#i should probably start tagging This Specific Verse if i'm going to keep drawing This Specific Verse. I think about it.....

[anonymouspuzzler]

did a lot of oc drawing last night!! please welcome new characters of "THE JUNKYARD QUEENS" and "GIRL IN MINNIE'S CLASS SHE IS LEAVING 'GET OUT OF MY SCHOOL' TYPE NOTES FOR" and "THAT GIRL'S PARENTS". also davey and buck because we love them forever (I'm we)

[Image IDs/descriptions under cut!]

[Image 1 ID: A black-and-white drawing of Puzz's OCs, three beautiful women called "THE JUNKYARD QUEENS". All three have matching caps and jumpsuits. The left woman has long hair with scene-style stripes, heavy eyeshadow, fingerless gloves exposing long dark nails, and converse sneakers. Her jumpsuit is unbuttoned enough to slide off her left shoulder, exposing a black bra. She stands with one hand in her pocket, smirking slightly. The middle woman is heavyset with thick, curly hair and a mole on her right cheek. She is wearing fingerless gloves, rubber boots and a simple chain necklace. Her jumpsuit is unbuttoned to expose her cleavage. She is sticking out her tongue with a grin and doing a peace sign, right foot stepping up on a trash bag. The right woman is tall and strongly built with broad shoulders and muscular arms. Her jumpsuit is tied around her waist and her cap is backwards. She has short hair with slicked-up bangs and multiple facial piercings. Her arms are folded with a cocky grin. End ID.]

[Image 2 ID: A colored version of "THE JUNKYARD QUEENS". Their jumpsuits are a greenish-teal and their caps are a darker blue with an orange brim and light yellow decal on the front. The leftmost woman has light skin and pale green hair, and her socks are neon yellow-green. The middle woman has dark skin and hair, and she is wearing green rubber boots and has a gold necklace on. The rightmost woman has tanned skin with visible tan lines around her gloves and tank top, and she has blue-grey hair and dark brown gloves and boots. All three have bright yellow crowns drawn above their heads. End ID.]

[Image 3 ID: A black-and-white drawing of one of Puzz's OCs, a 13-year-old Black goth girl. She has a squat torso and long, thin limbs. She has a roughly heart-shaped face and hair in thick, stylized twists parted mostly to the left. She has small, thick brows and oval, heavy-lidded eyes with thick eyeliner. She is looking forward with a detached, disdainful expression, standing with her right arm to her side and the left raised, creating some kind of energy cloud. There are two outfit designs side by side. The first shows her wearing a collar with a simple round charm with an upside-down star, a black tank top that cuts off just above her navel, grey skinny jeans with tears in the knees, fingerless gloves with fishnet sleeves that reach just above the elbow, and simple socks. The second adds an oversized jersey on top, with a graphic of a skull with X eyes, and large boots with decorative belts. A silhouette of Minnie is behind the designs for height comparison; Minnie is slightly shorter. End ID.]

[Image 4 ID: A colored version of the Goth Girl. She has very dark skin and dark eyeshadow on. Her tank top is black while her jeans are grey; her oversized jersey is a desaturated purplish-blue with light-grey trim. The skull decal is also light grey. Her boots are are a slightly lighter grey than her jeans, with silver belt buckles. The charm on her collar is also silver. The cloud of energy she is creating with her right hand is a bright, saturated blue-purple color. End ID.]

[Image 5 ID: Sketches of two of Puzz's OCs, in two different outfit designs. On the left is a strongly-built Black woman with natural hair in a large afro. She is wearing sun-shaped earrings and posing with one hand on her hip and the other arm flexing. In the top sketch, she is wearing a button-up t-shirt tied at the waist, high-waisted shorts, and laced boots. In the bottom sketch, she is wearing a superhero outfit: a short sleeveless one-piece with solar-flare style train on the back, a sun-design tiara, gauntlet gloves, and knee-high heeled boots with sun decals. On the right is a thin, wide-shouldered Asian man with scruffy facial hair, a long flowing ponytail, and cowlicks that resemble small horns. He is standing with one hand up generating a cloud of energy. In the top sketch he is wearing a sweater-vest over a button-up and slacks. In the bottom sketch he his wearing a full suit and tie with popped collar, his cowlicks are longer and sharper, and he has a full goatee and dramatic eyeliner. End ID.]

[Image 6 ID: A black-and-white drawing of Puzz's OC Davey. He is a lanky, middle-aged Black man with an amputated right arm and scar going diagonally across his face. He has long, curly hair in a ponytail, large eyes with thick under-lashes, thick eyebrows, and sparse body hair. He is shirtless and wearing jeans, posing with left hand outstretched resting on his knee, leaning back with a wink and a grin. End ID.]

[Image 7 ID: A black-and-white drawing of Puzz's OC Buck, a middle-aged white man with a bushy mustache and barrel-chested build. He is wearing an outfit based on one of Eggman's disguises in a Sonic X comic - a tank-top with a skull-and-ribbons logo, which rides up over his navel, black tight pants, heeled boots, a bandanna on his head, and dark sunglasses. He is posing with both hands up in V-signs. End ID.]

[whetstonefires]

While i was rifling thru your fic tag like a half-starved raccoon in a cake tin I found your clone Damian's fic & i'm in LOVE! And like, do u hav anymore meta on that verse? like how do the rest of the fam find out? how do they REACT?! how does Damian? does the heretic clone still exist? Just reading abt tim with a bunch of tiny dami's gave me heart palpitations. Thank you for this gift.

(In reference to this post.)

Why thank you!

It’s vaguely inspired by some meta @cerusee and @audreycritter did about what if Damian was one of several identical clones, but I’ve been fascinated by the character potential suggested by Damian having been cloned since Talia first revealed it, so.

Let’s see.

I don’t think the Heretic still exists, not in the form we saw. This story fragment sort of assumes Talia went less crazy than they made her for the whole Leviathan storyline; she doesn’t regard the clones as sons the way she does Damian (she totally relied on cloning to get him perfectly matched organ replacements, like that spine) but she’s not “sons are born to die in battle” “let’s grow him big inside a WHALE” levels of whacked out.

She hasn’t fully committed to having them compete to be selected as the official Damian #2, either, because she’s still attached to the original, though the growing prospect of that was a lot of the reason they ran for it. One of them might have wound up as the Heretic, in another timeline? But it was a timeline that diverged long before they fled the League.

So they make it to Tim’s emergency van without being intercepted, and get as far as his secure site on city limits, but they have to fight their way through the last leg of that trip and to make it inside the bunker, and it’s supplied for a siege but not really big enough for eight people, even if seven of them are small, and also staying there and being besieged would draw the attention of the Bats, which defeats the whole purpose of not making for the Cave/calling reinforcements.

So he calls his friends for extraction, and they all wind up in Kansas.

Tim puts off contacting the family until the clones have with his guidance sorted out exactly how they want to present themselves.

Unfortunately, the last stage of the ninja battle was showy enough not to be overlooked, so his absence was noticed much sooner than he expected, and regarded as more worrying. On the second day Dick calls Kon to see if he knows where Tim’s gotten to, and Kon fails to lie adequately.

Dick can’t pressure Kon as easily as he can most people because last time he asked Kon for a favor Kon came to the North Pole and died for him.

Which is the kind of thing even Nightwing isn’t veteran enough not to take seriously.

But he still calls his bluff and asks a bunch of questions, and winds up very suspicious and worried, so at this point Tim and the Damians have to hurry up and figure out how to announce the situation or go on the run from the Bats as well as the League, which would be. Not smart.

Tim explains the situation over videochat with the Cave before having the cloneboys join him on the feed; this spares them the worst of the yelling.

Bruce, Dick, and Damian all respond pretty badly. Bruce because he doesn’t like change and he’s reflexively suspicious, and having eight Damians to raise is a justly horrifying notion. Also anti-clone prejudice. It’s unfortunately an established trait of his, though not like. A strong one.

Dick because he’s really defensive of Damian, and perceives this first and foremost as an emotional threat to his bab’s fragile identity.

Damian because he knows exactly how he was raised to react to someone being in a place he wants, and he knows how many opportunities his father’s household policies gave him to take shots at Tim, and they may be six years old but there are seven of them. He is going to die.

All things considered, Damian’s being the most rational here.

He’s wrong though. The clones were raised as disposable ninjas, not princes; they’re perfectly well aware killing him would gain them nothing, and they have very little sense of entitlement.

Bruce and Dick do try to be nice to the kids once it’s finally settled they will be staying at the Manor at least for a bit, because they need to be somewhere safe and Bruce can’t leave them at Clark’s house forever. Even Ma Kent has her limits.

But Bruce blows bewilderingly hot and cold and Dick kind of makes a point of of not being too warm to them, because he’s loyal to his demon brat. Damian starts staying at his place a lot and consequently working with Nightwing instead of Batman.

Bruce has no idea what to do about this or if he even should do something. Damian’s thirteen, right? Teenagers are supposed to rebel??? This is a pretty harmless way to do that?

But he misses him.

This does lead to making more time for the Seven Identical Six-Year-Olds.

Their sense of morality revolves around having made the breakthrough to valuing on another’s lives; they aren’t as opposed to not-murder as Damian was but they’re also a lot harder to coax into seeing things his way because they don’t need as much from him, emotionally.

This makes them ironically less terrifying for Bruce, even if he’s still having trouble actually bonding with them the way he normally does with his kids.

Barbara meanwhile is cautious. She always takes a while to warm up to new people, and she doesn’t have Tim’s history with clones to get her over that speedbump. She tries very hard to be fair, but she’s not really welcoming. She’s Reserving Judgment.

Jason thinks this is the funniest thing ever and goes out of his way to tease Damian about it. Privately he’s super creeped out, but as that wears off he starts getting mad about Bruce and Dick making the kiddos feel unwelcome and at some point does a rant, and after that is vaguely protective in a useless sort of way.

He enjoys being a bad influence. The septuplets also enjoy this. They think he’s funny, too, and he’s easier to communicate with than most people around here. Achieves a fairly high tier on the Favorite Non-Clone Brother list they aren’t exactly keeping.

Cass is super about these kids. She can relate to them even more than to Damian, because they weren’t raised as heirs to anything and don’t have the sneering put-down form of pride going, and also she’s actually around to meet them at the crucial getting-to-know-you stage.

She thinks sparring one-on-seven is an excellent sibling bonding activity. There are assassin-child puppy piles once they’re all worn out. Many photos are taken.

She’s doing much better than Bruce at getting them to extend their nascent sense of empathy beyond one another, without actually making an effort. It’s not like they’re actually much behind their cohort when it comes to social development, they’ve just got murder conditioning flattening their affective empathy. (And are ahead of cohort intellectually, which contributes a lot to the dissonance.) Cass’ accidental therapy involves butterflies.

Tim continues to be around, a lot more than he has been for a while because he’s kind of obligated to see this through. The septuplets trust him, which is more than they do anybody else for a while, so he winds up with a lot of childcare duties.

Since this amounts to ‘showing them where to find soap’ and ‘being in their vicinity’ rather than i.e. brushing their teeth for them and making sure they don’t steal each others’ snacks, he’s fairly okay with this.

Sizdahum sticks especially close, which is fine because he’s not a big talker; he winds up getting a lot of absent lessons on detective work.

Tim gets yelled at for having murder scene photos open in front of him; both of them and Haftum, who happens to be there at the time, roll their eyes a lot throughout.

Tim’s friends also visit the Manor a few times specifically to visit the kids, since they already met them. At one point the Damian clones, Tim, Kon, Wonder Girl Cassie, and due to rumor mill Anita, Cissie, and Greta all have a picnic in a rare afternoon of sunshine on the Manor grounds.

Alfred packed the picnic so it has ludicrously expensive cheese, a fruit salad featuring freshly pitted cherries, and thermoses of milkshakes in the favorite flavors of everyone who got one, even the ones he’s never met before. In response to this bounty Anita threatens to come to visit every time she can get babysitters for her parents.

Then she considers introducing her parents to the clone kids. They’re turning out almost as weird, even if in theory they don’t remember their previous lives. We’ll see how that turns out.

Bruce got used to how all his sons’ friends know his secret identity over a decade ago, it’s…fine.

Steph thinks they’re creepy but she’s far enough from ground zero to laugh about it, especially about their occasional appearances as Tim’s row of ducklings, and also she trusts Cass’ judgment.

Everyone does, to a certain extent; it helps the septuplets’ cause incredibly over the course of the first few weeks. It wins Alfred off the fence about them after about three days, which is quite a coup; even before that he was fast catching up with Tim in the ‘learning the differences between the septuplets’ sweepstakes.

(Cass is the only one who can even semi-reliably tell them all apart if they’re not wearing their nametags, or catch them switching, but learning things like their individual preferences in weaponry or cake is arguably much more important.)

Speaking of names, it’s a difficult issue. Bruce would (with considerable angst and self-doubt) be willing to name them all if asked, and they’d probably be open to it if he offered, but they’re not quite comfortable naming themselves and he’s too insecure and weirded-out to suggest anything else.

The other members of the family are varying degrees of not okay with the numbering system. Steph’s main issue with it is she has trouble remembering them precisely, because she doesn’t speak Farsi and learning seven unfamiliar similar-sounding words at the same time doesn’t play to her strengths.

Damian has a tendency to call them by their numbers in English, which only some of the clones actually mind but it offends the hell out of Bruce.

The necessity of keeping them secret until they have actual public-ready names and a story has been settled on wears on everyone’s nerves a bit. The issue that there exists no story more believable than the actual extremely weird truth stands in the way.

Barbara actually crafts an entire cover about rescuing the products of an illegal cloning operation by people planning an overly complicated ransom scheme for Damian, and Bruce going ‘well dammit they’re my kids too,’ which doesn’t get deployed for a while because:

1) everyone’s still hunting for something a little less weird and

2) they have to review the entire body of legal precedent relating to clones to make sure this won’t put the kids in jeopardy down the line or undermine Bruce’s chances of getting custody somehow.

Meanwhile, Bruce absolutely forbids the clone squad from getting involved in vigilante fighting. Because they are six. They’re not quite on house arrest but they have strict supervision and a curfew. They mostly accept this; they’re used to discipline and they did come here for refuge.

He tries to take away all their live weapons. Because they are six. This fails to stick. It threatens to become a serious bone of contention.

Cass, Tim, and Damian (somewhat unwillingly) wind up having to broker the issue; explaining to Bruce that the kids think he suspects them of plotting murder, and to the kids that Bruce doesn’t think they can be trusted not to hurt themselves with sharp objects is. Fraught. On all sides.

Why does Bruce never get any kids for whom normal responsible parenting guidelines are fully applicable?