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DeadSerious Soulmate Prompt:

The DC Universes soulmates are ones that feel each other's pain. Damian's soulmate is clumsy, as he sometimes gets the occasional bruises and scratches out of nowhere. He strives to be the best at combat as to not hurt his soulmate, but being raised by assassin's proves to be difficult.

The DP Universes soulmates can write words on their skin that'll appear on their soulmate. Danny has written and written to his soulmate many times, and has only gotten a little over a handful of responses back. He knows his soulmate is a boy, his name is Damian and that he likes art and animals.

Neither are aware that their soulmate is from another universe.

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Danny's powers are outgrowing him, and he needs an...Avatar. For his excess power.

Danny's powers are...too much. They're beginning to contradict each other, and starting to hurt. If he doesn't offload half of his powers to someone, they're gonna eat him, according to Frostbite.

And it can't be someone from his dimension, or the powers will kill whoever their in, body and soul, in a desperate attempt to reunite with him.

It has to be someone with at least fifteen years of life left in them from a different dimension, to give the powers time to acclimate and settle in that persons soul.

He searches across dimensions from the Ghost Zone, trying to find someone who wouldn't ever abuse his powers. Like, for villainy. A little abuse to fuck around is fine and expected, Danny does it himself, but he doesn't want a villain to have his powers.

After months of searching, he finally does it.

He finds someone.

Damian Wayne.

A kid massively misunderstood by many, many people; but one who would never go bad.

Danny couldn't find a reality where Damian fell into Villainy.

If his father did, he would tag along until it became obvious what was happening. If vampires started cropping up, he wouldn't join them or their villainous ranks. If the zombie apocalypse started, he'd sacrifice himself to end it.

He was pedantic, definitely had violent tendencies, and had the perfect attitude required to tame some of the powers he would be getting.

Damian, struck unconscious in the battlefield and oblivious to the family that thinks he's dead, accepts a strange offer in his injury-induced feverdream.

Robin wakes up, eyes glowing, as he floats above the battlefield-and the debris he was covered in rise with him.

Or; Danny needs to give half of his powers away or they'll consume him, and chooses to give them to Damian Wayne. Damian thinks it's just a weird dream and accepts. Damian proceeds to wake up in a fight against a villain with his family and absolutely wrecks said villain. But where the fuck did he get these powers?

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Deadserious soulmate prompt idea.

Everyone has a mark somewhere on their skin that represents the place where they'll first have their fated touch them.

Danny has an unusual one, a dark green imprint of hands has taken up the majority of his throat for his entire life.

Damian isn't upset by his lack of soulmark, or he didn't use to be,over the years that changed. But as it turns out, he did have a soulmark! Just not one that was visible from the outside.

Just how did he have an icy blue handprint over his actual beating heart.

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Damian's little chirps

Damian was grown in an artificial womb, in Lazarus water, and later exposed to a chaos shard.

Then he was tossed in Lazarus Water to see if he would drown.

Damian is super fucking liminal.

But his liminal quirks are firmly buried under a lifetime of being raised by Ra's and Talia, in an effort to make it seem like Damian was 100% stable. All so Ra's would not have an excuse to be rid of him.

But away from that, as he is finally toning down, it starts up again.

He has no idea he's doing it.

When he's content and sleepy, he'll fucking purr.

Instead of "Good Morning" he lets out a small chirp.

Sometimes he forgets to verbalize "what" or "why" and make trills instead.

In his sleep he'll sometimes speak in a language no one understands, that hurts their ears.

No one brings it up; he didn't do it when he arrived, and the more relaxed he gets the more it happens. Ergo, he's probably a meta of somesort, via exposure or otherwise, and if they question him about it he'll get embarrassed.

Tucker Foley, newly hired onto the Development team at Wayne Enterprises, overhears one of these chirps as Damian tails after his father during one of his visits.

Tucker, out of instinct from dealing with Ellie, let's out an answering chirp of his own.

He was not expecting the absolute chaos that would be his life after that one simple action.

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Beloved Beyond Time

A DeadSerious Prompt where a young Damian follows his mother's advice about finding his future 'Beloved' and is smitten with a TimeTraveling Ghost King (Prince) Danny when his grandfather summoned the eldritch being.

Damian, despite being young, will want no other to be by his side once he takes over the League. Especially since the King was able to strike fear in his grandfather for even just for a moment.

Danny, whose just started taking up his soon to be Kingly title and duties, at first freaked out when a kid who just got out of toddlerhood is offering marriage. Who wouldn't. And well while he didn't fully encourage it, he found it a little adorable and tried to nudge the kid away from said... err crush feelings?

He was a little sad to have to say goodbye to the kid when his month long stay with the al Ghul's (mostly to see if they're worthy to keep the Pits) he was pretty for sure he'd never run into the kid again and if he did who knows how old they'd actually be because again.. time travel.

So Danny now at the age of 16 really wasn't expecting to be basically be cornered on his first day at his new school at Gotham Academy by a 17 year old Damian Wayne who is leaning over him and says "Hello Beloved. Time has been kind to you it seems."

Danny's poor half-alive heart is currently dying from being cornered by an older Damian.

Let this crazy train wreck begin.

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It's shenanigans time guys

So have this DpxDc idea.

So, the Justice League and the Light (OR villains in general) have two newish members, they've both been around for about a year and they're from the same plane of existence (a place called the Infinite Realms according to those who dabble in the occult)

And the two seem to have some serious beef with each other.

Wisp and Wrath are basicly feral cats hissing and hekles raised when they spot the other and their fights normally ends in draws. They're evenly matched and sometimes the two even fight to the point they are out of steam and just fist fight.

Needless to say everyone believes they totally hate each other and might one day kill (or end?) One of them.

So everything gets turned upside down when suddenly both factions of heros and villains are suddenly summoned to the Infinite Realms.

In a throne room.

In front of the Infinite King (or most commonly known as the Ghost King)

A King who looks very, very much like Wisp and Wrath (like yeah the two do sometimes look alike, like when they grin with sharp teeth and their hair color, but one has blue skin and red eyes for crying out loud!)

He's staring at them, glowing green eyes that seemed to just... know.

"Welcome to the Infinite Realms. I am King Phantom." His voice echoing in the throne room and seemed to rattle them deeply, like a sudden chill in the early morning.

"I have summoned you all here for a single reason." He continued to say "Tell me..."

Here he paused, closed his eyes before leaning back on the chair then he smiled big and cheerfully asked.

"How are my kids doing in your world? Dan and Ellie arent causing too much chaos in their wake are they? They tend to go a tiny bit overboard sometimes but what siblings don't when they rough house you know. Tell me everything."

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So You Want To Read Batman Comics But Have No Idea Where To Start

So: you’re new to the DC Comics fandom and are interested in Batman and his family. Maybe you already know a bit about them and are just looking to figure out where to start reading actual comics. Maybe you know nothing. Maybe you know a whole lot about one character but want to start reading more about another one.

Whichever it is, I’m here to help! There’s a wide range of Batman/Batfamily comics (for all ages, moods, and types of people), and I’m happy to meet people where they are and help people dive into comics. On that note, brace yourselves, because this is going to be a long post. Recs start under the cut.

——IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT READING COMICS——

Superhero comics are traditionally written in what’s known as runs; an author gets to have an extended period on an ongoing (or limited) title where they (traditionally) write in 4-8 issue story arcs; think of these arcs as chapters in a potentially never-ending book. These individual issues are colloquially known as floppies. So when I talk about “Tom Taylor’s run” on the Nightwing title, for example, I’m talking about the (as of now) current writer, who’s been the main author on the Nightwing title since March 2021 and whose story arcs begin with Nightwing #78. Every so often, titles end, the principal author on the titles switch up, or they’ll have “guest/interim authors” come in to do single issues or a single story arc.

These story arcs are then collected in hardcovers or ‘trade paperbacks’ (generally referred to as trades, occasionally TPBs); both collect the entire story arc (plus bonus/behind the scenes material, in some cases) in a single paperback/hardback book. Trades are super useful if you want to read an entire story at one time, want to be economical about your comics spending, and/or want to read things in order. Occasionally, if a writer has a particularly long run on a title or a big company event happens, you get published omnibuses that collect an entire event or run (or part of it, if the event is big enough); omnis are very expensive up-front, but ultimately they tend to be good deals and are often curated well. These collections are all generally also released digitally. Frankly, unless you’re into comics collecting, want individual issues for their pretty covers, or are supporting a currently ongoing run, I would default to buying trades/omnibuses where possible. It’s simply cheaper and easier for reading.

List Notes: Each character list is sorted vaguely chronologically according to a combination of IRL publication dates and the character’s personal timeline. Big caveat that these are not all-inclusive reading lists; I’m just trying to hit major character highlights. You should also note that many comics contain multiple Batfam members due to the ridiculous number of crossover events and the solid integration of the Batfamily as a whole into each others’ books in the post-90s era. Comic rec tl;drs are given at the end of each character’s list. Most of the links will take you to Amazon/Comixology, but I also talk about various ways to access and read comics at the bottom of this post.

Secondary Note: DC Comics works in three universes: the pre-Crisis universe (everything published from the beginning of DC Comics until the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in 1986), the post-Crisis universe (everything published between 1986 and 2011), and the post-Flashpoint universe (2011-now). 

In 2011, DC completely rebooted their universe following the ‘Flashpoint’ event. This new universe (interchangably called the New 52 universe, post-Flashpoint universe, or Prime Earth) drastically changed many characters’ histories, personalities, and relationships with each other (sometimes for the better, most of the time for the worse). The early years of the post-Flashpoint universe are an absolute incoherent mess continuity-wise; DC’s been trying to sort it all out over the past few years with the Rebirth and Infinite Frontier events (with varying degrees of success), and there are definitely some bright bits and pieces, but it is not my favored universe (though I will certainly recommend it where needed or when it’s good). 

Now: let’s get started, shall we? Lists below the cut (please view on blog instead of on dashboard for easy readability and formatting purposes):

Keep reading

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from what I have seen Tim usually could be so calm and logical in situations where other people insult or even attack him but I don't understand why when its Damian he goes berserk?

The relationship between Tim and Dami is very complex and interesting and I really, really get annoyed when it’s just boiled down to ‘lol they snarky’ by comic writers because??? That’s just part of it?? and even so that’s just the superficial aspect of the relationship???

Like look at it from Tim’s point of view. He’s in a very bad place when Damian comes along. Stephanie has died, his dad died not long before, I’m pretty Kon had honestly just died. Mentally, Tim is sad and depressed and is really clinging to Bruce and the whole Robin thing as a way to move himself forward. It’s the only stable thing in his life. Then comes in the personification of Tim’s worst fears: a new brat, Bruce’s blood son, who’s trained and intelligent and much less needy than Tim (in his mind). Tim’s always been afraid of not being good enough, of not being able to honor the Robin legacy. He’d started to gain confidence in himself but these recent deaths have wrecked him. So Tim is feeling incredibly insecure and threatened, but also angry once he gets to know Damian. Because Tim may be insecure but he won’t roll over and let this brat take Robin from him. Plus he sees Damian’s murderous habits and rudeness as a disgrace to everything Bruce has built. Basically he’s very overprotective of Robin and Bruce from what he sees as a mistake of biology.

But then Bruce dies Tim actually does lose Robin to Damian and he is really, really hurt. From Bruce dying to Dick’s betrayal and him being essentially alone. He can’t really blame Bruce for dying, he loves Dick too much to truly hate him so Damian is an easy target for Tim’s pent up aggression. Tim is very jealous of Damian, that he got to be Robin, that dick chose him over Tim, that Tim was really pushed to the side to make room for the new kid. And a lot of that directly isn’t dami’s fault but the Batfam for allowing Tim to feel that way. And to be fair there are moments where Tim is patient with Dami when he the kid doesn’t deserve it but yeah, overall Tim is very antagonistic towards Dami. He’s rude and dismissive and sarcastic to his little brother. Because deep down he still feels unworthy and Damian waltzing in and taking something that important to Tim left lasting scars. It’s also just become habit? I imagine he walks in and rude comments just flow out without him thinking of it. We all have those people, Tim has had so many negative interactions with no sign of reconciliation that he just continues perpetuating the problem.  

Now from Damian’s point of view he comes in with his snooty princely attitude which also covers his nervousness on meeting his father and his fear of failing the ridiculously high expectations put on him by Talia and later Bruce. His first thought, as an assassin, is to kill Tim and take his place. But it’s more than that. He’s angry at everything Tim stands for, because Tim isn’t just a partner, he’s an adopted son. And from damian’s POV, Tim is weak and soft and not suited to be at his father’s side but that also covers his hatred that Tim is by Batman’s side while Damian’s waited years for the privilege of meeting his other parent. He’s also upset when Bruce yells at him for trying to kill Tim, in Damian’s mind, for choosing Tim over him. A weak, pathetic boy is better than the perfect Damian? He is angry and that’s where a lot of that initial difficulty comes from: jealousy and anger and spite.

But then he’s Robin and he works with Dick and Damian’s heart begins to grow and he really becomes attached to Dick and the Robin role. Tim has been away so it hasn’t been a big issue but then Tim is back and suddenly damian feels threatened like Tim once did. Because now that he’s in the family he knows Tim is much beloved and has value. He sees dick, who Damian now adores himself, worrying and fretting over Tim and he’s worried that he’s going to lose everything he’s gained to Tim. By this point, Tim has given up on Robin but Damian doesn’t know that. So he deals with this the only way he knows how, through violence and being as snarky and overconfident as possible to try and convince Tim and everyone that Damian has earned the Robin role and he’s not relinquishing it. Bruce comes back, Damian is still Robin and is going to keep it but the problem still persists. Because now Damian’s in a pattern, like Tim, he’s built up this anger towards Tim from jealousy and probably his own kind of hurt as well. Dami’s heart is fragile by this point, he’s just learning real love and we know Tim isn’t really being as open and kind as we know he could be. Damian sees Tim’s meanness and responds with his own meanness out of hurt and that just continues the vicious cycle.

What’s fascinating is that you can see Tim and Damian have a lot of the same issues: They’re both jealous of the other, secretly convinced the other is loved more and angry at each other for real/perceived wrongs in the past. They’re both so insecure they can’t even really see that the other is suffering the same doubts and hurt. It’s easy to point fingers and say ‘Tim/Dami is the bad guy here and Dami/Tim is the victim’. But it’s not. Sometimes Tim is more at fault, jumping to mean conclusions and writing off Damian’s good progress while sometimes Damian knows just how to hurt Tim’s weak spots and really is beating Tim while he’s down. They’re too caught up in their own bitterness and petty jealousies that they can’t see which is delicious and ironic. The real bad guys here is the Batfam, really Dick and Bruce, who have allowed this relationship to sour to the point that Tim/Dami really can’t have a civil conversation. Like Dick treated Tim horribly when he was Batman and probably talked a lot about how cute and perfect Tim was and Bruce was pretty hard on Damian on top of also pretty much ignoring Tim. The fights are played off for humor in the stories but… it’s actually really sad that the family doesn’t seem to notice/care that the two youngest boy fight constantly say some pretty cruel things to each other.

TL;DR: Tim is a jerk to Dami, Dami is a jerk to Tim. They go back and forth on who started this fight or who made this shitty comment. The thing is they have similar problems: jealousy, insecurity, inability to let what happened between them go but they can’t see it or address it. I blame the Batfam for the development of this antagonistic relationship because Bruce and Dick should have treated the boys, together and separately, better and prevent this from happening but also to have nipped this feud in the bud but now it’s to the point where it’s pretty solid. That’s why I’m fascinated with the ‘Dami finds Not-Dead Tim thing in Rebirth, because THIS is the chance for the boys to bridge the gap between them. Damian can see Tim’s worth, realize he loves him, see that tim is also hurting and what he went through while Tim can see that Damian does care and has someone bloody come and save him. Now that’d be a great story.

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I think one of Tim’s traits is that he’s a fixer. He likes fixing cars and tries fixing Batman, and Stephanie relationship with her mom, and the amount of scenarios he’s gotten himself in due to him just butting in trying to fix everything is appalling.

That's a pretty good way to put it! I like that yeah. It's a good example too of when a character virtue can become a flaw, depending on circumstances. Tim is a really, really, compassionate kid who very much wants to be of use and of help to people. And at the same time it can lead to him either butting in where he's not wanted or getting way in over his head. So it's like - compassionate and sympathetic kid who is also like one of the least tactful people going. It's a really fun dichotomy and when it gets played up you get these wonderful moments of hypocrisy where God forbid you extend the same order of proceedings to Tim because his job is the helper he doesn't need help. I like how a good chunk of his character development is learning that it's okay to ask for help. Whilst at the same time going deeper and deeper into more control freak tendencies. Juicy stuff!

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This is part two of Jason crying over Bruce, but this time centering around his childhood. To note: All but one of these Jason's crying moments here are in relation to Bruce rather than Bruce actively going out of his way to make Jason miserable, but isn't that part of the parent-child relationship experience? adjacently fucking up your kid emotionally?

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Starting off strong with Jason's pre-crisis adoption arc! This is the arc where we get Bruce saying he'd literally give up all his possessions and money to be able to keep Jason around when he and Natalia are going full divorce parental rights mode over the boy. So, Jason's been put in an orphanage for the time being as the whole legal side gets sorted out and both he and Bruce are heartbroken. Jason spends a lot of time crying and being morose over the fact in the orphanage (panel one: being taken away. Panel two: no tears, but he misses Bruce a lot. Panel three: Jason's covering up the fact that he is crying) Wild arc. Bruce almost throws hands in a court of law. Jason is very unsure of his place in people's lives, is kinda shy & sensitive, and even has a slight stutter to match his apprehensiveness at times, but he loves being with bruce and calls the manor home. Also interesting to note, this arc comes in two halves. The introduction of Nocturna then a break where Jason becomes robin to which we then fall back immediately into Natalia now including a complicated custody battle.

this isn't a crying photo, but it's important to me. In this arc we're also given this panel of Bruce and Jason hugging and look at their size difference :( baby :( makes me think about, if comics wanted to hurt me more, how when bruce hears Jason's voice he naturally looks down sometimes instead of remembering that they're almost at eye level AND HE CALLS HIM HIS SOOOOONNNNN AND DC ACKNOWLEDGES ADOPTED PARENT_CHILD RELATIONSHIPS THST:S HID FATHER whhhhyhyhhyhyhyyyy sorry that got away me, way too much pathos, but also, come on!

Moving on to more robin days, still pre-crisis, but it's that weird mix of turning into post-crisis, it's almost right on the line, we have Jason breaking down in tears over fear toxin which makes him see hallucinations of Bruce yelling at him about how "Jason failed him". It's So Sad that in this story Bruce's greatest fear (which he used to overpower the fear toxin) is Jason dying and Jason's greatest fear is failing Bruce and then both ended up playing out in comics years later (Jason dying and Bruce believing Jason is a "failure" Bat's words, not mine). lots of feelings over it. See, what modern writers try to do today with Jason's robin years will never live up to the OG. What I mean by that is the entirety of Jason's pre and post-crisis run is soooooo foreboding and Jason has a lot of near-death experiences (usually due to Bruce's own short sightings that modern writers try to emulate through the trope that Jason isn't good enough to be Robin). What makes it so heart-sinking-to-your gut in his OG run is that in these comics, the idea for Jason to die, isn't an actual idea yet. And, now, looking back, it's this sickening accidental foreshadowing that modern writers lay on too thick, too "obviously he's going to die:/" when No, He Wasn't. Here: it's not an idea; Nowadays, it's the actual canon therefore it doesn't have the same effect as we already know the tragedy. It interferes with modern stories as they focus too much on his demise rather than his character.

here's one of Jason's near-death experiences. This is the arc before we fully switch to post-crisis!Jay. Bruce accidentally contributes to shooting Jason, in park row, a few blocks away from where they'll soon meet again once more by two stray gunshots.

No, Jason's not crying, but I think he would be if he wasn't half dead on the ground. Like the last part, this one's more implied. Anyway, the irony of Jason's almost dying in park row where Bruce's parents did by the same weapon, also to the chest, but this time the roles of parent and child are reversed though Bruce is still the only sole survivor *mwah* Art! Furthermore, the irony of Jason being reborn and rebirth in the alley mirroring his rise from the grave ~20 years later. Jason's entire existence can be encapsulated by full circles, foils, and parallels. I love it.

Moving on to older Jason! In Lost Days, Jason has a lot of breakdowns. He is very much not okay at all during the arc. Here, he's around 16 years old and this is after Talia's conversation with a catatonic!Jason where she tells him how Bruce misses him very much and loved nothing more than him and his older brother. It's an incredibly significant moment because the tear once again confirms that Jason is somewhat aware of his surroundings. Another moment would be when Jason fights all the League warriors but doesn't defend himself against Talia meaning he is aware of who he's fighting and has trust held for the woman. But, even then, he didn't have any emotional reaction to being slapped, he just took it without argument. The tear is significant because it's the first emotion Talia has seen this shell of Jason express, one of sadness, one over Bruce. Even in this state of a waking coma, Jason still has a deep love for Bruce and it hurts so much to hear that the man missing him.

Continuing the Lost Days theme! Jason has taken his swim in the pit and is coming to terms with all the missing time. The first two pictures are one right after each other where Jason finds out the Joker is still alive and Bruce continues the cycle of just putting the clown in jail

The third photo is of Jason having a mental breakdown on his way to Gotham over the fact that so many others died after him--He Was Dead--and it meant nothing, the joker was still killing

Jason's an angry crier! We see it here! We see it in UtRH! We even see it in the webtoon! It makes me think of that tumblr post, wet anger is terrible because it shows the other person that they got to you, and you cared--Still care. Shows you have a stake in the conversation, in the relationship, of what happened Really Fuckin' Mattered to you and Really Fuckin' Got to you. All of which links back to the sensitive side of Jason as well as how he tries to push down the fact that he cares for others and has a stake in the survival of the world (emphasized clearly in him saving the entirity of London and making sure the Arab students didn't get racially targeted and blamed even though Jason says he doesn't care about the world). Here though, it's the overwhelming emotion that he believed he mattered and Jay feels as though he's been sold a lie. He's angry. He's upset. He's hurt. He's miserable. He feels used.

Jason died when he was 15, was dead for 6 months and then was catatonic for another 1.5(this changes a lot bc sometimes he's catatonic on the street for 5-6 months, other times it's a year and then was catatonic in the league for another year). His last memory was of him dying, his next is his grave, and the third is the pit. For what takes over the span of 2.5 years for everyone else, happens to him in the time span of approximately 10 hours for him. Shockingly functionally for being whammed by some of three of the worst things to happen to him ever. And he still gets his throat slit soon after at the age 18 (I have the math written down somewhere, but canonically he came back to Gotham a couple months after his 18th, but even then he's technically 6 months younger than he should be due to 6 months dead and just know maybe the most streamline timelines aren't important and we should just read the stories without thought of precise age and time but I've never done it simple). damn. Someone, please ask him if he's okay. He's not. But it's the taking the time to care and ask that counts.

And, finally, to conclude Lost Days, Jason's reaction to Talia telling him that there's a new Robin.

What I've always found particularly obnoxious about how fandom treats Jason and Tim's relationship is how so many believe that Jason was absolutely seeing red, spitting blood when he found out there was a new robin, but really all he did was like...lay down and cry. That's kinda Jason's thing if you've gotten this far and haven't noticed. This also falls pretty in line with Jason's robin characterization. He's insecure about his role as both robin and Bruce's son. Even when Jason's 15, he fears he's always at risk of being replaced and being kicked out. When he finds out about Dick, Jason's first question is wondering if the older will want his role back. He never got the full support and help he need, no matter how much others did or didn't help, so when Jay's PTSD finally came knocking for its due, it's as if Jason never actually left the survival mode he lived in the entire time before Bruce. So hearing that Bruce "moved on" with a new robin, coming into the spotlight within six months of his passing (and Jason went through robin training, he knows how long it takes. He knows that that kid would've had to pop up within weeks of his murder (not to suggest Bruce wasn't hesitant about Tim going out so soon after Jason's passing), it solidifies that ever-present insecurity he's had his entire life that he's never been good enough for anything or anyone.

This one randomly hit me while writing meta, and I debated adding it because Jason isn't crying but Wow, is Bruce deliberately trying to be a dick. This one is a retcon with the age-old "You're not my dad" trope except, in a shocking twist, Absolutely shocking twist, the roles are reversed and *Bruce* says the "I'm not your father" line (something Jason has never said, mind you, towards any of the people he considers parental figures) (link here to my meta on that topic). I chose this image instead of the usual single panel because it's so much worse within the context it surrounds. When placed within its page, we, the readers, learn that this is one of the last conversations Bruce and Jason have before he runs off to Ethiopia to find his bio-mom. This is one of the last things Bruce ever tells Jason before the boy is murdered. Again, this is the retcon thing that I mentioned in the first part, these sorts of retcons don't make me feel bad for Bruce. This makes me feel bad for Jason. No wonder, after looking for a family for years, Jason would jump at the opportunity to have more. When the man he calls his father doesn't see himself as his father, Jason's desperation becomes palatable. The need to feel safe and wanted is overwhelming, especially with Jason's history of being rotated out for something "better" or "more important." Jason's relationship with Bruce is fundamentally different from all the other children because he started off by looking at Bruce as a father figure. And Jason constantly sees Bruce as Bruce first rather than Batman or compartmentalizing his own and other people's parts like Bruce does. Dick didn't want Bruce to be his father when he became his ward. This is important to their later years, when Bruce started acting like a parent, the two began to clash horribly. Tim wasn't an orphan when he became Robin and literally forged family members so he didn't have to be in relation to the Waynes. Steph would rather die than consider Bruce her dad. Cass was a grown woman compared to a child when she joined the bats. And Damian, DC believes Bruce and his father-son relationship is built in due to blood (that whole "I have one son" thing ugh). But, as seen in earlier panels, Jason did come into the manor looking for a father within Bruce (and Bruce, a son within Jason). You can ignore this retcon. Or you could not and read it as Jason being absolutely crushed at the thought that he found someone who wanted him as his kid only to hear he has been lied to this entire time. A la: like Shelia. A la: His worth lies in how well he is a "good solider"

obligatory elseworld: Once Again, Batman: White Knight! this time the original run, not the spin-off. This is the world where Bruce manages to "cure" the joker allowing him to go back to leaving as Jack Napier. The world's a little more realistic in the sense the joker's more a crazed fanboy who tortured Jason out of jealousy rather than a genocidal terrorist. On this Earth, he tortures Jason brutally in attempt to get him to reveal Bruce's identity. He's in pure misery. It's like a softer version of Arkham Knight where instead of being murdered, he is tortured (though here for substantially less time, a couple months as opposed to like 1.5-2 years in the arkhamverse), and instead of returning to the manor, Jason leaves Gotham. (It's later revealed Jason does actually go back to the manor, but he sees Bruce training the second robin (on this earth, he's the first) and feels utterly violated and replaced). So, here we have a crying Jason, tortured so thoroughly he's brought to tears over his relationship and involvement with Bruce that he reveals the bat's identity leading Jason to his freedom.

Anyway, Jason's overall character of Robin, OG run, retcons, and post-robin depictions, is characterized by heavy emotion, naivety, and hope. Personally, I feel Jaylovers would've been more lenient on DC's victim-blaming around Jason's murder if it did center more around his tendency to get overwhelmed in high-tension situations as well as how, throughout most of Jason's OG run, he is heavily portrayed as a lonely child desperate for love (his OG run says so itself. Again pulling from the introduction of Natalia arc, the narration box reads him "impatient for more love"). Though we know DC never would have done that as that makes Jason look too sympathetic. Saying "he died because he wanted to be loved" does not carry the message "he died because he was reckless" of which DC wants to re-write.

@tumblingxelian, I'm so happy you liked the last post and hope you enjoy this one too! If I've missed any panels* between Jason crying over Bruce within these two parts, please let me know, y'all. My "crying Jason" album, though extensive, is ever-growing. Again, these are just the crying in relation/because of Bruce panels sprinkled in with some of my "maybe Bruce shouldn't be a father" from my general "comic panels" album.

*I didn't add the Cheer panel because I refuse to acknowledge the story's existence I really don't agree with Jason's characterization within that story arc and believe how he got to the dream world situation is not based in his true character. The story fundamentally does not read like Jason as many aspects of, what I believe are, his core character traits are missing and I can't in good faith add a panel that reads like an OC (to *MY* interpretation of Jason). I also have a hunch that I did miss one panel from RHatO V1 when Jason's having his fever, literal acid dream, but I'm not sure. This realization is literally just hitting me now. I, for sure, missed a few BftC panels where Jason's having a mental breakdown over Dick showing him Bruce's will again. He's So Fucked up in that arc. And even though that arc doesn't read like Jason, the author admitted to wanting to write Jason as irredeemable as possible, as well as is one of the only confirmed (by the author) cases of pit mad!Jason, I say this with my chest, I like BftC better than Cheer because at least in BftC Jason is competent. Not to say I want that to be Jason's characterization, or even that I enjoy him written like that, but at least he despises the corrupt police force Bruce tries so hard to impress and that counts for something. I completely blanked on that arc and may do a follow-up part sometime in the coming weeks to see if I weed out any other panels matching the afformative guidelines.

[l0afip]

can we talk about how Damian’s culture shock had not been addressed in any significant way ever in canon or fanon?

imagine you are 10 years old, your mother loves you dearly, you are told all your life stories of how important and legendary your father The Batman is, you are to be a strong warrior-assassin-son and you excel in your training, your mother and grandfather are proud of you until they say you have to leave.

you lose everything. your home country, language, religion, relationships. your comfort foods, smells, clothes. everything.

you're given to your father who you have been told you need to prove yourself to, you are being treated as an enemy, you have no allies, no one will explain the unwritten unspoken rules especially not your father who has decided you are a nuisance.

they tell you your past and everyone in it is evil, your home is evil, your mother and grandfather are evil. you cannot have any connection to anything or anyone familiar.

your father dies. they all still hate you. they will not let you go home.

[l0afip]

#i'm very pro danny accidentally adopts a whole bunch of talons previous installments

*

The next day, the body was back.

The green was gone from its eyes, but the awareness wasn't; it spent about an hour watching people go around outside Danny's apartment, which was new behavior. None of the corpses that shadowed him had shown any interest in garden-variety humans before. Now it sat at the window and watched families come home from school or head to their afternoon shifts.

That went into Danny's notes.

After that hour, it taught itself to flush the toilet repeatedly, rearranged the contents of Danny's half-assed linen closet (again) and then stood hovering over the safe where Danny had stashed the ectoplasm.

"...Okay," said Danny.

The dead body croaked. It was a new sound, but there was no context for it. Danny just kind of...wrote it down and hoped for the best.

The day after, Danny woke up at a very reasonable ten forty eight in the morning to find stray corpses feeding each other spoonfuls of ectoplasm in the kitchen.

At that point he kind of had to throw out the notes on how much each one was dosed with, because what the fuck.

"Really?!" Danny shouted, spooking the bodies into fleeing behind chairs and doors and back into his closet again. The only one that didn't flee was Danny's ringmaster corpse of the hour, of course. "You really couldn't wait??"

It stuck out a withered black tongue out at the mortician, who was, really, the victim in all of this. A victim to his parents' whims and a victim to the dead people who followed him around all the time.

This was how Danny found out that, when it doubt, the corpses could just tear through solid steel if they were motivated enough. The finger-marks were so deep and so embedded that they actually looked more like rough claws in the metal.

Great.

Danny ordered a new locking cage for the fridge on Prime and darted off to work. One of his regulars was on the table, though, so Danny just ended up doing what he would have at home— sewing up a gash in its neck and reattaching dead fingers back onto dead stumps.

On the third day, in which four of Danny's frequent fliers had learned from the first how to flush the toilet (and therefore raise the water bill immensely) Danny got a ring from a dark voice he (almost) recognized.

"Is he here?"

Danny squinted, jerking the phone further under his ear as he whipped up some scrambled eggs. The dead girl leaning over his shoulder leaned a little closer to watch the egg froth up. "Is who here? Who is this?"

"This is Batman. Is— the body requisitioned from your facility currently at your place of residence?"

Danny fully let go of the whisk. It landed haphazardly in the glass bowl he'd been stirring in. "What on Earth is a Batman?" he asked, incredulous.

"I visited your workplace previously."

Oh! "Yeah, the cop's friend. I remember now." Danny pulled the whisk out of the liquid eggs and held it out to the body. The unusually animate cadaver mostly prodded the whisk wires and paid no attention to him. "No one's here but me, though. Not that it's your business...?"

"And there are no non-living bodies currently in your apartment?"

Danny ignored the flushing noise in the other room. "I don't know, dude. They practically live in the walls at this point. Don't come over unless you have a warrant."

The call ended with a click.

His omelette turned out amazing, by the way. In case you were wondering.

On the fourth day, the ectoplasm was gone, because the corpses had apparently all taught each other how to lockpick the container in the fridge.

"Okay, some of that was meant to be my dinner. No more lotion at the funeral home now, okay? Now you all can be ashy forever. I'm so serious," Danny complained to the only visible dead person in the room.

The dead person held up a cracked egg. It was probably a gesture of peace, but now there was egg on his vinyl flooring to deal with. And. It wasn't exactly all that comforting in the end.

On the fifth day, Danny awoke to the sensation of a hand jamming itself through his neck until it punched into the mattress beneath him.

Fuck.

[l0afip]

"Okay." Danny slowly laid the already cold body back onto the table, ready to slide back it into the refuge of cold storage. "Okay. Dead guy. Stay there."

The body didn't move.

"Fantastic. Now. Hang out while I pour the embalming fluid into the pump, alright? It should only be a minute."

And it usually did; working in a funeral home wasn't extremely glamorous, but it paid the bills, and Danny had already been used to the rhyme and rhythm of negotiating death with the public by the time he sent in his mortuary school application. It had been a transition that made sense. And in the end, the degree had only cost him a few extra years post-graduation and a little dig into student loans, and now Danny had a stable 12-8 job and health insurance valid in the state of new jersey.

Today, though, the pump had that decided enough was enough. With a bang and a boom, the pump spat out a cloud of smoke and clunked uncomfortably.

The dead body sat up.

Danny scrambled over to push it back down. "No. We talked about this. Dead people don't move. If you want to stay here and have me put you back together all the time, you have to stay put. Got it?"

Whatever the weird gold-eye corpses were on in Gotham, they at least listened to him on occasion. They weren't ghosts, per se— they never pinged on any of the ghost detection devices Mom and Dad had packed in his going-away-to-college bag— but they were, despite being occasionally animate, perfectly deceased.

Weird. Danny had never gotten used to it. Still, they came in droves, too eager to sit on the top of the basement stairwell and lurk in the corners and stare endlessly at them with their weird, avian eyes, and sometimes they heralded the arrival similarly weird-ass bodies that had lost their heads or their arms or their limbs through the more conventional channels.

"I'm losing too much thread to all y'all coming in all the time," Danny complained to the dead body, who, at the moment, was the only person present to blame. "Stop getting your limbs cut off. This stuff is expensive, you know. It's a specialty order."

The body didn't even have the courtesy to blink. Rude.

"At least let them bury you this time. Every time one of you darts off when my back's turned, my boss thinks I'm stealing corpses. My coworkers think I'm building my own Frankenstein or something."

The corpse neither verbalized nor blinked, but Danny hadn't expected it to; with a sigh, he rolled the corpse back into cold storage, locked its little door (not that locking it in had ever stopped it) and called it quits for the night.

It's not like anyone was paying him for the extra hours anyway.

[l0afip]

Due to Danny's ghostly nature, he misunderstands a bit when his DOOMED buddy in Gotham complains about his little brother.

The guy is clearly just blowing off steam, talking about how can he trust the little demon when he'd literally been stabbed, thrown off a banister (danny was pretty sure he was gonna say something else), got Mufasa'd (dropped from the roof and barely managed to save himself), and talked shit like, constantly.

And Danny, with all of his ghost instincts only partially tucked away behind human skin, can't help but coo.

"Aww, he must really like you man."

"...He's tried to kill me."

"But not really? Dude, why aren't you picking up on this?"

"Picking up on what? That he wants to be an only child?"

"No, dude; that he wants to fight you. Like, in a learning way, with only a little bloodshed. Man you're bad with kids. Of course he's trying to stab you, he wants to play."

His friend pauses, the character he's playing stopping midfight.

"You...aren't human, are you?"

Fuck.

[l0afip]

DPXDC prompt #21

Danny hadn't heard of his alternative future version since he and Clockwork worked together to de-age him and send him to some distant relatives 40 years ago, after Dan begged them to do it since he wanted a second chance to live again.

So imagine his surprise when he receives a desperate call from Dan, now Bruce Wayne, raving about clowns and something about Lazarus blood pools.

Sometimes being a Ancient wasn't worth it, but it was better then being the Ghost King.

[l0afip]

DPXDC prompt #21

Danny hadn't heard of his alternative future version since he and Clockwork worked together to de-age him and send him to some distant relatives 40 years ago, after Dan begged them to do it since he wanted a second chance to live again.

So imagine his surprise when he receives a desperate call from Dan, now Bruce Wayne, raving about clowns and something about Lazarus blood pools.

Sometimes being a Ancient wasn't worth it, but it was better then being the Ghost King.

[l0afip]

I've seen a few times in Dp x DC fics when Danny is first introduced to the Justice League and meets Captain Marvel, that they both know the other is actually a kid and not an immortal being, but pretends to be old friends so as to not be outed and tricks the JL together.

Now I bring you, neither of them know the other is a kid and both Actually think the other is immortal but still somehow ends up pretending to be besties. How? Time travel.

This is their actual first meeting, but in the future, Danny will time travel back to the past and meet past Champions of Magic. Billy, as the current Champion of Magic, has inherited the knowledge of these meetings, but thinks they happened chronologically = Phantom is immortal. So he use that knowledge to bullshit his way into pretending he's been all those old Champions and greets Danny as an old friend to sell his Old as Shit act before the JL.

Danny in turn doesn't know about those past meetings but he Does know about time travel. So when Captain Marvel greets him like an old friend and start recounting their different meetings throughout history, Danny assumes he's gonna time travel and do all those things one day (accurately). But he's pretending to be immortal, not a time traveling teen, and so has to pretend that he Totally Remembers That One Time In Greece, Yup!