#Harper Row

[celestialgalaxyglow]

At Wayne mannor

Alfred: Morning everyone I have an announcement.

Bruce: Everything alright Alfred?

Alfred: Yes, I have invited the Kents to dinner in two days time.

Bruce: What...

Alfred: I expect everyone to be on their best behavior.

Tim: When you say the Kents who do you mean?

Alfred: All of them, Jonathan, Martha, Clark, Lois, Kon, Jon, Kara, Otho, and Osul.

Cassandra: How many people will be in attendance.

Alfred: 24 people in total. For our part everyone WILL attend, no excuses. That means myself, Bruce, Dick, Jason, Danny, Tim, Duke, Stephane, Barbara, Harper, Cassandra, Luke, Kate, and Damian.

Jason: This is going to be fun.

Damian: I bet $20 the house burns down by the end of the night.

Danny: I'll take you up on that.

Meanwhile at the Kent farm

Martha: Morning everyone, last night I was talking with Alfred and we've been invited to dinner at the Waynes in two days. We will all be going, no buts.

Jonathan: We expect everyone to behave.

Kon: At least one person will end up in the hospital.

Kara: I think it'll be fun.

Clark: It'll be fun to see Bruce, it's been a while since we've seen each other as civilians.

Martha: Good, now let's enjoy breakfast, there are chores to be done, and they're not going to do themselves.

Part: 13, (all parts)

[incorrectbatfam]

who has a total ban from the kitchen, a partial ban and who is allowed?

(writing a fic, its a passing line but im stucked bc im getting second thoughts every time i place a character in a category, thank you very much)

Allowed:

Alfred, by default

Dick, because he canonically can cook

Luke, because he buys the best ingredients

Bette, because she's hardly ever there

Kate, because she doesn't care enough to use it

Barbara, because she can work the smart fridge

Cullen, because he needs it emotionally

Duke, because he hasn't done anything yet

Conditionally allowed:

Jason, if he doesn't order takeout and claim credit for making it like he would in canon

Helena, if she doesn't launch into a food history lecture

Damian, if he needs a vegetarian snack

Steph, if she doesn't openly one-up Alfred's waffles

Carrie, if she doesn't recreate the candy spaghetti from Elf

Harper, to fix the oven

Banned:

Cass, for her mega-pie

Tim, for telling his friends to help themselves

Bruce, to comply with the Geneva Conventions

Verdict's still out:

Selina, because her food is great but she uses Ivy's mutant produce

[but-a-humble-goon]

At this point Cass has gone through so many BFFs there should be some sort of Best Friend squad made up of all of Cass' current and previous best friends that, unbeknownst to her, keep in contact and unite whenever she's captured, missing or otherwise endangered. Give them their own A Team intro and everything. We've only never heard about it before because their teamups tend not to last long or end well.

Stephanie: No offence but as Cass' OG bestie- Jean-Paul: Some offence taken. Stephanie: -I'm the boss of this shindig and that makes it my responsibility to ask... should Clayface even be here? Aren't you a villain or something? Basil: Don't gimme that crap, it's Cass we're talkin' about. If anybody's hurt her imma find em' and do to em' what Wedding Slashers 7 did to my career. Stephanie: Loved that movie. Basil: You would. Sybil Danning's titties got more screentime than I did! Harper: Dude, did you think people were watching the Wedding Slashers movies for you? Barda: Not that I of all people am one given to change the subject from gratuitous nudity and violence but as I recall isn't Small Bat currently tied to a nuclear missile aimed at the moon or somesuch? Stephanie: Look we all know she's gonna be fine anyway, show of hands, who wants to turn this teamup into a Wedding Slashers marathon? Jean-Paul: I think I'm way too catholic to be here.

[rokonrrc2]

Learn More

Rich pregnant socialite: So we went to this clinic and let them manipulate our genes so we're 100% sure our child won't have any disease, he will have my hair and his father eyes and so much things we did for him! And you Bruce ?

Brucie: Found em in the trash. Except Tim, he found me in the trash.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Bring Back the Bombshells Batgirls!

In helping a friend of mine map out who all has been Batgirl across various DC continuities, I remembered a little jaunt to TVtropes where it mentioned that in a charming little number called Bombshells, the batgirl identity is shared by a baseball team.

This reminded me to actually go READ Bombshells, and oh. My. GOSH. It is the BEST FUCKING THING EVER!

What is Bombshells?

Basically, almost every male superhero got yeeted from the story or relegated to side character/civilian, while every female superhero takes the spotlight and gets to KICK SOME NAZI ASS (it's set during world war 2). Plenty of people get spotlight, but I'm gonna argue that the MAIN characters are probably Kate Kane's batwoman, Diana of Themyscira's Wonder Woman, Mera's Aquawoman (she hates that name, lol), Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, Zatanna, and Kara Starikov's Supergirl. All the storylines tend to revolve around them.

Oh, also it's super gay. Like, every single character is a lesbian or bi, there's tons of ladies kissing and dating and having implied sex, and at least one character---one of the batgirls actually---is trans.

In summary, go read bombshells it's really good, but today I'm here to specifically talk about:

The Batgirls (and boys)

"One for the ribbon, two for the pearls! Three for the crimefighting---

So first off, Bombshells is an elseworld, so it can do whatever the fuck it wants with backstories and shit.

Subsequently; this version of Kate Kane is a major league baseball player, and her Batwoman costume is literally just a pallet swap of her baseball costume (plenty of people figure out her "secret" identity because of this, but she's not super concerned about it). She uses an actual bat as her main weapon as Batwoman, and it kicks ass. More fanfic writers, and hell, comics writers need to hand the Batfamily some baseball bats, because it gives us scenes like this:

Or this:

(Yes her bat has a gun, it's supplied by Amanda Waller through goverment money, don't question it. Her baseballs are also explosives).

Oh, and also this:

Anyway, point is, Batwoman has a bat and it's great. But this means when Gotham's bat-weilding protector gets drafted into the Bombshells to go fight Nazi's, some new faces have to pick up the slack in Gotham.

And so:

Inspired by their vigilante/baseball hero, Harper Row, Kathy Duquesne, and Nell Little pick up some bats of their own and start busting up crime! The three of them are mechanics, that old car is their batmobile, and they're the best of friends!

Of this original trio, Kathy is "the brass" or the leader, and she remains nominally in charge through the whole thing. Nell is "the brawn" and while every batgirl is good in a fight, Nell is a bit of a demolition specialist. Finally you have Harper, "the brain" who invents their gadgets, works on their batmobile, and also jokes that she's the mascot, as this whole thing was her idea.

They don't stay a trio for very long though! They're quickly joined by "the beauty" Alysia Yeoh, an old friend of Kathy's, in an effort to break Cullen Row out of a prison-like orphanage (she's the t-girl btw):

You may notice another girl crouched in the corner up there too! That's Bette Kane, Kate's niece and the rightful owner of Kane Industries who will forcibly take it over, clean it up, and use it for good on her 18th birthday in like a week!

In the meantime though, she heard about the batgirls and decided she wanted in! She crashes their jailbreak and helps them wreck shop! She mostly shares the "brass" role with Kathy---a leader in her own right.

Anyway, their now quintet quickly finds the awful headmistress of the Pinkney orphanage berating one Tim Drake, who still has a living dad somewhere, but was snatched up by a dirty cop because this whole city runs on Newsies rules (not even kidding, I'll get there in a sec). Turns out Tim and Alysia are old best friends. Anyway, Tim fills them in on the sitch: the headmisstress has been using the orphans as slave labor to build war robots for the nazis.

The batgirls (now including Tim!), bust up the basement and the robots, free all the orphanage kids, including Cullen, toss the awful headmistress and the dirty cop helping her to one Detectice Maggie Sawyer---Kate's wife---and the day is saved!

In the subsequent week, Bette takes over Kane Industries, starts funneling funds into housing for immigrants and refugees and relief and aid and all that good stuff, and also recruits the final batgirl of the team: Felicity Smoak (the chick in braids)! Thus we have a full team!

Who's who in the alt text

I'm only halfway through Bombshells, but the batgirls and their adventures are a recurring plot thread, since protecting Gotham is entirely up to them while Kate is away. They gain lots of other allies and enemies (including one hispanic immigrant Lois Lane who does straight up help them pull a newsies and make their own newspaper with the real news in it at one point), and their sections are probably one of my favorite parts about the comic. It just feels so sweet and high school, while still feeling Batman-esque/Gotham-typical.

Why You Should Care:

Now. I may only be halfway through Bombshells, but I am in LOVE. With the story and the characterizations and everything!!! And the batgirls are a personal fave of mine cuz I'm a sucker for found family and teens fighting crime and bat-weilding superheroes!

But my point is: for all that fanfic loves these tropes too, there is NO fanfiction for them (or at least not on ao3). There's practically nothing for the Bombshells continuity PERIOD, which is a shame, but also to be expected for an elseworld.

But that's why I'm here and telling you about it!

You guys! This is fanfiction! We love flinging the batfamily through alternate universes and making lots of different characters take on the familiar Batgirl and Robin roles!

Why not bring forth the Bombshells Batgirls?

If you're writing your own elseworld, I suggest you nab this adorable team, or something like it! If you're writing an alt universe crossover, feature these guys!

They are the Batfamily found family you want! They CALL THEMSELVES a Bat-family! They all move in together! They loooooovvveee each other! And, as is the nature of the Batgirl mantle, they do what they do largely as independent operatives without adult supervision!

I would really love to see these guys yeeted into an alternate universe and have to cope with just HOW different their continuity is. Not only will they inevitably be flung way into the future, since they're around in the 40s, but in most continuities they're completely unconnected from each other and are absolutely not a team of bat-weilding crime fighters! It would be so baffling for any mainline batgirl and robin to meet a team that is so disconnected from them and so unconditionally supportive of each other and so Badass Adorable!

In Summary:

I may have lost the plot a little with this, but my points are:

Bombshells is really good and you should all go read it

Bombshells has a team of adorable bat-weilding batgirls that has all the found family crime fighting tropes you could want without the bad blood of the mainline batfam

More people should write fanfiction for Bombshells

The Bombshells!Batgirls in particular I think are a great place to start with that. Nab the premise of a baseball team being crime fighters, or Gotham being protected by a group of scrappy children whenever the big bad vigilantes are away, or give these colorful kids their Bombshells!backstories.

Also use the Bombshells universe in particular when you're flinging bats across the multiverse. Yeet these babies into a mainline comics verse and let the juxtaposition and chaos run WILD! There's a million and one of these fics for the Young Justice cartoon, I know ya'll can do it for Bombshells

Also. Take every opportunity to give your Batfamily, and your Batgirls in particular, an actual bat. It'll be so much fun, I promise

Anyway, I'll probably be back with another Bombshells rant later, PEACE!

[heyyallitssatan]

I like to think that Batman’s suit is really heavy

Like, the thing obviously Kevlar weave, with lots of armour reinforced bits, not to mention all of the gear and gadgets and tools he has on his person, I mean, anything he’s ever thought he may need, anything he’s been mid fight thinking that a particular tool would be useful, he has it somewhere, probably a few of them

And all the kids too, they’re equally equipped even if they don’t necessarily look it

So I like to imagine that some of the heroes decided they should do a costume switch for fun

The bats agreed, and the best part wasn’t them being weirded out like they thought they’d be, unmasked and all that, no, they couldn’t care less, instead everyone else is freaking out about how heavy the bats costumes are

How the hell do they do impossible feats of acrobatics wearing shit like this

Even the supers think it’s excessive, and they have super strength

The bats all take the opportunity to try some of their moves without the weight, given that they work out wearing even more weight

Turns out they can flip and jump and move in even more insane ways than anyone thought possible and everyone is more terrified than they were a few minutes ago

Everyone decides the bats are better with their gadgets

[ahfrickenfrick]

how many times have any of the batmembers had to come up to leslie and been like ‘hey got into a fight with a bat from the cave’

and she sighs and ask which family member only to realize they lost against a literal bat and need 12 different shots

[hehether]

Power of rainbow 🌈

[soranatus]

Gotham’s Finest Family & Friends By freelance illustrator, Gabriel Larragán

[feyinvestigations]

Red Hood's one man war against his Twitter verification continues

(heads up: drugs+graphic threats of violence)

First //// prev //// next

Masterpost

++Plus a bonus I forgot from Jason's previous escapades

[transmothofaman]

Fic idea:

So I’m sure the “Bruce travels back in time/is put back in his old body, changes things based on his future knowledge, gets all his kids, etc” has been done before (which is interesting and thanks to whoever came up with it).

But I would like to add my little take on it: the fic is not from Bruce’s perspective.

Jason’s living his normal life when suddenly Bruce fucking Wayne of all people swoops in and adopts him out of nowhere. Not only that, but he’s been finding random people from a variety of backgrounds and bringing him into his inner circle. Throughout the fic the kids are all trying to figure out why the hell Bruce Wayne brought them all together and somehow knows a bit too much about them.

I’m sorry if this has been done before but I’d really like to write a fic about this, let me know if you guys are interested and what y’all think!

[thedevilundercover]

the bat kids should have a very fucked up trivia game that they’ve made up but it’s just photos of various wounds and they have to guess what caused it

Someone started it as a way to learn all the types of wounds that happen bc of each weapon with some Flash Cards From Hell but since then they’ve made an actual game

they play it every game night and Tim is very smug about his streak of three fucking years and everyone else thinks that he’s either a psychopath or just very into weapons. Jason wants to beat him up either way

every time they start playing Bruce starts shaking his head tiredly bc of the bat kids’ bullshit. (He’s a fucking hypocrite, he’s done shit just as fucked up. Karma’s a bitch, Bruce)

[yesiknowimshort]

to keep up appearances, bruce asked the batkids to find reasons to excuse their various bumps and bruises:

dick was easy. gymnastics and acrobatics run deep within his veins and it’s always his “party trick”, so they just let the public come up with an answer themselves.

jason, mysterious as he is, never addressed his bumps and bruises. the public have settled on underground cage fighting.

tim’s was skateboarding and being “himself”. tim knows how he appears to the public, and as much as it pains his ego for people to see him in such a way, clumsiness fit his charming, dorky, public persona.

damian needs no excuse as he is a ‘rambunctious little ankle biter’, so bruce just lets damian straight up tell people shit like “i was engaged in battle with a duel wielding madman” and then says “kids and their wild imaginations, amiright?”.

steph insisted on fencing even though bruce argued that she would not realistically get many black eyes from fencing. she just tells people she’s very bad at it.

cass’ are from ballet duets.

duke just says “there was a spider” with no further context.

harper’s go to line is “you should see the other guy”.

and bruce is basically barbie so he comes up with a new sport each time he’s asked. and people believe it every goddamn time without question; because what else would a billionaire do with their time other than unicycle hockey and chess boxing?

[incorrectbatfam]

Alfred gets sick of Bruce breaking and losing stuff on patrol so he gets a label maker and starts naming items after the kids

Alfred: I got you a new phone, just like you asked. Its name is Jason. Try not to let it die.

Bruce, tearing up: Why would you say that—

[but-a-humble-goon]

In the same vein as Cass getting Brenda to take her to get a tattoo done, she asks Harper for help with putting a colored streak in her hair like hers. Harper's of course like "oh sure, but just so you know Blue is taken, got my rep to think about." So Cass thinks on it for a second then asks for a streak of purple. Harper raises an eyebrow like "really? Why purple?" Cassandra responds slightly too urgently with "no reason" while totally failing to hide the quick side glance she takes at Stephanie across the room.

[vodrae]

Gotham City is studied in the whole world for its strange sociology :

- Two of the richest guy in the world, Brucie and Timmy come from here but didn't even graduate high school, but they are doing lord's work in this city

- People with PHD/MD are unusually overly represented in the carceral population, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Mr Freeze, Two Face, Riddler, Bane (don't have a diploma but one the smartest guy in town)

- Crime lord Red Hood gives free courses on litterature and law "Batman isn't assermented, he can't arrest you."

- Even children are suprising, when a surgeon took in charge Jim Gordon after he has been shot, 5 apple tall Robin said "Tt ! Where did you have your degree, my cow operates better than you. Step back." And proceed to remove the bullets with his mother on the phone.

When Harper Row, 22, applied to be electrician and said 10 years of experience, it wasn't a lie.

Duke Thomas cracked the new LexCorp encryption program on live broadcasting when Luthor said he will give 1 billion dollars to whomever could do it. That was 5 profitable minutes. Barbara did in 2.

What a city