#cursed gotham

[smallandangry24]

Headcanon that Gotham accepted the Waynes as a blood sacrifice for the rise of The Batman when Bruce vowed to be the hand of Justice in the city over his parents bodies.

That Gotham is sentient and chose a rain and red soaked little boy kneeling on cracked pavement and grief in supplication as its Champion against The Curse that plagues her waters.

[redlilith5]

DC X PJO

Back when Gotham city was being built Dionysus came across the founding families of this new city the Wayne Family, the Kane Family, the Crowne Family, the Cobblepot Family, and the Elliot Family. The families welcomed him thinking he was a man looking to settle down in their new city. Many things happened during this time but the basics are that Dionysus practically claimed the city to be his (to the immortals, the mortals are clueless) and named it Gotham cause he asked if they got ham and the families misinterpreted as a name. Dionysus blessed the city with many if not almost all of his domains.

He blessed the people with the finest wines, orchards and special plants that help the people relax and be happy. It resulted in alcoholism and addiction. At least they had pretty flowers.

He spread the joy of religious ecstasy though somewhere in between his ritual madness got involved and resulted and quite a few cults.

He taught the youth the wonders of theater and how life was more exciting with extreme dramatics. Gothamite culture evolved to be the most dramatic compared to others people city culture.

They say Gotham was cursed from the very beginning, back when it was but a small village. The reality was that it was blessed by it's patron God. Too bad mortals are stupid. At least the Gothamites loves their city and its blessing, they are the only ones that appreciate the city for what it is.

[thatrandomsarahchick]

Dcxdp thought I just had

What if Johnny's Shadow is Gotham's child?

Like, if Gotham were to have a core, I totally imagine that it would be a shadow core, and given that the city is canonically cursed, what if its child has part of a curse? And that curse is the curse of bad luck?

Thoughts?

[crystalline-tim]

Do you have any more photos of those in your Gotham?

Hm? Oh yeah I do.

Talia is a Lamia. She's been secretly helping us, she's actually not bad. I still don't fully trust her though.

Then Selina, she's a Nekomata. She also has a cat form (between you and me? I think her and Talia have been flirting while they are distracting Ra's)

And Mrs Nora! We think she's a Ice Queen. She really is the sweetest and makes really good food. I can see why Mr Freeze is so dedicated to her. Another reason why we are fighting so hard to break the curse.

[blupenguinz]

Imagine you’re the spirit that cursed Gotham just chilling in the afterlife and one day you decide to see how the city is doing so you look down and just see a grown man in a furry suit with an army of children fighting a man hating ecoterrorist, a Redditor with a massive ego, a gay clown and another furry but in latex that he occasionally hooks up with.

[sagaduwyrm]

I write something! I did it! The muse didn't even suddenly abandon me partway through!

Against the Smoke of the City (I Marched)

There is a city called Gotham that doesn't exist, but by god the Daily Planet is going to find it. Or Gotham is so cursed the outside world doesn't even know it's there, but that's nothing in the face of a reporter's curiosity.

Just off I-nine in New Jersey, there is a city that doesn't exist.

Clark knows this because for weeks the Daily Planet has been researching every piece of evidence they could find to prove the city that doesn't exist, did exist.

It started with a piece on the richest companies in the world where the numbers just wouldn't add up. It was Marlene Samson's first big piece, and she was crying when she came to Dean Jones, the Daily Planet's best eye for tax returns and accounting, certain she had to have done something wrong. The rest of the Planet assumed that would be the end of it, extending Marlene their sympathies for running into so many problems on her first big job, but certain it would be solved soon with Dean looking at it.

It was not.

Three weeks later, Dean came in with raccoon eyes, greasy hair, and a four foot pile of files that he had to make Clark help him carry.

Apparently, Marlene didn't do anything wrong, it was just that there was a whole multi-billion dollar company somewhere on the East Coast that existed in government tax data, agreements with other companies, and nowhere else.

It should be noted that even as a company that regularly reported on alien invasions, Superman's love life, and Lex Luthor's newest schemes, this was not the conspiracy the Daily Planet expected to find on an average day.

The crown jewel of Dean's coffee-fueled hallucinogenic research binge was a series of photos of an unfamiliar logo for one Wayne Industries on a variety of products from luxury cars, to prosthetic limbs, to the coffee maker in the office, often covered by a sticker from whatever company didn't want to admit they were reselling the products of a nonexistent corporation. Under each logo was a minuscule maker's mark that said, "Made in New Jersey."

This was about when the whole thing stopped being a personal project and became a company-wide mystery that the Daily Planet was determined to solve.

Diane and Thea were the next to come up with something. They were the history buffs of the group, the ones who wrote about the historical value of such-and-such building or how this event a century ago affected the city today. Real interesting stuff, if a little niche for some of their readers.

"The New Jersey Mystery" it was called.

It was a whole thing for anyone interested in the historical urban development of the New England area. Clark didn't claim to understand it, but Diane said that a large number of historians, amateur and professional, believed that there was something off about the socio-economic development of New Jersey, particularly in the lack of big cities. According to the historical and modern shipping routes, there should have been a harbor city as big as Metropolis in the area, but there just… wasn't. It was, frankly, baffling and mildly concerning to most historians, according to Thea.

It wasn't hard to guess that a missing city and a missing company were more likely than not connected.

Catt Grant was the next to dig something up, finding an old piece from the gossip section about some kind of scandal, written by one Vicki Vale. Dale, the IT guy, managed to find some emails from her time in Metropolis that identified the mystery city as sitting on the Mullica River, next to the Great Bay. Mrs. Vale complained extensively about the swamp land around the city, apparently caused by a dam being built where it shouldn't some fifty years ago, now spread to the entire area. The waters were known to be toxic enough to kill a swimmer, but not dangerous enough for the municipal government to do something.

That was just the beginning of it. Jack found police reports about a mafioso that was to be sent back to New Jersey to be tried with the rest of his group. Stella traced charity funds back to a foundation in the city. Sawyer and Thea managed to make a model of the supposed dam, putting an exact location to the place.

So.

Just off I-nine in New Jersey, there is a city that doesn't exist. They don't know its name, size, or population, just that money comes flowing out, legally and illegally, but people stay in.

And it is Clark and Lois's responsibility to prove that it does exist, and, hopefully, to figure out why it's on no map, spoken by no human tongue, and invisible to satellites and Superman's gaze.

+++

They take a bus first. They'd both prefer to drive themselves, but James Pierceson managed to get an interview that suggested that only people who'd been before could find the city they were looking for. A train was out too, as even if the conductor was a native of the place, it still only had a small chance of passing through the city. That was all James had gotten out of his interview, though. Nothing about the city itself, the company that drew Daily Planet's eyes, nothing. Just how to get in, and a warning to make sure they could still get out afterward.

The bus is their only real option. It's a creaky old thing, grimy in all the wrong ways, but it had the only driver they found that knew where they were going.

Clark stares out the window as they ride, eyes on the road so he knows how to come back if he needs to. He watches as the woods slowly change into swamp land, filled with strange, nasty , brackish water that smells too much like corpses for comfort.

Lois is beside him, typing on her laptop, putting together everything they've found so far, ready for whatever they find in the city. She looks up when she feels him tense against her shoulder, just in time to see the sign as the bus passes.

Turn Back All, nailed to a half-dead tree, rusted red and falling apart.

"Just a little joke folks, the locals aren't fond of tourists so they like to scare 'em off if they can. Just means we're getting close." 

The rest of the bus is seemingly mollified by the bus driver's words, chattering about the fun local custom, but Clark's eyes are on the next sign, peeking out of the foliage on the other side of the bus.

Beware.

The bus goes silent.

Danger.

Leave This Place.

Warning: Death.

They just keep showing up, one after the other even as the sky gets darker with clouds and the rot in the air gets thicker. Some are clearly set up by the city, with neat lines and bright colors. Some are probably made by the citizens, big pieces of wood or metal covered in messy paint. A few are just paint on the trees, dripping like blood.

Go Away.

This Place is Not Safe.

Get Out.

"They might as well have said 'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here,'" Lois mutters.

Clark snorts, but his eyes stay up. The bus is turning a corner, and a city is finally visible through the thick foliage.

It was tall, is Clark's first thought. There aren't any suburbs of short little houses for the bourgeoisie, no industrial outskirts, just crumbling brutalist architecture and gothic decor right from the entrance.

He can finally hear the city too. He doesn't know why he couldn't before, how it hid from Kryptonian ears, but it echoes in his ears now, gunshots and sirens and screams and whispers. He can't hear anything else on top of the noise, like the rest of the world no longer exists even to Superman's ears. He would have been afraid if his mind had room for it.

The bus is being swallowed, Clark was suddenly sure. The signs were the teeth of the great and terrible city he sees before him and soon they would pass through the maw and enter the place of no return. Soon they would be in the throat and it would convulse and throw them downward and then the city would digest them alive. Whatever was left would not be the same as what entered.

The bus stops at a rickety station just inside the city. The bus driver turns to them as the doors open and his smile is friendly but his eyes are distant and tired.

"Welcome to Gotham," he said. "The most cursed city in America."

"Good luck."

[night-wilf]

Writing prompt 126:

Not even Constantine could sense his magic, either tha man couldn't care more or thought it was a mistake.

Bruce only knows the basics from watching him so often, the stigma surrounding magic in Gotham making him keep it quiet. The faceless man who cursed the city to eternal darkness hated with a fury rivalled by the sun.

The curse was set by Thomas Wayne in his anger at being killed, one last action to condemn the city he obsessed over. Alfred's tales of the man's controlling anger over the details of his life painting the picture of a man who fakes his personality more often than living in his own happiness.

The seal in the batcave is still to be broken. Bruce is not asking for help he feels personally responsible to fix this mess.

[justalittletotheleftofnormal]

What if Gotham was built on an intersection of multiple ley lines, but because of the curse placed on the city those line are fraying at the edges(some might be severed)

And now Gotham has a constant incoming flow of magic/spiritual energy with little/no outgoing flow

Thats why the JL or other magic user can’t cleanse the city(and trying to sever all the ley line<to/from Gotham> would only leave a Gotham sized crater)

*ones of the ley lines goes through Metropolis City(is probably one of the stronger line)

[beepboopimaproblemchild]

Literally Gotham is a cursed hole of supernatural force so this is like an actual realistic take lol.

I love the headcanon that none of the Bats are supers, but over time? Gotham is slowly messing them up, one by one.

Bruce smiles at Clark one day in the Cave, and his eyes reflect the light back like a wolf's

Jason suddenly has tiny fangs, but nobody has the nerve to mention it

Alfred literally doesn't die

Dick can jump higher and faster than ever before, but barely notices it

Tim is awake for three days straight and doesn't blink

They're all subtly, but noticeably different. Gotham-blessed, or cursed, or something in between.

[incorrectbatfam]

[thebibliosphere]

Me and about four other people will care about this, but it has taken me this long to realize that in season 2 episode 9 of Pennyworth (shut up, it’s enrichment in my enclosure) when Alfred is posing as Tommy’s driver and waxing lyrical about how, when he’s in America, he’s going to have a car just like this one. And the car, is a Ford Lincoln Futura.

A Ford Lincoln Futura.

Aka— the original Batmobile as driven by Adam West.

He’s driving the original Batmobile!!!

[fantastic-nonsense]

one of my favorite headcanons is that the people of Gotham originally thought Batman was an urban legend not just because Bruce was good at sneaking around and pretending to be a shadow in the night early on, but also because they live in an insanely cursed city, heard "shadowed wraith beats up criminals and leaves them for the police to find," and went "yeah that tracks. it's Gotham, ghosts fighting crime is totally believable"

[profounddestinyrebel]

What if the reason DC gets so many alien invaders and needs so many heroes is be cause Of Gotham

Because Gotham is a focal point supernatural energy

I read this one post about how there are sirens, vampires, werewolves, faries and hellhounds living in Gotham but they hide themselves from Bruce

Like the post went, who's reeeally gonna notice if you look dead tired? If you wear your gas mask all the time? If look homeless? Well you probably are! But they certainly won't think you're a vampire or a werewolf!

So what if Gotham is like a stopping point for anyone seeking to travel between dimensions.

Gotham has intricate rules and tradition that any one seeking to live there has to learn or die because they broke them.

JL: What do You Got There?

Superman: A Friend :>

Clark has a shadow friend, the rest of the league are concerned and more than a little afraid. They don't know where this thing came from and Clark's answer of Gotham explains nothing. What is Gotham, where is Gotham? They've tried to research it and have come up with nothing. Clark claims it's a city in New Jersey, and is the sister city to Bludhaven??? What sort of fae-bullshit-

[deadsetobsessions]

There, in the fog, a pair of glowing green eyes. Who does it belong to?

Surely not that which lays beneath the city, Gotham’s spirit that drowns in the cursed bogs buried beneath concrete and stone. Surely not she, who sobs songs of grief, she who croons silently for aid. Surely not she, madness incarnate, all gnarled shadows and crumbled concrete. Surely not she, Gotham herself, perched along her city’s gargoyles and looks over her own with stone eyes and stone heart that tries to beat like her own.

Her songs were answered with one of her own, a child whose parents were murdered in the heart of her heart. The parts of her that still loved as much as she could wholeheartedly accepted. The child that brought more children- who were all hurt by her and her own and decided she was worth helping anyways. Those eyes did not belong to her own children, those that she pulled the covers of relentless clouds over in order to protect.

No, no. Those eyes belonged to a different child. One that came later who Wailed along side her screams and soothed the madness that roiled beneath her streets.

Her screams were soothed by a child who is her liege, the small one that came and eased the rot that tore her marrow from the bones of her city- her own bones.

Phantom, she ruffles the hair of the boy king. Her gnarled joints and shadowed fangs and clawed countenance does not deter his smile and she loves the child more for it. Far better than the tyrant that tried to use her madness against her own people.

“Hi, Gotham. How are you doing today?”

Better, the gargoyles shifts and grinds. Thank you, my liege.

The boy-king laughs, bright green eyes glowing in the fog she’s summoned to obscure him from her knights. “You did most of the work.”

Not so, the winds whirls in between the white flames of the boy-king’s hair. But we have had this discourse.

Phantom smiles, sadness pulling at the corners of his eyes. She did not know human ways of emotion for she had always been a spirit, but this expression she knows well. It chases at the heels of her knights and now it is in a dogged pursuit for her liege’s heart. Gotham has found new things to hate. The shadows wrap around him.

Go, they whisper as Gotham herself slid back towards the cold stone of her city. Protect. Be happy.

“Okay, okay. But if one of your knights shoot at me again with their weird knives, I’m going to dye their hair neon pink.”

Gotham laughs, spiders bouncing along their webs. They will have deserved it.

The boy-king (hers, her liege, her son, her family, please, Gotham did not want to be alone anymore) laughed again and shot off from the perch she had provided.

[bluerosefox]

Over Tea

A sudden chill sweeps through Gotham, almost like Mr. Freeze had just attacked only thing was the man was currently locked away in Arkham, and was felt by all. And talked by all via word of mouth and on social media as well.

The clouds and smog that covered their dark city shifted and swirled, a rumble beginning deep inside them as the weather turned from smoggy to rain and thunder with no real warning. The strangest thing was the green glow that could be seen when thunder rumbled inside the gray clouds.

Then like a candle being blown out, the rumbling stopped, the rain ended, and the clouds parted all over Gotham.

For the first time in a while Gotham had a clear sky and it felt... it felt like something heavy had been lifted off the city.

It was this sudden shift and the all felt chill that had set off alerts for Batman and his family. Since early morning since the first change and shift happened he was in front of the Batcomputer trying to narrow down where it started.

After hours of searching with the help of Red Robin, Oracle and strangely enough Red Hood, they managed to narrow down where the odd power had been coming from.

Was still coming from, only very low.

The old and abandoned observatory tower.

-x-x-

"More ecto-tea Lady Gotham?" Danny asked, his hand waving towards the steaming pot nearby.

The woman smiled lightly, her dark painted lips curling up to show her sharp fangs for a moment before saying "No but thank you Young Kingling though I would like more cookies if you don't mind. Now where were we?"

Danny nodded towards her and signaled towards a maid skeleton ghost who walked forward with a tray of cookies. The maid swiftly placed a few more cookies on the spirit embodiment of Gotham plate before bowing and stepping away.

"We were just about to discuss the sentience of the Court of Owls." Danny said as he lightly tapped the large almost mountain of paperwork on the table they were sitting at, floating high above the floor as shooting stars and planets drifted around them. Many ghosts floated around as well, servants that had sworn their loyalty to the Young King, and were preparing things like snacks and drinks for two powerful beings in the room as they discussed business. Nearby doors and windows though were ghostly knights that stood tall and alert, making sure no interlopers interrupted the meeting taking place and ready to defend not only Lady Gotham but their King.

"Ah yes them." Lady Gotham grimaced as she took a drink of her ecto-tea. "That will take some time for us to discuss, they've been running around unchecked for to long and even with my limited abilities to hinder them has been less than ideal."

"You, Lady G, were deeply cursed for many, many years and I just broke most of it." Danny cut in quickly, he was not about to let this wonderful and powerful city spirit blame herself for something out of her hands "Due to said curse you couldn't do much so please don't go blaming yourself. Its mostly broken now, so you can freely start healing yourself and your city self now that jerk demon that cursed you is in Walker's prison for his crimes."

Lady Gotham grew silent for a moment, her dark eyes staring deeply at the young King but then warmly smiled, well as warm as she could seeing how she was Gotham itself. "You reminded me of my Knight, Young King, treating me like this. Not afraid to point out the truth and facts."

Danny gave a light laugh as he took a hold of one of the cookies on his plate and gave a bite "I'll take that as a compliment Lady Gotham. Now about those Court of Owls...."

[angstandhappiness]

LMAO YES

How do you feel about the "Gotham is Literally Cursed" thing that comes up every so often? Perosnally, while I feel it has fun story potential for the occult folks, it also feels like lazy writing for the larger Batman mythos or straight up refusing to engage with how a city like Gotham could legitinatly stay like that for so long.

Like, I've for a while felt that the simplest reason that could be given for why Gotham is an endless struggle is that Batman is just one billionaire in a city with a disproportionate amount of wealthy folks & a particularly bad wealth disparity that just keeps getting worse. Doing that, however, would require challenging the systems Batman's owners benefit from.

at risk of outing myself as a hack, I think Gotham being cursed is sooooo funny. like why shouldn't it be? it's the worst city in the world in a world where every flavor of magic under the sun is canon. the biblical heaven and hell are real. every time we see a flashback to ye olden Gotham it's some freaks starting a cult and doing atrocities. Gotham's not just cursed, Gotham's cursed by like seven different competing eldritch forces, and that makes it that much funnier that Bruce is stubbornly attempting to swim upstream against forces literally beyond the human mind to make his city behave for like three seconds.

idk, it might feel like more of a cop out if magic wasn't such an established part of the world. it might as well happen, and it's funnier than a lot of other explanations. I also hardly think that throwing out that Gotham's cursed, like, negates the very real issue Gotham has re: massive income disparity, any more than the rampant supervillain activity does. the city's Bad and the nature of comic books is that it can never actually stop being bad long-term in any meaningful way, so we might as well explore all the different ways it can be bad!