#and as Batman puts away more and more guys that EVERYONE knows to be corrupt and dangerous

[thedastravelerer]

I just finished the Dragon Age Veilguard and I need to scream my thoughts into the internet void.

My Rook, Lucrezia, was bought along with other kids by the house de Riva when she was 3 years old. She doesn't remember anything before that. When her magic manifested at the age of 8, she begged Viago not to send her to the Circle. Viago saw great potential in the little elven chaos gremlin, so he decided to hire private tutors for her. From the age of 14, she became Viagos apprentice, accompanying him everywhere. Her sunny, bubbly personality was a great distraction in social settings. She was the Robin and Viago was the Batman, basically.

Inquisitor romanced Solas.

So that is the viewpoint, from which I experienced the game.

The good:

The music is AMAZING

The environments are gorgeous

Spellblade is sooo much fun. The perfect mix of rogue and mage.

Treviso is so beautiful. I am never saving Minrathous. That sh*thole can get swallowed by the ocean.

The final missions were great. The tension, the loss, the heartbreak, the betrayal—10/10. No notes.

Baby griffons

The conversations/dynamic between Lucanis/Spite and Taash crack me up

The dynamic between Viago and Lucrezia was everything I could have hoped for. I still laugh when I remember the letter from Viago starting with "IDIOT".

Viago and Teia—I would die for them. Every time they flirt, I picture Lucrezia sticking fingers into her ears and going LALALALA. I don't want those pictures in my head.

Harding wins the competition for the prettiest room in the Lighthouse.

I love the little offhand comments and banter between all of the Crows. It was fun to hear Lucanis or Lucrezia randomly mention Viago or Teia. It really painted a picture of them knowing each other for a long time and being able to poke fun at each other.

I loved Lucanis as a character. Also, the 3-way relationship between Rook-Spite-Lucanis is perfect. I loved that when Lucanis learns about Caterina being alive, he shuts down and Spite is like: "What?! Why are you putting more locks into our prison? I AM GETTING ROOK! :D

The "Solas therapy" ending was heartwarming (and also a bit funny)

I loved Solas as a character. I see, why he is the god of trickery and lies. And how his wisdom turned into pride. I just wish I could slap that stubborn liar. Just once.

You know it is real love when you spent the last few hours chomping on an archedemon and your Vhenan still kisses you.

I liked the relationship progression between Davrin and Lucanis. They went from open hostility to mutual respect to drinking buddies.

Lucanis questioning Bellara and Neve about their business decisions was hilarious. Crows are first and foremost business people.

Isseyas storyline. I just wish they delved deeper into her story instead of getting an infodump. I enjoyed seeing how the blight twisted her grief and regrets. How she remembered only her love for the griffons she saved. And the blight corrupted that love, forcing her into horrible mistakes.

The bad:

The story is so shallow in comparison to previous games. All of the nuance is gone. There is no Loghain, no Meredith and Orsino, no Anders. Everyone is either the good guy or the bad guy. Maybe except for the Butcher and Isseya.

A lot of the darker, complicated, interesting themes are ignored. After the Antaam Qunari (Sten in DAO), the Ben-Hassrath Qunari (Bull in DAI) we finally meet a scholar of Qun and we get NOTHING interesting from her. We can't have a deeper conversation about the Qun. We can't even talk about her hypocrisy of running away from the very rules she forces on Taash. The Antaam are the a$$holes and everyone else following the Qun is good. Until they disagree with their assigned role in life and get their mind broken until they fit the mold again. But we don't get to learn that.

Who TF is Anaris? Why is he the Forgotten One? What does it even mean? What beef did he have with the Evanuris? We don't get to learn that. We get MWHAHAHA I AM SOOO EVIL. Boring and disappointing. It would have been much more interesting if he convinced Cyrian his sister was a pawn for the Dread Wolf. There could have been a conflict between elves choosing Anaris, who promised them power after their gods turned out to be a$$holes, and elves choosing a new, free path.

Are we not going to address the EXECUTIONER in the room? Who is he? Where did he come from? Why is he totally cool working a desk job in the Necropolis?

We finally see Kal-Sharok and we learn almost nothing about the dwarves living there. How did they survive? How do they govern themselves? What is the culture like?

I don't understand the Titan powers Harding has. Like, I get the concept, but the details are confusing.

I am sick of the words "ritual" and "artifact"

The quests "press button in three places" or "destroy/place crystals so they link/unlink" were a bit repetitive.

Characters sometimes have lapses in memory. Ferelden has fallen to the blight, but Emmerich and Harding are going camping there... Mmmmkay. Rook, baby, you have used the teleport vortex like three times before. We have 2 in the Lighthouse.

I love Lucanis, but his romance is very undercooked. I get, that he pushes a lot of emotions down, and flirting is just another weapon the Crows use to get to their targets. But we see no inner turmoil in banter, no notes wondering about Rook. He touches Rook exactly once - in the romance scene at the very end. They never even address the almost kiss.

The brutality of the life of Crow recruits is smoothed over to be nice and family-like. We are talking about an organization that buys enslaved children and forces them into hunger games to shape them into elite assassins.

The widespread Tevinter slavery is mentioned minimally. The only mention might be the codex of Dorians speech in the Magisterium. Their whole social system is built on slavery and caste system. We don't get to talk to Neve about any of it.

Most of the helmets are hideous.

The "stealing cultural stuff is wrong and we, the pirates and treasure hunters, are not doing it. We are the good guys!" talk you have with Taash right when you meet her was so jarring. Like, it makes sense, because Isabella is in charge. It would have been funnier and less preachy if they went with "We don't steal cultural stuff, because Isabella stole something from the Qunari once and it was a sh*tshow".

No dirt, no persistent gore

You don't get to have deep conversations with your followers. Instead, you get to read their diaries and letters in the codex. I felt like a creep snooping through their notes and letters to each other. Same feeling with the Lighthouse banter.

I miss the more abrasive followers. Everyone is high on friendship. Why is no one protesting against the demon-possessed assassin cooking all of our meals? Why isn't Bellara more wary about the Tevinter mage? Emmerich gets a lot of sh*t for the creepiness, but nobody questions the morality of using body parts as Legos.

I wish we could choose a class for the Inquisitor. She looked so ridiculous and out of place in the last fight. She is one of the most fearsome fighters in Thedas and she wears the blandest outfit possible. She isn't even armed.

We find out the Andrastian faith is a fairytale and no one except Harding comments on it? All of the human followers grew up in Andrastian cultures. Religion forms the structure of society, customs, inner values, viewpoints on the world, and what is considered "normal" on a subconscious level. In DAI you have a conversation with Josephine about how the Andrastian faith provides common ground for negotiations across cultures. Cassandra walks through an elven temple that is older than her religion and still wonders who could believe this nonsense. Why aren't you more upset, people?!

I am going to pretend the post-credit scene didn't happen. You will not soil the beautiful tragedies of the very human mistakes and choices the imperfect characters like Loghain made. I will not accept some demon whispering over the wonderful multi-faceted people and their rises and falls. F*ck you.

The bug, where the game loads the preset character instead of your custom Rook is annoying and didn't get fixed by the patch.

I hate the UI with a passion

No grey streaks in Inquisitors hair is a crime.

I hate the underwater view in Rooks room. I have an irrational fear of deep waters and sea life. The Ossuary is a prison of my nightmares.

I hate the redesign of the demons. They look like dementors with their robes open.

It is not clear how long was Rook trapped in the prison of regrets.

Anyway... rant over. I enjoyed the game like I enjoy the Marvel movies. With half of my brain turned off.

[violent138]

Chain of custody in Gotham City must be a total joke. Either some corrupt cop played dumb and there are thirty minutes unaccounted for until the evidence shows up in the locker, or some guy in a Batsuit took it and returned a DNA analysis faster than their backlogged labs, and in neither case should the evidence get used, but in Gotham a reasonable judge just lets it slide.

[yjcorefourenjoyer]

Photo evidence part 6

Tim’s life is officially over!

So apparently, the new Robin is not, in fact, fine! He’s dead! Gone! Went BOOM, if you will! And now, without Tim being able to grieve AT ALL for the Robin he had bonded with and probably spent more time with than his actual parents,

Tim had to pick up the pieces of the mess Jason left behind. (He’ll have a breakdown later)

Batman has been going off the rails, beating criminals to near death (they would’ve been dead if he hadn’t called the ambulance), hurting civilians, breaking more laws than ever, pushing everyone away, and letting injuries get worse and worse and worse…

To put it simply, he was killing himself! 

It was like he wasn’t even the same person, especially after Jason’s funeral, and Tim had a front row seat to the destruction.

Some villains thought that Batman being in this state would make it harder to enact their plans and went into hiding. While the others (the more powerful or the idiotic) decided it would be easier! 

Almost all The Cameras either stopped taking photos or would only send pictures about Batman. All of them had horrible content. Just bloody alleyways, or people running away in fear. They were sent in with the hope of Photo evidence doing something about it.

That is what he does, right? Take corrupt people and either blackmail them or report them to the police…

There was no way that he could get the police to arrest Batman, that would do more harm than good. And the only meaningful thing he has against Batman is his identity. Either way, he can’t go after The Batman! Photo evidence doesn’t fight the good guys!

But... Batman isn’t really a good guy now, is he? It’s like Robin took all the good with him when he died. 

And even if he did blackmail Batman, B might just let it happen! He’s already shown that he doesn’t care what happens to himself now that Jason’s gone.

Which is really surprising, considering he has a perfectly good, alive son and friends!! Like, shouldn’t Superman or Nightwing be showing up to try and stop this?

Oh wait that’s right, Nightwing is mad at B for not telling him that Jason died and that he missed the funeral…

Like okay… Tim understands that not being alerted to your brother’s death while you’re in space can make you mad enough that you don’t want to talk with the person who was supposed to tell you that info to the point where you don’t want to be in the same city as them.

And in Superman’s case he stopped B from killing Joker, which probably started this whole “I’m gonna go punch out my anger cuz I can’t kill the guy who murdered my son,” thing.

Superman also probably thinks that he’ll get killed in Gotham for preventing Joker’s death in the first place, whether by Batman or a Metropolis-hating Gothamite who somehow sensed that Superman stopped Joker from dying, and that probably makes him not want to be in Gotham. 

However, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be helping!!

Seriously, Tim doesn’t understand why out of every. single. person. who actually KNOWS Batman, HE has to be the only one to actually do something.

Aren’t heroes supposed to help? Why does he, a child, have to be the only one who cares? The only one to step up? The only one willing to try and help?

Doesn’t anyone realize if Batman dies on patrol, Gotham is going to go up in flames!?

Oh come on! This was supposed to be his debut! To show the world that he could protect Gotham! But not in a vigilante way… He was supposed to go after the people outside of Gotham. The bats do the actual fighting, not him!

Ok ok, that’s it. He has to plan! Maybe contact a few people before he (or Batman) does something rash… after all he’s The Photo evidence! Timothy Jackson Drake! He doesn’t put himself in danger, that isn’t how a Drake works! So If he’s gonna have to save Batman on his own he’s gonna make sure that it’s the last option before he does.

But like what could he even do?? He can’t just bring back Batman’s hope and light, he can’t just bring Robin back! (Photo evidence blackmails people not resurrect them!), The only way to do that is to have someone become Robin, But the only options for that role are Jason, Dick, or well..… Tim.

And since Jason is dead and Tim really doesn’t want to be stuck in a life that’s gonna kill him (cuz it would kill him eventually), he’s just gonna have to find a way to get Dick back into the Robin role…

Maybe visit him in Blüdhaven? Maybe he could tell him what’s going on with Batman in Gotham? How is he even gonna get there? He honestly has no idea. But if this is the only way to help Bruce, he’ll do it.

He just really hopes that Dick will agree so he doesn’t have to save Batman alone…

[cjsmalley]

Damian Meets the Waynes:

Chaos.

“Enough!” Bruce, Batman, roared in that voice that nobody—not even Jason at his worst—ignored.

Everyone stilled, statues, and waited for information, for instructions.

Bruce nodded sharply, “Thank you. As I was saying, I ran the DNA test myself and it came back as a positive match to both myself and Talia al-Ghul. King Phantom’s most trusted advisor assures us all that there is no mistake. The boy—Damian—is my biological son.”

Tim nodded, already typing away, “So extraction plans—Babs, could you—”

“No,” Bruce refuted, “no need. We’re leaving him with the Phantoms. They’ve loved and raised him.”

“Then why tell us?” Dick cried out, obviously putting together the pieces that Talia had told the most horrid lie.

“Because his parents are going to allow visitation,” Bruce explained, “as long as Damian wants it.”

He inhaled, “They’re coming for dinner next week; I’ve already spoken to Alfred. Missus Phantom, the Queen, and Damian are both strictly vegan and both eat kosher.”

Jason nodded, “I’ll help Alfie then.”

Alfred nodded back, “Very good, Master Jason

“Why does the Queen eat?” Stephanie asked, “Isn’t she a ghost?”

“She’s human. Her husband’s the ghost. Though I’m told he also eats. Speedster level metabolism, I’m told.”

Bruce braced himself, “And they know I’m Batman. They most likely know about all of you. Damian was in the cave for testing.”

Chaos.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Please, treat us like normal humans,” the King said, “we’re not here as royalty but as Damian’s parents.”

“You got it,” Stephanie flashed a thumbs up, “Mr. Phantom, Mrs. Phantom.”

“Danny and Sam,” Sam corrected, “just Danny and Sam.”

“How did you get Damian?” Dick questioned.

“Father was summoned by my maternal grandfather,” Damian explained simply, “I was the sacrifice to the Ghost King in exchange for a longer life. Father and Mother adopted me despite their ages at the time.”

Every vigilante went still.

“Ex-fuckin’-cuse me?” Jason demanded, eyes flashing.

“Master Jason.”

He winced, “Sorry, Alfie.”

But Danny cocked his head, “You—you died before, didn’t you?”

Everyone stiffened, “What do you mean?”

“I can recognize other undead,” Danny explained, “You—you’re something I’ve never seen but undead all the same. Or maybe extremely liminal. But you don’t have a core so you’re not even half-ghost.”

“Someone can be half-ghost?” Bruce’s mind whirled.

Danny smiled sadly, “It’s very rare but it happens. Usually lab accidents and extreme exposure to ectoplasm in traumatic ways.”

Everyone contemplated this.

“But Jay isn’t half-ghost?” Tim asked, thinking.

“Nope. Stinks of ectoplasm but no core so no ghostliness.”

Jason sighed, wiping a hand down his face, “But I was killed then resurrected then dumped into a Lazarus Pit by Talia.”

“Glowing green liquid? Used by the old guy who gave us Damian?” Danny asked.

“Yep.”

“That would do it. That’s corrupted ectoplasm,” Danny sighed tiredly, “nasty stuff. Lemme guess, mood swings?”

“Irrational, unstoppable, homicidal rage,” Jason reported.

“Figures. Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Can we go back to Jason being undead?” Dick demanded, “And Damian being a sacrifice?”

“I don’t think he’s actually undead,” Danny replied, “lots more complications with being all undead. I think he’s just extremely liminal—that means, closer to Death or death-touched than most healthy people. Can’t be sure without him getting checked by an expert. Like my doctor, Frostbite.”

“As for Damian,” Sam spoke up, “it’s good form to have a sacrifice of some sort on hand if you wanna make a Deal. The previous King liked human sacrifices. We don’t but we accept them and adopt them into the family.”

“I have several siblings so adopted as well,” Damian said, “only three were wished away accidentally, for their own safety.”

“Dinner is ready,” Alfred announced and led everyone to the larger dining room where the tablet was fairly groaning with dishes and pitchers.

Dinner was a quiet affair until Damian questioned Dick on his acrobatic abilities; after that, with the Bat secret out, dinner was loud and rambunctious as the Wayne family simply accepted the Phantoms into the fold.

Wished Away 5

Damian's First Cold:

The first time Damian got sick was an ordeal.

His parents fretted and worried, hovering, helping clear his little nose with a suction bulb.

It was just a cold, all the medical professionals agreed, but little coughs broke hearts.

The yetis refused to cure him, citing his immune system needing to develop, and his pediatricians could only treat the symptoms.

They shushed and they cooed; they walked and rocked him. They sang and cried with him.

Then Sam got sick as well.

She refused to stay down in bed.

Then Danielle got the cold as well. She at least had the sense to suffer in bed. But her powers went on the fritz. Which was when they discovered her own ice powers.

Danny and Tucker were near run off their feet and the Fentons and Mansons had to step in.

“I’m fine,” Sam protested from her bed, as everyone had relocated to the Mansons’ Mansion.

“No, honey, you’re not,” Jeremy replied, patting her back through a coughing fit.

“But Dani and Dami—”

“Are well in hand, Samantha,” Pamela arrived with soup, “they have their father, uncle, and both sets of grandparents. It’s okay to rest.”

Sam sagged back slightly, “Frostbite—”

“Is monitoring Danielle,” Pamela informed her simply, handing over the soup, “Doctor Peterson is on-call for Damian. Clockwork is handling the Realms for Daniel.”

“Fine,” she accepted the soup with some grace, “I want updates though; and I will get up if Danny goes down with this cold.”

“Understandable.

Thankfully, Danny never did get the cold and everyone was well enough a few days later.

The last holdout was Tucker, who isolated in his house so as not to infect anyone again.

[imagine--if]

I need more of your soft!yandere riddler imagines 😍 could you do one with a fairly innocent reader where someone teases or upsets her a little too much, and one day they just disappear.. so s/o is all wondering aloud where they are and he openly admits he killed them and tells her how they weren't worthy of being around her, how she's his angel and stuff? Thank you 😁

A/N: Mkay, I enjoyed writing this too much 😂💚

Pairing: Dano!Riddler x reader (The Batman 2022)

Warnings: Soft!Yandere Eddie, reader kinda approves, mentions of violence/murder, obsessive loving Riddler fluff 🥺

Words: 1005

You didn't think much of it when he didn't turn up for work three days ago. Probably drunk, or met up with some dropheads, and now they're in bed with a pounding headache. You'd actually been quite relieved, telling the truth. He's alright, really, but sometimes, he just finds himself too funny, gets carried away. His jokes start targeting people, and then they target you, though you know he doesn't really mean it.

You'd told Edward, your boyfriend, about it the day before. He always listens intently when you say anything, as if what he's hearing is the most important thing he ever will. You know he calls himself The Riddler too, but the worst he does is deal with the corrupt and make examples out of them. Eddie doesn't take it personally, or to extremes.

At least, you think he doesn't.

But his face that day, when you'd absentmindedly mentioned that idiot from your work... When he'd asked you to give him an example of one of the things he'd commented about you. And the way Edward's jaw clenched and his teeth grit in pure anger when you'd given one.

Still, the subject was dropped after he made you promise not to take anything said to you to heart, not to let it upset you. It didn't, not really, and you'd promised, so he hugged you tightly, peppering your face with kisses, and the evening rolled on with his usual clingy affection.

The next morning was the first time that guy didn't come to work. You brushed it off. But then he didn't make an appearance the day after.

Everyone usually always comes in every day they're scheduled to work. A lot of information gets passed around that you'll miss out on and be hugely behind on if you're not there to get it in time. None of your workmates had a clue, and neither did you. So you left it, expecting to see his playful, annoying grin the next day.

You didn't.

Now your boss is getting irritated at the no-shows, and you come home with a small, perplexed frown on your face, which Edward notices as soon as you walk in the door and kick off your shoes.

"What's wrong, angel?" He asks with earnest green eyes, his hands already roaming your hair and stroking your face as you tug off your jacket and put down your bag.

"It's nothing," you say with an unconvincing smile - unconvincing to Edward and as you try to reassure yourself at the same time.

"Nothing," he echoes quietly, a faded smile on his face as he lets his head drop into your hair, taking a deep breath in. Eddie lets it out shakily, a dopey, lovestruck grin on his face.

"Missed you, sweet baby..." He coos, and your smile grows as you fondly entwine your fingers with his, Ed leading you to the couch and happily settling you on top of him.

"That guy didn't show up to work again," you mutter to yourself, resting your head against his chest, and he hums in questioning, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

"What guy?"

"The jackass I was telling you about," you scoff with a small smile, shrugging. "Thinks everyone's 'ugliness' is hilarious, remember?"

"I remember," Edward confirms with a thoughtful half-smile. "But what's wrong?"

"He's not been showing up to work recently," you repeat, and look up in confusion as you hear him giggle amusedly.

"Of course he hasn't, my love," Eddie acknowledges, shaking his head at you adoringly as his fingers brush under your chin. "How can he?"

"What? What do you mean?" You ask slowly, and he sighs, his arms snaking around your waist as he rocks you slightly.

"I mean, what has a beginning but no end?" He riddles gleefully, and your brows twitch as you take the words in, bewildered.

"Death?"

And then it hits you.

Edward laughs and claps admiringly, pressing a passionate kiss on your lips.

"That's right! Oh, you're so clever... and it's so beautiful..."

"Wait, wait," you shake your head as if clearing the rushing thoughts in your head. "You're telling me that he's dead?"

He nods, still smiling as he cradles you in his arms. "Of course he is, lovely."

"But... but..." You're at a loss for words at this point, but Eddie waits patiently, stroking his fingers across your cheek and leaning impossibly closer to you. "Why?"

"Why?" He repeats incredulously, face screwing up in distaste. "You cannot disrespect an angel and live, that's why! You should know that. You know I'd do anything for you, and I did! Now you don't have to worry about him, ever, ever again."

You stare at Edward in a mild shock, nodding slowly.

"I don't know- was that a good idea?" You question in uncertainty, and Ed tilts his head to one side a little, curious. "He was corrupt or anything, and-"

"Don't make excuses for the scum, darling," Edward prompts with a gentle sigh. "I will not tolerate behaviour like that, okay? Not to you! Never to you."

You give up, shaking your head and exhaling deeply. "Okay. I... thanks?"

His smile's back now, and he nods eagerly, loving pecks being scattered over your cheeks.

"You don't need to thank me, my angel. This is what I live for, isn't it? I can't have anyone hurting my baby," he breathes with a dreamy smile, kissing you again and licking his lips after you part. "My precious, beautiful baby..."

You smile and lean forward, kissing him back, and Eddie hums into it contentedly, his hands wandering your waist and desperately pulling you closer into him.

A part of you knows you shouldn't really be approving or enjoying this, knowing that your ever-loving boyfriend murdered a random jokester who happened to throw one too many mocking lines at you. But the part of you who likes the thought of Edward Nashton getting rid of him, defending your honour, practically worshipping you...

That part of you wins.

Taglist (comment if u wanna join!!):

@jessicainhell @truecobblepot @kpopgirlbtssvt @tinyryder @ireadandream @mortem-muse @tianotfound @deadlights-darling @bloodypantomime @felicityofbakerstreet @darthcringe @philiasoul @wilburrrsworld @skateb0red @bokksieu @sugahbabieexo @phantomofthecathedral @confusedchildsstuff @hxney-lemcn @httpsunflowers

[writingsofmax]

Disarm

Words: 1123 Story Summary: Edward Nashton is driving the streets of Gotham on a night when he can't sleep when he runs into Y/N fleeing from a gang. This is chapter one of what will be a series. Tags: slowburn, chapter one, late night drives, meet cute? fem reader, Y/N, anti-social Edward based off of his personality in the "Before The Batman" book

Chapter 1- Wanna Go For A Ride? Edward Nashton had been furiously scribbling in his journal about the Renewal Fund and all the corruption in Gotham for hours. He leaned back to stretch and checked the clock. 2 AM. Fuck, he cursed to himself.

He had to work in 6 hours and needed sleep, but his mind and body were still so wired, so awake. It was hard to come down when he was planning. 

Throwing on a coat and grabbing his keys, he headed out to his car to go for a drive. This was routine for him when he couldn’t sleep. Being in his apartment made him want to continue writing, going through his ledgers, mapping out the corruption. But he did have appearances to keep up and a job to go to, so out of the apartment it was. 

He drove down the quiet streets of Gotham, being careful to keep to the well lit streets since many of the city’s gangs operated in the shadows of the alleyways and side streets. It was dangerous, obviously, being out in Gotham at night but he drove an old beat up junker. Anyone who saw it knew that he wouldn’t have anything valuable on him. 

As he drove around, he looked at signs and graffiti, coming up with rhymes of the words he saw or phrases and small riddles. He pulled up to a red light on Pleasant Street and began to think of all the words he could spell using “pleasant.” Pastel

Petal 

Ant

Plates

Step 

Slap 

Lap

Plea- 

SLAM! An extremely loud sound against the passenger side door jerked Edward out of his thoughts. Startled and wide-eyed, he saw a distraught young woman at his passenger window. “Pleasepleaseplease let me in!” she tapped frantically against the glass.

Glancing behind her figure, Edward could make out other figures approaching with face paint on. It looked like this girl had managed to get herself involved with one of the more violent gangs in Gotham. Great. Why should I open the door? He thought to himself, annoyed. Why get involved in this when I could just drive away? Knowing Gotham, this could easily be a set up, and Edward wasn’t exactly thrilled with the possibility of getting killed by a group of painted thugs.

Directing his attention back at the girl, he caught her eyes and saw fear… Real fear. There was no mistaking it. Leaning over quickly, he unlatched the passenger side door and pushed it open and she clambered inside. “Go go go GO!” she yelled, panicked. The light was still red but he floored it. She’s lucky there’s not a traffic camera at this particular intersection or else she would be paying for it, he thought. Her voice came out rushed with adrenaline and relief as the gang members were left behind. “Thank you thank you thank you so much I’m so sorry! I-I was out for a walk because I couldn’t sleep. I know that’s so dumb, but I’m used to doing it and then, and then there w-was––” she stuttered for a moment, but continued on. “There were those guys following me and when I noticed they were tailing me.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “I ran and then they started chasing me and I saw you and I just… I just didn’t know what else to do.”

Edward Nashton had never been put into this situation before. “It’s alright.” So much for sleeping. He gripped the wheel and stared straight forward, only sparing side glances to this unexpected passenger. She was very visibly shaken, still coming down from the pure fear that had been coursing through her veins. He felt a swell of pride. I had saved her from those scumbags. If it weren’t for me, she would be way worse off, he mused. He would soon be saving everyone in Gotham from themselves, but this was his first. Still, he wasn’t sure what to do in this situation.

“Um, you can just drop me off at my house, if that’s alright? I can pull up the directions from here. Ugh, I’m so sorry.” She fiddled with the bottom of her coat. “Yeah, sure. It’s really alright,” Edward shrugged, trying his best to not let on the fact that he was actually filled with relief. He wasn’t going to take her back to his place, with all of his notes and plans laying out in the open, covering his walls. “So, what’s your name?” she laughed a little at the absurdity of meeting someone like this. “ My name’s Y/N.” Edward did not understand why she needed to know it but decided to play along. “Edward,” he said, still staring directly forward. “Edward…” she repeated thoughtfully. “We should, like, exchange numbers so I can get you a coffee or something as thanks. Really, thank you so much!” To his annoyance, Edward actually found himself considering it. He didn’t really want anyone to have his phone number, especially now when he was so preoccupied with his plans. On the other hand, he also didn’t want to turn down the opportunity for someone to show him gratitude. She was just so… thankful. And no girl had ever asked for his number before. And really––what was the harm that someone finally appreciated him? 

“Oh. Alright, sure?” was the answer he settled on. “Great!” she smiled, “Oh, you can pull up right here. This is my stop.” As she wrote down her number, and Edward gave her his, he noted that she didn’t live in a great area of town. The apartment she pointed to looked pretty dirty on the outside and had several sheets of plywood over the windows. It reminded him a bit of the orphanage he had grown up in. It gave him a weird feeling in his chest. His thoughts were interrupted by a warm hand on his leg, he automatically stiffened. Why is she touching me? “Thank you SO much again, I’m so sorry for all of this, it’s so embarrassing. I am definitely going to be more careful from now on.” The girl was looking right at him, her hand still on his leg. Edward noticed for the first time that she was what he would consider attractive.

“I’ll message you tomorrow so I can take you out for coffee or food?” she continued, removing her hand from his leg, shifting towards the door. “Okay,” was all Edward could come up with, still thinking about her touching him. “Bye, thank you so much again, Edward!!” she exclaimed, shutting the passenger door behind her. Edward watched as she made it up the littered stairs to her door, she turned and waved before disappearing inside. 

What just happened? Edward thought to himself.

Part two Part three Part four Part five Part six Part seven Part eight Part nine

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Tommy and the role of ‘hero’

Hey, this little essay is discussing how Tommy’s character has struggled with being called a hero and hows it’s been a significant part of his character arc for Season 2 of the SMP. It’s not a title he ever gave himself yet it’s a title he’s burdened with all the same. 

Funnily enough, I don’t recall Tommy ever being called a hero before Technoblade’s damning speech on Nov 16th, where he compared Tommy to Theseus. 

Tommy you just did a coup. You just did a hostile Government takeover and then immediately instilled yourself as President. And then you gave it to your friend but that’s still a tyrant Tommy.

But the thing about this world Tommy, is that good things don’t happen to heroes. Let me tell you a story Tommy, a story of a man called Theseus. His country, well his City-State technically, was in danger and he sent himself forward into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur and saved his city. You know what they did to him Tommy? (”What did they do?”) They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes Tommy. The Greeks knew the score. But if you want to be a hero Tommy, that’s fine. 

Do you want to be a hero, Tommy? Then die like one!

Technoblade’s speech is a frustrating one at first. It begins by essentially calling Tommy a power hungry tyrant despite that being far from the truth - Wilbur was the one who formed the Government and Tommy rejected power. He trusted it to Wilbur who then chose Tubbo. Schlatt wasn’t even killed by Tommy, he died of a heart attack after being abandoned by every one of his allies so it wasn’t even really much of a takeover at all and it wasn’t Tommy. Yet this speech was entirely directed at Tommy.

But the latter half is different, accusing Tommy instead of trying to be a hero who thinks he’s saving the world and that he’s doomed to have a bad end. It’s interesting as never has Tommy claimed to be much of a hero. Tommy’s always just fought for the things he cared about. Indeed his response to Techno’s speech suggests the same.

“I’m not the hero. No one’s the hero! We’ve got L’Manburg for each other.”

But of course, Techno’s words stick with him all the same. Particularly the bit about a tragic end as Tommy becomes very, very aware of his own mortality in the arcs that follow. To Techno, a hero seems to be a naive figure who tries to do good but is destined for failure and tragedy. 

But there’s another path Tommy fears even more. One that he’s witnessed firsthand. Becoming the villain.

Let’s be the bad guys. Tommy, why not? Our nation’s gone. our nation’s far behind us, Tommy. Let’s blow that motherf*cker to smithereens. Tommy, I say if we can’t have Manburg, no one - no one can have Manburg! ...L’Manburg.

This is a new era! We burn the place to the f*ckin ground, I want no crops to grow there ever again.  I want f*ckin mycelium and cobblestone, it all covered, Tommy. I want it all gone! 

Tommy, let’s be villains.

Wilbur was Tommy’s hero. He loved Wilbur dearly and wanted nothing more than to be a good right-hand to him and make him proud. But when they lost L’Manburg and were banished, Tommy saw Wilbur changing, saw him giving up home and deciding he’d rather destroy the thing they’d worked for and blow it all up. After Wilbur made this speech, Tommy argued, making it clear he was entirely against his plans. Even saying that it wasn’t the moral thing to do. He said not to give up hope, that everyone wasn’t against them and that Wilbur’s ideas were reckless. But he stayed with Wilbur and continued to support him, hoping that he could convince him to change his mind. Tommy failed. And Wilbur died.

So, the Tommy at the start of S2 just wants to go back to his old life, a simpler time where he doesn’t have to worry about L’Manburg anymore as it’s in safe hands and he can focus on his personal concerns once more - like his music discs. He doesn’t want to be a hero or a villain, he merely wants to be happy again in a world without Wilbur. 

But there’s someone else watching him. Dream. 

I think it’s no coincidence that Dream wanted Tommy exiled by his own people. I think he was deliberately trying to make Techno’s speech into a reality. Dream had become rather obsessed with Tommy and treated all their interactions like a fun game where he played the villain and Tommy, the hero. It’s not a narrative Tommy himself liked but all he could do was play along. 

Dream had him exiled and this seriously pushed Tommy to his limits. On the first day, Techno briefly visited and asked him why he was still trying and he answered that he always gets back up and he would keep on fighting Dream. But as his exile progressed he slowly lost his will to fight. Slowly Tommy stopped believing that his exile would ever come to an end and that people still cared. 

In exile Tommy had a lot of time for reflection. Here’s something Tommy says days into his exile when he’s begun to lose all hope and is starting to accept that maybe Dream’s his only friend. 

Everyone always tells me I was the- the hero of this server. The one that came and f*ckin fought Dream - the only one that ever spoke back to him. But maybe I was just... maybe this was just meant to be. 

Tommy’s got complicated feelings about being a hero. To him it means standing up to Dream, never giving up - that’s what he believed people expected of him. But in his exile, he began to give in to Dream. He begins to express how no one cares and that the only reason they ever pretended to care was when he had status - when he was part of L’Manburg. There’s this implication that he felt like people only cared about him when he was being the selfless hero. When he was trying to be selfish for once, causing trouble like he used to and wanting to focus on his personal disc war rather than on L’Manburg, he got exiled. (Of course, this is Tommy’s biased perspective not how others actually viewed him.)

Tommy eventually escaped his exile, finding renewed courage to fight against Dream. Except, he’s still scared and uncertain and feels confused about Dream. He feels lost and clings onto Technoblade for support. 

With Technoblade, Tommy starts to feel more like himself - but Techno also influences Tommy, turning him more against his friends. (I think Techno’s character genuinely thought they didn’t truly care about Tommy, likely not realising how much they had also been manipulated by Dream.) Technoblade gently encourages Tommy to be more violent and wants him to help blow up L’Manburg. 

This is where Tommy’s fear about becoming more like Wilbur come into play. Tommy did not want to become a bad guy - he’d had nightmares about it even. But in his time with Technoblade, after how helpless he’d been during his exile, being given some power lead Tommy to start lashing out more violently, he began to get more aggressive - alarmingly so even. Technoblade’s path was one of revenge, dealing with his own pain by causing others to suffer (for noble goals, fighting corruption etc I don’t want to get sidetracked though this is about Tommy). Technoblade’s presence was helpful to Tommy, helping him to get over much of his fear but he still lacked in agency and still felt lonely knowing he hadn’t made up with his friends.

Tommy finally came to his senses at the festival, where he realised he was fighting his best friend and putting his personal attachments - his discs - over Tubbo. And that was wrong. He realised he was becoming just the sort of person he didn’t want to be - he had been on the path to becoming like Wilbur. And he rejected that path. He wasn’t going to be a bad guy. Just because he was hurt didn’t justify hurting others. So he reconciled and once more committed to protecting L’Manburg, having put his personal desires aside. It seemed like he’d put himself into the role of selfless hero yet again.

And he failed. Again. 

Dream tells him how it was a fun game to him. And how their story was not over. Tommy though, had become extremely tired of it. He didn’t want to play Dream’s game. 

They meet up again. And again, Dream talks to Tommy like he’s important - like he’s the key to everything. He wants Tommy to play the role of hero and has been manipulating events for a long time to keep pushing him, to keep taking things from him. Being a hero, which Dream believes Tommy wants, simply means playing along with Dream’s narrative.

Tommy, you want to be a hero, right? You want to be the hero of the server. And every hero needs an origin story, right? Batman had his parents, Spiderman had uncle Ben, you have Tubbo, right? 

In the end, Tommy refuses to play Dream’s game anymore though. He called for help and got saved by everyone else. Then he killed Dream twice and had him locked away for good.

And once more, Tommy decided to do things for himself again. He decided to live peacefully, working on a project, talking to various people on the server and trying to avoid making waves and getting into any more conflict. It’s a good end.

He rejected Wilbur’s path and he defied Technoblade’s predictions and he didn’t lose his best friend to Dream. And now Tommy’s trying to avoid playing the role of hero anymore. It’s not a title he ever gave himself but one thrust upon him. Yet it’s one he’s keenly aware of. And one that, despite everything, he can fulfil.

Tommy’s arc has been in some respects about defying the expectations of others - but he also can’t help but fight for the things he loves. He realises his troubles were not that his friends didn’t care or that he had to play a role but that his life was being controlled by Dream and now he’s free of that. No longer is he so weighed down by expectations but when there is a sufficiently threatening enemy, he has not lost his determination to challenge it. 

[stxleslyds]

you know how dc keeps forcing this sudden "we're a family" narrative out of nowhere? I'd love batfam content but years of hurt among them make the recent content seem unearned.

bc you know more about dick and jason than the others, how do you think they would realistically become family to each other, or would it even be in character for them to be the "bros" they're written as now?

Oh anon, this question is amazing, I love it! I saw it when I woke up and since then my brain has been brewing this answer, I was thinking about it as I brushed my teeth and as I was making breakfast, and now I am ready to give you the answer, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed thinking/writing about it!

DC keeps forcing the wrong relationships, and they keep forcing the wrong centre of this supposed family, they make it out to be the Bat-Family when in reality the Bat (Bruce) should have never been invited to this party.

This is why I give you the… Dick-Family!

Oh yeah baby, I am going there. Dick is the centre of this “family”, he is the guy who is actually connected with everyone, he has been around for so long and he has been present when almost all of the remaining characters were introduced! Bruce might have come first but that guy has nothing on Dick Grayson.

Dick has cared and loved for everyone in this family in a true and beautiful way, no matter how much fanon and DC try to tell us otherwise. This man was an amazing son to Bruce and Alfred (my love for Alfred and Dick is brought to you by @hood-ex), a fantastic brother to Jason, Tim and Cass as well as a phenomenal father/older brother to Damian.

Dick Grayson is the centre of this whole thing, and thanks to DC now being an Omniverse I will be able to explain my line of thoughts. But first let me clear some ideas up.

The way I see it Jason would only get along good enough with Dick. I am not here for Jason and Tim having brunch together (honestly, Lobdell, what were you thinking), Jason never cared for Tim, and then writers that didn’t know how the Red Hood worked made him try to kill Tim so, to me, that relationship is non-existent, Jason doesn’t really perceive Tim (yet).

Jason and Damian, listen, I know that there is this fanon theory that Jason knew and cared for Damian while he was in the League, but that is just fanon talk and it doesn’t really fit in canon either. Jason wasn’t really capable of doing much other than fight, and after he was put in the Lazarus Pit he either had to leave because Ra’s wanted to kill him or Talia took him to the All-Castle. So, Jason’s only real interactions with Damian would be when Jason was written as a crazy, blood thirsty dude that actually tried to harm a child. So, him and Damian wouldn’t really have a good relationship (yet).

Jason and Cass… that’s just a no. Jason and Barbara, I mean Barbara was older than Dick when she first met Jason, so they wouldn’t have much of a relationship.

Now, lets move on to how I will make the Dick-Family work.

Dick (bless him) actually talks and listens to people, unlike Bruce, so the change would start there. Let’s set the timeline, I will stand right after the events of Under the Red Hood. Bruce just chose saving Joker over letting Jason kill the Joker and the building they were in exploded.

Batman keeps on being himself (trash) and Jason, having survived the explosion, moves on to keep on building his empire. He really wants to control the drug trade in Gotham, so he works on that, he slowly but surely takes his place as a drug lord again and is a constant pain in Black Mask’s ass.

While Jason is doing that, Dick is trying to put together his life after Bludhaven was attacked with Chemo. Let’s say that Bludhaven isn’t completely erased from the map but he does have to leave so the city can be re-built. He goes to Gotham, where the Red Hood works.

Let’s say that Alfred told Dick who was under the Red Hood, so Dick being a good brother goes looking for Jason. Their first interaction out of the mask wouldn’t be nice, Jason barely remembers his life before the pit and he really is convinced that Dick is the absolute worst.

But then Jason being a nosy man would make an appearance, for some reason, let’s say that he hacks into the Batcave and when he does that he finds some footage… The footage in question would be the one which shows Bruce punching Dick and sort of blaming him for Jason’s death. (Oh yeah, I am going there). The footage will make a memory come to mind, Dick taking Jason on a skying trip.

So, the next time that Dick and Jason see each other is because Jason went looking for Dick and here is where these two actually talk. The way I see it, Dick is more flexible with the no killing rule, he has worked many times with people that are villains or that just have different ways of doing things. So, I think that he would understand where Jason’s coming from with his ideas. As they begin to understand one another Jason begins to recover more and more memories from before the Pit.

They get together once a week and they chat about life as well as vigilante stuff. They become friends.

At the same time Dick is also very good friends with Tim and also acts like the amazing big brother he is with him. They chat, they sometimes work together and one day they come across a very complicated situation involving a new drug being introduced in Gotham.

Dick would call Jason and now both of them and Tim are reunited in a safe house working together so this new drug doesn’t fall in the wrong hands. Jason and Tim wouldn’t really like each other. Both of them are there for Dick and because they have to get the job done.

That’s how I see Dick forming the Dick-Family unconsciously. Hell, I will introduce Barbara now. Do you guys remember that in UtRH Barbara was mad with Bruce and didn’t want to work with him but she was still in contact with Dick? Well, I am using that so it can fit my narrative.

Dick, Jason and Tim need more intel so Dick calls Oracle (real Oracle) and because Barbara trusts Dick she works with them.

Here is where it gets interesting, through Barbara, Dick meets Cass, through Tim he meets Stephanie. You see that Dick’s connections are leading him to form a group of people. Cass and Stephanie are trained by Babs and Dick and they become the new Batgirls.

As all of that keeps developing Jason and Dick become “partners in crime” they help each other, they start building a brotherly relationship again. Although Jason refuses to say that out loud.

Then comes in Damian, a difficult child if there has ever been one but he has Bruce so Dick doesn’t have to jump in that fast… right?

Oh brother! Bruce is dead (omg what would we do? Battle for the cowl maybe? No!). with Bruce gone there is only one person who can take his place and everyone knows it has to be Dick.

Dick would feel a lot of things as he is taking Bruce’s place as Batman but he has a group of people ready to back him up (Alfred, Jason, Tim, Babs, Cass, Steph), and he also has to take care of Damian, he is a child and with his father gone then maybe his mother would want to take him back to the League of Assassins, Dick obviously doesn’t want that so he talks to Tim and tells him that he sees him as his equal and that he has a plan to make Damian stay and it involves making Damian his new Robin.

Tim would obviously be sad and a little hurt, but he understands Dick’s decision because they talked about it and Dick actually took the time to explain why he was doing what he was doing (really DC half of the problems you guys come up could be fixed in seconds if people would only take some time to just TALK!).

Dick and Damian work as Batman and Robin and Dick starts assuming the position of his father. They would live with Alfred in the penthouse and maybe Tim will join them from time to time (when he wasn’t busy with Young Justice/Teen Titans stuff). Slowly Dick and Damian will become the Dynamic Duo that we love today.

So, Dick would have his own Robin, Oracle (who is also managing her own team with Black Canary and (why not) the Batgirls), Red Robin and Red Hood working with him if he needs them. They are always a call away. Jason is the most difficult to reach and he will only involve himself in that kind of drama if its about controlling the drug trade or scaring the living shit out of some very shady people.

So, Red Hood wouldn’t be working with the new (and improved) Batman but Jason would hang out with Dick sometimes.

From there they build up. Dick renovates Arkham Asylum and makes it work they way that it is supposed to work. He might also recruit Catwoman when he needs someone really sneaky, they have known each other for so long, I bet Selina loves Dick, she would certainly help him out.

But as all things do, this happy and well-connected Dick-Family is disrupted when Bruce comes back, he inserts himself slowly back into his role as Batman and as he does that Dick starts to move away from it.

But Dick’s connections are strong and well cared for, so, even when he goes back to Bludhaven and starts fresh (again) as Nightwing those connections remain. Oracle still gives him intel, Robin and Red Robin come over to Bludhaven to patrol, maybe they even have their own rooms at Dick’s place.

With Bludhaven functioning again, all of the terrible people that were working there also come back, maybe some of them never left and they have been corrupting the city from its very core. So, when Jason tells Dick that he would like to expand his operations to Bludhaven, Dick says yes, as long as Jason keeps him updated on his work and also lets him know what is going on.

I think it works! What do you guys think so far?

From then on with the whole Dick-Family being connected and strong I think they can actually act and solve their problems as a family. All those arcs that didn’t work very well because Bruce was in the middle of it being a jerk, I think they will work if Dick is at the centre of it. Let’s say that Bruce hid the fact that Joker knows their identities and all that, with such a strong family the second that the Joker tries to manipulate Jason into believing that he created him, Dick will come out of the shadows and shut that bullshit down. If Joker tries to do something to the Circus, then the Birds of Prey and the Robins will be there in seconds helping Dick.

The Court of Owls, those little shits wouldn’t stand a chance against this team, this force of nature! Jason would be the one working from afar because you know my boy wouldn’t be subjected to the “no-killing” rule but if he does it, he has to do it away from the children (Damian) and away from Cass, if he doesn’t want to know real trouble. (He probably arranged those things with Dick a long time ago and he is happy with it).

Now, please forgive me but for angst reasons I will actually let the events of, Batman Incorporated #8, Forever Evil, Nightwing #30 and Spyral run its course.

Let me explain, after Damian’s death Dick holds the Dick-Family together, as well as Bruce because he is amazing like that, but then after Dick supposedly dies, things change just a little bit. Jason would retreat back to his own corner because the only thing attaching him to the Dick-Family was Dick but he would also keep his eyes open and he might also have a direct line with Oracle if things go south.

Aside from Jason, I do see the others working on keeping their connections intact. When Damian eventually returns the land of the living, I can see all of them coming together even more because that’s what Dick would have wanted.

And then Dick will come back from Spyral and here is where the Dick-Family will show the “Bat-Family” why its superior to it in every aspect possible.

The Dick-Family will notice that something must have happened, Dick would never play dead and leave them like that, but Dick loves Bruce and he doesn’t want to tell them the truth, Bruce has no memories now and his family doesn’t deserve that kind of drama BUT Jason and Tim are suspicious, they know Dick at this point and they trust him so they firmly believe that he is hiding something to protect someone. And here is where life repeats itself. Let’s review the Batcave’s footage, yes, I did it again, I just love the fact that Bruce has footage of himself being the absolute worst to his kids, how does DC not use it! Anyway, Tim and Jason find the footage from the events of Nightwing #30 and suddenly the Dick-Family have their “Dick defence squad” jackets on and they are ready to party.

After all that Bruce eventually gets his memories back and he is held accountable for his actions. Also, around this time the events of Robin War would have already happened so Duke is also introduced. Dick lets him join and all that, and then Duke and Cass become besties and they work together.

And yeah, as Rebirth comes closer the Dick-Family would be more united than ever.

The end.

That is how I would have done it. But this way is slow, and DC wouldn’t be able to monetize it as much as they would want.

Jason wouldn’t be giving hugs and calling everyone their brother or sister, he will only get along with Dick and he would be professional with everyone else.

Tim and Damian would get along but they wouldn’t go for ice cream together on a sunny day. Steph and Damian would and so would Cass and Tim or Cass and Duke.

Oracle would work with Dick and the others as a side thing because her main thing would be the Birds of Prey, this time with Helena too.

Alfred would spend his time with Bruce but he would also be very aware of Dick and his influence on everyone around them. Bruce eventually would be integrated to the Dick-Family because Dick is a sweetheart but Dick would also make Bruce follow his rules, Dick is a little bean but he is also the most badass person in the room (whichever room) so you better listen to what he has to say.

The Dick-Family would be something that grows silently and doesn’t need a “Joker War” in order for them to be there for each other, they would try their best each step of the way and they will talk things out when mistakes are made.

This is the way that I see this family dynamic working.

I would even go as far as to say that Talia can be part of the Dick-Family because she is connected to three people, Dick, Damian and Jason.

Dick is the person with most connections in the DC Universe, the Titans, the Justice League, Deathstroke, they all have connections to this treasure of a man. If he needs help in Gotham or Bludhaven then he can call people from the “first circle”, if things are beyond a “street level” threat them he can call the Titans and if shit really hits the fan, Clark and the others are a call away.

Anyway, this was unnecessarily long, I am sorry about it but I am also not because I really don’t know how to answer your question without going on a long rant.

In conclusion the Bat-Family doesn’t work and sadly it wouldn’t work no matter how much they force it. These people don’t have connections, Bruce is not able to make connections between people. And DC has erased entire relationships that Dick used to have. I mean, they got rid of Dick and Tim being close brothers just so they could give us a shitty brunch between Tim and Jason? Only yesterday we saw a true and beautiful interaction between Dick and Damian.

DC is handling the “Bat-Family” in all the worst possible ways. It just doesn’t work.

They should have used Dick all those years ago and they shouldn’t have destroyed Jason’s characterization with Lobdell’s ideas.

So, sadly, my dear anon, I don’t see the Bat-Family as a in character thing for any of these people as they are written currently, but I hope that you enjoyed my version of it. May the Dick-Family bring everyone who reads about it a little joy!

[anxiousnerdwritings]

Yandere Injustice Superman x Hero!Fem!Reader

After Clark is tricked into murdering you and your guys’ unborn child and setting off a nuclear bomb, wiping out all of Metropolis, by the Joker, he kills him. Leading a revolt against Batman and his ideals of not killing criminals, Clark is followed by heroes and villains alike. Whether out of having a mutual mindset or having been threatened by Clark and the others, is here nor there. Overall Clark becomes a tyrant, doing all he can to take control of everything. It’s either his side or death.

You and your fellow Justice League members are about to take care of another nuclear bomb, when you’re all swept up in some sort of after blast or something. When you are able to register where you are, it looks like what you’ve seen everyday, but more corrupt and in shambles. 

You’re separated from all of your teammates, deciding to stay out of sight, having a terrible gut feeling, you stay hidden in the shadows. Sneaking around and remaining cautious of anyone you see or come across. When you do see someone, you recognize them as Hal Jordan, but he’s clad in all yellow. ‘That doesn’t make any sense… Hal hates yellow and what it stands for.’  Not trusting him and the new color coordination, you keep to yourself.

You soon come across Bruce and he’s surrounded by all these people. Wanting to rush to his side and help him, you sink deeper into your hiding spot. Knowing better than to throw yourself into unknown territory. You watch as Bruce is almost apprehended before using his utility belt to get out away. You have to keep yourself from cheering for him, to not give away your location. 

Once they finally do catch Bruce, their surprised to see that his DNA is made up differently then their Bruce’s, who’s still on the loose somewhere. Calling Lex Luthor, Clark asks about the possibility of there being other “copies” of themselves. He then prods about the possibility of another you existing. But is met with a disappointing answer, “I think that may be pushing it, Clark.”   

After hearing word of there being duplicates of themselves, Clark and the others gather around and look into the surrounding camera footage of the city. They’re shocked to see other versions of themselves, so everyone is given orders to bring in their counterparts. As Clark continues looking through the footage some more, he’s stunned to see a sliver of footage of you sneaking around the city streets. 

He’s so overcome with emotion, that he doesn’t register Diana trying to get his attention. Turning to her, all he can see is your face. “Y/n…” Hearing your name, Diana is confused. She thought he’d gotten over worked through your death, and was trying to focus on being with her now.This just causes a whole new slew of problems for Diana if your back in the picture. She’s not happy at all. 

You end up coming across Bruce, but this one tells you that he’s not your Bruce. Telling you all about what happened before you guys got there and what brought you all there. You’re in shock, hearing that Clark would just do a 180 like that. It does make you miss your own Clark back at home. Bruce makes sure to tell you not to let Clark find out about you being here. “He won’t let you go this time.”  

Clark is so giddy and unbelievably happy that he’ll get a second chance with. This time you the both of will be a happy family, and welcome a beautiful baby into the world. Just like you would have done once before. He just can’t wait to have you back in his arms, safe and alive. 

Ever since that fateful day, when you and your child were taken from him, he’d changed. He didn’t want to do good by putting away the bad guys anymore, he wanted the bad guys gone forever. He wanted them dead. He didn’t want what happened to you, to happen again. 

Watching the same little bit of footage of you on loop, repeatedly back and forth, Clark doesn’t pay any mind to Diana coming in. Seeing what has his attention, Diana is fed up with seeing your face. She had to put up with Clark and you being together previously, you even getting pregnant, and then hearing all about your death and how much he missed you and loved you. How he’d never forget you or take another lover. But he did, he had her. He was just getting to the point of being all hers, but you just had to come back. Leaving in a huff, Diana knows what she has to do. 

You and your fellow Justice League members from your universe are helping the other Bruce with his plan to stop the other Clark. But you’re all interrupted by the other versions of yourselves. Another Diana, Hal, and a few villains start attacking. You all begin to fight. The other Diana has her eyes on you the whole time. taking out your Diana she stalks her way to you. 

She launches herself at you and is a split second from beheading you, she’s thrown off of you. Looking up from where she just was on top of you, you see Clark hovering above you, giving you gentle smile. Before he can say anything Diana is back up and rushing for you again. But is stopped by Clark once again grabbing her, this time he keeps his grip on her. “What do you think you’re doing Diana?”  “I’m trying to salvage what we have Clark!”  “That won’t be necessary. I don’t need nor want you. Never did.” With that said, Clark uses his heat vision to lazer through her head. 

 Clark slowly walks over to where you’re laying, hurt and exhausted from the fighting. “I’m so sorry about Diana. She wasn’t worth any of this.” Gently picking you up, trying not to hurt you anymore than you already are, Clark flies off with you. 

Waking up, your in a familiar room, your’s and Clark's’ bedroom in your shared home. But it feels off. Hearing the door open, you sit up to see Clark coming in with breakfast, sitting down beside you, he gives you a loving kiss on the lips. “Clark, what happened? Where am I?” “Home, my love. Right where you belong” 

[mochegato]

Hope on Board

Chapter 25 – Out of Time

Chapter 1     Chapter 24

Dick woke up to a far too early knocking, more like pounding, on his door.  He and Jim Gordon had been up half the night talking about the corruption in the police force and whether Dick should join, before deciding he could make a difference if he did.  He would be able to help Jim slowly weed out the corruption if he was working with him from the inside.  They’d even filled out all his applications for the Police Academy, starting in a month. He would have to be away from Marinette and the twins during the day, but he would be able to come home to them every night.  If she let him.  And she would know where he was.

But all that talk meant he had only gotten a few hours of sleep last night and he was dead tired this morning.  He really just wanted to go back to sleep, but the pounding on the door continued unabated.  He groaned and made his way to the door.  “Answer your damn phone, asshole,” Jason growled at him, pushing past him to look around the room.  “We’re fucking thrilled if you and Pixie got back together, but let us know you both aren’t dead.”

Dick shook his head and scrunched his face in confusion. “That we’re what?  I haven’t gotten to talk with Marinette yet.  I’m hoping that’s how it will go, but I think that’s probably overly optimistic.”

Jason’s expression turned in an instant from annoyed to scared.  It was not a look he was used to seeing on Jason’s face.  Jason never got scared, or if he did, he never showed it.  “Pixie is here, right?” he asked again, enunciating each word clearly.  “She’s with you.”

“No…  I just woke up.  I was talking with Commissioner Gordon all night.  Why would you think she was with me?” Dick shook his head again, trying to make sense of what he was saying.  Had Marinette planned on meeting him here?  Maybe she came back and fell asleep.  He ran to her bedroom to check, but the room was exactly as it had been for the past few weeks.  No sign of Marinette.  He returned to the living room and shook his head.

“Shit!”  Jason looked around desperately.

“Tell me what is going on right now.  Why did you think Marinette was with me?” Dick asked carefully.  His breathing became strained.  This isn’t the way this was supposed to go.  He had saved her.  He had stopped the Court of Owls.  He stopped their plot.  She was safe.

Jason pulled out his phone and called Tim, talking as he did, without bothering to acknowledge Tim when he answered and putting him on speaker as soon as he did.  “She’s missed all her appointments today.  Adrien said she said she was going to talk with you today.  She isn’t in Adrien’s apartment or Wayne Enterprises. Her phone is in her studio, but she isn’t,” Jason answered slowly, eyes darting around as if calculating something. “We figured she must be here.”

“We didn’t set the time yet.  I haven’t heard from her.  When was the last time someone saw her?” Dick asked frantically, running to his bedroom to start getting dressed.

“I’m going to start going through security footage around Adrien’s apartment and her studio,” Tim reported.

Jason’s phone started flashing with another call. “Patching Adrien into the call too,” he informed them and pushed a few buttons to enable it.  “Adrien, tell me you have something.”

Adrien’s voice hesitated for a moment.  Dick and Jason shared an apprehensive look.  “I have something, but it’s bad…  Someone told me you’d know how to get in contact with Batman?”

Jason froze and looked up at Dick with a panicked expression.  There was no way that was good.  “I think we might have a way to contact Batman, why?”

“I know where she is, but we’re going to need Batman and his team to get her back.”  There was barely a quiver to Adrien’s voice as he spoke, but years of training made it come across as clear as glass to the others on the call.

“Where is she?” Dick yelled into the phone.

“Dick?  They don’t have you?  That’s good… I guess.  It means they only wanted her… Actually, no, wait, maybe that’s worse,” Adrien prattled.

“Who is they?” Dick demanded.

“Some people with owl masks.”  There was a hedge in his voice as though he didn’t think they would believe him.

Dick stopped breathing.  The Court had taken Marinette.  No, no, no, no.  He had stopped them.  He had made sure Marinette was safe.  He had protected her from them.  That’s what the past few months of hell had all been about.

“You can get ahold of Batman, right?” Adrien asked again, in a more strained voice.  “I know someone who’d like to talk to him.”

Jason furrowed his brow and looked to Dick to see if he had any ideas.  “Who?”

“Chat Noir.”

Jason looked at Dick communicating their intentions and agreement through minute body quirks and purposeful looks.  “We can get ahold of someone.  We will make sure someone is on the top of the Wayne Enterprises building in half an hour.  Is that enough time for him?”

“He’ll be there,” Adrien confirmed confidently.

Jason cut Adrien’s connection and glared at the floor in thought.  “Why would they want Marinette?”

“The plot you stopped was all about the power grid, wasn’t it?” Tim interjected.  “Trying to run up prices for some of their members who owned supply and power companies?”

“Yeah…” Dick answered uncertainly.

“Then there was no reason for them to be at the Stone concert, right?  Those execs were from Netflix, no way associated with this,” Tim elaborated.

Dick drew in a deep breath and cursed.  “They were there watching Marinette.  They were planning this all along.  They wanted Marinette from the beginning.  Why?”

“Everyone go get suited up.  Get there as soon as possible.  I’ll text the others,” Jason stated, moving quickly toward the door so he could get to his apartment.

<><><><><> 

Batman, Red Robin, Signal, and Red Hood made it to the rooftop with time to spare, since they were already close to their costumes. Nightwing, Black Bat, Spoiler, and Robin had further to go to get to their costumes and had to trickle into the meeting, but they kept track of the conversation through the coms until they could be there in person.

“Chat Noir.” Batman stepped forward and nodded.

“Batman.  Bats and Birds.” Chat Noir nodded to Batman and the rest of the bats.  “I was thinking there would be more.”

“They’re on their way but listening in,” Batman assured him briskly.  “Let’s start with how do you know where she is?”

Chat looked over to the edge of the building at the sound of two sets of boots landing, he continued to speak as he silently acknowledged Nightwing and Robin.  “I’ve been keeping a close eye on Marinette since the pharmacy incident.  You might say I’ve had a catbug on her… with her permission of course.  She sent the scout to find me when she thought they were in her final location.  They didn’t seem interested in immediately harming her or the scout would have stayed.  We have time, I just don’t know how much.”

“Do you know how she was taken?” Batman asked.

Chat nodded, annoyance settling in his expression as he did. “A couple men dressed as cops approached her at her studio and said something happened to Dick, her boyfriend… kind of… it’s complicated.  She went with them.  By the time she figured out they were not headed to the hospital, there was a knife digging into her bump.”

“Any ideas on why they took Pi… her?” Red Hood broke in.

“They said something about a Grayson, so I have to imagine it’s to get at Dick Grayson, the babies’ father, for some reason or to get her twins perhaps for ransom.  I don’t suppose you have any ideas why they would want to get back at Dick, would you?  Is he a member?  Did he double cross them?” Chat mused.

“What?” Nightwing exclaimed.  “No!”

“Well…” Spoiler hedged as she and Black Bat landed.

“Dick Grayson didn’t do anything to them,” Nightwing gritted out.

Chat Noir studied Nightwing carefully then suddenly whipped his head over to Red Hood, running his eyes over him in a calculated manner and moving quickly to do the same to Red Robin.  “Fuck.  That’s why he said you guys would know how to get in contact with Batman.  That’s why you’ve been disappearing.” He stuck an accusatory finger in Nightwing’s direction.  “Why the fuck didn’t you just tell her that, you fucking dumbass!”

“See!  Even the catman agrees.” Red Hood exclaimed.

“She wasn’t supposed to get stressed and I didn’t want her knowing I was putting my life in danger every night, constantly,” Nightwing attempted to defend himself, but even to himself, his voice sounded unsure.

“She put up with me for years.  She is perhaps the world’s foremost expert in dealing with idiots who constantly put their lives in danger,” Chat exclaimed exasperated.  He had to have known that.  Marinette had talked to him about how frustrated she had gotten with Chat.  Hell, he was there for some of those conversations with Dick, while she glared at Chat the whole time.

“You think memories of that didn’t add stress?” Nightwing exploded, stalking slowly toward Chat as he spoke.  “She still has nightmares about it.  And pregnancy hormones make nightmares even more realistic. You weren’t there almost every night when she woke up crying because she saw you sacrificing yourself in new ways or when she dreamt it was me instead of you.  And the last one she had before our fight…  She sobbed almost nonstop for almost an hour.  I was terrified for her.”

“And you weren’t there when she was sobbing because you said you loved her then ran away like she didn’t matter,” Adrien returned just as angrily, standing his ground against Nightwing.  “Or when she broke down because she couldn’t trust you anymore. Because you spent months lying to her. Not because you had a secret. Secrets she understands, intimately. Because she trusted you and you lied and without an explanation, she had to assume you lied about everything.”

“I was protecting her from the Court of Owls,” Dick yelled.

“So that’s what the cult is called?  Bang up job, there.”  Chat growled back.  He moved away to collect his thoughts and deescalate the situation.  Fighting now wouldn’t help Marinette.  They needed to work together to rescue her.  Finally, he sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead like he was trying to ward off a migraine.  “She owes me a hundred euros for this.  So, what’s these guys’ deal?  Do they know who you are or are they asking for ransom?”

“We don’t think they know who he is, but ransom isn’t really their deal either,” Red Robin answered.

“Why would they want her otherwise?” Signal asked.

Chat opened his mouth a few times before cocking his head to the side and furrowing his brow and grimacing as if trying to figure out how to say what he was thinking.  “Could they know about… her association with the Paris heroes?”

“What exactly is her association with them?” Batman asked

Chat opened his mouth and closed it quickly.  “That sounds like a question for Marinette.”

“Well she isn’t fucking here is she?” Red Hood pointed out curtly.

“Close.  Very close,” he answered carefully.

“Clearly,” Spoiler huffed motioning to Chat.

“Closer than that.” He grimaced.  He was definitely skirting the line of flat out telling her secrets, but if it saved her babies, he was sure she would be okay with it. He just wasn’t sure yet if it actually related at all.  “But I don’t know how they could have found out.  She hasn’t been around any costumed heroes in years.”

“And they said this was about Grayson,” Robin pointed out.  “It is far more likely they know Grayson’s identity and this is punishment for stopping them.”

“If they’ve been tracking her since the concert, maybe earlier, it isn’t just about ruining their plans,” Red Robin clarified.

“They were doing what?” Chat’s head whipped around to look at him.

“I saw a talon at the Stone concert.  That’s why I disappeared.  I was investigating,” Nighwing explained distractedly.  “We can figure out the reason later.  Let’s focus on freeing her, making sure she’s okay.  You said you know where she is.  She’s probably terrified, and she doesn’t need more nightmares.”

“Yeah, she’s being held under here,” he pushed a few buttons on his baton and sent the location to the Bats.

“How did you do that?” Signal asked with amazement in his voice.

“Magic,” Chat answered, flaring out his fingers.  

“So what’s the plan?” Stephanie asked.

“Oracle do you have the building layout?” Batman asked into the coms.

“I’m having trouble getting in.  It looks like they have several layers of security and self-contained power.  It might take me a bit,” Oracle responded.

“We wait to see if we can get insight into the building then create the plan.  Our tech person is having difficulty getting in,” Batman stated so Chat could hear.

Chat nodded and teetered back and forth from his toes to his heels, anxiety ramping up in the silence.  “So, any tips or tricks I should know before fighting these guys, if that’s what’s happening?”

“The guys with glowing yellow eyes are highly trained. The rest will try to kill you, but they’re like drunken toddlers, it’s the yellow eyed bastards you have to watch out for,” Red Hood answered as he leaned against the half-wall running along the edge of the building.

“They’re not drunken toddlers.  They’re dangerous too,” Batman emphasized affronted.  He’d fought those guys in a group.  They had almost overpowered him.

“Okay fine,” Red Hood waved him off, “but not like the talons.”

“Any weaknesses for those yellow eyed talon guys?” Chat asked apprehensively.

“Not really.  They’re highly trained, highly skilled, superhuman speed, superhuman healing,’ Nightwing answered.

“Fuck,” Chat answered with a whistle.

“Appropriate response,” Red Robin nodded.

“They need a substance to keep healing,” Batman corrected.

“So if we injure enough of them they won’t have enough substance for everyone?” Chat offered.

“Not the route I want to go, but yeah,” Signal agreed.

“And cold.  They’re susceptible to cold,” Batman added.

“Cold?” Chat clarified, suddenly listening very intently.

“Yeah, it interferes with their healing,” Red Hood explained.  “Makes it so their injuries stick.”

“So if we could make it freezing cold down there…” Chat trailed off.

“Doesn’t have to be the whole place, just where the talons are,” Red Robin mused out loud.  “There likely won’t be many, if any.  They can’t be expecting us yet.  They were too careful.  If it wasn’t for Chat’s scout, we’d have no idea.  But yes, if you can make them cold, we’d have a better chance.”

Chat stopped and looked contemplative for a few moments. “Let me make a quick call.”  He turned around and walked a few steps away. After a few minutes he returned. “Snowflake will be here in 35 minutes.”

“The ice chick from New York?” Red Hood asked.

Chat nodded in response.  Damian eyed him suspiciously.  “That’s awfully quick.”

“She’s going to catch a ride with Uncanny Valley and Uncanny will be able to hack into their security as soon as she gets here.  She just has to be close.  We can get the plans from her and break into their security system.”

“How can she do that?  No offense to your friend, but if Oracle can’t do it, it’s unlikely anybody else would be able to so quickly,” Red Robin asked.

“Thank you,” Oracle cut in.

“Uhhh… magic?”  Chat offered with less enthusiasm than before.

“Let’s move to a closer position while we wait.  We’ll come up with a plan once we have more information,” Batman said already taking out his grappling hook.  “We have family to save.”

Chapter 26

Tags:

@dickinette-february @demonicbusiness @ichigorose @iloontjeboontje @ladybug-182 @toodaloo-kangaroo @dast218 @golden-promises @trippingovermyfeet @emimar7 @laurcad123 @lady-bee-fechin @thewitchwhowaited @redscarlet95 @jayjayspixiepop

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Satisfied, Part 18

First

Previous

Next

~~~

The entire bat family looked surprised.

“But -- but you didn’t try and kill Hawkmoth!” Said Red Robin after a few minutes of giving her a wide-eyed stare.

She rolled her eyes. “That’s because I couldn’t. We’re pretty much indestructible in these suits and Chat wasn’t able to bring himself to cataclysm him. It took four years, do you really think I wouldn’t have preferred to just take out a gun and fu --.”

“Y’know, just once I’d like one of my future children to say ‘oh, hey, actually I think murder is a bad thing’. Is that too much to ask?” Batman said, squeezing his eyes shut.

She raised her eyebrows. “’Future children’? I don’t want to be adopte --.”

Nightwing rested a hand on her shoulder. “Shhh, it’s going to end up happening, it’s better if you just accept it.”

“I love her,” said Red Hood with a wide grin. “Lay off of her guys. I’m mentoring this one.”

Red Robin sighed. “Not happening.”

“Do I get a say in any of this?” Marinette said, shrugging the hand off of her shoulder and rubbing where it had been for a bug of some sort. Nothing. At least they weren’t that bad. “It’s the best option.”

Batman held his hands up for silence, and then turned to her and spoke slowly, as if hoping it would stick better if he enunciated every letter: “If we kill him then we’ll be just as bad as him.”

She stared at him for a long time after this, doing mental gymnastics to figure out just what his perspective could be. “Okay, first of all, Kant --.”

“Don’t bother with bats,” said Red Hood, striding over and slinging his arm around her shoulders. “He’s not going to listen.”

Robin seemed especially bitter about the whole ordeal, stewing between Nightwing and Batman, until he finally snapped his fingers. “Oh! But you didn’t kill Hawkmoth when you took his miraculous!”

The bat family reeled back in shock and stared at their youngest like he’d grown a second head.

Red Hood seemed particularly offended. “Did bats get to you, too?”

Robin shook his head. “I just think she’s being inconsistent and a hypocrite.”

“Alright. First of all: the reason I didn’t bother with killing him afterward is because the guy relied so much on his miraculous that it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to do anything. If he broke out of jail he’d have a little bit of fight training and a secretary. Second of all: screw you!”

Red Hood pretended to wipe away a tear. “Best new sister yet.”

She grinned and finally leaned into him. “Thanks. I try.” Her smile dropped as she looked at the rest of the bat family. “As the only one to permanently defeat anyone, don’t you think I should get a bigger say in this?”

Robin raised his eyebrows and gave her the first smile she’d ever gotten from him, though it was gone quickly. Nightwing brought a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh. Red Robin wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was laughing.

Batman seemed less amused, eyes narrowed. “How about we put it to a vote. Everyone who agrees with Ladybug, stand next to her. Everyone who agrees with me, stand here.”

Red Hood remained at her side, but Nightwing and Red Robin stepped closer to their father. Everyone’s eyes fell on Robin, who was looking between the two sides with a conflicted expression.

Then he took a spot by Red Hood.

Three on three. Great.

Marinette sighed. “This is why you don’t do votes with even numbers.”

They all looked at each other awkwardly. What do you do when you say you’re going to vote and then tie? It doesn’t really happen a lot, and even less so when it came to topics such as murder.

She sighed. “Fine, fine. If you can give an actually good option that doesn’t involve murder, I’d love to hear it.”

“We throw him in Arkham.”

“Arkham?”

“Yes.”

“The asylum where he’s broken out of a million times?”

“Yes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Great idea, but maybe we need something more permanent.”

“It’s not going to work, Ladybug,” said Nightwing with a shrug. “Man always comes back. I killed Joker myself once, Batman saved him, you just kind of have to accept that the man isn’t going to die.”

“Well, maybe if he didn’t save him --!” she began.

“We won’t be killing him and that’s final!” Said Batman.

All the kids looked at each other warily. The man’s voice had a dangerous sense of finality to it.

Marinette sighed and bit the inside of her cheek. “Fine. If we do it your way we’d have to lock up every major criminal in Gotham to make sure he couldn’t get out. Do you have some sort of plan for it?”

Red Robin raised his hand. “I do. You’re pretty new and no rogues have any clue what you sound, or even really look, like.”

She raised her eyebrows. “My ladybug costume is pretty recognizable.”

“True, no one else would wear something that tacky,” said Robin.

She stared at him for a second, anger flickering in her eyes. “Have you seen yourself, Mr. Traffic Light?”

Before they could argue any more, Red Robin cut in: “You mentioned taking Hawkmoth and Mayura’s miraculi. Try using one of those instead.”

She bit down on the inside of her cheek. Those were notoriously hard to corrupt and use for evil, and she didn’t want to put them through that again so soon. “I’ll think of something else, but fine. I’m going to become someone else so I can... have a different outfit?”

“We want you to get close to the Rogues.”

After another hour of going through their plans, then an extra few minutes to make sure everyone jotted it down, they finally knew what they were going to do.

Then she was handed a small black object. She blinked and looked up at Batman. “Um...?”

“It’s a way to communicate with us. Just press down and we’ll hear both you and whatever you’re hearing.”

“Is it bugged?”

“No. Nightwing tried, but if you want your privacy then you’re allowed it.”

She spun the small orb between her fingers and slowly placed it in her ear. She pressed down. “TESTING!” She yelled and watched everyone wince and hold their own ears. She smirked. “Great, I love it, thanks.”

“I don’t know what you were talking about, Robin, she’s great,” said Red Hood with an even wider grin once his head had stopped twanging painfully.

“Aw, he talks about me?” She cooed, resting a hand over her heart.

Red Robin grinned, still rubbing his temples a little bit, but he would never miss out on a chance to mess with his brother, so he spoke up: “Hardly ever stops, to be honest.”

“Ladybug this, Ladybug that. It got annoying,” said Nightwing with a small smirk playing across his face.

Then everyone finally broke into laughter as the poor kid began to flush bright red. “That’s just because she sucks! Stop making it sound like that!”

Needless to say, they only laughed harder.

With that they began to break off into groups. Red Robin and Robin went to arguing over who knows what. Nightwing and Batman were discussing the logistics of their plan. Now she was alone with Red Hood, who’s smile didn’t waver.

She glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. “Gun?”

He gave her shoulder a small squeeze. “Gun.”

~~~

My brain at 3am: Miraculous But Actually Good

My current fic: ??

~

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[thevindicativevordan]

Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

[toflyandfall]

I just saw a photo of "What persona. Dick Grayson isn't a mask. Not like Bruce Wayne is" from Detective Comics #725 and I find it interesting that Dick and the rest of the bats, with the exception of Bruce, don't wear "masks" per se. They are who they are with or without the domino mask/helmet. The only time I can really think of Dick faking things is when he pretended to be an incompetent BPD cop. How was he able to avoid creating and living, half the time, through a "persona" like "Brucie"?

Oooh, this is a lovely, meaty question.  There’s a lot more analysis of Bruce than I planned because let’s be real, it’s kinda weirder for a guy to run around with half a dozen personas than for someone else to run around as himself.  I hope you still find it interesting, but if you want to skip straight to the more Dick-centric stuff, head under the readmore.

A simple but significant factor is that Dick thrives on the company of people in a way that Bruce does not.  I suspect if you talk honestly to many introverts, you will find they too have an extroverted ‘mask’ they put on to the larger world, though probably not quite so extreme.

Another factor is that the civilian social circles Dick and Bruce travel in are vastly different.  Though they each have a reason for being in those circles, that difference itself enables Dick to escape much of the scrutiny that Bruce’s public identity undergoes, because he doesn’t frequently associate with the much more media-hounded elite.

An interesting thing here is that the large difference in social circles between their civilian lives is actually caused by their own personal similarities: they are 100% committed work-a-holics.  It’s just that they have differing civilian approaches to their goals.

I want to start with Bruce because as you point out, his use of persona is distinct among the bats and his reasons for using them in part explain why Dick and the other bats do not.

Bruce is a child of privilege, he has always lived a lifestyle of privilege, regardless of the tragedies that have occurred during it, and his default view of the world, through no fault of his own, is natively that of the extreme upper class.  This drastically influences his perspective and approach to change, and changing the world is his perpetual goal, the reason he put on the suit in the first place.

Bruce works a top-down society approach toward systemic change, and he works it all the time.  This is actually my favorite but woefully under-emphasized part of him: he is not just someone who punches people on the street ‘for justice’, he uses his company, his money, and his social position toward substantial systemic change. This post does a wonderful job covering the ways he does this through his corporations and personal wealth, as does this one.  I cannot recommend either enough because I constantly want to push even the most casual Batman fans to understand: Bruce Wayne is not just a violent punchy puncher man.  He is a traumatized person genuinely trying to use all his resources including himself to make the world safer.

Detective Comics #725

Bruce has many personas he maintains, and he uses all of them according to what suits his need--Batman for places the law can’t go, Bruce Wayne the CEO pushing for systemic changes, Matches Malone for street information, and Brucie the society high roller for society information and social influencing.  He is rarely ever not in a persona and simply ‘Bruce’.

His top-down perspective of enacting change are what dictated the usage and necessity of these personas. He has the means and capacity to basically disappear from society if he so chose--he in fact does so to train during his younger years so successfully they don’t even know how long he was actually gone. 

The Batman Files

So he doesn’t need the personas.  Not Bruce Wayne, CEO, or Brucie, or any of them really, to protect his identity.  That tells us that Brucie is a deliberate choice he made at some point.  He could have been a recluse billionaire Batman indefinitely.  Even though he fully has the status and means to not maintain a job or a persona or, let’s be frank, a life outside the mask at all, it’s his own work-a-holicness that led to the creation of his public personas.  He’s an obsessive strategist, so if Brucie is a choice, that leads us to why?

Bruce does many philanthropic things with his money, but he isn’t the only rich person around, especially not in a city as old and corrupt as Gotham.   But he’s one of the very few ones doing good with it.

The comic you mentioned has a very beautiful moment where Bruce touches on that, and in full context you can feel how consumed he is by this goal of creating the Gotham his parents would have wanted.  Batman mentions he never sees himself in that place, and the morbid interpretation is that the city kills him before he reaches it, but the hopeful interpretation is that in that shining city, Bruce Wayne and Batman and Brucie and all his masks will no longer be needed.

Detective Comics #725

Back in the old days they’d call it noblesse oblige: the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Thomas and Martha Wayne ingrained this feeling of responsibility into Bruce by example, and as all things related to them, he obsesses over it.  It urges him to fulfill expectations within segments of society he finds onorous for the betterment of society as a whole in order to carry out their unfinished works.

Enter Brucie.

Brucie serves a two-fold purpose.  Since Bruce has chosen to maintain personas among society, it becomes a false face to justify any oddities Batman might bring into the life of Bruce Wayne by setting himself up as a eccentric, popular social scion.  But that persona itself also allows him to manipulate the upper crust of society.

I have some insider perspective on the kind of society events Brucie attends.  They’re all about the who’s who of making connections, name-dropping and networking, and unspoken class-based elitism.  Charity events among the upper class have these things at the forefront and the cause is the background.  You don’t get your hands dirty, you don’t go out and make change yourself, you pay money to be socially seen and sometimes it happens to go towards a philanthropic cause.  If you want to raise money from the rich and keep people with deep pockets coming in the door, you have to have social currency yourself. This is where, and why, Brucie comes in.  I believe Brucie ws crafted to maintain Batman’s cover but still attempt to carry on his parents’ legacy to grease the wheels of the rich in the directions he chooses: one of generosity towards those less privileged. 

Superman/Batman #51

The inevitable flaw of Bruce’s approach to his personas and their philanthropy is that in a city rife with corruption, money distributed from the top has many opportunities to disappear well before it reaches the bottom.  As in many of ways they are complements to each other, Dick’s approach balances that out, because his approach to helping his fellow man starts out at the street level...literally.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Dick, we know, does not come from privilege.  His mother was from a middle class family before she joined the circus, and despite being world famous athletes, most circus workers are lower to middle class.  The people he grew up with, was comfortable with, were all working folk who expected everyone to pull their weight right alongside each other.  He enacts this everyone-together approach in almost all aspects and phases of his life. 

Batman #615

Even once he had settled into being Robin and adapted to living at the manor, he didn’t feel belonging to a culture of privilege, materialism, or high society. He preferred shotgun in the limo to chat with the driver to riding fancy in the back.  Once he was able to start making his own decisions about where and how he lived, despite having both Bruce’s money and then later inheriting a substantial amount of his own, he chose mostly lower-class communal places.

Batman Black and White #6

Dick also doesn’t see the value of throwing money at a problem when there is an option to fix it with his own hands.  We see this frequently, from building his own car instead of buying a finished one or outsourcing the work, to deciding the best way to clean out the BPD was to start at the bottom and work his way up (literally), to quitting college because his classes never got prioritized over crimesolving.  Most of his day jobs ended for similar reasons. 

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Despite the showmanship training, he gravitates away from spotlight on the rich and wealthy, who are notoriously the kind of people who do not get their hands dirty or go out and take care of things themselves, and prefers to find or build communities around the kind of people who do.

Finally, Dick is an extrovert.  He doesn’t need to act extroverted as Brucie does because he is extroverted.  He likes people and likes being around people.  Whether by conscious choice or not, he tends to put himself in situations where he is surrounded by people in nearly all aspects of his life.  He chooses apartment buildings whose occupants frequently pass each other on the stairs; jobs that involve interacting with many co-workers, patrons, or students; and collects superhero teammates like Boy Scout badges.  And all of these behaviors come very naturally to him.  

He doesn’t need a mask or a role or a persona for those kind of interactions; his mask is pre-supplied as “neighbor” or “co-worker” or “teacher” by the situations he puts himself in.  It helps make him an exemplary leader, because just by acting authentically to himself, he automatically builds up little communities around him any time he arrives somewhere.

Bruce, on the other hand, is an introvert.  For him, interacting with people isn’t easy, automatic, or comfortable unless it has a purpose, but as a strategist, he knows the necessity of human interaction as a catalyst to achieving dynamic change. So he adapts personas to suit people’s expectations.  Extroverts have more social currency; the life of the party can generate more resources than a brooding wallflower.  

So, it boils down to just a few elements: Dick believes in living and interacting at the street level to accomplish the things that he wants to, and he is extroverted enough that the level of social interaction that entails is not a burden to him.  He surrounds himself with the types of people he is more familiar or perhaps more comfortable with, which happens to keep him further out from the media’s eye than associating with the upper crust does. The lower profile is more incidental than intentional, but it lessens his need to have a cover story for every single bruise and lets him get away with even less of a ‘persona’.

Bruce, on the other hand, is introverted and follows a more classist view that systemic change needs to be effected from the top down.   His personas are more of a self-assumed duty than a necessity, as a way of trying to carry out his parents’ legacy.  Any of his children could have chosen to follow his path in business or the high society limelight, but the sense of obligation toward it is something personal to him that most of them don’t share.

[therealeagal]

Thoughts on Batman

DID YOU KNOW that Batman is the GOAT? That’s internet lingo for Greatest Of All Time. Bruce Wayne is richer than fifty Jeff Bezoses but still goes out to fight the good fight and he doesn’t afraid of anything.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say. “ AK-SHOO-UH-LEE Batman is a criminal! He’s a rich billionaire who beats up guys who are just-”

Going to have to stop you right there, with two counterpoints. 1: Shut the fuck up. 2: Go away.

Yes, those are my two counterpoints. Very compelling, wouldn’t you agree?

What I mean to say is, yes, Batman is a criminal. He’s a vigilante who operates outside of the law because the police in his home of Gotham City are varying degrees of corrupt and/or incompetent.

But he saves the world. He fights the bad guys and he doesn’t afraid of anything because he wants to make the world a better place. He does everything in his power.

You would think this would make him more popular than ever in this day and age, but all I ever see are boilerplate think-pieces (ones that lack any original thought, or indeed, any thought period) about how “AK-SHOO-UH-LEE BATMAN IS VIOLATING THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF THOSE QUOTE UNQUOTE “CRIMINALS” WHO ARE AK-SHOO-UH-LEE JUST TRYING TO GET BY IN THE WORLD AND AK-SHOO-UH-LEE RICH BILLIONAIRES ARE THE REAL VILLAINS OF SOCIETY“.

That kind of basic take is right up there with “AK-SHOO-UH-LEE SOMEONE WITH SUPERMAN’S POWERS WOULD BE A HORRIBLE PERSON BECAUSE AK-SHOO-UH-LEE NO ONE WOULD EVER AK-SHOO-UH-LEE  BE A GOOD PERSON THEY WOULD AK-SHOO-UH-LEE ABUSE THEIR POWERS”.

In real life there is no question that Batman’s methods would be unacceptable, and that we would all be better served if he put more of his money to combat systemic inequality (more than he actually already does, that is).

But to paraphrase one J. R. R. Tolkien (well, ok, a fictional parody of him), “That’s why it’s called fantasy. It’s meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee!”

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Batman is a fictional character. It certainly came as quite a surprise to me.

If Batman needs to violate the civil rights of someone like Joker in the process of preventing him from murdering everyone in Gotham because he thinks it would be funny, I’m not going to write any essays about how AK-SHOO-UH-LEE JOKER WAS JUST TRYING TO GET BY IN THE WORLD BEFORE THIS RICH ASSHOLE BEAT HIM UP FOR NO REASON.

Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m going to let him, because he lives in a world where the only way to deal with some people is to hit them until they stop being assholes and/or conscious.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say.

Hold on just a moment. Before you speak, I should inform you that this is not a debate. I’m just here to pontificate and will not be entertaining any dissenting opinions at this time. So if you wish to rebut anything I have said here, please refer back to the counterpoints I made at the start of this post.

Still here? Cool. Have a nice day. :)

[bigfan-fanfic]

Who is Batdad closest to outside Wayne manor? Does he have much of a life outside of the Wayne's? Who would Batdad consider his closest friends besides his family?

Honestly, Batdad doesn’t have much of a life outside of the Waynes. He doesn’t really have anyone other than the League to talk to. Clark would probably be his closest friend outside of his family because in a lot of ways they are similar.

Okay, let me talk about this. ( I came back up and decided to answer more concisely above and put this under a read more because it’s very, very long, and I cried three times while writing it and I have never had any visceral reaction to what I write ever before... oof. Just be warned if you ever feel anxiety or pressure that basically, that’s what follows)

Batdad basically denies his own wants and dreams because he wants to help Bruce. What this means is that no matter what Batdad wanted to be before (maybe he and Bruce were dating and he confessed his desire to be a writer and Bruce allowed himself the fantasy and said they’d buy an island somewhere, and Bruce would lounge on the beach and supply Batdad in kisses while he writes the best book ever), by the time Bruce gets back to Gotham from his training, Batdad has had to become what Bruce would have been if Thomas and Martha were there. 

He’s a public figure and philanthropist, carrying the legacies of Martha and Thomas on his shoulders. He has to keep Martha’s business running - no, not just running, thriving - and deal with corrupt officials, corporate espionage, and greedy businesspeople all but threatening him to take Wayne Enterprises public so they can trade stock, all while making sure Thomas’ charities are well-funded and the money is actually going where it should (see earlier greed, corporate and personal). This is all while having to attend galas and functions and fundraisers and events or risk pissing off any one of these people who can turn his life into hell - missing one event can lead to being blacklisted and then that means nobody goes to a charity gala, which means that there’s no hospital built for those in the Narrows.

All this and also consider that everybody in high society sneers at you because the only reason you’re there is because you’re engaged to Bruce and you lived with him ever since Martha and Thomas died. You’re besieged on all sides, because the snobs hate you, the press wonders if you’re even qualified to run a business, and there’s always envy and hatred from below because why aren’t you doing MORE to help them? You haven’t been trained in this - your parents were upper-middle-class at best; you met Bruce by chance, so it’s just you and Alfred and this crushing, all-consuming PRESSURE and the fact that none of it is enough, you aren’t doing enough, it’ll never be enough.

Oh, and at this point, you’re probably only in your mid-twenties at the latest. And it only gets harder because Bruce is back and crime fighting and now you have to worry about him dying on patrol, so every night you’re there to assist him (sleep? don’t know her) and patch him up and support him every day even though he pretends a little too well to be a drunken boor and a cheating asshole (sometimes he isn’t even pretending) and help him when he gets frustrated and then you adopt a kid after your first day off in years (day off, what’s a day off, you haven’t slept enough since you were eighteen and Bruce left you and Batman came back but you haven’t said a word about it) and now there’s school and making sure Dick eats enough and is happy and doing good and doesn’t get overworked on patrol and stressing on whether or not Dick is okay whenever he leaves the Manor and again, none of it is ever enough.

You feel like you’re in your fifties by the time you hit thirty and the Justice League forms and that means SO much more work not just physically but emotionally because Bruce can’t meet anyone new without determining a thousand different ways to kill them if necessary (except for Talia, apparently. And Selina. And Silver Freaking St. Cloud. And Julie Morrison. And any number of dalliances Bruce has had because somehow they’re all smarter. or stronger, or maybe he just has a weakness for tall women who don’t take his crap. Is that what you do? Is your loyalty and consistency and unconditional love actually what lets Bruce walk away so often to a woman’s bed? Is it because he knows you will still be there? Is it because you have put so much of yourself into this life, into your children, into the Wayne Legacy of Perfection and Excellence that it would kill you to leave? Is it because you’re just another tool to him, one that will be quickly replaced when you succumb to sleep-deprivation, or that thing you’ve heard about in the news where people are dying from overwork so often the Japanese have a name for it, or the fact that you’re doing the work of ten, no, twenty people and not once have you ever complained to Bruce or begged him like any reasonable person would to stop this vigilante nonsense and actually LIVE), but now you have to coordinate meetings and a thousand different secret identities and make sure everything’s kosher and nobody’s fighting and of course Bruce has a beef with the nicest freaking guy in the League and Clark keeps coming to you to see if you can help them work it out.

Oh, and then there’s Talia, aka the thorn in your existence and her child who literally has tried to murder you for the crime of being married to Bruce years before he had even heard of Talia, and now on top of all the above, you have to balance getting to know the kid and be reminded day in and day out by him that you aren’t enough, that Talia has such a deeper connection to Bruce, that you are an obstacle to his happiness, that she’s so much smarter and stronger than you, that you are weak and everything you touch becomes weak and tainted by you. And not to mention that you still aren’t doing enough because Gotham’s underprivileged are screaming in pain from everything they deal with and at least you are fed and clothed and you have a family you can support and you are rich and you need to be doing MORE. 

And nobody else in the League can even come close to understanding you because wow, you do so much, do you ever take a break? You come this close to crying when Oliver remarks that if he had to do that much work, he’d go back to the island he was stranded on for five years because he’s joking. For anyone else your life would be a living hell and he’s joking. How do you do so much; do you ever sleep; hah, Bruce, your husband is showing you up! And this is when they even acknowledge you, and you feel like a major-league prick for even thinking these thoughts because Bruce and the League put their lives on the line every day (oh god they’re always in danger and the stress of losing your boys - which has happened to you already - and Bruce and your friends who are the only ones you can ever actually talk to without worrying that you’ll give away someone’s identity) and you’re complaining about a little bit of paperwork? You get to go to parties and meetings while your husband fights to save lives and you’re complaining? How selfish are you? All you do, everything you do, it isn’t enough, it’s never enough, there’s always MORE MORE MORE and it never ever stops.

Jason is dead, Jason comes back, Dick is beaten within an inch of his life, the Joker kidnaps Tim and you are hanging by a thread because the last time the Joker took one of your kids and you couldn’t find them meant that there was an empty bed and too many memories but no time to grieve because Bruce threw himself into work without a care and you needed to do even MORE because you can’t lose him too. And even the League was supposed to help with this but it doesn’t because you can’t bear to lose anyone, because they’re family and not only that, the world has gotten careless because the supers will save them and crime is actually going UP somehow and if even one of the League dies, a city could be overrun by now because the police and government are all but useless and the skies are filled with supervillains and the only thing stopping the world from falling into utter disrepair is the League, and thus you. And through all of this you have to be doing better, have to be doing MORE because every new thing means all the rest of your work becomes that much harder and you haven’t slept properly in a decade now and you feel ancient but still, you can’t complain, you haven’t earned the right to complain because you are never hungry and you never go without and there are so many people who need your help and charities that depend on you to function and kids that need fatherly advice and affection and a League that needs managing and you don’t have time for a breakdown because if you’re gone for too long everything collapses and everyone you love suffers and forget about therapy because who the FUCK could you ever talk to about any of this without either revealing a hundred secret identities and putting everything at risk or sound like a whiny crybaby?

Selina and Talia are back and hovering around your husband again and they flirt with him like you don’t exist and it’s not his fault and you love him but you see Talia every day in Damian’s voice and manner and don’t even think about talking to Bruce about his infidelity because he has so many more important things to worry about and he’s already apologized profusely and anything else makes you feel selfish and you HAVEN’T SLEPT in what feels like all your life and every moment not filled with work is filled with stress about work and worry because every time you don’t see your boys is a moment they can be dead and you don’t know it and every moment Bruce isn’t at the Watchtower is another moment Lex Luthor has to enact some horrifiying plan or the Joker gets ahold of a nuclear weapon or something else unforseeably terrible happens and it is TOO MUCH but you still need to be doing MORE because it isn’t enough and you aren’t enough and nothing is ever enough.

Is there even a you anymore? There used to be a kid there who just wanted to help his friend when he lost his parents. A kid who got left behind to stay with that friend. A teenager with dreams and hopes and wishes and a sweet boyfriend who could maybe get past his grief and lead a good life with you. A young man with the chance to stop his lover from leaving, to stay with him and not give in. Where did he go? Is he still there, underneath the years? Or is he gone, and this being made of stress and fear and feelings of inadequacy and stifled complaints and sadness gone unsaid and trauma left to fester all that you are? That kid you once were gets further and further away with everything you do to help, every time you keep silent  because what good would it do to scream the way you want to, the way you’ve needed to for so many years but never let yourself?

And yes, your boys and your husband make it better, make it worthwhile, but it remains that you feel old, you’ve been tired since you were still 19. Your days are consumed with stress and your nights are filled with fear. And you can never say this now because it has been years, and you’ve lost that chance. The guilt would throw Bruce off his game and if he’s off his game, he could die and all of this would be for nothing. Quite against your will, you’ve been trapped in a no-win situation, and even death is no escape because you know that without you, it all comes crashing down and game over. You are Atlas, holding up the world and knowing that you have just enough strength to hold it up for eternity. And no one will release you from your prison.

But you have to endure it, and smile while you do so because if Bruce ever knew (or if he even cared to look), it’d all go falling down. You are the support, and the support’s support, but no one ever thinks that you might need assistance. What do you have going on? Being a dad? Working? Attending parties? It isn’t enough and you know it isn’t enough and everybody knows that it isn’t enough and they always, always need MORE.

I wonder now how Batdad does it. How he doesn’t break down crying. And part of that is because he is fictional, and I never thought about what it would be like to go through that level of pressure every day of your life. I hope someday Bruce comes to his senses. That even if he doesn’t let go of his grief, maybe he stops being Batman. And stops training Robins. Because yes, he gave them a home, but he manipulated them into being what he is. Who knows what good Dick could have done if he had just been Bruce’s adopted son. Maybe a philanthropist. Maybe he just would’ve had a happy life instead of one where he could die every day. Where he constantly has to reopen the wound of his parents’ deaths to convince him to keep at it. I want them to realize that they don’t have to, anymore.

But they won’t. Because they aren’t real. And they exist for our entertainment. And because we’ll keep reading the comics and watching the movies and playing the games, Bruce will always be Batman and never come to terms with his parents’ deaths in a healthy way and there will always be more threats to existence and even just to him personally.

And Batdad too, is trapped.

[taliaquinn]

Why Me!? Chapter 14

Marinette was bundled up in her blankets on her very expansive bed and was focused on the screen in front of her. An irritated Chloe Bourgeois, an impatient Aurore, and a glaring Kagami, who was sharpening her saber, were staring back at her. Marinette made a quick mental note to ask her how many sabers she has. Juleka had confiscated her saber, unfortunately, it seemed like Kagami had spares. 

“-then Alya had the nerve to ask the committee to reinstate your plans, of course since I’m on the committee I immediately shot down that idea, She of course immediately threw a tantrum and was almost kicked out, later she had a live stream ranting about how being class president is so difficult” Chloe said making air quotes. 

“Of course at this point, she had only 30 viewers, most of them from Bustiers” Kagami added putting away her saber. 

“How is it that Alya only had the job for LESS THAN A WEEK and is already stressed, meanwhile we both had the job for over a year and yet we never cracked” Chloe ranted. 

“Some people are just unappreciative,” piped Aurore. Chloe snorted, that was the understatement of the year.

“Anyways talking about her leaves a bad taste in my mouth, Marinette when are you returning to us?” Aurore asked she missed the bluenette.

“Probably in a year,I’m getting enrolled in some school in Gotham”

“Are your aunt and uncle okay with you staying for the rest of the year?” 

Oh right Marinette forgot that was her cover story. She hated lying to her friends even more. But She was scared of how the others would treat her if they found out her parentage and if she would be able to tell the difference between the honest people and the fake gold-diggers, the Alya’s, Alix’s and Nino’s so to speak. 

Now It was getting harder to be able to video call her friends in a spot that would get her privacy and doesn’t look too extravagant.

Her new room was far bigger than her room in Paris, which took Marinette some getting used to. Of course, Mr.Wayne made sure to give her money to fill her room up. Although a spool of thread does not cost triple digits, at least the thread that she uses. She already has an area dedicated to her sewing business. 

Tim has been gracious enough to be hmannequin until hers come. Marinette finds it unfair that someone like Tim can be sleep-deprived and coffee-addicted and still look like that. Unfair.

Marinette already finished Ms.Kyles' dress and she’s going to give that to her next time she comes to the Manor. 

“Yeah, they’ve been very uh accommodating, and great actually!!”

“It shows, you look way less stressed and more relaxed” Kagami noted

“The wonders of having a decent sleep schedule” Marinette quipped. Seriously she didn’t have school yet and didn’t have to worry about class duties anymore. It was awesome.

“Oh and great news, We’re going to Europe in a few weeks,” Marinette added excitedly

“WAIT!!!! Exactly when” Aurore asked. 

“Two or three”

“EXCELLENT” Aurore blurted out, “That means that you’ll be able to attend the school dance”

Suddenly all lightbulbs seemed to click on in all the girls.

“That was exactly the final piece we needed” Kagami nodded

“ Yeppers, now all we need is Ladybug and then we’re good” Chloe added.

“Waitwaitwait Final Piece to what?” Marinette asked

“Revenge” All three girls responded in unison.

“Oh boy, you guys wanna clue me in on it? Or is it that type of situation where I want as much Plausible deniability as possible?” With those three you never know.

“Probably best for you to not know anything yet” Chloe chimed sweetly.

Thank god That Marinette can now afford bail

Suddenly she started getting a video call from Dick

“Sorry guys I got my er-cousin calling me, I'll talk with you guys tomorrow,” Marinette said, Receiving a chorus of goodbyes and one whine in response. Marinette hung up and quickly answered Dick.

“Hiya Maribug, sorry I wasn’t able to call you yesterday things are pretty busy around here” Dick greeted. Marinette noticed that the poor guy seemed exhausted, he had dark bags under his eyes and kept on yawning.

“It’s fine Dick, What’s going on?” Marinette asked concerned.

Dick sighed. “It seems that Penguin and Black Mask have set up base here in Bludhaven, unfortunately, the two aren’t playing nice, so now we seem to be on the brink of a gang war,” Dick said tiredly. Both Officer Grayson and Nightwing were busy trying to stop the city from falling into a gang war, of course, that was exhausting.

Gang War? AND HER BROTHER WAS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT!? Having a cop brother is stressful enough but having a cop brother in Bludhaven is something else, 

Seriously Bludhaven makes Gotham look like a resort destination and that’s after Nightwing has made his debut. Mr.Wayne told her that Dick was regarded as a good cop who’s been helping root out corruption in the BPD. Which of course puts the idiot in EVEN MORE DANGER. Jesus Christ. Now she can understand why Everyone always seems to mother hen the boy. She’s joining the crusade soon. 

“But you’re not going to be too involved are you Dick?” 

“Sorry Maribug, right now I’m involved, but don’t worry your brother can take care of himself” Dick quickly added with a wink.

“Uh Huh Sure, those eyebags say differently, Go Sleep” Marinette ordered.

Dick Barked out a laugh. “Oh alright Maribug, Night Night” 

“Nighty night” Marinette responded and hung up. She turned over and shifted in a comfortable position and let the darkness overtake her.

Batcave, Wayne Manor Gotham City, USA 8:50 pm

“Damian Marinette is going to start school at Gotham Academy in a few days, I need you to keep an eye on her and help her” Bruce informed Damian

“-tt- of course, father, But I am afraid we’re going to have to come up with a believable cover story”

“No cover story, people are bound to find out soon anyways, but she’s going to be enrolled as Marinette Dupain Cheng so people won't probably make the connection”

“Yeah demon-spawn and if people do get curious as to why you’re being decent, just say she's your cousin or something” Jason added oh ever so helpful

“-tt- Very well”

“We’re going to introduce Marinette in a few weeks anyways, we have a business trip to London so she’s going to make a pitstop in Paris and get her stuff in order before we announce her to the world” Tim piped up upon entering the Batcave.

“Jesus being the Child of Bruce Wayne is going to be stressful enough, imagine how wack it's going to be when she finds she’s the daughter of Batman as well” Jason noted

 “Speaking of which Bruce are you sure we shouldn’t tell Marinette about our little side job, I mean shes noticed that we aren’t exactly normal,” Tim said, while typing away on the batcomputer, right now he was busy trying to track down a few escaped convicts from Arkham and figure out any last known locations of Black Mask and Penguin.

“Yes father she is not an imbecile unlike you Drake”

“Why you little br-”

“We can’t do that” Jason cut in before insults started flying. “She’s a normal kid, She isn’t a secret superhero or nothing, she’s the embodiment of sunshine and happiness, which reminds me Bruce are we sure she’s your kid?” Jason asked

“Yes, I’m sure” Seriously what was it with people questioning it. He wasn’t that gloomy, was he? “She has her own business that has already gained attention and recognition, plus she was a class president in her old school, she had to get that from me” Bruce retorted.

“OH COME ON, we can’t loop her in, She was fucking president of her class, that’s as normal as you can get, Plus right now her sunshine counterpart dickface isn’t here to balance things out anymore” Jason finished. At that reminder, Bruce slightly grimaced. Dick had to go back to Bludhaven for his job. As a Cop. It doesn’t matter how many years it’s been Bruce still worries about his oldest and his choice of career.

“Fine we don’t tell her, what’s going to happen if she’s ever in danger she doesn’t exactly have a panic button that we could give her without arousing suspicions” Tim added.

“Dupain-Cheng isn’t an idiot, she shares fathers blood she’s going to figure it out eventually”

Finally, Bruce made up his mind.

“We can’t risk her life, much less your sister’s life, by revealing our secret for no reason. We aren’t going to tell her-, For now” Bruce quickly added before Jason could make his protests. Taking a quick look at his son's faces it seemed that it was the decision that everyone could agree on, thankfully.

“This is going to totally gonna go wrong isn’t it?” Tim muttered.

It probably will.

Authors Note:                                                                                                     I hope that you guys liked my Infinity War Au. I am definitely going to continue that story line, however I have other one-shots saved to my drafts so yeah keep an eye out for those :). I will be making a taglist for those so just ask. Stay safe and Healthy <3

Hope you guys enjoy today's chapter.

Taglist:

@maribat-is-lifeblood @kass-is-weird @another-fan-of-anotherplan @damianette-is-life @amayakans @parallelparabox @miukiiu @valeks-princess @toodaloo-kangaroo @vixen-uchiha @thezestywalru @dreamykitty25 @pirats-pizzacanninibles @mochinek0 @shamefullove @mochegato @souleateralicestein @thestressmademedoit @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @aestheticnpoetic