#start gotham war

[dioriysus]

sleepy girl things

[spacedace]

So I've seen a lot of "Jazz works as a therapist at Arkam" in the dp x dc fandom, and while I like the concept, I also feel like Jazz would take one look at the place and immediately be like "what the absolute fuck" at just the everything of the place.

Like, she either nopes out after the tour during the interview or quits not too long afterward starting there, not because she can't take it but because she's so appalled by what's going on there and can smell the corruption rolling off the place and knows no one sent to there is ever actually going to get the help they need.

So Jazz decides to open a private practice instead while still being absolutely determined to work with the various rogues in the city, she is here to help and nothing is going to stop her.

So she just starts showing up at known hangouts of rogues and during their heists/schemes/sprees, and even fights between them and the batfam, just like

"Hi! It’s so nice to meet you! My name is Dr. Jasmine Fenton/Nightingale/whatever last name she’s using and I was hoping we could talk!"

Casually kicks a baterang away without looking because she's being polite and professional!

"I understand that your experience with therapy through Arkam has been nothing but atrocious and that you are rightfully -"

Kicks Batman away without breaking eye contact or a sweat.

"Suspicious of attempting therapy again, and Idon't want to force anything on you, therapy should be on your terms after the experiences you've had but -"

Grabs Robin out of the air as he leaps at the rogue she's talking to and tucks him under her arm, ignoring his feral hissing and all attempts to break her hold.

"-I really think that you'd find it beneficial, even if I'm not the right therapist for you."

The rogue in question is having the time of their life and takes Jazz's business card - and a few extra to pass around - not really intending to actually ever book a therapy appointment with her but way too entertained and excited to share this madness with everyone else.

But then one of the rogues actually looks up Jazz's website and sees all the various safe guards she’s put in place to ensure that any villians that come to her will be protected while seeing her - soundproof therapy room, regular sweeps for listening and tracking devices, the most insane firewalls and protections anyone has ever seen on her network, and ooh she provides snacks and drinks!

So someone finally books an appointment with her, half convinced she's either going to turn them in or is a villain herself intent to experiment on them, but then it’s actually really nice??? And they feel a lot better afterwards?? She doesn't even say anything to indicate that she wants them to stop being villains, she just wants them to be okay??

So more and more rogues start going to her, and Batman was already losing his mind about this woman before - Oracle can't hack her system?!? And her background check shows a totally normal Psychiatrist?? - but now half of Gotham's heavy hitters and a dozen or so other minor league villains are seeing her regularly and every time he tries to get info on any plans the rogues might be scheme via her office it fails utterly. Nightwing got knocked out with something called a creep stick and when he tried to break in himself to get answers she just appeared out of no where and gave him the most scathing lecture about doctor-patient confidentiality before bullying him off her property and threatening to sick her brother on him if he tried again?

And because she's become such a figure in the Gotham underworld, she gets the attention of Joker.

And everyone, rogues and Bats alike, are terrified that she’s going to try and take him on as a patient like she has so many other villains in the city and that's just a recipe for tragedy.

But then the Joker is on his way to the hospital with two broken legs and the fear of god beat into him babbling about eldritch nightmares and whenever anyone asks Jazz what happened she just shrugs and just says things like "I refused him as a patient, he's not my problem." Or "My brother doesn't like clowns." And just, does not elaborate.

Batman is losing his mind over it all. Jazz is just happy to be able to actually help the rogues. Arkam is less happy about how she absolutely destroys their reputation.

[hijinxinprogress]

12 year old tim realizing robin’s not coming back to gotham and deciding that it’s Batman’s fault so he has to ruin the little bit of sanity and peace of mind Bruce has managed (read: struggled) to keep in his grasp:

[duketectivecomics]

‘Jason was Duke’s robin’ ‘tim was dukes robin’ YOURE ALL FOOLS

Steph as dukes most formative robin is RIGHT THERE

[aliteralchicken]

Imagine being the dry cleaner in Gotham who had sixteen year old Tim Drake bring in his funeral suit like three times in one month like that would be concerning even for gotham

[timdrakeismypatronus]

All I know is if Alfred Pennyworth was still alive this Gotham War ✨nonsense✨ would NEVER have happened

[chaoswarfare]

dp x dc prompt #32!

Danny moves to Gotham, but instead of his ghostliness unsettling people and drawing attention to him, it’s the fact that he’s so openly nice to people.

He’s helping people in a way that most people have been too scared to do for a very long time, and people definitely take notice when nothing immediately bad happens, and he keeps up the same as he always has with no foul schemes in sight.

Danny’s handed out food to people that needed it, stepped into disputes before they even got violent, picked up strays off the streets and taken them to places they could live better, stopped various muggings single handedly, and even assisted the paramedics and evac teams during large scale disasters.

While the bats didn’t have a real reason to investigate this force of uncontained kindness, they did strike up conversations when they happened across the same trouble, and were very fond of the teenager that seemed to wander the streets at all hours.

So of course everyone notices when the unconventionally friendly kid disappears, with the evidence linking him to a shadowy branch of the government.

[laufire]

retreating into my own amnesiac!jason wip, where I treat the premise of bruce altering jason's mind with the gravitas it deserves and hopefully end up writing a harrowing tale out of it. instead of. whatever it's going on rn.

[clownprince]

finally reading the metal/death metal arcs and related stuff and the timeline is just so insane. like. first batman chooses his family over joker, rejecting him and breaking his shriveled black heart. joker's reaction to this is to kill batman and destroy gotham, as one does. then they both make the executive decision to commit homoerotic murder-suicide. but they're resurrected with dionesium. joker in his new persona all pleads with batman not to go back to the way things were.

batman, now re-batmanified, captures joker, locks him in the batcave for several months, extracts the dionesium from his body, re-jokerfying him (???). bruce proposes to selina, presumably at the same time he has joker imprisoned in the cave. then despite joker all but begging him not to, batman effectively breaks the multiverse and opens the door for barbatos, the batman who laughs, and a whole other host of cosmic horrors. nice one, bruce! joker later teams up with batman to fight tbwl even though, again, this entire mess is very much bruce's own fault and joker was actively trying to prevent all of it! even though bruce Locked Him In A Cave. For Several Months. and broke his heart and literally killed him...

and joker's later reaction to all of this unfolding is to team up with lex luthor who's trying to take control of the multiverse because ofc he is. however joker fully intends to backstab lex the second he gets close to succeeding, and then to murder the entire legion of doom and show off their bodies to batman. but this plan is derailed because luthor is working with the batman who laughs who joker DESPISES.

then when tbwl resurfaces to target batman, joker shoots himself in the heart to infect batman so he can fight tbwl. bruce holds his dying body so very tenderly in his arms and then has alfred perform open heart surgery on him, refusing to let joker actually die even though alfred is basically begging him to do so. then joker escapes but comes back to wish batman good luck in fighting tbwl. batman asks joker to kill him if he becomes like tbwl. joker agrees and ends up keeping his promise and shooting batman (who ends up fine ofc because y'know, comics).

then like a year-ish later everything with their dark designs and joker war goes down. and some time during this the whole batcat marriage and best man arc takes place (not sure exactly when, the timeline makes my head hurt). like... how am I supposed to be normal about any of this.

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Yeah, people like to think that (adult) Jason’s snarky, cutting, and unapologetic post crisis characterization and the (mostly) “watered down”, docile personality he’s had from N52/rebirth onwards are irreconcilable, and that the shift was just an editorial decision with the intent of marketing him as a “likeable” hero.

While that last part might be true, have they considered that textually it makes perfect sense that being consistently in contact with an abuser just does that to a person. Wears them down until they feel like nothing but a husk, without any discernible direction or opinions of their own. If it isn’t completely burnt out yet, they (consciously or unconsciously) suppress that part of themselves that thinks independently either for self-preservation or to keep the peace. Considering anyone, even “mentally strong” people could fall victim to mental abuse, it’s actually pretty realistic imo.

[drbatsponge]

Are comic spoilers happening yet? Because I've seen zero people talk about Steph's new outfit from the new Gotham War issue, lol.

(At least on here, shit was already being discussed on Twitter.)

It's almost perfect, a definite improvement from what she's been wearing already, lol.

Obvious Batgirl 2009 influence is obvious.

(Still hate the stupid surgical mask, but whatevs.)

Unfortunately, the upcoming Beast World event gives me doubts it's actually a permanent fit because of this specific cover:

[mrnoital]

I may not be currently reading Gotham War, but the funniest discourse I've seen from that is people saying the kids would never side against Bruce

As if they all individually haven't had a direct storyline where they disobey him to do what they thought was right

[fortanuvasyama]

The Gotham War arc is going to annoy me to death at this point.

Can we call this character regression because WOW.

Bruce is STILL making decisions for other people and refusing to listen to them when they push back against it. None of his little heart to hearts with Selina seem to be sticking.

And it seems like there's no remorse for what he did to Jason.

He changed Jason's BRAIN CHEMISTRY and he's STILL justifying it after everything that's happened! Bruce thought Jason died again and it did nothing to his mindset. Bruce has come to a conclusion, decided his answer is right, and because he's ~Batman~ he refuses to think he could have gotten it wrong.

Poor Dick. Bruce straight up drops the responsibility of the 'family' on him out of the blue and takes off.

As an eldest child, this filled me with so much rage on Dick's behalf. Dick has had to bear the brunt of emotional developments for Bruce for so long; he just got done fighting against his father and a whole bunch of Rogues, and now he's left with the battered remains of his 'family' in the wake of his father's rampage.

What a disaster this is.

I'm honestly curious as to what could come next. It sounds like Bruce has essentially divorced himself from the group. Is this a way to get a solo Batman run with no other Gotham vigilantes? How do you come back from this in a genuine and acceptable way?

And I genuinely don't feel the Zur thing was resolved or developed in any meaningful way at all. It felt like that big driving force was pushed to the side so they could wrap up the meteor thing with Vandal Savage. I could be reading it wrong, but Dick mentions Zur once and Bruce just brushes him off. Are we supposed to read that little "it's not me" as Zur saying it? WHY is Dick not pressing him on this?! Why is he letting Bruce leave if he's still possibly compromised?! Zur was the whole reason this even happened!! AUGH!!!!!

[gotham-accidental-crimelord]

Did Nightwing "accidentally" cause me to need a crown? Yes Did I learn anything from this experience? No, and I'm now making a petition to ban him from Gotham. Wake up Gotham, we are the other woman (gender-neutral) and Nightwing has been leading us on!

[rockingthegraveyard]

You telling me the batfam, Dick especially, condoned what Bruce did to Jason to the point where Dick just started beating the shit outta him. But the moment Gotham War ended, they were collectively like "welp, that's done, good luck out there with your infliction or w/e Jason" 👋👋👋

[justmenoworries]

I sincerely hope Gotham War becomes DC's Spider-Man: One More Day.

In that everyone agrees it was a fucking stupid idea, it is quietly retconned into oblivion and when after years somebody brings it up the only reaction is