#batfam I’ll

[princessjaqulinechess1031]

If I was in charge of a Batman cartoon — something that will literally NEVER happen, because I live in Alabama with no connections to the animation industry.

I would take advantage of Batman’s large cast of characters and cast it as an ensemble show. To reflect that, the show would be named something like The Dark Knights of Gotham, with the ‘s’ spray painted on at the end of Knight to give the impression this is a new reality for Bruce, with it by the end of the show the ‘s’ appearing as though it was there all along.

Season 1

In Season 1, the pilot would not be a retread of Batman’s story, but instead the pilot picks up with Dick’s story of the circus. Bruce has been active for about three years, and it’s just him and Alfred. I would want it to be a show that doesn’t focus too much on the larger world it’s sport of, à la X-Men: Evolution, so the Justice League is almost a non-existence presence. At the end of the two part pilot, Dick joins as Robin, as it’s the normal story, but at the end of the pilot we learn that the Joker pulled the strings and coerced Tony Zucco into taking the step to kill Dick’s parents, revealing he is closer to his portrayal by Heath Ledger, in that his brand of chaos is still chaos but it’s calculated. He has a goal, to break Batman, and he will play the long game to do it. Throughout the first season, we have small but noticeable time jumps that reveal Dick is getting older, with growing tension between Dick and Bruce as he gets older. Throughout the season, we get hints that Joker is building towards something, and in the finale it comes to a head — Joker kidnaps Dick and uses him as bait to lure Batman out. His plan is to kill Dick to break Batman, but Dick manages to escape and they take down Joker before Batman is killed, a last-ditch effort for Joker to get what he wants. Joker loses, but he notices the tension between Batman and Robin. The season ends with Dick leaving to become Nightwing, with teases of two characters in the final moments of the season — Batman catches someone stealing his tires and a Dr. Quinzel is buzzed into Joker’s cell at Arkham, where he was taken after his capture.

:readmore:

Season 2

Season 2 takes place two years later (you’ll find time jumps are common, similar to Young Justice). Jason has established himself as the new Robin and we open this season mid-battle between Batman, Robin, Harley Quinn, and Joker. The battle ends in Batman and Robin’s favor, but it’s difficult and it’s established that Harley Quinn has made Joker all the more formidable. Nightwing makes sporadic appearances throughout the season, sometimes it’s merely Nightwing declining calls other times he helps on a case. We’d have an episode based on that part in Nightwing: Year One, where Nightwing and Robin team up to save Batman. This would be towards the end of the season, where after multiple episodes of Nightwing dismissing or being outright rude to Robin, they finally connect and Nightwing accepts him as Robin. The finale is the Death in the Finale storyline as Joker tries to break Batman again, with the added addition of Harley Quinn, who after Jason dies realizes the error of her ways and vows to be better. We close on Batman weeping as he holds Robin, and we hear him whisper Jason’s name mournfully before fading to black.

Season 3

Season 3 opens on the same shot of Bruce holding Jason, before it transitions to Batman viciously hunting down Riddler and demanding to know if Riddler knows Joker’s location, who has disappeared in the aftermath of Jason’s death. Jim Gordon appears and arrests Riddler, and we zoom out to see a dark figure watching from the distance as Batman disappears into the night. Harley Quinn is in Arkham, where Stephanie Brown is visiting to see Cluemaster. Stephanie recognizes Harley and demands to know how she sleeps at night, to which Harley replies she doesn’t. Stephanie is shaken by this. Tim breaks into the Batcave and demands to be Robin, and to which Bruce refuses and almost has him arrested. A day later, Dick intervenes and tells him to get over himself and take Tim on. For half the season, Tim is Robin, and periodically we visit Stephanie, who is starting out as Spoiler and her rocky relationship with Batman, with Tim running interference when they meet and in the mid-season finale, Tim is busted as Robin by his father and Stephanie takes over as Robin from him. Stephanie and Bruce argue constantly, and we see flashbacks to his fighting with the other Robins, and he fires her in the penultimate episode of the season. Tim takes back over in the final battle against Joker, who has come out of hiding. Stephanie reappears when it looks like all is lost, and she and Batman make up. We close on a speech from Batman about never giving up on family, and he says he can’t make Stephanie Robin again, instead he makes a new position for her — the first Batgirl.

Season 4

Season 4 opens with a flashback indicating it happened the night Jason died, and we are introduced to the League of Assassins, who take Jason’s body from the morgue and revive in a Lazarus Pit. We jump to present day, where we see Robin, Batgirl, Batman, and Nightwing all chasing one man — the Red Hood, a new villain in Gotham. We see them getting aid from an off-screen voice, and then we learn who it is — Barbara Gordon, who was a victim of the Joker and decided to help the heroes of Gotham as Oracle. (Side note: I made Stephanie the first Batgirl and put Babs first as Oracle just to streamline the process, and because I don’t want this to just be a repeat of all the comic books.) Red Hood gets away, but a few nights later they are aided by a mysterious figure. The whole season is spent investigating this person and Red Hood. Mid-season we learn this is Cassandra, and she joins them. Cassandra will be completely mute and speak through sign-language. She takes on the name Black Bat. They eventually corner Red Hood after he finds the Joker and in an emotional confrontation, Jason leaves before he kills Joker but says he will never join Batman again. Season 4 is the last season, so in the finale we cut to a time skip. Dick has become Batman to an arrogant and moody but four years in the future — this is Damian. Stephanie and Tim are married and have left the hero game behind, and Babs runs mission ops for the new Batgirl Cassandra. This leads into a spin-off, where we follow the new Robin and Batman.

this stinks but I couldn’t get it out of my head

thoughts?

[starspilli]

laundry day

(pls click for better quality!)

[everwalldigan]

Bruce being a toxic boy mom when it comes to nightwing will never not be funny as fuck he is literally the biggest nightwing defender one bad word against him and the next day he’ll show up at ur house

Bonus:

[versasfanficwastedump]

and on a similar note, I don’t think Bruce yells except in very specific situations.

like I don’t think he yells around the house when he’s annoyed or when the kids are pissing him off. he’s more of a lecture guy. so much so that the kids compete every year to see who gets the longest lecture. the winner gets some sort of bat themed merch (it changes every year. last year Duke got a pair of boxers with the bat symbol across the ass)

BUT

when Bruce is scared, he gets loud. He’ll yell about “how could you be so reckless” and how “I need you to be better than this.” It’s how the kids know they’ve really freaked him out.

the first time Dick gets yelled at by Bruce, he’s 10. He was jumping rooftops too fast and slipped. Bruce catches him by the cape, drags him back to the batmobile, and totally dresses him down.

Dick bursts into tears. Not because he’s scared, but because he can feel the fear rolling off Bruce in waves. and it feels so wrong for Bruce to be that scared because he’s The Batman and he’s not supposed to be scared of anything.

anyway. Bruce’s fear is loud.

[bloomeng]

batman and his merry band of robins

[automaticsoulharmony]

Guys I know we all make silly jokes about how YJs missions are crazy and scare the new kids and are cryptids for it, but the real reason the team would be seen as spooky and wild… is that the majority of the members aren’t around anymore.

Think about, four out of the eight core members of the team have just, disappeared.

They mention invading a country and Barts like “yeah it was to save Anita’s mom” and the younger hero’s are just like… “who???”

“Oh yeah, we had to deal with Darkseid back in the day, he was weirdly interested in our teammate Secret,” Tim (no real names unless necessary) Drake says casually “okay, ignoring the dealing with Darkseid part because idk how to comprehend that, who the fuck is Secret??” One of the batfam asks wildly. Steph chimes in with a casual “that’s the girl who tried to kill me, right?”

“Man, sometimes I miss Slobo,” Cassie says quietly when they’re chilling and one of the newer titans happens to be near by is just like “what the fuck is a Slobo?”

“Cissie would freak if she saw this,” Kon jokes. Conner Hawke is just like “I feel like I’m supposed to know who that is????”

Like, Secret, Cissie, Anita, and Slobo are just gone, and the new heroes definitely don’t know who they are, and most of the older heroes don’t either.

YJs mission reports are crazy for many reasons. One of which being no one knowing who the fuck they’re talking about.

Not to mention “I wish we still had the Supercycle, I wonder how its kid is doing?” “the What?? How???”

[ashrayus]

Perhaps…Robin Jason? Brotherly bonding if you want something more specific?

it’s bothering little brother o’clock

[deadsetobsessions]

It’s been months since he’s settled into life at Wayne Manor. It’s hilarious that they don’t think he knows about their obvious nightlife (and that’s coming from someone whose hero name was just their last name spelled differently) but they don’t know anything about his own past as a vigilante. To be fair, a dimensionally displaced Ghost King wasn’t really on the board for reasonable guesses. Danny Fenton blinked innocently at Duke, blue eyes watery and oh-so-trusting of his adopted older brother when Duke claimed that his bruising came from getting caught in Ivy’s attack on the busses today.

(“Oh my god he’s so trusting and pure what the hell?” He heard Steph whisper to Dick, who nodded emphatically.)

“Oh man, you should get some rest. You guys are seriously unlucky, you know? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Danny asked Duke, his core trilling as he allowed himself to fuss over a member of his ‘fraid.

“Nah, man. I’m good. I think I’ll take a nap and sleep it off.”

“Okay. Oh, here!” Danny fumbled for his bag, grabbing his prescribed pain meds- for his chronic pain, but they don’t actually do anything for him since his ectoplasm burns away most of it- and handed it to Duke. “Take one, and only one. Those bruises look nasty.”

And then Danny gave him the puppy dog eyes and Duke folded, because Danny knew that he wasn’t supposed to hand his meds out but these situations were kind of the reason he claimed chronic pain to being with (even if it was true and his hands shook with aftershocks).

“Thanks, Danny. I feel like death warmed over.”

Danny laughed, the opportunity to mess with the family sparking in his head. “Yeah, I’ve died before. Wouldn’t recommend it.”

With that, Danny threw Duke an easy going smile and walked towards his room, bag on his back.

From his peripherals, Danny watched Jason drop his bowl of snacks, Dick’s pale face, and the concerned and shocked look of everyone else. Except Damian, who just kind of scowled thoughtfully. Tim looked like he was going to rip Danny apart like an interesting puzzle, Cass sat up straight (and he made sure every micro expression he caught on others stayed unconcerned on his own body), and Duke froze.

He snickered- well out of regular earshot- as whispers and whispered shouts rung out after he left the room.

He can’t wait to drop the “I know you’re vigilantes” bomb on them. It’ll be hilarious.

[morganbritton132]

Tim, out of an act of pure desperation, runs to his neighbor’s house and asks his butler how to remove a stain from a shirt he’s supposed to wear that evening.

Alfred, of course, helps and that turned into him answering all of Tim’s questions (“why does my pasta keep boiling over?”) which in turn, turns into little home ect lessons a couple times a week.

Tim likes this because he likes Alfred and now he knows how to cook more than just butter noodles and pizza rolls. Alfred enjoys the company while everybody is out of the house.

And this is going great until Bruce spontaneously decides to pick Jason up early from school.

They get home during one of these lessons and Jason is like, “Hey, it’s Tim Drake, right? Do you know when you’re coming back to school? I can let Mrs. Simmons know.”

The silence is loud.

Tim definitely implied to Alfred that the reason he could come over in the middle of the day was because he was homeschooled.

[ashtonq247]

Face designs for the Bat kids 👏👏👏

[ghost-bxrd]

I think we as a fandom need to have more talks about ✨dramatic✨ Jason running his own AO3 blog where he posts increasingly violent and heart wrenching stories about Robin. (The second Robin. Because he’s absolutely self inserting.)

And the Batfam find out about those fic that have a startlingly detailed layout of the batcave and accurate patrol routes that they choose to investigate (by reading the fics, duh) and growing increasingly upset about how the characters are portrayed.

Especially Robin.

[starspilli]

i am still right here

available on my print store :3

[succo-al-limone]

DC doodles for funzies

[bitemarx]

on a batgirl kick and she is so. character of all time.

[mostly-imagines]

Things About My Jason

aka things that might weasel their way into details of stories one day, might not

your boy is clocking in at 6’4 + 3/4 inches and about 245 lbs (he’s the only batkid to be taller than bruce). 

he cusses a lot it, usually doesn’t correlate w anger or intensity its just how he expresses himself. he’ll cuss at you sometimes but not at you and he tries his best to never do it out of anger.

he’s never said it out loud but he would drop all the vigilante shit for you in a heartbeat if you wanted him to (i think he’s also the only batfam member who would do that).

you have an agreement in place to never make any big decisions in the middle of the night/post patrol—this came into place after a few too many bad nights had him coming home shaking and panicked about your safety and convinced he needed to leave you alone for good. 

he kind of zones out sometimes, its bordering on dissociation.

you have a black cat, salem, that’s been around since before you and jason had even met. his yellow eyes pierce you in a way that feels like he’s glaring straight into your soul and judging what he sees. he was suspicious of jason for a while but over time has come to love and protect jason almost as much as you.

he has a lot of nervous habits that have built up over years of stress and trauma. he’ll often double or even triple check locks and cameras. his hand tends to go to where his gun holster would be, regardless of whether or not its there. he’s very conscious of your breathing, especially when you’re asleep, and when he’s stressed or upset he’ll try to align his breathing with yours. he worries that you might get annoyed with how often he checks up on you, be it asking directly, texting you, or just looking you over to make sure you’re doing okay, that you’re happy. he’s also made a habit of standing directly behind you when you’re wearing anything short, especially skirts or dresses. You’re not entirely sure if it’s intentional or not.

day to day, he runs on very little sleep naturally so he’s awake early goes to bed late. he used to not focus much on making meals that actually taste good and have thought put into them until he started dating you. he started catering his grocery trips specifically with you in mind and the things you might like. he actually prefers going on grocery trips and little mundane errands with you bc he had no idea that these tiny aspects of life could bring him so much joy and peace. he also buys you new towels and updates your first aid kit constantly, though the latter is more out of his necessity than yours. depending on his mood, he’ll usually either take scalding hot or freezing showers. 

he’s 100% down to let you decorate the apartment however you want, even if you move into his place. his only ask is that he’s left with space to put his books (of which ne needs plenty). if he had to choose, he probably likes a warm atmosphere best, in terms of like lighting and colors. he’s really just not a fan of anything that feels cold or impersonal like the manor can sometimes seem. other than that he doesn’t really have opinions on it, whatever makes you happy he’ll like. but he’ll still happily go shopping with you to find stuff. but really that’ll just look like you saying “ooh look at this” and him saying “great, lets get it” at every single thing you pick up. 

there are unloaded guns and ammo hidden around your apartment and also stocked generously in a closet or two. he cleans them regularly, you think he does it partially as a kind of stress reliever. before you he didn’t have too much regard for his own safety, so he would sleep with one under his pillow. 

he does everything he can to keep you safe and he’ll insist on adding extra locks to the doors and windows, ones the landlord wont have keys to. yeah he’s paranoid so he’ll keep the bed as far from the door as possible and is unrelenting in his insistence that you sleep on the wall side. if you’re too tired to move, that’s okay, he’ll gently move you over himself. honestly though, your apartment is just as secure, if not more, than any of his safe houses. as such, he absolutely can and will easily hack into the lobby security cameras to check up on things. if he has to go away for a while he’ll send one of his siblings to stop by to check on you and make sure you're okay. 

he prefers to wear layers, it makes him feel more secure and comfortable. he does like cutoff sleeves sometimes but only because you like them on him. aside from that, he’s usually not such a fan of showing much skin because of a) his scars and b) he feels exposed to attacks. he has so many long sleeved and warm clothes in his closet that he heavily encourages you to bundle up in some of them when its cold. 

he goes through phases of bad sleep and they can vary greatly in severity. there’s nights he just physically cannot sleep and this usually originates from intense anxiety. these are easier to ease him back from and some simple comforting will be enough to get him to at least try to sleep. most commonly its the nightmares that make it hard for him. it’ll usually be a one-off that he just can’t fall back asleep afterwards. the worst is when he goes through phases of frequent nightmares, like every night, multiple times a night. when that happens, he will do everything in his power to stay awake for as long as he can. you’ve yet to find any techniques that hands down prevent or even slow the nightmares, but you’ve been able to find some remedial measures that work pretty well.

kissing him helps get his mind off scary thoughts (but not joker related) but not just like single peck it’s got to be a whole session to really work. the one that works best is having a hand on one of your pulse points while you sleep, or directly over your heart. unfortunately this did lead to him to accidentally choking you after a particularly bad nightmare. he was absolutely horrified and removed his hands from you completely the second he gained recognition. he actually fully got out of bed and backed away from you. he wouldn’t even hear you out about him not sleeping on the couch and continued to not budge on it for over a week. 

him punishing himself like that made you feel extra bad because that had occurred during a round of the relentless nightmares and you were sure he was still waking up panicked constantly without you there to help soothe him. you actually know for a fact he was because every couple of hours the bedroom door would creak open slightly before shutting again like he was checking to make sure you were there and okay. you ended up having to literally lay on top of him on the couch and refuse to leave him for him to agree to sleep in bed with you again, although he was still not willing to fall asleep with his hands on you for a while. 

he always needs it to be quiet when he goes to sleep so he can stay on alert which usually leads to him waking up to the littlest sounds, which is technically the point. if there’s any kind of white noise he’ll force himself to stay awake. if he does get woken up he’ll go from 0 to 100 like that. he also needs the door to be shut, non negotiable, and really prefers the apartment to be colder > hotter. it also helps that you’ll cuddle into him for warmth.

all of these things are things he did before you met, but he’d also developed some new habits after you got together. he used to sleep in the middle of the bed but now he absolutely insists that you sleep on the wall side so he can act as a protective barrier between you and any incoming danger. unless its after a rough patrol, he tends to wait to sleep until after you’ve fallen asleep. he doesn’t really have a reason for this, it just makes him feel better.

his relationship with bruce is complicated, of course. in my canon, the extent of it is that bruce didn’t kill the joker, prevented jason from doing it, and has made many attempts to stop jason from killing at all. obviously it’s not the fact that batman won’t let anybody die that broke jason’s heart, it’s that his father couldn’t let go of his moral code for a second and avenge his murdered son. the resulting anger stems from so much sadness and grief over his own death and it caused him to isolate himself even further from bruce. on a conscious level, he wanted to be far away from him emotionally as possible to protect himself while still enacting his own kind of revenge towards bruce. and so yeah, he did try to kill batman a couple times, whatever.

on an unconscious level, he’d hoped that bruce would take the initiative to try to close the space between them and apologize, and while jason didn’t know it yet: that was all he really wanted from him. inwardly, he still cares what bruce thinks and wants his approval and affection but its so conflicting for him. it also doesn’t help that it took bruce such a long time to swallow his pride and even consider that he was wrong before he could apologize. a lot of negotiations had to take place before they could even begin to really reconcile. 

about a year later they’d come to a steady, solid agreement that mostly worked for both of them. jason was allowed to kill, but only within his territory in gotham and only under agreed upon circumstances. there’s also a separate rule that jason’s not allowed out on patrol when the joker is loose—it used to be a whole thing before you’d met and oftentimes several bats were assigned to keep him away. even with these guidelines in place, things were still rocky between them and jason had only just started to come back around the manor when he’d met you. honestly you and bruce meeting was a major step in this process and everyone could feel the shift.

his relationship with his brothers is different, but just as complicated. he kind of views dick as being perfect in spite of also acknowledging his flaws. in his head, its sort of like, in comparison to himself, dick had the perfect life with perfect versions of all the same pitfalls jason had to go through. he knows its not really fair to think of it this way, but it’s hard sometimes. all in all though, he does look up to dick a lot. 

with tim, he thinks he’s a crazy rich kid—which, fair—but also in a weird way holds a lot of respect for tim for not being afraid of him. realistically, the way jason showed back up and his relationship  with tim started is insane, so its even more insane that tim was like ‘yeah, chill’ and that probably jump started their bond as brothers more than anything. 

for as much shit as he gives him, he honestly feels really bad for damian and all the shit he was raised believing. he couldn’t quite explain why, but he does see a lot of himself in damian, even past the surface level anger. 

he’s not good at resolving fights, his mind tends to jump to the absolute worst and he assumes you’re done with him, you resent him, it’s all over. it was really bad at the beginning of your relationship when he hadn’t even begun to consider that you love him half as much as he loves you. now, you’ve been able to help him understand that you still love him, even when you fight, and fighting does not equal breaking up. however, he still has trouble taking initiative in making amends. not because he doesn’t want to but more so because he feels vulnerable in ways that terrify him, having to acknowledge and speak into existence that he’d done something wrong feels like setting himself up to be exposed with no defense. 

another part of him feels like he already hurt you and if he tries to remedy things with you, he could just make it worse. So for a while at least, you’ll have to be the one to start the conversation, though not necessarily meaning you have to apologize first. 

as we know, Jason’s not immune to bouts of fear and stress. there’s times when he panics and there’s times when he has full blown panic attacks. the panic attacks are rarer, but much more severe. he’s known to lash out (especially when he’s not at your apartment) and has definitely broken a nose or two of people who got too close/tried to touch him. you’re not sure if it’s an intentional action or not, but he tends to claw at his skin or hit himself in the head when he’s very upset. after going through a couple of these with him, you’ve compiled a thorough list of DOs and DONTs for these times. DONT hold his wrists, move suddenly, touch him without warning, or corner him. DO keep your touches light, words soft, rooms vacant of other people, and loud noises. slowly but surely they’re getting less severe and overcome quicker.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.