#i want it so badly tho. kablooey in wayne manor with your bestie not bestie whose loss of idealism you forever mourn

[roobylavender]

If you could take over Bruce’s canon, starting at any point in continuity with full creative freedom, where would you start & what would you do w mr. batsie??

admittedly there are small nitpicky problems i have with the rucka collective of no man's land / murderer / fugitive (which i am in the slow.. grueling.. process of rereading so i can gather my thoughts more conclusively bc i truly don't remember shite) but i feel like the conclusion to those arcs is where i would pick up. and ideally main things i would want to explore are like

under the red hood stuff but rewritten the way i have talked about it: talia kills the joker / talia breaks the red hood mask and effectively ends the identity / jason goes to stay with leslie thompkins so he can start reassessing his life / talia reveals to bruce the depth of her (well-intentioned) lies re: jason, which can also set the stage for her ultimately selling lex corp to him for pennies / bruce and jason start to (awkwardly) rebuild not as batman and robin but as bruce and jason, within the sphere of leslie's clinic / etcccc

search for damian once it's revealed that ra's killed his adoptive parents and has taken him under his wing. obv have talked before about how such an arc would be of import to damian bc of like the reversal of the robin phenomenon and needing to decide whether or not he wants to impose the same burden of duty upon himself that his parents do upon themselves. but i would also ideally want to use this as an arc to explore the relationships ra's has with bruce and talia too like the strained parental relationship there has a lot of potential and i've talked about it wrt talia obv but with bruce it's very underscored and idk i wish they had a proper arc about them and what they could have been to each other by way of father and son yknow. so this would definitely tie into that. and it would end with ra's living in wayne manor near broken from the strain of all of his self imposed ego and isolation and anger but with a small sliver of hope there for something to heal in the last years of his life. they'll play chess together and trade endearing taunts and quips and damian will be there on the weekends from talia's place like god the men in my family are such weirdos. i hope i never turn out like them (but he will. we all know he will)

somewhere in the midst of all of this i def want cass and steph to be increasingly impt presences in bruce's life like to me.. they have to be the ones who signify hope for the mythos. there is a unique humanity and persistent belief in goodness that both girls possess that to me should circle back to why bruce started this in the first place: pure, simple belief. idealism. the whole reason any of them are heroes in the first place

also like just more of a return to why bruce wayne as an identity and means for change is so endlessly impt. that's the good thing about those rucka arcs is the aim is to bring it all back to bruce wayne so carrying that in stride and exploring more of what he does as bruce wayne would be very impt. whether that's through reconciling with and learning more from jason or through his increased exposure to selina's world or through his friendship with barbara and understanding the things she's had to put aside in order to fulfill this role in the watchtower etc etc. so many of his relationships with people are built on his capacity for empathy as bruce wayne the man, the human being. so it would be nice to actually capitalize on that

and ultimately i would want to take it to the natural conclusion. death. hush is the stupidest arc ever to me but my one takeaway from it is wondering why loeb chose to create this entirely new character whose neurosis was centered around his indignance over bruce's identity when he could literally have accomplished all of this with two face. like hello sir you even wrote the long halloween and hush was supposed to act like a sequel to it so why did you do this.. but anyway. i think somehow harvey should find out bruce's identity and descend into hysteria bc of the betrayal and entailed emotional crisis of it all and then wake up one day and walk over to the manor totally normal totally nonchalant and act like he's a changed man or whatever bc now he knows who batman, his best friend, his confidant, was, and he wants to believe in bruce wayne. and bc bruce is always one for compassion and second chances he lets him in. and then harvey blows them up together (logistics and detection systems wise we can figure this out later. xoxo)

this is probably where i would do dick closure like i know it's sick to do the whole child achieves closure re: their strained relationship with a parent in death but idk i'm obsessed with it personally like i want to explore dick who has worked so hard to build a life for himself outside of bruce and bruce not stopping him from doing so but that only driving a wedge further between them bc even if dick has always wanted to be independent he has also always wanted to be acknowledged as bruce's equal.. and having to contend with whether you feel like you've ultimately been given that or not in the end would be kinda crazy yknow. good opportunity to see what bruce has written for each of his kids but esp dick in his will but like executed way better and on a more personable level than whatever shite that was in battle for the cowl. something as simple as bruce expressing his individual love and pride for each of his children bc at the end of the day all he ever wanted for any of them to be was happy and that's why he progressively took upon all burdens even if it subsequently drove them further away bc they felt like they weren't of enough use. and idk from there just yknow your standard fare contention with grief and moving on bc that's all you can do. and maybe that's where you see the bat fam really become something. bc they're finally united in that ideal bruce wanted to follow so long ago and they know what has to change going forward and in what ways they can be and have to be better. idkkk this is so corny i'm sorry i love well done tragicorn