#steph is discovering the wonders of being an older sister

[piedpiperart]

Phantom in Gotham

Due to Ao3 being down, I’m posting my DP x DC fic here!

Chapter 1

Tim wasn't sure what about the new kid caught his attention. Maybe it was the black hair and blue eyes, or the fact that he seemed to be as sleep-deprived as Tim considering the deep eyebags. Tim figured it could also be the numerous red flags that somehow keep appearing the more he gets to know Danny. The unnaturally cold hands, slower than usual heartbeat (discovered by Connor), or the fact that Danny used the lunch period as more of a nap time instead of actually eating. To put it lightly, Tim was concerned. So was Connor, but less in a way of ‘hey this kid probably needs help’ like Tim was and more ‘hey this kid might be dangerous’.

But the kid was nice. Tim could see that Danny was a good person. Every morning at school since Danny started showing up- halfway through the school year, which was another red flag- he'd talk to Tim before their class started about everything and anything. Tim learned that Danny liked astronomy, wanted to meet Martian Manhunter someday to ask about space, he had an older sister Jazz and a younger sister Ellie, both of whom he hadn't seen in a while. Tim didn't press, but he was pretty sure Danny was living on his own. He just wasn’t sure why. 

Of course, many possibilities crossed his mind. Tim was a detective first and foremost, and he could never leave an unsolved mystery alone. His list included runaway, kicked out, in danger, or on the run because of meta abilities. Because of that last oneTim wasn’t sure if he should look him up on the batcomputer or not. If Danny was running or laying low for some reason, tipping Batman off about it would not work in Danny’s favor. Tim also wanted to find this out on his own first, without Batman’s help. 

Tim helped as best he could. He brought granola bars for Danny in the morning, who lit up like an excited puppy at the prospect of snacks. He felt good about being able to help his new friend, but wished he could do more than keep him company during class and lunch. Speaking of lunch, Danny never ate much of it. Tim usually tried to get him to eat something, but Danny usually waved him off and took a nap at their table instead. Tim would share a concerned glance with Steph and Connor, but for the most part they let him sleep, and made him eat a bunch of his school lunch after he woke up.

Danny never asked for anything, and he was always cheerful- a forced cheerfulness, Tim could  recognize- catching him in those rare moments when he wore a sad smile, like something he remembered was painful to think about. Tim wasn't sure what Danny had gone through, but he knew it probably wasn't good. He assumed the kid was a runaway of sorts, but Gotham Academy was a rich prep school, so Tim wondered how a runaway would be able to afford attendance at such a school. Obviously the kid wasn’t from Gotham, and that worried Tim with how much crime went on around the city. One possibility was that his parents sent him away as a ‘boarding school’ of sorts. Tim wasn’t sure how Gotham Prep was the best option for that though. 

Tim wanted nothing more than to investigate Danny's life, but had put it off. Part of him wanted Danny to tell him himself, but he had also been swamped with a new vigilante on the streets. None of the other bats ever saw who it was, but they all could feel something helping them or other people out. Like some invisible force they couldn't detect. It was hard to notice at first, with a few crooks tripping conveniently, a well placed pot falling on someone’s head. But it grew to become more, like one of them getting pushed out of the way, or sheets of ice appearing magically on the ground in the middle of summer. Tim had tried to call out, but no one ever answered. After a month, the invisible ghost still hadn’t showed itself, but they knew he- it? she?- was still around. Dick thought it was like a ghost friend, unsurprisingly nicknaming it Casper. Bruce, not so much.

But back to Danny. Tim was worried. Granted, they'd only known each other for a month at most, but he reminded Tim of Dick. Always hiding sad smiles behind false cheer, caring more about the people around them than themself. Tim shook his head, trying to disperse the thoughts around Danny's mysterious past. It would be rude to pry. 

"You sure you don't want to come over after school?" Tim asked,"Steph and I are gonna do homework, you can totally join us if you want."

"Ah," Danny froze, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly a moment later. Tim could see his pale skin and deep eyebags from standing so close. He chewed his lower lip in worry while the taller teen stammered through an excuse.  "I- I have some things to do at home, you know, chores and stuff. Maybe next time."

"Alright,"Tim answered easily, filing the answer down to analyze later. Meanwhile Steph booed at Danny from behind Tim. "Maybe next time? You could come over for movie night on Friday?" Steph added, frustration seeping into her voice,. Tim was sure Danny was either ignoring her outburst or didn’t notice. 

"I'll think about it,"Danny smiled nervously, stepping away and waving goodbye when they got to the street.

Tim waved back, shoulders slumping in disappointment. Steph shot him a knowing glance. "Looks like you're wearing him down at least. He'll be a Wayne before you know it!" Steph cheered, latching onto Tim's arm and dragging him to the car.

"I hope so," Tim sighed. The wearing down part at least, but he wouldn’t argue to having a new brother his age. 

"Hey, maybe he's just nervous about visiting the mansion?" Steph speculated. "Rich people's stuff can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe we can go to his house or somewhere else."

"I don't think so," Tim frowned. "Anytime we ask him to hang out after school he has some sort of excuse to get out of it, even if we invite him to the movies or bowling."

Steph pulled a face,"Well, maybe he just doesn't like you," She teased, then turned serious at Tim's glare.

"I am worried about him though,"Steph admitted, looking over to where Danny disappeared to,"He reminds me of Dick, but like, more sad. You said he was sick?"

Tim nodded in agreement, worrying his lip between his teeth as he thought. “Slow heartbeat, possibly malnourished, and lower body temperature, but other than that he acts fine. No low energy, he does pretty average in Gym class. I found a few diseases that it could be online, but I don’t have enough symptoms to narrow it down and it’d be weird to ask.“

"Have you looked him up on the batcomputer yet?" Steph asked, climbing into the car.

Tim shook his head. "Not yet. I don't want to pry too much, but I think he might be a runaway. It doesn't explain why he's at school, but it would partially explain his poor health. I just really don’t want Batman to find out, and he will if I use the Batcomputer. Connor also said his heartbeat was lower than he’d ever heard on someone not dying, so he might be a meta? It wouldn't be a stretch for his family to have kicked him out for being a meta. It happens."Tim thought aloud.

"Could also be a medical condition, like you said before." Steph pointed out. "I don’t know any metas that would have slower heartbeats, cuz usually enhancements means faster. He does seem kinda tired all the time. And he really doesn't eat much during school."

Tim hummed in agreement. "I'm just worried about him,"Tim sighed. 

"Alright Bruce,"Steph teased, smacking him lightly on the shoulder,"Should I get Alfred to set up another bedroom?"

Tim shoved her playfully, frown morphing into the beginnings of a smile. "I'm not gonna adopt him Steph, he's our age."

"Sure,"Steph shrugged with a smile that told Tim she didn't believe him at all. 

"Maybe Bruce would though, if we introduced them."

"Tim, no."

Chapter 2

[batcassed]

i love your reverse batgirl au!! do you mind writing more about them?

Okay so after going through the post I realized I wrote it at 2 am, so I'm going to simply rewrite it and then add more if that's okay <3

AU where Bruce adopts Barbara, Steph, Cass and Harper instead of the batboys - Batdaughters: Origins

Would like to start by saying: Damian never exists; Bruce doesn’t sleep with Talia because he's aroace in this universe no I don't make the rules he just is

Barbara Gordon is adopted by Jim Gordon after his brother and his sister in law, Barbara’s parents, die (as per canon.) When she’s six, he's killed by the Joker, who forces Barbara to watch. Bruce is too late to save Gordon and puts the blame for his death on himself, so he tries to atone by giving Barbara a home. Raising a daughter keeps him busy so he doesn’t visit Haley’s circus when it visits Gotham. Dick’s parents fall to the floor, and instead of Bruce, the Court of Owls take him in.

When Babs is 16, Bruce adopts Stephanie Brown. Steph’s father is Cluemaster but he’s put in Arkham early in her childhood. Stephanie’s mother is unable to overcome her addiction to pharmaceuticals (unlike in canon where she does overcome this) and this ends in her death. 11 year old Stephanie runs away from her social worker and ends up finding the batmobile in an alley. She hides under the car and her social worker passes by, but when Batman arrives she jumps out to avoid getting run over. He tries to take her back to foster care but she throws a brick at him and runs. Bruce decides to adopt her once he finds out her father is cluemaster, and when he takes her for waffles she agrees to ‘let him’ adopt her.

Harper Row is taken away from her alcoholic father when she’s 9 and is the only kid to actually end up with Bruce in a normal way. He’s officially a foster parent and she’s placed with him through the system. She tells Bruce that she has a brother, Cullen, who she hasn’t seen since being taken away from her father but Bruce is unable to figure out where he’d gone. Cullen was never registered in the foster care database and none of the workers that picked up Harper recalled there being another child.

When the Justice League encounters Lady Shiva a year later, she fights them and defeats Batman, but the combined forces of Wonder Woman and Superman force her capture and she’s questioned under the lasso. She tells them about her origin and that a man named David Cain had her biological daughter and was training her to be an assassin. Batman realizes that the daughter in question is still only 8, and adds her and David to his search for Cullen. He finds her being trained by David to be a ruthless killer and rescues her. He realizes that she’s mute and deadly and can’t grow up in a regular foster system so he takes her home with him.

Babs becomes Batgirl at 14, but is paralyzed at 17, a year after Steph joins the family. Then she takes the moniker oracle.

When Steph is older she doesn’t feel right taking on the batgirl name, so she becomes Robin. Steph and Bruce have a falling out when Bruce calls her reckless in the field and benches her so she distances herself from him and becomes Spoiler. She meets a kid named Tim in university who was emancipated from his parents when he was 16 and discovers that since he was a kid, he’s tried to follow batman and robin’s footsteps by fighting crime at night in a red domino and black clothes. Steph reveals that she was the Robin that Tim used to watch at night and takes him on as her partner, eventually training him to be a third Robin, one who was never trained by Batman: Red Robin.

At the same time, Harper spends years trying to find her brother, Cullen. She fights crime to find her brother without telling Bruce at first, taking on the codename Bluebird. When he finds out, Bruce takes her on as his partner, not his sidekick, which drives a wedge between her and Steph.

Cass had decided to live a normal life after having the choice taken away from her when she was young, but an attack on her school causes her to fight off a bunch of the rogue gallery to the point of near-death. She holds them off long enough for her school to evacuate and run. After she survives this, Barbara reaches out to her and tells her that if she ever wants it, the mantle of batgirl is there for her. Cass refuses it at first but takes it when she turns 15, deciding to train again, but this time to defend Gotham, and not kill. She becomes batgirl at 16.

Steph and Tim both join young justice and Babs was a part of the Teen Titans before being paralyzed.

When Bruce ‘dies’ for half a year, Cass gives the mantle of Batgirl to Steph and moves to Hong Kong to become Black Bat.

Harper moves in with Steph and befriends Tim, who believes that Bruce is alive. Nobody takes the mantle of Batman after Bruce’s ‘death.’

After he is rescued by Tim and Steph, Bruce returns to Gotham. Cass returns to be Black Bat and Steph goes back to being Spoiler, and Bruce and Steph finally reconcile.

They find out that Cullen was taken by the Court of Owls and turned into a Talon, and when they try to rescue him, they discover that a second Talon had taken a liking to him and was protecting him from the batfamily, seeing them as enemies.

So of course they take both Talons home. Bruce discovers that the second Talon is Dick Grayson and with Martian Manhunter’s help, they help them learn how to be human again.

Dick takes Cullen to live by themselves in a quiet area of Gotham, and Bruce leaves them be, knowing that they deserve to lead normal lives without continuing to be entangled in the batfamily. Only Harper visits.

At the same time, a new crime lord pops up, claiming to go by the red hood. Bruce fears another Joker situation and finds Red Hood to interrogate him and finds out that his name is Jason Todd. Jason, forced to work as a goon for two-face to earn money to support his mother, was a hostage of the Joker and beaten almost to death before Batman saved him, but he was too late to save Jason's mother. (we're ignoring the biological mother plot point here.) He wants to drive Batman to finally break his code and kill so that he’ll kill the Joker. After a fight between them that almost ends in Jason dying, Batman backs off and doesn’t turn him into the police. The Red Hood kills the Joker, but realizes that it didn't change anything. He almost turns the gun on himself but Bruce stops him. Bruce promises to leave him alone, acknowledging that Crime Alley is his territory, as long as he gives them information on a major trafficking ring in Gotham. Jason agrees and together they take the ring down.

After the Red Hood saves Cass from the collapse of a building, he and Cass strike up a tentative friendship. He becomes an anti-hero after sending the criminal underground into a civil war, ensuring the destruction of some of the larger crime families in Gotham. Then he becomes an ally of the batfamily, but still kills.

Duke's story is similar to canon except his parents are cured from the Joker Virus. He still joins the batfamily as the signal, and eventually joins the Outsiders team with Cass.

Send me asks if you want me to go into more detail with a part of this au!

[dontcallmecarrie]

No Hero [And Not Made Of Stone]

...I’ve got nothing. Not even sure where the idea came from, but as per usual, the moment my brain had an idea it immediately took it by both hands and ran with it so here you go. Name for this AU might change, but for now here have another song lyric [from Five Finger Death Punch’s “Wrong Side of Heaven”]

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Warnings: mild profanity, dysfunctional families, a metric buttload of gender and identity issues, because the protagonist is a possibly agender character [their stance on gender can be summed up as “huh, those parts are new. Weird. Moving on”]. Not exactly Tony-friendly at times, but not for the reasons you’d think. 

To sum up: haven’t done a SI-OC fic before, let’s see how it goes. Under the cut, because RIP mobile users otherwise.

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Justin Hammer’s name wasn’t always Justin Hammer.

He doesn’t really remember what it was anymore, but he knows that much.

.

Honestly? This ‘memories of another world’ thing was more a pain in the ass than anything else, at least at first.

It might’ve been cool if they remembered something useful— concrete dates, specific innovations, hell, even any tips of what stocks to invest in— but no, they had to get short end of the stick with weird dreams, identity crises, and a longing for a family they’d never had.

Oh, and another round of puberty, because of why the hell not. Like last time hadn’t been enough of a pain in the ass.

Ugh. They wanted a refund.

.

...okay, so it probably could’ve been worse. 

Justin has vague recollections of going to sleep hungry, of huddling with their younger sibling under blankets because their parents couldn’t pay the electrical bill— so really, in the great scheme of things, being born as part of the 1% this round was. Something.

Trippy as hell, is what it was, honestly.

This family was loaded, and under other circumstances, they might’ve even been able to enjoy it— if, y’know, they hadn’t had the incredibly shitty luck of being born two years before Tony Stark.

.

“Look at what he’s doing, that could be you” this, “study hard, he’s going to be your rival” that— geez, if any other kid had been in Justin’s shoes, he would not have envied them. 

If he didn’t already have a firmly established sense of self, it would have been a mindfuck of a childhood because for some reason, his father kept comparing them? And yeah, Justin could kinda see some of the parallels— they were about the same age, both firstborn sons and heirs to their parents’ respective companies— but that’s about where the similarities ended.

Look, Justin wasn’t a genius, okay? He was fairly bright for his age, but...he wasn’t a one-in-a-million prodigy. And, up until he was 6, that had been acceptable.

But then the press went wild because oh, look, Howard’s son built a circuit board at age four, and it all went downhill from there because suddenly, being normal wasn’t good enough. Not for his parents, anyway.

.

Sometimes, he wondered what would’ve happened if it had been another kid in his shoes— how they would’ve handled the small army of private tutors and the extra classes they kept being signed up for in the hopes of finding something they excelled in.

The pressure of constantly being compared to a once-in-a-generation prodigy, and always being found wanting.

Justin wasn’t afraid of hard work— but it was grating, even for him. 

Really, just about the only silver lining to this ‘second life’ thing was his adorable little sister, Stephanie.

She, at least, looked up to him: her gap-toothed smile didn’t hold any expectations for anything other than the piggyback rides he regularly offered, and this time he didn’t even have to worry about medical bills, or—

Anyway.

.

His family and the Starks run in the same social circles, because of course they do. 

Now that he’s getting older, Justin’s being dragged along to all of the fancy shindigs with his parents, and it’s only due to two lifetimes’ worth of self-control that keeps his polite smile from wavering when he’s introduced to the bane of his existence.

“Hi, my name’s Tony Stark.” The little brat said, and Justin bit back a sigh as he shook his hand.

.

...so, the Stark heir his father wanted to be his rival was a kid. Actually a kid, which just made this mess that much more pathetic because part of Justin had almost been starting to want to buy into this rivalry thing, but.

In this life, and the last one, they’d been an older sibling.

This time, despite everything, he could tell he was softer— he had never gone to bed hungry, never had to worry about the roof over his head, or being solely responsible for his younger sibling’s health and safety— but.

Old habits die hard. 

.

Of course Justin’s father hears “the Starks are sending their seven-year-old heir to boarding school” and thinks “good idea, why didn’t I think of that?” 

Of course.

Of fucking course.

Steph had cried when they’d packed their things, and for that alone, Justin would never forgive their parents.

.

The other brats at boarding school are more invested in the Hammer-Stark rivalry than they are.

...this was going to be a long 9 years, wasn’t it.

.

One of the perks to going to one of the most elite boarding schools in the world was the options. Certainly, Justin doubted other places offered skiing and fencing and over eleven languages in their electives. 

Not that he was complaining: it was definitely a way to keep busy, certainly much better than the constant attempts at one-upmanship that came part and parcel with cramming the richest heirs, heiresses, and honest-to-goodness royalty in one place. 

At the end of the day, though, they were all kids. Bratty, entitled little shits who were still at the stage where they constantly went “my father will hear about this!” and Justin had way better things to do with his time than engage in those petty little playground attempts at power plays. 

So he dove into everything the school had to offer, bouncing from elective to elective like a ping pong ball, and trying not to think too hard as to why Spanish had come so easily to him, though he’d never studied it before— or why he’d felt a pang when the instructor had congratulated him on his accent. 

.

Somewhere down the line, Justin...kinda made a name for himself? Apparently?

Ugh, they’d never understand these people. 

.

Okay, so apparently he’d kinda become an older brother figure of sorts to the brats around here? Somehow? Even though he hadn’t exactly been planning on doing anything of the sort when he saw an underclassman struggling during practice, or stopped fights before they could start in the common room because he’d just sat down and didn’t have the patience to move all his stuff somewhere else to study.

Didn’t make sense to him, but apparently it was enough for some of the professors to write ‘good leadership skills’ on his transcripts, so whatever.

As a bonus, it made his old man happy. Not that Justin gave a damn about what he thought about him personally, but the increase in his ‘allowance’ [it was in the triple digits, like hell he was calling it that] was nice.

.

Among the hobbies Justin bounced between, there were a few that raised more eyebrows than others.

Knitting, for instance, was something some of the more annoying brats liked to laugh about. They eased up when they found out he sent the scarves and hats he made to his little sister, but... eh, whatever. 

Sewing, too— apparently it was okay if it was framed as a Boy Scout-esque ‘know the basics so you can always be prepared!’ way, but the moment he did any sort of embroidery there went his respectability. 

Well, at least nobody gave him a hard time about cooking. But then, his chilaquiles had some of these guys’ eyes watering just from the smell of it, so. 

It still didn’t sit well with him sometimes— kinda like how puberty had Not Been Fun on a number on levels, but hey, if all else failed, he could just ignore it harder. 

It hadn’t failed him yet.

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Stephanie insisted on going to boarding school with him when she got to the age he’d been shipped off at.

It was...nice, having his little sister around again. 

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It was a good thing Justin had been okay with being designated the heir of Hammer Industries, because Steph was... exactly like he remembered her.

Cheerful, upbeat, startlingly devious and manipulative when she wanted to be, and just a tad bit spoiled.

...okay, so Justin had probably contributed a bit to that last one. In his defense, he’d been doing his best to shield his sister from the staggeringly high expectations he himself had to deal with, but look, he wanted at least one of them to have some semblance of a happy childhood, okay? 

Goodness knew he hadn’t [not this time, nor the last].

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Stephanie wasn’t interested in the family business, was more interested in pursuing a career in the arts.

Justin, of course, encouraged her wholeheartedly.

Their parents weren’t entirely happy about it, but...wasn’t like they had much to complain about. Not when Justin was always in the top ten of his year, not when the professors practically gushed over his responsibility and work ethic. 

He was no Tony Stark, but he’d made a name for himself nonetheless.

.

“So, we’re supposed to be rivals?” The bane of his existence said once, at yet another gala. “Howard says so, anyway.”

“Seems that way,” Justin shrugged as they pilfered a flute from a nearby table, carefully not commenting on how he’d referred to his father by his first name. Talk about a strained relationship, right there.

“You’re not really acting like one.”

“Well,” Justin sipped at his flute before making a face when he discovered it was champagne and not apple cider like he’d hoped, “it’s nothing personal, just business. Healthy competition, y’know? Someone’s got to.”

Stark eyed him for a moment, before giving him a brilliant smile. “You know, I think I’d like that.” 

.

Justin would never, ever understand these people.

.

In the time Justin Hammer got his degree in business, Tony Stark got several Ph.Ds. 

Not that he envied him: the idea of being shoved into the limelight after losing his entire family? Hard pass.

.

For some reason, Tony Stark seemed to think they were friends.

Why.

Sure, Justin tried to be as cordial with him as he did with anyone else, but... how on Earth did that translate into being friends?

.

“You look at him like he’s a kid,” Steph says once, laughing, “you look at all of us that way, haven’t you noticed?”

“Well, to be fair—”

“You’re only a few years older than us, but you keep acting like you’re dad. More like a dad than our actual dad, sometimes,” her smile dropped for a moment, “don’t think I forgot that time he didn’t even call for your birthday.”

Justin made a face. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”

She sighed, then gave him a smile and a look he couldn’t decipher. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

.

By the time Justin Hammer became the CEO of Hammer Industries, Tony Stark had held the same post in his company for over half a decade. 

Yet...well, something weird was going on.

Maybe it was because Justin’d had more time to prepare for the cutthroat world that was the defense industry, but— 

For some reason, he couldn’t help but think Tony was softer than he’d thought.

No-brainer contracts that would have been a cinch to broker, passed over simply because their distributors didn’t pass their incredibly high standards; buyers who wanted in, but whose past associations— very, very far in the past— meant SI didn’t even consider them. 

Justin couldn’t understand it. 

For someone in the industry, Stark’s morals were...unusual. Respectable, from one perspective, but remarkably naive from any self-respecting businessman who wanted to turn a profit. 

He was fairly certain the only reason Stark Industries was considered number one in the sector was because of the constant influx of new designs; they just were turning down too many contracts for him to consider otherwise. 

Sure, sometimes Hammer weapons found themselves in the wrong hands— much more often than Stark weapons, regrettably— but it was one of the hazards that came with the business. They’d both known it from the get-go; Stark weapons were considered the best for a reason, even though somewhere down the line, his company’d gotten a reputation for no-frills dependability and ruggedness to the point where unscrupulous individuals would do anything to get their hands on either. Wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it, not when money talked in ways laws didn’t.

Why Stark was so hung up over it, he just. Couldn’t wrap his head around.

.

Stark was proclaimed dead, and there was strong evidence to indicate the attackers had been using his guns.

...well, fuck.

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“This is fine,” Justin muttered as his personal headache proceeded to come back from the dead only to say his company was going to stop doing the thing it was known for and making an ungodly mess in the stock market while at it, “it’s not like it affects me, anyway.”

.

Overnight, Hammer Industries became number one in the defense sector. 

Justin was not a happy camper about the spotlight.

Even more so, when he had to take additional measures so his sister could continue enjoy the privacy she’d had after pursuing her dreams as an artist because the press didn’t want to leave well enough alone.

.

“You know, you could’ve given me a warning.” Justin scowled when he saw Tony at the next gala.

“You handled it well enough, didn’t you?”

Ugh. 

His headache was back, and worst part was, the smile he got more than made up for it.

.

...and then I kinda ran out of steam.

tl;dr: MCU canon had Justin Hammer as a foil to Tony Stark, here their dynamic is more along the lines of Beethoven and Mozart [one really respecting the other’s genius, and working their butt off to get to that level of respectability and general acclaim].

in this AU, Stark Industries is kind of like Apple— very futuristic high-tech stuff, all the bells and whistles going on, etc, whereas Hammer Industries is the Nokia in this analogy: not fancy in the slightest but as close to indestructible as it gets. 

[outoftheframework]

Hey! I was wondering if you had any ideas for a younger!batfam??? I hope you're having a wonderful day!!!

Ohh!! I can sure try!

So logically, the youngest we can get is about 12-13-14 years younger (whatever age Damian is). For the sake of consistency, let’s say 14 years younger, as based on this post of mine.

Ages:

Damian: New born (~1 month)

Duke: 3 years old

Tim: 5 years old

Steph: 6 years old

Jason: 8 years old

Cass: 10 years old

Dick: 13 years old

Babs: 15 years old

Alfred: 58 years old

Bruce: 28 years old

So let’s make this make sense. So, keeping the canon steady of Steph and Babs not being Waynes, Bruce would have to adopt/have 6 kids by the age of 28, which is pushing it a little bit (even for him). But let’s go with it anyway.

Dick Grayson has the same backstory and was taken in by a 23-year-old Bruce at age 8. Starting with that fact, all the rest of the kids would have to have come into Bruce’s life in a span of five years. Adoption is a long process, so it may make more sense for some of the kids to be “wards” or foster children of Bruce’s still in the process to be legally adopted. That being said, he loves and protects them all the same.

A year later, Batman finds a toddler (2-3 years old) wandering by himself in crime alley. He quickly discovers the kid is very intelligent for his age and babbles non-stop. Bruce cannot help but warm up to the child, and “banters” with the babble until he makes the grim discovery of the fate of the child’s mother. He stays with to kid until the police arrive, and a little bit after that, electing not to disappear into the shadows quite yet. As Bruce Wayne, he learns the name of and tracks down Jason Todd in the foster system and starts the legal process of adoption.

Not even six months later, a 6-7 year old Cassandra cain seeks out batman by breaking into Wayne Manor. Bruce almost has a heart attack coming home after work to see another child sitting at his dining room table with his two. She has come to ask Batman to train her, but instead Bruce does all in his power to remove her from her toxic home situation. She becomes close with Jason and Dick, who had been learning ASL in school and were excited to make a new friend. Soon, she’s on her way to becoming their new official sister.

Bruce gets one and a half years with his three musketeers before a frantic knock at the door gets their attention. They’re in the living room playing a heated game of Uno with extra made-up rules when Alfred leads a crying toddler into the living room, along with a pair of lawyers and a social worker. The trio leads Bruce away while Alfred tries to calm the child. “The Drakes had no suitable next-of-kin to take Timothy in. You’re named as the god-father. But we understand if-” “I think this house has room for one more.” Bruce had known the quiet boy from his gala appearances where his mother passed him around the other socialites while he held a straight face. He’d been suspicious of the Drake’s parenting from the first month they had Tim home, where he saw them leave to catch a plane without him. He’d been practically raised by nannies. Was it an impulsive decision? Yes. Does he regret it? Absolutely not.

Bruce and his growing gaggle of children were familiar with the Thomases; Mrs. Thomas did consulting work for WE and the younger ones’ favorite playground was in Duke’s neighborhood (Bruce can easily assume that Duke’s being there was a main reason for that specific playground to be their favorite). When his parents are tragically infected with Joker gas, Bruce is one of the first to know. He consoles a confused and traumatized Duke, who does not let go of Bruce’s shoulders when the social worker comes to speak with him. The Thomases don’t have any family on this side of the country, and Duke isn’t in any state to be moved a long distance away from his parents to live with people he barely knows. So, Bruce is the best choice to take care of Duke, and he does so happily. 

Well, his entire family wasn’t “planned” per say, but Damian was certainly the most unexpected. Talia was at his doorstep for maybe 30 seconds, uttering only: “Teach him to be like you.” Bruce had experience with children, but none as young as Dami. He called in other heroes to watch over Gotham while he stayed up all night with the baby: consoling, feeding, and changing when necessary. The other kids were fascinated by their little brother, and often begged to hold or feed him. Dick always excelled at his position of older brother, but has a special bond with Damian. 

I kind of love this. Hope it was what you were looking for!

Lemme know of you guys want any of this expanded upon.

[sebeth]

Young Justice: A Bat Family And The House Of Al Ghul

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 Seriously, turn away if you aren’t up to date with Young Justice: Outsiders – particularly episode 6.

You have been warned…

  The current Young Justice season has shown the following members of the Bat-Family:

Batman (Bruce Wayne)

Nightwing (Dick Grayson)

Oracle (Barbara Gordon)

Robin (Tim Drake)

Spoiler (Stephanie Brown)

Batwoman (Kate Kane)

Jason Todd

Damian Wayne

 The House of Al Ghul has the following representation:

Ra’s Al Ghul

Talia

Sensei

Damian Wayne

 “Rescue Op”, the latest episode of Young Justice: Outsiders, dropped a few bombshells on the Wayne Family and the League of Shadows. Now is a perfect time for a recap and speculation post.

 Batman: Has grown tired of the limitations imposed on the Justice League by the United Nations and Lex Luthor in particular. Bruce resigned from the League and formed Batman Inc. Green Arrow, Batwoman, Katana, Hardware, and Plastic Man have also resigned from the League and joined Batman Inc. Robin, Spoiler, and Arrowette resigned from Young Justice in support of their mentors.

We haven’t seen Batman since the mass resignation so we are unaware of his future plans.

Batwoman: Has made one brief non-speaking appearance. I’m assuming Kate’s origin is similar to her comic book version. She should re-appear when Batman returns on the scene.

Nightwing: Left Young Justice at the end of season two. The death of Wally West, his best friend, laid a heavy burden on his shoulders. We have no idea what Dick has been up to during the two-year time gap between season two and three. The use of hypnos in an early episode hints as adventures with Spyral, a spy organization.

The season opened with Dick breaking up meta-human trafficking rings.  He’s in a relationship with Barbara Gordon.  It appears Dick will/has formed the Outsiders as of the latest episode – Brion and Halo stated they’d work best “outside” the Young Justice team.

Oracle: Has been paralyzed for less than a year. The prequel comic had Babs active as Batgirl in year six. We aren’t aware of the circumstances of her paralysis but it’s most likely due to the Joker. The only question is if we will receive a “Killing Joke” flashback or if it’s only referenced in a comment. Babs is strictly working with Nightwing at this point but will she organize the Birds of Prey in the future? I would love to see Huntress and Lady Blackhawk in the YJ-verse!

Dick and Babs were both aware of Bruce’s “Batman Inc” plan but are not actively participating in it.

Robin: We’re not sure when Tim became Robin. I’ve always felt it was shortly before season two started due to the anxious protectiveness Dick had of Tim in the first episode. Tim should be around 16-17 years old in the current season. He resigned along with Batman in the first episode. Tim’s romance with Wonder Girl is on the rocks due to the resignation.

Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) – Like Kate, she has only been featured in a non-speaking role. Steph was part of the mass resignation of episode one. I’m assuming Steph’s origin is true to her comic book roots: daughter of Cluemaster, adopts the Spoiler identity to foil his crimes. A significant difference is her early adoption into the Bat family. Trust me, Steph wouldn’t have been able to join the team without Batman’s approval. Steph’s resignation suggests she has a much smoother relationship with Bruce in the YJ-verse. Another difference – Steph isn’t romantically involved with Tim. Is Cassie doomed to be the “Ariana” of Tim and Steph’s future romance? Or will Tim and Steph simply be BFFs?

Finally, Jason Todd!

Jason was seen briefly in season two as a memorial hologram. He had died sometime during years two and four of Young Justice.  We’re not sure of the exact time or circumstances.

I would set Jason’s death in year four. Dick would be approximately 17 years old during the fourth year of the team. Dick, traditionally, is around 17 to 19 years old when he breaks off from Bruce and forms the Nightwing identity. Jason would have a brief tenure as Robin and a member of Young Justice before his death- allowing a very new to the role Tim to join the team in year 5.

We’ve never been told the circumstances of Jason’s death. It’s a safe bet the Joker was involved in some way.

Let’s recap the various versions:

Post-Crisis: Jason searches to find his birth mother. Sheila Haywood, said birth mother, betrays Jason to the Joker. The Joker beats Jason with a crowbar and leaves him to die in an exploding warehouse.

New 52: Very similar to the Post-Crisis death.

Under The Red Hood movie: Similar to the traditional death minus the mom.

Batman: Arkham Knight: The Joker kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured Jason for many months. Joker appeared to murder Jason in a video, causing Bruce to stop searching for him.

Now let’s discuss the various resurrections…

Post-Crisis: Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality causing alterations of the timeline. One alteration was Jason’s resurrection. A massively brain-damaged and physically injured Jason awoke in his coffin. He dug himself out of his grave and wandered the streets of Gotham in a semi-catonic state. Talia discovers Jason and brings him to the League of Assassins. Jason has muscle memory but no intellectual capabilities. In other words, Jason can fight but not communicate. After months of no progress, Ra’s orders Jason to be sent to a home. Ra’s orders Jason will be taken care of out of respect for the Detective. A desperate Talia throws Jason into the Lazarus Pit. Jason emerges with full mental capabilities but an insane amount of rage. Talia furthers Jason’s training but also amps Jason’s rage – she sends him like an exploding bomb into Gotham. Prime targets: Bruce, the Joker, and Tim. Jason and Talia have a brief, icky, sexual relationship.

New 52: No Superboy involved – Talia straight up throws Jason into the Lazaurs Pit. She still serves as Jason’s mentor but no sex was involved.  Jason’s return as the Red Hood and his roaring rampage of revenge happened before the New 52 began. We never receive the full details of Jason’s revenge but Jason comments about his rough treatment of Tim and Roy jokes about a “duffel bag of severed heads” so we’ll assume it was similar to the ‘Under The Red Hood” arc.

Under The Red Hood movie: Ra’s resurrects Jason due to his guilt over unleashing the Joker. Jason’s death was never intended and Ra’s resurrected him to make amends. Unfortunately, Ra’s couldn’t contain Jason’s rage and banished him from the stronghold.

Batman: Arkham Knight: Never died but still full of rage and bitterness due to Batman’s “abandonment” of him.

Jason is seen briefly in “Rescue Op”. He’s masked and wearing a red hood. He fights Nightwing. After Dick’s team leaves, he mutters “Grayson”.

Ra’s comments: “Oh, your memory is finally returning. Excellent.”

Let’s speculate:

We can safely assume Jason died at the hands of the Joker. It’s a universal constant. I feel it was a true death as the “faked” death of Arkham Knight doesn’t work well in universe with a Superman and a Martian Manhunter. If Batman didn’t have Jason’s actual corpse in his arms, he would have called in his entire Justice League team to find his son. And if he didn’t, Dick would have.

More questions: Was Dick in space when Jason died? Did Dick and Jason work together in Young Justice? Did the brothers have a better bond in the Young Justice universe or was it the more typical “overshadowed by Dick’s greatness” combined with Dick’s bitterness over being replaced route?

As for Jason’s resurrection…

We can rule out Superboy Prime and timeline alterations.

The Lazarus Pit is the obvious solution. However, Jason is very much in his post-grave but pre-Lazarus dip state.  Has Jason been immersed in the Pit? If not, what caused his resurrection?

If Jason has been immersed in the Pit, why such a half-assed job? And where’s the rage?

The Young Justice comic book had Robin (Dick) accidentally drop Ra’s – causing the man to fall to his death. Talia and Ubu threw Ra’s into the pit and he emerged fully intact with no memory loss.

If Jason still has memory loss after the Lazarus pit – is it due to the massive head trauma caused by the Joker’s crowbar?  But, again, Ra’s had died in the Young Justice-verse and been resurrected in prime condition. Talia and Ubu had to travel back to the Lazarus Pit – meaning Ra’s was dead for hours – that would also cause brain damage and he came back in perfect health.

My theory is an outside force caused Jason’s resurrection. Talia discovered Jason wondering the streets and brought him back to the League’s stronghold.

It would explain Jason’s current state. I have no idea what the “outside force” would be though.

Jason has been healing and training with the League but has not been immersed in the Pit.

Ra’s al Ghul stated in “Recue Op” that he is no longer the head of the League of Shadows or a member of the Light.

A power struggle occurred and Ra’s lost.  Ra’s only has his own family – Talia, Damian, and Sensei – along with a few loyal operatives on the island. Who has assumed control of the League of Shadows?

I listed a few suspects when I covered “Rescue Op” – Cheshire and Lady Shiva. I even theorized over the introduction of Cassandra Cain. I completely forgot the most obvious suspect – Nyssa al Ghul.

Nyssa is the older sister of Talia. Nyssa lost most of her family in concentration camps during World War II – mainly because of Ra’s outright refusal to help her.

“Batman: Death and the Maidens” is Nyssa’s origin and revenge against Ra’s. She murders Ra’s al Ghul and Talia and assumes control of the League.

The trio of Nyssa, Lady Shiva, and Cheshire would be a terrifying triple threat. And if Shiva has coerced Cassandra to help? Very bad times ahead for Ra’s and Talia.

Let’s talk Talia. She only has a brief appearance in the cartoon but received a two-issue spotlight in the comic book series.

Talia is a more multi-faceted and likable character in the Young Justice-verse than she is in the mainstream DC universe.

Talia wants Bruce to love her but realizes he doesn’t/can’t – at least not the way she wants him to. She’s frustrated that her father doesn’t understand or accept this. She wants someone to see her as something other than Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter or Batman’s lover. Talia is very tired of the endless conflict between Batman and her father.

I believe Talia discovered the resurrected Jason. She brought Jason home with her so he could heal. Talia has been patiently waiting for Jason’s full recovery. In the comics, Talia didn’t push Jason into the Pit until Ra’s threatened to send Jason away. Clearly, this isn’t a worry in the YJ-verse so Talia would have no reason to immerse Jason in the Pit and risk the resulting insanity/rage.

Initially, Talia rescued Jason in the comics so Bruce would be grateful to her. Cartoon-verse Talia likely has a similar motivation.

What would cause Talia to throw Jason into the Pit – restoring his full mental capacity even at the risk of rage and insanity?

Two words: Damian Wayne.

Talia was holding baby Damian in her arms during the episode. Why introduce both Jason and Damian together unless their storylines intertwine?

I feel Ra’s successors in the League are going to pursue the remaining Al Ghuls. The League, by its various nature, is a bloodthirsty affair – predecessors aren’t allowed to live out their lives in peace. And Ra’s isn’t a “chilling on the beach” type of guy.

Damian is a newborn and I’m assuming he was conceived the old-fashioned way. None of this Talia drugged Bruce or stole his genetic material stuff. It wouldn’t be true to the Young Justice version of Talia.

Talia has a newborn and a price on all the Al-Ghul heads. Talia realizes Damian needs to be with his father for his own safety. Talia is unable – or unwilling – to leave Ra’s side. It’s possible an ambush goes very badly. A desperate Talia throws Jason into the Lazarus Pit. She orders the now fully restored Jason to bring Damian to Bruce.

Jason may not even engage in a “roaring rampage of revenge” against Bruce. Mainstream-Talia’s manipulations helped cause Jason’s revenge (“You remain unavenged”). Talia has no reason to amp Jason’s revenge in the YJ-verse – she needs Jason to get Damian and himself to Gotham asap.

Jason’s rage may not even kick in until after he hands Damian over – it could be days or weeks later when Jason discovers the Joker is still alive. Enter the Red Hood.

If Jason does go all revenge-driven Red Hood, I am going to be seriously annoyed if he focuses his anger on Dick and not Tim.

Bad enough Dick stole the founding of Young Justice and the Kon friendship from Tim, if he takes the “replacement feud” I’m going to have a fit.

Dick is the original Bat-Family thief – first Barbara has multiple accomplishments stolen from her history in order to make her Dick’s “true love”, and then Dick steals the founding of Young Justice and Superboy from Tim!

I love you, Dick, but stop stealing your sibling’s stuff. They are allowed to have accomplishments and storylines without you hogging the action!

[lizartgurl]

So I'm sure this has been asked but, What is Emma's relationship with her siblings/batfam? (Including Bruce)

Bless you Anon this gives me the excuse to post these aesthetics I made forever ago 😁

Richard is her little brother. The only blood family she has left. He hasn't always been there for her, but she's always been there for him and it feels wrong whenever he shuts her out or she doesn't know what's going on with his life. Still, sometimes all they need is a night flipping off the rooftops of Gotham and Bludhaven and it feels like they've never fallen out of touch. No matter how many terrible decisions he makes, she loves him with all of her heart.

Bette was the first friend she made after her parents died, so she really clings to her. She likes having friends she can trust with her secret ID. Bette is her worst impulses and the best of her control personified, she can tell Bette anything and Bette will encourage her to do things that are kind of stupid, but keep her from doing the truly stupid stuff. As far as Emma's considered, Bette is the greatest hero she knows. 

Honestly, Babs was always more Rick's friend than hers. Emma was surprised to find out that Barbara had become Batgirl (because Bette was already Bat-Girl haha) but she definitely came to respect her the more that they worked together, especially when Babs became Oracle.

Emma's relationship with Jason more or less started to spite Rick. They'd had one of their arguments right on the heels of his last big fight with Bruce and Emma really tried to replace Rick with Jason when he appeared, but she quickly came to realize that she loved Jason not because he and Rick were so similar, but because they were so different. She took training him very seriously and, of course, blamed herself when he died. After he came back and everything calmed down, Emma wondered if they really had replaced Jason with Tim, or if they could have done better by him. She wonders if those are questions that still need answering at this point, or if she should be happy that everyone still wants to be a family again. 

Emma was determined to keep Tim safe when Bruce agreed to start training him as Robin. She always let him know how proud she was of him and that he could talk to her if he needed help with anything, but admittedly, she thought he'd lost it a little when he said that Bruce was lost in time rather than dead. She has never forgiven herself for disbelieving him, and as such they have not been able to become as close as they were before Bruce's supposed death.

With Stephanie, Emma was always ready for more girl power. By this point, she was an experienced teacher, so she was able to be more precise in her teaching, which left time for the two of them to come up with new techniques and moves to use together with Steph's wit and Emma's powers. She enjoyed having Steph around to the extent that she'd adopt Steph herself if her mother wasn't still around. Steph is jealous of Emma's powers and how "hot" she looks, so Emma started buying them matching clothes and trying out makeup looks together. On quiet patrol nights, they can often be found in a milkshake shop with two cookies and cream with extra whipped cream.

Cass was always Barbara's daughter before she was Bruce's, but Emma was thrilled to have an actual sister. She knew a good bit of sign language from studying it in school, so she and Barbara would talk with Cass while the others were still learning. Instead of teaching this new Batgirl, Emma actually got a few pointers in stealth from Cass, as well as having Cass correct her hand to hand combat technique from time to time. Emma attends every one of Cass's dance recitals, and tries to encourage her other passions outside of crimefighting because she knows from her own lifetime that being a hero isn’t all you have to be, no matter what you’ve done in your life.

With Duke, it's a similar situation to Steph. But with Duke, Emma isn't sure what to define their relationship as because they know that his family is alive and out there, and Duke wants to find them more than anything. She'd hate to squeeze his family out of the picture or make Duke feel like he has to choose because she struggled with honoring her deceased family while also wanting to be part of her hero family. As the only two metas in a family of nonpowered vigilantes, they enjoy teasing the others together. "Oh you can't blind Riddler in the middle of the night?" "Too bad you can't taser Joker from a dragon's-eye view." She helps him train and control his light powers, and she won't deny she likes having another meta in the family. She loves Duke, but she's afraid to get too close to him because she knows they'll find Duke's parents one day, and she doesn't want Duke feel like he has to choose between his mom and dad, or her and Bruce.

Emma met Damian when he was three and was then sworn to secrecy. Talia didn't want Ra's to discover that she had the son of Batman, but she trusted Emma to help her hide him until he was older, when it was safer for him to come out into the open as the son of Batman. He was so quiet back then, with big, intelligent, brown eyes and a small smile that Emma was rewarded with if she was patient enough. After helping Talia escape the Shadows, Emma and the others didn't hear from Talia, or Ra's, for years until Talia brought Damian to the cave. Talia and Damian had been discovered and Ra's had taken him into custody of the Shadows, where he was trained to be an assassin. This twisted him beyond recognition from the sweet little baby Emma had met. She tried to love him like Talia needed her to do, but the only thing that would soften Damian was her cat, Justice. Dick also had the ability to be more patient than Emma, so Damian still prefers him over Emma, but if he just needs to sit without being bugged by Richard's endless questions, he'll hole himself up in Emma's room, where she'll put on any kind of music and Justice will hop up and lay on Damian's lap until he's okay again. Emma knows that his bratty stubbornness is an act hiding the sweet little boy she met all those years ago, but it still drives her insane. 

Bruce, like with each of his kids, loves Emma in his own way. Unlike her relationships with everyone else, Emma isn't sure if Bruce really loves her. She knows that he hates to show emotion and that he puts on a mask to protect himself and those he cares about, but she doesn't feel like she's close with Bruce. She's looked up to him and a mentor, for guidance and protection since she lost her parents and she absolutely craves having a parental figure to do those things for her, but she can't help but feel like her neediness will drive him away, especially now that Bruce has so many other kids who need him, Emma supposes, more than she does. Bruce has yet to notice this, but he does love Emma. She is the oldest out of all the children he's mentored, she's been with him the longest, she has the most experience, and she's not afraid to call him out on his stupid, compassionless ideas, so he relies on her more as a partner to help him protect Gotham more than seeing her as a child who also needs his help and care. 

[peppersonironi]

Hey, you have a whole bunch of inaccuracies in this, so I hope you don't mind me correcting you? This is just meant to me helpful, and by no means malicious! I just don't want you out there with false information.

First of all, if you're including all of these characters, Bruce is at least in his early 40's. Here's a timeline as proof (remember, this is bare minimum):

Left Gotham to train w/ League- 18 yrs

Became Batman - 21/22 yrs

Gets Dick - 24 yrs

Dick becomes Nightwing - 31 yrs

Jason is Robin - 31 yrs

Jason dies - 32/33 yrs

Tim becomes Robin - 33/34 yrs

Dies - 36/37 yrs

Current time, Damian is 13ish - 40/41 yrs

Then, Alfred. He is actually not Bruce's adoptive father. He - along with Leslie Thompkins, who should really be in this list - was his legal guardian. It's actually an important distinction.

Now, Kate Kane. Yes, she is legally and biologically related to Bruce. But thing here is with the name. Kathy Kane refers to her very first incarnation as Bruce's love interest in 1956, back when there were rumors that Batman and Robin were gay (yes, it is ironic she was brought back as a lesbian!). Because of this, you really must be referring to Kate Kane, reintroduced in 2006, as Bruce's cousin on his mother's side. So, label her correctly.

Okay, Bette Kane. Two things for her. First of all, she has never been referred to as "Beth". you seem to be mixing her up with Elizabeth Kane, Kate's sister, and the villainess known as Alice. In Bette's first incarnation as Bat-Girl, she was called "Betty". After Crisis, it was ret-conned, so she was never Bat-Girl. She was always Flamebird. FLAMEbird, not FIREbird. She became a vigilante to get the attention of Robin!Dick Grayson, who she had a crush on. It was later ret-conned again, saying that she’d been Bat-Girl before this, but canon is kinda sketchy. Another thing to note: She was Bat-Girl, with a hyphen. So even if you count her as the first female bat, it’s actually a different mantle. And should be kept that way. (I do applaud you on not mentioning Hawkfire, that whole arc of the Batwoman comics was complete character assassination. Bette should always be Flamebird.)

Okay! Dick Grayson! This is mostly accurate, except he's Batman #3. Jean-Paul Valley, also known as Azrael, took up the mantle while Bruce was recovering from his spine being broken by Bane.

Jason, going by this, I'd place his age in the 19-21 area. A touch of gray space for his Death Time.

Tim Drake is 17, not 16.

Okay, Cass time. This is really wrong here. For one, her name is Cassandra Cain, without an 'E' at the end. Now, I'm assuming you're mixing continuities, since Orphan is New 52/Rebirth, unlike the other two. (I'll leave that alone, you can do what you want! That's the wonder if fanfiction). So, first up, it's Black Bat, not Blackbat. Second, I'm just confused. How the frick did you get Cassandra Cain as Batgirl NUMBER FIVE? In the simplest of terms, she's the second Batgirl. After Barbara was shot by the Joker and became Oracle, she handed the mantle on to Cass. As for age, Cassandra Cain is actually older than Jason Todd. By a few months. No way is she 15.

Damian, you're mostly correct. Except his name is DamiAn not DamiEn. This could be discovered by a quick google, or just reading a comic with him in it.

Now ... Illegal children? I'm sorry, but this is just strange. Better to call them Emotionally Adopted. (And for the previous, calling them all legal is a bit weird. I'd change it to just family, or biological and Legal)

Barbara Gordon! Okay, this depends on continuities, of course, but if you're including Bette, Cass, Steph, and Helena as Batgirls, then Babs would still be Oracle. And she's really the first (See Bette's section). Beyond that, Barbara isn't really Bruce's child? She's more his equal. Batgirl is a mantle outside of Bruce's control, for one, and for another, Barbara Gordon is one of the few who can Boss around Batman!

Yay! Steph! My spirit animal! First of all its StephAnie Brown, not StephEnie. Again, super simple. You are correct on her being Robin #4. Now, the Batgirl thing is screwy. Stephanie was the third Batgirl (Babs, then Cass, then Steph), but I'm this list you have her before Cass? I'm sorry, but this is blatantly false. Just look up how Steph became Batgirl! You'll find that Cassandra was done with the role, done with Gotham. She took off the costume on a rooftop, gave it to Steph, then ran away to Hong Kong. NO WHERE in the comics does it say Stephanie was Batgirl before her. I really don't know where you got this. But beyond that, Stephanie is actually a year older than Tim, making her 18. She was in college, if I remember correctly, in one of the continuities.

Oh Boy, Duke Thomas. Now he's my favourite batkid. First of all, why isn't he on the list of legal family? He was fostered by Bruce Wayne after he accepted Bruce's offer. Of course, things are a bit shakey with canon (See THIS post for an in-depth analysis), but he was was at least fostered for a bit. This means he should really be on the other list. Okay, after that, the We Are Robin thing was a bit weird, and even Duke doesn't consider himself a Robin. If you didn't include the number to make the distinction, good job, and thank you! But in an alternate timeline, Duke Became Robin after Damian died, so you could have that there as well. Next! Okay, Duke Thomas was never actually Lark. Bruce saw him going out using the name in a fever dream/hallucination. It was later revealed in a panel that it was among a list of hero names Duke was considering. Duke then went out without a name, then chose The Signal.

So, Helena Bertinelli was only Batgirl during a brief time in the No Man's Land arc. You can still count this, but it was really only for a hot second. Plus: She didn’t have Barbara’s blessing. Helena went behind everyone’s backs to take on the name Batgirl. This is another reason why fans exclude her from the list. Her reasons for the donning the mantle was violence related - Gotham criminals feared Batgirl more than Huntress.

Harper is the same age as Stephanie.

Can I just ask why you included Hank Clover? He literally dies in the same volume he’s introduced, and was by no means close to Bruce. Sure, you could make a stretch - seriously, stretch - and say just because Batman grudgingly let them stay in Gotham for like, a week, that he could be considered a member of the clan, but by no means is he a member of the family. Plus, he went all rage-y and attacked the city.

Okay, Claire I can kind of sort of understand, seeing as she stayed at the Manor for a while. But even then, she's really not a member of the family. Plus, she helped Bane? Granted, she was manipulated, but she still went against Bruce. No way he'd really trust her after that.

Lucas (he really goes by Luke) is 28

I really don't know David, and he's not portrayed as a member of the batfam, so I'm hesitant to include him.

Um... Jim GordOn (not GordEn) was never Bruce's adoptive father, and I'm really not sure where you got this. Sure, he was a cop on the scene when Thomas and Martha Wayne died, but he by no means took Bruce in. And he wasn't ever a father figure towards Bruce. Sure, someone he respects, but neither legally nor emotionally a parent.

Now: "Timeline Shiz". I also think that labelling it "Timeline Shiz" is weird. Say "Alternate Timeline" or "Alternate Universe" please. That's more accurate -especially seeing as you're combining timelines.

Terry McGinnis is 16.

Helena Wayne was also Robin in the alternate earth.

Selina is correct.

Okay, why is Ace in the alternate universe section? He's in the main continuity? And his whole comic was adorable! I'd also ask why Titus, Goliath, Alfred the Cat, and Batcow aren't in this. They're pets and part of the family. Although your list seems to be Bruce-centric, so I guess excluding Damian's pets kinda makes sense?

Love interests! Yes, I love Selina Kyle!

Oh boy do I have a lot to say about this. First of all its Talia Al Ghul, not THalia. Completely different name. No "H". Secondly, I understand not wanting to glorify abuse, and abusive relationships, but can you please not tell people what to ship? Here, let me clear this up. Yes, the r*pe happened in some comics, and was referenced in a movie, but that's most definitely not the reason why people ship them. The original Talia was completely different different from what most people now know her as. She was more of an anti-hero, with morals, who didn't always follow her father's orders. She HATED r*pists and abusers. She was a good person. When she got pregnant with Damian, it was under consensual circumstances. (In fact, Bruce and Talia might have been married. I forget the specifics) Bruce and Talia were very much in love. She told Bruce she was pregnant, and you know what he said? "That's wonderful!" They hugged, and were overjoyed. Ra's later forced his daughter into telling Bruce she had a miscarriage. But that doesn't erase the fact that Damian was very much wanted. So please, don't regulate others. I myself am a batcat shipper, but Brutalia isn't horrible. It was total character assassination done by DC that made Talia do a complete 180.

Wonderbat isn't canon, in sorry. It kinda sorta happened in the justice league animated series (which I love, it's awesome!), but definitely not in the comics.

Honorary members? I'm sorry, but none of these people are in the Batfam. Sure, they're friends, but not part of the family. The only reason I could possibly see you including them is because you ship superbat, birdflash, jayroy, etc. and having them as in-laws. But ... Those aren't canon. (No matter how much I want them to be, believe me!) You're better off including other actual members.

(Oh, and it's Jonathan Kent, not Jonathan Lane. Sometimes it's hyphenated/both used at once, but when in doubt, stick to Kent.)

Alright, you know what? Here are some people you could (and should) add to the list:

Leslie Thompkins - Bruce's guardian after his parents died. Also the primary doctor for the batfam. Kind of a grandmother figure, but talks them outa way more crap.

Lucius Fox - now, if you want another father figure for Bruce? Definitely Lucius! (He's inarguably more important than his son, Luke, and was around for much longer.)

Jean-Paul Valley - Also known as Azrael, he took on the mantle of Batman for a year while Bruce was recovering from Bane. He was trained as an assassin as a child, but managed to break free from the cult, and helped Batman.

Tam Fox - sibling to Luke. There's no way in heck Tim would still be alive without her. She's just awesome.

Tiffany Fox - was batgirl, maybe? I've only seen a few panels of her. Alternate Universe, I think.

Jarro - a tiny baby starfish related to Starro that imprinted on Bruce, and has a tiny Robin suit! Adorable!

Damian's pets (See earlier) - they're an integral part of the Manor, as well as Damian Wayne himself.

Carrie Kelley - Robin #3 in The Dark Knight Returns (comics and movies). She sees that Batman is back, buys a cheep Robin costume, and hits the streets! I absolutely adore her!

Clayface - Basil Karlo in Rebirth is reformed, and works with the bats closely. And boy are those scenes where he practices Shakespeare with Cass adorable!

Julia Pennyworth - Alfred's daughter. Not really around much? I haven't read a lot of her, but might as well put her here.

Cullen Row - Harper's little brother.

Overall, this list is a mess of timelines. You have references to Pre-Crisis comics, with Kathy Kane. to the Pre New 52/Post Crisis comics With Bette Kane and counting more than one Batgirl. To New 52 and Rebirth, with characters like Duke and Harper aplearing. Not to mention the other timelines you pulled. Now, this isn't a horrible thing, if this is for fandom stuff. Heck, I usually combine timelines for my fan fiction. I personally prefer having Oracle!Babs, with dashes of characters Like Duke and Harper, throwing in Carrie Kelley, and referencing things that happened in all three. But if you're going for a single canon continuity, this is almost completely failing.

It's good you're trying to popularize comics and the enthusiasm is really nice. Comics continuity can be super confusing and it's hard to remember everything but please remember to fact check things before posting them on the internet so more people aren't (accidentally) mislead.

Batfam members cause honestly it’s hard to remember,

- Bruce Wayne, Batman, 32

His legal family members:

- Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s Adoptive father

- Kathy (Kate) Kane, Batwoman

- Bette (Beth) Kane, Firebird, formerly Batgirl 1

- Dick Grayson, Nightwing, formerly Robin 1 and Batman 2, 26

- Jason Todd, Red Hood, formerly Robin 2

- Tim Drake, Red Robin, formerly Robin 3, 16

- Cassandra Caine, Orphan or Blackbat, formerly Batgirl 5, 15

- Damien Wayne, Robin, 13

His illegal children:

- Barbara Gordon, Batgirl 2, formerly Oracle

- Stephenie Brown, Batgirl 3, formerly Robin 4 and Spoiler, 16

- Duke Thomas, The Signal, formerly Robin and Lark

- Helena Bartenelli, Huntress, formerly Batgirl 4

- Harper Row, Bluebird

The rest of his illegal family:

- Hank Clover, Gotham

- Claire Clover, Gotham Girl

- Lucas Fox, Batwing

- David Zavimbe, Batwing

- James Gorden, Bruce’s other adoptive father

The timeline shiz:

- Terry McGinnis, Batman 2, Batman Beyond

- Helena Wayne, Huntress, Bruce’s Daughter

- Selina Wayne-Kyle, she will be in another section but in those she isn’t married to Bruce so...

- Ace the Batdog, silver age

The Romantic Partners:

- Selina Kyle, Catwoman

- Thalia Al Ghul, stole Bruce’s sperm to make a child. kidnapped him and made him relive his childhood trauma, raped Bruce in the process of stealing his sperm. Pls don’t ship em guys...

- Diana Prince, Wonder Woman

The Sneaks/Honorary members

- Clark Kent, Superman

- Conner Kent, Superboy

- Bizzaro, somehow?

- Wally West, Flash 3, formerly Kid Flash, 26

- Jonathan Lane, Superboy, 10

- Roy Harper, Red Arrow or Arsenal, formerly Speedy

- Barry Allen, Flash 2

- Kara Danvers, Supergirl

[almostafantasia]

more than a name

wayhaught hogwarts au | chapter 3/?

Being an Earp at Hogwarts is tough. Being the youngest Earp and constantly living in the shadows of two older sisters is nothing short of a nightmare.

Willa, newly appointed Head Girl and Slytherin’s sweetheart. Wynonna, the notorious troublemaker who spends more time in detention than out of it. And then there’s Waverly, whose life crumbles into tiny pieces when she doesn’t get awarded the Prefect badge that she spent her first four years at Hogwarts striving towards.

Enter Nicole Haught – Hufflepuff, Muggleborn, and general bundle of sunshine – whose unexpected but not entirely unwelcome arrival into Waverly’s life puts Waverly on the path to discover who she is in more ways than one.

Read on AO3.

Nicole fits into Waverly’s life like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle, but unlike that missing puzzle piece, Waverly didn’t realise that the picture was incomplete until she met Nicole.

Waverly’s social circle has always been enough. Whatever problems there might be elsewhere in her life (being overshadowed by two older sisters, the lack of a Prefect badge on her school robes, an underappreciative boyfriend), her social life has never felt inadequate.

She has her friends in Ravenclaw; Chrissy, Steph, Jeremy, and a few others. Then there’s Wynonna who, despite her total disregard for the rules and her penchant for causing absolute chaos whenever the opportunity arises, is an important part of Waverly’s social life. Along with Doc and Dolls, Waverly often enjoys her sister’s company at meal times – as crass as the conversation topics might be, Waverly gets on well with Wynonna most of the time and has no qualms about hanging out with her sister.

Nicole, however, is a refreshing injection of something new into the otherwise familiar routine of Waverly’s life. She fits in like she’s always supposed to have been there – a new study buddy for those long evenings spent huddled over a pile of books in the library, somebody who occasionally walks Waverly to and from her classes without being asked to, a person to huddle up next to on a bench in one of the courtyards during break, a buffer at mealtimes against the weirdness that is the Wynonna-Dolls-Doc love triangle that none of them seem willing to actually acknowledge. Because Nicole already knows Wynonna and Dolls through their Prefect duties, she fits into that part of Waverly’s life with immense ease, offering up an effortless banter with Wynonna and the boys whilst maintaining the same kind of why the hell do I hang out with these idiots vibe that Waverly feels so strongly in herself too.

The only problem with Nicole’s smooth transition into Waverly’s life is that it makes Champ almost redundant. Which, the more that Waverly thinks about it, doesn’t seem like so much of a problem at all.

Where Champ is weird and dismissive, Nicole is kind and attentive; where Champ seems uninterested in Waverly beyond her looks, Nicole pays attention to every little thing that Waverly says as though her words are giving Nicole life; where Champ will happily blow Waverly off in favour of hanging out with his friends without even a glimmer of remorse, Nicole goes out of her way to ensure that Waverly feels appreciated in everything that she does.

It’s not a fair comparison, in fact it’s not really a comparison at all, when one brings Waverly infinitely more happiness than the other, but it’s one that Waverly’s brain can’t help but make. When she’s with Nicole, Waverly feels guilty about the fact that she should want to be spending this much time with Champ instead, but when she’s with Champ, she can’t stop the way that her brain is counting down the minutes until she can make her excuses and find Nicole instead.

The only thing that she would miss out on by cutting Champ out of her life and replacing him with Nicole would be the making out. And yet, as Waverly shudders at the memory of Champ’s slobbery tongue moving in predictably invasive circles in her mouth, she realises that maybe she wouldn’t be missing out on much at all.

Waverly feels bad for even considering the possibility of ending her relationship with Champ. As irritated as she sometimes gets with his behaviour, he’s never done anything to hurt her. He calls Waverly beautiful when he’s supposed to, he listens to Waverly complain about her sisters, he holds her hand in the hallways and kisses her and pays attention to her when the rest of the school would happily disregard her existence entirely.

All things that used to be enough but now don’t seem like that at all.

And with the imprint that Nicole is making on Waverly’s life increasing with each day, Waverly doesn’t know for how much longer she’s going to be able to put up with Champ before she snaps.

Willa is the one who screws everything up.

Since Nicole has been a part of her life, Waverly is no longer surprised when she leaves a lesson to occasionally find somebody waiting for her outside the classroom. What does surprise her on this particular Thursday afternoon as she leaves the Charms classroom after an especially exciting lesson, is that the person waiting outside for her isn’t wearing the usual yellow and black Hufflepuff colours, but instead the green and silver of Slytherin.

“Waverly, hi!”

Willa – Head Girl, Seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team, and one of the most popular girls in the school – does an extraordinary job of pretending that she is the only Earp at Hogwarts. Indeed, Waverly is much easier for her to ignore than Wynonna, but while the younger two Earps share some of the same friends and can often be seen in each other’s company, Willa avoids them both unless absolutely necessary. The result is that Waverly only really interacts with Willa during school holidays.

Which is why it’s so startling that Willa has gone completely out of her way to accost Waverly on this random Thursday afternoon.

“Willa?” Waverly asks confusedly.

Willa’s fingers clasp around Waverly’s wrist, roughly dragging her away from the rest of her classmates and down the hallway, pulling her into a secluded alcove beside a towering statue of a warlock. Waverly has only a few seconds to wonder what is so urgent and secretive to justify the fact that Willa has all but kidnapped her as she left the Charms classroom, before Willa gets straight to her point with no preamble.

“I want to talk about that friend of yours.”

As confused as before, if not more so, Waverly desperately racks her brain for an idea of who Willa might be talking about, then asks, “Which friend?”

“The Hufflepuff girl,” Willa elaborates. “Haught.”

“Nicole?” Waverly’s eyes widen and she gets momentarily distracted by thoughts of how much nicer it would have been to leave her final lesson of the day to find Nicole waiting outside of the classroom instead of Willa. “What about her?”

“People are talking about her,” answers Willa, lowering her voice as if afraid that somebody is going to eavesdrop on their conversation. “There are rumours.”

Waverly’s expression twists into a frown. Gossip has a habit of spreading around Hogwarts faster than one could send an owl from one side of the castle to the other but Waverly hasn’t been privy to any rumours regarding Nicole. If it was something big, she definitely would have heard about it by now, which leads her to believe that whatever rumours Willa is talking about are strictly between her own group of Slytherin’s most elite.

“What kind of rumours?” Waverly dares to ask.

As far as she is concerned, there isn’t anything that could cast a shadow over Nicole’s character – Willa could tell her that Nicole is secretly a wanted criminal who has stolen thousands of galleons from inside the deepest vaults in Gringotts and Waverly would still turn up to her regular Thursday evening studying session in the library with Nicole later tonight. But with the way that Willa looks at her, as if she’s about to tell Waverly something that will change her entire opinion about Nicole, Waverly is almost scared to hear the truth.

“Rumours that she’s…” Willa trails off and cranes her neck slightly, glancing both ways down the corridor from their secluded alcove as if to check that nobody else is around, before she continues, “… that she’s a gay.”

Waverly stills as uncertainty sends an uncomfortable shiver down her spine that feels a little bit like somebody has poured a trickle of icy cold water down the back of her shirt. She’s heard nothing of these rumours before, nor has there been any indication, either from Nicole or from anybody else, that these rumours have any foundation. Waverly has opened up to Nicole a lot in the few weeks that they’ve been friends – she’s told Nicole things about her family, about her own fears and aspirations, that she hasn’t shared with anybody else before – and she’d like to think that if Nicole is gay, that she would feel like she could share that part of her life with Waverly without feeling ashamed of herself.

But the way that Willa currently looks at Waverly, the way that she says the word “gay” as if it leaves a nasty taste in her mouth, doesn’t sit right with Waverly, whether the rumour is true or not.

“And so what if she is?” asks Waverly, folding her arms across her chest defensively as she tries not to let herself feel hurt by the fact that Nicole might be hiding something like this from her.

“People will start to think that you’re one too,” answers Willa, her eyes filling with a look of pure disgust as if she can’t think of anything worse than her sister coming out as gay.

“And?” Waverly repeats, defiantly standing up to Willa despite the pounding of her heart in her chest.

“Waverly, I’m the Head Girl,” Willa says, teeth clenched and her voice barely more than a growl. “I leave Hogwarts in just a few months and I’m applying for really competitive positions within the Ministry of Magic. I can’t afford any blemishes on my record. Being related to Wynonna is bad enough without people thinking that my other little sister is a lesbian. It’s bad for my image.”

“Bad for your image?” scoffs Waverly, raising her voice slightly in disbelief at the complete rubbish that is leaving her sister’s mouth. “Willa, you never even acknowledge me when we’re at Hogwarts. Half the school probably hasn’t even realised that we’re related!”

“Of course they have,” hisses Willa. “We’re Earps.”

And there it is again. Their surname hanging over Waverly’s head like a dark grey cloud, just waiting to send a crackle of lightning down to wreak havoc on her life.

“I’m with Champ,” says Waverly stiffly, adjusting the way that her school bag sits on her shoulder and stepping out of the alcove. “Nicole is just a friend.”

“And you’d do well to stick with Champ and leave Haught behind you.”

Waverly doesn’t turn up to the library that evening to study with Nicole. She makes a list of excuses in her head – that she’s too tired to study, that she’s almost completely caught up with her homework anyway, that she’s been neglecting Champ recently and that he deserves some more of her time – anything but the fact that she might just not be ready to face Nicole after the conversation with Willa earlier today.

The guilt that Waverly feels for avoiding Nicole overwhelms her, but so does the messy tangle of thoughts that won’t stop whirring around inside her head. The truth is that she just doesn’t really want to see Nicole right now.

Though, if Willa is correct, it does hurt a little bit to think that Nicole might have been keeping her sexuality from Waverly, that’s not what stops her from standing Nicole up. What gets to her is the snide comment that Willa made afterwards. People will start to think that you’re one too.

She wants people to know her as Waverly – clever, kind, and ambitious Waverly – not as Willa Earp’s lesbian little sister. She doesn’t want to be the subject of other people’s conversations just because there are rumours about her, least of all rumours that aren’t true. The knowledge that there are people who are talking about Nicole like that, and that people could start talking about her in that way too, especially after looking past all of her incredible accomplishments during the four and a bit years she’s been at Hogwarts, leaves Waverly feeling a little bit queasy.

Waverly adds her unsettled stomach and the fact that she feels as though she might hurl up her dinner at any moment to the mental list of reasons why she’s decided not to join Nicole in the library tonight.

Instead, Waverly spends the evening with Champ, the pair of them sitting on the floor in the darkness of an empty classroom on the second floor of the castle. Champ’s arm drapes around her shoulder and the fingers of his other hand sit intertwined with Waverly’s on their laps, while they just talk and steal the occasional kiss. Champ tells her dumb stories about him and his friends and then listens as Waverly recounts her own day, minus her surprise encounter with Willa.

As time spent with Champ goes, it’s actually not that bad, and Waverly is reminded of the reasons why she’s dating him in the first place, the reasons why it would be unwise to end their relationship. He’s charming when he wants to be, he’s certainly not bad to look at, his kissing technique has improved by strides since they first started going out, and he’s not always a complete idiot one hundred percent of the time.

But it’s not quite an evening spent poring over thick spellbooks with Nicole.

It’s also not an evening that is going to start any unsolicited rumours about Waverly’s own sexuality, Waverly is quick to remind herself almost as soon as her mind wanders and starts to mourn the loss of her typical Thursday night.

Waverly and Champ leave their hiding place fifteen minutes before curfew, sneaking a couple more kisses in the seclusion of the moonlit classroom, before they step out into the corridor and slowly amble along it with their laced fingers swinging between them as they walk.

So caught up in the deep abyss of her own mind, Waverly doesn’t notice the figure walking ahead of them until it’s too late and Champ has already pointed her out.

“Isn’t that your friend?” he asks, gesturing down the hallway, and Waverly glances up, jolted out of her own daydreams by the sight of Nicole’s red hair pushed back into its familiar braid. Before Waverly has the chance to say anything, Champ is cupping his free hand around his mouth to amplify his voice as he shouts out, “Hey! Haught!”

As Nicole stops walking and turns around on the spot, Waverly’s body is overrun with chills. And not the nervous excitement, butterflies-in-stomach, good kind of chills, but the uncomfortable I’ve-just-had-a-bucket-of-icy-water-dumped-on-my-head­ kind of chills.

It’s suddenly as though all of the mental progress that she’s made with Champ tonight has disintegrated. His hand, fingers intertwined with Waverly’s, suddenly feels clammy in her own, and just the sight of Nicole has Waverly feeling guilty for choosing to give the time that she should have spent with Nicole to Champ. She knows immediately that it was a mistake, but as soon as that thought crosses her mind, she is reminded of what Willa said.

People will start to think that you’re one too.

“Waverly,” says Nicole, breaking the silence as soon as Waverly and Champ are close enough to hold a normal conversation. “I was kind of hoping to see you in the library tonight.”

“Oh crap, is it Thursday?” Waverly feigns confusion, though she can tell from the look of disappointment that crosses Nicole’s face that she isn’t buying it for even a second. Attempting to justify her choices, she continues, “I … I didn’t really have any work to do tonight. I’m all caught up on homework.”

Champ, as oblivious to what Waverly is feeling as ever, interjects with a smarmy grin, “And she wanted to spend time with me, right babe?”

Waverly responds with a noncommittal murmur which Champ seems to interpret as an agreement, if the way that his hand tightens in hers is anything to go by. He shifts their positions, stepping behind Waverly and wrapping both arms around her middle as he rests his chin on her shoulder, and though Waverly knows he’s just trying to be affectionate, just being Champ, she can’t help but feel like the affection is a little too territorial for Waverly to feel entirely comfortable in his arms.

She feels trapped, both physically and emotionally.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” says Nicole, as she turns around and starts to walk away in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room.

The hurt is evident in Nicole’s voice and it stings in Waverly’s heart like she’s been stabbed with a vicious knife. She wants to apologise for bailing on their weekly study session, but her throat clams up the moment she even considers doing saying something. With Champ behind her, his arms wrapped possessively around her, the friendship with Nicole that has been blossoming so beautifully in the last few weeks seems almost like a distant memory.

Champ’s arms around her waist feel foreign, and as she watches Nicole retreat down the corridor, Waverly can’t help but feel like it’s more than just her friend walking away from her, that something else is leaving her too.

Waverly still isn’t feeling herself the following morning, and she spends breakfast sitting in complete silence, contemplating all of the events of the last twenty four hours while she nibbles half-heartedly on a slice of buttered toast. There’s a conversation going on around her – Wynonna doing her usual morning routine of winding up Doc and Dolls – but Waverly doesn’t feel like joining in. And with her mind cycling through thoughts of Willa and Nicole and Champ faster than she knows how to comprehend it, she isn’t really capable of joining in even if she wants to.

It takes a few minutes, but once she’s finally got bored of the boys, Wynonna seems to notice that Waverly is gloomier than usual.

“What’s crawled up your butt?”

Waverly doesn’t feel like sharing the full truth with Wynonna – as much as she knows that she can always trust Wynonna to have her back, she doesn’t need the pressure of worrying what another person might be thinking about her.

Shrugging noncommittally, Waverly answers vaguely, “Just something that Willa said to me yesterday.”

Wynonna wrinkles up her nose and says, “And I was hoping that you’d finally broken up with that pathetic sack of shit you call a boyfriend.”

Wynonna has always been rather vocal with her opinions about Waverly and Champ’s lack of compatibility, but right now, when Waverly’s own mind is filled with seeds of doubt anyway, it’s not exactly what she wants to hear this morning.

“Wynonna…”

“You can do better,” insists Wynonna, reaching across the table to rest her hand over Waverly’s. “Way better.”

Waverly glances down at the half-eaten piece of toast on her plate, having lost her appetite completely, and admits sadly, “Nobody else is going to date an Earp.”

“Not true,” says Wynonna. She nudges Doc with her elbow to get his attention, and then says, “You’re into Earps, aren’t you, Holliday?”

“Gross,” Waverly screws up her face. She likes Doc, likes the role her has in their group and the way that he can lift up Wynonna’s mood when she’s having a bad day, but Waverly would never see him as anything other than a good friend. “Doc’s not my type.”

“Oh, baby girl,” Wynonna laughs. “I wasn’t offering him to you.” Wynonna lifts her fork to her mouth and manages to fit half a sausage in her mouth in one go, before she adds, her words muffled by the food, “And just for the record, don’t listen to a word that Willa says.”

“She just…” Waverly sighs, and then says, “Apparently there are people who might be saying things about me. She told me to be careful about how others might perceive me.”

“You’d be better off taking advice from a steaming pile of dragon shit than from our sister,” Wynonna tells her, as eloquent as ever, gesturing emphatically with her fork.

It’s meant as a reassurance, and though the words fall slightly short of that, knowing that Wynonna has got her back might just be enough to help Waverly through another day of fighting against her own mind.

Waverly still feels like crap the next morning too.

It’s Saturday, but not only that, it’s the day of the Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Waverly stays in bed, the curtains drawn around her four-poster and all four of her blankets pulled tightly over her shoulders as she nestles in their cocooning warmth. She can hear her fellow fifth-year Ravenclaw girls getting ready for the match, excitedly chatting about their predictions for the match and how hot one the Ravenclaw Seeker is as they wrap up in cloaks and their blue and bronze scarves.

When she hears them leave for breakfast, the dormitory door clattering shut behind them, Waverly rolls over in her bed and lets out a long sigh. She feels terrible about not going to the Quidditch match but the very last thing she wants to spend her day surrounded by crowds of her fellow students when Willa’s words, still raw in her mind, have her constantly worrying that any little action could have everybody spreading lies about her.

Nicole’s face swims to the front of Waverly’s mind and a fresh wave of guilt washes over her. She knows that Nicole is expecting her to be at the game today – she made that promise when they first started spending time with each other and Nicole has dropped a couple of hints in the last few weeks that she’d like to see Waverly there. Nicole even suggested that this particular match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, the only game in the Hogwarts Quidditch calendar in which neither of her sisters will be in the air, should be the one that Waverly chooses to come to.

But she just can’t bring herself to go.

It’s not just the crowds. By not going to the match at all, Waverly doesn’t have to choose a side. She feels as though she would be letting Nicole down by turning up dressed in blue, but openly supporting Hufflepuff against her own house would just be adding fuel to Willa’s fire.

She doesn’t want to let Nicole down, but Willa is her sister, and no matter how hard she tries not to, she can’t help but want Willa’s approval too, even if the oldest Earp is far from worthy of it.

Waverly spends the whole day in bed feeling sorry for herself, only dragging herself out in time for dinner, where she sits with Chrissy and Steph after mumbling something about cramps to excuse herself for not being at the Quidditch match.

She spares a glance for Nicole, who sits with her Hufflepuff teammates, cheeks flushed and damp hair hanging down her back as they celebrate their victory. Knowing that Nicole won doesn’t appease Waverly’s guilt.

If anything, it makes it worse.

About thirty minutes before the evening curfew, Waverly finally decides that she’s had enough. She throws on an oversized sweater and leaves Ravenclaw tower alone, taking the long route down to the ground floor of the castle and past the school kitchens until she finds herself standing outside the Hufflepuff common room.

Not knowing the password to get in, Waverly has to wait for five minutes for somebody to arrive – a fourth year boy with his arms laden with drinks and treats, presumably for a party that’s taking place to celebrate Hufflepuff’s victory in the Quidditch match.

“Hi,” Waverly says to him as he passes. “Could you see if Nicole Haught is in there? I need to speak to her.”

He nods and disappears inside the common room.

It’s another couple of minutes, ones that feel like they drag on for hours, before Nicole emerges from the Hufflepuff common room. Her cheeks are pink, she holds a bottle of butterbeer in one hand, but the smile drops off her face when she sees Waverly nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other outside the Hufflepuff common room.

“Hey,” says Waverly. Gesturing with a tilt of her head to the drink in Nicole’s hand and the Hufflepuff scarf draped around her neck, she adds, “Congratulations.”

“Hi,” Nicole frowns in confusion. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I wasn’t expecting this.”

Taking a deep breath before she speaks, Waverly says, “I want to apologise. I made you a promise and today I broke that promise.”

Nicole’s expression remains confused for a few seconds, before it hits and she nods understandingly as she says, “You weren’t at the Quidditch match.”

“Nicole, I’m so…

“No,” Nicole interrupts her, taking a step forward and reaching out with the hand not curled around the bottle to touch Waverly reassuringly on her slumped shoulder. “You don’t need to apologise to me. I’m not stupid – I know there’s something going on in that head of yours. You haven’t seemed yourself the last couple of days and I understand completely that watching a Quidditch match is the last thing you’d want to do if there’s something troubling you, whether it’s a Champ thing or and Earp thing…”

Overcome by Nicole’s blind compassion, Waverly feels guiltier than ever before for almost pushing her friend away. Knowing that Nicole deserves a full explanation for her unusual behaviour, Waverly interjects, “It’s actually a you thing.”

Nicole’s jaw drops open and her eyebrows furrow together once more, before she asks, “A me thing?”

Waverly hesitates before she elaborates. She doesn’t want to seem accusatory or upset with Nicole because that’s the very last thing that she’s feeling right now, but Nicole has clearly noticed that Waverly has been off with her and she deserves to know why.

“Willa accosted me the other day,” says Waverly, pushing past the nerves that cause her heart to flutter and her fingers to fidget with the sleeves of her baggy sweater that hang down over her hands. “She said that there’s rumours going around the school about you.” Waverly glances down at the floor, then back up at Nicole, nibbling her lower lip anxiously before she continues, “Rumours that you’re … gay.”

Nicole’s answer is short and reveals nothing but her own surprise.

“Oh.”

Eager to make things right with Nicole, Waverly presses on, “I don’t care about that. I don’t need to know whether that’s true or not, but…”

“I am,” Nicole interrupts her. “Gay, I mean.”

Waverly nods, swallowing as she processes this new piece of information, before she replies gratefully, “I appreciate you sharing that with me.” She continues, “But that’s not why I’ve been distant. Sure, it was a bit of a shock when Willa first told me, but you’re my friend and that’s not going to change because of this. But Willa told me that the more time I spend with you, the more people are starting to spread those rumours about me too.”

Hurt flashes across Nicole’s eyes and Waverly wishes that she knew how to make it go away, wishes that she knew a spell that could make all of this trouble disappear and return their friendship to how it was just a few short days ago.

But there isn’t a spell that can do that, so Waverly has to attempt to do the same with her words.

“I’m having a lot of thoughts about where I stand with Champ right now,” confesses Waverly. “A lot of doubt about whether I can see a future with him and I’m just not equipped to handle people spreading rumours about me on top of that.”

It’s barely even a glimpse into the world of confusion that Waverly feels like she wading through right now, but it’s all that she can find the words to explain right now. And thankfully, from the way that Nicole is nodding and sending her reassuring smiles, it’s just about enough.

“I understand that,” she tells Waverly, nodding in understanding. “It must be very overwhelming.”

“You’re my friend, Nicole,” says Waverly, a lump forming in her throat that make it difficult to speak without choking, “and I’ve been pushing you away for reasons that you don’t deserve.”

Without any hesitation, Nicole steps forward to close the gap between them and wraps her arms around Waverly. Waverly relaxes into the embrace and lets her head fall to Nicole’s shoulder, burying her face into the soft wool of the scarf draped around Nicole’s neck and screwing her eyes shut to stop that tears that threaten to cascade down her cheeks.

“Waves,” Nicole says softly, running a soothing hand through the hair on the back of Waverly’s head, “I understand that you might not always want to talk to me about what’s going on in your head, but don’t ever feel like you can’t talk to me.”

“What did I do to deserve a friend like you?” Waverly mumbles into Nicole’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for pushing you away.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Nicole assures her. As she releases Waverly from her hug and takes a step back so that she can look Waverly in the eye, she continues, “You’re with Champ. I know that this is easy for me to say, but if people can’t respect that then they aren’t worth your time.” A mischievous smile lights up Nicole’s face as she adds, “Plus, I’ve been spending too much time with Wynonna lately and she may have taught me a couple of banned hexes and I’d be happy to break a few school rules by using them on anybody who causes you some trouble.”

“You wouldn’t,” Waverly says, smiling softly for what is probably the first time in days. Waverly takes a step back, lifting her arm up to check the time on the dainty silver watch around her wrist. “Oh rats! Speaking of school rules, I was supposed to be back in Ravenclaw Tower five minutes ago.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Wynonna’s turn to patrol that part of the castle tonight,” Nicole informs her. “If I know her at all, she’ll be making out with somebody in a broom closet instead of doing her duties.”

Waverly screws up her face at the thought of Wynonna getting handsy with Doc Holliday in a secluded corner of the school after hours, though a small part of her hopes that what Nicole is saying is true if it’ll mean Waverly avoids getting into trouble for wandering around the castle at such a late hour.

“See you around, Waverly,” says Nicole, as Waverly departs with a tiny wave. “I’ll see you soon. I’m always going to still be here, no matter how long it takes you to figure out what’s going on in your head.

Waverly doesn’t know what she did to deserve a friend like Nicole.

[krisrowland]

Promises for this year and reflections on last year

 A few activities that I’m trying to have a positive impact my life in 2019

Reading (so many books I haven’t read on my shelf)

Drawing in my Adam J Curtis book

Writing Kasper pieces

Spend time figuring out a vague shape for Kasper so far.

Organise Skype sessions with friends, Helena, Steph/Archie, Tina/Aine, Rosie, Lauren,

Research artistic meetups

Find time to meditate

Find time to be silly/rehearse monologues

Singing in the shower

Practising monologues

Writing thought pieces

Practical things to work on in 2019

Get a credit card and spend     £50 each month

Buy all birthday cards and     presents for sister, mum, dad, matt, Archie, Sophie, Jonny and Rich and Helena. + any  other major birthdays

Organise birthday party in August

Organise China trip in August

Things I promise to be this year

Being a better uncle to     Archie

Everyone is a little bit racist as they say. I want to be less so.  I want to understand more and go to talks, plays, listen to activists that have a BAME voice . And figure out how else I can be an ally.

Always be willing to learn

Reflections on 2018

January 

I met Chris at Paul's birthday party which was amazing it was so fun and an overwhelm of lust and play.  I stopped doing the Landmark Education introduction Leader Programme after  4 months of emotional, frustrating and enlivening phone calls. I couldn't deal with the pressure I was putting myself under. My grand visions of social justice and my own creative practise were in severe conflict with reality and I needed to reassess what I was saying to myself. I think Landmark has undoubtedly changed my life it has made me really respect myself and find ways of being more flexible on a day to day with others. I now have the best relationship with my Dad, Mum and work I have ever had. I also started counselling for the first of three times this year to clear up some irrational thought patterns, which has continued my personal development journey and understanding of myself. Katharine and I continued our obsession with Stacey Makishi @ The Yard Theatre. Paul and I watched an earthshattering theatrical version of Network at The National theatre.

February started with Rosies hen do and a rekindling of the Notts college crew. I had a two week break to hang round London see shows and art galleries. I had my first rehearsals for Kasper, a performance piece I have wanted to do for ages and invited Chris k to collaborate. I also partied hard with Kayleigh Foulkes for the first time in a number of years in Camden and G.A.Y. The broom dancing team were on form (minus Heather)

March Rosie and Bob's wedding was another wonderful reminder of the awesome people that are in Nottingham, god I love our college crew there is so much I have to thank you for. Catching up with Jake was great, though we only met up three times this year, a culture vulture with a big heart and the best company. Kris R's party was a messy fun night with glitter et al at G.A.Y. And another messy night to welcome Gurdeep to his new Stratford home.

April Discovering the cruisey vibes of Bloc bar with Bryan was amazing. It felt like I was at a gay trance night in the 90's. Pulsating music, guys and telling the time by the number of topless men you could see. April was also Jamie's birthday with a terrific karaoke and Chinese evening. I went to Nestas people powered health conference which made me want to do a service design ma in the new year and had a number of wines for the road with my director and manager.

May was an eventful month starting the new job, Eurovision being a messy evening to say the least in a fabulous location.  I saw Hamilton with Jamie which was an honour and a pleasure it was the best musical I'd seen in ages, intelligent, mainstream, modern and political, never mind catchy. The amount of times I listened to the soundtrack  Spotify created me my own Hamilton playlist as if it was a genre.

In June I did my first stint drinking no alcohol at house parties with support from Helena as she was trying to cut down as well. I joined the Grapes quiz team and won a number of times throughout the rest of the year with them. Helena and I went to Phobiarama which was a political and race based ghost train. Followed by a very iffy messy night at XXL. It was Jonny and Rich's 40th and Sophie's 30th. We said goodbye to the first care leavers peer support group and partied at Chris's caravan to say goodbye to Chris and Helena on their next adventures.

 The start of July was Helenas leaving party :( This years London pride felt like the first time I really understood why we still celebrate. A space in which you can be anything you want to be and feel comfortable being who you are. Years and Years were epic at the Roundhouse showing off their new album with much pizazz. Grindr the Opera was a weridly touching patische that was both hialrious and heartwarming. Helena was back in London and had a brief visit to see Gary in his new pad with Lindsey on the Henley part of the river Thames.

August was my first holiday with my dad in a beautiful air bnb in the New Forest. I had a joint birthday with Chris K starting with a picnic in Green park and ending in the beautiful Set You Free at The Chateau for pure 90s pop #messy. Kayleigh came to London again and we saw Britney at the O2 and went to Jonny woo' club The Glory.

 September I headed off to see Helena and explore Estonian culture in Talinn. I managed to do my best time on a half marathon. 1hour 54 minutes.

 October

Not much happened in October.Cabaret night with Phil Will and Kris. Halloween twas

November I met a really nice guy on Tinder but just didn't get the spark. I started Kasper rehearsals again, trying to figure out what the hell you do in a devised rehearsal space. Fantastic Beasts was a disappointment.

December started off with a fab racalette and wine evening with Chris Will and Phil. We had two Team away days on the same day which I helped organise. The Xmas party was at one my fav craft beer places. I had the gayest of Secret Santa's with unicorn Christmas decorations, a apron with a fake cock attached to it and a very fluffy rainbow pen. I finally went to see The Inheritance. A beautiful bittersweet depiction of modern gay life and the debt we owe older gay men.

Throughout the year I have been volunteering at a care leavers peer support group in Thurrock. It has been a challenging experience with the young people but also being able to find our place in the group. I wrote a blog about my experience here. I am continuing this into next year and won't be continuing after June.

It was a bit of a shock in May to hear that Helena (my closest and best friend) would be moving to China. We have really gone through thick and thin together and with each other over the last two years. Meeting at Landmark on a course and then developing a social impact concept together. Whilst the CCA's output may have left much to be desired. We created some unbelievable friendships ourselves and with other people including Gary, Kris , Annie and Papola. July was the month when she departed to go to Estonia for a few months before leaping over to Bejing to be a lecturer. Looking back over the year it strikes me how much of an impact she has had on me. Getting me off my seriousness addiction, pushing me when I didn't think I could give much more. She is one in million a real open, honest, not afraid to share her thoughts, willing to give anything a go and also a mysterious multitasker that you don't realise is doing so much brilliant stuff.  She has opened my eyes to the EU migrant experience in Britain, Estonia's vibrant culture, my own biases, helped me celebrate myself and so so so much more. Helena I frigging love you and miss you, no one can ever take your place.

At work it was an up and down year. A department restructure and consultation had been taking place since September 2017. After six months we had the finalised structure, my line manager was leaving which was a blessing and a curse. (In some ways he was an amazing line manager giving me space to explore with him what I wanted to develop in the role but he was also not great at following up and holding me to account plus our meetings could go on for hours.) Then looking at the final paper I saw that my job had been deleted. So I had to interview for a new position which mostly matched my previous role, though it was the grade above which softened the blow. We welcomed Jane to the peer support team and many others into the unit and it felt we had new found energy and ambition.  Two colleagues and myself started the LGBTIQ+ workshop which has been an amazing 6 months of creating events, learning, creating structures and trying to see how we are best placed in the organisation.  At the Xmas party we even had someone congratulating us on sustaining the group and seeing us as a steering group for the organisation. I also travelled to Birmingham and Swansea for Influence and Participation (I&P) events, helped create an animation and will be facilitating a session next year for a new set of videos explaining the benefits of I & P to people on their recovery journey. The success of our staff forum pay paper meant in April  that all staff got a pay rise, with further Brexit/ economic developments this will be a key focus in the coming years to see how we can support staff within our capacity as a charity. I was recently made the staff forum chairperson as Zadie leaves after having helped us navigate a consultation that asked major questions of our internal structures and leadership and form a project plan. Things now seem more on track with my role with a clear steer that my efforts to troubleshoot and problem solve is a positive contribution to the units and department as a whole. We will see what happens in the new year.

Jamie was another of Paul's friends who I instantly hit it off with. An amazing creative/ animator who has enthusiasm for all things culture with a labyrinth of music, film, TV shows and merch surrounding his almost iconic living room.  We created a film club watching films we had never seen before it was a zany mix of animation, black comedy, surreal adventures and classics that you are suppose to have seen. After a bit of persuasion Jamie created an amazing puppet lipsynch to Robyn's here. Talent screaming out, can't wait to see what next year brings for this phenomenal guy.

Chris what to say about Chris. Well he has given me some of the best nights of the year pub quizzes, theatre, drinks, nights in, films, banter, Karaoke, clubbing, a picnic. His smile is inffectious. He made me value the small things. We dated and that came to an end but he became a solid friend. There is so much going for him I just wish he would see how great he really is.

Big love

[batcassed]

late night doodle bc I came up with an au idea

AU where Bruce adopts Barbara, Steph, Cass and Harper instead of the batboys

Damian never exists; Bruce doesn’t sleep with Talia

Barbara is adopted by Jim Gordon after his brother and his sister in law, Barbara’s parents, die (as per canon.) When she’s six he is killed by the Joker on live tv, forcing Barbara to watch. Bruce is too late to save Gordon and puts the blame for his death on himself, and tries to atone by giving Barbara a home. Raising a daughter keeps him busy so he doesn’t visit Haley’s circus when it visits Gotham. Dick’s parents fall to the floor, and instead of Bruce, the Court of Owls have their arms open to him.

Steph’s father is cluemaster but he’s put in Arkham early in her childhood. Stephanie’s mother is unable to overcome her addiction to pharmaceuticals (unlike in canon) and this ends in her death. 6 year old Stephanie runs away from her social worker and ends up finding the batmobile in an alley. She hides under the car and her social worker passes by, but when Batman arrives she jumps out to avoid getting run over. He tries to take her back to foster care but she throws a rock at him and runs. Bruce decides to adopt her instead once he finds out her father is cluemaster, and once she tries Alfred’s waffles she agrees to ‘let him’ adopt her

Harper Row is taken away from her alcoholic father when she’s 4 and is the only kid to end up with Bruce in a normal way. He’s officially a foster parent and she’s placed with him. She tells Bruce that she had a brother, Cullen, who she hadn’t seen since being taken away from her father but Bruce is unable to figure out where he’d gone. He’s never been registered in the foster care database and none of the workers that picked up Harper recalled there being another child.

When the Justice League encounters Lady Shiva, she fights them and defeats Batman, but the combined forces of Wonder Woman and Superman force her capture and she’s questioned under the lasso. She tells them about her origin and that a man named David Cain had her biological daughter and was training her to be an assassin. Batman realizes that the daughter in question is still only 6, and adds her and David to his search for Cullen. He finds her being trained by David to be a ruthless killer and rescues her. He realizes that she’s mute and can’t grow up in a regular foster system so he takes her home with him.

Babs is batgirl before she’s paralyzed at 17, and when Steph is older she doesn’t feel right taking on the batgirl name, so she becomes Robin. Steph and Bruce have a falling out when Bruce calls her reckless in the field and benches her so she distances herself from him and becomes Spoiler. She meets a kid named Tim in university who was emancipated from his parents when he was 16 and discovers that since he was a kid, he’s tried to follow batman and robin’s footsteps by fighting crime at night in a red domino and black clothes. Steph reveals that she was the Robin that Tim used to watch at night and takes him on as her partner, eventually training him to be a third Robin, one who was never trained by Batman: Red Robin.

At the same time, Harper spends years trying to find her brother, Cullen, taking on the codename bluebird in the meantime. Bruce takes her on as his partner, not his sidekick, which drives a wedge between her and Steph.

Cass had decided to live a normal life after having the choice taken away from her when she was young, but an attack on her school causes her to fight off a bunch of the rogue gallery to the point of near-death. She holds them off long enough for her school to evacuate and run. After she survives this, Barbara reaches out to her and tells her that if she ever wants it, the mantle of batgirl is there for her. Cass refuses it at first but takes it when she turns 18, deciding to train again, but this time to defend Gotham, and not kill. She becomes batgirl at 19

When Bruce ‘dies’ for half a year, Cass gives the mantle of Batgirl to Steph and goes to Hong Kong to become Black Bat. Harper moves in with Steph and befriends Tim, who believes that Bruce is alive. Nobody takes the mantle of Batman after Bruce’s ‘death.’

After he is rescued by Tim and Steph, Bruce returns to Gotham. Cass returns to be Black Bat and Steph goes back to being Spoiler, though he and Steph finally reconcile.

They find out that Cullen was taken by the Court of Owls and turned into a Talon, and when they try to rescue him, they discover that a second Talon had taken a liking to him and refused to let them rescue him

So of course they take both Talons home. Bruce discovers that the second Talon is Dick Grayson and with Martian Manhunter’s help, they help them learn how to be human again

Dick takes Cullen to live by themselves in a quiet area of Gotham, and Bruce leaves them be, knowing that they deserve to lead normal lives without continuing to be entangled in the batfamily. Only Harper visits.

At the same time, a new crime lord pops up, claiming to go by the red hood. Bruce fears another Joker situation and finds Red Hood to interrogate him and finds out that his name is Jason Todd. Jason, forced to work as a goon for two-face to earn money to support his mother, was a hostage of the Joker and beaten almost to death before Batman saved him. He wants to drive Batman to finally break his code and kill so that he’ll kill the Joker. After a fight between them that almost ends in Jason dying, Batman backs off and doesn’t turn him into the police. Bruce leaves him there, acknowledging that Crime Alley is his territory.

Anyway I’ll probably write this into a fic ✨