So Mermay is right around the corner…

…what I’m saying is it’s a good time to talk about eel mer AUs again.

Oh hey it is!

Man, I'm still so into submarine pilot Hal Jordan with his crew of green submariners who contract out for the army and do top secret stuff underwater. I'm picturing all the GL's as expert divers who do search and rescues and treasure hunting in their down time and bomb defusal/trench scouting/spying for the army when on contract.

I don't even think this is a real thing but I'm picturing them all in little green mini subs. Like individual ones. Like fighter jets but subs.

Anyway, they're out on a job because the bigger army subs have been getting static interference from an area underwater and they need the experts to go check it out.

What they don't know is that the static interference is coming from Barry, local electric eel mer, who is suddenly stuck in one location because he's got a small child to look after and hunt for.

in the shadows

hey guess who has two thumbs and just spent 5 hours straight writing another batman AU?

-

Batman wasn’t a person.

He faked it very well. When the League gathered, the line of his mask against pale skin looked natural and human, a little more perfectly fitted than the Flash’s but not quite as perfect as Green Lantern’s, which was an energy projection and not a real object and thus lay against his face flawlessly, without shift or gap.

His mouth didn’t bend into many expressions and his body language wasn’t voluble, but the emotive gestures that he did make were pretty normal. The rare smile seemed honest. He had a heartbeat, perfectly steady. His shadow (almost) always matched the shape that was blocking the light.

The stories that came out of Gotham, about the Bat—those could be exaggerations, born of terror and manipulated perception. Clark, of all people, knew how much you could convince people to believe things that weren’t real, because they made a better story. Even the scraps of photography and film showing a towering thing of black fog and long fangs could have been some clever trick with projectors.

The fact that Superman couldn’t see through his suit just meant it was well made.

He’d had to pool his observations with Diana and J’onn before he’d been sure he wasn’t imagining things. But Martian Manhunter knew shapeshifting, and said the block against his mind when he tried to touch Batman’s thoughts did not feel quite human. And Superman knew what posing as human looked like. And Wonder Woman knew truth, and its absence.

Batman wasn’t human. Which wasn’t the problem, of course.

The problem was that he was pretending he was. Pretending it rigorously in a situation where there shouldn’t be any need, unless he had something worse to hide. Pretending it in a way that overlaid on a certain inhuman predatory grace began to look very dangerous indeed.

Superman could see both things in him now, watching narrow-eyed through a roof into the room where Batman bent over a child’s bed, cape swirling up larger and darker than he let it get around them. The man and the hungry creature, flipping in and out of focus, neither ever gone but superimposed, like a trick picture that was two things at once.

Knuckles ghosted over the boy’s cheek, claws turned inward, and the child sighed softly, and sunk deeper into sleep. Batman’s heart wasn’t beating, but Clark could monitor the child’s vitals easily from here.

Batman drew his hand back, and tipped his head up—looking back at Superman as though the roof was no more a barrier to his perceptions than to Clark’s. Waited a beat, as if making sure his attention had been noticed, and then passed soundlessly between the other beds to the window, slid it open, and launched himself out through it and up onto the roof.

He didn’t bother to restrain himself to even a plausible approximation of human limits, now. The arm he reached up to the edge of the roof to pivot himself up by was too long, and his shoulder rotated further than it should have been able to, and he landed with impossible soundlessness in a billow of cape that was far, far larger than any cape that only reached to his heels should have managed, and which faded out at the edges into shadow. He knew he was found out.

Superman took the obvious invitation, and sunk down to join him. It was better, sitting like this, facing the same way on the ridgepole of a two-story building. Batman hadn’t hurt that child, that he could tell. There was no need to make this a confrontation.

“I don’t understand why,” he said at last. Out of deference for sleeping children, he kept his voice soft—he would have worried about a human being able to hear it, but now he knew he didn’t have to worry about that with Batman. “Why go to so much trouble to deceive us? We haven’t kept secret what we are. Not from you.”

Alien, alien, user of alien weapon, magical princess…

Batman sighed. He spoke almost as softly as Clark had, and his voice sounded the same as ever, except for the fact that a human voice couldn’t get this quiet without falling into a whisper. “I’m not like you.” He turned.

He’d let some of the details of his human mask fall away—what must have been the exhaustively rendered texture of skin, the flakes of dry skin on chapping lips, a crease at the corner of his mouth that had suggested he scowled or smiled more, outside of his costume. There was no pretense of a jawbone, under the skin, though the jawline externally hadn’t changed. The cowl still looked like something he was wearing, but Clark knew it was not. It flexed like skin when Batman narrowed his blank white eyes and said, “I can see you know that.”

“You’ve visited that kid every day for weeks,” Clark said. “Why?”

Batman stared at him. “How long have you known?”

“Batman…”

“You’re confronting me now because you’re worried about my intentions toward Dick. He changed your mind about something. Ergo, you’ve been sitting on this for a while. How long have you known I wasn’t real?”

That was such a bizarre choice of words Clark almost skipped answering the question to chase it down, but he held himself back. This wasn’t a story, and Batman wasn’t even a hostile source so far, if it had been. “Wonder Woman, J’onn and I pooled our observations about four months ago, in April. We were pretty sure by the time we finished comparing notes.” He shrugged. “I suspected something a long time before that, but it’s hard to say when it started to be more than…a feeling.”

“A feeling,” Batman echoed. “Yes, it would start there.”

“So?” Superman prompted. He had liked Batman. He was the last person who could insist that someone hiding the truth of his own nature was reprehensible, though the sting he’d felt about it was an uncomfortable reminder of how much most of his friends would resent him, if they knew the truth. So he’d meant to let it lie, until Batman chose to trust them, or gave them a reason not to trust him. “Why have you been visiting…Dick?”

It wouldn’t be suspicious on its own—well, not very suspicious, all things considered, in context—except that Batman had changed, around the same time. Diana said his presence seemed deeper, Clark thought he seemed to be having trouble staying within the outlines of his human mask. J’onn agreed that he seemed somehow more powerful.

Batman stayed silent a long time. Eighteen heartbeats from the boy below them, slower than those of his peers because he had an athlete’s conditioning already and was more deeply asleep than most of them. At last, the being beside him confessed, “He’s carrying me.”

“What?”

“You noticed I’m stronger now,” Batman said matter-of-factly, in a way that almost managed to cover up emotion. “That’s his doing. I was…fading, when you met me. Not up to capacity. I’m not really meant to exist that way.” He glanced over at Superman again, as though evaluating his reaction, and Clark wondered if he had really needed to do that—if he really only saw out of his eyes. J’onn could make eyes anywhere he wanted some, but he needed them to see. Batman seemed somehow less constrained by biology than that.

“Is it hurting him?”

“No! No. It…shouldn’t.” Batman ghosted a sigh, voiceless, inhuman as the wind. “I don’t know that it’s good for a child to be around me. But I’m not…taking anything from him. I’m not…feeding on him, if that’s what you think.”

It was what Clark had feared. And probably anything that would eat a child would also lie about it, but Batman was his teammate and very nearly his friend. So it was reassuring to have it so firmly denied. He’d come braced for only a little and no lasting damage and he said it was fine.

“Please,” he said. “Can you explain it to me?”

“I suppose I have to.” Batman tipped his head back, to look up at the few stars that smudged themselves visible through the red blanket of light-polluted smog overhead. Clark could make out more of them, even with his ordinary visible-light vision, than a human could have. He wondered what Batman saw. “Will you tell the others for me? Your little conspiracy?”

“Not Green Lantern and Flash?”

“Hal and Barry can figure me out on their own.” That dry sense of humor was the same, even if it was bending amusement onto a mouth that could no longer pass as human.

A breath Clark suspected he didn’t need was drawn. “A different little boy made me up,” Batman said. “Bruce Wayne. You can look the story up in the newspaper archives.

“It was a little over twenty years ago, in Gotham. A mugger shot his parents in front of him.” Another slanted glance, and then he looked away again. He certainly acted like he needed his eyes to see. “It wasn’t more terrible than things that happen to a hundred other people every day, really. But he was the right kind of terrified and angry, in the right place, at the right moment…the police reports all say he tackled the mugger from behind, and got lucky that the man hit his head. But it was me. I took him down.”

He raised his face back toward the smudged stars. “I was such a small thing, then. If that vengeance had been enough—the killer taken in and sentenced, brought to justice—I would have faded away again. Things like me are summoned and dispelled that way all the time. Or he could have taken me back into himself—the danger was past, it wasn’t a chronic part of his existence, so I would have reintegrated, probably, and not hung around rising up to protect him for the rest of his life, and probably disrupting it in the process.”

That amused quirk to the horizontal slash of a mouth, again. “But it wasn’t enough. Not for him. He clung. He brooded. He wanted to protect everyone. And I grew.” Bittersweet and fond. “I grew until I really could help. Until anyone could see me, any time I liked. Until I was solid enough to get in half a dozen fights in one night without my blows starting to go right through the enemy.”

There was no way Batman was letting him know these things about how he worked, when he wasn’t holding back, by accident. They were being given.

“Where’s Bruce now?” Clark asked. Knowing it was probably a painful topic, but hoping to hear it was some rule of magic out of a storybook, that only a child had the right kind of belief to sustain a projection of this nature. That Bruce Wayne had grown up and moved on and had a career and a family, and perhaps didn’t remember that Batman was something he’d made.

Batman’s eyes closed, and vanished completely into the black of his head. He’d kept unspooling all the while he’d been talking, Clark realized, and the gouts and folds and flame-like flickers of his cape now sprawled over more than half the roof, leaving a great circle of open space around Superman himself, and a broad open route away from Batman, as though he couldn’t just go straight up if he wanted to get away. The billows of it had now collapsed in on themselves. His voice, when he spoke, was hushed and solemn, but calm. “He didn’t make it to sixteen. He died tackling a gunman who’d been holding up a corner store where he happened to be, buying junk food he wasn’t supposed to have. The cashier fumbled the register key and bent over to pick it up, and the man panicked and started shooting. Bruce saved lives, that night. But he didn’t survive. Because I wasn’t there. I was away protecting other people, like he’d asked me to.”

“I’m sorry,” Clark said. Inadequate as always, but more so, when he’d pushed for this truth and didn’t even understand enough to know how to offer comfort. He reached out to offer a comforting, boundary-respecting brief pat on the shoulder, like he might have when he had less idea what Batman was, and his hand hung still in the air, as the face Batman turned toward him was human again, so abruptly that even to his accelerated visual perceptions it looked like some sort of glitch.

“This is his face,” Batman told him, and the grief that hadn’t been in his voice before was worn on it, in the pull of the mouth and the bend of pain around the blank white eyes. He looked like he might cry. “The way he would have looked. He never…grew this far, but…”

“In memory of him, then,” Superman said, soothing, and was able to deliver the pat on the shoulder and withdraw. It sounded like Batman was in some ways the only surviving part of Bruce Wayne, and as such had every right to his appearance, but he clearly didn’t think of himself that way, and it wasn’t Clark’s place to try to alter his self-concept, or even make comment when he’d only just been introduced to it. “That seems appropriate.”

Batman shrugged. It looked very human, except for the way the cape parts of him reacted. “I knew it best.”

Had he held the memory of his…creator’s face in his head, updating it carefully to how he would have looked with every year or month that passed? That couldn’t be healthy. It also might be unavoidable, considering Batman’s origins.

“You went on protecting Gotham, afterward?”

“What else would I do?”

“And you joined us. When Starro came.” Batman nodded, as though that was only obvious. Clark supposed it was—when you were a supernatural entity created to protect human beings, why would you not answer a call to band together with other superpowered beings to save the world? “Why did you pretend?” he asked. “To be…”

“Human?” Batman asked. He snorted in derision, either at Clark’s inability to choose a word or his own deceit. “It wasn’t the first time. I talk to the police like this, sometimes. Witnesses. It reassures people, to be talking to a…person.”

That was the same reason J’onn made himself look more human, even in blatant green—it wasn’t entirely unlike why Clark kept his own life as Clark, why Superman didn’t wear a mask. “But why…” He’d gone to such lengths, to maintain the façade. Human jaw and teeth, sculpted solid to catch X-ray vision behind flesh he’d carefully made permeable to it, when even now with the image of Bruce Wayne’s face restored he wasn’t bothering. Consistent physical proportions. Always running close against the edge of normal human limits, of strength and speed and length of jump—not hanging back, but not throwing himself onto the front line either, contributing as much with tactics and analysis as actual combat. “Why try so hard to convince us?”

Batman shrugged. “I wasn’t holding back that much. I told you. I was fading. I was never meant to last. Once it turned out the team wasn’t a one-time thing, I still didn’t want to go through the whole…process of revelation.”

“But you’re doing it now.” Clark found he was grinding his teeth, because he was putting together a picture he didn’t like. “Because. Now you’re expecting to survive.” Batman had been dying. He hadn’t thought it was worth the stress of being honest with them, because he hadn’t expected to exist long enough for their relationships to matter.

Superman glanced down through the roof at the sleeping children, and one child in particular.

“I wasn’t there in time to save his parents, either,” Batman said, and Clark knew that feeling—all this power and yet you could still arrive too late, and be too little. But Batman was defined by that feeling, founded upon it almost, so it probably struck him deeper. “But I was there afterward. I protected him from the followup attacks, meant to stop him testifying about the sabotage he’d witnessed.

“And he clung to me, whenever I came…I do try to comfort them, especially when it’s children, but usually they’re at least a little bit afraid. He wasn’t. And he didn’t have anyone else to cling to. They wouldn’t let his parents’ friends in to see him more than once, and then they left town. And then, after I came to tell him that Zucco and his men were taken care of for good, when I left I felt the distance opening…I realized I was…his, now.”

There was a strange, wondering ache in the way he said it that made it easy for Clark to repress his own discomfort with the idea of anyone belonging to anyone else, and of something that looked like a grown man asserting an intimate personal bond with an unrelated child. Batman was supposed to belong to a child, it was how he’d been made, and he’d expected to die by inches in the absence of the one who’d made him, and now he suddenly wasn’t. This little orphan was the most precious thing in his world, that was plain, and to Clark at least it was equally plain that he felt a deep guilt at replacing the boy who had been his world before.

He wondered, suddenly, if Batman had ever been this honest with anyone in his existence. Had he been this open even with his Bruce, or had his need to protect led him to put on a front, and conceal every uncertainty?

The pale smudge of Batman’s face was still and remote, and his voice was nearly calm, but the darkness of his cape had spilled out over the whole roof now, and it was gently writhing. The route out for Superman, opposite Batman’s main body, had shrunk to the merest footpath. Was that there out of instinct, or a more conscious courtesy?

“You don’t have to leave that,” Superman said quietly, flipping his thumb toward the corridor of open shingle and beam. “I know you aren’t trying to trap me, and it won’t anyway.”

The path snapped shut almost instantaneously, and a little of the strain in the atmosphere faded—Batman had been holding himself back from encircling him completely only with continuous effort. Why? Did he naturally expand to fill the available space? Or was expanding in the form of the cape an expression of emotion that was uncomfortable to suppress, in the same way it was hard to sit still when you felt anxious, or hold your tongue when you got mad?

His teammate’s whole torso was turned away, now, and this too was easy to read—shame at his own inhumanity. In front of Clark, of all people. But then, Clark made it look easy, didn’t he? It even was easy for him, when it came to things like looking like he fit in.

J’onn should have been the one to come. But it disconcerted him not to be able to pick up anything Batman did not intentionally share—Clark didn’t think he’d learned to read human body language yet, beyond the most obvious things—and Batman had been known to use fire.

“It didn’t seem wise to seem to be trying to threaten you,” Batman said flatly, into the night.

“Thank you,” said Superman, because while he didn’t mind at this point, it would definitely have made him uncomfortable earlier, before Batman had made himself so vulnerable. “Could you, do you think?”

A sidelong look. “You’re less invulnerable to magic,” Batman said. “Probably.”

Something to keep in mind. The Flash was the only teammate he had now that he was reasonably sure he could take three falls out of three. Maybe they could start practicing against each other, if they could find somewhere they could risk making a mess on that scale. Sparring—he and Diana had tried it out, gingerly. If Batman wanted to stretch out his re-expanding powers in a secure environment…

“Do you have any plans, going forward?” Now that he had a future to plan for.

“I have someone who helps me,” Batman replied. “Bruce’s guardian, after his parents died. He wanted to leave Gotham, after…but he stayed. To try to help the city, in Bruce’s memory. And to keep an eye on me.” The amusement this time was bitter. “We don’t really get along. He thinks Bruce died because of me—that I made him feel invulnerable, and then didn’t protect him. He’s projecting. But I suppose that’s what I’m for.”

Clark made a face; he didn’t like the idea of people being for purposes. Even people who’d been made. This wasn’t the time to argue about it. “But he helps you?”

“He helps.” Batman glanced down, toward Dick’s bed, as though once again he could see through the roof. “I’m trying to get him to agree to take Dick in. He did a good job with Bruce, even if he doesn’t think so.”

“Will that be the best for Dick?” Clark asked, as neutrally as he could manage. He could tell Batman’s intentions were good, but he didn’t know if putting a child entirely within the influence of a supernatural being that had latched onto him, without an external line of support, was a good idea. On the other hand, putting him in the care of an adult who would know he wasn’t delusional could only help. And Clark could be the outside support, if necessary—not that he wasn’t under Batman’s influence himself, but he wasn’t within his circle of it the way this Alfred seemed to be, resentment or not. The resentment might be the most dangerous part.

What part of this train of thought Batman sensed, he couldn’t tell, as his comrade only retorted, “It can’t be worse than here!”

A group home with four beds to a room certainly wasn’t the best environment, but surely he couldn’t be here much longer. “Have you talked to him about it?”

“He doesn’t get much privacy. He agreed to meet with Alfred last time he ducked into a closet while I was there, so now Alfred’s the focus of the plan.” Batman sighed again. “He’s so brave,” he said fondly. “It worries me. I wish he were somewhere safe.”

The wild impulse rose to offer to step in, to take the role of legal guardian if this Alfred wouldn’t. Clark sat on it. He didn’t want a child, he wasn’t equipped to care for a child, CPS would be able to see that perfectly well in a single reporter in his 20s living in a one-bedroom apartment in a somewhat run-down building. He didn’t even live in the same state, and child placement was handled on a state-by-state basis so even petitioning for custody would be horrifically involved, never mind obtaining it. Also, he had a secret identity to protect.

He couldn’t always help. The hardest lesson in life, and one he had to keep relearning.

“So your plans are…to get Dick into a safe home environment.”

“And keep him alive,” Batman affirmed. Quick, and firm, and almost not obvious about what a vital goal this was to him. Keeping this child alive, the way he’d failed to keep the one before.

“Of course.” Clark nodded. If everything he’d been told was true—and he thought it was, it felt true—then there was no need for the League to intervene. Gotham was probably safer than it had ever been. “Can I meet him, sometime?” Partly to do his part as an outside support network. Partly because he was curious, to meet this child who’d been able to reach his hand into Batman’s chest and close his fingers around his heart.

Batman glanced over, and then seemed to relax. Even the endless piles of his cape seemed suddenly to behave more like ordinary fabric. “I passed, then?”

“What?” Oh. Of course he’d known. Clark had hardly been sneaky. “Yes.”

“Not that I know what you were planning to do if I hadn’t.”

Clark didn’t know either, other than get Dick away of he seemed to need it.

“All of this is off the record, of course,” Batman added. It was a testament to how distracted Superman was by Batman’s problems that it took a long second for him to realize the potential implications of that choice of words, and read in Batman’s posture and the way his cape had developed hooks of tension in some of its folds that they were entirely intentional.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“You attended a press event in Gotham two years ago. You still feel like you, no matter how you dress.”

“Well.” Superman tried to shake the sudden tension out of his shoulders. Batman was a good detective and data analyst, that hadn’t changed with the rest of it. He’d certainly tracked down the name of the gentleman from the Planet. “I guess that’s fair. And of course it’s off the record. I won’t even tell J’onn and Diana anything but the basics without your permission.”

“Oh.” Batman clearly hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“You have a right to your privacy.” Clark thought back over his own approach to the whole situation and said, with a gentleness born somewhat of guilt, “You are a person, after all.”

“I’m really not,” Batman said, corner of his mouth ticking up just slightly to underline the easy irony in his voice. But the great spread of cape had fallen into easier, more geometric wrinkles, and Clark was beginning to learn to trust that over what he said with his borrowed face. Though he could almost definitely lie with the cape part of himself, too, if he needed to.

“Don’t…” His tongue flickered across the back of his teeth; be brave, Kent. “Don’t talk about my friend that way, huh?”

yet another ask dump yeehaw!

do you ever think that jay's mother was one of those bitch who believes in horoscope and tarots and things like that and so he believes in these things too, or it is just me projecting?

sheila haywood took one look at jason's birthchart said 'nah this won't do' and left.

Wait, but what happens when the justice league does find out that Bruce and John fucked? Lmao it sounds like it would be hilarious, really, I don’t want a justice league that doesn’t make fun of Bruce for like his entire life.

barry runs out of the meeting immediately and comes back with an entire sti testing kit. diana fully seriously wants bruce to get tested while bruce is sitting there like 'come on guys, you're being ridiculous, i already checked twice'

john is standing in the corner clearly offended while bruce is just like 'don't even say anything, constantine, you fucked a shark'

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

on the one hand, good for him, on the other hand, bro, how do you still have a secret identity when your superhero name is just your last name,,,,

Your fic on ao3 was GOLD PLEASE CONTINUE I loved Dinah's cameo btw ( @purple-vixen

thanks so much! i already continued but this ask is like 10 years old because i'm a notorious procrastinator (also yes! i love dinah so much aahhhhhhhhhhhh)

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

bruce internally: holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit bruce externally: get out of my city, alien

AHHH ur multimedia fic is the only thing that brings me happiness anymore continue it forever pls

uhh thanks, but can't continue it forever because my attention span is that of a toddler on crack on a good day and i can't function without at least 10 things going on at the same time and music in the background

Oi, so I'm getting into dc and watching batman the animated series, and they use fruitcake a lot. Which I thought was very funny and wanted to share w you - Denilla

wait like fruitcake (food) or fruitcake (derogatory) ?

young justice 🤝 teen titans slut shaming batman

tim drake and dick grayson to their respective teams 'you guys stop it, that's my dad'

Happyhoganon: If an eighty year old Batman had fought crime in Gotham City for decades and the only threats to him and the city lately are a wheel chair bounded Penguin, your usual purse snatchers and a few con artists popping up every now and then, how well could the Dark Knight do in maintaining the peace in Gotham despite him being just somewhat fit to do that as an elderly man (which says A LOT given how old he is)

uhh he'll probably do what my grandpa does and that is ruthlessly prank them until they die of shame.

in the death in the family interactive movie there's an ending where Jason is tasked with raising Damian and he decides he's gonna raise Damian to take down the waynes and al ghuls which uh maybe isn't great BUT the idea of Jason raising Damian... PRICELESS. CHAOTIC. I just need more people to know about this :)

yes i saw that wow holy shit but jason would accidentally drop damian on his head one (1) hour in and jason just yeets him into the lazarus pit.

Headcanon: The Penguin has a really hard time fighting any of the Robins because of his avian obsession means there's always a small part of his mind that's like "Birb. Child. Protect" ( @subspacecadet )

as soon as dick becomes nightwing the penguin is like 'you know what, fuck this dude' and shoots at him.

Y'all talking about King Shark dating Constantine, let's not forget about John literally hooking up with Satan

listen there's a clear difference between monsterfucker and satanfucker in that king shark is literally a shark and satan still looks like a normal dude

Does everyone in Gotham think Batman is a teen dad?

everyone in gotham thinks batman has been around since gotham was founded, but they do think that bruce wayne is actually a teen father and dick grayson's biological dad.

why. why would you do that fancast when you know it will only hurt people

what? i loved my fancast it was really well done. i did it with good representation in mind and i really managed that with alfred pennyworth being ✨italian✨

Seeing james charles a jason gave me psychic damage how dare you i need to wash my eyes

well that's a you problem isn't it?

do you think dick grayson thirst tweets about nightwing just to annoy his family/cause problems on purpose in general?

he thinks nightwing is hot, next question.

holy jiminy cricket batman, its as cold as the good lords ass crack in here!!

i- what? this is why i don't fuck with english expressions it's way too goddamn weird

Brooooooo, your teen dad!Bruce au is soooo good. I've got brainrot.

Honestly if you ever write anymore, I'd read that shit twice. Sign me the fuck up. Good stuff, Good Stuff.

uh yeah i'm thinking about writing a fic, but i have exams coming up and i don't wanna fail because that would suck. but after i'll certainly be writing more tho

your teen dad AU is so great! bruce acting like a big brother for all of like a week before he's telling everyone about his son. what if in the AU dick meets the JL because they need to rescue him? maybe he's in trouble/kidnapped at a gala and bruce starts calling for JL. clark finds him and has to fly with dick to bring him home - that's how dick and clark meet and superman becomes dick's fave hero. he goes around the manor thinking he can fly with a red blanket draped around him like a cape.

actually- if you want a young dad! bruce fic with like that kinda stuff(just with damian) go check uhh- in for a penny by cdelphiki. it's really good and bruce is like 24/25-ish. (and dick's there!!!)

This account has solely convinced me that Tim is a trash goblin ( @hamilcat-and-magic-turtle )

because he is. that boy has slept in dumpsters on multiple occasions even if he is the son of a billionaire.

Okay but when you said victory dance I did think of the whole justice league defeating the big bad and then they all start flossing

well that's exactly what hal jordan does and that's why batman uses a gun now. no but the victory dance in my opinion is like the 'we're all in this together' dance from high school musical.

The horrors in Invincible s1 was nothing compared to the comics, I cant wait for s2

oh well okay, i mean i personally react to horror and violence by laughing awkwardly so i can't wait to be called a monster for accidentally laughing at a mass murder.

I'm currently watching Batman: The Brave and The Bold and- Bruce is just talking about Oliver like he's an old love (@nightwings-kid)

okay im going to watch that lmao that's totally and completely in character for him tho.

The invincible comic is like super gratuitous with its violence so much so I'm shocked the show was able to adapt it in a faithful way! Anyway had the show been live action it absolutely wouldn't have the same impact as it does as an animated show and I'm so glad so many people agree with me on that

also because a live action casting would've been like uhh amanda stenberg for amber, the dude- the guy from the supernatural but with a mustache for omni-man, and scarlet johanssen for debbie grayson

Debbie grayson is a milf, yes. You're welcome for the invincible propoganda, now you can questions your life. Bruce def seems like the perfect father next to Omni-man. Like they really took a rip off justice league and I was like well, now I'm attached even tho I was like hah I know who they're supposed to be. And then bam- death gore death gore gore gore sad Mark grayson just had to have daddy issues. Why does every character have daddy issues. I'm sick of the attacks

because daddy issues make a person arguably funnier, that's why i'm not even remotely funny (haha good dad flex). i liked that it was dark contextually, but not in the colouring, bc i hate when it's like 'uh yeah graphic murder and now a shot so dark you have to sit in a dark room and squint at the screen to faintly see the characters. (like dcau ugh)

About the Wayne insurance, for a moment I thought you would put the video with moans over the waves.

i mean- i could've done that, but rick rolling seemed more family friendly.

Its the first time in forever that im surpise rickrolled, i usually expect it. Congratulations (i really should know better this is tumblr)

i get rickrolled so often but i actually like the song so i dont really give a fuck

Actually, my information about Damian and John's kids is outdated because it was revealed that the old men telling the kids stories about the Supersons were actually Jon and Damian the whole time. I was blinded by my thirst for Grandpa!Bruce Wayne but I was wrong... I liked my version better, tbh (@artemisa97)

fair enough. but i'd honestly like to see damian and jon getting together, just because it's a really fun dynamic and their friendship was really cute when they were kids. (also idk maybe it would be nice to have one (1) main batfam/superfam character that's not cishet)

How am i JUST finding your blog skdskfkd you're so fucking funny and ur takes are hot

i thought u were calling me hot :( but youre not :( crime detected (but lmao thanks)

So I have depression and I swear that your memes are one of the few things that have made me laugh so thank you 💛🥺 (@katekanebadass)

aw you're welcome, and i hope you're doing okay!

The metropolis memes are so funny, I love them 💀😌

i think metropolis is also so fucking funny it deserves more attention imagine having your entire police force being upstaged by an alien from kansas and his kids

as an american i feel your complete lack of knowledge of us geography is just so sexy (platonic) ❤️

thanks so much (i also don't know any other geography, i'm not kidding, like you can tell me you're from hungary and it will just blank, there will be nothing that comes to mind)

In the DC universe they don't say "Can't have shit in Detroit" they say "Can't have shit in Gotham"

this just reminds me of that guy whose porch got stolen like the steps to his door, and i'm thinking of people living in gotham and waking up without a front door and going "can't have shit in gotham"

honestly all i know about chicago is the bean, so. what would gotham's famous sculpture be?

gigantic gargoyle statue in front of one of the police precincts because a villain thought it was a smart way to keep the police inside, but it's too heavy to move.

why tf do people go on about how batman "works alone" or how he's the "lone wolf" when he like 38290202 members in his family

bc people think it's cool that a grown man in his 30s has no friends or family instead of calling it what it is (sad)

Bruce is gotham's sugar daddy

why would say something so controversial yet so brave.

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

dick: gerard way are you in position, gerard way are you in position

tim: for the last fucking time, my codename is 'totally not count olaf' this week, abbafan 3000

dick: shut up my codename isn't 'abbafan 3000'

dick: it's 'abbafan number 1' and you know it

I have a feeling Tim drake is ur favourite batfamily member but okay u don't have favs if u say so ok

i mean he is, i won't deny it. but i love each and every one of the batfam just the same, i just have a weak spot for short dumbass nerds, because i'm a short dumbass nerd.

Omg i fuckin love boy meets world too fam shsjkfk

bro boy meets world was the shit!!! it was just fire and awesome and so fucking great like bro. it was so good im not even going to be accepting criticism

you know I find the whole "joker completes batman" thing a bit disgusting considering the horrendous stuff the batfamily went through because of the joker and let's not get started on the "joker has a point" thing like yeah he's this cool complex villain but he's absolutely batshit crazy

like yes! i get what you mean the joker just fucking sucks man he doesn't do shit for batman's character or the batfam he's literally just annoying as fuck. like the joker has a point' shit is so stupid. i will accept 'magneto was right' because he fucking was and i think he didn't do anything wrong, but joker? he's just like that. he's not even cool and complex he's just a weirdo with a bleach kink at this point.

ALSO YOUR RACISM POST- SO TRUE BESTIE

thanks bestie, i'm glad you agree.

in today's essay of why I think cass should become batman- I was thinking Tim would probably be the most efficient batman in many ways but I also think he wouldn't want to be batman tbh none of the batfamily members would want to be batman because they're trying to outgrow him but cass is the one who wants to represent the symbol that is batman

absofuckinglutely i will say it again and again that cass represents the batsymbol more than anyone in the batfam, in batgirl (2000) she literally didn't care about anything else than bruce's oath to not kill, she thought the batsymbol was more important than anything in gotham. she's just an excellent character because her motivation to not kill is not 'i'm scared i can't come back from it' or 'well my dad says no murder so i'll go along with it' but that she's killed somebody as a young child and she never wants to kill a human ever again and that's so fucking beautiful for a new batman like yes.

need more cass, duke and tim inclusion in gothamite memes

yes yes, a tall order of cass, duke and tim coming up in 1-14 business days

oldest to youngest batfam members cus I'm confused as shit

okay order of being taken in: dick, jason, tim, cass, damian, duke order of age: alfred, bruce, dick, cass, jason, tim, duke, damian (though cass and jason are around the same age general consensus is that cass is a little older)

I'm so confused Steph is a redhead?? like how was it that hard to get this right? the source material is literally right there and free

cw is jared, 19

do you receive anon hate? if so, how do you deal with it

uh no, i'm not remotely popular enough to get anon hate and i also don't say a lot of things that would attract anon hate, but i do send anon hate to @the-real-peter-parker because he forgot about the specialists from winx club

Wait how many languages do you speak??

uhh- 5 if you include latin, but that's a dead language and i'm really bad at it. but english, my native language, german, and french also, tho german and french not fluently.

You can mix aguaepanela with aguardiente 😈 and is tasty

okay but now i'm curious if the liquor deserves the 😈 emoji or if that's a you problem. but i googled it and it looks like something you'd take one sip of and then not remember the rest of your evening.

Sunday Batfam Fanfic Recs!

Welcome to my second Sunday Batfam Fic Rec list!

Since the first list was such a success, I’ve decided to actually do this weekly! What is ‘this’ you ask?

Easy! Every Sunday I’ll recommend Batfam fanfics of a specific theme. The first week was Batman Beyond/Time Travel, then we had a Spooky Halloween Special and, finally, this week’s theme is…

Billionaire Batfam, Social Media & Galas!

If you want to, you can request a theme and I’ll try to find fanfictions for that!

Here’s my Batfam Fanfiction Rec Tag.

That being said, have fun reading 30 fanfictions and please leave these lovely authors a comment!

Title: #BayneIsCanon Summary: Gotham ships Batman and Bruce Wayne. He's not really sure how to feel about it. #trainwreck #bayne #scandal Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17226011

Title: #gotham is trending Summary: thghhhh: ahhhhh, i'm back in gotham. can't wait to get back to a supervillain attack every other day. i've missed this. [the city of gotham, it's vigilantes, and resident billionaires - as seen through social media] Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331965

Title: (Dance) Lessons Summary: “STOP!” Cass shouted, suddenly appearing between them. “No talking. No fun.” she gave each one a glare. “Only… dancing.” Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13205775

Title: (that moment when) A Supehero Replies to You Summary: Dick Grayson, as any good millennial, is an avid fan of Buzzfeed: Unsolved. So, when Shane and Ryan discuss the death of Jason Todd, Dick can't help but laugh. Laugh, and then film the reactions of the batfamily when they find out....in costume. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561994

Title: a hat fashioned from tin foil Summary: nightwang @karakurachou – 8 hours ago jason todd is alive and faked his death so he could become robin: a conspiracy theory thread. Batfam conspiracy theories meet social media. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356020

Title: and it comes back again Summary:  Bruce “I accidentally slipped and fell across the room, took out three tables and broke a desk with your body as I ACCIDENTALLY fell on you also you’re going to jail” Wayne takes his young protégé down the rewarding path of revenge. Link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/14268537

Title: Brother Bear Summary: Dick slips a Disney reference into a speech, Tim only realizes because Jason sneaks into his own memorial gala to finish the quote. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21036350

Title: Bruce got Therapy instead Summary: “I’m twenty four and have yet to find a partner,” Bruce stated, not looking up from the paper. “While true, I hardly think that is a subject to worry over right now. Many people your age have yet to meet someone they desire to spend the rest of their life with.” “It’s...I don’t really have a problem with the fact that I haven’t met anyone.” A pause where Bruce took a contemplative sip of his coffee. Alfred patiently waited for the young man to say what was actually going through his mind. “Well, the Manor seems rather...empty, don’t you think?” He finally looked up to his butler. Alfred fully turned to Bruce, his free hand held behind his back. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make, sir.” “I’m thinking about adopting, Alf.” OR: A world in which Bruce Wayne got therapy instead of becoming Batman. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634062

Title: Chase You Down Until You Love Me Summary: The Waynes make a sport of their high profile in the media during yet another boring gala. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102315

Title: Diversionary Tactic Summary:  Jason, from his early days as Robin to his later days as Red Hood, has had a unique skill set. It ends up being weirdly useful and also possibly the grossest way to have a father-son relationship moment, but hey, that’s life. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624390

Title: Favorite Parts Summary: There are things Cass loves about Wayne parties, and things she does not. What she loves most is seeing her Father act himself at those parties. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195331

Title: Gala Night Summary: "What if I use the wrong fork at dinner?" "You won't" "But what if I do?" Bruce arched an eyebrow "Do you seriously think that none of the kids ever used the wrong fork?" [...] Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16397771

Title: Getting out of a Gala Summary: In a world where Bruce found Jason closer to nine and his fallout with Dick wasn't that bad, Jason gets forced to attend a gala. Luckily, or unluckily for him, he ends up getting out of it partway through. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968498

Title: Gotham’s Top Ten Memes Summary: Every city has its pride and Gotham isn't different. We love our “dark and gloomy” architecture (meet us in the Batburgers parking lot Metropolis) and our Waynes, our vigilantes and most importantly: Our memes. So, without much further ado, we present you Gotham’s top ten memes. Gotham, the Waynes and the Bats through the eyes of social media. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283281

Title: Happy Little Accidents Summary: Bruce and Lois have a quiet, friendly moment at a gala. Memories of their children make them laugh and cry a little. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176123

Title: Mess with Them Summary: Selina Kyle is at the first gala event a young Jason Todd attends with Bruce. And she knows exactly what he's going through. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7559761

Title: Nightmare at the Gala Summary: When an amateur group of bad guys get their hands on fear toxin, they decide to use it on their next big game: the semi-annual Gotham Leaders Family Gala. And lo and behold, your favorite vigilante family just happens to be there too. But without their alter egos, they’re just another helpless rich family with easily kidnap-able kids. Will a frantic, fear toxin induced Bruce Wayne get his head together to save them? Or will he accidentally reveal his family’s biggest secret? Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14885828

Title: Of Smiles and Broken Things Summary: Tim's first gala isn't going as well as he had hoped, but at least the host is nice. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899127

Title: Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts Summary: A DC universe where moms are awesome and raise their kids right. Now with more melanin and queerness. Also, Gotham's in Michigan and Metropolis is in Connecticut. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Fics are in chronological order but are all standalone. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/440926

Title: Stay a Child Summary: “Redo it,” Bruce orders. “Aw, come on!” Dick dares to pout — a thing that he uses often, and would work on anyone but Bruce and Alfred. Sometimes. Bruce gives him a look. “I’m not going to do it for you.” “I’m going to misdo it until you do,” Dick threatens. [Two times Dick went to a gala with Bruce and one time he didn’t.] Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15098102

Title: The Art of the Gala Summary: Barry is the one who usually goes to these things. Unfortunately for Hal, Barry got called in to Central for a case, so now Hal has to go to the Gala with Bruce. Bruce is just lucky Hal loves him so much. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654852

Title: The Bat-Signal Smashing Charity Gala Summary: Spawned from the realization that them making Gordon physically destroy the Bat-Signal at the end of The Dark Knight is absurd and hilarious. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1867965

Title: The Bats Out of the Bag (At the Drop of a Tinfoil Hat) Summary: In which Tim is Bruce's secretary, there's a gala, and questions get answered. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762865

Title: The Gotham’s Wayne Summary: dukeofthomas [We all know who the real QUEEN of the Manor is] The Gothamites are very invested in the Waynes. Very very interested. A journey through the Gotham's favorite family: the Waynes through Social Media. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13333119

Title: The Problem with Galas Summary: Galas are an issue, because something always goes wrong, and no one knows this better than Dick Grayson. (It's a bit of a problem, actually, but he can always depend on Bruce to get him out of trouble.) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/906501

Title: The Wayne Deal Summary: Bruce Wayne's parents made a deal, if you do something to make yourself noticed at a Gotham Gala- enough to impress the papers, then they will leave right away. Bruce passes this deal along to the children in his custody.Each one adds their own flair to it. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17641559

Title: three bars, one city Summary: The Wayne kids join Twitter. This is widely seen as a very bad move. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172040

Title: Unattended Wards and their Unfortunate Guardians Summary: Roy and Dick are left alone for a couple hours at a gala. How much trouble could two boys possibly cause while unattended? Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770661

Title: Wayne Family Tweets, aka Why Bruce Wayne's Hair Is Going Gray Summary: JTW @hottoddie oh okay u hold a totally acceptable grudge for a couple years and suddenly ur “”bitter”” Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387441

Title: Wayne Gala Summary: Alfred teaches the boys how to dance. The girls go shopping for dresses. And it only took three hours into the party for all that effort go to waste. …But that's fine. They were Waynes. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316591

2019 Fic Recs

To celebrate the end of 2019 (and also to procrastinate on my own fics!), I figured I’d round up 19 of my favorite fics of the year! Now, to be clear, these were all written (at least partly) during 2019, and they’re all complete. But that’s like all they have in common. They’re from random fandoms and some are def explicit and they’re in no particular order, but mostly it’s Riverdale lmao. Bc i’m trash and i ain’t ashamed.

Starting out with the Riverdale here babyyy:

Things unrequited by Bearfacedcheek

New Veronica, new type?

Set after S01E01 Veronica decides that Jughead Jones is the perfect antidote to all the bad romantic and moral choices she always seems to make. But making Jughead hers doesn't prove as straight forward a task as she expects

No peace nor rest by Bearfacedcheek

They're not stupid. They know there's no peace in revenge. But the sight of Betty and Archie together makes them stupid and whisky makes them weak, so they take the only revenge they can.

Set post 2x08 Betty and Archie enter a relationship, leaving Jughead and Veronica heartbroken and a night of drunken revenge sex morphs into something far more complicated.

have i been too discreet? by partyhardy

In which Betty realizes she slowly watched Jughead fall for Veronica. 

keep telling myself i'm not the desperate type by Krewlak

The new kid at school argues with Veronica and it sparks something inside of Jughead. 

Supporting Characters by torombolo

Maybe this was inevitable, Jughead thought, staring at the couple in front of him. He spared a glance at Veronica. From the look on her face, she thought the same thing. Betty and Archie. Archie and Betty. Perfect. The American Dream.

“Fine,” the dark-headed girl had told him, “I’m fine.”

“Me too,” he said convincingly. Whether he was trying to convince her or himself he wasn’t sure.

But Darling, Who Ever Said That Love Was Fair? by bothromeoandjuliet

There is no room for blood and thorns in the bubblegum scented word that was Betty Cooper's life, and both Jughead and Veronica know it. But that doesn't mean that they can help what they are or what they feel. Only, nothings fair in love and friendship. 

Hindsight, As They Say, Is Twenty-Twenty by bothromeoandjuliet

Betty's always wondered why Jughead Jones broke up with her, and now, eight years after the fact, she finally gets her answer. (A one shot/drabble ft. past!bughead, and past!veggie, with a healthy dose of jeronica sprinkled all the way through.) ((Also I manage to write fluff that doesn't just turn to angst!)) (((So thats exciting)))

Some Stucky:

This Side of the Blue by notlucy

Tucked against a set of crumbling, stone steps was a tank made of metal and glass, filled to the brim with greenish water, distorted sunlight filtering through and casting strange shadows. Playing tricks on the eye. A trick was the only explanation for what Steve saw floating there. This figment of his childhood. This myth. This legend.

Within the tank, the siren bared its teeth.

Paper Tree by Ellessey

Bucky just laughs and shoves another bite of egg in his mouth, giving Steve a shrug and a full-cheeked smile. He's so damn cute Steve wants to shout at him, but he can't seem to say any of the right things. "Shoulda got you a comb for Christmas," is what he comes up with instead.

"What did you get me?"

It's Steve's turn to shrug now, and if he looks more terrified than cheeky as he does so, he can only hope Bucky doesn't catch it before Steve hurries out the door.

--

On December first, Steve wraps up a letter for Bucky and sets it under their Christmas tree. Now he has twenty-four days left to figure out how to tell Bucky what he wrote, face to face.

Political Animals by crinklefries, Deisderium

Okay, so the real problem is that you shouldn’t fuck your arch-rival, political enemy, and the person you loathe the most in the world where you work. Or like, at least, you shouldn’t keep doing that.

But okay, the thing that Descartes or whoever didn’t know was that Steve really tries, but Bucky Barnes has a mouth that should probably constitute an eighth sin or something.

Jesus fucking Christ, Sam’s going to kill him.

(or—Steve’s best friend is the U.S. Constitution and he can’t seem to stop fucking a hot Republican. They shouldn’t fall in love, but somehow they do. That’s it, that’s the fic.)

like heaven stood up in you by napricot

“You said you were gonna miss him,” says Bruce slowly. “He was supposed to be back in five seconds, but you hugged him and said ‘I’m gonna miss you.’”

Bucky’s face is serene again now, and gives nothing away. “I know Steve,” he repeats. “You think you can hand him a time machine and some rocks of unspeakable power and he’s just gonna go put ‘em right back where they belong?”

Steve does put the Infinity Stones right back where they belong. He just does a couple other things too. Or: three timelines and a Reverse Time Heist.

Drive It Like You Stole It: A Bodyswap by AggressiveWhenStartled

Steve had gone fully red-faced with pedantic altar-boy fury. “Did your computer forget how to Google translate?” he bellowed, sticking his head up and over. Bucky yanked him down again. “What are you even trying to say?”

Bucky tried to shake the sparkles off the grenade he had been planning on lobbing over the divider. “It sounded like Latin to me,” he said reasonably, pursing his lips and frowning at the explosive. It dripped a sparkle, and a puff of purple smoke curled up where it hit the concrete.

“That’s because you spent Sunday school flirting with Sarah Cunningham,” Steve accused, bobbing back up to throw his shield and ducking back down to dodge a shining ball of blue light. “You wouldn’t know Latin if it came up and kissed you on your ugly mug.”

“I’d sure know it if Sarah Cunningham did, though.” Bucky grinned, struck by the memory. “That gal really knew what she was doing.”

Some DC stuff (Halbarry):

Iconoclast by the_mythologist

When an alien race’s covert invasion and assassination spree decimates the Supercommunity, the survivors must band together to defeat against an unseen, invincible enemy. With many of their greatest heroes off-world or dead, the remnants of the Justice League, Teen Titans, Birds of Prey, Batfamily, and a few unaffiliated ‘heroes’ are all that stand in the way between the ‘Iconoclasts’ and Earth’s annihilation.

John Constantine is most unamused.

Slowing Down by Cinderstrato

It hadn’t been long after they first met before Barry began to suspect, in a vaguely-formed way, that it would be easy to fall in love with Hal.

sweating out a hot day by magnetocent

it's a hot day, but barry decides it's not hot enough 

Okay now some one-offs from random fandoms/pairings:

Off The Record by crookedswingset

Peter Parker is a corporate lackey whose sole job is to root out problem executives who waste Oscorp’s money and time. Wade Wilson is a reserve Avenger on the hunt for a prize even Iron Man couldn’t nail down: the real identity of everyone’s favorite webhead.

Too bad most people think Spider-Man is Harry Osborn.

Stars Beneath His Skin by ElloPoppet

On the white piece of paper was a smattering of small, black dots. McCoy turned the paper, in search of a pattern or alignment of some kind but not finding even a trace. The dots appeared to be drawn at random or rather, McCoy noticed as he squinted, printed. He looked up at where Spock was standing over him and returned a cocked eyebrow of his own.

“If you need help cracking some kind of code, this isn’t exactly my specialty, genius.”

Rather than banter back, Spock responded immediately and smoothly. “It is not a code. That is the alignment of stars that would have been visible in the night sky from Earth should one have been standing at the coordinates where my Mother was born at the moment of the occurrence.” Silence blanketed the room, McCoy not having a goddamn clue how to respond to that. Luckily, Spock wasn’t finished.

“I wish to memorialize her with what most races would call a tattoo, and I would like your help with the matter.”

Too Close To Love You by stylescoalition 

Aleks used to have a big crush on Brett but he doesn’t anymore, which is great considering they work together, on top of being good friends (suuuper lit). Now, Aleks is going to be living with Brett in LA until he finds a place of his own, but just because he isn’t crushing on Brett doesn’t mean that Brett isn’t crushing on him. Suffice to say, it makes things complicated… except it really isn’t as complicated as they think. 

drawn to wilder nights by detectivemeer

Scott and Derek start a frenemies-with-benefits relationship, and it goes about as well as one would expect.

Hello! I see you opening some request? I wanna request about superbat. Clark and Dick are known to Bruce to have puppy eyes whenever they want something. Maybe one day Bruce tries his puppy eyes to Clark? Mostly when they're alone together, because he doesn't want anyone knows that the mighty Batman has puppy eyes lol. Thank you!

Hi, thank you for the request! Here’s my take one it, it’s not as playful as it is fluffy and warm but I hope you like it anyway!

It was like any night really. The sun had been tugged down to the horizon and passed it several hours ago and there was only a light breeze that carded against the soft curtains next to the open window. They were white and soft, a stark contrast to the otherwise heavy oak and velvet furniture in the master office of Wayne manor. Clark laid on one of the couches by the small coffee table that stood in the centre of the room; he was reading one of the many books that were occupying the numbers of bookshelf. He’d made quite some progress in reading Bruce’s small library, had actually managed half a bookshelf the past few months. So really the night was no special. Bruce was by his desk working on god knows what, he wasn’t much of a work and chat person but that was something Clark had caught on to years ago. Now the silence was… Comfortable. It wasn’t tense or as broody anymore, even though most took it as just that. It had only been recently that the League had understood that it really wasn’t as bad as one might think.

Flash back a few hours ago when Clark came over for dinner with the Wayne family and he was pretty sure most of the table occupants would’ve been afraid to drop a toothpick too… Had it not been the Wayne family of course.

Damian had stayed mostly quiet and hadn’t made much noise at all really, except for some comments regarding Tim and silently on the food. Clark wasn’t entirely sure of what Tim had done or if the comment was just about the other boy in essence, but there wasn’t much else said. Jason had indulged in a lively conversation with Barbara at some point but he had also asked Clark about the upcoming missions that the League stood in front of, a bit criticising, but not too bad. Then Stephanie and Cassandra had talked for themselves across the table, and Dick had been the most keen to talk to Clark. Tim… Yeah Clark wasn’t sure if Tim had been awake where he sat next to Stephanie by the other end of the table. But the table was long and there had been a lot of conversation going so the mood had been nothing but good.

It was a strange, although sweet, gathering of family. And even though Bruce didn’t say much during it, Clark was quite sure that he saw a smile at least once.

So now Clark had ‘officially’ left the manor, as he laid on the office couch. Neither Bruce or Clark felt up to encouraging the kids to talk even more regarding the fact that his visits had increased quite some, to the point where he was now staying for dinner. So Clark had left and then re-entered through the office windows. A night like many others.

Clark had been sneaking into the manor many times, even before things in their relationship had changed. It spread a small and slightly cocky smile on Clark’s face as he remembered Bruce’s reaction to his first visits, unannounced. There had been quite the disapproval from the Dark Knight at first.

”Remember when I first started showing up here?” Clark said reminiscing, putting the book over his chest and craning his neck to check on the man by the desk.

Bruce didn’t stop with his scanning of papers or the way he sorted them into bundles, instead Clark got a small ”hmp” back, low enough for anyone else to miss.

”You were not happy the first time.” Clark laughed, ignoring the others passivity. As it was, it was a comfortable silence and a comfortable space anyway.

”It was impossible to get rid of you.” Bruce said by the desk.

”Well you’re a hard man to get through to, takes time.” Clark smiled softly. ”But I wouldn’t say that the outcome’s too bad, would you?” He looked from the book on his chest to Bruce again, lifting an eyebrow.

Bruce put down the papers momentarily to look back. A small smile spread over his lips, one not many saw or knew of. It wasn’t like the ’billionaire playboy’ smile that you saw in the papers. It wasn’t all teeth and lust, it wasn’t larger than life, and it wasn’t made for the cameras. This was just Bruce. And it was small and secretive. Conserved and rare. And Clarke felt his chest turn warm and soft from it. He was quite sure that he loved it.

”No.” Bruce replied simply before looking back at his files. The shuffling of them continued and the slight breeze that had almost frozen as their eyes met continued. Clark couldn’t help smiling to himself, and he kept smiling, as he went back to his book.

—

“Dismissed.” Batman called out to the League before people got up to leave. Diana and Arthur walked along Barry who had indulged them in a vivid description of what Metallica was and how they had to check it out. Clark chuckled at the scene as Hal hurried after and started to protest.

The world was surprisingly calm and somehow that wasn’t unnerving for once. It was to the point where Clark was considering taking a small vacation, maybe head home to say hi to ma’. The world seemed to rotate in peace, he thought as the globe spread out before him by the view of the watchtower.

“What are you doing?”

Clark was pulled from his gaze by the familiar voice that had made its way next to him. Bruce was still wearing his mask and stood there looking at him, then back to earth. “Do you think something’s happening?” He asked gravely and looked out, as if looking for trouble.

Clark sighed but put on a smile, “No, not at all.”

He said it with a light and happy tone, but the reaction he got was a low and heavy sigh from Bruce that left him confused. But he didn’t get the chance to ask what caused the reaction before the man had turned and was walking towards the exit of the tower.

“We’re still having dinner tonight?” Clark dared calling out after him as it seemed everyone had left (plus Clark had listened to check), that and he also secretly enjoyed the way Bruce tensed at the words. Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar he looked around them and then scowled at Clark. He didn’t answer but continued walking.

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Clark continued with a laughter under his words.

“Don’t be late.” Bruce replied, always relying on Clark to catch it with his super-hearing.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Clark replied, mostly to himself as it seemed Bruce had already left through the Zeta-tube.

Dinner that night took place at Wayne manor once again, yet it was far less lively. It seemed that every member of the household had left on other activities, and those who did not reside at the manor were not visiting either.

So when Clark did arrive he was met with a table for two by the patio rather than the grand dining table inside. It was set with candles, silverware and a small rose. And whilst this was all very nice, Clark felt as if something was off as dinner went on. Bruce seemed to try and bring something up every now and then but instead of continuing the topic he averted it by asking how the food was. By the end of the main course Clark was sure he’d heard that question three times already.

Once Alfred brought out desert, however, Clark didn’t dare wait to be asked how desert was. So instead he took the opportunity when Bruce took a sip of his wine. He put down his spoon and looked at the man in front of him, “What’s up?”

Bruce looked like he almost choked on some wine and had to struggle keeping his composure as he put down the glass again. “What?” He asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

“You’ve been trying to say something all night but you keep asking me how dinner was, it’s great by the, as I’ve said the last few times. Alfred’s a great cook.”

Bruce looked uncomfortable for a second, which in itself was unnerving and Clark had to consider if something actually was wrong. It didn’t suit the man in front of him at all.

“Eh- Hm.” Bruce cleared his throat and pulled a hand through his hair before he looked at Clark. “Stephanie has been asking for… vacation.”

Clark felt a bit stumped at the sudden comment and looked at Bruce a bit confused, “Well that’s great… Or, is it?” He asked confused.

Bruce sighed, “She wants us all to go.”

Clark still didn’t see the problem, and had to admit he was feeling rather mute. Bruce must’ve picked up on it and looked away slightly annoyed. Clark watched and he would’ve fallen off his chair had his body been able to move, but as he looked at Bruce he caught sight of a slight redness spreading out over the man’s face. Bruce Wayne was officially blushing.

“She has for some reason asked that you will join us.” Bruce said grumpily and Clark was sure that he refused meeting his eyes intentionally.

“Me?” Clark asked confused, still a bit taken aback by the view.

“Yes.” Bruce replied.

Clark struggled for a few seconds to find the words, he opened his mouth put all that came was a few puffs of air. The silence dragged out for some moments until Clark felt that his body could settle into something a bit more secure again.

“Do you want me to come?” He asked, eyes still on the man who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Bruce shifted, “It’d be irresponsible by the league to have the both of us gone during the same time. There’s a large risk in it, but it seems that Stephanie has spread the words and now a few of them are… Requesting the same thing…”

“A few?”

“I believe master Dick phrased it as the ultimate vacation and that miss Barbara has quite the few request on tourist attractions you should be going along on.” Alfred suddenly showed up by their side and started taking the plates, Bruce seemed to almost roll his eyes at the comment. It was a similar one to the time that the kids had showed up with Clark’s S on all of their t-shirts.

Nonetheless Clark thanked Alfred and looked back to Bruce once the butler disappeared. He was looking out to the garden and there were still traces of red trailing his cheekbones that made something soften inside of Clark.

“You still didn’t answer my original question.” Clark said calmly.

Bruce huffed, “I’ve already told you what I think of it.”

“That it’d be bad for the League.”

“Yes.”

“What about us?”

Bruce didn’t do anything else but look out at their surrounding. The silence around them held the question that the Dark Knight seemed to reject. At which Clark sighed.

“I think you’re kids will have an excellent time with you.” He said with a voice of warmth but there was a slight disappointment inside that he couldn’t quite shake. But then again, he couldn’t expect too much. After all he had only read half a bookcase so far and there were many more to go.

Bruce didn’t reply even though he looked like he was about to. He stayed quiet, chewing on his own thoughts.

“They asked for you to come.”

“I know.”

“You should come.”

“Why?”

Bruce turned to him, a look of irritation slightly grabbing at his expression. Clark just looked back at him. There was a small leverage here that he did not hope to loose, because there was everything to gain.

“I want you to come.” Bruce said, still looking severe but the edges were softening and there was room for something else.

Clark’s smile widened in tact with his stomach feeling warm. Bruce was not a man to invite people to see him asking for things, because well, he didn’t. Bruce got what he wanted, that’s how he worked. That’s why he and Clark worked. Because Clark was one of the few that’d challenge that.

So with a bit of mischief behind his motives he continued. “What about the League?” It was a stretch but Clark was a curious man and he couldn’t argue otherwise.

Bruce sighed in exasperation, shaking his head. It took almost a minute before he turned back again. “Can you please come with us?” He asked, hard edges peeled away, leaving way for something soft and genuine. Clark felt as if someone stolen the air in his lungs as he was met with two blue eyes, clearer than the sky, a sky that mostly stayed clouded. It made Clark feel dizzy and hazy in all the right ways. The only respond he could even make out was a small nodd. Bruce seemed to exhale at that, but he smiled again, that small and secretive one. Private.

“You won’t like it one bit,” he said taking a sip of his drink. “It’s pure hell, you’ll need vacation once it’s over.”

Clark laughed at that and looked at Bruce, nodding. I’m pretty sure I can handle it. His smile turned warmer. “I’ll be there.” As he placed his hand over the other’s he felt the colossus and the many small scars. But Clark was quite sure he loved it.

—

In the end Bruce was right. Vacation with the Wayne kids turned out to be pure hell, and somehow, god knows how, it started already in the car to the airport.

Decided to address this as its own post, since my response to the post itself didn’t actually get any traction:

See, I’d buy this except A) I have been a DC reader for far too long and B) I was actually around and bitterblogging when Didio actually said “heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives.” That was in 2013.

For context, at the time he said this (right after the editorial veto on Kate and Maggie’s wedding), Dan Didio was literally refusing to let the writers write heroes having happy personal lives. Examples:

Clark and Lois broke up over petty stupid shit and then Clark said “I didn’t really love her that much anyway” and swanned off with Diana for awhile (See Superman/Wonder Woman). Like they split Clark and Lois up on their 75th anniversary year. Honestly, I feel like this point alone makes my point, but I’m going to keep going

Grant Morrison was remaking Talia Al Ghul into a literal batshit crazy character that didn’t bat an eye at killing her own son to get back at Bruce

on that note, the killing/fridging of Damian Wayne to advance the angst arcs of like the entire Batfam happened about this time too

Bruce and Selina were hostile towards each other (like lmao them getting married now is justice for readers who had to deal with what DC put us through from 2011-2013 with them)

Barry and Iris were not married and had barely met each other at the time, and the rest of the Flash family was erased from existence

including Wally West (and by extension Linda Park and Wally’s two kids), meaning that they simultaneously broke up two of the happiest and most stable marriages at DC

Arthur and Mera’s relationship was in editorial flux and DC couldn’t decide if they were married or not, despite Mera being Arthur’s queen for over two years at that point

Dinah Lance was married to another man and she and Oliver Queen barely knew each other, and there was all kinds of angst happening on both sides of that

Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris were once more broken up and/or waffling on the status of their relationship

Hawkman and Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman weren’t together (despite their whole schtick being “continually reincarnated souls that find each other in every life”)

The “Core Four” Birds of Prey members (Babs, Helena, Dinah, and Zinda) either didn’t exist (Helena, Zinda) or had their previously good relationships with each other erased (Babs and Dinah)

Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon were no longer together and had a pretty rocky relationship

Gail Simone had to deal with editorial interference on Barbara’s Batgirl book because they wouldn’t let her write what she wanted because it was “too happy”

they did a weird sort of waffling erasure concerning Dick and Damian’s time as Batman and Robin (so that the two weren’t nearly as close) in favor of emphasizing the relationship between Damian and Bruce

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown were erased from existence, and Scott Snyder literally created Harper Row because he wasn’t allowed (by editorial edict) to use Cass in his comic

Starfire was a sexualized amnesiac that didn’t remember the Teen Titans

the original Teen Titans had apparently never met

Conner Kent/Superboy and Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl were broken up and were hostile towards each other

Tim Drake was in an absolute disaster of a relationship with Cassie, and the Teen Titans were a mess in general because the Teen Titans comic was being written by fucking Scott Lobdell of all people

heroes that previously had great interpersonal relationships with each other now either hated each other, were lowkey and sometimes outright hostile to each other, or simply didn’t know each other

Grim and gritty Booster Gold happened. Yeah. I know.

Grimdark Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle happened.

Grimdark bratty Billy Batson happened. Like what even was the thought process there

Lots of other bullshittery where characters didn’t know each other, were erased from the universe/didn’t exist, or had their relationships erased/sabotaged/ended happened

People literally wrote posts upon posts and pulled together photosets on photosets (and even more photosets) of all the ships and various relationships that had been utterly wrecked by the New 52. Hell, I wrote posts about how bitter I was about DC wrecking my characters’ personal lives because of Dan Didio’s stupid mentality. Kate and Maggie were in no way the only casualties of this debacle. So...was it tone deaf beyond belief to not let Kate and Maggie marry and sent a very different message to people than they probably wanted? Hell yeah. Was it the result of homophobia? Probably not. So yeah: I’d buy the whole “homophobia” thing if I hadn’t been there for the whole hellscape trainwreck that was 2011-2016-era New 52 comics and knew better.

Also:

9/5/2013 - Citing last-minute editorial meddling on approved storylines (and not because of an anti-gay marriage stance from DC Comics, as some spreading the news would have you believe), J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman stepped down from their duties on Batwoman. Williams stated on his site,

“Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series,” wrote Blackman and Williams. “We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end. We’ve always understood that, as much as we love the character, Batwoman ultimately belongs to DC. However, the eleventh-hour nature of these changes left us frustrated and angry - because they prevent us from telling the best stories we can. So, after a lot of soul-searching, we’ve decided to leave the book after Issue 26.”

It wasn’t just the marriage that got nixed in the Batwoman book.

tl;dr: it wasn’t homophobia and this isn’t a double standard. It really was Didio just being an absolute dick for 5 years and refusing to let heroes have happy personal lives and romantic relationships, and in general, it was the absolutely ridiculous editorial interference on various levels that led to several of the debacles of the New 52 days (not just this one). The game has changed due to the Rebirth initiative. Writers and editors alike have thrown tons of shade on Didio’s perspective. Geoff Johns, after five years of putting up with it, basically told Didio to fuck off and took over the reins in steering the direction the company took with the characters/plotlines. Hence Rebirth and DC’s apparent determination to get all of the classic couples together again and have them be in (more or less) happy and healthy relationships.

HalBarry- We’ll Meet Again

((this was based off a HalBarry rp I did where i literally changed my name on Chatzy to ‘little Hal Jordan’ and Barry went awwwwwwww.... Also I am some what going with time period from the horrid GL 2011 movie))

Summer-1993 

Even two months after his father’s death, Hal Jordan was still not used to the fact that his father died in a plane accident. The young 13 yr old brunette had turned into sort of a teenage angst kid. Never listening to his mom. His grades started dropping. It was almost as like loosing his father, who Hal looked up to, was his role model. In fact, it was his dream to become a pilot like his dad. Now that dream was slowly fading, until the day he met.......him. 

His mother, saw that change in him and decided it was best for her and the boys to take time away from their home in Coast City. Walking into the hotel in Central City, Hal with his hand stuffed in his father’s jacket, which he wore everyday, and lugging his suitcase around like it was bag of rocks he was carrying. Sighing at the fact that this was suppose to be a ‘family get away trip’ but in reality it was a trip for Hal to feel better, which didn’t really help. 

“Stop it!” Jim cried as his older brother Jack was picking on him. “MOM!” 

Their mom, who was standing at the front desk checking in, told the lady hold on a minute. “Hal honey can you stop your brothers from hurting each other?” She gave him a quick glance. 

At first he didn’t want to but his mom’s ‘go do it for me’ look was getting to him. “fine.” 

“thank you dear.” Then she went back to checking in. 

Hal slugged his way over to where his brothers were in the sitting area seeing Jack was running around playing keep away and being chased by Jim. “Give it back it’s mine!” 

Jack was holding a Green Lantern figurine that their dad had given Jim. “um....No.” Jack stated. “here Hal think fast.” 

He quickly caught the figurine studying the design of it carefully before Jim snatched it from his hand then running over to his mom. Hal looked up at his brother who gave him an expression that meant ‘really?’

His older brother crossed his arms. “Keep away means don’t let him have it back,” he said walking over to his mother nudging Hal’s shoulder as he passed him. 

Hal shrugged but he couldn’t stop thinking about the figurine. He remembered when Jim got it from his dad a couple of years ago for his birthday. It had been his father’s toy growing up because Green Lantern was the protector of Earth and was his favorite superhero. Still thinking about it as he made his way following his family to the room on the 2nd floor. 

After throwing his stuff onto his claimed bed he sat there holding his father’s air force dog tag. “Something the matter, Hal?” he mother asked as she  came into the living room ((suite style hotel room)). 

He snapped out of it. “yeah.....” he said a little bit plainly looking up to meet his mother’s gaze. 

“oh alright,” she said smiling. “so Jack and I have agreed on sleeping arrangements.”

Hal put his head back down thinking as his mother told him that he was gonna sleep on the sofa bed with Jim and  she and Jack was sleeping in the twin beds in the bedroom. He didn’t mind sharing a bed with his brother but what bugged him was no on was noticing his emotional pain. It was weird, being on vacation with out his dad showing him cool things. The fact of him not here was just too much that at any given moment Hal could explode in tears but he remembered his father telling him something night before his plane crashed. The words “It’s my job not to be scared” haunted him, but at the same time he was scared. 

“Hal honey are you listening?” he mother kept repeating. “Hal?”

He balled his fists and looked up at his mom. “How can we be on vacation!” 

His mother raised an eyebrow and his brothers looked at Hal. All three wondering why the sudden outburst. “Hal calm down.” 

“yeah Hal what’s the big deal?” Jack said making his way over to sit next to him. “its just a vacation, bro.”

Hal looked at them with this frustrated look on his face. “no its not just a vacation!” 

“what are you saying Hal?” his mother asked trying to calm him down. 

He stood up frustrated and making a fist with his hands. “How can it be a vacation without dad!” glaring at everyone, who were still in shocked by his frustration. 

No answer from them. 

“How can we have a vacation and have fun without dad!” he continued to rant. 

“Now Hal i understand that you are still upset and so are we.” His mother calmly putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “But we-”

She was immediately cut off by Hal who threw her hand off his shoulder and his mom was offended that he even do that. “No you don’t get it! You all act like dad’s death is just something that we can forget and go on vacation for!” 

His mother crossed his arms and told the other two boys to go into the bedroom and wait. After watching them leave and hearing the sound of Scooby Do Where Are You? turn on she immediately turn her gaze back to Hal who was staring at her. 

“Hal I don’t know where this is coming from but it needs to stop,” she told him in a serious tone that meant trouble if he didn’t stop. 

He didn’t stop, however, instead Hal kept on ranting with his mother getting more frustrated and irritated by every word that came from the thirteen year old’s mouth. Eventually, Hal took off leaving his mother flabbergasted and appalled that he would take off like that. She picked up the phone, but then deciding that he would come back after cooling off. Putting the receiver back down and walking into the bedroom sighing as she fell back into the chair just in time to listen to the Scooby Doo gang to reveal the villain. Jim, being an 9 year old, saw how upset his mom was and immediately responded with giving her hug. 

“Mom is Hal going to be alright?” he asked burying his face into her shirt. 

She sighed. “I think so he just need to cool off, but he’ll be back.” She kissed his head and all three of them continued to watch the Scooby Doo marathon. 

Hal walked down the sidewalk of the unfamiliar city of Central listening to his walkman CD player with his hands stuffed in his jacket. Looking at the ground as he walked kicking a beer can onto the street wondering if he should go back and apology. Shaking his head and coming to the conclusion of they just don’t understand his pain. He loved his father. He was the coolest dad ever. His father always let him skip school to let him watch him pilot and he always gave him model airplanes when ever he piloted a new plane. He missed him so much. Sighing at what his dad looked like, he accidentally bumped into some one. Falling back a little and looking up at the stranger as he rubbed his head.mumbling the word ow.

“You okay?” the stranger asked in a voice that was almost music but nerd like. In the dim light of the street lamp, Hal cold make out the features of the man’s face. His blue eyes reminded him of a clear sky. 

“yeah I am fine,” he said regaining his posture. Hal was beginning to notice the blonde stranger staring at him which made him feel uncomfortable. Oh god what if it was weirdo child catcher? He hoped not. Hal looked up and down him as he continued to stare. “well Mister I gotta go.” 

He quickly walked past him, and seeing that the stranger was still watching him. Hal made a B-line by running to the corner where he got one last look at the stranger. 

“what a weirdo.” 

He started walking again and looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed which he wasn’t. But by doing so, he was unaware of some one grabbing him in front. The arm quickly grabbed him pulling him into the ally way by surprise. 

“HEY LET GO OF ME!” he hoped it wasn’t the blonde weirdo from before. Turning his head and completely terrified he thanked the god because it wasn’t the other person. Instead it was a grungy looking man with a bandanna around his head and tattoo of a lady with a name on it. Must be a lover or an ex-girlfriend. 

“come on kid stop whining or we’ll have to gag you,” another man said coming from the shadows behind the dumpster. 

“NO LET ME GO. HELP ME! SOME ONE HELP!” he cried just before being his mouth was covered by one of their hands. 

“Shut up kid!” 

The blonde stranger, who was not too far away, heard the cry for help. Barry immediately ran to the cry for help and was appalled that some one would try to kidnap an innocent kid. Although, him being part of the CCPD, he’d seen it all the time. The speedster’s usual instinct would be to put on the scarlet spandex suit and go Flash mode but he considered that fact that this was not his time zone and that he didn’t want another Flash in 1993. No instead he went with the old fashion way. Punching the thug, who was trying to keep Hal from getting away, square in the jaw sending him flying back into a pile of boxes. At that moment, Hal bit the hand covering his mouth and immediately fell to the ground, while Barry send him flying into the dumpster. 

Hal layed on the ground a little scrape on his hand from hitting the pavement and watching the stranger beat the thugs up. At the end, the thugs ran away and hoping that the Flash wouldn’t catch them next. 

“Yeah you better run!” Barry yelled almost pleased with himself for taking care of them with out super speed. He smirked and then noticed the kid on the ground. kneeling beside him and giving him a friendly smile to let him know he wasn’t gonna hurt him. “You alright there, kid?”

He swallowed thickly and nodded. “I think so.” looking at his scraped hands and then looking at the blonde stranger who know looked familiar. 

“good,” he said. There was that stare again and Hal felt uncomfortable. 

“um....Thank you,” he said getting up and dusting himself off. “Well....I have to go.”

Barry looked at him wide eyed. “Kid i am not gonna let you just go walking by yourself after what happened.” he said a little obligated to make sure he got home safely. 

Hal crossed his arms and glared. “First off I am a teenager and my name is not ‘kid’ it’s Hal.” he stated. “And second, I can take care of myself.” 

Barry finally realized why he was staring, this was Hal. Hal Jordan. His boyfriend. His 37 year old boyfriend. oh God this was awkward but he knew that he couldn’t hint about being from the future. “listen Hal. I am sure you can take care of yourself, but this is a dangerous part of Central City. I am not about to let a kid or teenager or anyone get hurt by people. you understand?”

He sighed. “I guess so.” At the moment, he didn’t realize he had forgotten about dinner. 

Barry smiled and patted Hal’s back just before hearing his stomach growl. “You okay with me buying you dinner?” he asked hoping, Hal wouldn’t see this as some threat. 

“sure since I don’t wanna go home.” he shrugged. 

“alright then.” 

Together, they started making their way back towards the sidewalk. Barry knew this part of town from having arrested criminals as the Scarlet Speedster plenty of times to know that a diner was not too far. He didn’t bother to ask if Hal liked hamburgers from having multiple dates with him it was like hamburgers were Hal’s favorite meal. They walked side by side in silence until Hal looked up at him trying to figure out why he saved him and who he was. 

“So you have name?” Hal asked kicking the same can again but this time into the sewer. 

hm. Barry looked down at him and saw Hal’s brown eyes clearly in the light of the lamp. “Barry.” he said. “Barry Allen.” 

Hal stopped for moment and pondered where he heard the name Allen from before walking into the diner. The older man, grabbed a booth. Hal sat across from and him and they were immediately greeted by the waitress. They both began looking over the menu but Barry already knew what he wanted so he put the menu down on the table. After ordering, Barry began to question Hal.

 “so what were you doing out here by yourself anyways, Hal?” he asked taking a sip of his rootbeer, which had a different taste than the rootbeer from his time period. 

he looked up as he slurped his chocolate milkshake. “oh no reason.” 

Barry always could tell when Hal lied from the slight smile and his small dimples appearing  when he did lie. He still found it cute even if Hal was 13 years old. “Hal  I am not an idiot so come on tell me what you were up to.” Barry glared a little which always worked on future Hal. 

The glare was hard to resist and so he sighed putting his milkshake glass on the table. “I needed to get away from my obnoxious family, okay.” he started to get irritated again.

“Why? What happened?” Barry asked when the waitress put their hamburgers on the table in front of them. 

The teen, automatically started eating the hamburger savoring the juciness of the meat. It was the best thing he’d ever eaten and he gave no answer to Barry’s question. 

“Barry is it,” he said swallowing the meat putting the burger down to take another sip of milkshake. “Who are you anyways? Because you look familiar.” 

Barry wondered how he could look familiar to Hal when they won’t meet for another several years at Mount Justice. He raised an eyebrow as he ate quickly due to his increased appetite. 

“why do you say that? We never met.” 

“well I don’t know...” Hal finished his burger and moved onto dipping fries in the ketchup. Eating the french fries as he thought. Barry looking at him quite intrigued as to where Hal had seen him before. “I know where I’ve heard your name.”

He looked up taking another sip of the soft drink.

“I remember watching the Coast City Channel 4 Action news with my dad,” he started to say and eating another french fry. “There was a news report about a doctor.....oh I can’t remember his name.” He thought hard trying to remember.

“Was his name Henry Allen?” Barry asked a little surprised that Hal put that together quickly but then again Hal wasn’t stupid either. 

“Yeah it was,” he said. “Is Henry a relative of yours?” 

They bother finished their meal and were leaning back to digest the food they ate. Barry couldn’t wait to get back to his Hal Jordan and have a nice juicy hamburger with him. The blonde looked at Hal. “um.....distant cousin.” 

Yeah distant cousin let’s go with that. Hal will believe that. 

“oh.” was Hal’s response. 

The waitress came bringing them the check and clearing the table. She joked at how quickly, the teenager ate. “Your son has quite an appetite,” she smiled. 

. “um yeah.”  Barry giggled a little. 

After she left, they both laughed so hard at her comment of Hal being Barry’s son. Then Hal gasped and began to frantically look at his chest. 

“what is something wrong?” Barry said looking up from looking over the check. 

No answer. Hal got up in heart beat and started searching around the table. “It’s gone.” he kept repeating and Barry repeating his answer of ‘what’s gone?’

Before anyone could realize it, Hal was running out the door back towards the ally way. “Hey wait Hal!” 

Barry quickly payed and then ran after him trying not to used superspeed but ended up using it anyways. Luckily vine and snapchat hadn’t been invented yet so no one could record a a blonde flash running by. Back in the ally way, Hal was searching in the dark for his necklace. 

“oh come on where is it.” he said on his hands in knees searching. 

The scarlet speedster made it to the ally in less in a second. “Hal what are you searching for?” he asked walking over to him and kneeling on the ground next to him.

“My dad’s necklace it must’ve fallen off when I was trying to get away,” he said searching near the dumpster where he fell. 

Barry stood up again and was going to regret doing this. He pulled his iphone out and turned the flashlight on. It’s bright light, scared Hal a little. “use this.” handing him the phone which Hal looked at carefully trying to understand what it was.

“is this a cell phone?” he asked never seeing one like this. Snapping out of it and using it to find his necklace. 

Barry stood there watching and remembering the story about Hal’s father dying in the plane crash and he understood why the dog tags were important to him. Even in the future, Hal wore dog tags. One for his current membership to the Airforce and the other is the one his father wore. He never took it off. Not even for showers. Understand, what Hal was going through, he didn’t question the importance as he watched. 

“Ha found it,” he happily said standing up with the Iphone in one hand as he put the necklace back around his neck. 

He then tried to figure out how to turn the light off by pushing the button at the bottom of the phone. The lock screen showed a picture of Barry kissing a man who looked like Hal except older. The brunette had the same hair color. Same eyes. same skin tone and same..........dog tags. He stood there staring at the look alike of himself and Barry wishing he hadn’t given him the phone because now he had to explain. This was not going to be easy. 

Hal handed it back to him. “who is that on the screen with you?” he asked looking Barry directly at him with the same look that he gets from future Hal when he wants something. This look was not something you could escape from.

Barry sighed after Hal really started to glare at him. “He’s my boyfriend.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “okay but why does he look like me and has my dog tags?” 

oh great here it comes. He really hope this won’t change the future anymore than what Barry had done from going back in time before. “Because he’s you.....” Barry pursed his lips waiting to hear some big reaction from the younger Hal Jordan. 

Instead of exploding with a million batrillion questions Hal simply remained calm. “Are you saying that you’re from the future?” he asked trying to make sense of things. 

Barry nodded. “yeah....” he was surprised by the kid’s calmness. Most people would be bamboozled by meeting some one from the future but then again Hal was always calm about things. He would have to be since he would become apart of a secret Alien organization from outer space known as the Green Lantern Corps. 

Hal really didn’t ask anymore questions other than. “How come you didn’t make me go home?” 

Barry knelt on the pavement putting a hand on Hal’s chocolate brown hair. “because I know exactly what you’re going through.” smiling at him. 

“You do?” he asked tilting his head as he looked at him. 

“course....” Just then Barry Allen started to fade into a portal that opened behind him which was vibing him back into his own time. 

“wait don’t leave...” Hal cried out to him. 

“Hey don’t worry we’ll meet again,” he said. “just remember that what you’re going through is when you need family and friends most. losing some one dear to you is not easy but casting away the ones who are here is more difficult because they are the ones who love you. Your dad is still here in your heart Hal.” 

Then he was gone like that leaving Hal alone to think about and with that he smiled for the first time in months. “Thank you Barry,” he said still smiling. 

The smiling teen started walking back to the hotel and up ahead were  flashing lights of blue and red. He ran across the street join the crowd of people. once he was among the spectators watching a man being arrested and a body bag being carried out, he put it all the together and thought best to not ask what happened. As he left he saw, blonde boy sitting on the back of the ambulance truck crying with a blanket around him. Hal felt bad and walked over to him putting a hand on his knee. 

“its okay,” he said trying to cheer him up. 

The boy looked up with tear filled blue as that reminded Hal of the sky.  He didn’t say anything and watch the brunette sit beside him on the edge of the truck. 

“I lost some one too recently.” clutching the dog tags that hung around his neck and looking up at the stars. 

“you did?” he asked shivering through his crying. 

“Yeah I did,” he said. “but who ever you lost they are still with you.” pointing to the other kid’s heart. “they’re in your heart.” 

At that the blonde kid smiled a little at his words and started to calm down. “My name is Barry.” wiping his tears away with the back of his hand. 

“I’m Hal.”

Present Day. Summer 2017

Hal was eating left over Chinese food and drinking a beer when Barry came home. The Scarlet speedster was dressed in the same clothes from yesterday but that never bothered Hal. As soon as Hal saw him, he immediately swooped his boyfriend into a hug. Hugging him as if he had just came home from a long vacation to god knows where. 

Barry hugged back enjoying the hug and but surprised by it. “Great to see you, honey.” he patted the taller brunette’s head before breaking the hug. Nothing changed? good. Barry sighed in relief. 

He smirked and kissed Barry who gladly kissed back. 

“Barry?” he said putting his arms around his boyfriend and looking into the other’s blue eyes with his brown eyes. 

“hm?” Barry leaned his head against Hal’s chest embracing the warmth of his body. 

“I never thanked you for the burger you bought me....” he said which the thought just came out of no where. 

The blonde speedster looked up at him and just smiled at him before going back to lean on his chest. “You’re welcome Hal....”

“I am glad we met again.” 

“Me too.” 

The End 

((hope you all enjoyed that and the only thing that was changed by Barry going back in time was how he met Hal. Who knows why Barry went back in time. I will leave you to make up your own reason.))

Caffeine Quotes

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• A 3K word story might well be done in some caffeine-and-nicotine-fuelled 36 hour session, and at the end of it, there’ll be a few passes of editing required, but I basically have a polished draft. – Hal Duncan • Actually caffeine is too hard on my system. I’m a delicate boy from Plano, Texas. – John Benjamin Hickey • Always drink at least 8 ounces of water or a sugar-free decaffeinated beverage with every meal or snack. If you are a heavy caffeine user, gradually reduce caffeine intake to zero whenever possible. – Barry Sears • Americans are used to being pandered to and spoon-fed everything. In a culture that needs caffeine-free cherry chocolate diet Coke, you’d best deliver information with entertainment. – Bill Maher • Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence. – Anne Fadiman

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Caffeine', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_caffeine').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_caffeine img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Band of Skulls is joining Cage the Elephant as my new musical caffeine. • By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry. – Brandon Sanderson • Caffeine dehydrates the body and speeds up the aging of the skin and kidneys. – Ann Louise Gittleman • Caffeine dehydrates the brain and body. – Daniel Amen • Caffeine gives me hope. Sometimes, when I brew my wicked strong Irish black tea just perfect, about halfway through the mug I feel a clear and overwhelming feeling of optimism. It didn’t surprise me when a study a few years ago implied that suicide was much less likely among coffee and tea drinkers. – John Vanderslice • Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation. – Patrick Rothfuss • Caffeine is like a really attractive girl that has nothing to say. You get all jacked up on it and then you’re left feeling hollow and empty. – Adam Levine • Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze. It maketh me to wake in green pastures: It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses. It restoreth my buzz. – Bob Phillips • Caffeine. The gateway drug. – Eddie Vedder • Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair. And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice – Wallace Stevens • Couldn’t start the morning without caffeine. – Ginnifer Goodwin • Diet Coke does not contain nasty chemicals. It contains lovely and delicious carbonation, caffeine, and aspartame. What’s unnatural about that? – Meg Cabot • Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline – with a little help from caffeine. – Annie Dillard • Drink it,” I told her. “It’s good for what ails you. Caffeine and sugar. I don’t drink it, so I ran over to your house and stole the expensive stuff in your freezer. It shouldn’t be that bad. Samuel told me to make it strong and pour sugar into it. It should taste sort of like bitter syrup.” She gave me a smile smile, then a bigger one, and plugged her nose before she drank it down in one gulp. “Next time,” she said in a hoarse voice, “I make the coffee. – Patricia Briggs • Either the kid was naturally hyper or he was hopped up on enough caffeine to give a heart attack to a water buffalo. – Rick Riordan • Fitness has always been a big part of my life, so I train twice a day, every day, as I always have done, but also eating very healthfully. I don’t eat sugar, I don’t have caffeine, I don’t eat wheat – I look after my body outside and inside. It’s just a part of who I’ve always been. – Neil Jackson • For a successful strategy session, keep the food light, the lights bright, and drink caffeine all night. – Mike Brown • For me, if I get up and don’t meditate and don’t eat something before having caffeine, I go from 0 to 10 on the stress scale. – Gabrielle Bernstein • Heaven knows that alcohol is the worst thing in the world, but it’s debatable whether cocaine is worse than caffeine or whether it’s the same thing and they just changed the name. – Merle Haggard • I am running on fumes, so it’s time to get centered again. I start with eating healthier and cutting out caffeine – at least cutting back on caffeine. I exercise and get outside to play. I reconnect with my spiritual practice, which is daily meditation and prayer. Most importantly, I reconnect with my family and friends. If all else fails, a few deep breaths. – Amber Valletta • I can’t wake up at all without caffeine. – Andrew Rannells • I don’t have the time to devote to circles or covens. I have to fit things in when and where I can, in stolen moments and cups of coffee. Stirring clockwise to conjure. Widdershins to banish. There’s never enough time, and rarely enough caffeine, but I make do with what I have. Besides, cauldrons and pointy hats are overrated. Sometimes I see other customers practicing. Pouring their cream and sugar with studied intent. Stirring with purpose. I add an extra spoonful of sugar to my own coffee for them, to make all of our enchantments sweeter. – Erin Morgenstern • I don’t have hardly any caffeine, I don’t drink alcohol and I watch my red meat intake. My diet at the minute seems to be verging towards the vegetarian, which is surprising me because I tend to just listen to what my body is fancying. – Jayne Middlemiss • I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen. – Gary Larson • I don’t usually drink caffeine so that when I need it, it actually does something. – Anna Kendrick • I drink booze, I smoke, and I’m hooked on caffeine. I actually have been known to swear at times and belch and even raise my voice when provoked. And I’m not physically repressed! – Helena Bonham Carter • i drink caffeine” she said calmly “lot’s of it gives you pep – Ally Carter • I drink mate every day during training camp, and just in general. It’s packed full of vitamins and nutrients and a lot of B vitamins that you would normally get from meat. The caffeine in there affects me less and it’s more like a stimulant. I can drink more of it and it’s hydrating as well. It’s one of my favorite drinks, especially on a cold morning. – Chris Algieri • I love cranberry juice, but I’m not a coffee drinker – as a Mormon, I avoid caffeine. – Donny Osmond • I love Starbucks. Maybe thats a bit sad. But I definitely need my caffeine. Its what gets me out of bed in the morning. – Nikki Sixx • I ordered a soda – caffeine-free, low sodium, no artificial flavors. They brought me a glass of water. – Robert E. Murray • I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. – Anne Lamott • I take them 8 to 80, dumb, crippled, and crazy. Crisp and clean with no caffeine, and a pair of spandex or either tight jeans. – Big Daddy Kane • I think I’ve reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level. – Alastair Reynolds • I try to stay sane and grounded by hunkering down, eating right, and exercising. I make a routine of spin class, yoga, and Pilates, places I push my body so hard I can lose my mind. Cutting out caffeine and sugar, being mindful, and getting enough rest are important. – Jaime Murray • I used to drink tons of caffeine. Now I make smoothies with frozen berries and Green Vibrance health powder. – Leighton Meester • I used to smoke cigarettes, ten a day, but gave up when I was 28. Now my vice is several cups of coffee a day, which isn’t great if you’re prone to weak bones as I am, as caffeine can leach calcium. – Britt Ekland • I want vasopressin, washed caffeine, Jumpstart, ginkgo biloba, guarana, and any intelligence enhancer introduced in the last five years. – Warren Ellis • I would drink gallons of coffee a day. Even now, off caffeine, I talk faster than anyone you’ve ever met. I finally recognized that I’m naturally amped up. But when I quit I was worried that I would never write again. It was like anyone who’s kicked a habit. I was in a blanket shivering, trying to kick the horse. – Nathan Englander • I would love to think there is a direct relationship between coffee and genius, but they’ve done studies, and if anything, caffeine probably makes you a little less creative. – Eric Weiner • I’d listen to things that felt really good in the moment and realize they were clouded by enthusiasm or caffeine. And things that I was struggling to get out ended up being really compelling. It’s an emotional roller coaster; there’s exhilaration and there’s shame. – Annie E. Clark • If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they’d have to bring out the tanks to control you. – Dick Gregory • If you want to have a nonmiraculous day, I suggest that newspaper and caffeine form the crux of your morning regimen. Listen to the morning news while you’re in the shower, read the headlines as you are walking out the door, make sure you’re keeping tabs on everything: the wars, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters. . . But if you want the day ahead to be full of miracles, then spend some time each morning with God. – Marianne Williamson • If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in. – Bill Hicks • I’m a really skinny guy, I’m real tall, and I have a very high metabolism, so if I drink anything with caffeine in it, it makes me have an anxiety attack. So I can’t do coffee, or cola, or coffee ice cream, or any of those things. They make me feel like I’m going berserk. – Mark Hosler • I’m active even on bad days; it’s tough to pin me down. People ask me if I’m a morning or night person. I’m an all-the-time person. I like drinking coffee, but I do it with lots of milk because my energy levels are high even without caffeine. You could call me Obelix, except I don’t have a belly. – Bipasha Basu • Interesting choice,” Sullivan said. He slid his gaze over to Paul, who was drumming his fingers on the table in a manic, caffeine-inspired way and blinking a lot. Paul wasn’t out-and-out singing along with the king of the dead, but he might as well have put out a big neon sign saying “How’s My Driving? Ask Me About My Nerves: 1-800-WIG-N-OUT.” –James – Maggie Stiefvater • Is my music indicative of a caffeine-surged green liquid? Probably not. – Alan Palomo • It’s all I have left in my life, caffeine and a poodle. – Brad Garrett • It’s the fine balance of caffeine and alcohol that bookends my days – Tim Minchin • Marijuana is not not harmful, but is the least harmful psychoactive substance that we have, with the possible exception of caffeine. – Maia Szalavitz • My major vice is sarcasm with a side of caffeine addiction. – Rosemary Clement-Moore • Never drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because that’s what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think they’re clever but are really acting stupid. – Paris Hilton • Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Dr Pepper is my caffeine delivery system of choice. – Steven Soderbergh • Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn’t want me to die of caffeine overdose. – Steven Soderbergh • One of the things that’s interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they’re putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I’m about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down. – Nicolas Cage • People often say that writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. This is nonsense, of course. It’s pretty much one hundred percent caffeine. – Caprice Crane • Rebus was eating breakfast in the canteen and wishing there was more caffeine in the coffee, or more coffee in the coffee come to that. – Ian Rankin • Recently I quit caffeine. My doctor seems to think that 17 Diet Cokes per day is too much. In case you ever consider getting off caffeine yourself, let me explain the process. You begin by sitting motionlessly in a desk chair. Then you just keep doing that forever because life has no meaning. – Scott Adams • Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project. – Daniel H. Pink • Settle down, pup. I ain’t had my caffeine yet.” – Sundown – Sherrilyn Kenyon • Sleep is just a good idea. I bow to the god caffeine. – Jo-Ann Mapson • Sleep is just a symptom of caffeine lack – Herman Friele • Sleep: a poor substitute for caffeine! – Wallace Shawn • So I forcibly shove aside my prickles of pissed-off, which is easier than it sounds when millions of little sequined caffeine dancers are doing their big Broadway number on your internal stage. – Deb Caletti • Sometimes you have good days, and sometimes you have bad days. It really depends on how much caffeine you’ve had. – Chris Colfer • Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, ‘Jesus! This cup is expensive!’ – Conan O’Brien • Stop,” I said. “Please do not further endorken yourself to me. You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills, so do not sully your heroic hottie image in my mind by further reciting your nerdy scholastic agenda. Don’t tell me what you’re studying, Steve, tell me what’s in your soul. What haunts you?” And he was like, “Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine. – Christopher Moore • Sugar and caffeine. My willpower crumbled. – Rick Riordan • Tai chi is the one exercise that can universally help solve our growing health crisis. It has stood the test of thousands of years. We have a generation of baby boomers with increasing health problems; old people who are sick, in pain, fearful, and cranky; a middle class that is increasingly incapable of affording most of the drugs that are prescribed for their ailments; children that are flaccid, diabetic and asthmatic. People of all ages are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sugar, cigarettes, and caffeine. Stress follows almost everyone like a shadow. – Bruce Frantzis • There are a couple of homeopathic things that can be done, but you can’t really beat good rest and lots of water. That’s the honest truth. Making sure I’m well-rested and hydrated makes a big difference. Warm water and honey is a go-to, I don’t really drink tea unless it’s absolutely organic, because otherwise the caffeine will dry my voice out for some reason. – Miguel • There are two things that I cannot live without: music and books. Caffeine isn’t dignified enough to qualify. – Carlos Ruiz Zafon • There is no such thing as sleep deprivation, there is only caffeine deficiency. – Richard Simmons • This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder. – Honore de Balzac • Those fruity drinks better have a lot of caffeine in them or I’ll never make it through World Issues. – Lisi Harrison • To develop intuition, one of the things you can do is pay attention to what you eat. Eat as clean a diet as you can. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables without preservatives, without alcohol, caffeine, dyes, and organically grown if possible. But do what is comfortable for your. Don’t try to shift into a lifestyle that doesn’t fit, but be aware that the lighter you eat the lighter you will feel. – Gary Zukav • We have too many poisons in our diets now, like sugar and caffeine. – Jasmine Guinness • We’re machines for turning caffeine into physics – Nima Arkani-Hamed • Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century. – Greg Egan • You can never have too much coffee”, I said He turned and smiled at me. “You think so, but the rest of us get a little OD’ed on your level of caffeine. – Laurell K. Hamilton

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Caffeine Quotes

Official Website: Caffeine Quotes

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• A 3K word story might well be done in some caffeine-and-nicotine-fuelled 36 hour session, and at the end of it, there’ll be a few passes of editing required, but I basically have a polished draft. – Hal Duncan • Actually caffeine is too hard on my system. I’m a delicate boy from Plano, Texas. – John Benjamin Hickey • Always drink at least 8 ounces of water or a sugar-free decaffeinated beverage with every meal or snack. If you are a heavy caffeine user, gradually reduce caffeine intake to zero whenever possible. – Barry Sears • Americans are used to being pandered to and spoon-fed everything. In a culture that needs caffeine-free cherry chocolate diet Coke, you’d best deliver information with entertainment. – Bill Maher • Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence. – Anne Fadiman

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Caffeine', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_caffeine').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_caffeine img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Band of Skulls is joining Cage the Elephant as my new musical caffeine. • By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry. – Brandon Sanderson • Caffeine dehydrates the body and speeds up the aging of the skin and kidneys. – Ann Louise Gittleman • Caffeine dehydrates the brain and body. – Daniel Amen • Caffeine gives me hope. Sometimes, when I brew my wicked strong Irish black tea just perfect, about halfway through the mug I feel a clear and overwhelming feeling of optimism. It didn’t surprise me when a study a few years ago implied that suicide was much less likely among coffee and tea drinkers. – John Vanderslice • Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation. – Patrick Rothfuss • Caffeine is like a really attractive girl that has nothing to say. You get all jacked up on it and then you’re left feeling hollow and empty. – Adam Levine • Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze. It maketh me to wake in green pastures: It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses. It restoreth my buzz. – Bob Phillips • Caffeine. The gateway drug. – Eddie Vedder • Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair. And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice – Wallace Stevens • Couldn’t start the morning without caffeine. – Ginnifer Goodwin • Diet Coke does not contain nasty chemicals. It contains lovely and delicious carbonation, caffeine, and aspartame. What’s unnatural about that? – Meg Cabot • Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline – with a little help from caffeine. – Annie Dillard • Drink it,” I told her. “It’s good for what ails you. Caffeine and sugar. I don’t drink it, so I ran over to your house and stole the expensive stuff in your freezer. It shouldn’t be that bad. Samuel told me to make it strong and pour sugar into it. It should taste sort of like bitter syrup.” She gave me a smile smile, then a bigger one, and plugged her nose before she drank it down in one gulp. “Next time,” she said in a hoarse voice, “I make the coffee. – Patricia Briggs • Either the kid was naturally hyper or he was hopped up on enough caffeine to give a heart attack to a water buffalo. – Rick Riordan • Fitness has always been a big part of my life, so I train twice a day, every day, as I always have done, but also eating very healthfully. I don’t eat sugar, I don’t have caffeine, I don’t eat wheat – I look after my body outside and inside. It’s just a part of who I’ve always been. – Neil Jackson • For a successful strategy session, keep the food light, the lights bright, and drink caffeine all night. – Mike Brown • For me, if I get up and don’t meditate and don’t eat something before having caffeine, I go from 0 to 10 on the stress scale. – Gabrielle Bernstein • Heaven knows that alcohol is the worst thing in the world, but it’s debatable whether cocaine is worse than caffeine or whether it’s the same thing and they just changed the name. – Merle Haggard • I am running on fumes, so it’s time to get centered again. I start with eating healthier and cutting out caffeine – at least cutting back on caffeine. I exercise and get outside to play. I reconnect with my spiritual practice, which is daily meditation and prayer. Most importantly, I reconnect with my family and friends. If all else fails, a few deep breaths. – Amber Valletta • I can’t wake up at all without caffeine. – Andrew Rannells • I don’t have the time to devote to circles or covens. I have to fit things in when and where I can, in stolen moments and cups of coffee. Stirring clockwise to conjure. Widdershins to banish. There’s never enough time, and rarely enough caffeine, but I make do with what I have. Besides, cauldrons and pointy hats are overrated. Sometimes I see other customers practicing. Pouring their cream and sugar with studied intent. Stirring with purpose. I add an extra spoonful of sugar to my own coffee for them, to make all of our enchantments sweeter. – Erin Morgenstern • I don’t have hardly any caffeine, I don’t drink alcohol and I watch my red meat intake. My diet at the minute seems to be verging towards the vegetarian, which is surprising me because I tend to just listen to what my body is fancying. – Jayne Middlemiss • I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen. – Gary Larson • I don’t usually drink caffeine so that when I need it, it actually does something. – Anna Kendrick • I drink booze, I smoke, and I’m hooked on caffeine. I actually have been known to swear at times and belch and even raise my voice when provoked. And I’m not physically repressed! – Helena Bonham Carter • i drink caffeine” she said calmly “lot’s of it gives you pep – Ally Carter • I drink mate every day during training camp, and just in general. It’s packed full of vitamins and nutrients and a lot of B vitamins that you would normally get from meat. The caffeine in there affects me less and it’s more like a stimulant. I can drink more of it and it’s hydrating as well. It’s one of my favorite drinks, especially on a cold morning. – Chris Algieri • I love cranberry juice, but I’m not a coffee drinker – as a Mormon, I avoid caffeine. – Donny Osmond • I love Starbucks. Maybe thats a bit sad. But I definitely need my caffeine. Its what gets me out of bed in the morning. – Nikki Sixx • I ordered a soda – caffeine-free, low sodium, no artificial flavors. They brought me a glass of water. – Robert E. Murray • I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. – Anne Lamott • I take them 8 to 80, dumb, crippled, and crazy. Crisp and clean with no caffeine, and a pair of spandex or either tight jeans. – Big Daddy Kane • I think I’ve reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level. – Alastair Reynolds • I try to stay sane and grounded by hunkering down, eating right, and exercising. I make a routine of spin class, yoga, and Pilates, places I push my body so hard I can lose my mind. Cutting out caffeine and sugar, being mindful, and getting enough rest are important. – Jaime Murray • I used to drink tons of caffeine. Now I make smoothies with frozen berries and Green Vibrance health powder. – Leighton Meester • I used to smoke cigarettes, ten a day, but gave up when I was 28. Now my vice is several cups of coffee a day, which isn’t great if you’re prone to weak bones as I am, as caffeine can leach calcium. – Britt Ekland • I want vasopressin, washed caffeine, Jumpstart, ginkgo biloba, guarana, and any intelligence enhancer introduced in the last five years. – Warren Ellis • I would drink gallons of coffee a day. Even now, off caffeine, I talk faster than anyone you’ve ever met. I finally recognized that I’m naturally amped up. But when I quit I was worried that I would never write again. It was like anyone who’s kicked a habit. I was in a blanket shivering, trying to kick the horse. – Nathan Englander • I would love to think there is a direct relationship between coffee and genius, but they’ve done studies, and if anything, caffeine probably makes you a little less creative. – Eric Weiner • I’d listen to things that felt really good in the moment and realize they were clouded by enthusiasm or caffeine. And things that I was struggling to get out ended up being really compelling. It’s an emotional roller coaster; there’s exhilaration and there’s shame. – Annie E. Clark • If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they’d have to bring out the tanks to control you. – Dick Gregory • If you want to have a nonmiraculous day, I suggest that newspaper and caffeine form the crux of your morning regimen. Listen to the morning news while you’re in the shower, read the headlines as you are walking out the door, make sure you’re keeping tabs on everything: the wars, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters. . . But if you want the day ahead to be full of miracles, then spend some time each morning with God. – Marianne Williamson • If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in. – Bill Hicks • I’m a really skinny guy, I’m real tall, and I have a very high metabolism, so if I drink anything with caffeine in it, it makes me have an anxiety attack. So I can’t do coffee, or cola, or coffee ice cream, or any of those things. They make me feel like I’m going berserk. – Mark Hosler • I’m active even on bad days; it’s tough to pin me down. People ask me if I’m a morning or night person. I’m an all-the-time person. I like drinking coffee, but I do it with lots of milk because my energy levels are high even without caffeine. You could call me Obelix, except I don’t have a belly. – Bipasha Basu • Interesting choice,” Sullivan said. He slid his gaze over to Paul, who was drumming his fingers on the table in a manic, caffeine-inspired way and blinking a lot. Paul wasn’t out-and-out singing along with the king of the dead, but he might as well have put out a big neon sign saying “How’s My Driving? Ask Me About My Nerves: 1-800-WIG-N-OUT.” –James – Maggie Stiefvater • Is my music indicative of a caffeine-surged green liquid? Probably not. – Alan Palomo • It’s all I have left in my life, caffeine and a poodle. – Brad Garrett • It’s the fine balance of caffeine and alcohol that bookends my days – Tim Minchin • Marijuana is not not harmful, but is the least harmful psychoactive substance that we have, with the possible exception of caffeine. – Maia Szalavitz • My major vice is sarcasm with a side of caffeine addiction. – Rosemary Clement-Moore • Never drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because that’s what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think they’re clever but are really acting stupid. – Paris Hilton • Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Dr Pepper is my caffeine delivery system of choice. – Steven Soderbergh • Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn’t want me to die of caffeine overdose. – Steven Soderbergh • One of the things that’s interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they’re putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I’m about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down. – Nicolas Cage • People often say that writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. This is nonsense, of course. It’s pretty much one hundred percent caffeine. – Caprice Crane • Rebus was eating breakfast in the canteen and wishing there was more caffeine in the coffee, or more coffee in the coffee come to that. – Ian Rankin • Recently I quit caffeine. My doctor seems to think that 17 Diet Cokes per day is too much. In case you ever consider getting off caffeine yourself, let me explain the process. You begin by sitting motionlessly in a desk chair. Then you just keep doing that forever because life has no meaning. – Scott Adams • Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project. – Daniel H. Pink • Settle down, pup. I ain’t had my caffeine yet.” – Sundown – Sherrilyn Kenyon • Sleep is just a good idea. I bow to the god caffeine. – Jo-Ann Mapson • Sleep is just a symptom of caffeine lack – Herman Friele • Sleep: a poor substitute for caffeine! – Wallace Shawn • So I forcibly shove aside my prickles of pissed-off, which is easier than it sounds when millions of little sequined caffeine dancers are doing their big Broadway number on your internal stage. – Deb Caletti • Sometimes you have good days, and sometimes you have bad days. It really depends on how much caffeine you’ve had. – Chris Colfer • Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, ‘Jesus! This cup is expensive!’ – Conan O’Brien • Stop,” I said. “Please do not further endorken yourself to me. You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills, so do not sully your heroic hottie image in my mind by further reciting your nerdy scholastic agenda. Don’t tell me what you’re studying, Steve, tell me what’s in your soul. What haunts you?” And he was like, “Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine. – Christopher Moore • Sugar and caffeine. My willpower crumbled. – Rick Riordan • Tai chi is the one exercise that can universally help solve our growing health crisis. It has stood the test of thousands of years. We have a generation of baby boomers with increasing health problems; old people who are sick, in pain, fearful, and cranky; a middle class that is increasingly incapable of affording most of the drugs that are prescribed for their ailments; children that are flaccid, diabetic and asthmatic. People of all ages are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sugar, cigarettes, and caffeine. Stress follows almost everyone like a shadow. – Bruce Frantzis • There are a couple of homeopathic things that can be done, but you can’t really beat good rest and lots of water. That’s the honest truth. Making sure I’m well-rested and hydrated makes a big difference. Warm water and honey is a go-to, I don’t really drink tea unless it’s absolutely organic, because otherwise the caffeine will dry my voice out for some reason. – Miguel • There are two things that I cannot live without: music and books. Caffeine isn’t dignified enough to qualify. – Carlos Ruiz Zafon • There is no such thing as sleep deprivation, there is only caffeine deficiency. – Richard Simmons • This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder. – Honore de Balzac • Those fruity drinks better have a lot of caffeine in them or I’ll never make it through World Issues. – Lisi Harrison • To develop intuition, one of the things you can do is pay attention to what you eat. Eat as clean a diet as you can. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables without preservatives, without alcohol, caffeine, dyes, and organically grown if possible. But do what is comfortable for your. Don’t try to shift into a lifestyle that doesn’t fit, but be aware that the lighter you eat the lighter you will feel. – Gary Zukav • We have too many poisons in our diets now, like sugar and caffeine. – Jasmine Guinness • We’re machines for turning caffeine into physics – Nima Arkani-Hamed • Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century. – Greg Egan • You can never have too much coffee”, I said He turned and smiled at me. “You think so, but the rest of us get a little OD’ed on your level of caffeine. – Laurell K. Hamilton

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The 20 Greatest DC Comics By Geoff Johns

For well over a decade now, Geoff Johns has been one of the most important creative voices at DC Comics, not just in the world of comics, but in television and film. This was made evident last year when he was named the President of DC Entertainment (as well as retaining his previous title of Chief Creative Officer). Of course, that doesn’t mean he has stopped writing, as Johns also recently hinted that he might be writing a “Watchmen”-related comic book in the future.

RELATED: DC Comics: The 15 Biggest Moments of 2016

With the news of Johns returning to comics creation in the near future, we thought we’d spotlight the greatest DC Comics stories that he has done over the years. We were going to do 15, but there are just too many good ones! NOTE: With so many to choose from, we decided to eliminate “52,” since he co-wrote it with three other guys (Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Greg Rucka), so we thought it best to spotlight only comics Johns wrote by himself (or with a single co-writer).

A KID’S GAME

In 2003, Geoff Johns rebooted “Teen Titans” with artists Mike McKone and Marlo Alquiza. The set-up was an attempt to embrace the history of the “New Teen Titans” while staying true to the general idea behind the Teen Titans, which is that it is a team made up of the main teen heroes in the DC Universe. That had not been the case in well over a decade before Johns relaunched the team with Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash (Impulse is revamped as Kid Flash in this series). Classic Wolfman/Perez Titans Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy are along as mentors to the younger generation.

They first face off against Deathstroke, who does not want to see the Titans reform. As it turns out, Deathstroke was being possessed by his son, former Titan Jericho, so it was Jericho who did not want to see any more teenagers get killed (a recurring theme throughout this arc is everyone still trying to come to terms with the then-recent death of Donna Troy). Superboy gets a new secret identity as Conner Kent in this story, which worked particularly well with fans.

FOREVER EVIL

The first major companywide crossover following the New 52 reboot of the DC Universe, “Forever Evil” saw the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3 arrive on Earth and quickly conquer the planet by more or less eliminating the Justice League (save for Batman). Geoff Johns and artists David finch and Richard Friend then showed that the Crime Syndicate planned to offer a deal to the supervillains of Earth to work with them.

It therefore falls to the villains to win their planet back, and Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Black Adam, Sinestro and Captain Cold play the biggest role in doing just that, working alongside Batman to overcome the occupying force of the Crime Syndicate. Along the way, Nightwing is unmasked to the world and almost killed, changing his status quo dramatically. Eventually, the rest of the heroes fight their way back against the Crime Syndicate and team-up with the villains to save the day. A few of the villains — most notably Lex Luthor — remained as members of the Justice League following the event!

KIDS

“Kids,” from “JSA” #29 by Geoff Johns and Peter Snejbjerg, is sort of Johns’ answer to John Byrne, Chris Claremont and Terry Austin’s classic “Uncanny X-Men” #143, where Kitty Pryde was left alone on Christmas and had to fight a powerful demon. Here, the two teenage members of the Justice Society, Star Spangled Kid and Jakeem Thunder, are left alone on Halloween while the rest of the team goes out to find their missing fellow members.

This was a crossover with the “Last Laugh” event, where Joker used a variation of his Joker Venom on all of the villains of the DC Universe, making them all Joker-esque bad guys. Star Spangled Kid and Jakeem have to take on a Joker-ized Solomon Grundy, while knowing that Grundy killed the previous Star Spangled Kid (back in the Infinity Inc. days). Johns does a wonderful job with the character work between Star Spangled Kid and Jakeem.

VIRTUE AND VICE

This graphic novel by Geoff Johns, Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino continued the classic tradition of the Justice League and the Justice Society teaming up every year, only done in a brand-new way, as the Justice League and the Justice Society were now both on the same planet (and the Justice Society had just recently received their own ongoing series). They met up in this issue to spend Thanksgiving together.

Things go poorly when the Seven Deadly Sins end up possessing seven members of the teams — Batman, Shazam, Plastic Man, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Doctor Fate and Power Girl. The Justice League and the Justice Society now have to hunt down and stop their own friends by finding a way of getting the sin out of each of them (you try to get Batman to stop feeling anger!). This was a dynamic and widescreen updating of a classic comics tradition.

THE TRENCH

For many comic book fans, there was never any need for anyone to “make” Aquaman cool, as he was always cool. Still, it’s safe to say that there are still many people out there who, due to Aquaman’s broad exposure on “Super Friends,” know him more than they know most other superheroes… even if it is mostly as a joke. It’s sad that was still a stigma attached to the character nearly 40 years after “Super Friends” debuted, but that was what Geoff Johns was working with when he rebooted Aquaman following the New 52.

The character was now given an ongoing series with top artistic talent in Ivan Reis and Joe Prado, and Johns addressed the elephant in the room right away, by having the public treat Aquaman as a bit of a joke. Of course, Johns made sure to portray him as a total badass. He even tied in the whole “talks to fish” stuff, which remains oddly contentious. Johns handled the (pardon the pun) “fish out of water” aspect of Aquaman and Mera extremely well and the evil Trench were great villains.

THE RETURN OF HAWKMAN

It was with this 2001 story from “JSA” #22-25 that Geoff Johns first began to get a name for himself in comic fandom as the guy you would go to if you wanted a property “fixed.” In this storyline (drawn by Stephen Sadowski and Michael Bair), the Justice Society reunited with their old friend, Hawkman, as Johns and co-writer David Goyer came up with a way to simplify the overly-complicated backstory of Hawkman, which was so bad that at the end of his last series, he was literally thrown into Limbo just to get rid of him.

Their take was that Hawkman and Hawkwoman are lovers from ancient Egypt who are tied to each other through reincarnation. So they have been together in many different incarnations over the centuries. Johns would later take this clever hook and launch a “Hawkman” ongoing series based on it that he co-wrote with James Robinson.

BLITZ

Hunter Zolomon was an acclaimed criminal profiler who had suffered a great deal of tragedy in his life, with a mother who was killed by his serial killer father. He ended up in Central City where he became a police profiler. He became good friends with Wally West, the Flash, but in a fight with Gorilla Grodd, was paralyzed. He asked Wally to go back in time and change things to help him avoid being paralyzed. Wally explained that he couldn’t do that, so Hunter tried to use the cosmic treadmill himself and it exploded, making him “out of sync” with time. It would look like he was running fast, but really he was doing a series of small feats of time travel.

Zoloman then determined that Wally wasn’t a good enough hero because he didn’t have enough tragedy in his life to spur him on, so he devoted himself to “helping” Wally by becoming the villainous Zoom and murdering Wally’s wife, Linda Park. This was the final story arc of the acclaimed “Flash” creative team of Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins, as Kolins left the title with the final issue of this arc, “Flash” #200.

FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF 3 WORLDS

Over the years, the Legion of Super-Heroes had become extremely complicated. The original Legion, who we saw grow old over the decades, had been seemingly wiped out of continuity due to their close ties to the “Superboy” mythos. DC then introduced a new blank slate Legion following “Zero Hour.” Years later, Mark Waid and Barry Kitson were allowed to create a third brand-new blank slate Legion of Super-Heroes. During a Justice League/Justice Society crossover in Brad Meltzer’s “Justice League of America” and Johns’ “Justice Society of America,” they had brought back the original Legion (the ones who had aged). In this mini-series (that was ostensibly tied in to the “Final Crisis” crossover series), Superboy Prime (from Johns’ “Infinite Crisis” series) traveled to the future, where he took on the Legion.

We then learned that the other Legions of Super-Heroes were each the Legion of different Earths! They all teamed-up together (along with a time-traveling Superman) to take on Superboy Prime. During the event (which was drawn by George Perez and Scott Koblish), both Superboy and Kid Flash were brought back to life!

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH

One of Geoff Johns’ first major events that he wrote for DC was early in his career at DC. It was the crossover “Day of Judgement,” dealing with the effects of a Spectre running loose on the DC Universe without a host (as its original host, James Corrigan, had been allowed to go to Heaven). Hal Jordan, who had died in an earlier crossover, took over as the Spectre.

A few years later, Johns was given the chance to bring Hal Jordan back as a Green Lantern. In this mini-series (drawn by Ethan Van Sciver and Prentiss Rollins), Johns revealed that Hal Jordan had never become evil in the first place, but had been possessed by a fear entity known as Parallax (the name Hal used as a villain). During this series, the Green Lantern Corps was reborn along with Hal, as well as former Green Lanterns John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kilowog, who joined up with then-current Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner to restart the Corps. Also returned to life was Sinestro, who Johns would have big plans for in the relaunched “Greeen Lantern” Series that followed this miniseries.

BATMAN: EARTH ONE

The “Earth One” series of graphic novels were sort of like the Ultimate Universe for Marvel Comics, only they went a step further than that. The Ultimate Universe was essentially about doing the same basic superheroes, but without years of continuity dragging them down (they quickly moved on from that, but that was the basic original approach). The “Earth One” graphic novels, though, gave their creators a good deal more freedom. They could do pretty much any take on the basic idea of Superman or Batman that they chose.

In his “Batman: Earth One” graphic novel, Geoff Johns (working with artists Gary Frank and Jonathan Sibal) completely re-imagined the Bruce Wayne/Alfred Pennyworth dynamic, as now even after Bruce had become a vigilante, it was Alfred who did much of the dirty work. Bruce did not just automatically become “the” Batman when he started dressing as a bat to investigate his parents’ murder at the hands of crooked Gotham City mayor, Oswald Cobblepot. By the end of the first book, though, the proverbial switch had been turned in Bruce Wayne going forward.

INFINITE CRISIS

DC spent a lot of time leading up to “Infinite Crisis,” with a powerful one-shot (co-written by Johns) that ended up with the death of Blue Beetle at the hands of Maxwell Lord. That then led into a series of miniseries that finally culminated with “Infinite Crisis” by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning. The basic idea is that there were a group of survivors at the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” They were the Earth-1 Superman, the Earth-1 Lois Lane, Superboy Prime and Alexander Luthor. While they started in a little pocket universe, they saw the DC Universe continue and grew very critical of what had happened. Over time, Luthor and Superboy Prime went crazy, feeling that their sacrifice had been wasted by these grim and gritty heroes.

So, they vowed to restart things, even if it meant destroying these universes along the way. Superman was tricked into going along with them. Ultimately, the heroes of the DC Universe managed to stop Luthor’s mad plans, but in the process, they also revealed the existence once more of alternate Earths! The Multiverse was soon on its way!

SECRET ORIGIN

“Secret Origin,” which ran in “Green Lantern” #29-35, was the first big follow-up to the epic “Sinestro Corps War,” and it helped to serve two notable purposes. First, it streamlined Hal Jordan’s origin. Secondly, it set up future events that would lead to “Blackest Night.” Geoff Johns and artists Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert re-told the classic tale of Abin Sur crash-landing on Earth and giving his ring to a young Hal Jordan; but this time, the young Hal Jordan is attacked by the future Red Lantern, Atrocitus.

We also see how Hal’s origins coincided with Hector Hammond being transformed into a telepathic villain, as well as William Hand’s new, twisted origin and path to the Black Hand he would become. Carol Ferris also got some strong development in this new origin. It was basically this stream-lined and engaging origin (complete with the fascinating pairing between Hal and his training officer, Sinestro) that was used as the basis for the “Green Lantern” film in 2011, dubious though that film is remembered as being today.

NEW KID IN TOWN

Geoff Johns’ first ongoing series for DC Comics was the delightfully charming “Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.,” with artists Lee Moder and Dan Davis. The idea behind the series is that a teenage girl, Courtney Whitmore, has grown up with a single mother most of her life. Her mother, though, fell in love with a stodgy middle age man who decided to move them to the middle of smalltown U.S.A. in Blue Valley, the city best known for being where Wally West lived as a child.

Courtney discovered that her stepfather Pat was actually a superhero, the former sidekick to the Star Spangled Kid. He still had the Star Spangled Kid’s power equipment, which Courtney stole to became the new Star Spangled Kid. Pat had been working on a suit of armor and went into action as S.T.R.I.P.E. He wanted Courtney to stop being a superhero, but the problem was that Pat was keeping his identity a secret from his new wife, so if he told on Courtney, she would tell on him. Thus, they formed an uneasy new superhero alliance. Johns really nailed the personality of young Courtney, who was a good kid put in a difficult position, who was striking out at her step-father, despite knowing that he really was a good guy. The whole series was a blast, but if we had to pick one story, we’d go with the initial arc in “Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.” #1-3, where they first form their team.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ORIGIN

When the DC Universe was rebooted with the New 52, Geoff Johns actually launched the whole endeavor with the first all-new number one, which was, of course, “Justice League” #1, a title he helmed alongside superstar artists Jim Lee and Scott Williams. This first story arc, “Origin,” was set at the start of the rebooted Justice League’s tenure, when seven heroes had to join together to take on the invading forces of Darkseid.

The most striking aspect of this initial story, besides how Cyborg was now a founding member of the Justice League, was how well Johns used humor to humanize the heroes. These were new heroes just getting to know each other, so of course there was going to be plenty of ill-at-ease humor between them (especially between Flash and Green Lantern, who had been teaming up with each other before the other heroes met). When the chips were down, though, they came together and were true heroes during a huge, world-threatening crisis.

BLACKEST NIGHT

“Blackest Night” served two major purposes. On the one hand, it was the culmination of a series of “Green Lantern” storylines that had introduced Yellow Lanterns, Red Lanterns, Blue Lanterns, Violet Lanterns and Indigo Lanterns. This event, as is subtly implied in its title, introduced Black Lanterns and, ultimately, White Lanterns. On the other hand, it also served as a meditation on the very nature of superhero “death.” Superheroes had been dying and coming back for years at this point and now, in this series, there was a sort of explanation for how this went on, and a backlash against it.

The conflict revolved around Black Lantern Rings suddenly reanimating the corpses of every dead superhero and supervillain in the DC Universe, corrupting them and sending them against the living heroes as an army of (effectively) zombies. By the end of the series, Geoff Johns and artists Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert had reconfigured the very notion of “death” in the DC Universe, as well as bringing back a number of major characters like Aquaman, Martian Manhunter and Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

THE DARKSEID WAR

Geoff Johns finished out his run on “Justice League” with the epic that he was building up to from his very first issue on the series. The two powerful god-like beings, the Anti-Monitor and Darkseid, went to war with each other and in the end, Darkseid was killed. In the process, the Justice League all became Gods themselves. This was all part of a secret plot by Grail, the daughter of Darkseid. She killed the Anti-Monitor and then set her sights on the League, who had found themselves not dealing well with godhood.

In the end, Johns and series artist Jason Fabok not just gave the series a satisfying conclusion (especially how one of the Leaguers earns their way to becoming a full-fledged Green Lantern), but it all tied into the next phase of the DC Universe, DC Rebirth. The whole thing flowed together seamlessly, as well as excitingly. It worked for longtime readers of “Justice League,” but it also served to get readers excited about what was happening next with Rebirth.

52 PICK-UP

After “Infinite Crisis” and “52,” Booster Gold found himself in a fascinating situation in his ongoing series, written by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katx, and drawn by Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens and inker Norm Rapmund. Booster, you see, was now tasked with keeping the timeline of the DC Universe protected, but to do so, he had to make sure that no one knows that he is protecting the timeline of the DC Universe. As a result, he has to intentionally pretend to everyone else that he is a buffoon. He has to sacrifice everyone’s respect to protect them. It’s a wonderful hook.

There’s one story in this first volume (where Booster and Rip Hunter travel through time fixing incursions) that stood out so much that we almost included it just by itself. In “Booster Gold” #5, in an issue called “No Joke,” Booster tries to save Barbara Gordon from the events of “The Killing Joke.” However, that was not why he was there. Thus, he could not ever actually fix it, as time is too resilient. So, no matter what he tries to do, the Joker somehow still does what he set out to do. The only thing he could change is that Booster could die himself. It was a heartbreaking and yet still somehow beautiful issue.

SUPERMAN AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES

As noted earlier, Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer had re-introduced the classic Paul Levitz version of the Legion in a “Justice League of America”/”Justice Society of America” storyline. Now, in “Action Comics” #858–863 (along with artists Gary Frank and Jonathan Sibal), Johns was teaming Superman up with the Legion for the first time in many years.

Superman visits the Legion in the future and discovers that Earth has turned against aliens and that the Legion are now outlaws. Not only that, but the very basis for this xenophobia is a distorted version of Superman’s mythos, where he has been reworked from an alien visitor on Earth to being a protector of Earth from alien outsiders. The problem is that the bad guys have found a way to neutralize Superman’s powers, so he can’t even prove that he really is Superman. The Legion and Superman have to find a way to discredit the bad guys before the Legion is destroyed for good.

ABSOLUTE ZERO

During his run on “Flash,” Geoff Johns was perhaps best known for the great work he did in the development of both new villains for the Flash, as well as the original Flash Rogues. Johns would devote spotlight issues to most of the Rogues, as he made them major figures in the book (without making them heroes). The most famous and well-regarded of these spotlight issues was “Flash” #181 by Johns and Scott Kolins, which was a spotlight on Captain Cold, whose main motivation was avenging the murder of his sister by another supervillain.

Throughout the issue, we learn the history of Leonard Snart and his sister, Lisa; how their father abused them and how Leonard just needed to get out, even if it meant leaving Lisa behind. Johns added a fascinating wrinkle by establishing that Cold’s gun actually emitted an aura around him that slowed down the Flash, which would explain why Captain Cold was able to fight the Flash at all. In the issue, Cold talks about his various codes of honor and discusses where he draws the line and when he is willing to cross it. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of a villain whose heart is not nearly as cold as he would like you to believe.

THE SINESTRO CORPS WAR

After the return of Sinestro and the reveal of the existence of the fear entity, Parallax, Geoff Johns built up to this epic storyline, where Sinestro and Parallax team-up to form their own Lantern Corps. This time, instead of finding people who could overcome fear, they are looking for people who instill it! These Yellow Lanterns serve in the Sinestro Corps. In an initial attack on the Green Lanterns, they capture Kyle Rayner and expose him to the Parallax entity so that he becomes the new Parallax.

The Green Lanterns are soon pitched into an epic battle with bloodthirsty enemies, all of whom would gladly kill them. The whole crossover comes down to an epic battle on Earth, as the Green Lantern Corps must defend the planet from the Sinestro Corps. Johns wrote the crossover, along with the writers of “Green Lantern Corps,” Dave Gibbons and Peter Tomasi. There were a number of artists involved in this crossover, with Ethan Van Sciver and Ivan Reis taking point. This was the story that began what eventually became the rainbow spectrum of Lantern Corps, which in turn became arguably the most defining aspect of the “Green Lantern” titles this past decade. It is Johns’ most famous story and it will be hard to ever be surpassed.

What’s your favorite Geoff Johns DC story? Let us know in the comments!

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