#they like to focus on the detective work in The Batman so I think Tim would be good maybe he gets bruce to update his computer

[science-lings]

I'm sorry they need to give Battinson a Robin, I'm tired of the live-action batmans not having the tiny little guy following them around to do flips and violently juxtaposing the whole Dark Knight thing the guy has. He is easily the least equipped to do it too, he's like the embodiment of Depression he needs a brightly colored child climbing up his legs and perching on his shoulder like a little bird. He needs a ten-year-old hiding beneath his cape.

I know the whole vibe of modern batman movies is so dark and edgy but I think there should be a child there and everything else is so fucked up that it doesn't even change the tone. Give Battinson a child to impulsively adopt and recite all of his emo monologues to. I think he should very seriously discuss morbid cases that he's working on with a kid who is hilariously correct sometimes and hilariously Not most of the time. I think they should be an extremely competent duo despite literally everything.

[timmydraker]

CW: use of R word

Tim who, as much as he doesn’t want it to be true, is a poster boy for typical Neurodivergence. He’s more logically thinking that emotionally and needs obvious signs of someone’s emotional state that he can put together to understand how he should respond to help them.

But that’s not what bothers him because that doesn’t bother his parents.

Instead it’s his passion, though not in technology and detective work as they quickly found use for that in their business, but for bugs.

Ever since he was a kid Tim has been enamoured by insects and arachnids and even fungi. He would only read books that talked about bugs or had one on the cover, but since it helped him learn to read at a steady pace his parents didn’t mind.

At least, not at first.

When Tim got into coding just so he could make his own little web-journal for all his bug finds, they were happy he was learning how to organise and structure at just six years old, but when he only did those things regarding bugs…

Tim had his first panic attack when he watched his father pick up his terrarium filled with Diapheromera Femorata (Stick bugs) and chucked it into the bin. The glass shattered as the corner his something hard and he was forced to watch his bugs struggle to navigate the glass and rubbish, most of them injured.

His mother had gagged when she saw them and demanded the whole bin be burnt with the bugs still inside.

Tim had been so heart broken, but mostly confused. His parents traveled the world to dig up dirt and old items that were mostly the same yet they didn’t like bugs?

When he asked one his Nanny’s she gave him an answer that he would never forget, “Well, you see… only those people like bugs, y’know? The… special ones, like re-“

Tim never even let himself think of the last word she spoke and from then only forced himself to only focus on his computer work. He still loved photography but now he took photos of skylines and trees, not the beautiful beehive a few yards behind his house or the spider webs that sat between branches like art works. He took photos of Batman and Robin and for a long time that was enough to make his longing bearable.

If he still followed several pages and articles about bugs either a secret email account, that didn’t matter.

His parents were happy with him even if they still made remarks about his ‘stupid little fixation’.

It’s when they are going over the paper work for Bruce to be Tim’s legal guardian while they weren’t home with Tim’s older brothers hanging around as moral support (bodyguards) that his parents mock him.

Janet is signing some paper with a stupidly expensive pen and chatting to no one in particular when she says, “You’re all lucky we killed this nasty little bugs of his so you don’t have to deal with them.”

Everyone else in the room freezes, beside Jack who huffs a laugh and adds, “Good thing we did, he’d probably be more of a retard otherwise- talking about ‘habitats’ and bloody spiders.”

All of the members of the Wayne family are dead quiet as Tim sits there with a clear look of disassociation coming into his eyes. Alfred has a calm look on his face that tells all who know him that he’s furious and Bruce is strikingly similar.

Jason looks ready to attack and Dick isn’t even moving to stop his brother or calm anyone down.

Damian is holding onto Titus’s collar like a lifeline but seems to give the hound some kind of silent order as the usually calm dog begins to growl low and dangerous.

Jack and Janet tense and stare at both dog and master, Jack ordering him to control his dog.

Bruce stands, letting Titus growl and taking the half signed papers and throwing them in the bin, “I changed my mind, I will be taking you to court for full custody of my son. Leave my house now so I may obtain a restraining order.”

Janet genuinely flounders for a moment and begins to shout about outrage and audacity but when Dick sees that Tim is starting to cry he stands up and reminds them that he is a cop before moving to pick up his second youngest brother and leaving the room.

Tim doesn’t hear much else, only muffled shouting and the sound of a door slamming.

He distantly realises he’s in the family room, not the one they use to have guest but the real one with beanbags and a snack draw, and is being cradled by his brothers. Even Damian is beside him, holding onto his hand tightly as they wait for Bruce and Alfred.

Tim sobs into Dicks chest for Alamos a whole hour before settling more, Bruce coming into the room and Jason and Dick reluctantly hand him over to he can be held by their father.

“Tim, chum, it’s alright. We’ve got you.”

The boy in question shakes his head, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t talk about the bugs I promise-“

Bruce squeezes him tighter and kisses his head, “I don’t want that. What I want is to hear about your bugs.”

Stunned, Tim looks up at him with confusion and barely gets his mouth to move enough to ask what he means.

Dick coos from beside him on the next couch and runs a hand through his hair lovingly, “My sweet baby brother we love you, and you love bugs! So of course we want to hear about it. I’m so sorry we didn’t know how they had been treating you but it was wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you, I swear it.”

Tim sniffled, nodding absentmindedly. They gave him a moment for their words to sink in before Damian spoke up, “Timothy, I demand you tell me about your bugs.”

Jason makes a noise and elbows Damian as if to tell him to shut up, probably thinking the other was being rude, but Tim knows his brother well and just smiles. “I can do that, Dami. I… I don’t think you’ll be very interested though.”

Damian scoffs, “I will ignore that statement as it implies I would waste my time with something I don’t care for.”

Bruce smiles at his youngest and holds Tim’s hand, “I agree. Could you maybe tell us about why you like them? Or your favourites?”

It takes him a moment to respond, but when he looks at all their open expressions and gets an encouraging nod from Alfred, he stutters out a response before gradually gaining confidence as they ask genuine questions to his facts and descriptions.

They each make an effort to ask him about bugs, Jason asking a few times if he wants to check out some books that he knows use bugs as symbolism’s and Dick asking if he can tell him the difference between insects and arachnids several times. Damian and Bruce are both a bit more subtle with their support at first, but after a month Tim enters his room to find a giant terrarium with several different sections so he can have multiple bugs that might not get along with each other.

Bruce and Alfred don’t even make any comments or give disapproving looks when Dick and Jason reveal they each got a tattoo of the bug that Tim said he associates with them.

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It was halfway through his shift the next day, just after he'd come back from lunch, that the anonymous tip came through. Dick had frozen when he heard it, but only slightly because the others were brushing it off as a prank call.

"'Blockbuster's after someone named Oracle,'" Officer Diaz had scoffed, "What a joke. Aren't kids supposed to know that their stupid prank calls clog the system? What if someone who actually had useful information had needed to call, huh?"

Dick didn't mention that that isn't how the tip system works, nor did he eve attempt to scold the officer for brushing it off, no matter how stupid it seemed. No, instead, he was stuck in his thoughts.

Blockbuster is after Oracle. Why is he after Oracle? It doesn't make sense! No one in Bludhaven, save for himself, should no who she is! Besides, he'd kept all of the attention on himself. No one was able to even think about the heroes or rogues in Gotham without him knowing! Or, so he'd thought. How does Blockbuster know Oracle's name? More importantly at the moment was who sent the tip.

There was another scoff from one of the others. Did he say that out loud? "Look, I know you're new and everything, but shouldn't you know the mean of 'anonymous'?"

He forced himself out of his head, rubbing his neck with his left hand with a fake smile. "Yeah, I do. I guess I'm just a bit out of it today."

"Well, get your head back in the game," Detective Soames snapped, hitting a file on the back of Dick's head, "File that for me, then file the rest on my desk."

"Yes, sir," Dick took the file, ignoring the snickers and snide remarks from his coworkers.

He knows he's not going to be able to fully focus on anything for the rest of the day, possibly not even until after he finds out who sent that tip and how Blockbuster knows Oracle's name.

Oracle. Dick knows she can handle herself, but he doesn't like the fact that anyone knows her name. Not even B knows about Oracle! Babs had spent so much time and energy keeping her online persona from B so that she could have at least something of her own that Dick had taken it upon himself to erase traces connecting him to Oracle. She didn't deserve to have Batman on her ass, nor did she deserve to have Nightwing's enemies go after her!

He shook himself back into the present with a soft sigh. He'll call Barbra as soon as he gets home.

***

"Danny!" Dick calls into the apartment, knowing full well that the kid is in the kitchen, "I'm home!"

"Welcome back," Danny responds from where he's standing at the stove. He, Dick realizes, does not sound happy.

He hangs his coat up on the hooks he installed beside the door, his shoes going on the rack below them. "You good? You sound a bit upset?"

"I am upset." Danny, after getting comfortable around him, has stopped sugar-coating his words, being brutally honest. Dick blinks. "I was going to message Tim, but I saw a lack of apologies from you."

Oh. Dick had meant to do what Danny said last night and apologise to that Tim kid for snapping at him, but he had been a lot more tired than usual and it had slipped his mind. "I was going to use my phone?"

"You don't have his number."

Another thing Dick had come to learn about Danny in the few weeks they'd been living together was that he can't be lied to. He somehow picks up on lies, so even Dick's best efforts - that have fooled even Batman! - are always thwarted.

"I meant to," Dick said, sitting on one of the new barstools at he island counter, "But I was really tired last night."

Danny sighed. "Because you were out longer than you're now used to." He turned the burner off, moving the pan to sit on the hotpad beside it. "You're body's gotten used to only being out for eight hours during the day and six hours at night. You going out for eight hours last night wore you out more than usual because you're no longer used to your seventeen hour work days."

Dick tilted his head, accepting the bowl of soup he was given. "But it's only been a few weeks?"

"It only takes eighteen days for your body to get used to a routine." He said, placing a bowl of homemade rolls on the island. "After about sixty-six days, it becomes habitual."

"But it hasn't been sixty-six days."

"No, but it has been twenty-one days."

He hesitated for a moment. "Has it really been only that long?" Then, "Have you been counting?"

Danny blushed, sitting beside Dick with his own bowl of soup. "I've been keeping track of your schedule, which means I gotta keep a calendar. I haven't been counting on purpose."

Dick smiled, eating the soup. As usual, it was really good. The first week of Danny's stay, he'd asked where he'd learned to cook, but Danny had given a non-answer, saying only that his parents couldn't make anything edible that wasn't fudge or cookies.

After they had both finished eating, Dick's portions and appetite being larger than Danny's because of the calories he burns as Nightwing, they settled into a nice quiet. Dick had changed from his uniform into sweats and a T-shirt while Danny had chosen a movie. Then, Dick cleaned up dinner and Danny changed into a hoodie and sweats.

"We still need to take you shopping," Dick pointed out when they were both sitting on the couch, ready to start the movie.

Danny shook his head. "Letting me stay here is already enough. Besides, your old clothes work perfectly fine."

"But you're room's so empty! And my clothes don't even fit you!"

There was a pause like Danny was thinking. Dick had the feeling he might not like whatever was going to be said next.

He was right.

"I'll let you take me shopping next week," Danny agreed, "if we go to Gotham tomorrow so that you can apologise to Tim in person."

Dick's jaw twitched. He didn't want to go to Gotham. Going to Gotham meant that he'd inevitably run into Bruce. He wanted to stay far away from that man.

Then again, he'd promised Alfred to come by some time. And, it'd be nice to see Barbra and Jim again. Maybe he could have Alfred make sure Bruce wouldn't be in the Manor?

"So?" Danny promted.

He sighed. "You're evil, y'know that?"

His grin said it all. "I could be so much worse."

"Please don't."

"Don't give me a reason."

Part 9 Part 11

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

Let’s talk about the significance of how Stephanie Browns first ever appearance is tied directly to a TV broadcast about Batman, and how it perfectly explains why she's such a remarkable character.

Detective Comics #647

The full sentence the TV broadcaster says is “It’s not up to some masked vigilante to protect our citizens …. No matter how good his intentions…No matter how noble his cause”.

This scene asks us to compare the characters of Batman, who the statement is textually about, and Stephanie, who is viewing it and (presumably), being inspired by it. The panel itself seems to encourage use to try to apply these lines to Steph instead of Batman, framing the latter proclamation directly above her head, almost like a text box telling us this information about her. If we apply these lines to her, we can see an idea emerge.

There is this figure, who is not only not necessary, but unacceptable on the face of it, “…No matter how good [her] intentions...” / “…No matter how noble [her] cause…”

The first time we see Stephanie brown, she is being showcased alongside a condemnation, which is followed by her disregarding the message of this broadcast, and appearing for the very first time as Spoiler.

Dismissal and Stephanie ignoring this condemnation continues on to be one of the central facets of Stephanie’s character. In the same introduction arc we already see the dismissal/disregard dynamic established.

Batman and/or Robin tell her to Fuck Off, she chooses not to:

Detective #649

This pattern continues on for some time. She is dismissed by Batman

Robin #16, Robin #26, Robin #50 (1993)

And by Tim Drake/Robin:

Robin #25, Robin #35, and Robin #26 (1993)

And by her own mother:

Robin #71 (1993)

When she finally becomes an official part of the team in 2001, there is a break in this pattern. But, as always, Stephanie is eventually pushed out again:

Gotham Knights #37 (2000)

But, as always, Steph says “fuck that”, and refuses to stop.

Even in the face of dear friends agreeing she should give it up.

Batgirl #38 (2000)

And when Steph is brought in as Robin, she is again dismissed, in this case “Fired” soon after. She doesn’t quit of course, leading to the disastrous events of War Games.

Robin #128 (1993)

And when she comes back from being “dead” she is dismissed again, by Robin.

Robin #182 (1993)

This isn’t every time someone tells her to quit being Spoiler, but instead a showcase of how prevalent the Dismissal/Disregarding dynamic is for her character.

I am working on two other posts, one which will explain in depth Why the way she was “fired” as Spoiler has everything to do with Bruce Wayne’s own hangups and emotionally manipulative quirks and very little to do with her own skill level. The other will analyze why she feels the compulsion to be keep being Spoiler even after having Every reason to quit and being told to do so hundreds of times.

However, for the purposes of this post, all that matters is that this Dismissal/Disregarding dynamic exists and is a huge and reoccurring part of Stephanie’s character.

Whether or not you think she “deserved” how often she was rejected, and whether or not you think her disregarding the rejection was “good” or not doesn’t come into play here.

For now, let’s focus on the implications this dynamic has for her character in a meta sense, as a character who is used and discarded.

A character who is for all intents and purposes, the narrative punching bag. She endures character dismissal and belittling, three separate backstory instances of sexual harassment as a child and teenager, teenage pregnancy, abuse, taking care of a parent struggling with addiction, brutal and (debatably) sexualized torture, character assassination, death, retconned death, and further character assassination until 2009, where she finally gets her own solo comic, and a modicum of respect. The thing that separates the horrible shit Stephanie goes through and the bad things that happen to other characters is only rarely are Stephanie’s struggles treated as significant on their own, and almost always her narrative is used for drama or to prop up Robin Tim Drake’s plot. Very rarely does she get treated with the care and attention her character merits.

But let’s go back to that news broadcast, all the way back in Detective #647. How does she take it, when we are told, when Stephanie is told, first thing, straight out of the gate, plain and simple: No matter how good your intentions, no matter how noble your cause, you is not enough, or you’re too much, or your just not right?

It is met by a triumphantly tragic: “And?”

Stephanie hears from the VERY start the same refrain she will hear for years and years: she is not good enough, she needs to go home, she needs to quit and she does the exact thing she will continue to do every following time she is told this: she puts on the damn Spoiler outfit and she still tries anyway. Again and again.

The next time we see Stephanie Brown after this, the second time we ever see her character, she has donned the Spoiler costume, and she’s got to work. “And?” She seems to say. “As if!” She seems to shout. What a perfectly awe inspiring thing, and what a perfect summary of what makes Stephanie Brown so damn cool.

For better or worse, you cannot keep her down. I love Stephanie Brown so much.

And if you want to read a comic which understands this, which treats the terrific character of Stephanie Brown with respect and love, and which for the first time maybe ever lets her stubborn refusal to give up go her way? Read Batgirl (2009)!!

Batgirl #3 (2008) & Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Batgirl (2010)

[your-regular-toast-enjoyer]

Platonic!Yandere Batman!Damian with new young robin!reader headcannons (extra points if you include uncle Jon and the league somehow)

Platonic! Yandere! Batman! Damian Wayne x Robin! Reader

Damian Wayne x reader. Yandere!Damian Wayne x reader/ Yandere Damian Wayne x Reader

Word count: 5604 words

TW: GN reader, Yandere, manipulation, adult Damian Wayne (based on Batman in Bethlehem), toxic family relations, obsession & Platonic yandere.

Okay, so I imagine that this all occurs at a time when Bruce has resigned and most of the others have moved on in some way, not only leaving Damian as the only one available and willing to take over the Batman cowl, but also making him impossibly alone. Desperate, abandoned and lonely. 

Dick is busy with his life in Blüdhaven, (either married to Barbara or Koriand’r, maybe even with a kid), working primarily as a detective for the Blüdhaven police force. He’s juggling a career, family and, obviously, his vigilante patrols at night, so the time left to visit Damian is minimal. 

Jason still occasionally patrols the streets at night, but he’s mostly out with Starfire and Roy, either playing uncle with Lian/Kori’s possible kid or doing Outlaws missions whenever Chesire/Jade Nguyen pulls herself together enough to take care of her daughter for a while. Jason is too busy getting his own life on track to even start worrying about Damian’s loneliness. 

Tim is probably still in Gotham, although he’s also busy. He’s building his own life as well, either with Bernard or some other girlfriend/boyfriend of his. He’s probably busy renovating an apartment close to the manor, on top of Wayne Enterprise work and vigilante obligations, giving him no free time to come visit for leisure time. Sure, Damian communicates with him over the comms on a daily basis, but it’s not really the same as speaking to someone face to face. Not to mention that shouting orders, descriptions and coordinates probably doesn’t count as a proper conversation.

Alfred is probably dead. I know everyone always jokes that he’s immortal, but even if he was, no one can deal with the Wayne family for more than a single lifetime. So, whether he clocked out naturally or simply, using his all-mighty Alfred powers, just decided to let his life seep out of him like air in a balloon. Alfred is gone.

In Alfed’s place, Bruce has stepped up as a type of off-brand Alfred. He’s retired his superhero alias, and now only has his CEO duties to focus on, which would’ve been a lot for most people, but this is Bruce and to him, it’s too little. So he has learned to cook, hires people to clean the house, make the beds etc. and has, (through observing the best dry cleaners he could possibly hire), learned to wash clothes, attempting to emulate Alfred as some type of coping mechanism for his absence. That doesn’t mean he has the same emotional intelligence as Alfred, it’s still Bruce we’re talking about, but he has the practicalities down. So yeah, Bruce has become an elderly man. But since he still is good old Bruce, that also means that his emotional availability is practically non-existent, made in no way better by the fact that he shut himself in even more after Alfred’s passing and most of his children flying away from the nest. Bruce longs for the old times, longs for the comforting presence of Alfred and the jolly sounds of younger people chit-chatting. Yet, no matter how much Damian might attempt to engage in longer conversations with Bruce, it’s not happening.

If you have a hard time imagining how Damian would look like Batman, think of Batman in Bethlehem. He has exchanged the unhandy cape for the much more practical coat, which not only gives him a more serious appearance but also proves to be a great weapon against the Gotham cold, as well as leaving much more room for gadgets, weapons and, just like his father, a secret compartment for treats. He is a much more menacing and unforgiving Batman compared to his father, never letting a goon get away. He is thorough to the point of near-perfection, which is damn impressive, but it’s also draining on Damian, both physically and emotionally. His father had a horde of Robins, Batgirls and the sporadic extra orphan to aid him in his pursuit for justice, all Damian has is Tim, and occasionally Jason, the latter of which is slowly coming to the realisation that sustaining the same muscle mass as a cow for decades takes a toll on your joints. 

So, even before Damian encounters you, he’s been in the search of someone to make the nightly patrolling of Gotham easier. Damian’s original intention hadn’t been to get a Robin. Actually, he considered “rescuing” an assassin from his mother’s army at the League of Assassins and reprogramming their mind through the various means that had been proven useful in war situations of the past… He did briefly consider asking Dick to contact M’gann for some “healthy” use of mind control. Yeah… Damian is not nearly as morally self-righteous as Bruce, another factor which has driven a wedge between the two.

However, then Damian met you. 

I can imagine that you had recently moved to Gotham, either with your family or alone. You’re probably no older than sixteen at the time of your and Damian's meeting, so if you’re moving to Gotham alone, you’re probably going to be at Gotham academy’s boarding school. But no matter what, you happen to be a huge Batman and, ostensibly, Robin fan. You have posters hung on your wall and photos of you dressing up as Robin when you were younger. It’s not quite Tim Drake-levels of fanboy/girl/person, but you are a bonafide fan.

So, as a fan, you enjoy looking out into the Gotham night, spotting either Red Robin or Batman pass in the air with the wires of their gliders shining in the moonlight. It gives you a sense of safety, knowing that the city has its protectors. Like any other fan, you can’t help but fantasise about how it’d feel to be one of them. How nice it must feel to have the wind hit your cheeks as you zoom through the night sky, and how cool you’d look in one of those fancy superhero suits. 

You have made multiple drawings throughout your youth of yourself as Robin or sometimes even your own made-up hero. You’ll prance around your room alone, listening to music, jumping from your desk chair to your bed to anywhere else with a flat surface, pretending that you’re a vigilante. Heck! I wouldn’t be surprised if you had begged your parents to send you to some type of martial arts as a kid. Begging, praying and practically kissing their feet until they oblige. That is, of course, if you didn’t have parents who had already sent you to karate/Jujitsu/you name it, before you yourself ever came up with that idea. 

I can imagine that the day you and Damian’s ways cross, it’s while he’s out as Batman. For some reason you’ve been left alone to go home/to the academy in the late evening hours, (a recipe for disaster in Gotham). Maybe you had to attend some school-arranged art show/science fair/literature competition and the teachers hadn’t coordinated a way for students to come home/your parents had forgotten that you were out for the night. Whatever it was, you were scared and alone, walking through the streets of Gotham at night. 

As will always happen in Gotham under such circumstances, a large shadowy man emerges from within one of Gotham’s many alleys. He’s neither quiet nor light on his feet, but he is big and the stench of piss, alcohol and decay attacks you before he even has the chance to. You might try to run, but his legs are longer than yours and he reaches you before you get anywhere. Huge grubby hands encase around your collar, heaving you up against a nearby brick wall, the rough texture cutting into the back of your head and back. You might try to use your martial arts knowledge to attempt to fend him off, and you may be successful. However, once you manage to make the man drop you, a swarm of similar-looking men emerge from the nearby alleys, alerted by the noise. They practically lick their lips at the sight of a young and defenceless school student, dumb enough to emerge after dark, it’s practically a Christmas gift for these degenerates. They surround you and you realise that you can’t fight them all, not at once. Your screams for help alert everyone in the neighbourhood, but none will come to your rescue, that’s just how Gotham functions. None…Except for Batman.

Damian hears your scream and within minutes the goons who attempted to attack you are on the floor, heads busted and limbs broken, some scramble away in fear, but end up with Damian’s grappling hook ripping a hole through their legs. The green-eyed Batman is surprisingly efficient, and it takes him no time to get you to safety, scoping you into his arms, as if you weighed less than a feather, and with his grappling hook, he flies through the air to the nearest rooftop. If you hadn’t been so traumatised and shocked by the near-death experience you just had, you might’ve been able to appreciate the experience of literally being saved by your idol. But alas you were, and the shaking of your limbs and rattling of your brain made you wholly unable to connect with reality. 

Damian is patient with you, his glowed hands trace your back as you slowly gather your breath, and once the worst shock is out of your body, he reaches into his breast pocket, where he pulls out a lolly, offering it to you. Now, one should never accept candy from a stranger, but when that stranger is Batman, you can be fairly certain it won’t be tampered with. As such, you accepted the candy with wide burning eyes. Your attempts at slowly peeling away the plastic were a hard-fought battle and Damian had to help you, slowly guiding your hand towards your mouth as you popped the candy into your mouth. The sweetness helped ground you a little, not to mention that it also helped you regain some of your lost powers.

When Damian reckons that you are mentally present again, he prompts you to tell him what happened. With trembling lips, you started to mutter out an answer, about how you had to walk alone because no one was there to get you home safely, how you’d fended one of the men off but then more just came, you almost let a sob slip, but manage to keep it in. Your emotional control and fighting spirit impress Damian, but more importantly, the utter imbecility of the adults in your life makes Damian feel a rage unlike any other.

Damian would take you home in his arms, barging through the front door of either your parents’ apartment or the front door of the academy. He ignores the protest of any adults attempting to stop him, even daring to roughly push them out of the way, as he carries you to your room, following your directions. Once he’s there, he’ll carefully put you on your bed and tug you in like a little kid, no matter your age at the time. He brushes your hair out of your face, (if you have any), and gently swipes your forehead with his thumb. This may seem like inappropriate behaviour for a stranger, but he’s Batman and you’re traumatised and still in shock. It’s his best attempt at calming you down.

Once you’re tugged in, he goes to your guardian, eyes burning with the fury of a thousand suns. He’ll scream his throat dry, reprimanding them for their carelessness, and if you’re living with your parents, he’ll threaten to call CPS on them. He’ll leave the building with a huff and a last warning of revenge should anything similar ever happen again.

It’s after this that Damian has a hard time letting go. He can’t help but constantly fear that you’re being mishandled in some way by your carers. He has nightmares of you in an alley, getting shot like his grandparents or worse… No! It’s so awful that he can’t even bear the thought. These tumultuous emotions will move him to the absolute edge, and to satiate his anxiety, even just a little, he’ll take to stalk look after you. He’ll follow your movements every free minute he has between working at Wayne Enterprises and patrolling the city as Batman, and if you have a bike or pair of shoes you often use, he’ll somehow manage to slip a tracker in there to follow your every move, even when he’s at work or out patrolling. “It’s just to keep them safe”, he’ll tell himself, justifying his actions. But really, whatever his intentions might’ve been in the beginning, they slowly morph into something darker, more possessive. Damian starts to wonder if he might not be a better parent and mentor to you than your real parents. They’re neglectful, he surmises. Either they were the ones who let you walk through Gotham at night, or they simply shipped you off to Gotham Academy, which clearly had no idea how to take care of its students.

Damian might force Bruce to attend his retelling of the night he met you, how he had to follow you around...to ensure your safety, of course! He twists the story and paints your parents as the most horrendous of people, totally disinterested in the well-being of their child, it makes Bruce pity you. Damian suggests that they take you, and make sure that you get a safer environment, with Damian adopting you, in a sense. Bruce isn’t entirely convinced of this, citing that they cannot just kidnap you from your home. However, when Damian mentions how you’re pretty much like Tim, except a better person in every regard, Bruce’s longing for nostalgia slowly creeps back through the cracks. His mind swirls with memories of little Dick, Jason, Tim and even Damian. When was the last time they had a kid, or at least a young person, in the house? It’s been so long that he barely remembers. The house is too big just for two adult men, they could really use someone to spice up the atmosphere. And as such, Bruce is on board… Not that Damian would’ve listened to him if he said otherwise.

  With the decision made that you will become the newest in a long line of adopted Waynes, Damian sets out to get you. He will attempt to make it look natural… like the way Bruce adopted Dick after his parents died… Yeah, wouldn’t it be a shame if all your aunts and uncles suddenly started having issues in their life leaving them incapable of ever taking care of themselves, let alone you if something happened to your parents? 

And wouldn’t it be even more of a shame if… let’s say, after pretty much all adults in your family either died, was run bankrupt or somehow ended up in jail… your parents finally die in a freak accident. Perhaps it’s a car crash due to someone having messed with its tailpipe? Or maybe they went to the cinema, only for the projector to hit them… and only them? It could even just be that while you’re out of the house/at the academy that they suddenly have a carbon monoxide slip in their home, making them silently sleep in the arms of the grim reaper. 

Whatever it is, your parents will mysteriously die, and with no one else in your family able to take you in, the Gotham police department is left at a standstill. If you came from another country than the US, they might talk about sending you back to an orphanage there… anything is better than Gotham… but if you’re American they’ll have no other choice than to start preparations to move you into one of the rat-infested shiteholes calling themselves Gotham orphanages.

Wherever you’re from, you don’t have to wait more than a day before someone unexpectedly shows up at the police station, just as the pitying policemen are trying to help you pack your last stuff into boxes, ready to be sent wherever you need to go. Multi-billionaire, Damian Wayne. Everyone at the station is suspicious about how the green-eyed Wayne heard about the sudden availability of an orphan without any family to go to, but he’s a Wayne, so they’re not surprised… They have a thing for adopting orphans after all. And that’s exactly what Damian proposes!

The broad-shouldered man will bow down to your level, reach out a hand, a gentle smile on his otherwise hardened features, and offer you to join him as his ward. With the horror stories you’ve heard of orphanages combined with the possibility of being adopted by a literal billionaire, you don’t hesitate to accept, albeit reluctantly. Whatever reservations the police may have is waved off by the thought that the Waynes have experience with orphans and they’ll be able to give you a life so much more engaging than anyone else ever possibly could. To most of them, this seems like the perfect ending to your otherwise sad story… If only they knew.

Any legal troubles with adopting you, or if any relative attempts to better themselves to be able to take over your care, will be solved with a wat of cash in someone corruptible’s hands and a slight threat of homicide. To anyone except Damian, the adoption went entirely smoothly and without a hitch.

Once you’re settled in with Damian and Bruce, you’ll come to realise that this life really isn’t all that you expected it to be.  The trauma of your parents’ deaths is still fresh, but Damian expects you to get over it within the first few weeks, he is after all, (in his mind at least), your new “dad/mentor”, you’re not alone…Not like he’s been for the past many years… So why can’t you just settle into your new life with vigour? Or at least not mope around most of the time! 

Bruce is more patient than Damian, he’ll let you open up to him, even if he’s bad with emotions. I can imagine that after the death of your parents, you might develop heavy night terrors, to which Bruce will attempt to calm you by sitting at your bedside until you fall asleep. If you feel especially anxious one night, Bruce will swear that he and Damian will protect you, no matter what. After a while, Damian will take over nightguard duty, realising that he needs to let you open up slowly… or at least not instantly…

Damian might start reading you bedtime stories, even if you’re technically too old for them. His voice is just so calming, its eclectic accent combined with clear brass undertones, both of which remind you of a certain hero… It makes you momentarily forget the fear and despair that came with the death of your parents, so, even if it’s a little infantilising, you appreciate Damian’s presence as you fall asleep, it makes you feel safe. 

If you’ll let him, Damian will trace calming circles on your back while reading, and if you ask him to, he’ll tell you stories from his childhood… the censored versions, he doesn’t want your delicate ears to get hurt by him explaining how he knew a million ways to kill a man before he even turned ten…

You will live a relatively comfortable life with Bruce and Damian for a while, getting introduced to the others whenever they find the time to drop by to meet the new member of the Wayne legacy, as well as getting acquainted with Jon Kent, who, (as Damian’s best friend), demands to be called uncle, despite you not even calling Damian dad… At least not yet. If all this attention on you makes you uncomfortable and feel like a zoo exhibition, Damian will immediately ban everyone except Jon and Tim from visiting for the next long while, even Dick. Tim kinda needs access to the manor for when he and Damian are doing patrol debriefings and Jon refused to not come around, besides he’s so disarming that you’ll probably get used to him quickly… whether or not you end up calling him uncle.

After a while, Damian might come to the conclusion that to truly bond with you he must give you an outlet for your frustrations… And he only knows one way that ever really worked for him… Becoming Robin.

One day, when you come home from school, Damian will command you to follow him in a tone which you had never heard him speak to you with before. It is hard, serious and foreboding, chills will spread up your back and through your fingers, a bad taste will invade the back of your throat and your breaths cut short… What did you do? Was Damian going to throw you back on the path of an orphanage kid? What had you done?

What you did not expect was for Damian to strut up to an old grandfather clock, turning the arrows on the white disk to exactly 10:47. Whether or not you’re the type of person to be easily surprised, there’s no way you wouldn’t be at least a little taken aback when the large clock swung back, revealing the entrance to what looked to be a cave.

You had no context to put it up against and as such your fear took over, making you slowly back away from the hole in the wall that had just been revealed. Damian’s weird behaviour doesn’t make the situation any better either. Really, for you, there’s no telling what’s going on.

Damian notices your hesitation and briefly takes offence until he senses your genuine fear.  “It’s nothing bad, I promise. It’s just a family secret that I trust you enough to know.” He’ll try to reassure you, whether it works or not doesn’t matter, as he picks you up like you weighed nothing and carries you down the metal steps… He doesn’t trust you to not fall and hurt yourself.

Once down in the cave, he’ll reveal to you that he’s Batman, the second one to bear the monicker. He’ll reveal the hero identities of all your “new uncles”, even Jon. All the information that he believes you could possibly need will be loaded onto you in a “brief” thirty minutes monologue. By the end of it, you’re floored… who wouldn’t be? This is probably the last thing anyone would ever consider when moving in with a new family. A bit of your fan behaviour might poke through, as you go from shocked to concerned to almost a little ecstatic… your favourite hero is your adopted father… Wow! The powers above really shone down on you after you had lost everything, huh?

But the pleasant surprises don’t stop there as Damian starts to describe how most Robins lost their birth parents somehow, (with him being the exception), and how most of them worked through this, (not really), by becoming vigilantes. You start to wonder and maybe even hope that he’ll offer the position to you, but multiple times have to remind yourself to stop dreaming, it would be unlikely, right? I mean, you might be able to fight, but not vigilante-level, right? Well… Damian disagrees, and he offers you to become his Robin. In all your star-struck wonder, you fail to see the possessive and obsessive glint in his eyes. You accept on the spot, feeling as if it’s a dream come true.

From then on, your days will be filled with nothing except school, family and Robin training, there’ll simply be no time for friends and going out doing your own thing, and Damian loves it! He believes you’re the safest when you’re within the manor or in his direct line of sight. Anywhere else is dangerous.

Damian will eventually start to suspect the safety of your school…The teachers probably don’t know how to defend you from rogues. Heck! Hey probably don’t even care for your safety! His mind ruminates on the topic for a while, until he decides to let you be homeschooled. He asks around to see if there’re any good private teachers whom he can trust, but there aren’t. None of the people he interviews ever fit his standards: One is too lax, the other too strict, one isn’t clever enough and a fourth doesn’t seem loyal enough. It’s next to impossible to fill out all the demands that the green-eyed Wayne sets up, but there’s one man whom Damian would trust with your education and safety. Bruce… If we’re all being honest, he’s probably a better teacher in all subjects than those who actually studied for the position. It’s actually Bruce’s own idea that he’ll be the one tutoring you, he can work for Wayne enterprises at home, and teach you at the same time, it’s great bonding, and Bruce enjoys your youthful presence so much. It’s a win-win situation for both men… Of course, this will also mean that you’ll become entirely isolated from anyone that isn’t Damian approved. Your social circles are suddenly limited to a bunch of adults, most of whom are vigilantes, hell-bent on keeping others safe… This has the added side-effect of depriving you of anyone who might support your suspicions, should you sound the alarm as Damian puts up more and more safety protocols to keep you out of harm's way.   

With no one else but the family, you become entirely submerged in the vigilante culture and social circles, as you train to become the new Robin. The only people you’ll see on a regular basis will be Damian, grandpa Bruce, uncle Jon and uncle Tim. Perhaps great uncle Clark will semi-regularly swing by with great aunt Lois, but that’s rare, Bruce usually goes to them. You may notice yourself becoming quite dependent on Damian and Bruce’s company and attempt to rebel, this doesn’t fly with Damian. He loves you, but he’s not the most patient of people. He will have no qualms about locking you in your room for hours or even days, only letting you out to do your Robin training.

It’ll take a long time for Damian to let you become a true Robin, he wants to be sure that you’ll be safe and have the skills to defend yourself fully. It wouldn’t even surprise me if you had already reached the age of 18 before you got to actually patrol the city, not that this would change anything, Damian would either pay someone to fake your birth certificate so that you were still his legal ward on paper or maybe just refuse to let you have any more freedom, even if you protest… at that point, he would have had years to manipulate you into being entirely loyal to the family and more specifically him, so I doubt that it’d be a real problem.

Regardless, when he does bestow upon you the right to become Robin, it’ll be the end of a long road. He’ll invite everyone in your immediate social circle to come and celebrate, even some of Bruce’s old colleagues like Hal Gordan and Barry Allen might show up, it’s a big party and it’s all about you. Any fancy dresses or suits you want? it’s yours! The entire house will be decorated in your favourite colours and all your favourite food will be served! At the end of the evening, everyone will be gathered in one of the manor’s large living rooms, and Damian will present you with your very own Robin suit. You’ll be surprised to find that it’s a real-life replica of the ones you had drawn as a child. If you wonder how he got them, Damian will simply say he had found them in the rubbish the day you moved in and he had thought it a shame to throw them out… really he had stolen the drawing from you back when he was still stalking you, having collected the perfect materials throughout your years of training, it had sometimes been a struggle to find fabric that both matched your idea of the costume as well as being practical in a field setting, but he had managed it, and now you had the perfect costume, just the way you’d always wanted it.

Damian is overprotective of you the first many times that you’re out as Robin, to the point where he barely lets you fight, out of fear that you might get hurt. But slowly and with the reassurances of both Tim, Jon and Bruce, he’ll let you fight on your own. His eyes will still always find your form the second he hears a grunt coming from your direction, but he’ll let you handle it unless he deems the situation too dangerous… which he does quite often…

Life will be fine as long as you’re by his side, he’s your Batman and you’re his Robin, and Gotham is delighted by the return of the traffic-cone-themed sidekick. Bruce will look upon you and Damian fondly, and be reminded of good-old times when that was him and Dick, or the beginning of him and Jason… Back before it all got so complicated… which is ironic because the emotions involved in you and Damian’s Batman/Robin partnership are way more complicated, dark and obsessive than any of Bruce’s ever were.

You might wonder why Bruce never opposes Damian’s obvious yandere tendencies, but, in truth, Bruce refuses to see them. After all his sons, (except Damian), moved out, he got too old to be Batman, Alfred died and his entire life practically had to be narrowed down to Wayne Enterprises and occasional visits from his boys, (most of whom he was estranged from), Bruce had lost his spark, his reason to wake up in the morning. However, when you arrived, an entirely new chapter of his life opened up. He no longer felt like he was riding through the last fourth of his life without any meaning. No, with you there, he now had the responsibilities of a grandfather! He had someone to live for and to tell his near-endless anecdotes to! Your sudden appearance in his life saved him, and as such, he couldn’t even begin to let himself see the cracks in the happy facade he depended on to keep his life going. To him, you were all a happy and healthy family, three generations: Father, son and grandchild. And no one could take that away from him, he refused.

As you grow up, still living with Damian and Bruce, switching between the two identities of Robin and y/n, the wealthy socialite, adopted by Damian Wayne, you might start to consider whether you should create something of your own, instead of just living a life that Damian created for you. You might look at photos of the old Teen Titans and Young Justice, all hung throughout the halls of Wayne manor, and think to yourself, “maybe I could do something like that too”.

If you verbalise this idea to Damian, he’ll stop whatever he’s doing, his eyes widening with fear and rage. “You want to leave us?! After everything we’ve done for you?!” You can try your best to explain that you just want to become your own person, but Damian will hear non of it. He becomes frantic and angry, making you sit and listen to him rant about how dangerous it can be for a bunch of sidekicks, not even fully-fledged heroes, to just team up and battle it out. He’ll list to you all the most horrific incidents that happened in both Teen Titans and Young Justice, the people that got permanently, the people that got seriously maimed and those who died horrifically. At the end of his hours-long rant, he’d have instilled sufficient anxiety within you to turn you off to that idea.

After your suggestion, though, Damian might realise that you could be in need of a friend around your age. He doesn’t like the idea, a mix of both jealousy and the fear that they won’t protect you makes him reluctant to seek out some of the other sidekicks, but for you and your mental well-being, he’ll do anything. So he finds a sidekick, it could be Jon’s… actually, it’s most likely Jon’s sidekick, I can’t really see him trusting anyone else. But he’ll go up to them and practically demand that they befriend you. If they’re anything like Jon, and I can imagine that they are, they’ll accept with a big smile.

You may have a hard time befriending Jon’s sidekick, especially if your personalities aren’t compatible, however, they’re the only other person around your age you have, so you’ll have to make do. Eventually becoming best friends, even if you can’t stand them.

Any other need you could possibly have, Damian will always find a way to satiate it without ever giving you your freedom. It’ll be the most infuriating game of pulling rope, he’ll always give in to your demands, but in a way that just further cements your inability to escape him.

Damian will never let you go, not as long as he lives. If you try to get married… hah! No. Not happening. If you wanna go to university, he’ll hire tutors to come to your home. You’re never escaping and Damian isn’t coy about showing his possessiveness and platonic obsession with you. You’re his kid, even if you refuse. Really, you should have just stayed home that fateful night when you met, because now you’re stuck as Damian’s Robin, forever.

A/N: Yes, you can just ignore this, it's mostly for the user who sent in the request.

Thank you for this idea! I hope you like what I did with it!

I'm really sorry that these take so long to come out lately, but I have my final exams in a little over a month, (they start on the 1st of May), so I'm in a pretty tight spot for time recently, I'll obviously become more productive when they're all done, and I do also have another full one shot of Damian in the works. For the anon who requested this, I would just like to say, you had a wonderful idea, and I hope I did it justice, it didn't really go where I had originally intended it to, but I hope that this is what you might've preferred either way.

[bats-and-birds-24]

Chapter 10:

Tim finally broke the silence, “So, Jason, um- how have you been since you were resurrected?” 

He cringed at himself as soon as the sentence came out of his mouth. He didn't know Jason before his death, and yet here he was being overly familiar with him.

He tries to correct himself with, “Sorry about that, um- it just that I’m a huge fan of your Robin, you were my inspiration and everything, I used to follow you around on your patrols when you were a kid and-”

Jason’s brain stopped working at “used to follow him around as a kid.” How long did B know about Tim’s existence? Did he already have a backup in case something happened to him? He wouldn't put something like that past Bruce, this was the man who kept notes on how to take down his closest friends in a fight. 

Mostly he felt like a fool. A fool for trusting Bruce. He took advantage of Dick when he was grieving the loss of his family, he took advantage of Jason when he was homeless, and- “how would Bruce take advantage of a Bristol kid like Tim? He probably got everything he wanted.” The pit whispered in his ears.

Jason shook the green out of his vision and looked at the kid once more. Tim said he was following Jason and Bruce around on patrol, there would be no way for him to do that if he had attentive guardians, he was probably neglected as a child and latched on to his hero and the first adult to give him attention.

“It was pretty easy to follow you guys around since my parents were probably in an archaeological digs somewhere.-” Tim rambled on.

“Hypothesis confirmed.” Jason thought bitterly. As jealous as he was towards the kid, he was just another child put into danger by Bruce. 

He cut him off with “Do you really think you became Robin of your own free will Tim?”

Tim looked up at him bewildered, “I’m not sure what you mean, Bruce didn't even know I existed until I forced him to make me Robin.”

“Tim you didn't force him to make you Robin, he manipulated you into becoming Robin, do you really expect Bruce, the world’s greatest detective, to not know that you were stalking him?” Jason spat out.

Tim drew back, “Of course he didn't know I was there! He didn't want me to be Robin after you died, but his methods of crime suppression became too violent afterwards since he didn't have a Robin to keep him in check! It was for the good of Gotham!”

Jason didn't know whether he should laugh or cry, “Tim you're a child! You shouldn't have to maintain a grown man’s emotions for him!” He should be doing normal kid stuff like going to school and hanging out with friends, not fighting criminals and ending up in life or death situations.

Tim stomach churned, of course his idol didn't want Tim to be Robin, he could live with Jason thinking that he was a poor successor, but he also seemed to think that Bruce manipulated him into becoming his sidekick, which was patently untrue. He had to correct it.

“Jason, I wasn't manipulated.” Tim gently stated.

Jason's anger burst out, unable to contain the pit any longer, “Of course that's what you would say! He has you wrapped around his finger! He doesn't think of you as anything more than a tool!”

Tim’s anger was reaching its limits as well, “Well, how is being Robin with Batman any more dangerous for a kid than being trained as an assassin under Talia Al Ghul!”

“Shut up! It's not the same!” Jason replied hotly. 

Tim could feel tears pricking his eyes. So much for a calm talk with Jason, his idol.

That was when the door swung open and Talia appeared, “Aziz, take Jason to his chambers, I will meet with him later.” She walked straight up to Tim, gave Jason a look that meant that she would be back for him, and led Tim out into the hallway.

“This isn't your fault child, you shouldn't have put all this pressure on yourself to bring him back.” Tim tried to focus on her words, as the rest of the world blurred under his tears.

[stealingyourbones]

Bruce isn't the best parent, but a chunk of the issue is that he's an only child. Should he stop Jason and Dick from throwing Damian back and forth like a human ball? Is Tim threatening to bite Cass an issue? Are those death threats serious or not? The poor man is an only child trying to run herd on at least a half dozen feral siblings. He exists in a state of constant confusion.

I.

This isn’t to be mean, but that is simply not the case.

I keep getting bad parent bruce takes and it sucks because all of them aren’t even proper reasoning for his character.

I’m just using you as an example, but hear me out.

Bruce is an extremely smart person, Homie has watched movies and read books, he can learn from situations around him that things are sibling things. Sure, he was excluded as a kid, but that isn’t nearly the main issue why he isn’t the best parent.

homie has so much shit wrong with him, he’s emotionally just not there, he keeps himself stuck in a perpetual state of grief and mourning for his parents of a thing that happened when he was a child, he has been trained by assassins and has experienced loss and pain to an insane extent, he has such an insane extent of paranoia and trust issues that it affects his daily life, is definitely autistic, and has issues with social cues.

I’m trying to properly articulate just why that’s not the case but my brain isn’t working with me so I’m handing this over to my twin @bonebrokebuddy who is far more articulate than me.

———

Hi, it's Billy, Bones's twin writing because Bones had a hard time putting this into words and I'm more of a canon nitpick than her.

Uh- have you ever. And I mean even once, met an only child.

I promise, if you read even a singular comic, you could tell this take is incredibly out of character.

Bruce isn’t a good parent. He’s also not a bad parent. He loves his kids. He literally could not stop them from pulling dumb shit if they tried and putting themselves into danger.

Bruce is the worlds greatest detective. He knows how to spot and detect emotions and trouble in his kids. He’s The Worlds Greatest Detective.

His issue with being a parent likely comes from having Alfred as a father figure. Imagine having a dad that you can fire at any time, you pay so they can stay with you, and can just leave at any moment if they don’t approve of the person they work for. That will severely fuck up a kid.

His issue isn’t that he’s an only child, it’s that it’s every Robin’s god given right to go against and defy Batman’s orders whenever possible because kids are viscous little buggers who don’t like being told “you can’t do that” even if it’s for their own health, they’ll do it anyway.

After you’ve taught your kids how to exist in deadly situations, they think they’re invincible when it’s because Bruce is doing all he fucking can to make sure his kids don’t get hurt. If they feel like they can make the world a better place, they’ll do it, regardless of the risk because they’re inherently self sacrificing and good people.

Bruce’s issue with parenting is due to his relationship with his kids. Again, it isn’t that he’s an only child, it’s that the kids he adopted are their own people and they are even more stubborn and bad at communication as him.

Even more so, it’s due to the dang narrative.

Conflict between Bruce and his kids that cause them to separate has been the backstory for plenty of solo batkid runs to endure Batman isn’t as involved or the main focus of the run.

Narrative tension is literally the cause of all the bad parent decisions for Bruce, because conflict drives narrative or miscommunications cause the story to lengthen and complicate itself

it’s not as easy as “Bruce is bad dad” because he’s Not. Bruce is good with kids! He has a pouch in his utility belt specifically with suckers for kids!

But Bruce isn't a great world star dad either. He definitely inherited his ability to communicate with people outside crisis situations largely from trainers around the world and his arms-length-distance-at-all-times distance relationship with the butler who raised him.

Despite him being good with kids, his kids have lives of their own with morals and opinions of their own that conflict and clash constantly. It’s not a simple case of “Bruce is a bad dad.”

It’s a case of “everyone has slightly different opinions and approaches to situations so occasionally conflict happens when they clash or interfere with each other” because it’s a comic that tells a story!

Anyways, my recommendation? Pick up a comic. And preferably? Read it. Or watch BTAS if it’s more accessible to you. either works. This opinion isn't your fault most likely, just the quality of the DC fan-content you've been consuming that are incredibly removed from the comics. If you want, DM me at @bonebrokebuddy and I can send you some good quality DC fics with in-character Bruce.

————

Bones here again,

That basically sums up the exact stuff I couldn’t properly describe. I was using you more as an example because I have dozens of bad parent bruce takes in my inbox and I am 90% sure that the cause of them is that they simply haven’t read anything about the character.

Read a comic, read some strictly DC fanfiction, watch some of the many many TV shows and animated movies, there are even motion comics free online to watch that have voice acting and everything!

Being an only child doesn’t make you a bad father.

[dumbassalex]

So i am thinking about what i'd do if i could make a future Batfam AU after Bruce dies/retires. And I think my main focus would be Tim and Damian.

Firstly, Dick is still Nightwing, now the leader of JL whitch integrated Titans. Jason is Red Hood and leads a Red Hood gang in Gotham, leading it with his own rules that limit and control most of Gothams crime (not that it stops it because the city is cursed on multiple levels). Steph is either Spoiler or Batgirl, both work well for her as aliases, she works as a vigilante. Kate retired with her girlfriend and Selina is taking care of little Helena Wayne. Alfred has sadly died to Bane. Harper and Duke work as Blue Bird and Signal, the daytime heroes of Gotham (they're friends, not a couple dw). Jace Fox is the Batman for Justice League.

Now Tim, he's Gothams Batman, the detective of the city, he's grouped up with Cass, the new Batwoman and the muscle of the duo. Carrey Kelly is their Robin. They deal with the classic street level Gotham crime, they usualy team up with Steph and deal with Jasons bs.

Damian is a member of Justice Leauge Dark, focusing dark magic, ocultism and satanism. He is also Batman, with a more mystic look (black suit, green accents). His Robin is Jarro who decided to join his brother after Bruce died.

And if he still existed I'd have Lance be Red X and kinda like a Robin Hood-lile figure. Terry is still living a calm life before he stumbled into the Batfam buisness.

If i forgot somebody, please tell me and i'll give info on what i'd do with them in the AU.

[creetchure]

Please tell me about your ideas for the fallout for like everyone post gotham war (if not everyone than just Jason is fine too, i am very curious about your ideas for an arc for him)

hi hello!!! my thoughts are more directed to jason because he's the one who went through the brunt of things, BUT i have thoughts on all of them. i also have sort of separate thoughts because of the detective comics anouncement, but they contain spoilers for the future issues of detective comics, so if you don't want that, i'm putting it under read more after this.

also typing this and realizing it's REALLY long, so i'm gonna put a tldr at the end of each character LMAO

first off, dick is never forgiving bruce for this. we know exactly how protective of his siblings he is -- he killed joker for implying having killed tim -- and i can't see him letting this slide, no matter how much bruce pleads the "it wasn't me i was being influenced by the personality i created as a backup". Of course, because they're bruceanddick and they're always in a cycle of coming back to each other, eventually, little by little, dick is going to start working with him again, but i don't think this is something he'll ever *forgive*. or forget for that matter. so to me, this should spark an arc of nightwing becoming more separate from batman than he's been in years.

TL;DR: Dick isn't forgiving bruce for this, but will eventually work with him again

second off. there are a lot of things i would like to see for jason, some more likely than others. ill start by what i *know* won't happen, but would be best for his character imo.

Jason is a character we've seen move forward and backwards so many times, mostly because he sells well, and so the writers keep him stuck in this red hood limbo of eing a loner and making friends, and hating bruce and forgiving him, and it's been the same arc since his resurection, and i'm tired. which is why i think what'd be best for him is an Oracle arc, for lack of a better term.

Jason will never leave Gotham for an extended period of time. it's home to him as much as it is to Bruce. he might go away for a bit (id like to see him in Blud but ill get into that later), but he'll always come back. he also will never give up trying to protect Gotham and the people in it, because he never has. But he can't be a vigilante in the same way anymore, functionally, what Bruce has done to him is profoundly disabling in day to day life, let alone doing things that are made to trigger the panic response.

I don't think that should stop him. Personally, my vision for it is to put him at the head of a spy network, to render Batman obsolete and stop major crime before it even happens (potentially also feeding batman fake info to make him look bad), but like. you could do other things. it's just the idea that i'm going with.

But I do think that unlike Dick, jason is going to forgive bruce for this (against his better sense or wishes. he does understand how fucked this is) because he understands altered states of mind (NOT talking about the pit. talking about good old fashioned brain fuckery). but it's also going to cause a rift in their relationship that i don't see them bridging anytime soon, and Jason *will* be extremely uncomfortable for a long time.

Thats only if they don't walk back the panic thing, though, which i firmly believe they will. a Red Hood solo has been in the works for ages, and is supposed to come p soon, and i doubt they'd start it off with Jason unable to *be* Red Hood. They might not fully fix it, but they'll make it much more manageable.

overall, i'd like to see Jason in Bludhaven after this for a bit. I kind of just want a focus on him and Dick for a while, though I dread what Tom Taylor might write of the two of them. I'd also like a mantle change, but that's just me dreaming.

TL;DR: if it was up to me, Jason would have an Oracle arc and be the head of a spy network. it's not, and all I can hope for is Jason moving to Bludhaven and detaching himself from Bruce for a while

third off, tim. I don't have many thoughts about him, if I'm honest, mostly because he's one of the least directly affected by Bruce's actions, imo. i'm also less of a fan of his character, making it harder for me to see all the implications that this arc will have on him. I do firmly believe that he'll stick to his siblings rather than Bruce, because he does know how to look at reality and call out Bruce's bullshit.

TL;DR: i don't know/don't care enough about Tim to have that many thoughts. he'll pick his siblings side.

fourth! Cass! She isn't really present in the event much (doesn't sell as well i assume) but this is important to me so. To me, this causes damage to her and Bruce's relationship as well, that he'll have to work to fix. She is loyal to the Bat and what the symbol represents before she is loyal to the man wearing the suit, and I think that to her, this is betrayal of the ideals Batman stands for. bruce isn't a hero in this arc, and he's not a symbol of hope like the bat stands for. What I would like for Cass is for her to keep going on the missions, keep doing good, but doing so independantly from Batman. She stops answering to him entirely up until she feels he has made amends and has worked himself back to the standard he used to be. I want her to stay in Gotham, and keep protecting it the way the Bat should, even from the bat himself.

TL;DR: cass should stay in Gotham and be batman and not return Bruce's calls.

Damian is the one i'm not exactly sure i know where the writers are leading, but i can still speculate and tell you what *id* do.

we know that him and bruce are still going to be friendly and on the same side by the end of this from Batman and Robin #1. we also know Damian in that issue is kind of distant, doesn't really stick around Bruce much. Williamson's damian always reads sort of. depressed. so idk how much of that is in reaction to Gotham war or just from the way Williamson characterizes him, but there's that.

Imo, Damian will forgive bruce, but is also internalizing a lot of the bad shit that happen in Gotham war. Bruce leaving him needs to be something that stays, because he's 14 and his dad is his hero and he left him behind *anyway* and that's bound to fuck you up.

So I think Damian is staying in Gotham, and he's staying with Bruce, but he's also going to be dealing with the aftermath of that for a while, potentially up to a boiling point, which i'd really like to see. Also i'd like to see this compound with the fact that Talia left him with his father, and how that computes together in his head etc etc.

TL;DR: Damian will stick by Bruce for better or for worse, and might have a shit time mentally dealing with the aftermath of this.

I don't have many thoughts on steph, babs, or selina, since 1) i don't know selina and babs well enough to speak on their character, and 2) steph hasn't been there much, and i don't have a Vision for her like i do for Cass.

okay. those are my thoughts. Now for those on the tec announcement

right so. forget literally all i've said about bruce, because he's going to die.

I'm not pulling this out of thin air, in issue 1080 of detective comics, it's said that Bruce is killed by the orghams, leading to the entirety of gotham city forgetting him. Now, I have no idea how this is getting implemented, so I can't say much about how the members of the Batfamily will react. But I can say that this is, in fact, the natural progression for bruce's character.

in the past year or so, both Zdarski and Ram V have been talking about how Bruce is getting too old, and putting more tangible, permanent consequences on what he does (losing a hand, zur, etc).

On top of that, he has been made to make amends with Dick, Tim, and Jason over the course of that same year (nightwing 100, cheer, failsafe arc, etc)

To me, this arc is the culmination of months of foreshadowing.

Though i'll admit, i thought they were going to just retire bruce for a little while, not fucking *kill him*. it won't last for more than a few years, he sells too well, but i genuinely thought this would be like a knightfall situation.

when it comes to the question of who gets to be batman (i swear, last paragraph and i'm done), i think that gotham war also serves to tell us that *no one* will be. I don't see Dick picking it up in those conditions, Jason won't either, Tim is scared of becoming batman, and Damian might but they won't really let him. ofc they won't let Cass take up the mantle either.

Woo. hope you're happy with this and tihs wasn't more than you bargained for. i'm a bit insane about this.

[disaster-biraven]

The Lazarus Problem Chapter 2

Jasonette Ch1 Ch2(you are here) Ch3 Ch4 ~ Masterlist

Ao3 Dedicated to @girl-in-thechair

Ever since the world had witnessed the final battle between Hawkmoth and the Parisian heroes, Wonderwomen had been adamant that they needed to find and recruit Ladybug and Chat Noir. She had even made a presentation on what the miraculous was and why having them on the side of the Justice League was a need and not a want. So Batman had been tasked with finding them, and although he is the best detective, there had been no lead. Their magic did an amazing job of concealing any leads, and he was certain Ladybug had left Paris. Hippolyta, a former Ladybug holder had said it was likely the heroes moved on to the next big unbalance, but mentioned there was a chance they had retired the miraculouses.

Now there was an unknown Meta in Gotham, and the only thing that is known about her is her ability to turn invisible. After everyone had finished up at the docks, an irate Red Hood had debriefed the family on the unknown girl. Batman decided to delegate the task of finding her to Red Hood and Red Robin, as he thought he found a lead on who Chat Noir was. This led to a sleep-deprived Tim staring blankly at a file, while Jason used Barbara’s surveillance system to see if he could figure out any leads on the Meta’s location or identity. Tim closed the file and turned to Jason.

“Hey, did you check the list of people who recently moved here? There’s a chance she’s from somewhere else.” He sipped out of his coffee cup which came from seemingly nowhere. Jason didn’t question it, and the idea had more merit than staring at video footage.

“Ok, I’ll start at three weeks and go up from there,” Tim replaced his empty mug with another one. “Tim, what the hell.”

“If you tell Alfred, I’ll mention why you hung up all that artwork in your room.” Jason thought about all those bullet holes he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet. “Deal. Asshole.”

The list of people finally loaded, and he started to rule out suspects based on height and other factors. While skimming the names and pictures, he felt the blood drain from his face. Tim noticed and shook his shoulder. His partner in crime from his time on the streets was staring back at him. Marinette, who for the last decade he thought was dead, had moved back to Gotham. A search revealed that soon after he had been taken in by Bruce, she had been adopted by a couple in France.

“Do you know her? She was a street kid from Gotham.” Tim still looked a little concerned but didn’t hold back from questioning Jason.

“Tim, not every street kid knew each other. But yeah, we were close. I thought she was dead, I never thought to look her up though.” Did she think he died too? Technically he did. Maybe she looked him up and found his obituary.

“She lived in France, maybe she could help in the Ladybug and Chat Noir case. Everyone but her and some guy got akumatized in her class.” Tim started looking closer at how she was related to past akumas while Jason was spiraling on how to reconnect with her. ~~

Marinette works at a fabric store part-time, and Jason wants nothing more than to run into her. But he has to case to solve and needs to focus. Tim has the decency to not mention her again, keeping the conversation from the others. But Jason knows Tim thinks he should go see her.

On top of continuous surveillance around the city, and going through a list of suspects, there isn’t much more to do than keep an eye peeled during patrol. The lack of any leads drives Jason insane, but it still seemed to go better than Batman’s investigation. The trail had gone cold on the possibility of finding Chat Noir’s identity, the magic was stronger than ever. Dick claims he once walked in on Bruce banging his head against the desk and slowly backed out of there.

Jason caught a break in the form of a brief sighting near the Wayne Tower and changed his patrol to overlap with that area. Tim wasn’t able to join him as he was still on bed rest from a surprise attack from Damian over the last slice of pie.

“Congratulations, Demon Spawn you just volunteered yourself as my patrol partner, seeing as you took out my first one.” Jason ignored his protests and finished suiting up. ~~

Shit shit shit. The Meta dodged his fist and kicked him in the face. Fuck.

“What is your motive here in Gotham, Villain?”

Robin’s question caused her to pause. She hesitantly put up her weapon? Flute?

“I am here in Gotham to help restore the balance, but if I say how you may not believe me.”

“Try me.” Jason really hoped her way of restoring the balance wasn’t to blow something up.

“I know both of you have been in the Lazarus pits. And I can help.”

Robin’s face twisted as he lunged toward, almost stabbing the Fox Meta.

“Were you sent by my mother? Who are you? Stop moving away from my sword!”

“Okay, Robin that’s enough. Let’s hear her out before we try and impale her.”

She seemed to appreciate that. ~~

Jason relayed what the Meta he now knew as Lyca told him to Tim. They were all hesitant to believe her, as she could have ulterior motives. She agreed to meet them in a few days with Batman so he could get a feel for the mysterious girl. Jason didn’t want to get his hopes up on the possibility of actually having a cure for the pit madness. If he were to reconnect with Marinette, it would be better if he wasn’t affected. She didn’t deserve to have to deal with his anger, especially since he looked into what she had to deal with in Paris. After dealing with an emotional terrorist she shouldn’t have to deal with an unbalanced vigilante. He’d have to get the nerve to go see her anyway, which looked unlikely. He hated feeling like a coward.

[fancyfade]

Ah thank you for answering my questions actually I am the same anon of a blended family that pointed out the reason why Damian consider Bruce “only” son because a lot of people at dc views the batkids as Bruce’s students or soldiers. Iirc there was a deleted thread of a editor that confirms that.

Not saying there isn’t official lore of the robins acknowledged each other as brothers. Isn’t just me or is their dynamics mainly just

1. The boring Batfamily events Dc love to do. Seriously anyone excited for them anymore

2. Or around Bruce

Not to say they deep bonds, is it just me off dc often make the Batfamily…idk extremely antagonistic to each other to the point their characters are better fleshed out away from the family vs together?

Maybe because how Bruce is written recently but man it’s rough.

I definitely do think that writers flip flop a lot on how they consider Bruce's kids, or they want to treat them as mostly soldiers for the angsty Bruce thing and to explain why they don't have to show Bruce being a dad on panel. Or more of different writers have different opinions, rather than flip-flopping.

WRT bonds... I think that they have some that are well-developed on page, and some that are just not. Most of the characters' dynamic with Bruce has gotten panel time, though inconsistently, so we know pretty much what it should be. We also have seen Dick with Tim and Dick with Damian. There are characters who are not antagonistic, but just don't have a ton of panel time devoted to them (Dick and Cass pre-the dark cass era). And Damian and Tim are no longer antagonistic to each other for the most part but also just. don't have any panel time showing them actually becoming close.

rather than being antagonistic to each other being the reason main batfam events are boring, I think it's b/c they honestly all fill pretty similar niches.

like think about No Man's Land. That was a pretty big batfam event, but we almost never have all of them on panel at once. When we see them in big groups, its often just when in Oracle's clock tower between missions, like saying hi to Cass when she just became Batgirl.

But like. We see Dick go off and do a mission alone in the jail. Some Babs and Dick defending base stuff. Dick and Tim work together in the tunnels for ratcatcher. Cass and Tim when Tim has to be evacuated out of Gotham. Cass and Jean Paul infiltrating that one manipulative guy's camp. In general the missions are pretty small in terms of actually number of people actively on them.

Ok so going back to:

trying to have every single batfam member in a mission just makes them boringer. You have "so and so is the smart one" "so and so is the angry one" "so and so is the nice one" etc... but like. They're all smart. They can all be angry. They can all be nice. they all fill the niche of "generally competent fighter with stealth skills and usually above-average computer and detective skills". IDK its like having a party of 6 rogues.

So in general what you have is you have to diminish characters in one way to make the other stand out more. Like Gates of Gotham, which has stuff I really do like, also had stuff I really don't like like Tim being the only one having ideas. Because Tim had to be "the smart one". And this isn't unique to Batfam! It happens in many team stuff. 1960s Teen Titans diminished everyone's brains to make Dick stand out more, JLA does the same for Bruce. Writing complex dynamics is hard so it's easy to just find 1 or 2 character traits and exaggerate those.

I think that's why Batfam members are better fleshed out in their solo titles - they get to be full characters. I think they may also get to be better fleshed out in team comics, but normally because they get the narrative focus instead of other characters and are treated as the "batman" of the team. Like I love NTT, but Dick is clearly Marv's writer's pet and he gets so much narrative focus.

... I am not sure if I actually answered your question, but those are my thoughts in general.

[soleminisanction]

What was Stephanie’s relationship with her father like? All I know is that she has an intense dislike of him. But I don’t have a clear reason why.

Honestly? That's a very good question. You'd be surprised how rarely they actually interact.

I'm going to focus pre-Flashpoint for this answer since DC apparently gave Arthur a more cohesive origin story when they decided to make him the big bad in a Batman Eternal storyline, but I haven't read that because I would sooner put out an eye than subject myself to that era's terrible forced TimSteph bullshit. Here's what I know off the top of my head though:

In her first appearance (Detective Comics #647-649), Stephanie's initial justification for her actions is simply, quote, "I hate his guts. I have to have a world-class psycho for a dad. I'd like to see him rot in jail." It's pretty explicit in this original story that, while she is working against her father, she's not meant to be viewed as a heroic figure. Bruce even says as much.

Thing is though that she and her dad don't actually interact at all until the very end. Arthur has just gotten out of jail and -- despite what stories even later in this post will try to imply -- he doesn't seem to have gone anywhere near his family. He's working out of an apartment in the inner city, and somehow kept the fact that he even had a wife and child completely off the public record, to the point that Tim only tracks Stephanie down because her mom had visited Arthur in prison under the name "Mrs. Agnes Bellinger."

So Steph and Arthur don't actually interact, at all, until the very end of the story, when -- in what later stories might have deliberately paralleled for the incident that ultimately got her fired from being Robin -- Stephanie defied Batman's orders to leap down into a fight and was immediately taken hostage.

Arthur threatens what he thinks is a boy in a costume with sulfuric acid, leading Bruce to reveal Stephanie's identity to save her life. And Arthur immediately lets her go. It's hard to read his expression exactly because mask he mostly looks shocked, maybe a little horrified at what he was about to do.

And then this happens.

So yeah, suffice it to say the relationship seems to have been bad -- she claims he "destroyed her life" -- but we don't really know how, and so far as I'm aware it's not really elaborated on.

To be honest, their whole relationship can be very he-said, she-said. Like, early on, there's a storyline Robin where Steph gets kidnapped by a gang so they can hold her hostage and force Arthur (who's in prison) into planning robberies for them to commit, only for Stephanie to then insist that Arthur arranged the whole thing. And the story just accepts that as the obvious truth, with Arthur's only response to the accusation being, "We were never close," but frankly that plot twist makes very little sense to me. It mostly seems to have been inserted just so Stephanie has an excuse to act all self-righteous when Batman tells her to go home.

It's sporadically but inconsistently suggested that Arthur was abusive. In an issue of Cass's Batgirl Stephanie says this:

And in Secret Origins 80-Page Giant -- a collection of origin retellings release around the time YJ was getting started -- he's shown hitting Crystal for money and tossing Steph around when she's younger.

But. That story is also told from Steph's point of view, with her explicit narration being that she's talking to her baby bump, and when she gets to the part describing the aforementioned Detective Comics origin story, it's explicitly cleaned up to make her look more heroic and capable.

Which can just as easily mean that Stephanie is being an unreliable narrator. She's not only one in the book -- Cassie (Wonder Girl) also talks herself up because her framing story is trying to impress a boy, but in her case it's more obvious because there's a deliberate exaggeration to the storytelling.

Later on, when she's giving birth, Steph has like... a stress nightmare? Where she's playing with the baby at home but then her dad shows up and takes it away from her and drags it into a big superhero/supervillain fight on the lawn and that seems to be what makes her fully commit to giving the kid up for adoption. But that could be a metaphor about not wanting to bring the kid into the dangerous superhero life.

A bit later on (Robin #93 I believe) there's a storyline where Arthur and Riddler are working out of Steph's house, and when he catches Steph stalking them Arthur threatens to kill Steph and her mother. But then, literally his next appearance, Arthur agrees to join a Suicide Squad mission while saying this...

And he dies on that mission. And Steph's told about it. And she has some, I think understandably, conflicted emotions about it... although less understandable is the way she screams insults at her mother and then breaks their stuff before storming off into a week-long vigilantism bender that nearly gets her and Tim killed.

In the denouncement to that arc there's the closest we really get to an examination of their relationship -- as written by a completely different creative team than those who created her originally or who wound up defining her with Batgirl, for what it's worth. It's a little awkward because it tries to explain the design of her Spoiler costume as a metaphor for their relationship...

Which I don't think works very well. And then it escalates into this long and really uncomfortably lurid story about a babysitter creeping on Steph, Steph running away from home to escape him, and Arthur maybe murdering the guy while Steph questions whether he did it to protect her or because the guy mess with "his territory."

But then. There's what happens after she dies. After War Games came a storyline called War Crimes where it turned out that Arthur had actually faked his death, and so returned to Gotham under the alias "Aaron Black" aka "the Reformer." He basically led a big public campaign against Batman in Stephanie's name, blaming him for her death, trying to get the law to hold him accountable, and ruining his reputation in the public eye. All while saying things like this.

After this exchange, he's literally never seen again until he randomly appears in a cell at the end of her Batgirl run.

So yeah. I think it's safe to say that their relationship is complicated. We mostly get it from Stephanie's side, and from her point of view it was terrible, hateful, and abusive -- but she also insists on multiple occasions that he never cared for her, and that's clearly not true even from their very first appearance together. So take that as you will.

[zahri-melitor]

Recent reads discussion:

Gotham Central: I really enjoyed this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was a Rucka-Brubaker collaboration. They’re both great writers and one of the reasons their Batman-‘Tec runs worked really well together is they understand how to write around each other. This helped fill out the department - by each having their own detective teams to write it made the department feel busier as they handed stories back and forth. Next, 2003-2006 was a smart time to put out a cop book in Gotham. There was a real resurgence in police procedurals around that time, so having one in the Batman office makes sense.

It also had a really good launching pad: the one/two hit of NML followed by Officer Down put the GCPD into an interesting situation where the most visible Gotham cops were out of the picture (Gordon, Bullock) plus there was a bunch of turnover following NML. This gave a nice mostly blank slate for the two to build a police department on (and let Rucka revisit what is clearly one of his favourite NML storylines - Montoya and Two-Face’s relationship).

I don’t think as a title it would work as well now, and it would need to interrogate different things. But focusing on the GCPD solving crimes despite Batman in a period when Bruce WAS on one of his downswings worked well. It was across the other events going around it enough that references work - Helena WOULD drop in to talk to the cop who has family mafia connections about a case. Brubaker WOULD write a Catwoman storyline from the other perspective. The Dead Robins case is all the more gripping for occurring during the second half of URTH, because what if it WAS Jason. Plus, Renee’s slow descent into leaving to police is really well illustrated all throughout - these days you go into the story to watch it, but at the time you’d have been hanging waiting to see what happened.

It’s rightly praised. Right team, right title, right time.

Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity: another first meetings story. The interesting aspect of it being the Trinity rather than Superman/Batman is that the title didn’t lean into the classic echo panels that every good “we’re exactly the same/nothing alike” World’s Finest team up can’t help but run (I love that trope so much). There still WERE some parallel moments but not nearly as heavy handed and needing to focus on all THREE relationships.

It had an interesting choice of villains. Ra’s Al Ghul, Bizarro and a very young Artemis were an unbalanced set (Ra’s obviously running rings around the other two), but still took the time to let everyone get in the mix.

I also notice just the SLIGHTEST bit of processing going on here given that Clark gets to avert a 9/11 moment at LexCorp tower. Well, it was 2003.

I enjoyed it. It’s not my favourite first meeting for these three but it was a solid one.

Robin & Batman: first of all, the art on this is just so dreamlike, which is good for a retelling of an event that’s been covered and recovered so many times.

Dick’s first missions, first meeting with the Teen Titans, and the origin of his uniform is a story they love to tell and retell.

I really enjoyed that the story grasped the level of how absolutely broken-headed both Bruce and Dick are, and Bruce’s habit of crossing boundaries but thinking it’s for your own good.

I liked that this was a strong reinterpretation, rather than a redo of other versions. That said, it was a bit TOO self-aware and fusion for my taste.

The constant references to Nightwing were one thing, as was the constant Bruce and Alfred debate of child v child soldier v son. I get the meta you’re playing with, but it’s possible to be a little less blatant in it.

But the way the story merged a whole bunch of other events into this one was rather “I see what you’re doing but I’m unsure if I like it”. Stealing from Jason, Tim AND Damian’s Robin periods, particularly things that were specifically linked to THEM rubs me a bit the wrong way.

I’m resigned to the inevitable long pants but DICK DIDN’T HAVE LONG PANTS.

Waylon Jones is linked to Jason’s pre-Crisis circus origin, not Dick’s. It feels a bit icky to graft him onto Dick’s (also the altered setup of how Haly’s worked).

I did like that the trap was a reinterpretation of the Hanging Judge trap (though honestly just redo Two-Face for me again, I like that story).

D&D is Tim’s thing. I promise you you can come up with a group activity for Dick to join his classmates in that isn’t heavily linked to one of the other kids.

Equally I’m pretty sure only Damian was ever a Gotham Academy kid. It actually amuses me that all the boys largely went to very different schools (though Damian’s now at one of Tim’s!)

Those quibbles aside, it’s a good retelling. I just don’t like it when comics go ahead and merge character traits belonging to other Robins into each other - it’s lazy and it confuses newer readers.

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

Stupid question. I’m getting back into comics and don’t want to overload myself. do you know the difference between detective comics and Batman comic? Is it necessary to read both to understand Tim robin era stuff?

Hi I'm so sorry it took me a bit to get back to you, and forgive me if this is more detailed than you needed-- so basically Detective Comics and Batman are just two separate titles, meaning two different products that DC puts out. If you walked into a comic book store right now, you might find a giant DC section divided into all the different comic books that DC puts out (titles), with the newest issues of each title on display for purchase. Comic books usually come out with one short, unbound issue every month. After awhile, a dozen or so of those short, monthly issues get compiled into a volume, which would look more like a hardcover book. If the volume sells well, it might get a paperback version later on.

If I'm not mistaken Detective Comics is the original title from the 1930s that introduced Bruce as a character, so even though they did add a specific Batman title afterwards, Detective Comics still puts out Batman stories. There are a lot of Batman or Batman-adjacent titles at a time-- for example my favorite era of comics is 2009 to 2011, and during that time there was Detective Comics, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batgirl, Red Robin, and Batman Incorporated.

All of those titles had bat stories in them, but they focus on different characters, right? At the time, Dick was the guy using the Batman persona, so Detective Comics and Batman were about him, and then Batman and Robin was about both Dick and Damian. The Batgirl title was about Stephanie and to some extent Barbara, and Red Robin was the Tim title for the era. Batman Incorporated started later than the other ones, I believe, and it focused on Bruce, who had just returned from being lost in time.

So the unfortunate thing to understand here is that even though it's broadly true that titles are "about" one or more specific characters, the background cast in each title shifts constantly. The Batgirl title 2009-2011 was about Stephanie, so she's in every issue... but she also appears in Red Robin and in Batman and Robin and in Batman Incorporated. All of the bat characters are an informal group, so they constantly appear in each others' stories.

There are also a bunch of complicated crossover events set up so that one unifying story is being told through multiple titles. For example, there's an early new52 crossover story called Death of the Family, and the way that worked was there were a ton of bat-titles (Detective Comics, Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Teen Titans, Batman and Robin) that in general had their own plotlines going specific to the main characters. All of those plotlines got briefly interrupted for a special issue #16, and if you combine all of those #16s into one volume, they all fit together as Death of the Family.

DotF is actually way simpler than most crossover events, because DotF is really just the bat titles, and I think a lot of folks reading Batgirl are probably aware of the characters in Red Hood and the Outlaws, Nightwing, etc. A lot of the crossovers aren't specific to a small set of related characters, so you might find some that are a combination of idk like Nightwing, one specific Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Plastic Man. In those cases you might know and be interested in some characters but not others.

So basically if you want to see ever single appearance Tim made while he was Robin, yeah, you'd want to read both Batman and Detective Comics, because he does appear as Robin on and off in both of those titles by virtue of being a bat-character. However, I wouldn’t advise you to go about it that way because you’re right, that would be really time consuming and potentially expensive. If your interest is in Tim as Robin, I would recommend that you start with his first appearance, which is in the Batman title (#436, I think), read that storyline, and then skip straight into Tim-centric content, in this case the Robin titles.

I believe there are three Robin miniseries from 1991 to 1993, and then from 1993 to 2009 it’s one dedicated title. That’ll be the biggest and easiest way to consume Tim content, and then after that, if you feel like it, you can look for places where Tim appeared in other bat titles, including Detective Comics and Batman. You might be particularly interested in the Young Justice and Teen Titans (2003-2011) titles, because those have a lot of Tim content.

It’s entirely possible (likely, I would say) that while reading any title at all you’ll see references to crossover events, and those sections are going to require context that you probably won’t have, because it’s located in other, potentially sort of random titles. When that happens my advice would be to read the wikipedia article on the crossover, rather than hunting down and reading every individual issue located across the various titles. It’s easier and it’s the most effective way to understand the broad picture. If, after reading the wiki page, you decide that the crossover sounds like a lot of fun, you can search “[name of crossover] reading order” to get a list of all the relevant issues. 

There definitely are people that read comics “in order” with the goal of finding every appearance, and though I obviously support those folks in their endeavor, my personal experience has been that it’s a frustrating way to go about the whole thing. Even if you’re willing to track down every single issue, including crossover issues featuring less popular, unrelated characters, you’re going to find yourself in a never-ending rabbit hole of references to other titles and other sets of characters, some of them contradictory. That can be part of the fun sometimes, but it’s less fun when you’re just trying to learn about one specific character and you feel like you have to go through twenty different sidequests first.

In my experience, it’s more fulfilling to just read the titles you’re interested in, or just look for stories that have the characters you want to learn about. There definitely will be times where crossovers or events happening in other titles bleed into what you’re reading, and that might get confusing. I swear to you, wikipedia is your best resource for those times. It’ll help you choose the fun rabbit holes that are worth falling into (rather than letting the DC marketing team trick you into falling down the unfun ones that make them a ton of money).

Once again I apologize if that was way too much information, but hopefully even if it was, it’s good info for someone out there

<3

C

[wesavegotham]

Honestly. In main continuity, I feel Bruce shouldn't get married at all or even have a biological kid like Damian or Helena. Cuz marriage & fathering kids bring unnecessary soap opera elements to a grounded pulpy crime detective fiction format. Yeah, Damian had a cool arc with Dick in the Morrison run, but his continuing presence had sidelined other characters like Tim & Cass. Sigh...Im gonna get so much pushback.

Dick should be the one that gets married. I really wished that his wedding with Starfire wasn't derailed last minute. It would make more sense cuz Dick is more involved with the soap opera drama due to his time in the New Teen Titans.

just make know so when out there

Er...did you send this to the wrong blog perhaps?

Because while I agree Bruce shouldn't get married it's for different reasons than you. Batman's story is written to go on forever (like a classic soap opera) and even if Bruce got married to idk Catwoman, sooner or later it would only end in divorce, death or retcon anyway and then the batcat fans would whine even louder that the two people with huge committment issues and incompatible lifestyles aren't together forever. As if all of Bruce's romances (including Catwoman) weren't designed on purpose to have an expiration date and not work out. Like most relationships in soap operas.

But why are you writing to a Damian fan's blog that you don't think Damian should exist?😅 I don't even get why you lump Damian and Helena together, while Helena was implied to have grown up in a rather domesticated way on Earth 2, Damian is a completely different case?

I don't see how Damian brings "soap opera drama" to Batman that Bruce didn't also have with his adopted kids. My impression from older comics is that they were even more soap opera like because they had a stronger focus on relationship troubles and stuff like "might Bruce lose custody of Dick/Jason?" Getting a story in which Bruce and Damian's relationship is the A plot and not the C,D or E plot of an arc is damn rare.

Also, grounded pulpy crime detective format? Pulpy, okay, but I wouldn't call Batman grounded or even a detective format most of the time. Only a small amount of Batman stories are actual detective stories and he's dealing with aliens, magic or gods all the time and has done so for several decades now. Let's be honest, it's more an action/adventure story with soap opera like relationship drama that borrows some noir detective aesthetics.

Also, yeah, you're going to get pushback for saying stuff like Damian caused characters like Cass and Tim to be sidelined. Because you're wrong. DC has never sidelined Tim, they just started treating him more like everyone else. That's not the same🤦‍♀️

The evil Cassandra arc started before Damian's introduction (during a time when DC wasn't even planning to make Damian into recurring character, he was supposed to be dead after the Batman and Son arc) in Tim's Robin book. Damian had nothing to do with that storyline, if anything Cass was treated badly to give Tim a story.

Or are you talking about stuff like Steph and Cass getting erased in New 52 and believe that it had something to do with Damian? You, know, the character DC killed off two years into the reboot like they had planned to do since the start? And who has since been kept far away from the batfamily? During DC Rebirth Damian wasn't even under the control of the Batman office, the Superman office had him. And the Robin solo DC gave Damian that started with a tournament arc that some whiny Cass stans thought should have belonged to Cass? Guys, Robin 2021 is a book that only existed to do some damage control after DC absolutely destroyed the character in Teen Titans and to launch two events, Shadow Wars, which was more a Deathstroke Inc vs League of assassins story than a Damian one and Batman vs Robin, which so far is pretty much just a Batman focused story.

No idea why you talk to me about what to do with Dick, I never cared that much about him.

No idea what you're even trying to tell me with that last sentence.

Anyway, if you really feel the need to blame a character (and not simply DC) for how Cass was treated you should probably look more towards Tim or even more likely Barbara. Since it was DC deciding that Barbara should be batgirl again that probably got Cass erased in New 52. People who seriously think Tim is being sidelined in favor of Damian are simply delusional and entitled, sorry. Like how spoiled do you have to be not to see how many damn chances DC has given Tim time and time again. DC loves Tim.

[twinhood-2dot0]

My Favourite LGBTQIA+ Characters

It's Pride Month! I scheduled 2 posts ahead of time (Yes, I'm that bored. No mobile, no laptop, and mediocre books, so I have nothing better to do.) and now I realised it's Pride Month :P. Anyways, I could go into the history of Pride month and stuff, but you could read that anywhere, but you can't read about my opinions anywhere else, so this is what you get.

HarlIvy

What better bi representation than a psychopatic-psychiatrist-who-fell-in-love-with-the-Joker-and-became-his-sidekick-and-stuck-in-an-abusive-relationship-then-broke-up-and-found-another-woman-who-has-even-less-regard-for-human-life? Harley Quinn has been a fan favourite ever since her appearance in Batman: The Animated Series and became probably more loved than Superman and possibly Batman too. The Harley Quinn series is a morbidly hilarious series and I love their relationship in it. Kinda sad that she didn't really have a WLW relationship in the DCEU though. Actually, is there even a Poison Ivy? I think her last appearance was in Batman & Robin and wouldn't we all wanna forget that movie ever existed. Harley and Ivy had ties even in BTAS but it wasn't much explored. In the comics, they were also part of the Gotham City Sirens along with Catwoman. The romance only continued to blossom since then, and they've even wed in the Injustice (fighting video game series, in short, Superman becomes a dictator after Lois and his unborn child dies and Batman works to stop him) universe.

I love this art so much.

YumiHisu

YumiHisu is the ship of Ymir and Krista Lenz from Attack On Titan. I don't want to spoil much, but this is the closest thing to a couple Attack On Titan has, and I love it for it. I hate romance in most stories, so I really love that Attack On Titan has so little of it, and the one they do is a really cute one. Ymir and Krista aren't really a focus, but their interactions we do see are very cute, and their story in S2 was awesome.

Batfam characters

Yeah we're back to DC again. A lot of these are going to be DC :P. What can I do? DC has a lot of great representation.

Tim Drake is the 3rd Robin, as I've probably burnt into your memory by now. I didn't really care about him for a long time, because he's surrounded by so many Robins who are all so memorable. I mean, he's competing with Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Damian Wayne, so :P. Although after reading more I've come to like him. He's the biggest nerd, his origin story is him figuring out Batman's identity, and he has a great sense of humor. He's not the usual Uber smart character who forgot to invest in the charisma skill. He also canonically has( had? DC's timeline is a mess) a low self esteem, which is why he was never Robin in the New 52 Universe, so I can relate :P. He has dated Stephanie Brown, the 4th Robin and Spoiler and Batgirl and it has been hinted that he had something going on with Conner Kent, Superboy. It was made official in Batman: Urban Legends where Tim agrees to go on a date with a guy he rescued.

Tim comes out to Batman.

I sadly haven't reached that part yet because I'm still at 2018 :P but I've read the Pride one-off comic, and wanna see more of it. Jonathan Kent, Superman's son, also Superman, is also bi, and has a cute boyfriend. I don't care much for Superman so I guess I'll be skipping that tho :P.

Batwoman, Kate Kane was one of the highest-profile LGBTQIA+ comic book superhero. I, regrettably, haven't read much of her, I think I've only seen her in Detective Comics (2016) and Grant Morrison's Dick Grayson Batman run. Although, her character arc in Detective Comics was pretty cool, so I hope to someday remedy that.

Alysia Yeoh, while a pretty minor character, as a trans person, I love Gail Simone so much for her character. Alysia is Barbara Gordon's (Batgirl) roommate in the New 52 run of Batgirl and was such a badass character. She's a professional activist, and she's also the first trans character in comics to get married.

Alysia in DC Pride.

Huh, funny, Killer Moth was also Batgirl's first supervillain in Batgirl: Year One. Don't think that's a coincidence.

Okay, that's enough DC.

Solangelo

Literally the only one of two couples I cared about in Riordanverse. Percabeth is bleugh, even the ship name is bleugh, and Jasper is, well, they ended up breaking up, sooo, need I say more? Sadie and Anubis and Walt seems like a polyamorous relationship? That one is interesting, at the very least. Magnus Chase and Alex is also meh, I love Alex, but the relationship I couldn't care less for. Let's also talk about Alex. Alex is the first genderfluid character and oh do I love them. They're badass and I love their humor so much. Solangelo is such a cute couple and I love that a sun of Apollo is dating a sun of Hades. I just finished reading Sun and The Star today and I loved it so much. They're just perfect for each other. Nico has always been such an intriguing character, and Will's contrasting personality is fun.

Rosa Diaz and Captain Raymond Holt

Bi and gay characters from Brooklyn 99. Rosa was initially shown dating just men, but later comes out as bi and has a whole arc with her parents. Holt has always been gay is also married, and they break up and get married again. I love Rosa's badass character and deadpan humor and basically her whole personality. Holt conforms to 0 gay stereotype. He's not flamboyant at all and not very effeminate. He's deadpan, hates humor, and takes no crap.

Typing on phone is hard and I'd like to stop now thank you, so here's a rapid fire honorable mentions.

Cam and Mitchell from Modern Family, Princess Bubblegum and Queen Marceline in Adventure Time, Nia Nal (trans-woman, played by an actual trans-woman), Stargirl in Supergirl, okay, that's it.