#tim will be making fun of him now

[thatstupidone]

To add onto my 'Tim coming out to Kon' post, Damian (technically)coming out to Jon!

Clark invited the Waynes over to the farm for a few days. At some point Damian ended up in Jon's room surrounded by kittens.

Jon: Don't tell Clark I let them in!

Damian: *A small smile on his face as he watches the small fluff balls* Your secret is safe with me, Jon.

Jon: *Can't help but smile* You're adorable!

Damian: *Red in the face and fully caught off guard by the comment.*

Jon: *Realizing what he said* I- um, sorry? *Thinking he has made Dami mad*

Damian: *after a few minutes muttering* dear gods I think I'm gay..

Jon: What- *definitely heard what he said.*

In another room

Clark: *Chokes on his water.*

Bruce: Are you okay?

Clark: Hm? Oh, yeah. Yep. Mhm.

Bruce: Okay..

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[groovyace]

OK SO THERE IS AN EXPLAINATION FOR THIS. I swear to god i got an ask once about damian enjoying punch buggy a little too much but its GONE and i dont recall/cant find when i ever answered it??? But i know it existed??? So anyways i might be posting this for a second time??? Maybe??? I dont know brother. This is like a million years old tho.

Anyways i remember writing out a whole thing. When i was a kid i used to think that the yellow car game was the same as punch buggy. Found out last year (i am 20 yrs old) that it wasnt and i had just been causing my friends to live in terror every time we went in the car. Hence how this is uhm. Yellow car instead of punch buggy because i. May or may not have found that out while i was making this. Anyways.

*awkward car silence*

Dick: Damian.. We can talk about this..

Damian: ...

Damian: Yellow. Car.

Tim: Dick HELP ME-

Dick: DAMIAN WAY- OW

Dick: HE FUCKING BIT ME!

Tim: WE'RE GONNA DIE IN HERE-

[motorcycleboy9]

shepard siblings

[tisajest]

Guaranteed way to get me to enter a new fandom/check out a new series:

read a really good crossover fic

[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.

[travalerray]

what if I wrote a TMA AU. What then

[jonny-b-meowborn]

Okay I've been thinking about the lil cute therian fic I've been writing, and I think I know how I wanna end it and it's like. Very much self indulgent not really accurate to the mechanisms canon and way too cute but the thing is I can do whatever I want forever so I think Im gonna do it (I'm only like idk 1/3 done tho so don't get too excited fjdnfjndn)

[fissions-chips]

…spider jon… fairy tim…

[un-pearable]

‘this is the best day of my life!’ 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

[reineyday]

jason's titans storyline frustrates me greatly for several reasons but i still think curran was a good casting choice for jason robin, and i just wish they didnt write it like that 💀

[lizardpersonyknow]

Damian tells Jack over the phone that he has now got 7 cows living in the manor gardens. He says nothing else. Jack then spends 3 hours telling Damian all about the social significance of cows in prehistoric times. Damian is in HEAVEN.

Bruce on the other hand, sees Damian, almost has a heart attack because he Looks Just Like Him And Talia WHO IS THIS CHILD?!!?!! Damian refuses to even entertain the belief that he's not a Drake.

1. The name means DRAGON.

2. Jack is away most of the time and this child is a gremlin 8 year old or something who can and will bite people.

3. Jack never even asks where he gets the pets, he just accepts it and then tells him cool facts about them AND Tim helps him steal them from unworthy owners! It's brotherly bonding!!

4. Damian very rarely has to go to any high society events and when he does, Jack fully admits that he has no clue where Damian came from he was just there one day, and Tim deliberately creeps people out by saying some cryptic shit and beaming, then skipping away

Listen. If Damian hadn't joined the batfam and Tim stole him from Ra's while Bruce was lost in time? Tim would be his Actual Idol. He outsmarted his grandfather AND blew up the league?? Clearly the superior fighter. Father got himself lost in time. Dick would be so incredibly jealous. TIM can ruffle his hair but dick can't?? Is this because Tim thinks murder is a family bonding experience???!

[psychemochanight]

Headcanon that Dick's siblings (-Tim, he knows everything) have no idea that he has a new job every time, and think he's still a cop.

Like Dick every time they mention his police job and he says "I'm not a cop anymore, I'm..." and he names something different every time, they think he's lying.

Jason: Isn't it ironic? One brother is a cop and the other is a crime lord.

Dick: Although I'm not a police officer anymore, I'm a gym teacher.

Jason, thinking he's being sarcastic: Yeah, and I'm not a crime lord anymore as well.

Dick: Good for you.

Damian: Richard, why aren't you in the office? I thought this was your working hours.

Dick, who went to pick up Damian from school: Now I work in the afternoon and at night, I am a bartender.

Damian, doesn't believe him because Dick is Nightwing at night: hm...

Steph, on the phone : Dick, do you think you can get me some reports from the office? There's a case here in Gotham and I think it's spread to Blüdhaven, they probably have them there in the records.

Dick: Steph, I haven't been a police officer for months, but I'll see if I can get through an ex-colleague for you. I'll call you later, I'm in the middle of a photo shoot.

Steph: ok, thank uuuu.

Steph, hanging up the call: If he didn't could help me right now he could say so, there was no need to make up that excuse.

Cass: He might be in an undercover job right now.

Steph: Maybe you're right.

Duke simply refuses to talk to him anymore because he still thinks he's a cop.

Tim: You've been in this job for two months, I think that's a record. Do you like it?

Dick, hanging upside down in the cave: Something like that? I just don't know what I want to do now and I don't want to be unemployed until I decide.

Tim: Hmm... I don't think you want to be in an office again, do you?

Dick: I'm not going back to WE, once was enough for a lifetime.

Tim: Fair enough. Can I at least ask you for a photo shoot for a season to promote the new line?

Dick: Sure, it was fun being a model for a while.

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game (i'm so happy you're still doing it!)

in a bit darker version of canon, one of the antikilling batfam members actually kills someone (i'm thinking dick or tim). maybe it's an accident, maybe the're spiraling and reach a breaking point or maybe something happened that irrevocably changed their worldview. how do they feel? do they cover it up? do they continue killing? who knows about it, who helps them cover it up, who joins them? how does bruce, the rest of the family and hero community react if they find out?

for the ask game!

ugh i LOVE when characters are pushed over the edge and have to deal with the consequences of their actions. especially Dick and Tim who are just. both so dedicated to their moral codes and having them shatter. you get both versions bc i have thoughts. we'll start with Tim

there are a lot of routes you can take Tim killing someone. but i specifically would have it happen right after the Titans of Tomorrow and/or Lonely Place of Living arc, where Tim faces an evil older version of himself who's very pro-murder and has led the Titans down this dark path as Batman. because that's what Tim's afraid of becoming. he's afraid of what being Batman would do to him, and he's afraid of whether this future is inevitable or not. so to have Tim in this mindset of hypervigilance of what he's capable of and he kills someone anyway? i'd love to toy with the "is the future inevitable or can we change it" concept. i like the idea Tim's kill is Captain Boomerang, given the death of his dad and all. Tim insists up and down to Bruce that he can handle this mission, it won't be too personal for him, he's fine. and the funny thing is, he feels fine. he's compartmentalizing all his feelings pretty well. so well, in fact, he doesn't realize he's killed Boomerang with his bare hands until it's already done, and there's blood everywhere and Tim has to figure out what to do. he has to cope with the inevitability of the future he's convinced he just set into motion.

he would know, realistically, there's no hiding it. especially not from *Bruce*, who knew Tim was on this mission. someone's going to notice Boomerang is missing sooner or later no matter how well Tim cleans up this crime scene. honestly, i think he'd call Helena. he's close to her, and she's pro-murder, making her the least likely to judge him for it. what he doesn't expect is that when she shows up, she takes the blame for it. she fully looks Batman in the eye and says she murdered the guy and somehow, Bruce buys it. Tim keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. because more than just committing murder, it'd terrify Tim to get *away* with murder. to know it was just that easy, he had to call one person and it all went away. Helena doesn't even seem particularly bothered by taking claim for it, she's killed men for less and she thinks she's helping Tim with this, helping ease his conscious on the whole thing. she even tells Bruce that Tim tried to save Boomerang, that's why Tim is covered in the blood. it makes perfect sense to Bruce he doesn't think about it further. so Tim falls deeper into this spiral of knowing what he's gotten away with. and of course he doesn't open up to Helena about the Titans of Tomorrow stuff, so she has no idea how this could rattle Tim so much. why he doesn't believe her when she promises him this is just a one-off thing for him and she knows he won't do it again.

i think Tim's spiral would just keep going. it's one of those paradoxical things, where he is his own enemy. he's convinced himself he is this thing, so he's becoming it. what could've been just a one-off moment fo weakness with a man who hurt him and he got away with becomes an obsession. Tim can't stop considering how selfish it is, that he gets to kill Boomerang and yet everyone else has to live with the people who hurt them being alive. i think it'd be fun, if Tim turned to Tony Zucco, or someone similar who's hurt a member of the Batfamily. it's not a serious idea, it's a late night thought that plagues Tim. if he knows how he would do it, then he can avoid actually doing it. very "Opeidius trying not to fuck his mom" complex. but the more Tim tortures himself over it, the more he notices how easy this is for him. to plan out how he could murder just about anyone and plot a clean getaway for no one to even know there was foul play. he doesn't act on it. he refuses. but it consumes him. if he's awake, he's thinking about how he'd kill the people who hurt his family, and how easily he could get away with it.

eventually, Tim forces himself into early retirement. it's so sudden, no one expects Tim to just suddenly say he's hanging up the cape. everyone has at some point, gotten cold feet and insisted they were done with the life, but Tim. he really means it. he stops being a vigilante completely, he doesn't even like running comms. he starts to isolate himself just to be sure he won't get to close to someone to want to kill for them. no one can really get through to him and talk to him about what's going on, and it's been enough time since the Boomerang incident that no one, not even Helena, seems to put the pieces together about that being the catalyst to all of this. they want to respect his decision, but something is clearly wrong and no one can figure out what it is. they try to reach out but well. the world keeps turning. there are crises and villain attacks to deal with and eventually, it slips on everyone's mind to check on Tim because they have to save the world again.

in the end, it all comes back to that inevitability. Tim does kill again. who he kills and how he kills them doesn't even matter, and that's the worst part. he knows it doesn't matter because this was a path he set himself down bc he could never avoid it in the first place. he kills and he gets away with it, even when he's not a vigilante. he never would've ended up on this path if he hadn't seen his future self. grandfather paradox and all that. eventually, Bruce does find out. but by then it's too late, and Bruce has no real hard proof, just a suspicion he can't tell anyone else because everyone would just jump to Tim's defense. Tim has Bruce in a corner, and for once. Tim starts to kind of enjoy the game. madness spirals babey.

and of course, the Dick version

i know, with Dick, we all like to talk about that time Dick technically made the Joker's heart stop by beating him so badly. and sure, that's a fun canon moment. but it's the *Joker*, you know. i think Dick accidentally killing someone is far more fun if it's just. some henchmen. some low level villain who would've at best gotten a five year sentence for what the did. you can almost rationalize it, when it's the Joker. but when it's no one? it's just some guy? that's crunchy. that's far worse to handle. Dick wouldn't mean to do, it was the stars aligning for the worst situation. he doesn't pull his punches because he's tired and angry about something unrelated he doesn't even remember. and he just. keeps punching until some random guy is dead underneath him. and there's no bringing him back.

Dick would confess *immediately*. like, he'd firmly believe he needs to face consequences for what he did and it's the only way to rectify the situation. Bruce has taught him everybody deserves justice and Dick is sticking to those guns. he tells Bruce, he tells the Titans, hell, he even tries pretty hard to turn himself in to the police. of course no one will let him though. because it's *Dick*. they know it was an accident. they know Dick would never dream of doing that on purpose and that Dick shouldn't destroy his life for a mistake. and Dick is so torn up that no one will let him face real consequences. everyone tries to tell him stories of the people they failed to save, but to Dick, this is different. this isn't getting there too late and the bomb goes off, this is beating a man with his own fists until he felt the guy's chest cave in and still going anyway. the guilt eats Dick alive.

Dick would have a panic spiral, but very different to Tim's in the above. instead of being terrified and self isolating, Dick forces himself into overdrive. if he can't get anyone to let him face real consequences for what he did, then he has to make up for it. he has to save *every person* he can. he's overworking himself on this desperate need to be better. he knows it's unsustainable and so does everyone else, but Dick won't stop until he literally collapses. because if he had energy to kill someone, then he has to have energy to save someone.

there of course comes a breaking point. Dick stretches himself too thin and i think the culmination of it would be a long talk with Bruce. maybe Bruce opens up about the people he failed to save and they really discuss it all. Dick's guilt, his fear of himself, his anger, all of it. it's probably the closest Dick comes to therapy about all this. i do think. it's fun if some more unsavory people like Slade find out about what Dick did and try to use it as an in to manipulate Dick. pull the whole "you're no better than me, now we both know what you're capable of". and Dick has to fight that. he's stuck between a genuine support system and Slade or someone similar trying to drag him down. bc Dick knows he's not a killer, but deep down that voice inside of him is impossible to silence completely.

though i think Dick comes out stronger at the end of it, he would falter, for just a moment. he has a brief time where he almost gives in, or maybe he starts to give in. he agrees to be Slade's apprentice, unable to cope with his guilt. he's so close to killing again, but it's the light at the end of the tunnel, realizing he could never do this again. it snaps Dick out of it. he's never going to uproot the worst of the guilt from his chest but he's proven it to himself this isn't who he is. he's able to be stable again and it's all a growing moment. that said, it still haunts him. when Jason comes back from the dead, he hears whispers that Dick killed someone, and Jason holds it over his head in fights. villains know about it. maybe it even taints Dick's image, the whispers of how Nightwing beat a guy to death once. sure, he grows from it and all, but it never *quite* leaves him.

[sneekysnake]

Why am I always thinking the HANDLER is Penguin like for some reasons whenever I read this I always think the HANDLER is Penguin

If we go with HANDLER being Penguin then the guy just isolated a fucking teenager and took advantage of his very unstable state to make him do machines for him and his goons and for the other villains of Gotham witch in my opinion it is a very on point thing for him to do but I don’t know for sure if he would actually sell the machines to other villains I think he would just keep them all I think.

But if we go random Gotham citizen rout then it’s got to be some rich guy who is the one doing this which honestly doesn’t sound too far fetched with how gotham is.

Now for some strange reasons I’m just now thinking HANDLER being from the court of owls also fits their whole shtick and with how they treat the Talons and most of their kids even in some cases (if I remember correctly) given their kids or grandkids to the court so they can become Talons so I see them isolating a teenager and encouraging his unhealthy habits as just a tame version of their fist steps towards manipulating him into becoming dependent of the court but then the selling things to other villains thing doesn’t exactly sound like a thing they would do so if you go this rout you would have to take that part out of the story.

Now I’m thinking Ra’s but he or Talia just wouldn’t make sense like no matter what they just don’t make sense with this story.

I saw in other reblogs the clone thing the Bruce clone one I don’t think a teenage clone of him would do that in my opinion and we have to take into question who made that clone and the one with the Damien clone all his clones are deep rooted to the code Talia wrote for them to obey her every command so that just doesn’t really make sense.

imagine with me Danny ends up in Gotham some how and is a mad scientist that is hired to make cool shit and gets BANK but then the bats crack down on the shit and they see a 13 year old boy with big ass goggles with machinery all around him and looks up for a second before glancing up again as if confirming what he saw and then slowly turns around “Hi…? I swear if these are one of my delusions than I will be complaining to HR- wait am I… HR?”

Danny ends up in Gotham after Nasty Burger happened, but to not become Dark Danny, he buried himself in machine work, using some blueprints from his parents' lab as a baseline and then eventually creating his own.

Some guy in Gotham found him one day and decided that he had a talent for making stuff like this, and that he'll pay Danny handsomely if he made some things for him, and, well. Danny was pretty low on money from his parents' bank account after blowing most of it on machine parts.

So he accepted.

Then the guy started requesting some other things for some other people and he eventually became his middleman for the big hitters in Gotham who wanted his stuff. Well, not that he knew his stuff was being given out to the big hitters that also include villains, since he spent most of his time just building, then eating, then passing right the fuck out, and repeat.

Then the bats crack down on him, and Danny's been making some shit for more than 24 hours already with no rest time and just a little snack here and there, and then he questions if he accidently inhaled something he wasn't supposed to because the bats are literally in his workshop/house.

So he thinks he maybe high as shit right now and then just treats them like they weren't there and goes back to making his thing because that one guy said a person with a fuck ton of money wanted it. Then Batman pulls him away from the machine and he's like: "Huh."

Still thinking this is a massive hallucination because he's high as a kite, he tries to get Batman to let go, but his grip is pretty strong, then he pokes him and then goes: "Oh, maybe this isn't a hallucination."

"Oh sugar honey iced tea."

[flwrkid14]

Famous streamer Danny and his secret boyfriend:

Okay, but picture this: Danny Fenton is this massive streamer—like, he’s the guy everyone watches for chill vibes, chaotic gaming, and somehow getting sidetracked talking about conspiracy theories in the middle of a speedrun. His streams are a mess of ghost jokes, random facts about space, and way too much energy for someone running on three hours of sleep and coffee.

And then there’s his boyfriend—who the fans only know exists because Danny’s way too in love to not talk about him. Like, every stream, without fail, Danny’s casually dropping hints. “Oh yeah, my boyfriend brought me coffee, isn’t he the best?” or “I was playing this game with him last night, and he kept getting us killed, but he’s cute so I let it slide.”

The thing is, no one has ever seen this boyfriend. Not once. No name, no face, nothing. And at this point, it’s basically part of Danny’s brand. His fans are in the chat, spamming questions like, “Who is he?” “Is he another streamer?” “What’s his name?” and Danny’s just laughing it off every time, like, “Eh, maybe I’ll introduce you guys one day.”

The fan theories are wild. People have made entire reddit threads trying to piece together clues about who this mystery guy is. Some think Danny’s boyfriend is a celebrity. Others are convinced it’s someone famous in the gaming world, but no one has any proof. It’s like the internet’s biggest mystery, and Danny’s just sitting there, fully aware of it, leaning into the chaos without giving away a single detail.

Meanwhile, Tim Drake—yes, that Tim Drake, Gotham’s resident CEO of WE and vigilante—is just chilling in the background. He’s the boyfriend, obviously. The one who makes sure Danny actually eats between streams and sometimes joins him off-camera to play co-op games. But Tim’s got no intention of revealing himself. He likes the anonymity, the whole “mysterious boyfriend” thing. Plus, with his whole double life as a vigilante, staying out of the public eye (more than he already is) isn’t exactly a bad idea.

But the best part—Danny’s fans? They’re convinced his boyfriend is some kind of superhero or vigilante. The way Danny talks about him—like he’s always busy, never around during certain hours (because, you know, Tim’s out patrolling Gotham), and the fact that he’s never once shown up on camera? It’s practically begging for wild speculation. And Danny? He’s just letting them run with it, saying stuff like, “Oh yeah, he’s totally saving the world right now, can’t make it to stream today.”

So now Danny’s got this massive online following, all obsessed with his mystery boyfriend, while Tim’s just quietly in the background, living his double life and probably smirking every time Danny plays along with the fans’ theories. It’s lowkey hilarious, and neither of them is ever planning to set the record straight. They’re just having way too much fun with it.