being forced to study non-stop for several days just to "improve" the skill dominic's parents were also ones of the few remaining Jacobans, as the simnation has been getting rid of religion for a long time. that made them fear and despise the whole city, so they only allowed dominic to contact a certain circle of trustworthy people Since childhood, Dominic has been deprived of freedom and the opportunity to make choices, even before the arrival of a watcher in his life

rada's post with her ts4 dominics:::

[worstloki]

following the theory that loki intentionally banded the avengers together so he could sicc them on thanos later, after he took the throne in T:TDW, i think he'd be so angry at the events of civil war like:

loki as odin: hello heimdall, how do earth's mightiest heroes fare as of late?

heimdall: they have disagreed on many subjects and split up two days ago

loki:

heimdall:

loki: they haVE WHAT?

cue loki coming down to earth and bonking everyone's heads together until they all get along again

stark: how the heck are you alive???

loki: skills. listen here, i did not pour my blood, sweat and tears to form this team for you idiots to throw all my hard work out the window!

loki, grabbing rhodes and stark by the wrists: now, we are going to get your little friends out of prison, understood?

like an exasperated kindergarten teacher, y'know?

Loki, hitting Steve over the head with a newspaper: he's your friend, of course he's upset you lied to him about something like this

Tony: hah!

Loki, giving Tony a death glare: did you have to fight each other about it

[milimeters-morales]

Miles: you’re so invader zim core…

Ganke: *blushes and giggles and looks away*

Everyone else in class: someone fucking pull the fire alarm or something

[toaarcan]

Sad Headcanon Time!

Sonic doesn't like being around Gemerl.

It's nothing Gemerl did, really. Sonic's remarkably good at forgiving people that tried to kill him. Their eight or so fights over the course of the First Shattered World Crisis aren't really anything to hold grudges over.

But that's his kid. Except not. He found that robot on a beach and raised them himself. And then they died in his arms, asking him whether they should be glad that they were born. Whether their life was something to regret.

On some level, he knows that Gemerl doesn't have anything in them that's Emerl. Emerl's body crumbled to ash in his hands, and Eggman built copies of the design before. Gemerl is obviously just a refined version of the E-121 designs. But they're still painted in Eggman's colour scheme, they still have Eggman's mockery of Emerl's name. He visits Cream and sees this shadow of what he once loved, more robotic than Emerl ever was. It doesn't bother Cream. Why does it bother him so much?

(He still has the Emerald that was all that remained of Emerl. If he convinced Tails to install it in Gemerl's chassis, would it bring Emerl back? Is that even a good idea?)

So he stays away whenever he can.

Sage asks him to look after her 'father' when she goes. The angry, vicious, vindictive part of him, the part that only ever came out he was Darkspine Sonic, wants to spit back that Eggman offered only further torment when he killed Sonic's kid, why does he deserve anything besides scorn? He stomps it down. It won't help anyone if he lets it out.

(Sage comes back, of course. Like she never left, Eggman pushes a few buttons and he gets her back. Of course he gets the get-out clause. Gaias forbid Eggman experience consequences.)

[one-hit-boy-wonder]

all his siblings think Jason and Willis have a bad relationship because Jason’s always pissed at Wingman when in actuality Jason just sucks with emotions and every time willis gets teary eyed because his boy’s so grown up now Jason has to stop himself from planning another under the red hood