#yes this becomes wayleska

[accursedvoid]

Thinking about a werewolf!Bruce AU but like werewolves here have two specific forms being wolf and ye bipedal traditional werewolf (bc I like both and it’s my AU and I GET TO CHOOSE THE RULES) - and yes when it comes to bipedal werewolves, I always see the van helping 2004 style ones (bc BIG and TERRIFYING YET FLOOFY)

Like maybe during his brat phase where it’s just all a blur one night he winds up bit and turned and now wolf Bruce has no idea what’s going on, where he is and how to get home after waking up changed in a forest somewhere - he winds up wandering around for awhile before he just winds up collapsing at some random small looking building way out in the middle of nowhere (which strikes him as strange and like he’s wound up in a horror film if he weren’t the monster in question).

Course we all know who’s doorstep he just wound up on.

Jeremiah gets an alert on his proximity sensors and the camera picks up on a large black dog sprawled out unmoving at the front door to his bunker, he waits awhile but nobody shows up to collect the dog and well it’d be cruel to leave the thing there so he brings the mystery stray in.

Surprisingly the stray is very well mannered (someone must be missing their dog surely?) and Jeremiah just winds up taking care of him for longer than he’d thought, enough to even give him a name, Ace (because I love to sprinkle in a call back c; ) and finds he quite likes having another friend even if they’re not human (oh little did he know) - Ecco is quite fond of him too, makes her job easier if Jeremiah also has added security around in the form of an overprotective guard dog.

Meanwhile Alfred is searching for Bruce after getting concerned that no one’s heard from him for awhile (because even fired he still cares about his boy 🥺) and Jim is about to start a search but then of course the arkham breakout occurs and all hell gets going.

So Bruce as the newly dubbed Ace is quite shocked to find himself in the care of what must be Jerome valeska’s twin but finds he quite likes the soft spoken Miah and well since he hasn’t figured out how to turn back yet, he’s stuck in the bunker essentially but well it could be worse - though he’s often badgering Jeremiah into remembering to take breaks and eat while the other is lost in his work which Bruce also finds fascinating though he can’t say so currently.

Then of course they both watch the news of the arkham breakout and now Bruce has to deal with the paranoia of Jeremiah and the whole ‘trap jerome’ plan - and before he knows it, Jim Gordon and Harvey bullock are paying them a visit and Bruce is happy to see them but of course neither of them knows the very large suspiciously wolfish looking dog with Jeremiah is Bruce so they’ve no idea why he seems happy to see them (Jeremiah is also baffled, was Ace a former police dog maybe? Surely the GCPD isn’t that inept to lose one of their hounds if so) but of course then red alert goes up and here comes the j squad.

Ace - Bruce - is sticking to Jeremiah like glue as this goes on bc he wants to protect his new best friend (even if said best friend believes their just a dog at the moment) while they set out through the maze only to be confronted hypnotised!Ecco and Ace - Bruce - gets separated from Jeremiah until of course he finds them again being confronted by jerome and boxed in by Jonathon and Jervis.

Now Bruce who’s already had to watch his parents die, really really doesn’t wanna see anyone else he cares about murdered or hurt and with the worst running through his head just acts on instinct with the blood rushing in his ears he charges them.

Now from the outside perspective what was a large dog that came skirting around the labyrinth corner is suddenly much much larger and practically has to stoop in the enclosed space as it lopes towards them, with horrendously sharp claws that score monstrous jagged scars in the wall when Jervis ducks the swipe as he and Jonathon scramble backwards from the sudden wolf man beast snarling like a rusty engine with murder in its bright eyes (the perhaps only feature aside from sharp white teeth that can be picked out from the mass of shadow and fur)

Jerome, cursing that his planned confrontation gets cut short, shoots at the thing (and what the hell? When and where did Miah get a demon dog?) while he, Jervis and jonathon quickly rush from the area - Bruce, currently mostly instincts and rage, recoils when a bullet hits his shoulder giving them enough time to escape while he recovers and when he does so finds his quarry escaped turns back to immediately check on Miah (who’s busy trying to process what in the hell happened over what has to be barely a minute - because clearly he’s taken in something that’s not actually a dog? Or what - and is half hoping it doesn’t turn on him now) who then has to deal with an overprotective werewolf-that-was-a-dog-but-is-actually-a-human trying to seemingly reassure him - and then Jim and Harvey come around the bend and everything gets tense again bc their first instinct is to raise their guns and Bruce-who-is-not-quite-himself but enough of himself to have the ingrained trauma with guns being pointed in his direction immediately gets defensive trying to protect Miah while also curling on his injured, bleeding shoulder.

Jeremiah is actually the one who gets them to not shoot because he’s fairly sure the monstrous wolf thing that saved his life - although half terrified a few years of his lifespan he’s sure - isn’t a threat to anything that isn’t a threat to him, presumably and it’s at that point w a badly wounded shoulder and maybe dipping into blood loss, said giant wolf beast slumps to the side half awake and then the last shocker of the night when it reverts to Not it’s previously assumed dog (though in retrospect clearly a wolf) form but that of Bruce wayne, missing billionaire and heir to wayne enterprises, half slumped over in Jeremiah’s arms with the ripped up clothing he’d worn the last time he was human (i can magic clothes if I want too ndndn)

Everyone is of course surprised and this is a lot to process but Bruce before fainting dead away and getting treated for that shoulder manages a faint ‘nice to finally meet you properly Jeremiah’.

[sunlitroom]

Hi! For the ship chart - Gobblepot, Wayleska, BatCat, Nygmakins

Thanks for asking, anon :)

Well, I like all of these :D  But to elaborate.  And by elaborate, I mean - write a massive essay, because I’ve been in lockdown for over a month now.

Gobblepot - The best OTP of all OTPs

I’ve written a ton of meta (how unfashionable of me) and had conversations with very clever people about Gotham’s writing.  It has its flaws - as does everything - but when it does things well, it does them well.  Jim and Oswald are paralleled from beginning to end.  Even when they’re not technically sharing a story - it’s made clear that these people are connected.  Prisoners offered a good example of that, which I recapped here

Jim and Oswald’s connection is made clear right at the beginning - we start off with their story.  Jim’s freshly arrived in town, full of big ideas and hopes.  He has a shiny new job and a beautiful fiance.   Oswald doesn’t seem to have the same external trappings of growth and success - but he’s planted several seeds in the hope they’ll come to fruition later.

It’s interesting to see how reckless and brazen they both are in season one, too.  They both stare down the barrel of a gun at points, and practically swagger up to certain people and dare them to kill them.  They both retain their impulse to thumb their noses at authority, and do downright dangerous things - but they become increasingly less blithe about it over the seasons as their respective trauma accumulates.  There’s a joy in it at the outset, more of a desperate grimness as we go on.

We also get to see their vulnerabilities.  There’s little hints early on that there’s more underneath.  Jim might look like the invulnerable golden boy but - to quote a line from Silence of the Lambs - his face is all scars, if you know how to look.  Look at his immediate bond with the bereaved Bruce, because Jim saw his father die at the same age.  Look at Jim’s reaction when Loeb comments about not following in his father’s footsteps.  Look how quickly his relationship with Barbara falls apart - in fact, just look at it in the first place.  

Oswald’s vulnerabilites are more and less obvious.  He’s the Other to Jim’s all-American hero.  He’s flung about all over the place in season one - tiny-looking in comparison to the likes of Falcone and Maroni.  He’s left with a permanent limp after Fish’s beating.  Less obviously, we see that he’s strongly motivated by his need to make his mother happy, and that the notion of causing her shame hurts him to the point of tears.

All that kind of stuff, all the careful details, built slowly, really make it for me.  They’re built on later - in many ways they’re very different, but in others, very similar.

This difference/similarity plays out in their encounters, too.  They’re oddly fascinated by each other.  Oswald’s attraction is made very apparent from the outset .  Yes - Jim might be another piece on the chessboard (albeit one he won’t sacrifice) - but he blushes and stares and lights up when Jim appears.  Even later, when all the hurts and wrongs between them have mounted up, he still can’t quite resist gazing.

Jim’s a combination of uneasy but fascinated in Oswald’s company.   The early scene in the alley pinpoints it so well - the moment right after this one:

Oswald - who is adept at reading people (in season one, anyway) grins - because Jim is rapt.  He has his whole attention.  To steal a line from Hannibal this time. he watched the red sparks pinwheel deep in his eyes and felt the excitement of a child approaching a distant fair.  Although, in this case - it’s all more illicit and scary.  Jim knows he shouldn’t go to this fair, and this fair is a dangerous place.

And that odd fascination never really goes away.  Even at points when Jim is angered or revolted by Oswald’s actions - he’s never repulsed.  He’s more likely to shake him than turn his back on him.

This dynamic might morph a bit, depending on circumstance - but Jim always stands too close, stares too long, likes to tease, and is quick to head in Oswald’s direction when the chips are down.

A last point. Something else I enjoy is that they know the best and worst of each other, and seem to have an endless capacity for forgiveness.

Wayleska - sort of an OTP?  I do find it a heartbreaker of a ship.  

Pre-gas Jeremiah is so instantly smitten with Bruce.  That first interaction and he’s completely gone.  I’m posting the gifs again because they’re glorious.  I know they’re all different sizes, but meh.  

What makes it all so painful is that you can see - post-gas - this is still there.  He’s still head-over-heels, and there’s slivers of awareness there.  But the gas has twisted everything, and you can see part of him is mortified and pained at how this is all playing out.

Especially here, in these next gifs.  Even the big showy gesture is laced with pain, and afterwards just seals it

Given his secretive and hidden-away past, you could probably hazard a guess that this is the first time Jeremiah has been in love.  On top of that, he seems reserved and restrained by nature.  And here he is - being forced to reveal his feelings like this.  

On saying all that, I loved what I saw in show - but maybe prefer it as a pairing in fics.  Bruce - for me, anyway - doesn’t seem mature enough to deal with the intensity of Jeremiah’s feeling - pre and post-gas.  Maybe when he’s a little older, it’s something he could at least take in and process, but it seems a little one-sided in show just because Bruce doesn’t really seem to recognise what’s happening, let alone parry it.  

The only point where you could argue that he was aware, and that there’s feelings there, I think, is the fact that he’s so angry at Jeremiah.  With Jerome, Bruce almost felt responsible for his actions, and does what he can to mitigate them.  But with Jeremiah, Bruce refuses to even tell him that they have a connection in order to save people’s lives.  His anger and obstinacy feels more visceral and - if I prod it - looks like hurt and betrayal.  Bruce saw Jeremiah, at least, as a friend.  His reaction to the loss of that seems a bit disproportionate - so maybe there are nascent feelings there?

But generally. yes, better in fic where the writer can take more license and time with Bruce.

BatCat - It’s not an OTP - but it’s sweet and I like it?  I’m not so mad keen about how forgetful Alfred and Bruce can sometimes be of Selina in earlier seasons, and sometime tone-deaf at points later - but yes, it’s nice.

Nygmakins - I like this.  It’s maybe not an OTP - but I ship it.  The foundations aren’t quite as extensive as with Gobblepot - but they’re there.  They’re both seemingly sweet-natured, sciencey and fascinated with the darker side of life.  Very early on, we know they have interactions that we don’t see.  Lee apparently allows Ed to use the lab and exam room when he wants, and he dreamily remarks that she smells nice.

Later, we see more similarity as their duality becomes more apparent, and their shared taste for violence, darkness and power.  Lee enjoys the applause of the crowds in the Narrows just as much as Ed enjoys the audience adulation for his ‘gameshow’.  Lee’s revenge on Sofia is as protracted and merciless as Ed’s on Oswald.  

Last up - they both have a desire to be entirely seen, which is something they seem to find in each other.

Thanks for the ask, anon.  I fire the same pairings back at you, if you feel like answering :)