#bats + birds

[burglar-bird]

The fact both their outfits are black/gold is sick. But another cool detail is that Shiva' clothes have red as well, and Cass's backgrounds become the same color when she's angry.

Now, I'm not well-versed in color theory, but this either means there's a parellel between these two or they're planning to visit a children's hospital.

Batgirl & Lady Shiva In Batgirl (2024) #1

[bat-girled]

Hey cass why are you standing like that. What are you doing with your arms

[littledead-ridinghood]

Saying Batman hits his kids and all his other abusive tendencies only exist because people want to use them as “tropes” to woobify his children is not like…the good take you think it is

It’s important to me that you all know that. It’s not actually bad, an ‘incorrect reading of the text’ or ‘only acknowledging bad writing’ when people want to talk about how Bruce’s actions can actually severely effect those around him.

It’s also important to me that you all know that while maybe a parent hitting their adult child may not count as child abuse because the child is no longer a kid, it does; however, still count as assault, battery, and can even be considered domestic abuse if their living or staying at the manor at the time it happens and is still very, very bad and not okay

[maviyenot]

[frownyalfred]

things that make Gotham criminals say “oh shit”:

Batman showing up to the hideout and not asking any questions

Nightwing cracking his escrima sticks together with 0 witty banter or foreplay

Red Hood when his hands are shaking

Injured Robin and Batman known to be in near proximity 

Any sightings of Batman on Robin II’s death anniversary

Superman in Gotham without an escort

Batman speeding through the Narrows on a motorcycle and not the Batmobile

Red Hood abandoning his guns and throwing punches instead

Robin fighting with a sword and 0 supervision

Jim Gordon trying to quit cigarettes for the 19th time on the night shift

Any captured Batkid too injured/tired/frightened to taunt the responsible criminals

Batman bleeding and/or missing any major parts of his armor

Any Bat vigilante other than Duke outside during daylight hours

[daily-spooky]

[heyyallitssatan]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone decides the bats are better with their gadgets

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[caats]

[excalisi]

it's a fun hc of mine that during dick's robin days, he went through the "omg i wish i had a cool secret language so i can have secret conversations with my friends" phase all kids go through. but one of his closest friends at the time also happened to be the batman, a guy with possibly the most bizarrely diverse arsenal of skills in the world. bruce sees the merit in the entire idea of a coded language to communicate rudimentary information when they can hear but not see each other. so why not make a code built on bird vocalizations? it's pretty much incomprehensible to anyone without a trained ear or comprehensive knowledge of birding and impossible to even passably mimic without proper training, so while the chances of interception are high, the chances of someone understanding it enough to interrupt during the middle of a bird-convo and feed false information are not.

it also, batman and robin come to realize, feeds into the "holy fuck our vigilantes are cryptids" idea. bird sounds that come from seemingly no determinable location (ventriloquism) come to mean batman and robin are nearby. to the goons of gotham, bird song becomes inextricably connected to getting your ass kicked by the dynamic duo. the real reason why criminals don't operate during the day is because they get skittish and jumpy about if the sounds of birds chirping are real birds or some masked vigilantes lying in wait to rock your shit, and it's just easier to commit crimes during the night when all the birds are asleep so you know for sure.

ornithologists have boards on their bedrooms dedicated to the bird-bats of gotham. they've written dissertations.

the bird language becomes a bit of a batfamily bonding connection. teaching each other how to do different clicks and whistles, making up slang so bruce and barbara can't complain of clogging up comms with non-mission relevant talk, searching up birds to associate them with different people, psychologically terrorizing the criminal populace of gotham by chirping at them...

how the bird code works is that there's a bird assigned to each one of gotham's major heavy hitter criminals and vigilantes, and a few assigned to heroes out of the city (by which i mean the ones the bats associate with often enough to have a sign to address by). the only birds i've got so far are the robin (for robin. self-explanatory) and the glistening-green tanager (for the joker). i only have one for the joker bc i wanted to reference this hc in one of my fics and so searched up green birds to find the most eye-searingly annoying-to-look-at green bird i could find, and the glistening-green tanager was the closest one to fit the bill.

[toyastales]

Bat lantern from 1930.

[itsdabatt]

LADIES NIGHT

[bat-girled]

Dick Grayson

[maviyenot]

[frownyalfred]

imagine the “Robin meets the JL while Batman is away” trope but it’s inverted. instead of being funny and interesting and extroverted all of the Robins just bolt. bolt, hide, or fight. B told them not to ever let themselves get cornered and to run if a meta sets eyes on them. so they run, they hide, and they fight back with a tiny shard of holdout Kryptonite B had embedded in their gauntlet. they dig their boots in, clench their fists, and prepare to be immovable at <100 lbs.

[daily-spooky]