#why is batman my whole thing

[alienfailboy]

really sick of being magnetically pulled to things middle aged people enjoy

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[redsray]

Red Robin Au where after Battle for the Cowl, Jason (instead of donning that ridiculous pill helmet) goes back to visit Talia and blow off some steam with the LOA; it's an effective way to do so at first, as long as he keeps Ra's at arms length and has all the Bats away from him. Except is that Timothy fucking Drake working with Ra's al Ghul.

So now Jason's like oh my god are you kidding me why is Tim here working with Ra's of all people??? Last he checked, Dick was Batman now and Tim was part of that gaggle of Robins in Gotham. Not here, in Nanda Parbat.

Tim, fresh from a splenectomy: Jason?!

Jason: What the fuck are you doing here?

Tim: ??? I could ask you the same question??

Jason: No the fuck you couldn't?? I trained with Talia and now I'm back here for a bit, and I'm not the one missing an organ right now?! Why aren't you back with Dickbat in Gotham??

Tim: Well. Let's say I'm not Robin anymore

Jason: ... Not... Robin?

Tim, scowling: Dick gave it to Damian.

Jason: Dick is Batman for like a month and already gave the traffic light leggings to a mini assassin? Nice.

Tim: Ugh

Jason: And... this was enough reason to run away and get impaled by assassins in Iraq? While working with Ra's al Ghul?

Tim: Well, not really. I need to find Bruce, and Ra's is the only one who will help me. Even if he's a freak of nature.

Jason: Bruce... are we talkin' about another Bruce or did I miss a memo? Bruce is dead, Timbo.

Tim: He's not. He's trapped in the timestream and trying to get back. And don't- don't tell me I'm going insane with grief or in denial. Laugh all you want, then leave. I don't need this shit again.

Jason: Trapped in time? Damn motherfucker can't even stay dead?

Tim: ... You believe me?

Jason: Sure. Not the craziest shit we've seen. I have a feeling you wouldn't go as far as Ra's if you were actually going off nothing. (mumbling) stealing my schtick. What a bastard.

Tim, blinking: Wow. That... just wow. That was easy. Dick thought I was losing it with grief and so has everyone else.

Jason, shrugging: B is definitely stubborn enough to get lost in time instead of dying and, frankly, I know what being off yer rocker looks like, and this ain't it. I climbed out of my grave, for god's sake, is time shit really off the table? Wouldn't hurt t'look if the old man's still kickin'.

Tim: Uh-

Jason: First stop: away from Ra's, preferably. Talia's not bad, but Ra's is a whole other can of worms. Get up or I drag you.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Hello! Can do a chapter fic off this fic prompt Danny phantom x dc: https://www.tumblr.com/corkinavoid/767516270934556672/dpxdc-legal-power?source=share

This isn’t a one-to-one recreation of that dialogue but it’s based on that as a framework/premise

Batman dropped down into the room behind a pair of figures—a teenage boy and a slumped adult—letting his landing create an audible thump to alert them of his presence.

If the teen noticed, he didn’t react. Even as Bruce approached, he continued to stare impassively at the wheezing figure on the ground, an old wooden bat with flaking green paint on its side loosely held in his right hand. Bruce had already suspected who the figure would be since he arrived, but seeing the Joker so broken was still bizarre. No laughing, no schemes. He didn’t even seem to be attempting to escape his binds, just… lying there, almost as if pinned in place.

Bruce paused a step behind the teen. “I don’t know what the Joker did to you, but this isn’t the right way to go about this.”

The teen scoffed, and Bruce felt a painful lurch in his chest as he was reminded oh so strongly of his son Jason. “And what, let him go kill more people?”

“I know he deserves to face justice, but not like this. Everyone deserves a right to fair trial. No one person should be judge, jury, and executioner.”

The teen turned to look at him with glowing green eyes, and Batman felt himself freeze. He had faced gods before, yet even using that as a comparison felt like an understatement. The boy’s eyes belonged to someone far older than his teenage form implied, and they radiated power. Inevitability.

When the teen—no, the entity—spoke again, his words carried an unearthly echo. “Perhaps, but I’m not acting for just myself.” He paused, glanced down at the Joker, then asked almost conversationally, “Do you know how many people he’s killed?”

Another pause, but before Bruce could even try to answer, the entity continued, “Eight hundred and fifty-six. He’s ended the lives of eight hundred and fifty-six human souls. I can tell you about every single one, if you want. About who they were, what their dreams were before he killed them. About the pain they felt at his hands.”

He punctuated the word ‘pain’ by raising up the wooden bat in his hands and ramming its end down onto the Joker’s arm. He let out a wheeze, muffled by the gag in his mouth.

“I have a duty to my people. I am the King of the In-Between and of all the souls that pass through it—even ones whose stays were as brief as his. I am the rightful arbiter of his fate. And with that power, I sentence him to death.”

He raised the bat again, adjusting his grip so he’d hit with the side rather than the end this time, then paused and let out a chuckle. “Of course, just because it’s based on some justice doesn’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun with it too.” He swung the bat down, slamming it into the Joker’s side, then hooked it under the clown’s torso and flicked him up through the air to slam into the wall. “We all really hate this guy.”

With the entity’s attention fully turned away from him as he sauntered towards the Joker’s slumped figure, Bruce could finally unfreeze himself.

Even if the Ghost King did have the right to pass judgement on Joker, Bruce still couldn’t let torture go on like this. He wouldn’t win a direct fight, but he could hopefully at least grab the Joker and bring him over to the police. Carefully, he reached for some of the smoke bombs and batarangs on his belt and readied his grapple. He’d have to do this very, very fast.

But before he could move, another figure entered the scene. Red Hood, emerging from the shadows on the far side of the room, an unexpected bit of a pep to his step.

“Nice to see someone else who gets that that bastard needs to die. But if I may make a suggestion, how ‘bout you use a crowbar instead of that old bat? It’d be a bit more… fitting.”

[needlewielder25]

idk there's just something in the idea of the difference between dick and bruce's loss. dick's is...transient? I'm not sure if that's the correct word but it's like. the blood on the sawdust of the temporary circus floor, seeping into the ever-changing field, washed away and not a trace is left. Being stranded, away from all you've ever known. Bruce's is more like, grounded. There is a spot in crime alley where the blood was scrubbed till there is a visible spot that is noticeably smoother than all the other bricks. Dick's loss is constantly moving, while Bruce is stuck. Bruce will never move on, in his parents home, all their mementos kept, that brick always there. Dick will move again and again. His home is community, and newly orphaned, without that, he's a ship unmoored. he has nothing of theirs to tie him down like bruce does- after all, the circus will keep moving, and the next stops temporary floor will not be stained with blood. But how could he ever leave when his parents bones anchor him to Gotham?

[angry-nightwing]

I don't remember which YouTuber it was that said something about how Tarzan defeating Sabor at the end of basically the first act of Tarzan sucks because Sabor should've been the final boss since they killed his parents, but it ANNOYS me because it reveals how little that person understood the whole damn point of the movie lol.

Like, Tarzan explicitly expresses that he wants to become the perfect gorilla to earn his place in the family, and a whole montage of him training for that follows. Defeating Sabor, where Kerchak couldn't, is essentially there to show that Tarzan has achieved his goal. He's become the gorilla he wanted and he's earned the respect of his family.

He WON.

But then - humans show up. And another opportunity is offered. He finds out he might not actually belong with the gorillas. Maybe he belongs with these "strangers like him". What he thought he knew, what he thought he wanted, is in flux. He's just achieved his goal of becoming the perfect gorilla, and now he doesn't even know if he should be a gorilla anymore.

He spends another montage learning to become human. It's actually interesting how the purpose of those two songs are mirrors of each other.

And here we dive into Want vs Need. Tarzan wants to become the perfect gorilla, but what he needs is to figure out where he really belongs, and who he really is.

At the end he obviously finds out that he belongs with his family - but in a place sort of between both worlds. He takes what he's learned during Son of Man and what he's learned during Strangers Like Me, and he finds balance.

But like. Tell me how the fuck a big boss battle with Sabor would work in that setting. The final boss HAS to be man and a human construct. Otherwise the movie confirms that the jungle will always reject Tarzan, and human society truly is where he belongs.

[littlefankingdom]

I'm playing Arkham: Origins, and Bruce's hate of cops is so funny. I'm paraphrasing (I'm also playing the game in French), but here are some dialogues:

Alfred: Master Bruce, those are servants of the law, you could use less strength.

Bruce: They're pos, Alfred.

~

Gordon: I don't obey fugitive.

Bruce: And I don't obey cops.

~

Random cop: Thank you for saving me.

Bruce: Next time I see you, you better be on the good side of the law.

~

Alfred: You could let the cops handle it.

Bruce: Over my dead body.

[hedgehogcryptid]

One of the things that get me about the ending of utrh is that it shakes the very foundations of what Batman was supposed to be. The fact that he choses to attack Jason, save Joker, and leave Jason for dead goes all the way back to once upon a time to make it so that little eight year old Bruce is standing in an alley seeing his father get shot and deciding to protect Joe Chill once his mother starts screaming. It doesn't matter what version of him you go with, if the gritty "I Am The Night", or the more compassionate version of him who wants to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else:

He had a miraculous second chance to redo one of the tragedies that marked him and he fails to either avenge the wrong done against his family or prevent any sort of future harm from befalling the innocent.

At that point it's made clear that whatever Batman was supposed to be, he's failed at it

[cowchickenbeefpork]

How it feels seeing Gotham try to make me empathize with Harvey bullock multiple times when in episode two of SEASON ONE he literally threatens to beat a black teenager for not confessing and then justifies it by him not really meaning it and the kid being big enough to defend himself. Gotham ur not gonna make me have sympathy for your average milk toast corrupt cop who never gets better I'm sorry

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

I'm a few pages in and this is the best storyline literally ever why have I not seen any mention of this.

[brucie-baby]

been thinking about bruce being lost in time and going from era to era remembering nothing of his past lives other than eyes of a colour he can't quite describe. he doesn't know the man that they belong to. there's this weird sense of familiarity there, this niggling feeling that makes him drift towards him, but he never even finds out the man's name. and yet every life he lives, the man is there, never changing, never aging.

and then he gets home and finds alfred and looks him in the eyes and-- they're the same eyes. the same colour he's never seen on anybody else.

alfred looks at him like he knows. like he knows what bruce has been through, like he's known this moment would come, like he knows exactly what he's supposed to do and yet has no idea where to go from here.

and bruce can do nothing but hold him, but be held by him. by this man who has always been there for him. by this man who seemingly isn't much of a man after all.

[vampthropologist]

You know he has to flip for it!

No text + flat under cut

I've been working on this for a bit, and it is done! Two of my f/o's interacting for a silly meme. Ichimatsu's getting held by the scruff like a cat because Harv can't be normal /j/lh

[apopcornkernel]

“I may be Superman—the strongest individual on the planet—but no individual stands alone. Only a fool tries to go it alone.

“This is my city, but only because I get by with a little help from my friends. The world—my city—is far too complex, too confusing, for any one person.

“If I've learned anything in this life, it's that community—my willingness to work with others—just makes me stronger. And even with the risks of trust, of vulnerability... it's community that gets me through the bad times.

“I'm just trying to do the right thing, and sometimes that's a slippery deal. You always hope that it comes down to good and evil, black and white...

“...but things don't always shake out that way. Who gets to hold power, and how much of it?

“Most times it's obvious who you don't want holding power...

“...but how far do you go to keep them from that power?

“Do you do whatever is necessary?

“These are the times I need community.

“The times that twist your gut, even when you know what must be done.

“The times of uncertainty—of doubt...

“The times of sickening betrayal.

“Sometimes I wish I could stand alone... immune to the heartbreak that even an icon can feel.”

talia al ghul, daughter of the demon.

talia head, ceo of lexcorp.

TEXT Superman: The Man of Steel #125 PANELS Detective Comics #750 / Secret Files President Luthor / Ibid. / Ibid. / Action Comics #773 / Superman: The Man of Steel #120 / Superman: The Man of Steel #123 / Ibid. / Ibid. / Superman: The Man of Steel #120 / Ibid. / Action Comics #773

[littlefankingdom]

Just thinking about how, in the universe where Bruce did killed the Joker, Jason never came back to life, like the fates themselves cursed Bruce to never get his son back as a punishment for his murder(s). And all the Batfam abandoned him, even Alfred isn't around anymore. He never adopted Dick, as it happens after Jason's death. He killed so he never got his sons and his daughter. Bruce is cursed to be alone forever as a price for the lives he has taken. He says he is fine with it, that they don't understand what need to be done, but this is Bruce Wayne we are talking about, he hates being lonely. But he isn't a protector anymore, so he is no longer a father.

[nyerusnova]

nevermind i saw the leaks, i was right lmao.

jason is fine and they just coordinated to trick failsafe to get it to frazzle out afaik.

that makes sense considering the entire point of #147 was bruce deciding to work with his family despite his growing paranoia over their safety, etc. given that zdarsky has been trying to explore bruce's mental state, it would have made no sense for him to immediately validate that paranoia, instead.

[landfilloftrash]

shoutout to my girl eno’s nightmare bc. Hi! What and/or Who the fuck was that ! its gonna haunt her and i for awhile !