#maybe bruce should get on that one

[screamting]

another fic prompt

Batman has to use nail polish for something, like painting, writing, or simply covering something with color, and he's in a public space. People are looking. Someone whispers, "Batman uses nail polish? The fuck, I thought you were a guy????", with derision and disgust. You can choose how Bruce reacts to that when a small boy with painted nails is standing right next to them and looking hurt.

It is not, in fact, his nail polish, but the two youths hiding outside a mildly shot-up building waiting for the ambulance to arrive needed some sort of distraction, and in the dark and while looking for injuries, painted nails had set off the same sort of alarm as heavy bruising to the nail bed before he'd gotten a clearer look.

The girl still had the blue nail polish bottle in her pocket. So they are playing with nail polish when the police arrive, likely drawn to the minor explosions. Unfortunate. Bruce prefers the ambulance drivers.

There is some immediate guffaw when they come close enough to see the little bottle and brush in Batman's gauntlet, reapplying a layer to the girl's chipped nails.

"Get a load of this. Batman's playing little girl."

They are not, technically, jeering. It's said like sarcastic indulgence. Very 'oh no, I could never,' style denial.

The smaller of the youths, a boy who has just had his nails painted blue for the first time and was holding his nails carefully apart to let them dry, begins to shrink in on himself. His sister scowls but just moves slightly to block the line of sight, though that won't work long.

Bruce caps the bottle and sets it on the ground. He doesn't believe he'll be identified by hand similarities but he'll have to clean it up with acetone later and get a fuller manicure for his next public appearance.

He pulls off one gauntlet and waits, patiently, for the ambulance to arrive, and for one of the youths to pick up the bottle and shakily paint his nails.

[dukeofthomas]

Here's my controversial opinion; if you're trying to write Bruce as a non-abusive, good parent, you should also write him respecting his kids' privacy, boundaries, and not stalking&surveying them.

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Still very wild to me when people try to gotcha Jason with the whole "if you can kill other people for being evil why can't they kill you" when jason is like. One of the most passively suicidal characters I've ever seen. What if man

[violent138]

Batman's ships with his various Rogues are very interesting to think about (lots of quality material there for both character analysis and just fun) but simultaneously you have to grapple with (or ignore) the canon abuse/murder/kidnapping/torture/trauma some of the Rogues have wrought upon Bruce's family. I'm starting to really get into BruHarvey (for so many great reasons), but holy hell in canon Harvey was once the killer of Jason's dad, and definitely beat the shit out of Dick (amongst other things).

Still a great ship though.

[covertblizzard]

jaykyle au where they're theatre kids in the same school but they're not the actors jason's the scriptwriter/director and kyle is the prop manager (i don't know the official terms sorry) and they'd probably do an amazing job on the backstage setting if they could stop arguing for 5 whole seconds about their artistic visions and ideas and how "this would obviously work better this way"

[wellzofyouth]

That one post of my mine predictably aged like fine wine. Never let somebody on comic twitter in the writer's room😭😭😭 Like imagine a 1 to 1 adaptation of literally any event?? -1b at the box office. "Who are these people???"

[bittwitchy]

Bruce and Cassie + •-•

Bonus w Arthur

[brick-van-dyke]

My dad, jokingly: "I'm badman"

Me: "haha sure" (not thinking he's anything like batman)

My dad: *left/ separated from my mum when I was a teen, started a GTA gang that helps bullied kids, ended up emotionally adopting like 8 kids and helped them through bullying, suicide, abuse, etc.*

Me: *was hurt by an abuser and had to deal with said abuser being forgiven by family around me*

Me: *gets into Batman lore*

Me: ...

"Wait a second..."

[pebblezone]

🦭

[cdelphiki]

I've always loved the story of Matilda. I've only seen the musical once because of how musicals work, and how hard it is to see them not live, but the 90s movie was my favorite movie as a kid. As an adult, Matilda has given me really strong Jason-Todd-feelings. Especially in the song "Naughty," in just how Matilda really subscribes to the idea that if she wants things to be better, or at least to have things made 'right,' she has to do it herself. She can't and shouldn't just sit back and take abuse, she should fight back, no matter how little she is. That spirit in itself just always reminded me of Jason.

But now with the Netflix movie, I've watched the musical several times this week and it's really made me listen to the music (before I only listened to a couple of the songs with any repetition) and Wow do I have feelings. But this song in particular, at first I was thinking about how it would reflect on Jason & Bruce before I realized something...

This is exactly how Tim's story plays out. The song is the final song in the play, and it's called Still Holding my Hand. The lyrics go:

I believed that I would never be able to rely on anybody else. And I was sure that I would just have to learn to survive all by myself. And one day I opened my eyes, and looked to find that the sky had turned blindingly blue. And right by my side was you quietly taking a stand, and you were holding my hand.

And just. Think about that. Tim Drake was this tiny little child who inserted himself in Bruce's life because Batman needed help. He didn't go to Batman for help in anything, and while canon is kind of all over the place on Tim's own situation, he was a neglected child in basically every version. In the main one most people tend to use, he rarely had his parents around, and was instead raised by boarding schools and the housekeeper. But none of those people are parents. They aren't people you can rely on. They're all employees of someone or something. They aren't the same thing as nannies, and even then, nannies aren't replacements for parents. I say that as a former nanny. People who take care of you for a living aren't permanent fixtures in your life, no matter how wonderful, supporting, and loving they are. And that will cause a wall to be built between you, especially if you're used to being moved around or just don't have the same one your whole childhood.

So Tim, being 12 or 13, didn't have anyone in his life he could rely on. He relied on himself, and was fiercely independent as a result. It's certainly one of his strengths, and it was what made him approach Batman and save him over and over again. But even if it was a strength of his, everyone, everyone, but especially children need people they can rely on. And once the grieving-Bruce resigned himself to training this child they bonded. Bruce started noticing things about Tim, about Tim's parents. Or... lack of Tim's parents, and so he stepped up further. He became a father figure in Tim's life. Even if he was hesitant, because Tim wasn't his kid.

And one day.... Tim opened his eyes and saw. And he realized that Bruce was there for him. Bruce cared about him, loved him even, and Tim trusted him with his entire being. Something he never thought would happen. Kid-him relying on an adult so heavily.

Anyway. Now listen to the song and cry with me about it.

[magentagalaxies]

so my friend and i are currently chatting about how i just discovered me referring to weed as "pot" makes me sound like a suburban mom even tho i didn't realize it was an "old-timey" term (??? it sounds just as normal as "weed" to me???)

and i just realized the reason i say pot is specifically because 1. watching kids in the hall (and other things from that era) and 2. talking about pot with the kids in the hall (the ones i know irl still use that word)

so for everyone's information i do NOT sound like a suburban mom for saying "pot" i sound like an old canadian gay man!!!!

but anyway that conversation moved on to talking about weed and the kids in the hall and now i must bring a poll to tumblr

(even if you have smoked before this is about placing yourself in the hypothetical situation i'd be in bc i've never been stoned before and my friend and i were joking about how my first time getting high would be with one of the kids in the hall lmao)

also in your opinion is saying "pot" weird???? literally so confusing to me like damn i guess all my interactions with weed are through the lens of 1. media from the 90s or 2. people who were young adults in the 90s

[pensiveant]

They need to invent celebrities who captivate me in a sicko way so I can get into rpf

[candy-ac3]

Should have the first chapter of this Adam and the batfam crossover shit done either today or tommorow yippie!

[doerot]

Do we have a specific time of year when utrh takes place? Because I tend to like to think that it happens around the anniversary of Jason's death, meaning that it coincides very closely with Jason's birthday, which, to extend the thought exercise, practically overlaps with Stephanie's birthday. A friend of mine reminded me yesterday about a tidbit I never think about very much, how the end of war games is right before utrh. All this is to say: Imagine a father holding his dead kid in his arms days before he even reaches 16, and then two years later he holds the hand of a girl—one that he was supposed to protect, because if she was going to force herself onto the field, then he was damn sure going to stop what happened to his son from happening again—before she passes away, never reaching 17.

[benbamboozled]

Always important to remember that Alfred Pennyworth is NOT the Designated Sane One of the Batfam.

(And poor Tim has to apologize to him lol.)

Source is Detective Comics #664

[sweetteaanddragons]

I have been thinking lately about a universe where Bruce Wayne killed the Joker.

I want to be clear here, since there are so many longstanding debates on this topic: I do not think Bruce Wayne should kill the Joker. I have just been wondering what would happen if the circumstances aligned in such a way that he did.

And to be clear on a related, yet slightly different topic: when I say I have been wondering about what if Bruce Wayne killed the Joker, I do not mean as the Batman. I mean Bruce "Brucie" Wayne.

Maybe it's kind of an accident? Like, he definitely did intend to hit the Joker, but he's Brucie right now, so he's trying not to look like he knows what he's doing while still doing enough damage to keep the Joker from killing someone, and meanwhile the Joker makes just the wrong move and -

And here we are. Brucie just killed the Joker.

Bruce's reaction here is one thing; he has his one rule for a reason, he's just broken it, he's determined to turn himself in -

His family's reaction is a whole different story. How does Cass feel about this?

How does Jason? Bruce has killed the Joker, just like he wanted, but it wasn't for him, not really, and -

And meanwhile, this happens in front of, say, a gala full of people, so now all of Gotham gets to react to it too.

Average Gothamite, seeing the words BRUCE WAYNE, JOKER, and KILLED in the same headline: OH, NO.

Average Gothamite, once they've processed the order those words are actually in: . . . I did not have that on this year's bingo card.

The city's most famous mass murderer has just been publicly killed by the city's biggest employer/philanthropist/source of tabloid harmless nonsense! Three days before Brucie was making tabloid headlines by tripping into a fountain and somehow losing his shirt in the process! Two weeks before, the newspaper was running a retrospective on the Wayne murders and what donation Brucie was making to help the families of victims this year! The article mentioned how one of his adopted sons had also tragically become a murder victim!

Now this has happened, and Bruce is having a breakdown over breaking his one rule, and the rest of Gotham just assumes that this is because poor Brucie thinks this somehow makes him like the man who killed his parents. They send a huge outpouring of support his way. This in no way helps Bruce's actual breakdown.

Ninety percent of Gotham is sure Brucie didn't actually mean to kill the Joker, and pretty much a hundred percent of them support him whether he meant to do it or not. No one wants to have anything to do with prosecuting this mess. Bruce is trying to make it as clear as possible that he will fully cooperate with the justice system and meanwhile an entire gala full of people is suddenly acting like they could in no way have possibly witnessed events that took place ten feet in front of their faces. Did Bruce kill the Joker? Is the officer sure? That doesn't seem like him. Maybe the Joker just tripped on his own. Marble floors, you know. Very slippery.